I finally finished Dragon of the Dwarven Depths and it was as lame as I knew it would be.Just out of curiosity, if you knew it was going to be lame, why read it?
So that he could say it was lame with authority. No one should listen to someone saying "I never read it, but I know it stinks."
I know that I read some books for that reason. (And in some cases, I proved myself wrong by liking them.)
I finally finished Dragon of the Dwarven Depths and it was as lame as I knew it would be.Just out of curiosity, if you knew it was going to be lame, why read it?
I've recently moved, and my new local library has VERY slim pickings and I didn't pre-order enough ILL books.
Also, morbid curiosity.
So, at the risk of James Jacobs coming to my house to beat me up, a lot like Lovecraft?
Currently reading about Japanese Shamanism. Then going to finish reading on the Kabbalah.
Finished Hardy two nights ago. Cried for an hour.
Finished Brackett this morning. It was highly enjoyable.
Also read,
Black History and the Class Struggle, No. 21: Obama: CEO of Racist American System
and Black History and the Class Struggle, No. 24: 150 Years Since the Emancipation Proclamation--Finish the Civil War! For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! which isn't on the internet, I guess.
Next up, the trials and tribulations of Hester Prynne which I last read in Junior English. Or did I? I didn't read a lot of the books that were assigned to us back then...
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Finished listening to BLOODSONG (Raven's Shadow #1, by Anthony Ryan).
Well, it was fine. I have nothing against it, other than that the second act was much weaker than the first, being a little unfocused and having no real rhythm to it. The book just doesn't have a climax, just a bunch of things that happen. Even when the big secret that connects most plot threads together is revealed, it doesn't go further than "Oh and also there is a villain behind the scenes."
I like the basic concept of the bloodsong - essentially the hero has the special power to know the plot- but it is never quite explained, the scope of it never quite defined. Maybe that is intentional, but it mostly feels like an oversight.
I'm coming off rather critical, but really, this book is average. Nothing about it is actively bad or offensive in any way. I suppose that as a first book it is a considerable accomplishment for the author. But the lack of a unique tone to the world, plot or characters all the book offers is yet another epic fantasy. Very skippable, but didn't feel like a waste of time.
What, you mean you need to read it for work? My condolences. A friend of mine who has been into the BD community hates that book SO MUCH.I have been ordered to read '50 Shades of Grey'
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to charity.
It was a firmly worded 'request' from Lady Longears (aka PFPL). I also have vols 2 and 3 and 'Grey' to bring a little sunshine into my life, and hers, now I've finished vol 1 (by skim-reading everything but the dirty bits).
I have lent her 'The Story of O', though, in an attempt to refine her porn palate.
That sounds horrible. I'm sorry.
I have also been reading 'Titus Alone' by Maeve Gilmour, which was alright, and 'Werenight' by Eric Iverson, which was also alright (and had more disembowelments in)
Currently reading "Go Quest Young Man" an old and very of the cuff TSR novel from 1994 with a rather odd young wizard as the protagonist, only bout 60 pages in, but been pretty funny thus far, much lighter and more humorous adventure tale than I normally go for, but I am enjoying it.
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I have also been reading 'Titus Alone' by Maeve Gilmour
I thought Mervyn Peake wrote the original trilogy himself, and his wife only the sequel, Titus Awakes?
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I have also been reading 'Titus Alone' by Maeve GilmourI thought Mervyn Peake wrote the original trilogy himself, and his wife only the sequel, Titus Awakes?
He did. I wrote 'Alone'; I meant 'Awakes'
Poetry.
Gonna take a "break" from Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and start The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and then Leviathan by Scot Westerfeld.
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I have also been reading 'Titus Alone' by Maeve GilmourI thought Mervyn Peake wrote the original trilogy himself, and his wife only the sequel, Titus Awakes?He did. I wrote 'Alone'; I meant 'Awakes'
Poetry.
Hey Kirth, you think that deserved a footnote? :P
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He did. I wrote 'Alone'; I meant 'Awakes'I have also been reading 'Titus Alone' by Maeve GilmourI thought Mervyn Peake wrote the original trilogy himself, and his wife only the sequel, Titus Awakes?
[Mind is blown]
I didn't realize such a thing existed.
[Mind comes back to him]
Eight chapters in, I'm pretty sure I haven't read The Scarlet Letter before. Now that I think of it, I failed Junior English the first time. Hmmm. Anyway, yeah, I like it thus far.
Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.
Hawthorne can.
(Amuses self by imagining Hester and Tess teaming up to wreak revenge upon Arthur and Angel and other dickish men.)
Doodles, just read Picnic on Paradise already, will you?
