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chernobyl kinsman posted:it's only boring if you find his long examinations of catholicism itself, the role of religion in society and in learning, and so on boring I think I would've been okay with just reading a straight up nonfic book/essays by Miller about these topics.
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Apr 7, 2018 22:47
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:I think I would've been okay with just reading a straight up nonfic book/essays by Miller about these topics. yeah i hate when books have like themes and engage aspects of the human condition and poo poo, like dude just write an essay im only here to read about sword fights lol chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Apr 7, 2018 |
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Apr 7, 2018 23:49
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Fiction is for reading dumb poo poo, and non fiction is for boring stuff that I'm not going to read
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Apr 8, 2018 00:57
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chernobyl kinsman posted:yeah i hate when books have like themes and engage aspects of the human condition and poo poo, like dude just write an essay im only here to read about sword fights lol His presentation of the themes was boring, not the themes themselves. I realize this is a subjective opinion. Are you done yet with your hissy fit crusade against things people like read? Because I haven't mentioned anything about mad max or sword fights or whatever. I did read By the Sword by Cohen a couple years ago. The sword fights mentioned in it were cool.
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Apr 8, 2018 01:38
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:His presentation of the themes was boring what was boring about it? you can have whatever 'subjective opinions' you want, but you've gotta be able to justify them better than "it was boring and if he wanted to have themes he should have written an essay" quote:Are you done yet with your hissy fit crusade against things people like read? absolutely not
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Apr 8, 2018 05:12
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chernobyl kinsman posted:what was boring about it? you can have whatever 'subjective opinions' you want, but you've gotta be able to justify them If I was trying to convince you that the book was boring, then yes I would post justifications. I am not trying to convince you of that at all. This is also not the thread for that. All I did was post that I agreed with someone else. You are trying super hard to turn this into another "People who read genre fiction are trash why can't they just think harder about books" thing. You should stop that. It is okay for different people to be drawn to different characters and plots.
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Apr 9, 2018 03:26
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There's a big difference between elaborating on vague opinions and convincing someone that a book is/isn't boring. You said the novel's themes were presented in a boring manner and that it would have been less boring as essays. Someone asked you to elaborate on your views and why you found the novel's presentation 'boring' and/or how they might be better presented as essays. It's a weird opinion, because (as Chernobyl mentioned), you get to experience the themes of religion and how it affects people and society through the emotions/thoughts/interactions of the characters in a setting, which would seem more enlightening and interesting than if you were to read about the same subject in essays. They asked you to elaborate with sarcasm and humor, but that's how people post on this--a cynical comedy website--you loving loser. This is a book discussion forum. This is very much the place to debate this.
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Apr 9, 2018 18:22
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A Cup of Rage by Raduan Nassar. A short story about a couple having an argument. At 45 pages its a short read but once the argument gets into full swing its like a train made of emotions going of the rails and slamming into the ground multiple times before coming to a stop. The argument involves a lot of political comments but since I'm unfamiliar with Brazils waning dictatorship it largely went over my head. I think its worth reading, I don't think I've either had an argument quite that vicious but the descriptions of the man's emotional state and his increasing loss of control whilst thinking he was delivering some very cutting remarks did strike me as familiar.
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Apr 11, 2018 07:57
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Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi. It's pretty pulpy fare, a mysterious, overpowered beautiful gary stu rescues a lady from a vampire - but it has a charm to it, and the translation makes for an easy read. I enjoyed it! Good fluff, and I'm down to read the next one.
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Apr 11, 2018 16:31
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I think that belongs in the anime forum
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Apr 11, 2018 16:48
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ulvir posted:I think that belongs in the anime forum Nah, it's a book with words in it, not a manga.
