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poly and open-minded posted:looks like i made the right choice! You sure did. I went in expecting some cool supernatural horror story, but all I got was Pedophile Hitler Action Hour.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that the villain gets taken out because he's distracted by the only female character in the book flashing her tits. Quality literature, folks.
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Sep 3, 2017 19:19
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Comrade Koba posted:You sure did. Still better than flashback!
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Sep 3, 2017 19:40
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It's like a literal South Park episode only, I'm assuming here, it's meant to be serious.
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Sep 3, 2017 19:45
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Comrade Koba posted:You sure did. I wanted to read it because I enjoyed a solid 3/4 of The Terror and was hoping for something like that. I got climbing descriptions and Simmons' trying to be coy about the reveal that Nazis are involved. They're in Munich in the mid twenties, everyone is wearing brownshirts, they keep talking about "The Leader", they have a red flag with a black design, they seem like they don't like people being different... they're Nazis! Didn't see that coming, did you?
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Sep 3, 2017 20:14
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poly and open-minded posted:They're in Munich in the mid twenties, everyone is wearing brownshirts, they keep talking about "The Leader", they have a red flag with a black design, they seem like they don't like people being different... I did like that the protagonist points out several times that they're just a bunch of dumbass losers that aren't a threat to anyone, which was pretty accurate back in 1925. But that doesn't matter, because the guy backing the expedition is apparently psychic and knows exactly which one of all the hundreds of crackpot political drinking clubs in 1920's Germany will turn out to be a threat.
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Sep 3, 2017 20:24
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Comrade Koba posted:But that doesn't matter, because the guy backing the expedition is apparently psychic and knows exactly which one of all the hundreds of crackpot political drinking clubs in 1920's Germany will turn out to be a threat. Or maybe they're getting blackmail on all of them! This was intended as the first in a series delving into obscure post-WW1 German political parties. Simmons only started with the national socialists because everyone's heard of them, but it'll get going on the Catholic Center Party soon, deep sea diving for proof that the church is involved in illicit gambling schemes. I would read the poo poo out of that series.
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Sep 3, 2017 21:01
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The Simmons talk reminds me of how Drood just completely falls apart at the end. The reveal that every was just Dickens hypnotizing Collins into thinking all the conspiracy stuff was real was just completely stupid.
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Sep 3, 2017 22:38
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TheKennedys posted:Yeah, I mean, that's fair It's been a long time since I read that, but didn't she basically go "I'm the queen and you're my knight and I wanna marry you, and THAT'S THAT." and basically wore him down? I remember that she just blurts that he proposed out of nowhere (he didn't) and he starts choking at this sudden bombshell because he's eating, and later he curses himself for not harshly telling her no and finding a proper spouse for her. So it's still creepy but it could be a lot worse.
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Sep 4, 2017 10:08
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Cornwind Evil posted:It's been a long time since I read that, but didn't she basically go "I'm the queen and you're my knight and I wanna marry you, and THAT'S THAT." and basically wore him down? I remember that she just blurts that he proposed out of nowhere (he didn't) and he starts choking at this sudden bombshell because he's eating, and later he curses himself for not harshly telling her no and finding a proper spouse for her. So it's still creepy but it could be a lot worse. He goes to return her dad's ring to her but because he's an idiot gives her his similar ring by accident and she takes that as a proposal. It's heavily and constantly implied that he's very attracted to her though despite the fact that he raised her from a toddler. I reread the series recently and it's awful. But I loved it as a teenager so I've got a soft spot for it.
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Sep 4, 2017 12:26
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eating only apples posted:He goes to return her dad's ring to her but because he's an idiot gives her his similar ring by accident and she takes that as a proposal. It's heavily and constantly implied that he's very attracted to her though despite the fact that he raised her from a toddler. This reminds me of going back to read some of the Anne McCaffery books I so loved as a young teen, only to find all the young women falling in love with much older men, usually in some position of authority over them and often a caretaker from their childhood, to not be so romantic anymore.
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Sep 4, 2017 13:38
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Man, I read it as a young male teenager and I still knew the "Legal Guardian vs 18yr old Princess in Pink" dynamic was whack
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Sep 4, 2017 13:48
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TheKennedys posted:
I started reading this thread recently and if there was one book I was going to post about, it'd be this one. The first time I read it I was taking tylenol 3s for two weeks because I just had my wisdom teeth out. At the time I thought it was okay. I went back to reread it a year later, and I couldn't stand it. And I've read and enjoyed some lousy genre fiction in my time. I think more than anything it was the verbal ticks that got to me. "Good, rich mead". "Kind of." My god, "kind of." I don't remember more to bitch about than that because it's been over a decade since I put the book down and purposefully lost it somewhere.
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Sep 4, 2017 18:01
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"Rich mead"? This guy never drank mead in his life.