Not in my public interlibrary loan system's catalog, alas.
Eight chapters in, I'm pretty sure I haven't read The Scarlet Letter before. Now that I think of it, I failed Junior English the first time. Hmmm. Anyway, yeah, I like it thus far.
We watched the movie, but read The Minister's Black Veil. I found it incredibly frustrating because the teacher clearly had an opinion about why the guy put the veil on but absolutely refused to tell us. I suspect it involved his religious views so he didn't feel right doing so. Correct call to make, but very unhelpful. Teacher was also Melville nut so we got to read a Melville short story, then Moby Dick which included two other Melville short stories.
Opted not to read The Scarlet Letter when it was assigned in college, though I think I managed a dozen or so pages. Still aced the paper. Don't tell the kids, but if you really pay attention in class and can bring in some outside material related to the theme, you can do that.
I confess I found the style of both books incredibly alienating, and that's before you get into how Melville was writing less a novel than a whaling ethnography with a frame story. I read nineteenth century non-fiction for fun now and I'm pretty sure I still couldn't make it through that.
Right then, topic. Picked up Ready Player One back on Friday. Started in the wee hours. Finished it Saturday. Neither sleep nor bathroom breaks intervened. Suppose that means I liked it. I'm not quite old enough, and wasn't gamey enough, that many of the 80s references didn't mean much to me but I don't think the book needed them to work. Lady at the bookstore told me his new one was out, which I knew, but I misremembered the reviews I'd read and told her that I heard it was criticized for misogyny. Reread after since RPO treated its female characters fairly well and found out the reviewer just found the new book a bit childish and an inconsistent parody. Will have to set the record straight when I see her again.
Still no Ta-Nehisi Coates. Bugger.
Eight chapters in, I'm pretty sure I haven't read The Scarlet Letter before. Now that I think of it, I failed Junior English the first time. Hmmm. Anyway, yeah, I like it thus far.We watched the movie, but read The Minister's Black Veil. I found it incredibly frustrating because the teacher clearly had an opinion about why the guy put the veil on but absolutely refused to tell us. I suspect it involved his religious views so he didn't feel right doing so. Correct call to make, but very unhelpful. Teacher was also Melville nut so we got to read a Melville short story, then Moby Dick which included two other Melville short stories.
Opted not to read The Scarlet Letter when it was assigned in college, though I think I managed a dozen or so pages. Still aced the paper. Don't tell the kids, but if you really pay attention in class and can bring in some outside material related to the theme, you can do that.
I confess I found the style of both books incredibly alienating, and that's before you get into how Melville was writing less a novel than a whaling ethnography with a frame story. I read nineteenth century non-fiction for fun now and I'm pretty sure I still couldn't make it through that.
Right then, topic. Picked up Ready Player One back on Friday. Started in the wee hours. Finished it Saturday. Neither sleep nor bathroom breaks intervened. Suppose that means I liked it. I'm not quite old enough, and wasn't gamey enough, that many of the 80s references didn't mean much to me but I don't think the book needed them to work. Lady at the bookstore told me his new one was out, which I knew, but I misremembered the reviews I'd read and told her that I heard it was criticized for misogyny. Reread after since RPO treated its female characters fairly well and found out the reviewer just found the new book a bit childish and an inconsistent parody. Will have to set the record straight when I see her again.
Still no...
Ready Player One is so good!
I also tried reading Moby Dick back in the day when I was planning on doing fieldwork near Flores among some tropical whalers. I couldn't get past the second recipe about fish soup. Good thing I quit grad school. :-P
Rereading words of radiance by Brandon sanderson for like the fifth time
first book in the series is called the way of kings
cant recommend enough
I didn't know who Ms. Beaton was until I looked her up.
I finished The Scarlet Letter; it was pretty awesome, I thought. Will read the attached "The Custom-House" tomorrow.
My love of Moby-Dick is well attested to in this thread. Also started The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
Finished the third disc of Game of Thrones and realized that I am only 50 pages ahead in the novel. La Principessa's bringing her boxset up, see how far we get. Don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but I've decided to watch Game of Thrones before reading A Song of Ice and Fire. Otherwise, the tv show just pisses me off.
Ready Player One is so good!
Good enough that I looked past the bad review I read of it and picked up Armada. I've seen some that liked RPO did not like it, but I thought it was nearly as good. I'd like to spend more time in the RPO-verse, but I want that because I want to read more with the characters from RPO and it would be hard to create a sequel following them unless it was radically different or hit a reset button.
