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Who here can answer my Harry Potter questions? I have some burning questions about the world and how things work. My wife and I are currently reading through the series (she read it years ago and I never did).
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Jun 27, 2018 04:59
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Where is the Wizarding World? Like, The Leaky Cauldron is just in the middle of London and muggles can’t see it (like a Hitchhiker’s Guide-style “Somebody Else’s Problem” field) but where is everything else physically located? Is the Wizarding world more like a separate dimension occupying the same physical space? That’s my biggest hang up with all this. Edit: Alaan posted:The answer is don’t think too hard cause it’s not a series about world building. Haha. So it seems. The characters are fun and all, but it really falls apart for me because the aren’t really rules for how the world works.
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Jun 27, 2018 05:31
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"Why would adults talk about poo poo meant for kids." -says adult with cartoon avatar
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Jun 27, 2018 06:40
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I bounced hard off Piers Anthony's Xanth series as a teenager, but I remember loving his "Incarnations of Immortality" series. I'm afraid to go back.... are those bad too? D:
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Jun 29, 2018 04:49
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Ben Nevis posted:Like the first one is OK. And then they just get worse. Like real bad. drat. I binged through the whole Incarnations series in like 3 weeks back when I was 15. Was hoping to go back through them someday. Guess I should avoid that.
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Jun 29, 2018 15:02
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The Grey posted:I've never read one of his books. Why do goons hate him so much? Let me explain, as someone who read the entire main series of 11 books. Dude is your classic Reddit libertarian who is into really loves Ayn Rand and biotruths. Dude looooooooooves biotruths. After the original 11 books, he's like "Okay, the story of those protagonists (Richard and Kahlan) is now over." And he was going to write a book set in the modern world, completely new and different. SWERVE. It was actually about someone from that world getting teleported to this world. Then he realized he can only write those books because he's a no talent hack. So he wrote 4 more books in the series where, in the end, the main character Richard kills prophecy. Also, men can gently caress whoever they want but if a woman has sex with anyone but her destined partner, she's a worthless slut. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jul 4, 2018 |
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Jul 4, 2018 19:33
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chernobyl kinsman posted:lol just lol if you think this is even a little bit true Aren't all the goblins basically Jewish as well?
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Jul 5, 2018 07:24
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So.... when does Perdido Street Station get good? I'm about 90 minutes into the audiobook and I have zero loving clue what is going on. Lin just met Mr. Motley and Isaac just met the garuda, but I couldn't tell you much more than that. I feel like this story is dense in a way that makes the audiobook a little harder to follow? Or am I just a dumbass? Out of the 90 minutes or so I've listened to, I feel like there have been 5 minutes of things happening and 85 minutes of the author waxing poetic about the squalor of the city. Is an audiobook the wrong way to tackle Perdido? I can't tell if it's just not the right time for me to read this book or if the book just feels too up its own rear end. Its definitely different from everything I've ever read, but I think it's just so different from my expectations. Does the pace ever pick up? I feel like I'm trying to latch onto something but it's not giving me anything. I couldn't tell you what this book is about even if I tried. Maybe I should just give up for now and go with something a bit more pulpy and easier to follow. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Oct 27, 2020 |
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Oct 27, 2020 22:28
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Bilirubin posted:it took me over a quarter of the way through the book before it set its hooks into me. The last quarter is hang onto your butt fast action Yeah. I think I’m just not in the right place for it right now. I recently started delivery driving since my industry is still 75% shut down due to covid so I was looking for some fun books to read. Perdido seems great but boy is it hard to pay attention to while driving around doing deliveries. Luckily audible lets you refund your credits so I refunded Perdido and picked up the first Mistborn book. I’m only 30 minutes it and it loving RULES. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Easy to follow. Kept me on the edge of my seat. I’m excited to keep listening. Perdido is just too dense for me right now. I’m sure it gets better but I don’t want to have to listen to 8 hours of audio book to get there.
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Oct 28, 2020 02:28
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Bilirubin posted:yeah I can't imagine listening to it while doing a million of other things (checking manifests, addresses, looking for parking, etc.) and all those interruptions. I don't actually audiobook myself but something like PSS needs more unbroken time to enjoy it IMO I also think it probably works better as a read since it's a lot of "HERE ARE SOME NOUNS WITH NO CONTEXT." So far, the first Mistborn book is working very well for an audiobook though. I'm stoked to listen to more.
