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Arcsquad12 posted:Did you watch Rogue One? That's like the go to method of nerd references nowadays and always, subtlety be damned That's always been the go-to method of nerd references. Nerd culture has just gotten mainstream enough that they can do it in big action films and everyone will feel good about it instead of confused and alienated.
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Jan 19, 2017 20:24
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I just finished the Last Tribe by Brad Manuel. Wow this book was terrible. I thought it was going to be about people surviving and learning a simpler way of life after the end of the world Instead its about a family that doesn't understand statistics rounding up people. It reads like the kind of stories I wrote as a kid. OK so the world ends and everyone dies, except my family...well most of my family. It's a whole lot of nothing. Just rambling and exposition. Sometimes something interesting is inferred but quickly abandoned or explained off hand. I like the idea of a group of people who are immune to disease having to rebuild a working society after 99.99 percent of the population is dies. I like that better than the lone wolf, libertarian, gently caress the government all you need is a good man with a gun to fix poo poo. The bad guys are still the government in this book who instead of doing anything rational just kidnaps immune people and tries to find a cure. That's about the closest to antagonist in this book. Some guys show up later but then they just leave. No one in the group disagrees with the family of survivors for long and no one questions this cult like mentality of the family "We must form a tribe" "We are now truly a tribe" "For the good of the tribe" Ok some of that was paraphrasing but it gets said a lot. Also one of the uncles in the story loses his wife and goes through the stages of grief offscreen just in time to hook up with the hot 22 year old girl from Ecuador who doesn't want to date just gently caress. Also when he asks his kids if its OK if he bangs someone closer to their age 8 months after they lost their mom the kids are "Yeah that's great dad" No one who is in group acts depressed or goes against the group. Also the uncle's favorite Football player shows up and becomes his BFF. Yeah. It feels like self insert fanfiction. Also there is no conflict or mystery. 3 people show up that may pose some problem to the group and they are written out, 2 of them offscreen and one in a stupid idiotic way. My favorite of them is this guy whose sole motivation is that he is an rear end in a top hat. Period. He starts questioning the tribes motives and I actually liked him. He is part of a group that included the football player, a chick that used to be fat, and an agoraphobe that survive in Boston by catching lobsters. This would make a great book itself but its all just back ground by the end of the tribes visit the rear end in a top hat is gone and the agoraphobe has killed herself, again offscreen, and the tribe is free to take the football player and former fat girl. Its implied that there was foul play, which would have been great if the football player had killed the agoraphobe and the rear end in a top hat so that he would get to go with them but nope just suicide Also there is this latino gang member who starts off as street tough and then becomes useful to the tribe later on. The reason that I mention this is that he kind of becomes whiter the more useful he becomes to the tribe. He starts off being called Antonio and is full of swagger and bravado, you know like Latino guys are, but then after being slapped by the Ecuadorian Hottie and being told to act like a man he becomes useful and goes by Tony.
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Jan 25, 2017 19:04
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Cornwind Evil posted:This thread made me track down Ready Player One and Armada just to see them for myself. And the main characters don't just like a movie. They must memorize each frame of every movie released in the 1980s and every pixel of every game released in the 1980s. And the pop culture savant can bring up any fact by memory like Rain Man (a comedy-drama movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, directed by Barry Levinson, and released in 1988). The book actually picks up towards the end but far too late to save it. I'm frankly dumbfounded by all the good customer reviews for Ready Player One. bean_shadow has a new favorite as of 18:15 on Jan 26, 2017 |
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Jan 26, 2017 18:10
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Ready Player One made me ashamed to like a lot of things that I enjoy, and made me think less of the myriad people who recommended it to me. I burned through the whole thing waiting for a delayed flight and the whole premise could have been fun and popcorny but every character is so smug and insufferable.
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Jan 26, 2017 19:14
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Uraturu Man is great hero to my people
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Jan 26, 2017 19:15
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food court bailiff posted:Ready Player One made me ashamed to like a lot of things that I enjoy, and made me think less of the myriad people who recommended it to me. I burned through the whole thing waiting for a delayed flight and the whole premise could have been fun and popcorny but every character is so smug and insufferable. Ready Play One is like Andy Weir sans joy.
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Jan 26, 2017 20:13
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And useful knowledge.
