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Carnival of Shrews posted:IIRC, although technically about spermaceti rather than actual whale jizz, that chapter is called 'A Squeeze of the Hand'. It's a whole scene of Ishmael loving the feeling of the sperm in his hands and playfully grabbing a bunch of other guy's' hands underneath all the sperm. The book is like 80% whale facts, 10% allegory, and 10% loving with us. e:What a way to start a new page. For content, I remember Island of the Blue Dolphins being fairly terrible. But part of that might be it being a boring book that I was forced to read in at least 3 different grade levels. It really feels like it was written specifically to become a curriculum book, rather than happening to become one based off its reading level and popularity. dirksteadfast has a new favorite as of 21:08 on Mar 10, 2016 |
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Mar 10, 2016 21:04
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All the Melville talk reminded me of one of my favourite reviews of e-books available on Amazon (of course the book in question claims to be erotica, and of course it's intentionally terrible -- but it's also a CYOA, which makes all the difference in the world): http://www.richardcobbett.com/codex/quick-trip-sextrap-dungeon/ Richard Cobbett posted:Whichever of the three paths you take, that’s just Level 1 of the book over. There are four in total, with our hero staggering unproud but erect through such situations as getting horny at the circus, taking a trip to Heaven in the literal as well as figurative sense, reading an abridged version of Moby Dick instead of getting laid, and receiving blank stares at pick-up likes like “Girl, is that a spoon in my pants, ’cause I’m feeling a stir.”
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Mar 22, 2016 01:31
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Probably gonna get poo poo for this, but I loving despise Faust, whatever format. It's often used as a major inspiration for anything about ambition and deals for power, but it's clearly about a guy who actually doesn't have any ambition and completely squanders his power. In all formats, he literally does nothing. I agree with Hannibal here, I root for Mephistopheles for having to deal with such a poo poo-heel for 24+ years, and have nothing but contempt for Faust. Fucker deserves to suffer for all eternity. Books like Eragon/Twilight/50 Shades are godawful, but Faust, in all formats, is the only literature I flat out despise.
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Mar 23, 2016 03:51
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IconicIronic posted:Probably gonna get poo poo for this, but I loving despise Faust, whatever format. It's often used as a major inspiration for anything about ambition and deals for power, but it's clearly about a guy who actually doesn't have any ambition and completely squanders his power. In all formats, he literally does nothing. I agree with Hannibal here, I root for Mephistopheles for having to deal with such a poo poo-heel for 24+ years, and have nothing but contempt for Faust. Fucker deserves to suffer for all eternity. 9th grade is tough on all of us.
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Mar 23, 2016 04:27
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[SPOILERS] Endymion/The Rise Of Endymion by Dan Simmons. I loved the Hyperion books, so I thought these would be more of the same. Nope Just about 1,200 pages of a guy protecting Girl Jesus from the evil Space Catholic empire while being infuriatingly vague about her philosophy that is destined to unite humanity. When you finally read her sermon on the mount, you discover that her earth shattering lesson is "love each other." The messiah, Aenea can see the future. In this way, she has no agency whatsoever. She just accepts everything that befalls her because she knows it's destined to happen. Any real person would be incredibly resentful and horrified by the fact that they in no way control their future. Not her, though. She's perfectly content with everything that happens to her, even her own gruesome death. The really creepy is the fact that Endymion is 25 at the start of the book and Aenea is 10. For the first book, their relationship is almost purely platonic.The second book though. has a bit where Aenea is on the other side of the galaxy and Endymion has to ride an FTL ship to get there. Due to relativity, the trip takes a few months for him, but for her it was 9 years. Two things about that: 1) Endymion's memory of Aenea up to a few month's prior was that of a prepubescent girl. Then he shacks up with her almost immediately once she's legal and it's considered a beautiful thing. 2) Simmons uses relativity to make her 19 years old, But Endymion is already 30. What, would it have been horrifically unrealistic if he aged her up to 30? There's no way that a 30 year old man sleeping with a teenager isn't creepy as gently caress.
