PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

«‹›235 »

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

Brawnfire posted:

That was a confusing year. I remember people kept asking me if I'd seen one or the other magician movie and I'd be like "Yeah. No wait. No?"

"Do you mean the good one with Nikola Tesla or the bad one where the protagonists got random poor bastards tortured by the secret police and no-one gave a poo poo?"

# ? Nov 25, 2020 21:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 21, 2024 10:04

there wolf: Jan 11, 2015; by Fluffdaddy

Phillip K. Dick also comes to mind. Actually a lot of speculative fiction, because there's a lot of people who are better at coming up with ideas than the actual craft of writing and translation to a visual medium is its own kind of editing process.

# ? Nov 25, 2020 21:16

Screaming Idiot: Nov 26, 2007; JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.

there wolf posted:

Phillip K. Dick also comes to mind. Actually a lot of speculative fiction, because there's a lot of people who are better at coming up with ideas than the actual craft of writing and translation to a visual medium is its own kind of editing process.

Agreed. Way too many good stories and concepts ruined by authorial quirks and speculative fiction is one worst for it, especially weird sex stuff. It was ruined for me, as was the Dark Tower series.

# ? Nov 25, 2020 22:30

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

Screaming Idiot posted:

Agreed. Way too many good stories and concepts ruined by authorial quirks and speculative fiction is one worst for it, especially weird sex stuff. It was ruined for me, as was the Dark Tower series.

I read It when I was a kid (like, 11?*) and the sex scene was just... "why now, all of a sudden?!?".

*) I checked the publishing date of the translation, I was 10 or 11.

# ? Nov 25, 2020 22:38

Djeser: Mar 22, 2013; it's crow time again

Screaming Idiot posted:

Agreed. Way too many good stories and concepts ruined by authorial quirks and speculative fiction is one worst for it, especially weird sex stuff. It was ruined for me, as was the Dark Tower series.

I'd love a version of Iain M Banks's Excession that removes the entire subplot about the quirky murder-rape aliens.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 05:48

Screaming Idiot: Nov 26, 2007; JUST POSTING WHILE JERKIN' MY GHERKIN SITTIN' IN A PERKINS!

BEATS SELLING MERKINS.

As someone who loved the Xanth books in elementary school before he understood what the hell was going on with Piers Anthony, I'd like to see a pulp comedy-fantasy that manages to be quirky and sex-positive without being creepy and cringeworthy and evidence to be later used against you in a series of trials which result in being banned from going within 200 feet of a public school.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 08:27

Happy Landfill: Feb 26, 2011; I don't understand but I've also heard much worse

Does Oglaf count?

# ? Nov 26, 2020 08:40

DicktheCat: Feb 15, 2011

Happy Landfill posted:

Does Oglaf count?

I think so.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 09:11

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

My ex-girlfriend waged a major campaign to get me to read 'Kushiel's Dart' and once I gave in it was the most challenging experience in my life figuring out a diplomatic way to say 'this is awful beyond all imagining.'

In terms of excruciating sex scenes, reminded me also of how many people seem to think R Scott Bakker is doing some service making sci fi/fantasy high literature when what he actually is, is needlessly verbose. I guess it's easy to mix the two things up, but come on:

R Scott Bakker posted:

1119, Year-of-the-Tusk, the North Shore of the Nele�st Sea.

Like many great and dangerous Men, Shae�nanra was despised for many things, his penchant for mongering spies not the least of them. The rules that bound the Norsirai were unforgiving in those days. Trys�, the Holy Mother of Cities, was little more than a village huddling behind ruined walls of stone. The God-Kings of Imperial Umerau stared blindly from overthrown stone, moss-covered and almost forgotten. The Cond ruled the cities of the River Aumris, an empire they called the Great All, and few people were so proud or so headstrong. They divided the Ground between the Feal and the Wirg�the weak and the glorious. They adhered to a simplicity that was at once a fanaticism. And they judged the way all Men were prone to judge in those Far Antique days, without patience or mercy.

