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Alaois posted:how can you manage to read the words when your eyes are rolling back into your skull trying to not look at the art The art used to be fine but really went to poo poo in the last couple of years.
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Aug 31, 2016 10:53
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Sanderson really nailed the ending to Wheel of Time. I haven't read much else by him, but if he could salvage the clusterfuck that had turned into, he can't be all bad.
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Aug 31, 2016 11:18
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pookel posted:Yikes, yeah. I didn't even know it was a widely known book. Someone loaned it to me and I thought it was pretty cool. I like it for all the reasons I like Stranger Things, basically. Whoa. Someone else has actually come across Don't Hurt Laurie. I remember reading it in elementary school in the 1980s. It stuck with me, but I didn't remember the ending being that bad. I just remember a friend of hers helped her tell someone after she was shoved down the stairs.
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Aug 31, 2016 13:45
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WickedHate posted:The art used to be fine but really went to poo poo in the last couple of years. Most artists get better with time, some get worse, but Mike's one of very few to do both.
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Aug 31, 2016 14:41
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It's almost kind of hard for me to rail on it because it's definitely a lot less "dull" now, he's very clearly moved into a cartoony style of his own definition and I'm sure that's very artistically fulfilling, but man, it's ugly as sin.
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Aug 31, 2016 14:46
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At the rate he's going, in five years the comic will look like Cucumber Quest.
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Aug 31, 2016 14:57
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Stormlight Archive is great so far, I have Mistborn but haven't read it yet so I can't make a comparison there
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Aug 31, 2016 15:31
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Kay Kessler posted:At the rate he's going, in five years the comic will look like Cucumber Quest. This is a dire insult to Cucumber Quest.
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Aug 31, 2016 15:51
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I like it when Tycho pretends he has any right to make fun of anyone else's writing style
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Aug 31, 2016 16:07
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The Vosgian Beast posted:I like it when Mike pretends he has any right to make fun of anyone else's writing style
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Aug 31, 2016 16:29
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RC and Moon Pie posted:Whoa. Someone else has actually come across Don't Hurt Laurie. Thinking about it, I wonder if the author was aiming to reach abused kids by offering a scenario where the kid told someone and nothing huge and dramatic happened. Like, some kids might be afraid to tell the authorities if it'll mean their parents would get arrested. So it could have been meant to teach them that telling is no big deal, mom/dad won't go to jail, you won't lose your family forever, everything will be OK. I can kind of see that, but it still really rubbed me the wrong way.
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Aug 31, 2016 16:38
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Wait isn't Jerry the writer and Mike the artist? Which one does the overwritten blogposts?
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Aug 31, 2016 16:49
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pookel posted:Thinking about it, I wonder if the author was aiming to reach abused kids by offering a scenario where the kid told someone and nothing huge and dramatic happened. Like, some kids might be afraid to tell the authorities if it'll mean their parents would get arrested. So it could have been meant to teach them that telling is no big deal, mom/dad won't go to jail, you won't lose your family forever, everything will be OK. It's sort of ironic because the past was so big on, you know, not helping people with their mental issues, and then as soon as it tries it goes too far in the other direction.
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Aug 31, 2016 16:56
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Perestroika posted:I liked Warbreaker, which was probably mostly because it's just one single fairly short book. He's better when he's just constrained to a single straightforward plot, which is probably also why Mistborn 1 was so much better than the sequels. Warbreaker is an odd one for me, because as I recall it starts with one character as the clear protagonist then changes halfway to relegate her to a supporting role while her mean older sister takes over as the main character. Nothing wrong with that, and I imagine it was something he planned from the start, but when I read it, I couldn't help but think he decided halfway through writing it that the sister was a more interesting character but didn't want to go back and change what he'd already finished.
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Aug 31, 2016 17:10
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Sanderson is an okay author but he kind of obsesses too much on the mechanical systems of his worlds.
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Aug 31, 2016 17:22
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Ryoshi posted:I think I realized why Kvothe's Gary-Stu-ness doesn't grate on me as badly as it normally probably would - it's the framing device of Kvothe detailing his exploits as he sits around his lovely tavern. It's all presented as gospel truth, not something that he's making up as he goes, but just the fact that it's a guy reflecting on adventures that have already occurred rather than new challenges as the book progresses changes the scope from "wait, do they seriously expect me to believe he can pull this off?" to "wow, that's insane that he managed to pull this off!" It's just a little bit of mental rewiring, and it's pretty cheap on the author's part, but it seems to make things a bit more palatable. This kind of thinking is how I got through the bulk of The Name of the Wind. At first it seems like this kind of narrative is what the author is actually going for. The book is really good when it's just Kvothe trying not to screw up his wizard school life while trying to scrape together enough money to afford wizard ramen. But the book is ten million pages long, and as it goes on, every little problem he runs into gets resolved by him being the best at everything. People occasionally get in his way, but then they'll change their minds for no real reason. Like when he's too good to make normal, plebeian magic lamps, so he makes a tacticool flashlight. His teacher tells him flashlights are only used by thieves and are illegal, but then immediately lets him keep it anyway. I read through it expecting a twist where it turned out most of the stories were untrue and he was just retelling them as a bitter old man. That's funny, since the Penny Arcade guys love Patrick Rothfuss so much they made this cringey, unironic comic as an endorsement  How do you make this as a grown man without realizing there's something wrong with you?
