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War Master's Gate by Adrian Tchaikovsky. If you haven't read the Shadows of the Apt series and you like fantasy with an edge, holy poo poo why haven't you picked up this guy's stuff. This is the penultimate book in the series and while he's never been shy about killing off characters or showing people in utterly desperate situations he basically pulls out all the stops here. Can't wait for the last book next year.
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# ? Oct 8, 2013 22:09 |
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# ? Jun 13, 2024 06:09 |
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The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth. I believe it's been out for a while, but just recently made it officially to American shores. Collecting words "..too beautiful to live long, too amusing to be taken seriously, too precise to become common, too vulgar to survive in polite company, or too poetic to thrive in this age of prose" from a variety of old and arcane dictionaries, the author takes you on a rumbustious romp through the more obscure nooks and crannies of the English language. I'd describe the writing style as sorta Douglas Adams meets a very passionate English professor with a historical bent (it's both very interesting and entertaining.) I can't copy/paste from the electronic copy I read, so here are two excerpts I typed up: In a section discussing aristology (that is, the study of breakfasts): quote:Essentially, Agamemnon gives a long speech commanding the Greeks jentaculate (which is a posh way of saying "eat your breakfast"). Achilles, though, is having none of it, and gives an even longer speech pointing out that they are late for work (i.e. killling Trojans) and really ought to get on with it." On a subsection about smoking: quote:In the seventeenth century, smokers were even given the ridiculously romantic title of 'fume gallants', conjuring an image of white knights with yellow teeth. There used to be none of this nonsense about smoking being bad for you. In fact, it was once generally recognised (but since covered up by misocapnist spoilsports) that smoking cures you (a fact that has always been known to salmon). Other great words: snollygoster (a shrewd, unprincipled person, esp. a politician... see also, "throttlebottom"), "tooting glass" and "rum-peeper" (respectively: Elizabethan and 18th century highwayman terms for "mirror"), "Newgate fringe" (neckbeard, so called because Newgate was a prison in London where people were hanged, hence the resemblance to a noose around the neck), and "jumbleguts" (a bumpy road). It's mostly old stuff from the UK, although 1940's hepster slang and stuff like "gabos" ("Game Ain't Based On Sympathy", originating in the modern criminal underworld of Miami) also finds its way in. Basically I'm a huge nerd when it comes to the English language and this book is just awesome
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 02:13 |
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Just finished Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. Fun little read, perfect for this time of year. I know some people get annoyed with his style, but I rather enjoyed it--it was like being told a story around a campfire.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 14:47 |
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I've been binging through the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell these days. I'm past Waterloo and up to the prequels in India now. Excellent pulpy historical fiction adventure yarns. I've been reading them in publication order, in case anyone's curious.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 14:53 |
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I just finished Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England by Juliet R. V. Barker. Good read. I knew the general story (english longbowmen defeat thousands of knights, change how war is fought) but the book goes into the history leading up to Henry's invasion as well. Definitely worth checking out.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 15:35 |
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Finished Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy about a month ago. I know I liked them, but I'm still undecided as to how much. Some great characters and amazing, edge of your seat fight scenes, but the world felt a little underdeveloped and the structure of the story was strange in places - there are big buildups that seem at first to have little payoff (such as the siege of Dagoska in book 2) until much later when you see what's really going on. Probably my biggest complaint is that at the end of the series, plenty happened but it seemed to all be setup for the next volumes. I actually liked the end, though I've heard a lot of complaining about it, but I wish it offered a little more resolution. (Also not crazy about the Invasion of the Brown People trope getting wheeled out again.) From there moved on to John Dies at the End, which I found amusing but irritating, mostly the writing. Once I found out it was written by the editor in chief of Cracked, a lot made sense to me - I knew I recognized that sometimes-funny, sometimes-annoying cleverer than thou writing style from somewhere.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 15:55 |