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Mar 23, 2016 09:33
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grittyreboot posted:[SPOILERS] everything about Endymion is incredible in that Dan Simmons lost his loving mind at some point after Hyperion. I don’t even remember all the creepiness but I remember highlights including the entire desperate mission stopping for a far-too-long chapter at the end of the first book so the main character can pass a kidney stone, the Shrike going from a mysterious terrifying quasi-mythical figure of death that was only mostly ruined by Fall of Hyperion to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, and an incredible Dragon Ball Z battle where the main character… uses Aenea’s blood or something? to stop time and have a flying karate battle on a lake of lava (they’re moving so fast the lava cools when they touch it, I think) with the sexy twin lady robots that beat up the Shrike.
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Mar 23, 2016 13:19
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grittyreboot posted:[SPOILERS] Well, how's he supposed to jerk off to scenes of himself-eh, I mean Endymion loving a 30 year old? That's gross, man.
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Mar 23, 2016 13:21
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IconicIronic posted:Probably gonna get poo poo for this, but I loving despise Faust, whatever format. It's often used as a major inspiration for anything about ambition and deals for power, but it's clearly about a guy who actually doesn't have any ambition and completely squanders his power. In all formats, he literally does nothing. I agree with Hannibal here, I root for Mephistopheles for having to deal with such a poo poo-heel for 24+ years, and have nothing but contempt for Faust. Fucker deserves to suffer for all eternity. Congratulations, you have successfully deciphered the myth of Faust. You have gotten Kit Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. It is about a squandered life and how Christian virtue is greater than earthly vanities. What you've missed, of course, that this what makes the story good and relevant. Might I recommend Todd MacFarlane's Spawn instead? BravestOfTheLamps has a new favorite as of 18:12 on Mar 23, 2016 |
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Mar 23, 2016 15:07
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I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't held up as a story of ambition and power. I agree with you that it is exactly about squandering life, but all the works that have been inspired by it, including the whole concept of a 'Faustian Bargain', don't touch on that. It's true that my distaste for it comes from study, where it's clear an alarming number of people hold it as a perfect story of ambition and power. I guess it would be more accurate to say I only despise the character of Faust, and just find the story disappointing.
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Mar 23, 2016 17:59
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IconicIronic posted:I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't held up as a story of ambition and power. I agree with you that it is exactly about squandering life, but all the works that have been inspired by it, including the whole concept of a 'Faustian Bargain', don't touch on that. It's true that my distaste for it comes from study, where it's clear an alarming number of people hold it as a perfect story of ambition and power. Dude he literally makes a deal with the devil to take his soul if he ever says "Let this moment stay, for it is perfect" (in the German Goethe version). It's all about ambition, because Faust believes he will never say those words as he always wants to do more.
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Mar 23, 2016 18:09
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IconicIronic posted:I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't held up as a story of ambition and power. I agree with you that it is exactly about squandering life, but all the works that have been inspired by it, including the whole concept of a 'Faustian Bargain', don't touch on that. It's true that my distaste for it comes from study, where it's clear an alarming number of people hold it as a perfect story of ambition and power. It is a perfect story about ambition and power (and how it's vanity, vanity of vanities). You should judge it by the actual text rather than what you thought it was supposed to be. There are a lot of other stories about ambitious antiheroes where their climb to power is the main appeal. Like Richard III.
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Mar 23, 2016 18:19
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dirksteadfast posted:e:What a way to start a new page. For content, I remember Island of the Blue Dolphins being fairly terrible. But part of that might be it being a boring book that I was forced to read in at least 3 different grade levels. It really feels like it was written specifically to become a curriculum book, rather than happening to become one based off its reading level and popularity. Oh man, chiming in 26 years later to say gently caress that book. I remember being in tears at how much I hated it, and my mom was like "It can't be that bad!" Then she read some of it and was like "Oh. Yeah it's bad but write your book report."
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Mar 23, 2016 18:33
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IconicIronic posted:I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't held up as a story of ambition and power. I agree with you that it is exactly about squandering life, but all the works that have been inspired by it, including the whole concept of a 'Faustian Bargain', don't touch on that. It's true that my distaste for it comes from study, where it's clear an alarming number of people hold it as a perfect story of ambition and power. 
