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maltesh posted:It's been awhile since I listened to the audiobook; Or at least started, I don't think I ever finished it. Am I misremembering, or does he decide to go on this sidequest in the middle of a super important mission to recover stolen tax money for the Patron that's bankrolling his schooling, as if he knows that it's still on the quest screen, waiting to be ticked off as Completed when he's ready to turn it in? Yea they get the money back and on their way home he’s spirited away by the sex fairy. He’s gone for a few days in non fairy time. He gets back and decides to tell everyone else to let his patron know he’ll return the money after he hangs out with the sex ninjas Now to be somewhat fair in the book’s best and only interesting scene he’s been influenced into going there by that thing he meets in the tree that can’t lie and knows everything, but tells people only what will cause the most pain and suffering in the world. It’s a creepy and effective scene but it’s like a page long and certainly doesn’t justify the sex ninjas being sex ninjas
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Apr 19, 2022 00:57
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Perestroika posted:Yeah, even when he stumbles upon a somewhat interesting concept he can't help but ruin it by making it all about how exceptional his Very Special Boy is. It's similar when he meets that one loan shark/fence in the university city. There's a potentially cool story there about operating on the sidelines of a deeply privileged institution, the intersection of magic and crime, and so on. Except almost all of that is ignored and she mostly just exists to give Kvothe money and offer to gently caress him. There’s also a moment when he kills those thieves masquerading as his fantasy Roma group and rescues two girls who have been abused and tortured. One of them is like “ I hate men!” And he literally “not all men”s her So glad I finished this stupid book. I’ll definitely hate read the final one if it ever comes out though
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Apr 19, 2022 14:20
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Captain Hygiene posted:the title clearly placing it in the context of The Terror's mix of natural and supernatural horror, whereas this book is almost exclusively concerned with the real-life concerns of dangerous mountain expeditions up to this point. While it briefly alludes to the yeti mythos early on, nothing comes of it for most of the book. Until the 2/3 point, when it suddenly tries to set up the idea that yetis attacked and killed a bunch of the expedition's Sherpa crew, only to reveal within about 20 pages that there was no supernatural element, it was all just badguys with guns and monster suits trying to kill or scare off that group. It's been a while but doesn't he do the winky "So, it was just guys in monster suits...Or was it?!"
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Apr 28, 2022 23:45
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Captain Hygiene posted:There might be a bit of a wink, but there's definitely people doing a lot of it (unfortunately I actually do a lot of these as audiobooks due to insomnia, so I'll occasionally zone out to miss some specific details, and it's much tougher to go back and check for a specific detail in the text) Actually it came back to me. Might be a little off but it's essentially they see the guys in disguise, But something happens and our heroes need to be rescued...and they see what they think are some of the disguised dudes. So when they wake up after passing out and go to thank the disguised dudes for saving them, they're like "we didn't do it, you were already at this village before we got back here." So there's a "maybe they do exist!" kind of thing.
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Apr 29, 2022 01:06
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Ooh I have a terrible one: This is a classic travelogue. Only this guy is a creepy weirdo who hates his wife and love’s cheating on her. Loves talking about his weird fetishes. He gets sad at a 14 year old being in arranged marriage, then angry when she turns him down after an attempt at “seduction” masturbating over his violent fantasies of assaulting her. Additionally he’s constantly angry at people not understanding his poo poo Japanese. It’s a piece of work and full of orientalist and horrible misogyny. No idea how it’s as acclaimed as it is unless you go in knowing it’s a portrait of a creepy weirdo.
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Mar 30, 2023 21:56
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 Longarm is sent in to texas to investigate the murder of a Cattle rancher. Of course he can't let a little thing like making his train get in the way of some action, and that's when I realized how relentlessly horny this book is. when he sleeps with a waitress who just follows him around, because he has that effect on women. Full of explicit sex. Anyway, the main plot is that there's a cabal of european business men trying to take over the texas cattle industry. Jesse's father discoevred some of their shadier dealings, and they killed him for it. they're also led. by a gay frenchman. But Jesse, the daughter of the rancher, and her ninja sidekick Ki (who spun off into their own series) are there to help Longarm and put a stop to the shenanigans. Jesse is also there is to sleep with Longarm a few times as well. Now the book is mostly pulpy fun, but does have some iffystuff. The cabal thing is pretty alex jonesy. It's revealed the frenchman is gay when he doesn't sexually assault our heroine. and she insults him for it.  Lots of slurs thrown at her ninja sidekick, though all by villains, and our cowboy hero doesn't take kindly to people calling him "chinaman". There's also a problematic fight between Ki and a cherokee assassin.At one point longarm and Jesse are captured by the frenchman and just get down while waiting to be rescued by the ninja. The ninja also hooks up with some lady, and while he also loves Jesse, his bushido code will not let him act on it. This book is very much a post shogun novel, and has a whole being trained by a samurai backstory for our ninja protagonist--I know, and it's kind of handwaved that he also secretly trains as a ninja while being trained by a samurai. The book isn't written by a scholar by any means, but whoever wrote it certainly at least read shogun and watched a bunch of kurosawa movies. That said it's not really as offensive as an early 80s pulp western could be. It's ambiguous (at least in this book) as to whether Longarm was confederate or union, but he doesn't like that the European business men are also slave trafficking. There's also a pretty progressive take on Japan and it's conqiering of Okinawa, though it's probably a bit of lingering ww2 resentment and 80s fear of the japanese economic menace. Jesse and him don't end up together, as she's got her father's little black book of shady european business men to take down before settling down as a proper woman. I would probably check out some other books in either series as even this double length adventure is under 300 pages, and it's kind of a breeze. It's definitely inspired by the Charles Bronson/Toshiro Mifune joint Red Son. On the one hand it's less offensive than that flick, on the other this book doesn't have the Mifune Bronson bromance to carry it either. I don't hate it, but I really wish it was better. Maybe some of the other books are. Between the Longarm and Lonestar series there are hundreds of books, and they were both pumped out by house writers under a pseudonym. So while maybe skip this one, pick up another if incredibly horny cowboys and ninjas sounds like a good time.
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Jun 26, 2023 01:04
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I don’t hate rothfuss first book. It’s not great but it’s not the worst fantasy novel I’ve read by a long shot. The second one is so mind boggling bad…just an absolute train wreck of a novel. No idea how it got published it’s such a mess. It’s a bit impressive actually.
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Jul 6, 2023 23:11
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big dyke energy posted:Lmao I did pick up this book because hey, The Terror is cool and fun and I like mountaineering stories and when it revealed there aren't any loving yetis just dudes in costumes!!! I gave up and returned it to the library. Then after the fact I realized goons consider it Simmon's worst book. It's been.a while, but I recall at the end that there's a point where they think it's the dudes in suits, but later they found they were already gone, so there's an ambiguous "maybe yetis are real!" kind of ending. And while not good, I wouldn't call it his worst.
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Nov 10, 2023 14:22
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