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Aug 31, 2016 17:26
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"Conquer all women"? Ewwwwww.
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Aug 31, 2016 17:32
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PYF terrible web comic
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Aug 31, 2016 17:43
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I don't know what I "like" more, the text or that enormous gin blossom.
Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 07:43 on Oct 1, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 17:43
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I loved the first half of Name of the Wind. The first half could be the best book I've ever read, I just couldn't stop reading. But by about the tenth time he gets awkward and frustrated with that manic-pixie-dream-girl, I was struggling to go on. Only made it about a third through the second book, because I just didn't care anymore. Never made it to where he hosed the sex goddess, and I think I'm very glad for that.
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Aug 31, 2016 17:45
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Fashionable Jorts posted:I loved the first half of Name of the Wind. The first half could be the best book I've ever read, I just couldn't stop reading. But by about the tenth time he gets awkward and frustrated with that manic-pixie-dream-girl, I was struggling to go on. That means you also skipped the magic sex ninjas, so yeah you did get pretty lucky.
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Aug 31, 2016 18:23
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Oh. My. Zeus. posted:How do you make this as a grown man without realizing there's something wrong with you? Weren't one or both of the Penny Arcade guys big into Gamergate when it was still a thing?
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Aug 31, 2016 21:26
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Just want to point out the little girl's reflection doesn't match up. Her dress is a different color and the hairclip is nowhere to be seen. When i saw that I assumed that the book was going to be about the little girl having a separate personality, but nope.
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Aug 31, 2016 21:28
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Oh. My. Zeus. posted:
Weird - I interpret this as PA making fun of Rothfuss. It's so over the top that it strikes me as "look how silly Rothfuss is" rather than "Kvothe is so fuckin RAD"
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Aug 31, 2016 21:29
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Oh. My. Zeus. posted:That's funny, since the Penny Arcade guys love Patrick Rothfuss so much they made this cringey, unironic comic as an endorsement Uh considering it's a comic and it's only funny at all if you read it as an indictment I'm going to say that you're wrong there.
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Aug 31, 2016 21:54
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Ryoshi posted:Uh considering it's a comic and it's only funny at all if you read it as an indictment I'm going to say that you're wrong there. With Penny Arcade you shouldn't necessarily assume that the interpretation that it's funny at all is the correct one, but I don't really care either way.
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Aug 31, 2016 22:03
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Wheat Loaf posted:Weren't one or both of the Penny Arcade guys big into Gamergate when it was still a thing? 
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Aug 31, 2016 22:43
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Ryoshi posted:Uh considering it's a comic and it's only funny at all if you read it as an indictment I'm going to say that you're wrong there. These hyper-earnest teens I got on my block are way into this stuff. I’m glad that someone is teaching them new words. But I can sense a kind of invisible maze go up when they start this conversation - they want to know if I can be trusted. If I’m like the others. They want to know if they can tell me the secret, and they will, provided I already know it. So I lied. I lied and lied and lied. There is a popular mode now I have taken to calling Double Reverse Irony, where things are real but not real but no they’re actually real, that is just one step beyond where I’m interested. My policy when the next generation “does them” is informed by 2pac’s I Ain’t Mad At Cha, and I only get mad when people transform works into litmus tests. In the case of Undertale, I can’t abstract it enough to even look at it: I can’t hold it far enough away. The thing it is dismantling is too close to me. Parody can be revelatory of weakness in the subject, but it can also reveal strength; it can reveal what’s left after the softest parts are washed away. Even when done in love, it has a caustic quality. An extended look at metals extraction probably isn’t appropriate for this paragraph, but I’m thinking about gold cyanidation and toxicity. The game is gleeful in its cannibalism of the medium, there’s blood all over its face but it’s smiling. It’s intimate with the tropes it has on display, and at this precise moment in time I’m discomfited by what it does with that familiarity. It is insufficiently reverent, and does not perform the proper obeisances. Others like it for precisely these reasons. I’m delighted by the iconoclasm intellectually and repulsed by it viscerally; if nothing else, it’s providing an intense psychological workout. EDIT: Neal Stephenson was my favorite author for a very long time, and The Diamond Age remains my favorite book, even if I can’t read any of his newer books with so much as an approximation of enjoyment. I should emphasize that when I say “newer books,” some of these books are by now quite old: I loved the original Cryptonomicon, but every book past that has been torment. I choked down Anathem from about the half-way point, jaw set, lower teeth pressed hard against the upper, determined not to be defeated. He’d already gotten my money, but I was determined not to lose my honor. The difference between Neal Stephenson and China Miéville for me is that I never liked the latter, even though I’m supposed to; even though it is simply an accepted fact that people of any cognition whatsoever are turning each page with a shaking hand, ready to receive his next sacred revelation. I own every one of his books, each time thinking this will be the one until his unique ocular drill begins to whir and I must hurl the book across