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Oct 28, 2020 02:56
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Yeah, I don't hate Perdido Street Station, I'll definitely go back to it sometime. I just wasn't expecting something denser than The Name of the Rose when I saw PSS on a list of recommended steampunk novels.
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Oct 28, 2020 03:35
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Bilirubin posted:
Yeah. It's a very weird long story, but I wanted to read a bunch of steampunk novels way back around 2011 so I found some lists online and the two novels recommended the most were The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers and then Perdito Street Station. I ended up buying both, but never read either. Since I started delivery driving recently, I thought it would be a good time to get through some of my backlog of novels that I keep saying I'll get through. I was reading a lot of complaints about the audio book for The Anubis Gates, so I tried my luck with Perdido Street Station and.... well... yeah. Regardless, I'm happy I tried Mistborn since it starts off so loving good.
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Oct 28, 2020 06:22
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The internet sure kinda sucks sometime! Don’t look up anything ever!!!! I was looking up how to spell character names for Mistborn character since I’m listening to the audiobook and one of the first things that comes up when you google anything is how at some point Kelsier dies. No clue when this happens because I’m only two chapters in but I would have rather not known that!!!
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Oct 29, 2020 04:29
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Steampunk anything is bad, actually. mlyp
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Oct 29, 2020 04:47
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I guess my main question now is - at what point in the trilogy does Kelsier die? Now that I know that this happens, I’m just wondering if I’m going to be waiting a few chapters of a few books. Personally I hope it’s like mid way through book one in like an Obi Wan sort of way.
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Oct 29, 2020 07:53
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What’s y’all’s opinions on Bukowski?
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Feb 4, 2021 01:01
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Sandwolf posted:I like him, but yeah, he's definitely not a role model, he is a massive rear end in a top hat. his poetry (can be extremely misogynistic and bad) is sometimes really powerfully emotive in my humble opinion. My wife likes that kind of writer, so I was thinking of getting him one of Bukowski's books. Would you have any recommendation for a first time Bukowski read?
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Feb 4, 2021 06:11
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Sandwolf posted:I haven’t read any of his fiction and honestly I’m afraid to, but Love Is A Dog From Hell is a poetry collection with a romantic bend that I enjoyed? It’s still pretty hit or miss but when it hits it hits well. Ooh, I'll check that out. I think I am looking for poetry right now. Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:Post Office Post Office sounds good, but I don't know if she'd want to dive straight into a novel or stick to bits poetry currently.
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Feb 4, 2021 06:33
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Brandon Sanderson's podcast is a helluva place to learn that not only did Terry Goodkind pass away, he did so last year.
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Sep 24, 2021 21:45
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ulmont posted:...you wanted that as a "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!" style proclamation, or what? Nah, I just thought was wild that it took me a year to find out. I didn't realize I was so disconnected from things.
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Sep 29, 2021 23:13
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On a scale of Brandon Sanderson to China Miéville, how dense is the writing in the Dune books?
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May 8, 2023 20:34
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regulargonzalez posted:More than Sanderson, but not nearly as bad as its reputation. It's not close to same ballpark as, say, Umberto Eco or Thomas Pynchon. Interesting you mention Eco. I've read "The Name of the Rose" and found it to be a complete page-turner. Meanwhile I found "Perdido Street Station" to be impenetrable. I have zero experience with Dune. All I know is that there are deserts, drugs, sand worms, jihad, and a dude is a worm. I've never seen the movies or played any games based on it. Debating whether I want to pick up a physical book or give the audiobook a shot.
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May 8, 2023 23:12
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I wanted to thank those of you here who recommended my wife read Jade City. She hasn't finished the book yet, but she's at the point where a conversation with her usually goes "and then maybe I'll squeeze in extra time to read my book." She likes it a lot. Since she's very offline, she has no idea anything about the book. Meanwhile, I can't help but compulsively learn things about it so she has someone to talk to. Two of her favorite IPs are The Godfather films and the Yakuza games, so she's feasting good. "I like Lan a lot, but Hilo is my favorite because he has Majima energy." She's about half way through the book now.