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Jan 26, 2017 21:35
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I'm about 70% of the way through The Name Of The Wind and there doesn't even seem to be enough plot to be resolved at the end. I broke this rule, but I talked my way out of it so I'm fine. I'm running out of money, but I got a new job so I'm fine. Almost every problem presented gets resolved within that chapter. Also, there seems to be a ham-fisted metaphor on every single page. On four different occasions someone refers to something as being like a stone in water. He doesn't even explain how something could be likened to a stone in water. One chapter ends with a character explaining how women are like fire. You could almost feel the self satisfaction coming off the page. On that note, I have to agree with previous posters that Patrick Rothfuss certainly has an awkward relationship with women. All of them are immediately smitten with Kvothe and are described as if they're some sort of mythical beast.
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Jan 27, 2017 10:26
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The Name of the Wind is one of the few books that I was just unable to get through. Kvothe can do nothing wrong, no woman can resist him, he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, blah blah. Another one I have been unable to finish is Don Quixote. Maybe I have a bad translation or something, but it puts me to sleep every time I've tried to read it.
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Jan 27, 2017 17:16
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The Kingkiller books make a lot more sense when viewed through the lens of being the fantasy equivalent of the edgy teenager you knew in highschool who only talks about how he hacked the school so hard they were forced to hire him to provide their cyber security. Kvothe is that kid, and you either entertain his delusions or you don't. Sadly I don't think Rothfuss intended this interpretation.
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Jan 27, 2017 17:28
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Post Your Favorite (or Request): Coldly Compiled Lists › PYF terrible book: Mostly just people who won't shut up about Rothfuss, Cline, and Pratchett
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Jan 27, 2017 17:43
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u forgot my favourite writer of all time piers anthony
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Jan 28, 2017 00:50
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The Saddest Rhino posted:u forgot my favourite writer of all time piers anthony The Color of His Shitposts
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Jan 28, 2017 00:56
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The Vosgian Beast posted:Post Your Favorite (or Request): Coldly Compiled Lists › PYF terrible book: Mostly just people who won't shut up about Rothfuss, Cline, and Pratchett 🎵 One of these things is not like the other...🎵
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Jan 28, 2017 01:39
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There is a world full of lovely books out there, but no one wants to talk about them because it's just more satisfying to have your opinion about some mainstream fantasy novel reinforced for the billionth time.
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Jan 28, 2017 01:48
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Tell us about some lovely books.
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Jan 28, 2017 02:30
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Yeah, I haven't been reading a lot of poo poo lately, unless you count a couple of J.D. Robbs I gave my mom for Christmas and she regifted back to me, and those aren't lovely in ways that haven't already been discussed. I guess I could go find my copy of Mr. Shivers and see if I can get through it without dying of boredom this time...
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Jan 28, 2017 02:37
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there wolf posted:There is a world full of lovely books out there, but no one wants to talk about them because it's just more satisfying to have your opinion about some mainstream fantasy novel reinforced for the billionth time. By definition the mainstream bad books are going to be the ones most people read.
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Jan 28, 2017 03:18
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Time to be the change I want to see in the world!quote:The Age of Oden quote:A Desert Called Peace Five hundred years from now, humankind has found a link to a remarkably earth-like planet and settled there, dividing- as humans will- into dozens of nation states. The Federated States of Columbia has consolidated power and risen against the oppression of Earth's corrupt Caliphate . But when Salafi madmen bent on a new jihad kill FSC Captain Patrick Hennessy's family in a cowardly attack, they create an enemy that will show even less mercy than they do. Alright which one of these am I reading this weekend?
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Jan 28, 2017 05:15
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I write a lot of reviews on Goodreads and because of that (I assume) I occasionally get terrible authors sending me their books to review. The latest was A Minger's Tale: Beginnings, and it's especially bad. Supposedly a memoir, but full of obvious lies, and at least one section blatantly plagiarised from Wikipedia. You know that guy who thinks he's raconteur, but his stories go nowhere, aren't funny, and have no connection to anything? The author is that guy. Here are some typical excerpts:RBN Bookmark posted:To make things even worse, we had some problems with youth on the estate, and one in particular—I’ll call him Shirley for reasons that will become apparent as I explain. Shirley’s brother was quite a good footballer, and we often played in matches together against other youths from various parts of the estate. In case you're wondering, no, there's no additional context. That's the first and last we hear of Shirley and their brother, and it's never explained what sort of trouble Shirley was supposedly causing for the author and his family. And the same applies to every story in the book. They go nowhere, don't include enough information, and just stop suddenly so he can talk about something completely unrelated. Here's another: RBN Bookmark posted:Gordon was a big chap, bigger than John even. He was white, in his early thirties, lanky but as strong as an ox—nobody could throw the sort of weights he could. He was a foreman, as was John, but Gordon carried more clout. His reputation as a hard man preceded him. It's also full of weird malapropisms and incredibly poorly constructed sentences like "Roy was in his midthirties, with dark slicked-back hair, and a devout Elvis fan." or "Then he smiled, shaking his head, not quite knowing whether to make neither head nor tail of what I’d just said." That might sound funny, and it kind of is, but it's not nearly enough to make up for everything else.