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Apr 11, 2018 16:51
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I read Notwithstanding by Louis de Bernieres. It was extremely British and a short read. Also utterly alien to my experiences so I'm not gonna lie, I often had no idea what the gently caress the characters were saying or doing re: fishing and being fundamentally linguistically British. It was fine. I probably could've stopped at Corelli's Mandolin. Sometimes delving further into the author of a single work that made an impression on you doesn't always bear rewards.
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Apr 11, 2018 17:25
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Small Gods by Pratchett really good religious satire. Standalone discworld novel, it's one of his few that introduces some pretty heavy philosophy. Not heavy by like, non-fantasy novels but more than almost any other fantasy novel I can think of. I found out afterwards the Vorbis file format was named after one of the characters, I had a suspicion but I thought it was too random to be true.
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Apr 13, 2018 03:11
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Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky Holy poo poo this is one of the best Sci Fi books I’ve ever read. The scope and connection to alien characters and emotional highs and low and imagination of it were spectacular. It also doesn’t suffer from the Neal Stephenson problem of epic Sci Fi where the third act just falls apart. I’m a bit heartbroken that it’s over. The closest thing in terms of quality and atmosphere that I can recall is probably Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora. I’m reading Semiosis right now for a similar fix, but I don’t think it’s going to be quite as good.
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Apr 13, 2018 04:26
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I finished You Only Live Twice. Pretty different from the movie; as much as I like the volcano base setpiece, I really like the idea of Blofeld's Castle of Death, which would have been interesting on screen. I will probably just push on and finish The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy and the Living Daylights next. They're both short.
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Apr 17, 2018 08:53
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Finished The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. I borrowed it from the library and I think I need to buy an actual copy now. A bleak and beautiful work.
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Apr 19, 2018 06:54
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Just finished Half a War, and by extension, The Shattered Sea Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. I enjoyed it a great deal more than I thought I would. My tastes have changed quite a bit since I first read his works ten years back, when I was totally okay with the whole evil vs evil trope in deconstructionist fantasy. But in the years since, I kinda realized that Abercrombie was a great deal better at deconstructing fantasy than he was at making his own tropes in the fantasy genre. But the Shattered Sea trilogy had a totally different tone from his Last Sea universe. His characters were flawed, but they weren't so flawed that they were quite clearly a different shade of the "Evil" alignment from DnD. It wasn't quite so exhausting to partake in their stories, and some of them I came to love. His stylistic decision to have each book have a new unique set of perspectives did hurt some of his characters, but in the long run, Half a War was both a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy and allowed enough of an avenue for more books in the setting. The trilogy renewed my faith in Abercrombie as a writer, and it shows that he may have improved upon the drawbacks of his earlier works.
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Apr 20, 2018 02:39
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Semiosis was not as good. Still a fine, but forgettable, Sci Fi book. I think it fell apart because the plant character just wasn't alien enough. Like, a plant should be loving weird, but this wasn't really that weird.
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Apr 20, 2018 03:34
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I read Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit. A nice short primer on contemporary feminism and the toxicity of patriarchy, with numbers to back up the proliferation of gender-based violence. I think it'd be an important read for any man who hasn't really learned about these concepts yet. Sometimes I am reminded that I actually have never read Woolf. It's a pretty weird omission from my personal literary history. I think most people knock it out in K-12 but she's one of those classic authors I've managed to completely miss. However, this is the second time a popular feminist has referenced her work in a book I've read (the last one having been Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed) so probably I should soon start.
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Apr 22, 2018 12:16
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I read both The Man With the Golden Gun and Octopussy and the Living Daylights, so that's the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming done and dusted. Not sure what to read next. I have the following sitting in my "to read" pile: Flashman (George Macdonald Fraser); L.A. Noir: The Lloyd Hopkins Trilogy (James Ellroy); Over My Dead Body (Rex Stout); Prisoner's Base (Rex Stout); and Quarry (Max Allan Collins). I'm leaning towards one of the Nero Wolfe novels at the moment.
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Apr 22, 2018 21:53
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The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. drat fine writing and science - I learned a lot about the era and the epidemic. I also didn't mean to read it in two days, but hey, I got curious about the mystery and couldn't put it down.