the room or be blinded. This may be the first time you have read on a website that China Miéville is something less than a God; I’ve certainly never seen it typed, which was reason enough to do it. In trying to understand what it was precisely I found so intolerable, I recalled a song called “Fit But You Know It” by The Streets. Being smart, or beautiful, or strong, or confident, or epitomizing any other virtue is whatever. But you can push these things, you can grind them into another person, and we have social censure for this kind of behavior. His writing is incredibly smug. I can feel him leering at me through his typewriter, shoulders up, breathing hard. That’s when I stand up, walk over to the bookshelf, and place it with the others. No way. We have no shared history; I’m not going to bore through one of these things out of deference to some prior affection. I don’t owe him poo poo. Apparently he has a book where there are two cities and they, like, overlap. That’s what I heard anyway, and if someone else had written it maybe that would matter. I clicked on the Diablo installer there on my desktop, in the errant way one might pick at a scab; there was no expectation of profit or, indeed, any recognition that I had done so. I was surprised to hear those ancient tones, and then to have it install in its entirety, only to drop me off at a login screen which is not hooked up to anything. So, if you were wondering if there was a plane of anguish more pure than the previous one, the answer is yes. The Vosgian Beast has a new favorite as of 22:49 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 22:47
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Source your quotes.
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Aug 31, 2016 22:52
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And this https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2012/05/14/the-verge While googling for that, I found out the Neuroskeptic guy I see retweeted sometimes posts on the PA forums and has bad opinions on books https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/163151/perdido-street-station-or-why-tycho-was-too-kind-about-china-mieville
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Aug 31, 2016 22:56
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I happen to love China Mieville, but I can also recognize that there are things that are good which I don't enjoy, and I don't have to assume that people who are fans of those things are sneering snobs, either. Case in point: Octavia Butler. I want to like her, I can tell that she's interesting and smart and a groundbreaking writer. But I just don't enjoy her books. The inability to differentiate between "things I like to read" and "things I judge to be well-written" is a hallmark of an immature reader. It's what's wrong with the Puppies: they think awards should be handed out based on their personal tastes, rather than on whose writing is actually better.
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Aug 31, 2016 23:06
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The Vosgian Beast posted:
Christ, what an rear end in a top hat.
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Sep 1, 2016 00:27
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Ryoshi posted:Uh considering it's a comic and it's only funny at all if you read it as an indictment I'm going to say that you're wrong there. If it's making fun of the book, it fails as there's no punchline or even build. The last panel is the most mundane example. And knowing those guys, I think it being a sincere endorsement isn't that big a stretch.
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Sep 1, 2016 00:52
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This is that blue/white/gold dress all over again. I can't possibly see how that's an endorsement, but I believe you when you say you do.
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Sep 1, 2016 00:59
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:This is that blue/white/gold dress all over again. I can't possibly see how that's an endorsement, but I believe you when you say you do. No it isn't. Optical illusions do not work like attempting to understand the intent of a comic strip.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:02
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:This is that blue/white/gold dress all over again. I can't possibly see how that's an endorsement, but I believe you when you say you do. Honestly, I could see it being satire and just failing at joke construction. Those guys do that constantly. They've put out book collections before, yeah? This still counts as terrible book discussion.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:03
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Small Frozen Thing posted:You read RPO twice but you couldn't finish a single branch in Hakuoki? Jesus loving christ Yep. I don't play games to bake bread :metal: But yeah, when you find yourself stuck on an airplane sitting on the tarmac for hours (thanks, United!), your reading options are limited. I read RPO twice, AMA
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Sep 1, 2016 01:05
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The Vosgian Beast posted:No it isn't. Optical illusions do not work like attempting to understand the intent of a comic strip. But... they do? In both cases there's a true answer (real color / author's intent) and disagreement from the viewers on what it is. I must not understand you.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:08
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Senior Woodchuck posted:Christ, what an rear end in a top hat. My mental image of him is him farting into a glass and huffing the result constantly.
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Sep 1, 2016 01:29
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Ryoshi posted:Uh considering it's a comic and it's only funny at all if you read it as an indictment I'm going to say that you're wrong there. It seems to be both an indictment of that particular part of the book, but also a tongue-in-cheek endorsement of it overall. Either way, it sucks as a joke. It's a webcomic about a book about a magic sex wizard with no set up or punch line. Rothfuss and the PA guys seem to be friends: https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2010/03/03/the-name-of-the-wind https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2015/12/02/childs-play-strip-by-patrick-rothfuss
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Sep 1, 2016 01:37
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