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Sep 5, 2017 01:33
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I have a huge tolerance for complete crap if it hits me in the right way and Eddings did that for me for a while, until he released his book of setting materials for the belgariad/malloreon. He very clearly and explicitly lays out how he made the sausage and while it is not without interest and the formula he wrote to isn't without foundation but that killed it for me. It is funny to see how honest he is that he started the series literally because he saw that LoTR was on its millionth printing and he wanted to chase that dollar though lol.
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Sep 5, 2017 02:16
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Phy posted:I started reading this thread recently and if there was one book I was going to post about, it'd be this one. Imperious Andine's soaring voice
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Sep 5, 2017 03:57
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Hahaha I started reading RPO. Thread title is perfect. Hahahah.
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Sep 6, 2017 11:16
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Any prose that comes to mind that's fine when you read it but really silly in retrospect? Jabberwocky basically was a demonstration of how you can make up nonsense words and people will go along with them if they sound right, and some of them might even make it into regular usage as perfectly cromulent words.
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Sep 6, 2017 11:23
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Inescapable Duck posted:Any prose that comes to mind that's fine when you read it but really silly in retrospect? Doyle's entire run of Sherlock Holmes stories. (In that it seemed fine when I read them as a kid but, in fact, they are not very fine; they are completely silly.)
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Sep 6, 2017 12:36
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The 19th century was very silly in general.
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Sep 6, 2017 12:55
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Jerry Cotton posted:Doyle's entire run of Sherlock Holmes stories. (In that it seemed fine when I read them as a kid but, in fact, they are not very fine; they are completely silly.) Are the books silly in a way that's consistent with them being satire? I've heard it claimed that Doyle intended Holmes a parody of that sort of deductive reasoning. I haven't really looked into it, but it would seem to fit with Doyle's own magical thinking.
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Sep 6, 2017 13:12
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Toast Museum posted:Are the books silly in a way that's consistent with them being satire? I've heard it claimed that Doyle intended Holmes a parody of that sort of deductive reasoning. I haven't really looked into it, but it would seem to fit with Doyle's own magical thinking. No. But I'd be interested to hear where that sort of "deductive reasoning" was used in earnest, before Doyle? (Not that Doyle's Holmes 3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 13:26 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 13:20
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Sorry, yeah, inductive (or abductive, apparently, which is a new one for me). Again, I haven't made an effort to verify this claim, but the idea, as I recall it, is that Holmes was intended as a caricature of the rationalism that clashed with Doyle's own mysticism.
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Sep 6, 2017 13:41
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Toast Museum posted:Sorry, yeah, inductive (or abductive, apparently, which is a new one for me). Again, I haven't made an effort to verify this claim, but the idea, as I recall it, is that Holmes was intended as a caricature of the rationalism that clashed with Doyle's own mysticism. Who knows unless he explicitly stated so  As far as satire goes if the writer's intention is completely inscrutable to the readers at large, it's not very good satire. Then again, since his Holmes stories are not that good either, it would fit the pattern.Of course criticizing Doyle has the same problem as criticizing Tolkien: they were not very good writers (although Doyle is miles above Tolkien of course) but they hell of broke new ground so people didn't know any better and now they're just "classics" due to achieving critical mass.
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Sep 6, 2017 13:50
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The hobbit was, and still is, a great book to read aloud to an audience. Apparently it was written as such?
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Sep 6, 2017 14:06
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Toast Museum posted:Sorry, yeah, inductive (or abductive, apparently, which is a new one for me). Again, I haven't made an effort to verify this claim, but the idea, as I recall it, is that Holmes was intended as a caricature of the rationalism that clashed with Doyle's own mysticism. Doyle was always interested in spiritualism (it was very popular in certain sections of the late Victorian and Edwardian upper-middle class in Britain) but only got really, heavily, thoroughly invested in the more mystical aspect of it after his son was killed during the First World War. I love the Holmes stories but I'd rate Nero Wolfe above them (and indeed above most British detective fiction I've read) purely because Archie Goodwin is leaps and bounds ahead of the narrators in most of them. He's involved in the action, he has his own insights and contributes to the solution rather than just reporting what the great detective does or decides. Serephina posted:The hobbit was, and still is, a great book to read aloud to an audience. Apparently it was written as such? Originated as a bedtime story for his children. Wheat Loaf has a new favorite as of 14:15 on Sep 6, 2017 |
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Sep 6, 2017 14:12
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Jerry Cotton posted:No. But I'd be interested to hear where that sort of "deductive reasoning" was used in earnest, before Doyle? (Not that Doyle's Holmes Edgar Allan Poe has a couple stories about C. August Dupin, an older French detective who startles his new roommate by "reading his mind" then explains how he correctly deduced what was going on based on simple observation. This demonstration is later applied to the crimes he solves, with the best known story being "Murders in the Rue Morgue." Doyle via Holmes calls this out in one story, then proceeds to perform the same "mind tricks" on Watson. Doyle absolutely knew what he was doing (he liked the Dupin stories); he also thought his Holmes stories were sorta blah and considered his historical fiction his best work. I still need to read The White Company (Hundred Years War, lots of historical figures show up).