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Jan 28, 2017 05:27
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Here minger is slang for an incredibly ugly person
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Jan 28, 2017 05:32
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EmmyOk posted:Here minger is slang for an incredibly ugly person That is the intended meaning in the book and the foreword gives the definition (quoted without attribution from Urban Dictionary). The author seems to really love the word and refers to himself as such almost constantly.
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Jan 28, 2017 05:48
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I thought minge was slang for vagina, and I assumed he was calling himself a oval office, which seemed appropriate based on the quotes.
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Jan 28, 2017 06:49
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there wolf posted:Alright which one of these am I reading this weekend? The Age of Oden seems like it has the chance to be a little weird, at least, while A Desert Called Peace sounds like it's gonna be the generic KILL EVERY MUSLIM OOHRAH bullshit. They both sound pretty fuckin' awful, though!
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Jan 28, 2017 07:10
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Antivehicular posted:The Age of Oden seems like it has the chance to be a little weird, at least, while A Desert Called Peace sounds like it's gonna be the generic KILL EVERY MUSLIM OOHRAH bullshit. They both sound pretty fuckin' awful, though! Agreed. A Desert Called Peace sounds like it's probably the worse book, but in a predictable, unfun way. I mean, I won't be surprised if a book involving soldiers and Norse gods takes a turn towards white supremacist masturbation, but there's at least the possibility that it's just the fun kind of bad.
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Jan 28, 2017 07:51
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A Pinball Wizard posted:🎵 One of these things is not like the other...🎵 Oh certainly, but he keeps popping up regardless The Saddest Rhino posted:u forgot my favourite writer of all time piers anthony At least he has written 500 books and there's a new horror story every time.
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Jan 28, 2017 16:36
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You ever read a blurb for a book that just makes you go "but why?" Bonus: The main character's last name is Apple and the love interests name is Basil
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Jan 28, 2017 23:56
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Happy Landfill posted:You ever read a blurb for a book that just makes you go "but why?" This blurb implies heavily that the author doesn't realize that we need food for reasons other than hunger-staving, which is amazing. Alternately, the stave-off-hunger pills are like that episode of MST3K where the Observers have magic food pills they eat by the bowlfull, I guess?
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Jan 29, 2017 00:04
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Antivehicular posted:This blurb implies heavily that the author doesn't realize that we need food for reasons other than hunger-staving, which is amazing. I want to assume that these pills would also provide all the daily nutrition and vitamins and whatnot and they're just not saying that in the blurb, otherwise that is literally not how any of that works. Like at all. It kind of makes me think that the author took the "Dystopia= normal thing is now ILLEGAL" and din't put any thought into it beyond that.
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Jan 29, 2017 00:17
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Happy Landfill posted:It kind of makes me think that the author took the "Dystopia= normal thing is now ILLEGAL" and din't put any thought into it beyond that. My first thought would be that the author remembered the bit in The Giver about the pills that make you stop having dreams, was like "obviously my dystopia should also have pills to stop a normal physiological need," and never really put two and two together about how this would work with hunger. I also like that one of the critic blurbs on the back is about how refreshing it is that the heroine isn't brave and self-sufficient, because what we really need in YA is helpless baby-woman protagonists, I guess?
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Jan 29, 2017 00:27
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there wolf posted:Time to be the change I want to see in the world! I tried to read A Desert Called Peace, cuz the blurb made it sound like a fairly normal military SF book. There is an obvious 9/11-styled incident, and I think the Bad Guys chose to copy it on purpose. This kills the protagonist's wife and kid, and he sets out to build an army and avenge them. This would make a decent book, except that, instead of a movie-style montage of assembling his militia and turning it into an army, we get every detail of assembling his militia, including all the staff meetings. All of them. And all of his meetings with people to recruit for his officers. And all of the Drill Sergeant speeches to the recruits. And the PT of the recruits. And descriptions of how the barracks/bunkers were laid out. And I gave up after I-don't-remember-how-many pages, without the militia becoming the army and actually fighting anyone. Which reminds me, I need to purge a few books from my eReader. Thanks, thread!
