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 Its a series of books where a 1980s West Virginia mining town is transported back in time to Germany during the 30 Years War. Its fun historical fiction that tries as hard as it can to be somewhat realistic. I especially love that the author makes sure to show that the people in the past were just as smart, if not smarter, than the people from the future. This book is mainly about a series of coincidences that keep on piling up to drive the plot while all the characters are making decisions based on bad or misunderstood intel. It also focuses on some minor characters since its not part of the main novel thread, and we get a lot more time with various people from the past. Its entertaining, although it is hard to keep track of who the characters are and how they fit in the various political landscapes. It loses some points because Gretchen Richter barely shows up, if at all. Henry Lafferts and his gang of "spies" are also absent.
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Jan 31, 2024 01:24
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Narzack posted:Secondhand paperbacks are the greatest things in the world. I don't think I'll read any more of Clavell, but only because they're such a time investment. The company FASA (known for Shadowrun and Battletech) inexplicably made a number of boardgames based on Clavell novels, among them Shogun and Whirlwind, "the family game of adventure in Iran during the final days of the Shah." Kinda a weird thing that exists!
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Jan 31, 2024 13:59
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Started reading Books of Blood vol 1-3 and it's pretty good so far, I like horror fiction. In the hills, the cities is an absolute banger and the stories so far have ranged from "okay" to "absolute banger"
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Jan 31, 2024 14:38
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Zugzwang posted:Pevear + Volokhonsky are great for the major Russian writers. Oh I remember hearing about them. I'll check it out, thanks for the rec
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Jan 31, 2024 15:16
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Sex Farm posted:Started reading Books of Blood vol 1-3 and it's pretty good so far, I like horror fiction. Is Hellbound Heart in that collection? A Strange Aeon posted:The company FASA (known for Shadowrun and Battletech) inexplicably made a number of boardgames based on Clavell novels, among them Shogun and Whirlwind, "the family game of adventure in Iran during the final days of the Shah." That's amazing. Apparently there are a couple text-adventure games based on it, too.
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Jan 31, 2024 18:51
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Jurassic Park's been on my mind since it got mentioned upthread, and I finally jumped in to give it re-read for the first time in probably 15 years. Man it holds up so far, I'm standing by my thought that it's my favorite premise for its general thriller genre, and it seems like it's paying that off so far. Of course I love the movie, but I'm enjoying the stuff that got trimmed out of it. The whole intro tracing procompsognathuses from isolated incidents through the medical/forensic networks to slowly figure out what's going on was a lot of fun in a very Crichton-ish way, and it only barely made it into the movies as the beach scene in Lost World. With how meh the later movies have been, it really puts me in the mood to go back to this one in a miniseries or something which could go through it without rushing through to fit it in a single film.
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Feb 1, 2024 02:47
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Captain Hygiene posted:Jurassic Park's been on my mind since it got mentioned upthread, and I finally jumped in to give it re-read for the first time in probably 15 years. Man it holds up so far, I'm standing by my thought that it's my favorite premise for its general thriller genre, and it seems like it's paying that off so far.  I somehow read the book before seeing the movie, and ofc the math and poo poo went way over my head, but the book is its own interesting story that has very little to do with the movie.
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Feb 1, 2024 03:14
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Finished CHAOS by Tom O'Neill. The first one third was on following up with all the inconsistencies of the Manson murders, the second third really hooked me in with explaining how with the conspiracy element linking CIA projects and law-enforcement to protecting Manson on multiple occasions, then the last third hypes up that Manson was an MK-Ultra success story. However, he is unable to make the direct connection from Jolly West to Manson and the book just... kinda drops the entire thing. The author kind of admits defeat and says "this book is all of the progress I was able to make until I ran out of money and time." He does end it by giving the interview he did with Manson himself, but it was mostly just gibberish and didn't really conclude anything except that they both thought Vincent Bugliosi was a huge piece of poo poo. All of the photos at the end of the book were also cool to add-in. Reading the Devil's Chessboard next.
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Feb 1, 2024 03:42
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Captain Hygiene posted:Jurassic Park's been on my mind since it got mentioned upthread, and I finally jumped in to give it re-read for the first time in probably 15 years. Man it holds up so far, I'm standing by my thought that it's my favorite premise for its general thriller genre, and it seems like it's paying that off so far. The part where they figure out they hosed up by only giving a poo poo when the number of dinosaurs goes down instead of up is great. Its a great book.
