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MockingQuantum posted:My recommendation, to anybody who might be picking up Discworld for the first time, is that you probably shouldn't listen to anybody when they tell you which books are good and bad, with the exception that Guards Guards is a good first book because it drops a lot of the boilerplate fantasy tropes and actually does something interesting, and that the first few Rincewind books aren't very good, and are kind of downright bad by modern standards. I definitely disagree with a lot of those ratings, like for example I thought Pyramids was a boring one-note joke that leaned heavily on taking pot-shots at a very dated new age belief and didn't have enough else going on to make it very readable. But someone else reading it for the first time might have found it brilliant. I also thought Moving Pictures tried way too hard to be funny and if you're not a big fan of classic movies a whole lot of the jokes fall flat on their face. But that said, that's all preference-- I was unlikely to enjoy either of those books walking into them because I just don't care for the books where Pratchett picks one thing to make a load of jokes about, as opposed to the ones that are more plot- or character-focused (as much as they ever are) Yeah, this. I agree that Pyramids and Moving Pictures aren't great. IMO the list provided undersells the Death/Susan stuff generally, and probably oversells the witches.
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Jul 26, 2019 18:08
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Seriouspost: People who have opinions about Pratchett are people who have opinions about Rick and Moety and anime. Just read.
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Jul 26, 2019 19:54
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Jerry Cotton posted:Seriouspost: People who have opinions about Pratchett are people who have opinions about Rick and Moety and anime. .... What are you trying to say?
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Jul 26, 2019 20:18
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what about people who have opinions about people who have opinions about Terry Pratchett and anime
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Jul 26, 2019 20:51
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I finished reading The Light Fantastic a few days ago, I didn't like it as much as the Color of Magic. I ended up dropping it for a few months about halfway through. At that point I felt like the book was like one of the short stories if it was stretched out to be 4 times as long without adding anything but talking tree jokes. Picked it up again as something to read during break at my new job, thought it was alright the rest of the way through. I am genuinely sad that Twoflower decided to go home, though part of that is the dread at the thought of reading a Rincewind book without him in it. I'm gonna start on Mort next and save Sourcery for later.
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Jul 27, 2019 01:15
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i am terry pratchett
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Jul 27, 2019 06:13
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I just finished Letters of Insurgents a book that's been on my to read list for about four years now. I wish I read it sooner. Its a series of letters between two former revolutionaries, one living in the Eastern Bloc, the other a migrant to the US. They talk about old times, the political situations during the present old friends and learn a lot about each other. It covers a lot of topics, how well do we really know each other and ourselves, and travels through riots, insurrections, strikes, wedding parties, romances and squabbles. It does this neat thing with the way its structured where each character that gets introduced has more information shared by someone else who knew them better or at a different time in their lives, so that characters and contexts change sometimes quite radically between each letter.
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Jul 27, 2019 11:21
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Just finished Towers of Midnight. One more to go in the series!
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Jul 27, 2019 12:52
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nankeen posted:i am terry pratchett Permabanned for being dead.
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Jul 27, 2019 13:55
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Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee is my favorite book in its trilogy by a decent amount. It has the best set of hooks going in, though I admit one of those hooks makes me wonder if Lee's been reading Murderbot. I'm also taken aback by how often characters "made a moue" in the text, which is just a fancy way of saying they pouted that doesn't jibe with the rest of the prose. Despite that, I'm pretty pleased with the direction the story takes here and the ideas it introduces, though I suppose it could have dove deeper in most cases. There's the admission that running a new regime after overthrowing the old one is hard, there's always the possibility of backsliding and difficulty in getting enough of the populace onboard. I found it interesting and affecting how much the characters, especially Kujen and the new Jedao (might as well throw in the old Jedao too), have dehumanized themselves and others to face bloodshed. The psychosexual stuff that goes on between them and another character is both creepy and heartbreaking. It's not fantastic, but it's definitely worthwhile if you already finished the first two books.
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Jul 28, 2019 09:49
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The Outside by Ada Hoffmann The quick synopsis: A scientist works on a power source developed by her mentor who disappeared. Said technology may or may not rip holes in reality and let cosmic horrors in. Some parts were goofy like the soul eating AI gods (which make more sense once you know the book spun out of the author's d&d characters/campaign). That said I really enjoyed it
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Jul 28, 2019 23:41
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My recommendation, to anybody who might be picking up Discworld for the first time, is that you probably shouldn't. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 29, 2019 03:03
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chernobyl kinsman posted:My recommendation, to anybody who might be picking up Discworld for the first time, is that you probably shouldn't. wtf man. Seriously skip the first two books and read in publication order (Mort and forward). It's not hard.