Armada is good on its own, but the very near future (circa 2018) setting wasn't quite as fun as the post-carbon economy world of RPO and when it flirts with military scifi it brushes up against a part of the genre I'm much less interested in. The criticisms of it for relying too much on 80s pop culture seem to miss the point. It's clearly Cline's preferred idom and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I think the larger thing is that it's clearly not a standalone book. One marker was laid down in the first few chapters that never got cashed in and the sequel hook required that the larger story not all neatly wrap up. If he just drops it, then I'd consider that a failed effort but until then I think it's a pretty good first book of a series.
Went from that to reading Feed, first of Mira Grant's zombie apocalypse books. About a third of the way through and I have a few concerns. Went in expecting the post-zombpocalypse stuff to be essentially a frame for flashbacks to the End of the World, such as it was. It's not that book. Not her fault, I just went in with the wrong idea.
The others are tougher. One is characterization. Either our heroes are hard-bitten, cynical journalists and the guy they're covering is just magically perfect (at least so far) or they're not and they've been snowed. I can believe that we're meant to take the narration as unreliable and we don't see how other characters really think of them, but everything I've read to date suggests that we're meant to take their cynicism, competence, and independence as written. If she's going to pull the rug out from under all of that and show us that they're deluded, starstruck, and about as independent as the candidate's right arm, then I could be very happy. But if she's foreshadowed it, I've missed the lines.
The politics (It's a political thriller, really.) are either ill-considered or not explained well enough except as it pertains directly to zombies. That would be fine...if it wasn't a political thriller. A big selling point of the world to me so far as that society really does still function and isn't entirely obsessed with zombie survival. They have it more or less figured out. So there should be other issues too. I've only read hints or brief references to them. I know sort of what the guy they're covering, and lighting votary candles to every night, stands for. I know what his in-party rival stands for. But I don't know anything except some dismissive casual references about anybody else. Maybe it's to come, along with some kind of sketch of the system as it stands, but I'd have liked to have it much earlier. A lot of this would make more sense if the two-party system had collapsed, but nothing so far as told me that it has.
That said, I generally like the characters and I'm going through it fast enough that I must be having some fun on the ride. If it continues like this, I'm likely to skip the sequels but at least appreciate this as a non-stereotypical zombie book.
I'm just started with Le Fanu's stories about ghosts and vampires.
Finished books are "The Dream-Qeust of Unknown Kadath" and other stories about Randolph Carter of Lovecraft, weird and beautiful.
This week I have read 'The Psychopath Test' by Jon Ronson, which was OK, but read a bit too much like the Book of the Hit TV Programme, and Fighting Slave of Gor by Wonder Norm. This one had a bit of fem-dom in it, then some boxing, then - and surely nobody could have seen this coming - a proud and wilful female ia humbled, enslaved and brought to the very pinnacle of womanly pleasure by a masterful Gorean man!
Stayed up a bit too late finishing Feed. I'm still not entirely sure that I enjoy it enough to go for the sequel, but things picked up a fair bit in the back half. The political system still doesn't quite make sense, but Grant confirmed that the other party still exists and put up a meaningful challenge to Candidate Perfect. Ultimately, I don't think the book was any more a political thriller than a how to apocalypse book. It's really more of a conspiracy story, if an ill-explained one, with zombies.
I'm probably a little too hard on it for the last point. The exposition of conspiracy amounts to "the secondary characters followed up this lead and gave us proof of blah blah blah" rather than detailing what the proof was. Annoyed me because I'm into digging this sort of detail out of texts and the author handwaved it, but I suspect that most political conspiracy books aren't that different unless written from the POV of the conspirators. Few people are so desperately boring that they'd like to see the documentary evidence quoted at length.
Reading informed me of many spoilers that seem intriguing, I think I like the new POV character more than the last, and it's only eight bucks for Feed's sequel. Guess that'll be it.
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Good lord!
By now, many of you are undoubtedly sick of hearing me continue to babble about the "Jeeves" stories by P. G. Wodehouse, but I can't help it. I just learned something shocking.
A year or two ago, when I first started reading the series, the first installment that really grabbed my attention was "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count" (or as I saw it presented, the two-parter "Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind" and "Pearls Mean Tears,") which had not just one but two moments that made me burst out laughing (attracting strange looks from my family.)
(As it happens, I recently finished reading the first "Blandings Castle" book, Something New, thereby learning that Wodehouse had written that second joke in that novel, seven years earlier. But that wasn't the point I was planning to make.)
I just found out from MadamEulalie.org that in the original version of "Aunt Agatha Takes the Count," which was printed in The World of Jeeves, Bertie only pretends to...