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I've been reading a lot of really light stuff recently, trying to ease myself back into the university year. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell was a pretty enjoyable, breezy romance as long as you could get past the initial premise that a guy whose job it is to read your email and report you to your boss if you're violating the company's codes of practice would be in any way a viable prospect, especially as he starts to like you when he's reading your email without you knowing about it. The writing definitely lifts it a little bit, and I'll probably check out the author's books for younger readers, but the sheer implausibility of the situation definitely dampened my enthusiasm a little. Sunshine on Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith - I'm not really into Smith's cosy mysteries, but I love these books because they depict a certain aspect of Scottish life which is largely associated with Edinburgh, and to an extent with part of Glasgow near where I live as well. The chapter in these books are published weekly (I think) in the Scotsman newspaper, and the serialisation sows, though not necessarily in a bad way. I think the best way to describe them is as a "cosy soap opera" - they're just tales of affluent people living their lives and nothing really bad ever happens to anyone. His character observation is spot-on - the people leap off the page at you. However, at nine books and counting, I'm not really sure if it's necessary for the series to keep going as it is getting a little repetitive, with characters - and AMS - seemingly forgetting things that happened in previous books, particularly any character development that Irene and Bruce ever get. Definitely not for everyone, but very sweet. I'm currently reading The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly - it's not something I would ordinarily have picked but my friend bought me it as a birthday present. It seems a little overly self-conscious, particularly in the "magical" aspect so far but I'm quite enjoying it. It might be a difficult one to read if you've recently lost someone close to you though, especially if it's a parent. The first few chapters deal with the loss of the main character's mother and it's very well depicted. I lost my father two and a half years ago and I had a lump in my throat when the son views his mother's body.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 17:43 |
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Cream_Filling posted:I've been binging through the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell these days. I'm past Waterloo and up to the prequels in India now. Excellent pulpy historical fiction adventure yarns. I've been reading them in publication order, in case anyone's curious. Finagle posted:I just finished Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England by Juliet R. V. Barker. I laughed seeing the two of these back-to-back. Bernard Cornwell's Agincourt is still one of my favorite historical fiction novels. I always enjoy reading about major battles from the soldier's eye but I prefer it when it's a nameless guy in the ranks and not some Shaara-esque version where the POV is from notable historical characters (not that I have anything against Shaara - just my personal preference).
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 19:10 |
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MillionsV posted:Since Jonathan Lethem's new novel was released a month or so ago, I decided to read Motherless Brooklyn. That's one of my favorite books I've read in the past 10 years, and sadly nothing Lethem has written before or since has been as much fun. I wouldn't call this "fun" but if you like the idea of taking a standard mystery and weaving philosophy/linguistics around it, try Paul Auster's New York Trilogy if you haven't already. It's a collection of three novellas, often published together, separately titled City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room.
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# ? Oct 9, 2013 21:05 |
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Re-read The Shining thinking it should be fresh in my mind before I read Doctor Sleep. Now I doubt I'll bother. Yes, it was a page-turner, but I just don't like King's writing. I think reading IT so recently just overloaded my "not-awful-but-still-pretty-bad-prose" receptors. I will say that The Shining was a better book than IT, most likely because it was only half as long. Even then, it really should have been edited down by a third. Also, does King just add black characters to his book so he can get away with writing "friend of the family" 500 times and writing dialog in that horrible stereotypical black patois that he thinks is so authentic?
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# ? Oct 11, 2013 14:59 |
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Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. I really enjoyed Vonnegut's rambling mix of biography with Kilgore Trout's adventure. Any Vonnegut fan would enjoy the read, but I would suggest anyone who is not familiar with the author read at least one of his other books, first. And I'll drop a few quotes, here: "Even with military training, there is no way a man can accidentally blow his head off with a shotgun." "Quoting Trout again: 'The horse knew the way home.' But when the rerun ended, the horse, which might actually have been anything from a motor scooter to a jumbo jet, didn't know the way home anymore. People were going to have to tell it what to do next, if it wasn't going to be an utterly amoral plaything of Newton's Laws of Motion." "He said without a scintilla of regret, 'I made sandwiches of German soldiers between an erupting Earth and an exploding sky, and in a blizzard of razor blades.'" "Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let to anybody tell you any different!"