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Jul 11, 2023 22:30
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StumblyWumbly posted:Thanks! That was probably me because I will recommend Jade City at the drop of a hat. I mean, I don't mind spoilers, I've read a brief summary of all the books just so I can know what she's talking about when she wants to gush about them. She's about 40 pages out from the death of Lan. And she has no idea it is coming.
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Jul 12, 2023 06:35
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Just popping in to say that my wife is nearing the end of the second book of Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga and has been absolutely obsessed with it and utterly loves it. So thank you to whoever originally recommended that ages ago.
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Nov 28, 2023 23:41
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Mordiceius posted:Just popping in to say that my wife is nearing the end of the second book of Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga and has been absolutely obsessed with it and utterly loves it. So thank you to whoever originally recommended that ages ago. Following up on this - I've never seen my wife as stressed out with a book as she was toward the end of Jade War. She spent the last two hours of the audiobook in a state of immense tension and anxiety and then, after finishing, was exhausted for the rest of the day. She is generally not too reactive to books and films, but this one got to her. Good times.
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Nov 30, 2023 19:38
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MockingQuantum posted:It's genuinely really good, and the third book manages to pay off the whole series in a way I was pretty impressed with, there's a lot going on and a lot of interwoven storylines in those books so it was cool to see it stick the landing in a pretty satisfying way Yeah, originally physically read the first book. She was going to do the same for the second but then switched over to audiobook because she's recently started a new job with a bit of commute time - giving plenty of audiobook time. Instead of hopping straight into the second book, she listened to the audiobook for Jade City and then moved on to Jade War. After finishing Jade War, she's now thinking she wants to listen to it again before hopping into Jade Legacy. She often has a bit of trouble following a lot of the details of fantasy or fantasy-adjacent stories. Something about fictional names of places just causes her difficulties following what's going on and she'll often get names mixed up. So that second time through allows her to more deeply understand what wider story. Regardless, she's loving loving this trilogy and has been obsessed with it in a way that I have never really seen her get with books.
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Nov 30, 2023 20:20
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Crazy thing is, that's only the first book in The Stormlight Archive.
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Dec 11, 2023 18:57
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My wife is currently working through Jade Legacy - the third book in the Green Bone Saga, and I've never seen her so stressed out about a book before. So that's fun.
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Dec 21, 2023 20:36
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MockingQuantum posted:Oh I'm excited for her. It ends so well IMO. I just read the trilogy last year and even hearing about her experience reading it makes me want to re-read She's going through the audiobook right now. She loved the first book. The ending of the second book stressed her out. She said she had trouble paying attention to some of the chapters because she was so worried that Wen was going to be killed. Up until recently, she has purposefully not looked up anything about the series online for fear of greater spoilers. She broke this recently during third book when the bombing happens and Hilo and Woon are supposed dead. She said she started skipping chapters to try to get an answer because it caused her such intense anxiety. And in the end, she had to just look up and see how that moment resolved. Unfortunately, in doing so she also learned that Hilo does actually die in the book. Though she didn't learn the specifics. Basically - she's loving the book and thinks its phenomenal but also it isn't a very pleasant experience, if that makes sense. Because she doesn't have anyone to talk to about the books, I call her during my commutes and have her give me daily book reports. lol
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Dec 21, 2023 20:54
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StumblyWumbly posted:It's a really good book but for some reason it makes running a magic-crime family seem super stressful and not rewarding at all. Like The Godfather and like the Yakuza/LAD games, it does well to make you root for these characters but also remind you that they're criminals and crime families don't usually get happy endings. I don't mind spoilers since I'm not reading the books and don't plan too. I'm just mainly there for her to give book reports to. When she was going through Jade CIty and Jade War, I had read the plot summaries on Wikipedia just so I could have a better idea of what she was talking about. She's about half way through the Jade Legacy audiobook now. She has really enjoyed getting back into books. This trilogy is the first book series she has tackled in years. Grad school had killed any interest in books for her for a while. When work is less busy, we'll go through periods where I read books to her at night and we got through a few series that way, but this is wholly her endeavor. Currently, she's starting to get nervous about the ending not just because the consequences of the story but now she'll have to find some new books to get into. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Dec 21, 2023 |
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Dec 21, 2023 23:34
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Today's drama: if you consume audiobooks, are you still considered to be "reading" the book? This spawned from a TikTok creator who said "I read 40 books last year. I have a bit of a commute and work a lot, so half of those were audiobooks." To which, a bunch of people got huffy and stitched the TikTok and said "SO YOU ONLY READ 20 BOOKS."