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Jan 29, 2017 00:44
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Antivehicular posted:My first thought would be that the author remembered the bit in The Giver about the pills that make you stop having dreams, was like "obviously my dystopia should also have pills to stop a normal physiological need," and never really put two and two together about how this would work with hunger. A lot of SF in the 50s and 60s had food pills, probably because TV Dinners had just become a thing and "Imagine if current thing was taken to its most extreme possible form" is a rich vein for SF This lady is just late to the party, clearly
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Jan 29, 2017 02:35
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quote:So there I was driving through the worst snowstorm I'd ever seen in a crappy rental Vauxhall Astra with Abortion in the passenger seat offering useless advice and trying to get the stereo to work, and when he wasn't doing that, rolling up joint after joint and smogging the car up with skunk fumes. As promised I started reading Age of Odin by James Lovegood, and so far it's not too bad. The writing is clear, the story moves quickly, and most of all it doesn't appear to be a front for some ein volk Nazi white-supremacist bullshit. Our hero is Gideon Coxall, a ex-soldier who is just getting his life together again after a period of substance abuse and prison time that destroyed his marriage and cost him access to his kid. He's bitter but not too resentful, and mostly just wants to get back to the straight and narrow and improve the relationship with his son. An old army mate brings up some hearsay job offer of a place up north looking for ex-soldiers and offering a great deal of money for them. That army mate is called Abortion because he looks like a fetus and the edgy is strong with this author. I mean the character is a blitzed out hippie who's always saying poo poo like " there's a sign the universe is on our side" but then he gets random dialog like this. quote:"Bad enough you put your Gen off men for life, but now you don't even get to visit the child you fathered with her and he's being brought up in a household of Gid needs to sleep a bit, and lets Abortion drive who promptly drives them off the road and flips the car. They start walking and come to the the turnoff which leads them into some woods where they proceed to get chased by wolves. Abortion, sadly, doesn't make it. I'm so sorry I will never see the combination of his hippy bullshit and casual misogyny with literal Valkyries. Said battle-maidens rescue Gid and take him Asgard Hall where he is baffled and amused by all the Viking poo poo. He meets Odin. quote:"Pleasure to meet you Gideon" Gid is not impressed and neither am I. Time for a break.
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Jan 29, 2017 02:40
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Happy Landfill posted:You ever read a blurb for a book that just makes you go "but why?" Local slang for an outhouse is "privy". That adds even more depth to the "loving why?". Also, maybe the author must watched the Jetsons and decided to roll with the pill=food idea for her dystopia? Stupid_Sexy_Flander has a new favorite as of 09:35 on Jan 29, 2017 |
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Jan 29, 2017 09:32
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I hope the dystopia is ten times worse than 1984 but the protagonists just really want a loving baconator and are fine with everything else.
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Jan 29, 2017 10:00
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The author of desert called peace is super touchy and last time someone wrote a negative review he came to the thread to argue, then put a bad caricature of the reviewer into his next book
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Jan 29, 2017 18:04
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Tunicate posted:The author of desert called peace is super touchy and last time someone wrote a negative review he came to the thread to argue, then put a bad caricature of the reviewer into his next book Ah, the Michael Crichton method.
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Jan 29, 2017 18:22
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Tunicate posted:The author of desert called peace is super touchy and last time someone wrote a negative review he came to the thread to argue, then put a bad caricature of the reviewer into his next book Please god I have to hear more about this.
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Jan 29, 2017 18:28
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Tunicate posted:The author of desert called peace is super touchy and last time someone wrote a negative review he came to the thread to argue, then put a bad caricature of the reviewer into his next book "The thread" meaning THIS thread? Need this lore.
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Jan 29, 2017 20:11
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Tunicate posted:The author of desert called peace is super touchy and last time someone wrote a negative review he came to the thread to argue, then put a bad caricature of the reviewer into his next book drat. If that happened to me I would so take a free copy from the publisher's con-table with pride.
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Jan 29, 2017 22:08
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