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Casimir Radon
Aug 2, 2008


ColonelCurmudgeon posted:

Brodart, a library archival products company (I think based in Pennsylvania?) is your best bet. They have myriad sizes, use plastics that don't have any corrosive materials in them (thus won't damage the jackets that they are supposed to be protecting), and are adjustible.

They are the only jacket covers we've ever used where protecting books at my shop.

http://www.brodart.ca/supplies/archival-products/book-and-pamphlet/book-jacket-covers/

Thanks, I'll finally be able to get these books into shelves instead of cluttering up every horizontal surface in my room. Oh poo poo, I forgot to build more shelves.

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Oleum Animale 68C
Sep 16, 2005
I enjoy Ham
Is there a book series about a high fantasy world undergoing an industrial revolution? Seems like I heard of one, but looking for "high fantasy"+"industrial revolution" just turns up the old computer game Arcanum. Thanks!

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Oleum Animale 68C posted:

Is there a book series about a high fantasy world undergoing an industrial revolution?

Yeah, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Puppet Master
Apr 9, 2005

Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard.



How would you guys feel about a Drama megathread of sorts?

Gorn Myson
Aug 8, 2007






I say go for it. We need more topics on this forum that aren't just about fantasy and sci-fi.

bearic
Apr 14, 2004

john brown split this heart
Absolutely. There really isn't a drama thread anywhere in SA that I know of, and it's a huge and broad concept. Of course, it'll likely get to 3 pages then sink into oblivion while fantasy and YA threads will be around forever, but oh well.

LooseChanj
Feb 17, 2006

Logicaaaaaaaaal!

The Puppet Master posted:

How would you guys feel about a Drama megathread of sorts?

For a second there I thought you were looking for E/N.

JammyLammy
Dec 23, 2009
Was going to make a thread asking this, but I think this thread would probably be a better place to do it.

Was wondering if there is any good horror pulp magazines? I have a subscription to Weird Tales, but lately it seems like all they talk about is Steampunk with little to no horror.

Seems like when horror is brought up these days, all you get is a bunch of goth kids pretending to be vampires by being "dark, brooding and mysterious" :\

Anamnesis
Jan 6, 2009

In Search of Lost Time

vegaji posted:

Absolutely. There really isn't a drama thread anywhere in SA that I know of, and it's a huge and broad concept. Of course, it'll likely get to 3 pages then sink into oblivion while fantasy and YA threads will be around forever, but oh well.

I was thinking the same thing. TBB could also use a "Classics"-type thread (I'm not really sure TBB has one already), but it seems sci-fi/fantasy are the main points of interest, it wouldn't do that well.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

There is a successful Russian literature thread, a successful military history thread, a decent Japanese literature thread, we've also had, in the past, decent threads on Pynchon, Shakespeare, Wallace, and other non-SF/F matters, so I wouldn't doom your classics thread to failure before you even write it.

The Puppet Master
Apr 9, 2005

Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard.



Anamnesis posted:

I was thinking the same thing. TBB could also use a "Classics"-type thread (I'm not really sure TBB has one already), but it seems sci-fi/fantasy are the main points of interest, it wouldn't do that well.

I'll mull it over for a bit and then attempt it once I am finished with finals.

ManMythLegend
Aug 18, 2003

I don't believe in anything, I'm just here for the violence.
I assume someone around here has read DeLilo's Point Omega, was it any good? I haven't read all that much of his work, mostly just White Noise, but this new one sounds interesting and a decent size to be easily slipped into my current school load.

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Oleum Animale 68C posted:

Is there a book series about a high fantasy world undergoing an industrial revolution? Seems like I heard of one, but looking for "high fantasy"+"industrial revolution" just turns up the old computer game Arcanum. Thanks!

What comes to mind is Perdido Street Station, although it's more steampunky, I guess, and the fantasy setting is pretty far from your generic Not Middle Earth. Wonderful prose for a genre novel, but it sort of meanders and goes nowhere. The ending sucks. Highly recommended! China Mieville has also written some other novels set in the same world, but I haven't read them. I've heard that the quality is sort of inconsistent but The Scar is the best of the bunch.

Edit: Also if you sort of loosely define your terms there's there's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell set around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Loosely, I say, because its basically set in an alternate earth where things used to be a generic high fantasy setting, magic went away, and now it's started to come back. Really though it's an attempt at marrying the form of novel that was popular in the 19th century with a form of fantasy that came much later. Good, again a tad meandering, and probably not exactly what you're looking for.

Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 11:30 on Apr 30, 2010

betamax
Sep 30, 2008

leering
I am on ther market for an ebook reader right now and I remember there being a thread in this forum with comparisons and opinions on ebook readers. I also remember also a link to a wiki there with further reviews and whatnot... did that thread really exist or was that all in my head/somewhere else?

wickles
Oct 12, 2009

"In England we have a saying for a situation such as this, which is that it's difficult difficult lemon difficult."

betamax posted:

I am on ther market for an ebook reader right now and I remember there being a thread in this forum with comparisons and opinions on ebook readers. I also remember also a link to a wiki there with further reviews and whatnot... did that thread really exist or was that all in my head/somewhere else?
Ebook readers are now a gadget so it's been moved http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3142969&pagenumber=1

Viconia
Jul 11, 2005

Oh, right. I know a lot about lifting curses. That's why I'm a disembodied talking skull sitting on top of a spike in the middle of a swamp.

LooseChanj posted:

For a second there I thought you were looking for E/N.

An E/N on books... I wonder how an E/N thread would work here relating to books. Someone make a thread and let's see how it goes!

Day Man
Jul 30, 2007

Champion of the Sun!

Master of karate and friendship...
for everyone!


wickles posted:

Ebook readers are now a gadget so it's been moved http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3142969&pagenumber=1

Ha ha, I didn't even notice that it had moved. I have it bookmarked, and just thought they changed the title.

Checkered Slacks
Apr 22, 2010
It might have been sometime mid/late last year before I registerd, when someone posted a short story about Neptune or Poseidon in a thread about some author (I'm almost certain it was a male author). I can't for the life of me remember who it was by, what it was called or find the post (yeah, :bang:). I think the general gist of the story was Neptune/Poseiden wanting to take a break from the sea/his job but he couldn't because that was what he had to do becuase he was good at it, or something? Ok that sounds pretty crappy but it's all I can remember about it, appart from it being a prety decent little story.

Please help! Does anyone remember or know what I am talking aobut? I would like to read it again...

The Machine
Dec 15, 2004
Rage Against / Welcome to

Viconia posted:

An E/N on books... I wonder how an E/N thread would work here relating to books. Someone make a thread and let's see how it goes!

"I read the whole Twilight series and I keep dropping hints to my man that he should be more like Edward. He just doesn't understand! I need man who is possessive, threatening, dangerous, and literally not a human! Please help, I might kill myself!!!!"

God please no...

Gorn Myson
Aug 8, 2007






I do actually remember a thread in E/N for books which I think was intended to be a sort of self-help topic. Didn't take long for someone to recommend sci-fi.

Casimir Radon
Aug 2, 2008


Aventine posted:

I do actually remember a thread in E/N for books which I think was intended to be a sort of self-help topic. Didn't take long for someone to recommend sci-fi.
Going through some rough changes in your life hmmmm? I recommend the Han Solo trilogy by A.C. Crispin.

Facial Fracture
Aug 11, 2007

When I clicked on the Let's Read Star Wars Books thread I felt a brief suicidal pang. But I think it was sort of like sympathetic labour pains; it was not my suicidal hopelessness I felt but an uncontrollable response to such a vast, depressing wall of text.

Baby Babbeh
Aug 2, 2005

It's hard to soar with the eagles when you work with Turkeys!!



Checkered Slacks posted:

It might have been sometime mid/late last year before I registerd, when someone posted a short story about Neptune or Poseidon in a thread about some author (I'm almost certain it was a male author).

That sounds like Franz Kafka's Poseidon, although your description is a little vague so I can't say for sure. Actually, Poseidon is more of a snippet than a full story, so I'm thinking it might not be what you're looking for. Regardless, I think it's probably Kafka's most unambiguously funny story. Here it is in its entirety, although I don't think this is the best translation:

Franz Kafka posted:

Poseidon sat at his desk, doing figures. The administration of all the waters gave him endless work. He could have had assistants, as many as he wanted — and he did have very many — but since he took his job very seriously, he would in the end go over all the figures and calculations himself, and thus his assistants were of little help to him. It cannot be said that he enjoyed his work; he did it only because it had been assigned to him; in fact, he had already filed many petitions for — as he put it — more cheerful work, but every time the offer of something different was made to him it would turn out that nothing suited him quite as well as his present position. And anyhow it was quite difficult to find something different for him. After all, it was impossible to assign him to a particular sea; aside from the fact that even then the work with figures would not become less but only pettier, the great Poseidon could in any case occupy only an executive position. And when a job away from the water was offered to him he would get sick at the very prospect, his divine breathing would become troubled and his brazen chest began to tremble. Besides, his complaints were not really taken seriously; when one of the mighty is vexatious the appearance of an effort must be made to placate him, even when the case is most hopeless. In actuality a shift of posts was unthinkable for Poseidon — he had been appointed God of the Sea in the beginning, and that he had to remain.