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# ? Oct 11, 2013 16:52 |
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I just finished Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's the first I've read by him, and I enjoyed it quite a bit for the most part. One thing I'll definitely say to its credit is that, unlike a lot of stories where a captivating puzzle or mystery loses all mystique when the curtain is pulled back, the payoff here is very satisfying. It felt a little slow at times, but that might be because I've been busy with school and read it in small chunks. Anyway, for something I randomly picked up used for a few dollars at a bookstore, it was well worth it. I can see multiple readings paying off as well.
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# ? Oct 11, 2013 18:16 |
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Nikaer Drekin posted:I just finished Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. It's the first I've read by him, and I enjoyed it quite a bit for the most part. One thing I'll definitely say to its credit is that, unlike a lot of stories where a captivating puzzle or mystery loses all mystique when the curtain is pulled back, the payoff here is very satisfying. It felt a little slow at times, but that might be because I've been busy with school and read it in small chunks. Anyway, for something I randomly picked up used for a few dollars at a bookstore, it was well worth it. I can see multiple readings paying off as well. I can't speak for re-reads, but there's two other books by Gibson in the same vein if you weren't aware of them already. The Blue Ant set isn't a strict trilogy in my opinion, but Bigend's meddling remains a constant and knits the three together; Spook Country and Zero History being the next two. I liked them, quite a bit. Now that we're aware that we're not going to hook everything to cyberspace and deck into it, and that Japan isn't going to take over the world after the soviets go bananas, now that we know that we're not going to have strong AI and a Turing Agency in the next couple decades (i'll leave the plausibility of ungovernable ultracorporations, routine commercial spaceflight, and a solid block of NYC-DC conurbation to someone else) moving his 'gang of just on the wrong side of the law people with unusual talents bouncing off of cutthroat capitalism' shtick into the confused space of what's probable in ten minutes from today really worked for me a lot better than his non-Neuromancer attempts at cyberpunk did.
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# ? Oct 12, 2013 03:03 |
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I just finished The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, and absolutely loved it. I don't know why it has taken so long for me to pick up Barker's work, but on the strength of Heart I went on an Amazon spending spree, grabbing Book of Blood Vol. 1-3 and the Hellraiser graphic novels. Anyone else a fan?
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# ? Oct 12, 2013 21:57 |
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Barker is great. Make sure to pick up The Thief of Always, Abarat, and Imajica as well
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# ? Oct 12, 2013 22:06 |
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casual poster posted:Finished Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, like it a lot more than I thought I was going to. My first time reading Baldwin and I was not let down. He wrote the narrator so fluently, so beautifully, going through all of his shame at being in a relationship with a man but also his happiness. It was a great read (is this what you call a "coming-of-age" book?) and I'd like to read more dealing wtih the same subject. Giovanni's Room was my first experience with Baldwin as well, it's a great novel. I don't really have any recommendations that are similar except Queer by Burrough's. For a great piece of non-fiction from Baldwin, pick up The Evidence of Things Not Seen, his journalistic investigation into the Atlanta child murders of the 1980's. It perfectly pinpoints the real issues of racism in the U.S..