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Mar 24, 2016 08:22
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Goethe's Faust > Marlowe's Faustus. I said it. I'll say it again if I have to.
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Mar 24, 2016 09:02
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I haven't read the entire thread, so I'm sure some of these have already popped up, but: -Congo by Michael Crichton. The first novel I ever read that was so bad I couldn't finish. -Left Behind series- Hovers between too awful to read and so bad it's good. -Memnoch the Devil- Anne Rice's books got worse and worse over time but when the main character eats someone's tampon in an erotic way it's time to check out. -The Naked Ape- Desmond Morris has actual academic credentials and I applaud the spirit in which this book was written. It was terribly wrong and stupid, though. -Anything Paulo Coelho has written - again, pretty strong stomach for so-bad-it's-good, but there's a line. -People have mentioned these, but David Eddings' novels. I liked the Belgariad as a kid and when I tried to start the next set of novels realized they were the same characters with different names. -Anything written by a straight guy with lesbian characters.
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Mar 24, 2016 13:58
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Congo was awesome, surely you meant to write "Timeline" or "Rising Sun" there, right? Man, for having a couple of fun hits, Crichton wrote a lot of abysmally stupid poo poo.
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Mar 24, 2016 15:34
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Ryoshi posted:Congo was awesome, surely you meant to write "Timeline" or "Rising Sun" there, right? Oh, god, Timeline. Nah, definitely Congo; and I agree, I love Michael Crichton, but it's tough love.
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Mar 24, 2016 15:45
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Rising Sun: 50% kinda racist murder mystery, 50% discourse on how the Japanese will destroy us.
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Mar 24, 2016 16:13
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I have not read Rising Sun but this is a great write-up on the movie https://web.archive.org/web/20150726012421/http://thedissolve.com/features/forgotbusters/121-the-once-controversial-rising-sun/
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Mar 24, 2016 16:36
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One night I got drunk and ranted at a friend for like an hour about how godawful Rising Sun was. The next day on the news I saw Crichton had died, right around the timing of my rant. My critiques are fatal.
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Mar 24, 2016 16:52
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Ryoshi posted:One night I got drunk and ranted at a friend for like an hour about how godawful Rising Sun was. The next day on the news I saw Crichton had died, right around the timing of my rant. My critiques are fatal. you did a good thing. Christ I hate Crichton. My in-laws love the dumb bastard and hold him up as a reason why they don't believe in human-caused climate change, cause his books have graphs in them.
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Mar 24, 2016 16:54
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Goethe's Faust > Marlowe's Faustus. Wow you're so brave for saying the obvious and correct thing.
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Mar 24, 2016 17:34
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RNG posted:
I have a copy of his follow-up to this, The Naked Woman, and it's so  that it makes me want to die. Everything is a gross Just-So Story about what makes some feature sexually appealing or not, with a lot of broad, skeevy assumptions about what "sexually appealing" even means. I still haven't gotten more than a chapter or two in reading normally; I just open to a random page, read a paragraph, and feel ill.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:11
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Antivehicular posted:Everything is a gross Just-So Story about what makes some feature sexually appealing or not, with a lot of broad, skeevy assumptions about what "sexually appealing" even means. Let me guess: poorly disguised pedophelia?
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Mar 24, 2016 18:23
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Gabriel Pope posted:Let me guess: poorly disguised pedophelia? ding ding ding The one chapter I've managed to get all the way through, "Hair," has a lengthy section about how blonde hair is attractive because it makes a woman seem more like a child, but is also often unattractive because a lot of women dye their hair blonde, so it has connotations of being a LYING HUSSY? There is definitely an uncomfortable "dude sitting there masturbating and free-associating" feeling to it.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:42
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Men find lips attractive because they resemble an engorged vulva. I think I threw the book away at that point.