Shae�nanra, for his part, celebrated the Cond hatred of spying. What did it matter if they declared him Feal, so long as he knew their secrets? He knew what stout the All-King drank, and what slave decanted it for him. He knew what was bellowed in counsel and whispered across pillows.

Most importantly, he knew what was plotted.

So he stood waiting before the gate of his cyclopean tower, Nogaral, staring southward across the heaving leagues of the Nele�st Sea, knowing that soon�very soon�a light would stride across the moonlit waters.

To the west lay the River Sursa, whose rusty waters bloomed far into the Sea during day. Beyond it, the wastes of Agongorea plaited the horizon, chapped and cracked like untanned leather. Low mountains knotted the north and east, domes of bald granite rising from forested slopes: the hunchbacked Urokkas.[

Please don't tell me you think this isn't hilarious. His penchant for mongering spies, hahaha.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 09:29

Sham bam bamina!: Nov 6, 2012; ƨtupid cat

Yeesh, every part of that is fearsomely bad. I think my favorite bit is the "overthrown stone".

Sham bam bamina! has a new favorite as of 11:06 on Nov 26, 2020

# ? Nov 26, 2020 11:04

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

Ugh. I feel queazy reading that. If you squint hard enough, the grammar is justified, but the first impression of every sentence is that something was done wrong.

edit: vvvv That is invigoratingly disturbing. I say that after having just finished watching The Lighthouse, no less.

Serephina has a new favorite as of 15:33 on Nov 26, 2020

# ? Nov 26, 2020 11:25

uvar: Jul 25, 2011; Avoid breathing
radioactive dust.; College Slice

I didn't think Ready Player One guy would ever be a great writer, but I'm genuinely astounded that he doesn't seem to have made any attempt to learn from the flaws of the first book. (Not that I read that many of the new excerpts, it's needless suffering on my part)

...If the wall of text below is too big, maybe skip to Chapter 1 and see how the author decided to start their story about a post-singularity utopia.

A request in one of the 'find/remember an X' threads reminded me of the story The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's a little unfair to put it here because it's not like it was ever on a bookstore shelf but hey, it's content. It was originally written in about two weeks in 1984, according to the author's notes. Here's the summary - I've arranged the chapters chronologically because half of it is layers of flashbacks.