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Jul 29, 2019 03:08
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alternatively, dedicate yourself to eating every square inch of plaster in your bedroom walls using only a spoon
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Jul 29, 2019 03:14
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Looks like this guy started with the wrong book.
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Jul 29, 2019 06:28
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Fall or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson This is a weird attempt by Stephenson to tie together the universes of his Baroque Cycle, Cryptonomicon, and Reamde characters all around the near-future singularity. It works, but probably only because I'd read all those books previously. It suffers from a sort of theme creep, with side plots ranging from extremist/religious nationalist adventures to a speculative fiction piece on the destiny of social media and the internet in an era of fake news. Each of these side plots would be a really satisfying novel or short story on its own, but when all tied together with the same 10 characters taking charge of everything, it feels a little trite and cramped. Of course, there's also a whole second book in here taking place in the weird virtual reality singularity space with a tonal shift from ordinary narrative prose to an attempt at a tongue-in-cheek biblical style. Those sections are like an adventure story and they actually become really engaging and fun in the third act, which may be Stephenson's best third act that I've read. He usually struggles with those. I'd recommend it if you were a fan of all those past works, especially if you found the Gary Stu characters in Reamde a little bit insufferable. They don't last long in Fall.
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Jul 29, 2019 12:44
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The Sherlock Holmes canon. All of it. The weakest stories are the ones where the whole matter wraps up without Holmes's involvement (Engineer's Thumb). Then there are stories where Holmes never has a confrontation with the perp and no action occurs (Wisteria Lodge, Five Orange Pips). Probably the most aggravating part of Holmes is that his sexism extends to never once putting a woman in jail. Modern adaptations make the right call when he doesn't let the perp off just because it might slight someone's reputation. What I do like about Holmes is that the canon is about his work and not his personal-life. It takes the modern angsty detective 300 pages to solve a mystery, Holmes only takes 20 pages. I saved Hound of the Baskervilles for last and it was excellent. You've got a family curse, a pair of suspicious servants. a killer on the loose, and strange going-ons at the moor. My one disappointment is that there were no sequels in the same vein. The Valley of Fear is like A Study in Scarlet in that it is two unrelated novellas stitched together, and one is likely to disappointed to realise that Holmes isn't in the latter half of either book. I believe only the fourth collection is a stinker. It has the fewest stories and most of them are half-baked. Excellent: Musgrave Ritual Yellow Face Six Napoleons Silver Blaze Three Garridebs Lion's Mane Crap: The Creeping Man Wisteria Lodge Three Gables Mazarin Stone Red-Circle
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Jul 29, 2019 20:19
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I finally finished Catch-22 today, easily in my personal favorites.
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Aug 2, 2019 21:55
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Just finished There There by Tommy Orange. This is a novel with a series of characters whose lives are interwoven complexly, although none of them know the full extent. Centered around the Big Oakland Powwow, you follow along each of the characters and learn of their lives, what it means to be an indian in an urban setting, some native history, and resilience in the face of intergenerational trauma. I really enjoyed it but have to admit I got a bit lost with the sheer number of characters (with similar names, unlike Pynchon who uses more memorable distinctive names to keep his cast of hundreds apart). A very worthwhile read from a perspective not really published much.
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Aug 6, 2019 02:31
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Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik was a good lesson to me on writing distinctive character voices. I was a bit taken aback by tuyop's criticism of Becky Chambers; as someone who wants to write fiction, I don't want to get dinged for having all of my characters sound the same, but I tend not to notice when I'm reading a book that does the same thing if it's doing something else to distract me. By contrast, this book was designed to make me notice it; it's written in multiple first-person perspectives, and yet it never took me more than a second to catch on to who the book decided to follow next. It definitely helps that each new character beyond the first was previously introduced through someone else's perspective, that they're kept to a reasonable number, and that new sequences often include names of associated characters that give useful hints. However, each of the three main characters—a moneychanger's daughter who resents the hardships in her life and resolves to conquer them even before her real problems begin, a poor farm girl with more rural diction who habitually defers to those of higher status, and a young noblewoman adapting to the rigid game of manners defining her life—are distinct from each other, but they're all threatened by people more powerful than them, and can only get out of their respective jams by helping each other out. This culminates in a fantastic ending that made me feel the same way that the first season finale of Stranger Things did. Spinning Silver is a big improvement over Uprooted and the best of the Hugo-nominated novels this year.