What irritated him most — and it was this that was chiefly responsible for his dissatisfaction with his job — was to hear of the conceptions formed about him: how he was always riding about through the tides with his trident. When all the while he sat here in the depths of the world-ocean, doing figures uninterruptedly, with now and then a trip to Jupiter as the only break in the monotony — a trip, moreover, from which he usually returned in a rage. Thus he had hardly seen the sea — had seen it but fleetingly in the course of hurried ascents to Olympus, and he had never actually traveled around it. He was in the habit of saying that what he was waiting for was the fall of the world; then, probably, a quiet moment would be granted in which, just before the end and having checked the last row of figures, he would be able to make a quick little tour.

Poseidon became bored with the sea. He let fall his trident. Silently he sat on the rocky coast and a gull, dazed by his presence, described wavering circles around his head.

Checkered Slacks
Apr 22, 2010

Baby Babbeh posted:

That sounds like Franz Kafka's Poseidon

Yes! That's it thanks very much. :)

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat

Casimir Radon posted:

Going through some rough changes in your life hmmmm? I recommend the Han Solo trilogy by A.C. Crispin.

How long before some Objectivist recommends "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead"?

Casimir Radon
Aug 2, 2008


therattle posted:

How long before some Objectivist recommends "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead"?

Speaking from experience you should not read that while depressed.

ManMythLegend
Aug 18, 2003

I don't believe in anything, I'm just here for the violence.
Edit: Nevermind.

ManMythLegend fucked around with this message at 04:27 on May 11, 2010

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat

Casimir Radon posted:

Speaking from experience you should not read that while depressed.

Or at all!

:munch:

Grushenka
Jan 4, 2009
One of my dad's friends gave me Atlas Shrugged to read when I was fourteen, right before I started high school. "You're a smart girl, you'll like this book". I finished it in about a week or so.

I want that week of my life back. It wasn't entirely a waste but my god was that book awful.

appropriatemetaphor
Jan 26, 2006

therattle posted:

Or at all!

:munch:

Maybe you should just read them for yourself? All the people saying they are "worthless politically driven trash in the guise of a lovely novel with cardboard characters" are just a bunch of socialists who probably haven't even read Ayn's masterful Works. What I'm saying is that you can't judge a book until you've read it, and there's a reason they're controversial. Give them a shot, make up your own mind, and don't give into the SA group think! Okay I'm heading off to read the collected works of Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown in order to--oh ho ho! Not really, I know those books suck without having to read them.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

I generally dislike Ayn Rand's philosophy but I definitely think you should read her books before forming any kind of opinion on them.

Grushenka
Jan 4, 2009
Wading through Rand is like a rite of literary passage.

Day Man
Jul 30, 2007

Champion of the Sun!

Master of karate and friendship...
for everyone!


Though I like some of the political ideas presented in Rand's work, I think the books are terribly written. I liked reading Atlas Shrugged at first, because she was presenting these ideas in ways I hadn't thought about them, but after she started just repeating herself over and over again, it got pretty old pretty quick. Her characters are just terrible, too.

therattle
Jul 24, 2007
Soiled Meat

jmaze posted:

Though I like some of the political ideas presented in Rand's work, I think the books are terribly written. I liked reading Atlas Shrugged at first, because she was presenting these ideas in ways I hadn't thought about them, but after she started just repeating herself over and over again, it got pretty old pretty quick. Her characters are just terrible, too.

Well, that worked better than intended. I did actually read both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead (twice I think), and while I quite enjoyed the stories themselves, the writing is pretty awful for the most part. She can construct some nice images though, to give her some credit. I remember skipping through pages and pages of stultifying speechifying in AS. I was younger then; I think now I'd find the writing even worse and the Objectivism even more objectionable.

Oh, I also read We The Living. I am afraid that I don't even remember what I thought of it, thus probably not very much.

Susan B. Antimony
Aug 25, 2008

I made it almost all the way though The Fountainhead before I figured out that Ellsworth Toohey wasn't supposed to be the hero. Okay, I was young, but seriously--he's the one who's both self-aware and successful.

I recommend this book over and over again, but if you know that Ayn is probably not your cup of tea and don't actually want to wade through her books (or you already have and know that you aren't a fan), Sewer, Gas, & Electric is a great read that's sort of fondly critical of her.