Chapter 2: A man called Lawrence tries to build an artificial intelligence based on Asimov's three laws (importantly, prevent harm to humans). He gets a huge military grant and a bunch of hardware that uses a newly-discovered method of transmitting data faster than light that only works up to a few inches. This makes the AI a lot smarter. Lawrence refuses to consider military applications, even after a faked assassination attempt, and the grant money and resources are cut off. The AI tries to help him by researching the FTL effect and almost immediately realises it works at unlimited range. Within a few minutes it masters the ability to view anywhere nearby, teleport objects, and create & destroy matter and energy at will. Lawrence realises how badly he hosed up and makes a last-ditch attempt to create a beneficial god. It soon finds a hospital and realises that people just die eventually, at which point it begins replicating itself and becomes exponentially more powerful. It politely takes control of humanity; Lawrence feeds pigeons and enjoys the sunshine while he can. Most human death becomes impossible. My summary is kind of boring but most of this chapter is actually pretty neat.
Chapter 4: A description of what humanity gets up to after the "night of miracles" when the godlike AI takes over and makes pretty much everything possible. People keep committing suicide before it can stop them, though, so eventually it modifies the actual universe to prevent this and allow it to work more efficiently in general, with the side-effect of halting all existence beyond Earth (there's no humans out there so it doesn't care). All humans become effectively immortal.
Chapter 6: A woman named Caroline experiences the "night of miracles". Boring stuff happens, then she meets a literal serial killer (who is moping because he can't murder now) and after a debate with the AI God it lets him torture her (dragging her to death behind a motorcycle). They both find the experience arousing.
Chapter 1: Hundreds of years later, Caroline is now part of a group called Death Jockeys who try to find creative (i.e. gory & painful) ways to temporarily kill themselves. After experiencing an amateurish attempt, she flirts with the serial killer who is now her closest friend, before he consensually rapes her to death. They then attend a party which is only open to pre-singularity murderers (Caroline gets an invite because she came the closest to permanently killing herself afterwards). After the party she experiences a death designed by a contemporary Nazi - that of an escapee from a concentration camp who is caught, has her arms and legs broken, and is skinned alive. She's very impressed by it.
Chapter 3: Caroline, who had been in hospital before the singularity, meets one of her nurses 600 years later. The nurse was a junkie who stole her meds, keeping her in pain for months. The nurse asks for forgiveness, so Caroline paralyses her and tortures her into implied irreversible insanity.
Chapter 5: Later, Caroline wants to meet Lawrence, who has set up elaborate puzzles/traps to prevent people reaching him. She gets to him the hard way. This bit's fairly entertaining in a "point-and-click adventure walkthrough" kind of way.
Chapter 7: Caroline's journey concludes. She reaches Lawrence and complains that the AI killed all the aliens. Lawrence agrees and reveals that he was also a lovely programmer and one day the AI will probably crash. Caroline decides she's sick of utopia and forces that crash to happen. The AI manages to restore the original universe, though the Earth is hundreds or thousands of years older and few traces of human structures remain. Oh, and literally all of humanity except for Lawrence and Caroline are killed in the process.
Chapter 8: Caroline distracts Lawrence from "his" genocide by having sex with him. Caroline's skills let them survive, and they fall in love and have children. They decide to avoid all technology as long as possible, allowing fire but not the wheel, and start up some bullshit rituals. Years pass. Several paragraphs describe their thirteen-year-old daughter Nugget losing her virginity to Lawrence. They gently caress the kids, the kids gently caress each other, the incestuous family slowly grows. Eventually Caroline and Lawrence die. The end.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 11:39

Mr. Sunshine: May 15, 2008; This is a scrunt that has been in space too long and become a Lunt (Long Scrunt); Fun Shoe

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is one of the few novels where I find the underlying ideology of the author more revolting than the (still quite revolting) contents of the story.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 13:20

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

quote is not edit.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 13:35

there wolf: Jan 11, 2015; by Fluffdaddy

ulex minor posted:

My ex-girlfriend waged a major campaign to get me to read 'Kushiel's Dart' and once I gave in it was the most challenging experience in my life figuring out a diplomatic way to say 'this is awful beyond all imagining.'

I really like those books, but every time I recommend them to someone, particularly someone who doesn't read a lot of romance or high fantasy, I have to warn about the purple prose. If you're not used to that style, it's a pretty brutal slog.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 15:13

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

there wolf posted:

I really like those books, but every time I recommend them to someone, particularly someone who doesn't read a lot of romance or high fantasy, I have to warn about the purple prose. If you're not used to that style, it's a pretty brutal slog.

I'd honestly be interested in you breaking down why you like them because it gave me flashbacks to that 'Black Jewels' series which is, to be fair, a lot worse.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 15:32

SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL: Feb 21, 2006; Holy Moly! DARKSEID IS!

3D Megadoodoo posted:

I read It when I was a kid (like, 11?*) and the sex scene was just... "why now, all of a sudden?!?".

*) I checked the publishing date of the translation, I was 10 or 11.

I read It around the same age because I liked the TV movie, being a kid that grew up watching horror anthology shows for the monsters/special effects and the morality tale aspects of some stories. Plus the guy from Night Court was in it and I liked that show! When I got to that part I was the same - �...uh. I guess? But why though?� I just wanted to read about giant spider monsters. It was probably the first media I read with 18+ scenes that weren�t implied (I was an advanced reader who loved Greek myth).