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Aug 7, 2019 03:36
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Read the first 2 Guy Boothby Dr Nikola stories. Dr. Nikola the character was a criminal genius, whose superpowers were ultra-hypnotism, mastermind failsafe planning, zero ethics, an urbane gentleman attitude, being the possessor of an amazing cat, and a thirst for forbidden knowledge that spanned the globe. First Dr. Nikola story was a travelogue of Australia to England at first, then it became a series of misadventures by the common-man narrator attempting to disrupt Nikola's Machiavellian "12 steps ahead" plots with a required for the publishing era happy ending/minor nobility title out of nowhere for the common-man main narrator. The 2nd Dr. Nikola story managed to be 60 times LESS RACIST than Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu stories despite featuring the two main characters cosplaying as Chinese guys to steal the ancient secrets of science and life dwarfing modern knowledge hidden in an ancient chinese secret society monastery-fortress.
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Aug 7, 2019 04:18
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Samuel Delany's 1971 novella collection "Driftglass", which I apparently bought in 2000 but never got more than half-way through before this month. It's reasonably well-aged sci-fi with some pretty brainy bits but my main thought while reading was "man, punctuation is great and this Delany character should use more of it".
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Aug 8, 2019 21:12
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Solitair posted:Spinning Silver Hell yeah, I loved that book. Naomi Novik is killing it with the well-written fantasy novels based on Eastern European folklore. I really enjoyed Uprooted though.
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Aug 11, 2019 18:50
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Pachinko was really really good. Would recommend.
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Aug 12, 2019 13:48
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tuyop posted:Hell yeah, I loved that book. Naomi Novik is killing it with the well-written fantasy novels based on Eastern European folklore. I really enjoyed Uprooted though. I would have enjoyed it more if not for the attempted rape scene and uncomfortable romance.
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Aug 12, 2019 13:57
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The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Ugh. It's like that crazy couple you know of who constantly break up and get back together 20 times and you're like "What the gently caress" for 600 pages.
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Aug 14, 2019 06:24
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Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. Weird book, nowhere near as enjoyable as Sapiens. Part one is basically just an extended screed on animal rights, which is interesting enough but hard to see what it really has to do with the rest of the book. Part two looks at how different types of imaginary structures and organisations enable collective human achievements, this bit is genuinely interesting and new to me. Part 3 is pure futurology and is absolute garbage that’s dated really badly in even the few years since this book was published.
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Aug 14, 2019 12:28
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Finished the Murderbot diaries. Enjoyed it, would recommend to all sci-fi lovers
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Aug 15, 2019 11:44
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The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. This is a very good book and reads like Wharton distilled her craft into its purest form. The narrative is lightweight and lean, and doesn't get bogged down by side plots or excessive infodumping - my main problem with some of her earlier works. We are given just enough detail about this bunch of wealthy New Yorkers to bring them to life and characterization and interaction play out naturally from there. Newland Archer is not really unreliable, but the narration is so colored by his prejudices and sense of self-importance that it's easy to miss how other characters really feel about him and that they are probably much more aware of his situation than he realizes. While some characters - chiefly Archer's fiance May - are seemingly one-dimensional, it becomes more and more apparent as the story goes on that this is only Archer's conception of them, and they're really much more complex people than the page says. I enjoyed Wharton dumping on New York high society. There's a funny bit of irony that's repeated a few times - Archer's profession in law requires no actual work and is entirely for appearances, but May is frequently worried that his office is overworking him, and he's happy to use that as an excuse for his unusual behavior. If one wanted an introduction to Wharton, this is the book to read.
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Aug 18, 2019 16:32
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Just finished Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti. It's a really strong short story collection, but each "section" is maybe 1/4 too long. Like, by the time I'm on the 3rd or 4th short story in each thematic section, it starts to feel a bit samey. Ligotti is a master of mood-setting and dread-setting though, and I'll certainly return to his writing sometime in the future, once I wash the nihilism out of my mind with something lighter.
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Aug 19, 2019 13:32
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Finally finished Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari. Really only recommended if you are off the deep end into High Renaissance art and want to read a contemporary source. Had it left over from my Art History days in college and the occasional anecdotes in between the wall to wall descriptions of the artwork was what kept me plodding through it. Spoiler alert: Michelangelo is best artist ever. (Vasari apparently met, knew, and respected the man greatly so that why he gets top honor and the longest section.) Also read Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner which was a massive disappointment. I was hoping for a more in depth deconstruction of comics by one of the masters of the medium, but it reads like the college 101 textbook it is. Meaning that the professor compiled his examples into a published book so he can make you buy it for the course he's teaching you. It really feels like I would've had to attend one of Eisner's lectures at the School of Visual Arts to get any information beyond the basics presented here. Not going to bother with the other two books of the series.