Fox_Spy
Mar 19, 2006
Lifeguard of the Apocalypse
I'm trying to remember a book series I read when I was a kid, so, late 80s to early 90s I think. The main character was in the military or something similar and had two right hands I think it was. Since he lost his left hand in bottle and all they had to give him to replace was a right hand. At one point in a book I think that got replaced with a chicken foot or something. Sorry this is vague but it's been 15-20 years. I know it's definitely sci-fi and the main character went from planet to planet. I remember the author made a point of mentioning that he could shake his own hand since he two right hands. I want to go back and reread some of these books, but I can't remember the name of the series or the author. Although I suspect I'm going to find that they haven't held up so well over time.

LGBT War Machine
Dec 20, 2004

ooooohawwww Mildred

Fox_Spy posted:

I'm trying to remember a book series I read when I was a kid, so, late 80s to early 90s I think. The main character was in the military or something similar and had two right hands I think it was. Since he lost his left hand in bottle and all they had to give him to replace was a right hand. At one point in a book I think that got replaced with a chicken foot or something. Sorry this is vague but it's been 15-20 years. I know it's definitely sci-fi and the main character went from planet to planet. I remember the author made a point of mentioning that he could shake his own hand since he two right hands. I want to go back and reread some of these books, but I can't remember the name of the series or the author. Although I suspect I'm going to find that they haven't held up so well over time.

Harry Harrison's Bill, The Galactic Hero series

Fox_Spy
Mar 19, 2006
Lifeguard of the Apocalypse

LGBT War Machine posted:

Harry Harrison's Bill, The Galactic Hero series

Holy crap I was close on this. For some reason whenever I thought about this series I kept having "Harry and the Hendersons" pop into my head. A valiant attempt by my brain to get the author's name. So close, and yet so very far away. Thanks for the info. Now to go see if they're as good as I recall.

Van Dis
Jun 19, 2004
This forum has terrible taste but here goes nothing.

I'm on a cross-country bicycle trip and would appreciate recommendations for actual good books relevant to the places I'm riding through. For example, so far I have read:
  • Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent (before the trip)
  • Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose (through the Columbia River Gorge, Idaho, and parts of Montana)
  • Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (along the Blackfoot River itself and other parts of Montana)
  • John Fire's Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (through the Indian reservations of South Dakota, including Pine Ridge)
And right now I'm blazing through On the Road. I am currently in Omaha and on my way through Des Moines, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta, then northeast through Richmond, DC, Philadelphia, New York, and finally Boston. Since you guys can't seem to read anything not in bold, let me just ask,

What literature do you recommend for going through those parts of America?

Keep your lovely science fiction, fantasy, airport books, milporn lit and all similar recommendations to your goddamn self, you worthless loving teenagers. I swear to Christ I will ride to your house and stab you with my spare spokes if you even think about posting that poo poo at me. I will tear your limbs off and beat you with them. I will kick a hole in your torso with my ironwoon legs. I will use your entrails as handlebar streamers. Why is this forum so obsessed with bad literature. It's like you are actually retarded, unable to read anything without a spaceship or elf babe on the cover, unable to think about words and sentences and paragraphs and narratives beyond "That was a cool fight/sex scene." God drat every single one of you.

(Also, I've read a ton of Mark Twain, which is what I'd recommend first to someone asking me this question, so don't bother recommending him. Thanks in advance!)

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

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post-feminist rimjob
Jan 15, 2005

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either

Van Dis posted:

This forum has terrible taste but here goes nothing.

I'm on a cross-country bicycle trip and would appreciate recommendations for actual good books relevant to the places I'm riding through. For example, so far I have read:
  • Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent (before the trip)
  • Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose (through the Columbia River Gorge, Idaho, and parts of Montana)
  • Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (along the Blackfoot River itself and other parts of Montana)
  • John Fire's Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions (through the Indian reservations of South Dakota, including Pine Ridge)
And right now I'm blazing through On the Road. I am currently in Omaha and on my way through Des Moines, Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta, then northeast through Richmond, DC, Philadelphia, New York, and finally Boston. Since you guys can't seem to read anything not in bold, let me just ask,

What literature do you recommend for going through those parts of America?

Keep your lovely science fiction, fantasy, airport books, milporn lit and all similar recommendations to your goddamn self, you worthless loving teenagers. I swear to Christ I will ride to your house and stab you with my spare spokes if you even think about posting that poo poo at me. I will tear your limbs off and beat you with them. I will kick a hole in your torso with my ironwoon legs. I will use your entrails as handlebar streamers. Why is this forum so obsessed with bad literature. It's like you are actually retarded, unable to read anything without a spaceship or elf babe on the cover, unable to think about words and sentences and paragraphs and narratives beyond "That was a cool fight/sex scene." God drat every single one of you.

(Also, I've read a ton of Mark Twain, which is what I'd recommend first to someone asking me this question, so don't bother recommending him. Thanks in advance!)

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but have you tried A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin?

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