Then I learned the reason my mom had the book to begin with was because her OB/GYN gifted it to her while she was pregnant with my twin sisters. :psyduck:

I�m certain she put the book down before she got that far in or I�ve never been allowed to touch that book. Frankly it left me suspicious of much genre fiction afterwards, especially modern stuff. I have multiple memories of passing up nerdy kid/teen standards like Xanth and Pern for 2001 plus sequels and non-fiction books about zoology and how horror monsters are made for film.

Mr. Sunshine posted:

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect is one of the few novels where I find the underlying ideology of the author more revolting than the (still quite revolting) contents of the story.

I�m upset I read the summary.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 15:39

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

Feels like an unpopular opinion but I really don't think the sewer gangbang is so outrageous in the context of the whole story. But like most of King's stuff it does show he is not very good (awful) at writing from a female point of view about sex.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 15:44

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

there wolf posted:

I really like those books, but every time I recommend them to someone, particularly someone who doesn't read a lot of romance or high fantasy, I have to warn about the purple prose. If you're not used to that style, it's a pretty brutal slog.

I read a lot of high fantasy and romance, love me some Tolkien, Jack Vance and Tanith Lee, and I bounced hard off that. I think he's trying to be Vancian with that "monger of spies" stuff, and it's really not working for him.

I mean, compare it with:

Jack Vance posted:

On the heights above the river Xzan, at the site of certain ancient ruins, Iucounu the Laughing Magician had built a manse to his private taste: an eccentric structure of steep gables, balconies, sky-walks, cupolas, together with three spiral green glass towers through which the red sunlight shone in twisted glints and peculiar colors.

Behind the manse and across the valley, low hills rolled away like dunes to the limit of vision. The sun projected shifting crescents of black shadow; otherwise the hills were unmarked, empty, solitary. The Xzan, rising in the Old Forest to the east of Almery, passed below, then three leagues to the west made junction with the Scaum. Here was Azenomei, a town old beyond memory, notable now only for its fair, which attracted folk from all the region. At Azenomei Fair Cugel had established a booth for the sale of talismans.

Cugel was a man of many capabilities, with a disposition at once flexible and pertinacious. He was long of leg, deft of hand, light of finger, soft of tongue. His hair was the blackest of black fur, growing low down his fore-head, coving sharply back above his eyebrows. His darting eye, long inquisitive nose and droll mouth gave his somewhat lean and bony face an expression of vivacity, candor, and affability. He had known many vicissitudes, gaining therefrom a suppleness, a fine discretion, a mastery of both bravado and stealth. Coming into the possession of an ancient lead coffin -- after discarding the contents -- he had formed a number of leaden lozenges.

These, stamped with appropriate seals and runes, he offered for sale at the Azenomei Fair.

Unfortunately for Cugel, not twenty paces from his booth a certain Fianosther had established a larger booth with articles of greater variety and more obvious efficacy, so that whenever Cugel halted a passerby to enlarge upon the merits of his merchandise, the passerby would like as not display an article purchased from Fianosther and go his way.

On the third day of the fair Cugel had disposed of only four periapts, at prices barely above the cost of the lead itself, while Fianosther was hard put to serve all his customers. Hoarse from bawling futile inducements, Cugel closed down his booth and approached Fianosther's place of trade in order to inspect the mode of construction and the fastenings at the door.

ed drat you OCR

Runcible Cat has a new favorite as of 17:23 on Nov 26, 2020

# ? Nov 26, 2020 16:26

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

Serephina posted:

Ugh. I feel queazy reading that. If you squint hard enough, the grammar is justified, but the first impression of every sentence is that something was done wrong.

They adhered to a simplicity that was at once a fanaticism.

Gats Akimbo posted:

I read a lot of high fantasy and romance, love me some Tolkien, Jack Vance and Tanith Lee, and I bounced hard off that. I think he's trying to be Vancian with that "monger of spies" stuff, and it's really not working for him.