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# ? Oct 12, 2013 22:34 |
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:I just finished The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, and absolutely loved it. I don't know why it has taken so long for me to pick up Barker's work, but on the strength of Heart I went on an Amazon spending spree, grabbing Book of Blood Vol. 1-3 and the Hellraiser graphic novels. Anyone else a fan? That's definitely the best of his pure horror output, Damnation Game is fantastic as well. I've read most of his stuff back when I was getting weary of Stephen King and it was such a breath of fresh air. Also, if anyone's been keeping track of the progress of The Scarlet Gospels over the years, exciting news! quote:"I thought you might like to know that THE SCARLET GOSPELS, a large novel which sets Harry D'Amour against the Hell Priest Pinhead, is finished, and has been delivered to my agent. I don't yet have a publication date for it, but as soon as I do you'll be the first to know. I won't say anything about the narrative except this: it's a HORROR NOVEL with the graphic violence and perverse eroticism of the most intense tales from the Books Of Blood. Please feel free to share this news with any friends who might have been wondering about the book: THE SCARLET GOSPELS ARE FINISHED." hope and vaseline fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Oct 12, 2013 |
# ? Oct 12, 2013 22:56 |
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Just finished my first Dickens, Great Expectations. I already knew the plot from watching the BBC version a couple of years back at Christmas. I thought it was pretty engaging, but felt that Dickens is really weird with how much writing he devotes to the mundane versus the action. He'll write a whole chapter about having afternoon tea at someone's house, but then a character will get attacked or whatever and their ordeal will only occupy 2 paragraphs.
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# ? Oct 13, 2013 11:34 |
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I always thought that a lot of his writing was like that because he originally wrote most of his stuff in serial format. So you'd get a little bit of the story revealed every week/month/whatever. I would assume that something like that wouldn't transition as smoothly once compiled into a big novel. I dunno! pixelbaron fucked around with this message at 14:40 on Oct 13, 2013 |
# ? Oct 13, 2013 14:35 |
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:I just finished The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker, and absolutely loved it. I don't know why it has taken so long for me to pick up Barker's work, but on the strength of Heart I went on an Amazon spending spree, grabbing Book of Blood Vol. 1-3 and the Hellraiser graphic novels. Anyone else a fan? Oh yes, from way back. Which reminds me that I haven't read past the first Abarat book yet.
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# ? Oct 14, 2013 05:44 |
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Yet another case of a strangely fitting book combination: The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. The story of a fictional 19th century misogynist, racist antisemitic forger who works for various European intelligence agencies, making up increasingly preposterous documents and conspiracies at their behest, ultimately creating The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Umberto Eco loves, looooveees conspiracy theories, history and loving with his readers. The book is written with such gusto, you can practically hear him laughing all the way through as the completely detestable protagonist plots and schemes with and against what initially seems like mostly fictional characters set against a historical backdrop. Initially you are laughing with him, but as (at least for me) the realization of what the book is actually about sets in, it turns out that he's laughing at you, and yet you still can't help laughing at how awful the whole situation is becoming. Eco has a very peculiar sense of humour which might make this book hard to swallow if you are not familiar with his earlier works, especially Focault's Pendulum, which it resembles quite a bit. Personally I highly enjoyed it, but it's probably not something everyone can like. A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges. Short stories about "historical" criminals. "Historical" is in parentheses because I honestly couldn't tell which ones were real, which ones completely made up by Borges and which ones were a bit of both, reminding me a lot of Eco's book (which makes sense, since Eco is a big fan of Borges). In addition to those short stories, the book also contains essays on different topics such as the various translations of 1001 Nights and obscure nordic poetry, all of which might again be completely made up by Borges. A wikipedia search confirms that they are in fact real, but from his previous short stories it is hard to believe that he is actually being honest (and I still don't know if it's just a big joke). Basically I love Borges.