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Mar 24, 2016 18:55
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RNG posted:
I have a huge nostalgic love for Eddings because it was the first real epic fantasy series I read (not counting Xanth) but I'll be the first to admit he's only really capable of writing about seven characters that he just reuses over and over. I can't help it though, I still read through the Belgariad/Malloreon and the Elenium/Tamuli, as well as Redemption of Althalus, at least once a year. It's my great guilty pleasure. 
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Mar 24, 2016 19:06
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TheKennedys posted:I have a huge nostalgic love for Eddings because it was the first real epic fantasy series I read (not counting Xanth) but I'll be the first to admit he's only really capable of writing about seven characters that he just reuses over and over. I can't help it though, I still read through the Belgariad/Malloreon and the Elenium/Tamuli, as well as Redemption of Althalus, at least once a year. It's my great guilty pleasure. I can't even call the narrator a Mary Sue it's 100% of the author jerking off about how great a guy he is. It's weirdly creepy how he seems to have no romantic interests at all (aside from a very briefly mentioned girlfriend who he dumps because she wants him to get a real job and not just hang out in college collecting degrees) but is obsessed with an abused mentally childlike rape victim and feels most at home in an apartment where he's ordered around by three women who will have a large black man beat him up and throw him out if he violates their rules. The end of it has the main cast protecting a serial killer from the evil cop that wants to arrest her. It's actually quite amusing how every single friend of his reacts like this: 'X is the killer!' 'Oh really? Poor girl. Better help her out' Instead of you know being mildly concerned that someone that tortures people to death is in their midst. Sorry I could go on for about 1,000 more words. It's insane how horribly written that book is. I almost wish I hadn't thrown my copy away because every once and awhile I think back on it and assume I must be remembering wrong because nothing could be that bad.........but I'm kinda sure it was. Just read the Belgariad and feel ok that it's a perfectly fine young adult fantasy.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:39
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The thing that bugged me about Timeline was that it seemed like he kept forgetting it wasn't actually time travel.
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Mar 24, 2016 20:57
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RNG posted:Men find lips attractive because they resemble an engorged vulva. I think I threw the book away at that point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvBnP9t0gTg muscles like this? posted:The thing that bugged me about Timeline was that it seemed like he kept forgetting it wasn't actually time travel. It was probably a better movie, but that isn't saying much, since it was a pretty  movie.
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Mar 24, 2016 21:06
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My favourite terrible book is The Fall of Lucifer, book one in the Chronicles of Brothers series. I bought it because I'm a sucker for stories about angels (not lovely inspirational poo poo, actual awesome angels) and my God, it's awful. Everything is just so overwritten. They're insanely popular and I honestly don't really understand it. It's hard to pick out passages that convey the full, dragging weight of Wendy Alec's prose but I will try: quote:Lucifer stood, an imperial figure. His monstrous black war chariot, riding on the shafts of thunderbolts, the huge silver wheels sprung with the sharpest war blades, was pulled by eight of his finest dark-winged stallions, their manes intertwined with platinum, caparisoned as for war, glistening black as the night. quote:Lucifer hesitated, mystified. He frowned. "...not the code for angelic DNA."
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Mar 24, 2016 21:30
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"The putrid reek of his satanic wizardry" is a phrase I'm going to have to steal. How do you write that, read it, and figure you did a good job at anything?
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Mar 24, 2016 22:08
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grittyreboot posted:[SPOILERS] I had actually forgotten that part, because the main thing I remembered her talking about was the stuff about the TechnoCore having a lot more different factions than anybody thought. So her big sermon that has been lead up to through the whole book, where she's finally going to come out and say the momentous, universe-changing stuff she was born to say, turned out to be about the technicalities of robot politics.
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Mar 24, 2016 22:41
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Antivehicular posted:"The putrid reek of his satanic wizardry" is a phrase I'm going to have to steal. How do you write that, read it, and figure you did a good job at anything?
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Mar 24, 2016 22:49
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Darkhold posted:Nobody does Satanic wizardry like Lucifer. He really is the best Satanist. If anyone is, he's the satanest satanist.