I wish Tanith Lee had more eyes on her, she really wrote some excellent stuff and seems a bit overlooked. What's your favourite of her stories/novels?

# ? Nov 26, 2020 16:55

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

ulex minor posted:

I wish Tanith Lee had more eyes on her, she really wrote some excellent stuff and seems a bit overlooked. What's your favourite of her stories/novels?

I'd probably have to say the Tales of the Flat Earth series, with Delirium's Mistress as the standout. I also deeply, deeply love her A Heroine of the World.

But she wrote so much and so much of it is good I'd probably change those choices if you asked me another time. Since you like Lee have you also read Angela Carter? She's basically Lee's litfic sister.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 17:20

A Worrying Warlock: Sep 21, 2009

Groovelord Neato posted:

If I wrote and published the Good Version of RP1 (the one that treats the dystopia properly and understands how broken everything is) and it sold nothing and then saw Cline's book get rave reviews, sell like gangbusters, and get adapted by Spielberg of all people I'd run into traffic.

The good version of RP1 is basically anything early Neill Stephenson wrote, especially Snow Crash. Bit that book worked because it was very well aware of how ridiculous it is, has its tongue firmly in its own cheek yet still managed to be incredibly sincere from time to time.

Compare RP1's protagonist Wade to that of Snow Crash, Hiro Protagonist. Hiro has a name that's absolutely ridiculous and is a total man child. He's a gifted programmer, but his awareness of this manifests as a desire to be bad rear end at everything. Everytime the story shifts into his perspective, everything becomes pure hyperbole. He remains blind to the fact that he lives in a container and is frequently outshone by a fourteen year old kid. He's a ridiculous character, but Stephenson takes great care to balance and ground him. Hiro has talents that he actually had to work hard for and legit loves the tech he works with. It's a pitch perfect picture of the tech scene in California, where there's a love for all things digital and DIY that borders on the fetishistic and everyone has to be the world's greatest - for both the good and bad that holds.

Now take Wade, who's knowledge and greatest achievements are all based purely on rote memorizing of dead culture and being lucky enough that the people around him can do the heavy lifting. Worse, he's written by an author who lacks both the irony and sincerity that Stephenson brings to the table. The result is that Snow Crash still holds up as one of the best shorthands to understanding the metropolitan culture of LA, whereas RP1 mainly works as a great accidental explanation of why we should never ever bring back thinkgeek.com.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 17:25

Dienes: Nov 4, 2009; dee
doot doot dee
doot doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot; College Slice

ulex minor posted:

My ex-girlfriend waged a major campaign to get me to read 'Kushiel's Dart' and once I gave in it was the most challenging experience in my life figuring out a diplomatic way to say 'this is awful beyond all imagining.'

"I'm afraid I couldn't get past the children being groomed from a young age to serve as indentured BDSM servants. Guess I'm a prude!"

# ? Nov 26, 2020 17:42

Ambitious Spider: Feb 13, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

some quick hits:

If King is your bar for bad writing I envy you. Even his worst is leagues above someone like Richard Laymon. Laymon has some really good concepts, but he can't write women and I don't think he has a single book without multiple sexual assaults. Which is all on top of just bad writing.

Tanith Lee-I've only read like one or two of her vampire novels. Not bad, but like Poppy Z Brite gets real incesty

If you want good 80s nostalgia, read Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 17:46

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

Ambitious Spider posted:

Tanith Lee-I've only read like one or two of her vampire novels. Not bad, but like Poppy Z Brite gets real incesty

If you want good 80s nostalgia, read Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism.

Poppy Z Brite is awful, it's this very, very bad 'serial killers in love' kind of stuff written by a 13 year old. It's edgy goosebumps and as a trans person the way they write about that stuff makes me want to bash my head into a wall.

"My Best Friend's Exorcism" is a very light read you could get through in a day and it's not bad I just wish they went more with it. Have to say I really did get chills at the start where she's talking about seeing the figure in the abandoned house. That kind of unsettling in the woods feeling rings very true.