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# ? Oct 14, 2013 18:22 |
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IM_DA_DECIDER posted:The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco. The story of a fictional 19th century misogynist, racist antisemitic forger who works for various European intelligence agencies, making up increasingly preposterous documents and conspiracies at their behest, ultimately creating The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Simone Simonini's adventures in Italy during the Italian "Risorgimento" in the 1860s can be a chore if you're not into that sort of historical writing. The book is superb, but sometimes Eco tends to lose himself in details that offer (very) little to the overall storyline. HUGE SPOILER: Dalla Picolla's entries in the 'shared' diary were (to me) a too obvious clue Simone Siminoni has a double personality and became clear a few chapters before the end. Or maybe I'm too familiar with Eco to be surprised. The end itself just breathes 19th century dime novel, and that's precisely what Eco had in mind when he wrote the book. In terms of style and layout (different fonts, bolding, images) it's a 1 on 1 carbon copy of similar 19th century novels. It's a great novel but reading it can be difficult if you're not into a lot of European history. HighClassSwankyTime fucked around with this message at 08:28 on Oct 15, 2013 |
# ? Oct 15, 2013 08:26 |
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HighClassSwankyTime posted:Simone Simonini's adventures in Italy during the Italian "Risorgimento" in the 1860s can be a chore if you're not into that sort of historical writing. The book is superb, but sometimes Eco tends to lose himself in details that offer (very) little to the overall storyline. I agree, that part was quite the slog, although I did like the detailed recipes for various dishes. About the spoiler, at one point either Simonini or the narrator himself mentions that having a double personality would be a really cheap and unworthy cliche, so I found it quite funny when it actually turned out the way it did.
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# ? Oct 16, 2013 01:37 |
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The Sky People by S.M. Stirling So much pulp: Dinosaur parking brakes, gently caress-off safari rifles, Browning Hi-Powers that don't kersplode when chambered in 10mm, nubile natives, damsels in distress kicking rear end as much as their rescuers, Neanderthals with AK 47s, tamed giant wolf-thing, and a Cajun on a tear around Venus. May take some load off The Hobbit and H2G2 on the re-read shelf. Butch Cassidy fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Oct 16, 2013 |
# ? Oct 16, 2013 19:33 |
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Butch Cassidy posted:The Sky People by S.M. Stirling Sorry, did you just say you'd re-read an S.M. Stirling book?
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# ? Oct 16, 2013 22:49 |
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Yes. I have an unapologetic soft spot in my heart for pulp in all of its horrible glory. I also re-watch Mosquito at least once a year
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# ? Oct 16, 2013 23:06 |
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Loved it. Way, way funnier than I expected it to be. I didn't pick up on all the supposed innuendo, though. I mean, aside from the obvious
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# ? Oct 19, 2013 14:09 |
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Groke posted:Oh yes, from way back. Which reminds me that I haven't read past the first Abarat book yet. Man oh man, you gots to get on that. It goes so much deeper, and gets surprisingly dark for what's ostensibly a younger-level YA series. To Contribute: City of Thieves by David Benioff. He does a great job at illustrating the relationship between the two, and later three, main characters, to the point where I think I felt all of Lev's pain when Kolya is shot and dies slowly, and I presume painfully. That ending was a killer.
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 03:07 |
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Just finished The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett. Fun read. I might have to visit Discworld again some time...
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 04:38 |
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If you actually liked Colour of Magic, then the actually good Pratchett books (Mort ->) will blow your mind for sure..
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 08:31 |
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mallamp posted:If you actually liked Colour of Magic, then the actually good Pratchett books (Mort ->) will blow your mind for sure.. This. Start with Small Gods.
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 11:27 |
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Jedit posted:This. Start with Small Gods. Or Going Postal.
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 11:48 |
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The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell ~ Strong speculative fiction puts well-intentioned scientists and explorers on a new planet and focuses on the psychological fallout of entering a new world and catalyzing irrevocable changes. Some parts get bogged down by Russell's eagerness to make the reader like her characters. A few instances of brutal clarity make up for these weak elements. The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth ~ Acerbic romp through a dystopian future controlled by corporations and advertising agencies. The story is straightforward, the prose amusing, and the message clear - manufacturing demand for disposable CPGs, leaving all public-sphere functions to the private sector, and provisioning disproportionate political clout to corporate interests might not turn out for the best. The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis ~ "On the two occasions I had seen her last August I underwent several complete identity reorganizations, settling between the pained, laconic, inscrutable type and the knowing, garrulous, cynical, laugh a minute, yet something demonic about him, muted death-wish type." His first novel. The story is familiar (young man coming-of-age has plenty of booze and sex while falling in and out of love), but Amis's prose already crackles with knowledge, wit, and precision. Looking back, Amis has derided the novel's lack of craft compared to his later works. I think the protagonist's shameless solipsism and the endless supply of razor-sharp passages overcome any structural deficiencies as long as you can ignore the more or less unoriginal plot.