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Apr 28, 2018 23:27
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From a Buick 8 Probably the best book King has written. I haven't read a King book in years and this one I finished in 2 days.
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May 1, 2018 15:12
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The Steel of Raithskar by Randall Garrett and Vicki Ann Heydron. It was pretty dang good! It was also pretty clearly Part One of a series, as it ends with very little resolved outside of character development. Onwards to book two!
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May 1, 2018 20:25
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Flaggy posted:From a Buick 8 Probably the best book King has written. I haven't read a King book in years and this one I finished in 2 days. It's hands-down my favorite of his. I like a lot of what King has written but I sometimes wonder what his creative output would be like if he hadn't been so successful so early in his career, and actually had people rein him in on later books. From a Buick 8 is one of those books that makes me think that with an aggressive editor and a little more focus a lot of his rambling tomes could be much better books than they are.
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May 2, 2018 20:24
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I listened to The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey I really liked it. Even though I've seen the movie it grabbed my attention and held it firmly until the end. Due to a series of unfortunate events leading to poor eyesight and poorer concentration I haven't been able to finish a book in years. A couple of days ago I finally pulled the trigger on an Audible subscription and to my surprise I devoured the book in two sittings. I used to be an avid reader up until about seven years ago, enjoying most generes but gravitating to the usual sci-fi/fantasy fare. Do any of you have a suggestion or two for what I should try next? Something recent, not too complicated, thrilling and fun?
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May 2, 2018 21:12
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Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson might do it for you. The more fun books I’ve read in recent memory were the Area X trilogy by Vandermeer, the bobiverse books (don’t judge me), the Martian. Stuff like that.
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May 2, 2018 22:00
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I finally read Lovecraft Country. I've been a big Matt Ruff fan since Fool on the Hill (and absolutely loved Set This House in Order) so I don't know why it took me so long to read the newest one, maybe because I don't really like any of the HP Lovecraft I've read and am sick of Cthulu-esque stuff in boardgames/videogames/"nerd culture". Glad I finally read it though and I really enjoyed it. It felt like it took the best parts of Lovecraft (creepy cabals and extradimensional weirdness), ditched the worst parts of Lovecraft (poor writing and sincere racism), and replaced the bad bits with good writing and "look how hosed up racism" is from the PoV of black people during Jim Crow while not getting preachy or beating you over the head with the theme. The final set piece felt a little rushed but overall, I thought it was a very good and enjoyable book.
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May 4, 2018 15:15
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I finished the first Bobiverse book. It was a light and at times pretty funny listen. Perfect for where I am, attention wise, right now. I laughed out loud a couple of times and had a good think about the nature of self, are clones mere copies and if anything good can ever come out of meddling with evolution/natural selection. I'm certain I'll listen to the rest of them.
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May 7, 2018 19:10
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DeadFatDuckFat posted:I agree with you on this one. The whole thing was not interesting at all. I think the first part is really compelling to read. It's very uneven which is something that's noticeable in a lot of classic sci-fi that started as separate short stories.