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Jan 4, 2024 20:25
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Bilirubin posted:we have that discussion every other month here too. Yeah, I think these arguments probably arise from English being a loving stupid language that is too sense-based. An example of how English is stupid - in my job, I often work with accessibility assets for films. One of the accessibility assets is "audio description." AD tracks are basically a narrator describing all of the action that is happening. So someone who has sight problems can hear the character dialog and then the narrator comes in between lines of dialog. I think that English is an incredibly ableist language when we get down to it. Someone could be blind and say "I saw the newest Mission Impossible" but they didn't actually *see* it with their eyes - they listened to the dialog and the audio description. But saying "I heard the newest Mission Impossible" just makes no sense. Hell, you can say "I heard <headline> happened." even though you saw it on the news or read it in a newspaper. Yet some people get really loving rigid on books.
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Jan 4, 2024 21:07
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Ras Het posted:And it seems very stupid to call English an ableist language because people see pictures in it. I think my problem is with how I feel like English describes these experiences in both strict and vague ways at the same time. Does reading require using your eyes to look at words on a page (or screen)? If so, then the blind aren't reading because they're using their fingers to experience the words through braille. But you probably wouldn't tell a blind person that they can't read. But then if using your fingertips to experience braille is "reading," we've now established that reading doesn't require eyes. So why can't it include ears as well? If the important part of reading is "understanding," then it is not the eyes or the fingers or the ears that are doing this, it is the brain. Another example of this that isn't reading is when people say "I heard..." - "I heard that a new Aquaman movie is really bad." "Oh, where did you hear that?" "I read a review in the LA Times." English speakers generally use sense-based words very loosely but then turn around and enforce it as incredibly gate-keepy. If you have a book group where a bunch of people gather to discuss the books they're working through, the same conversation can be had no matter if someone experienced the book through a physical copy, an ebook, a braille copy, and an audiobook. You're not going to say "Well, some of our members didn't actually read the book." Humerus posted:We should go ahead and transition to using "experience" regardless of what the media is or how we took it in. "I experienced the new Mission Impossible" is agnostic as to whether one watched it or listened or listened to the narrative audio or, as a way of future proofing, if one jacked in and started doing all the moves alongside the main character, Ethan Hunt. Gonna start using the word "absorbed." I absorbed Mission Impossible. I absorbed The Way of Kings.
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Jan 5, 2024 00:42
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It's there a TBB book club? Because if so, I have a new book recommendation - https://twitter.com/bombsfall/status/1749477989018948088 
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Jan 22, 2024 20:13
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StrixNebulosa posted:There is a book club, and why the hell would we want to read something that advertises itself as full of hate? It was meant as a joke.  The book sounds like a terrible mess.
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Jan 23, 2024 17:08
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Story time - There's a guy in my office that has been reading Lord of the Rings. He's never read Tolkien before and, even more baffling, he has never seen the LotR films. It is wild to chat with someone who has zero clue about even the most general LotR plot points from just cultural osmosis. He's currently on The Two Towers and today he came up to me with wide eyes and just said "Gandalf is alive!!!"
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Feb 15, 2024 19:02
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Is A Court of Thorns and Roses actually good or is just "the trendy thing" right now?
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Mar 13, 2024 02:26
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fez_machine posted:It's romance slop in epic fantasy mode. Ah. I don't know how I ended up on the side of Tiktok where everyone is talking about ACOTAR all the time but I see so many fuckin people talking about it.
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Mar 13, 2024 02:48
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Carthag Tuek posted:nice, covers here: Absolutely incredible. For those who do don't want to have to go/log-in to tumblr:         
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May 2, 2024 18:32
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