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Aug 20, 2019 23:01
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Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie My first mystery book. It was enjoyable, a bit confusing because I wasn't aware of the process Detective Hercule Poirot uses. Some fun twists and turns, false directions and all that. Easy light reading, and perfect for a flight or something to read on vacation. I picked it up because I ran across a kickstarter where they were offering different bound editions of this particular book and I wondered why someone might be willing to pay hundreds. I'm not so sure I would hold it in that high of a regard, but it was very enjoyable regardless. I am reading Murder on the Orient Express right now, and I see the "hook" to her books now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it moreso now that I get the style. They're a lot of fun.
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Aug 21, 2019 19:52
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Philthy posted:Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie If you find you like the Poirot mysteries there's a bunch of strong ones but also a lot that are pretty forgettable. ABC Murders, Five Little Pigs, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peril at End House, and Curtain are all solid, and even Mysterious Affair at Styles is good, though it was the first Poirot book and feels kind of rough because of it. She's got some good non-Poirot books too, that still feel similar in construction regarding how she builds a mystery. And Then There Were None, Endless Night, and Crooked House are all pretty good. I can't tell you much about Miss Marple books because I've only started re-reading those and the last time I read any was when I was 10.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:03
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Excellent! That list will come in handy.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:20
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Turbinosamente posted:Finally finished Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari. Really only recommended if you are off the deep end into High Renaissance art and want to read a contemporary source. Had it left over from my Art History days in college and the occasional anecdotes in between the wall to wall descriptions of the artwork was what kept me plodding through it. Spoiler alert: Michelangelo is best artist ever. (Vasari apparently met, knew, and respected the man greatly so that why he gets top honor and the longest section.) Cellini loved Michelangelo too, and his autobiog is quite fun even if you don't know poo poo about art
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Aug 21, 2019 20:39
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MockingQuantum posted:If you find you like the Poirot mysteries there's a bunch of strong ones but also a lot that are pretty forgettable. ABC Murders, Five Little Pigs, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peril at End House, and Curtain are all solid, and even Mysterious Affair at Styles is good, though it was the first Poirot book and feels kind of rough because of it. Philthy posted:Excellent! That list will come in handy. Just make sure you skip The Big Four aka Hercule Poirot in a James Bond novel. Even Christie hated that one.
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Aug 21, 2019 20:49
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I'd like to recommend Sad Cypress for Poirot.
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Aug 21, 2019 21:03
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Sham bam bamina! posted:I'd like to recommend Sad Cypress for Poirot. Oh yeah, that one's great too.
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Aug 21, 2019 21:08
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Just wrapped up The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods by Antonin Sertillanges. Sertillanges was a french catholic philosopher and this book details his framework and approach to life-long learning and intellectual pursuits. I read the English translation because my French is awful. It's a surprisingly deep dive into the intellectual tradition and although its written from a Christian point-of-view, you can just interpret his references to the Christian God, faith, etc as the sort of profound internal calling to learning and discovery and purpose that we all feel. I'm sure some imagery gets lost in translation, but I still found this book to be very well-written, very readable, if a bit dense at times. I kept leafing back through to re-read passages and to think about some of the points that he makes. I think that just about everyone will find things in this book that apply to their own situation. If you are looking for something written by a smart dude about how to be a smart dude and that isn't a pretentious pile of garbage, this might be for you.
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Aug 21, 2019 23:02
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Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie Loved this. I can see why this has been made into several movies and is held in such high regard. Again, a very quick and easy read. Really can't say much without spoiling anything other than she provides a great backdrop/atmosphere for a murder mystery. Now I move on to rereading Dune. It's been almost 25 years. Edit: I just watched the 2017 movie, and had to turn it off near the end it was so bad. They changed the story so much that it no longer made any sense. I'm surprised Depp stayed on to film this instead of walking away. Trash. I'll try the 1974 version tomorrow, it appears that one is widely loved. At least that one is free on Prime. Edit: 1974 movie was fantastic! Why would they even bother remaking this after a star studded cast that couldn't ever be topped, and a movie that not only was faithful to the original story, that it also improved upon it! 5 stars! Easily! Philthy fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Aug 25, 2019 |
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Aug 22, 2019 18:11
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