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May 8, 2018 05:22
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Today I finished reading the short stories on the Hugo Awards ballot this year. Here are my hot takes: "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" by Fran Wilde. Interesting imagery. The structure kept me in the dark about the context of what was happening, but I was interested until I found out, at which point I was blase. "Fandom for Robots" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. I had a good laugh or two at this one, but it feels like it stops arbitrarily without a real conclusion. It has some awareness about the idiosyncrasies and absurdities of fandom without really committing to an opinion on it one way or the other. "Sun, Moon, Dust" by Ursula Vernon. Much better. I've grown fond of Vernon's writing, having read her nominated stories for a few years now. She depicts solitary life in the boonies of folktales in a comfortable yet no-nonsense way that I find endearing. It's not always exciting—this story in particular makes a point not to be—but I'm usually satisfied anyway. "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience" by Rebecca Roanhorse. This one's even better. It starts out with some sad commentary on cultural appropriation and then gets even more uncomfortable from there. I highly recommend that you click the link and read it yourself. "The Martian Obelisk" by Linda Nagata. Not bad, good message, still feels like over-trod ground. "Carnival Nine" by Caroline M. Yoachim. I thought this would be too whimsical and twee as I started this up, but it was bittersweet, a good portrait of a life and the regrets that pile up from living it. My ordering: 1. Roanhorse 2. Yoachim 3. Vernon 4. NO AWARD 5. Nagata 6. Prasad 7. Wilde
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May 8, 2018 06:51
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Just finished Gaiman’s American Gods. That was a really cool, easy bit of fiction. A good break from books that require a bit of patience and attention. There were huge sections that just flew by. Now back to something different, I’m thinking I need to hunker down and start Brothers Karamazov soon.
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May 8, 2018 23:22
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And the novelettes, too. "A Series of Steaks" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. Middle of the road. I like the details about the art of making synthetic meat that's indistinguishable from the real thing, and the way things turned around by virtue of Helen finding the right friend at the right time, but I got my hopes up for a more cathartic revenge than what the story gives. The story doesn't give a lot to think about beyond those temporary feelings, either. It's not bad, but I'm sure I'll find something more satisfying on the ballot. "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer. Dull. I wish this plot had played out in the Ninefox Gambit universe, which also has service robots that the human characters underestimate. As it is, the human parts are drab and the robot parts are kind of annoying. I was in a bit of a funk when I read this, but there's nothing in here that makes me want to reread it and change my mind about it, either. "Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time" by K.M. Szpara. Definitely not dull. Definitely going to stick in my mind for a bit of time. It made me feel uncomfortable with all the blunt and explicit sex talk, but given the subject matter it doesn't seem gratuitous. The trans stuff seems legit given what I know right now, but I'm not trans so I can't say for certain. "Children of Thorns, Children of Water" by Aliette de Bodard. Decent. Got me interested in the setting and associated novels, so that might be a thing for me later. "Extracurricular Activities" by Yoon Ha Lee. Pretty fun. It worked better as a caper story than Palmer's because it features my favorite character from Ninefox Gambit instead of humans that act like robots and vice versa. Not sure if it would deserve the award; the appeal might have been lost on me if I hadn't already read Ninefox Gambit. "Wind Will Rove" by Sarah Pinsker. The obvious winner, in my opinion. Hit me right where it needed to. The fallibility of memory is something I think about a lot, and applying that to an entire colony ship in a way that examines how cultures develop in that condition, and in general, offers some uncomfortable questions with no easy answers. My ordering: -Pinsker -Szpara -Lee -NO AWARD -De Bodard -Prasad -Palmer
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May 10, 2018 00:08
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HatJudge posted:I listened to The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey There's a prequel to GWATG called The Boy on the Bridge.
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May 10, 2018 16:39
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I just finished Bitter Harvest by Ian Smith. I got interested after reading in the news about Mugabe stepping down. It's a pretty one-sided view of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence and cold war era feelings of latent racism under the guise of fighting communist insurgents. It was an interesting read and did provide some interesting depth.