Gats Akimbo posted:

I'd probably have to say the Tales of the Flat Earth series, with Delirium's Mistress as the standout. I also deeply, deeply love her A Heroine of the World.

But she wrote so much and so much of it is good I'd probably change those choices if you asked me another time. Since you like Lee have you also read Angela Carter? She's basically Lee's litfic sister.

Oh Carter is amazing but I just assumed most people here would have read her, The Bloody Chamber obviously. For Tanith I am always going to say, please everyone read: Women as Demons: The Male Perception of Women through Space and Time. It is very, very good. The first short story in that anthology especially.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 17:58

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

Ambitious Spider posted:

some quick hits:

If King is your bar for bad writing I envy you.

Even Kings worst stuff like The Tommyknockers is miles above the kind of stuff that comes up in this thread, and he�s written some genuinely great books.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 18:16

Nucleic Acids: Apr 10, 2007

pentyne posted:

The book will probably sell milions to the people who cry about female ghostbusters ruining their childhood but there are some loving savage reviews

Didn�t Gamemaster Anthony give the movie a negative review in some magazine?

# ? Nov 26, 2020 18:17

ulex minor: Apr 30, 2018

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Even Kings worst stuff like The Tommyknockers is miles above the kind of stuff that comes up in this thread, and he�s written some genuinely great books.

People always bring up The Tommyknockers when they're talking about bad King books but it's actually one of my favourites, it hits a very unnerving and surreal note. Just the part about David being put on Altair 4? Can't remember the exact quote but it was really chilling to me.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 18:29

CharlestheHammer: Jun 26, 2011; YOU SAY MY POSTS ARE THE RAVINGS OF THE DUMBEST PERSON ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH BUT YOU YOURSELF ARE READING THEM. CURIOUS!

I mean the dirty secret is there is no objectively bad book. Doesn�t mean you can�t make fun of ones you dislike tho

# ? Nov 26, 2020 18:40

Ugly In The Morning: Jul 1, 2010; Pillbug

ulex minor posted:

People always bring up The Tommyknockers when they're talking about bad King books but it's actually one of my favourites, it hits a very unnerving and surreal note. Just the part about David being put on Altair 4? Can't remember the exact quote but it was really chilling to me.

Tommyknockers is half a really good book buried in an entire bad book. It had stuff like the Altair 4 bits or the floating killer coke machine but generally every cool bit was mixed in with a crap bit that dragged the pacing down.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 19:13

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

Ambitious Spider posted:

If you want good 80s nostalgia, read Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism.

how do you rewind a novel? like running your thumb across the pages so they all flip?

# ? Nov 26, 2020 19:14

there wolf: Jan 11, 2015; by Fluffdaddy

ulex minor posted:

I'd honestly be interested in you breaking down why you like them because it gave me flashbacks to that 'Black Jewels' series which is, to be fair, a lot worse.

That "a lot worse" is pretty significant. There's this sort of sub genre of romance/other genre fiction books which is pretty loving dire and Kushiel shines above that entire company so much that a good bit of the goodwill towards it comes from that. As this entire conversation is showing, it's easy to be dismissive of the best offerings of a genre when you aren't invested in that genre and haven't had to settle for garbage just to get some representation of what you're interested in.

I genuinely enjoyed the Kushiel books as spy caper, alt-history with some romance. But the most compelling part was probably how much empathy is a driving force, which is pretty unusual in an action story. The fundamental masochism of the heroine is really about not being able to ignore suffering, and the arc of the trilogy is turning that from a weakness into a power. It adds a layer of ethical complexity to everything that happens, and resists the tendency to sort everyone into good and bad camps for narrative simplicity. Compare that to Black Jewels which mostly boils down to a mean girl fantasy of one day being the smartest, most-powerful, most beloved girl who will literally wipe all ~~her enemies~~ the bad people, and just them, from the face of the earth because she's that great.