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Feb 1, 2024 03:49
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Captain Hygiene posted:Jurassic Park's been on my mind since it got mentioned upthread, and I finally jumped in to give it re-read for the first time in probably 15 years. Man it holds up so far, I'm standing by my thought that it's my favorite premise for its general thriller genre, and it seems like it's paying that off so far. It's so extremely good. Think I'll also give it a reread next. gently caress it, Congo, too.
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Feb 1, 2024 05:20
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I want a Jurassic Park type book where instead of Laura dern and Jeff goldblum etc they introduce a bunch of house cats to the island and then the dinosaurs go extinct again I would also accept it if the cats and dinosaurs teamed up and humans went extinct
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Feb 1, 2024 06:47
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cumpantry posted:I've only read Stoner, which is the best book ive ever read, also Oh man, I just finished it. I'm not quite sure I can even articulate my thoughts on it properly. I've never read a character study like that before and I went into it blind, so it took me about half a book to understand what exactly I was reading. I was completely in awe Williams' writing throughout it, made a lot of notes in a notebook with passages throughout. The characters are written with such realism and honesty that it was at many times infuriating watching them go about their lives, but it really is a great depiction of a man's life and the human condition. I appreciated Stoner's ability to remain stoic and generally content in the face of so many awful events, but at the same time, damnit Willy, quit being so fuckin passive! This chunk really stuck with me. What a writer Williams is. "He learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end, but a process through which one person attempts to know eachother." "In his extreme youth Stoner had thought of love as an absolute state of being to which, if one were lucky, one might find access; in his maturity he had decided it was the heaven of a false religion, toward which one ought to gaze with an amused disbelief, a gently familiar contempt and an embarrassed nostalgia. Now in his middle age he began to know that it was neither a state of grace nor an illusion; he saw it as a human act of becoming, a condition that was invented and modified moment by moment and day by day, by the will and intelligence and the heart. " Szechwan fucked around with this message at 08:29 on Feb 1, 2024 |
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Feb 1, 2024 07:53
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Decided to indulge my inner child and read something simple and stupid. The action scenes are nicely described, I guess...? That's all the positive I can muster about it.
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Feb 1, 2024 08:02
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Entorwellian posted:Finished CHAOS by Tom O'Neill. The first one third was on following up with all the inconsistencies of the Manson murders, the second third really hooked me in with explaining how with the conspiracy element linking CIA projects and law-enforcement to protecting Manson on multiple occasions, then the last third hypes up that Manson was an MK-Ultra success story. However, he is unable to make the direct connection from Jolly West to Manson and the book just... kinda drops the entire thing. The author kind of admits defeat and says "this book is all of the progress I was able to make until I ran out of money and time." He does end it by giving the interview he did with Manson himself, but it was mostly just gibberish and didn't really conclude anything except that they both thought Vincent Bugliosi was a huge piece of poo poo. All of the photos at the end of the book were also cool to add-in. Poisoner in Chief might help paint a more complete picture on how Manson was a "success" since it talks a lot more about Sidney Gottlieb's obsession with altered mental states and just how often acid and other drugs were used on ordinary citizens.
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Feb 1, 2024 11:51
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FINALLY getting around to Wodehouse. We’ve had some of his books on the shelf for years and never got around to cracking them open, but a combo of general winter blues, work stress, and recently finishing North American Lake Monsters inspired starting in on The Code of the Woosters. It’s so light and… bouncy? Definitely the perfect thing to read at the end of the day right now.
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Feb 1, 2024 13:49
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mysterious frankie posted:Wodehouse I've read a fair amount of his stuff, but most/all of the Wooster & Jeeves stories, they just clicked perfectly. Just very good, densely packed comedic writing, and adding such a specific narrative voice put them a step ahead of his other stories.