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Mar 25, 2016 04:38
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RNG posted:I haven't read the entire thread, so I'm sure some of these have already popped up, but: Congo's the only Crichton book I've read, and what annoyed most about it was how in the midst of the story, there was a part that started off with something like "After they got back to America" (or something, been 20 years since I've read it). Basically, he just told the readers who had survived this ordeal, destroying any sense of suspense.
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Mar 25, 2016 13:31
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Hey it's Good Friday! So I went back into the book, and I found the bit where Satan enters the garden of Eden to tempt the humans to fall. Yeah her theology is pretty wack but I don't mind that in itself. I just mind her writing. I should note that he only turned into a snake to sneak in, he turned back into a hot dude in order to talk to Eve.quote:Eve blinked, her thoughts in disarray. "But Yehovah said that if we eat of its fruit, we shall surely die." I didn't add those ellipses. They were there in the text. Here's a bit of the great flood. Such imagery! In this book she blends magic and high technology to give you angels who use iPads, basically. quote:Michael and his warriors surrounded the ark like a shield as the great waves of muddy water jettisoned high above Earth, hurling up asteroids. The violent floodwaters unleashed their boiling frenzy upon all those on the Earth-- men, women, and the Nephilim desperate to escape its wrath. quote:The angelic host waited on the ocean waves astride their huge stallions, silently watching the ark for signs of life. The great vessel had suffered tremendous external damage. chortled euphorically
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Mar 25, 2016 14:12
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muscles like this? posted:The thing that bugged me about Timeline was that it seemed like he kept forgetting it wasn't actually time travel. It's even worse than that because the characters keep insisting its not actual time travel while completely ignoring that literally none of the plot makes any kind of sense if it's not. Davros1 posted:Congo's the only Crichton book I've read, and what annoyed most about it was how in the midst of the story, there was a part that started off with something like "After they got back to America" (or something, been 20 years since I've read it). Basically, he just told the readers who had survived this ordeal, destroying any sense of suspense. The worst part of Congo is at the very beginning where they see the video feed of the apes and surmise that somehow it's a mutated pinball video game leaking into their digital footage, because obviously that's how computers work.
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Mar 25, 2016 16:40
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I really want to like the Cassandra Kresnov books by Joel Shepherd. I do. They've got a bunch of ingredients of poo poo I love: cyborg cops, political intrigue, lots of action, and those things are aside the abundant female characters and diverse setting. And yet, Shepherd is really, REALLY good at stretching what could be a 20 minute episode of a show into 300+ page novels. This guy is loving WORDY. About some soul crushingly boring poo poo. Yeah bro, I get you came up with an entire political system for your planet but, man, get on with it. He loves sentence fragments to, that's always great. And starting sentences with and. Over and over and over and over. Great job with the diverse, multicultural setting! Too bad you made a bizarre point to make your protagonist the only white person in the entire cast??? Oh, and he loves talking about how straight she is. She's so straight. Nope, she'll never, ever get with a woman, but she looooves bangin' dudes. There are pages devoted to talking about how much she loves to gently caress. And (see what I did there) that's basically her entire personality. She shoots guys and fucks. Just...JUST. SHEPHERD WHY. In the third book she finally gets a steady boyfriend and he's a boring jerk who does nothing but Clever Quip. 
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Mar 26, 2016 00:25
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TheKennedys posted:I have a huge nostalgic love for Eddings because it was the first real epic fantasy series I read (not counting Xanth) but I'll be the first to admit he's only really capable of writing about seven characters that he just reuses over and over. I can't help it though, I still read through the Belgariad/Malloreon and the Elenium/Tamuli, as well as Redemption of Althalus, at least once a year. It's my great guilty pleasure. The Elenium was the first non-Tolkien fantasy I got into as a teen and paved the way for my general love of all things terrible and sword-y, but on a whim I started rereading the Diamond Throne the other day and got two chapters in before putting it down, my god is it disappointing. Mostly I couldn't get over how many times I was told that on a rainy night the streets were wet. Yeah dude I know. It's raining. Oh are they wet? The wet cobbles are wet? Good to know I'm gonna keep at it and see if it gets any better.
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Mar 26, 2016 00:39
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