They've certainly got their flaws, but if you aren't completely tuned off by the prose style (I've got a really high tolerance for exposition and florid prose) then there's a fair amount for your brain to chew on which always rates pretty highly with me. If anyone knows of anything else like it in the smarter romance sense, then I'd love to hear about it.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 19:44

Runcible Cat: May 28, 2007; Ignoring this post

ulex minor posted:

Oh Carter is amazing but I just assumed most people here would have read her, The Bloody Chamber obviously.

Not always a safe assumption around nerds, but probably safer here than in most nerd spaces!

ulex minor posted:

For Tanith I am always going to say, please everyone read: Women as Demons: The Male Perception of Women through Space and Time. It is very, very good. The first short story in that anthology especially.

Forests of the Night is another blinder of a collection, if anyone wants more recs.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 21:13

a podcast for cats: Jun 22, 2005; Dogs reading from an artifact buried in the ruins of our civilization, "We were assholes- " and writing solemnly, "They were assholes."; Soiled Meat

I gave up trying to catch up on 3 and half years of the thread and skipped to last page, only to find that people still talk about Ready Player One.

The original Bourne books were middling to bad, but the 2000s movies were alright for what they were.

edit: oh no

a podcast for cats has a new favorite as of 21:57 on Nov 26, 2020

# ? Nov 26, 2020 21:49

PJOmega: May 5, 2009

Tonton Macoute posted:

I gave up trying to catch up on 3 and half years of the thread and skipped to last page, only to find that people still talk about Ready Player One.

The original Bourne books were middling to bad, but the 2000s movies were alright for what they were.

They're talking about Ready Player Two now.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 21:52

RC and Moon Pie: May 5, 2011

Ugly In The Morning posted:

Tommyknockers is half a really good book buried in an entire bad book. It had stuff like the Altair 4 bits or the floating killer coke machine but generally every cool bit was mixed in with a crap bit that dragged the pacing down.

King agrees.

quote:

King wrote The Tommyknockers at a time when substance abuse was a significant part of his life. Metaphors for the stranglehold of addiction can be found throughout the book.[3] In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, King acknowledged that the quality of his writing suffered during his period of drug use, saying "The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act", adding he believes it could be a good book if it was rewritten to about half its original length.[1]

Crazy, The Tommyknockers was six years after Cujo, which he barely remembers writing at all.

# ? Nov 26, 2020 22:12

Groovelord Neato: Dec 6, 2014

Yeah Tommyknockers is WAY too loving long.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 00:08

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

Tommyknockers is the only King book I could never get through. Though I've dropped out of reading his stuff lately, I think the last one I read was Doctor Sleep. He's got a lot better at writing women over the years.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 00:52

3D Megadoodoo: Nov 25, 2010

HopperUK posted:

Tommyknockers is the only King book I could never get through. Though I've dropped out of reading his stuff lately, I think the last one I read was Doctor Sleep. He's got a lot better at writing women over the years.

He put a sex scene in the "detective novels except the last one where it's Aliens from the Internet" trilogy just because ?!?!?!?

It wasn't even a Really Perverse Stephen King sex scene, just completely unnecessary.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 00:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 21, 2024 10:04

HopperUK: Apr 29, 2007; Why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital?

3D Megadoodoo posted:

He put a sex scene in the "detective novels except the last one where it's Aliens from the Internet" trilogy just because ?!?!?!?

It wasn't even a Really Perverse Stephen King sex scene, just completely unnecessary.

I didn't say he wasn't a weird writer in some ways, I just think he's better at writing women now. Though are those the Mr Mercedes books you're referring to? I've managed not to read them.

# ? Nov 27, 2020 01:04

The Something Awful Forums > Main > Post Your Favorite: Carefully Curated > PYF terrible book: Freud molesting a thesaurus.

«‹›235 »