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Feb 1, 2024 16:58
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i'm reading Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer. it's the fourth and final book in a scifi series called Terra Ignota this is a series i've been reading slowly for the past two years. slowly both because the writing is rather dense and reference-heavy in parts, and also because of an extraordinary amount of hosed up stuff in my life during that time which has kept me from reading at my normal rate. i'm now about 30 pages from the end, but it's one of those series that takes a long time ending. (also i took a break in the middle to read Deborah Madison's autobiography) the series has some truly fascinating world-building. the author is a professor of renaissance studies so even though it's scifi or at least speculative fiction it is largely concerned with philosophy and politics, much moreso than technology. the story takes place in the 25th century at a point where there has been no major war for over two centuries now and instead of geographic nations, humanity is mostly organized into seven values-based "hives" that people choose to join. discussing religion in the open is illegal outside of special reservations. gender has largely disappeared from public life. the moon has a city on it, and mars is in very early stages of terraforming, but the story is about earth. the overall arc of the plot follows the global collapse of this "hive system" and way of living, and a glimpse of what comes after. what i like about it is that as someone who was really into medieval and renaissance history in college it's nice and refreshing to read scifi that makes such heavy use of a lot of what i've read in very different contexts. i also like that the plot has many legitimately surprising turns of events and well-done reveals. and the scope of the thing is huge. there's also a fair amount that i don't like about it, but i think overall i'm still on the positive side. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Feb 1, 2024 |
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Feb 1, 2024 17:11
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Captain Hygiene posted:I've read a fair amount of his stuff, but most/all of the Wooster & Jeeves stories, they just clicked perfectly. Just very good, densely packed comedic writing, and adding such a specific narrative voice put them a step ahead of his other stories. All our Wodehouse is Jeeves & Wooster. I also have a Robert Aickman collection I’ve been meaning to dig into, but it’s all Wodehouse all the time until morale improves.
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Feb 1, 2024 19:02
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Next on my 2024 reading blitz: Catch 22 Jurrassic Park Blood Meridian
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Feb 2, 2024 18:59
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Hunter S Thompson - Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 He was loving prescient about so much of modern America.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:13
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Szechwan posted:Blood Meridian I've said it elsewhere, but Cormac McCarthy is an author made for audiobooks. I love his style and dialogue, but after listening to a couple others, I picked up a print copy of this one and was very surprised and put off by his written style. It works very well for me when someone else is reading it aloud, but I just don't like reading it visually.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:21
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Captain Hygiene posted:I've said it elsewhere, but Cormac McCarthy is an author made for audiobooks. I love his style and dialogue, but after listening to a couple others, I picked up a print copy of this one and was very surprised and put off by his written style. It works very well for me when someone else is reading it aloud, but I just don't like reading it visually. I just finished Blood Meridian, and while the prose is often beautifully lyrical, the heavy polysyndeton usage made getting through sections sometimes difficult. There are instances of almost entire pages as single sentences, and I'd have to occasionally backtrack to find my place in the progression. I'd be interested to hear how it comes off in audio form.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:34
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Dr. Gojo Shioji posted:I just finished Blood Meridian, and while the prose is often beautifully lyrical, the heavy polysyndeton usage made getting through sections sometimes difficult. There are instances of almost entire pages as single sentences, and I'd have to occasionally backtrack to find my place in the progression. I'd be interested to hear how it comes off in audio form. I had to look up polysyndetone, I hadn't heard it before, but the usage example reminded me exactly of his writing  And yeah, that type of construction can get old either way, but I often find a good narrator can make it sound starkly poetic in a way that doesn't work so well when I'm reading it myself.
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Feb 2, 2024 19:55
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Yeah, I can see that. I read No County and The Road, and that really put me off. Is the Blood Meridian audiobook good, then?
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Feb 2, 2024 20:00
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After many failed attempts, Blood Meridian is finally going to adapted to film. McCarthy has signed on, and John Hillcoat will direct. He previously adapted The Road.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:06
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I've read soooooo many books, but never once listened to an audiobook. I'm not in any way opposed, but just stuck in my ways I guess. At this point I'm so wary/tired of new subscriptions and online services and such.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:09
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the only McCarthy ive read is the border trilogy, of which i enjoyed the first two books but the third wasn't so great. but i've heard all of the film adaptations of them suck.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:09
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I find audiobooks too slow.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:13
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goatface posted:I find audiobooks too slow.   J/k, but I do speed them up a bit in general. I can understand not getting into them, but I totally am. I averaged a handful of hours per day last year and got through so many more books than I ever would, trying to mark off time to sit down and read. Narzack posted:Yeah, I can see that. I read No County and The Road, and that really put me off. Is the Blood Meridian audiobook good, then? It's been a while, but I generally liked it. I really loved No Country in that form, for whatever it's worth (although it's been even longer for that one).