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 18:48 |
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Jedit posted:Sorry, did you just say you'd re-read an S.M. Stirling book? The Sky People and In The Courts of the Crimson Kings are pretty-well-written retro-pulp books that deserve to have been written by someone other than Stirling, but what can you do. (I won't read any of his other stuff, but I really liked how the Mars book redid a lot of John Carter-esque things without making them horrible.) I just got back from a long trip, which is how I do most of my reading these days, so I've finished:
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 20:54 |
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mallamp posted:If you actually liked Colour of Magic, then the actually good Pratchett books (Mort ->) will blow your mind for sure.. Cool, will do. Magic was junk food for sure, but I needed something like it to kinda snap me out of my recent reading doldrums.
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# ? Oct 20, 2013 23:03 |
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tonytheshoes posted:Cool, will do. Magic was junk food for sure, but I needed something like it to kinda snap me out of my recent reading doldrums. Reading Discworld in order from the start is like frequenting a restaurant that only serves junk food to begin with, but over the years it slowly, almost imperceptibly turns into fine dining while keeping all the same staff and decor, and suddenly you realise you're eating one of the most delicious steaks you've ever had (with matching wine) in your favourite booth by the corner and you're like "wow".
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# ? Oct 21, 2013 01:51 |
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I just finished Infinite Jest and holy poo poo it was amazing. I was so very very sad at the end because it had been a really good companion for the past few weeks. I honestly can't remember the last book I read that grabbed my attention while also making me empathize with the characters, or in the book's terms ID with them. It is a bit of a hard read if you take a long time to read books though, the story goes off on some tangents that aren't immediately important but will be a while later, IMO this makes it a better read because the writing style is so unique. Now its time to pick up some easy lovely books for the next month or so before I go and read another heavy novel.
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# ? Oct 21, 2013 03:06 |
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Man, I like big 'pretentious' books, but I just couldn't stand the part of Infinite Jest that I managed to get through. Didn't find it funny, hated the prose, found all the characters weird and alienating, deepened my already considerable loathing of tennis. I'll have to go back to it one day because so many people liked it that I think the fault must be with me and I'm absolutely determined to discover something in it. I read Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Delany. Obviously I already like his writing - my username's taken from Dhalgren - and, similarly to that book, the plot here is little more than a hook around which to arrange explorations of sexuality, culture, language and psychology. Ostensibly it's a sort of love story focused around a slave worker, the survivor of a planet-destroying 'cultural fugue', and a diplomat who investigates the fugue, but the real focus for me was on the meticulously constructed family and social structures of the various places and planets the book takes place in. The diplomat, Marq, lives in a duo-racial family and society where humans coexist with draconic creatures who speak with many tongues, taste stones and eat the flesh of their friends; Rat comes from a dystopian world where people undergo voluntary 'anxiety termination' to become manual labourers. There is a very fun section about trying to maintain social niceties at an elaborate multi-racial, multi-family dinner party, in which it's very important where you stand... It never goes anywhere. The sexual focus feels at times self-indulgent and at times creepy. Dhalgren is a stronger book. But the imagery is vivid, every interaction between characters feels as if there is a wealth of unstated history and meaning behind it, and if you enjoy what I can only describe as fictional anthropology, then you will like this book.
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# ? Oct 21, 2013 14:51 |
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edit: wrong thread.
Zsa Zsa Gabor fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Oct 22, 2013 |
# ? Oct 22, 2013 12:35 |
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# ? Jun 13, 2024 06:09 |
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I just finished this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Twistrose-Key-Tone-Almhjell-ebook/dp/B007FEFJ0K Cannot really be impartial here as I was good friends with the author way back in high school. I'll just say I thought it was pretty drat good. Somewhat traditional YA fantasy but with its own original twists.
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# ? Oct 22, 2013 19:18 |