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May 11, 2018 12:57
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I got the WW2 bug and started reading a ton of books on the topic. The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945 quote:The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945 is a history of the "thoughts and actions" of German citizens during the Second World War by historian Nicholas Stargardt.[1] This book was horrible to read. I barely know where to start. The author went through thousands of letters from the time that were archived as well as journals and internal government reports to get insight into the views of the people. Turns out that WW2 was even worse than anything portrayed in the media. After WW2 West Germany invested enormous amounts of effort into white washing the role of the civilian population and the Wermacht in genocide. This effort received international support when West Germany joined NATO and were encouraged to re-arm. An effort that saw tens of thousands of nazis return to positions of power within the government and the military. This propaganda effort to blame the nazis and the SS for the holocaust and paint the German people as victims was so extensive that it remains to this day. Despite American efforts at re-education. (For example making West Germans view footage from the concentration camps to collect their ration cards) A decade after the end of WW2 more than half the West German population believed that Nazism was good but that Hitler and and his cronies were the wrong people to lead it. A third of the West German population believed that WW2 was a defensive war against foreign encirclement. West Germany spent a lot of effort highlighting the treatment of German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union while censoring people who wanted to raise the issue of the holocaust. They built model concentration camps and explained how prisoners gold teeth were pulled out before being interred in Soviet Mass graves. They even "borrowed" details and stories from the German concentration camps and re-wrote them to fit the settings of Soviet concentration camps. On 26 October 1950 the West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer asked before the parliament: "Ever before in history millions of people have been sentenced with such chilling heartlessness to misery and misfortune?" Referring to German prisoners of war. Not the jews. By the late 50s about 70% of West German judges and prosecutors were former nazis. These men now stood in judgement as the victims of the nazis sought compensation from the West German government. The result was that the non-jewish groups that were victimized by the nazis like the Polish, Roma, Homosexuals etc were largely ignored. Widows of men who were executed for refusing military service received initial compensation but their cases were later reviewed by the now (former) nazi officials and the compensations were cancelled. These groups would not see proper acknowledgement until the former nazis retired from their West German governmental posts. West German police fanned the flames of racial hatred by portraying Jews as tricksters and scoundrels. They harassed Jewish concentration camp survivors in refugee camps and even provoked fights, set attack dogs on and killed jews. It become so bad that the Americans had to ban West German police from entering these refugee camps. The book demonstrates that the German ordinary soldier and civilian populations were very well aware of the holocaust and in detail. They spoke openly about jews being gassed and boasted that towns were "now free of Jews" German civilians who regularly took trains that passed camps and asylums that murdered its inmates complained about the smell from the crematoriums. A false rumour went around that the concentration camps turned the Jewish prisoners into soap. With ghoulish humour teen age boys would carve "prime Jewish fat" into bars of soap in school showers in reference to this rumour. When Germany invaded Poland they sent SS teams to conduct 200 bombings of buildings in German towns in Poland so it could then be blamed on the Poles. The invasion force were joined by German civilians living in Poland who would form local militias who hunted down and killed thousands of Jews and Poles in cooperation with the Wehrmacht. When a train holding concentration camp prisoners was hit by an allied bomb, the prisoners fled into the woods. A local German town took the initiative and formed a militia that went into the woods and killed over 200 prisoners. When the Allies liberated a concentration camp. Its storage area was later looted by German civilians on bikes. They passed mountains of dead bodies like it was nothing which horrified allied troops. The whole country was rotten to the core Katt fucked around with this message at 20:36 on May 13, 2018 |
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May 11, 2018 18:17
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On a lighter note: thanks for the Gene Wolfe recommendation. Finished Shadow of the Torturer, it was really good! I’ll get into some more soon, I’m sure.
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May 11, 2018 19:20
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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Fantastic book, enjoyed the prose and personalities, and even thought it painted a fairly impartial picture of Savannah. The main murder that the book centers around is also very enthralling, more so because of how everyone reacts to it, and less for the crime itself. Recommended.
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May 11, 2018 20:10
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I just finished The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. I was utterly glued to it. Does anyone have recs for something similar?
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May 12, 2018 23:04
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I thought Goblin Emperor was kind of similar.
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May 13, 2018 14:45
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Katt posted:I got the WW2 bug and started reading a ton of books on the topic. Years ago, Sound of Young American had a guest who has written a book on wartime humour. Taking about how much the Germans knew, he made the point that you can't make jokes about things you don't know about. And there were plenty of jokes about internment and camps.
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May 13, 2018 18:32
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