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Feb 2, 2024 20:19
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Audiobooks are good for novels and nonfiction but for anything with heavier prose or just dense writing in general they don’t work at all for me. Something like McCarthy deserves a slow and deliberate reading.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:29
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Blood Meridian was an intense read, I can’t imagine a movie adaptation being as dark as needed. Not sure I even want to see that on a screen personally. I tried to read Sutree next and couldn’t get past the bunch of drunk homeless guys wacking off in a boat, like I’m sure there is some kind of really great deep artistic thematic something something going on but just, too much boat spanking
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Feb 2, 2024 20:53
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I listened to all of HP Lovecraft's stuff on YouTube, because this guy has the perfect voice and accent for it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiY3wz6ZcM0 Maybe don't do it at work though
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Feb 2, 2024 21:50
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i dont see the application of audiobooks without a real commute to listen to them through. sitting in traffic for an hour is miserable so i understand craving a story. but when else am i supposed to feel like specifically listening? am i meant to sit on the couch and just close my eyes or something? lay in bed? very strange concept. if i'm specifically reading then i'm taking the time to understand the author and that means rereading passages or just in general setting my pace. otherwise im meant to pretend theres just this guy in my living room talking to me who i cant stop and ask for clarification without screeching the brakes? i like to listen to music while reading, now ive got to gently caress around with an audio mixer like im producing an album just to balance it and whatever rear end in a top hat i have yapping in my ears. it really would be different if a trained orator recited a tale before me but that but canned doesnt sound that appealing. the more i ramble about this the more set in my way i feel that audiobooks are lame as hell. dont even get me started about the Nintendo Switch
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Feb 2, 2024 22:23
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cumpantry posted:i dont see the application of audiobooks without a real commute to listen to them through. sitting in traffic for an hour is miserable so i understand craving a story. but when else am i supposed to feel like specifically listening? am i meant to sit on the couch and just close my eyes or something? lay in bed? very strange concept. if i'm specifically reading then i'm taking the time to understand the author and that means rereading passages or just in general setting my pace. otherwise im meant to pretend theres just this guy in my living room talking to me who i cant stop and ask for clarification without screeching the brakes? i like to listen to music while reading, now ive got to gently caress around with an audio mixer like im producing an album just to balance it and whatever rear end in a top hat i have yapping in my ears. it really would be different if a trained orator recited a tale before me but that but canned doesnt sound that appealing. the more i ramble about this the more set in my way i feel that audiobooks are lame as hell. dont even get me started about the Nintendo Switch baal runs
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Feb 2, 2024 22:23
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cumpantry posted:i dont see the application of audiobooks without a real commute to listen to them through. sitting in traffic for an hour is miserable so i understand craving a story. but when else am i supposed to feel like specifically listening? am i meant to sit on the couch and just close my eyes or something? lay in bed? they are nice when doing some basic task that doesn't require a ton of thought like cleaning my place or folding laundry or prepping food etc
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Feb 2, 2024 22:46
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i guess if i had a planned chore day they could work, cuz individually those tasks don't usually take more than thirty minutes... at a speaker's pace, what is that, the prologue?
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Feb 2, 2024 23:00
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cumpantry posted:i guess if i had a planned chore day they could work, cuz individually those tasks don't usually take more than thirty minutes... at a speaker's pace, what is that, the prologue? yeah exactly its good if you are doing a bunch of chores, or if you are planning and then prepping and then cooking an elaborate meal also good for flights, or while doing a puzzle, or drawing, or grinding in some rpg etc also i did used to just lie in bed and listen to them when i was a kid, but i haven't done that in years now.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:28
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cumpantry posted:i guess if i had a planned chore day they could work, cuz individually those tasks don't usually take more than thirty minutes... at a speaker's pace, what is that, the prologue? I share many of your opinions about audiobooks, but I also admit I fear change. So I'm just spitballing here, but why not just sit in a nice seat with maybe a snack and drink and listen for a half hour? It can be an entertainment in and of itself, like reading itself, and not just a background activity. I might try it, but...
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Feb 2, 2024 23:32
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Earwicker posted:yeah exactly its good if you are doing a bunch of chores, or if you are planning and then prepping and then cooking an elaborate meal Yeah, a lot of my listening time is spent doing chores or work/games that don't take much brainpower. I also listen when going to sleep or if I have insomnia, but I generally keep those times to stuff that I've read before so it doesn't matter too much if I nod off and miss a bit.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:35
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If I'm not doing anything I would much rather read the book myself. If I am doing something, there is such a fine balance point between "too slow, painful to listen to" and "too fast, not catching the content" that I just cannot be arsed to carefully locate it. Podcasts I only need to catch 40% of the context of can fill that space.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:44
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