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Sep 6, 2017 14:31
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Wheat Loaf posted:I love the Holmes stories but I'd rate Nero Wolfe above them (and indeed above most British detective fiction I've read) purely because Archie Goodwin is leaps and bounds ahead of the narrators in most of them. He's involved in the action, he has his own insights and contributes to the solution rather than just reporting what the great detective does or decides. You can't really compare something that started in the 1930's, by which time the genre had matured and branched out a lot in general, to Doyle's Holmes despite superficial similarities in character set-up. One reason why Rex Stout stands out so much from all the other better-than-Doyle crime fiction writers is that he basically combined the traditional super-genius "let's get everyone in the same room so I can wave my giant brain dick in their faces" eccentric magical foreigner detective with a soft-boiled* smart-rear end all-american investigator. I don't know if he was the first to do that but he certainly was the first to strike gold with that formula. And he also knew how to do variations on a theme, evolving said formula from novel to novel so as not to let things get stale, while retaining familiarity. *) Still boiled though. I don't know where to draw the lines but Archie Goodwin in my mind inhabits the same niche as Gardner's Donald Lam where they regularly get in trouble with the law and women, crack wise a lot, but don't shoot that many people while absolutely poo poo-faced like the traditional much more cynical hard-boiled dicks. (Not to mention the very popular gun-toting 100% rapo-sadistic fascist dudes that I guess were most popular after the wars? I'm not a dick fic historian.)
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Sep 6, 2017 14:39
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Doyle and The Hobbit are readable, Lord of the Rings is not.
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Sep 6, 2017 14:39
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Like her half-breed mother, young Zarq Darquel can't always hold her tongue. A peasant on a large dragon estate, she goes unnoticed by the Temple of the Dragon - until she accidentally captures the attention of an eccentric and dangerous dragonmaster, unleashing a storm of tragedy. Her clan is plunged into destitution, her beautiful sister, Waivia, sold into slavery, and her mother lost to madness. Desperate to find Waivia, Zarq and her delirious mother flee through the underworld of their land. Consumed with the desire for revenge, Zarq develops a taste for the highly addictive venom of the dragons she has been taught to revere - and with this poison, she imbibes their memories and glimpses a plot for social revolution. But to achieve it, she must defy not just sexual taboos and patriarchal conventions, but the Emperor who rules her nation.
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Sep 6, 2017 16:21
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God help me, I think I know the book you are talking about...
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Sep 6, 2017 16:26
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Kavak posted:God help me, I think I know the booq you are talking about... Fixed that for you.
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Sep 6, 2017 16:36
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The Saddest Rhino posted:
This review is two years old and I am crying with laughter
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Sep 6, 2017 19:18
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Jerry Cotton posted:*) Still boiled though. I don't know where to draw the lines but Archie Goodwin in my mind inhabits the same niche as Gardner's Donald Lam where they regularly get in trouble with the law and women, crack wise a lot, but don't shoot that many people while absolutely poo poo-faced like the traditional much more cynical hard-boiled dicks. (Not to mention the very popular gun-toting 100% rapo-sadistic fascist dudes that I guess were most popular after the wars? I'm not a dick fic historian.) Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. They broke the law, he broke their necks. If they were dirty reds or smelly hippies that was just a bonus.
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Sep 6, 2017 19:32
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TheKennedys posted:Yeah, I mean, that's fair David Eddings is like Piers Anthony light.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:38
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Yeah there's a lot of gross poo poo that you might pass over because the text doesn't linger on it or consider any implications at all but there's a lot of stuff there that is really  when given the slightest scrutiny.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:46
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Wheat Loaf posted:Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. God help me I still think Spillane is a good writer  (just a psycho)
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Sep 6, 2017 20:51
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Jerry Cotton posted:God help me I still think Spillane is a good writer He's got an engaging style. I'm not sure if the Mike Hammer books are supposed to have an element of conscious parody to them, but I really wouldn't be in the least bit surprised.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:53
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Wheat Loaf posted:He's got an engaging style. I'm not sure if the Mike Hammer books are supposed to have an element of conscious parody to them, but I really wouldn't be in the least bit surprised. I'm fairly certain Spillane was a nutter.
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Sep 6, 2017 20:55
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Kavak posted:God help me, I think I know the book you are talking about... A venom cock, they’re called. I’d heard the words grunted respectfully among the pottery clan men. I’d also heard the words mentioned by women wearing a carefully blank expression cultivated to hide opinion. Understand, women do not revere the venom cock as men do. They see it for what it is: an uncontrollable reaction to an impending event, and a slightly foolish reaction at that. Dono’s reverence was a mystery back then, made all the more mysterious by his assertions about what a venom cock could do: slay a woman! Cripple a baby! Turn pleasurers into deaf, blind, barren idiots!
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Sep 6, 2017 20:59
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Oh, no, I know of this book.
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Sep 6, 2017 21:02
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