It amazes me. Had I read The World of Jeeves instead of The Inimitable Jeeves, I might never have gotten hooked!
Decided the Robert B. Parker and Elmore Leonard I'd been reading were too light-hearted to continue without a break, so I'm re-reading Andrew Vachss' Hard Candy. It makes most grimdark stuff seem like "My Little Pony."
Finished Feed's sequel, Deadline. Liked it a fair bit more than the first one. The change of POV character helped a little, but I think having Our Hero not embedded in a political campaign helped more. Spoiled the hell out of myself on the big reveals, which is a fair bit of what persuaded me to read it to begin with. Will probably start the third book tonight.
...I'm re-reading Andrew Vachss' Hard Candy.
Is that the same story as the movie Hard Candy with Ellen Page? If so, grimdark indeed...
Is that the same story as the movie Hard Candy with Ellen Page? If so, grimdark indeed...
No -- it's way, way worse than that. Pretty much all the main characters in the novel were abused horrifically as children, and grew up to be sociopaths, hardened criminals in and out of the prison system, who worship revenge as a god. The main character left the last two novels in the series littered with the bodies of pedophiles. One character, Wesley, would snicker contemptuously at merely taking a person hostage
The really scary part is that the author was a lawyer who represented violent youth offenders -- a lot of what he writes comes from their lives.
And I thought a pedophile being tortured by an intended victim was bad...
Finished the last Newsflesh book, Blackout. Really glad I stuck with it, even if the spoilers that got me to made the grand finale a bit less fun than it would otherwise have been.
Between these books and Ernest Cline, the battery life of a tablet vs. that of a dedicated e-reader has been relevant for the first time in my life.
Unsure what's next. Probably due for a book on slavery.
"Red Rising", "Iron Talon", "Iron Corpses", and "Glimmers of Yesterday."
In service,
Between the World and Me finally appeared. I beat the call from the bookstore because I wanted to see if they carried The Jacobin. Next issue looks to have a lot of promising content. They do not, but the lady who was working when I bought Ready Player One was there so I had the chance to tell her that I'd badly misremembered a review and Aramada was nothing like I feared.
I'm about halfway through now. It's a tiny book with a big price, but it's very good. Excerpts I read proved a good indicator of what was inside and Coates really got a lot out of the epistolary format. It feels like him talking to you. Hard to put down too. I have the distinct sense of telling someone I have to go when I do.
...because I wanted to see if they carried The Jacobin. Next issue looks to have a lot of promising content.
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'King Solomon's Mines' by H. Rider Haggard. I quite liked it. There were jokes about trousers in it.
And am also about 1/3rd of the way through a compendium of bits & bobs by Mervyn Peake.
If you ever get a chance to read 'Boy In Darkness', make sure you do so.
...because I wanted to see if they carried The Jacobin. Next issue looks to have a lot of promising content.
I know, petit bourgeoisie tools of the plutocracy. :)
Finished Between the World and Me yesterday. So good.
Looking back, I picked up Ready Player One on the 31st. Since then I've downed Armada, the Newsflesh trilogy, and this. Must really be in a heavy reading mood lately. Six books, albeit one pretty short, in two weeks.
In the mood for more fiction and picked up a free sample of Hounded, first book of the Iron Druid Chronicles. Couldn't decide if it was awful, awesome, or awesomely awful. I think I'm in the mood for near-future, non-military scifi and/or urban fantasy of some kind. Got recommendations for the Divergent series, Hunger Games, Freedom & Daemon by Daniel Suarez and This is not a Game and Deep State by Walter John Williams. Unsure which, if any of those, I'm inclined toward at present.
Samnell, if you're in the mood for near future, non-military scifi combined with urban fantasy of some kind, you might enjoy Vurt by Jeff Noon. Like, a lot. I found that the follow up books in the series paled in comparison to the first, but the first was FRICKEN EXCELLENT!
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Started Jim Butcher's Storm Front. I've never read any of his stuff, and I knew the Dresden ones were real popular, so I figured I'd give it a go. By the second page, I thought, "Wow, this is like a Laurel K Hamilton ripoff..."
So I looked it up, and found this:
In 1996 he enrolled in a writing class where he was encouraged to write a novel similar to the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton, rather than the more traditional high fantasy that had been his focus in the past, as Butcher had previously stated that he enjoyed the Anita Blake series. Despite initial resistance, he wrote the first book that semester, closely following the instructions of his teacher, author Deborah Chester.
When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.
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Started Jim Butcher's Storm Front. I've never read any of his stuff, and I knew the Dresden ones were real popular, so I figured I'd give it a go. By the second page, I thought, "Wow, this is like a Laurel K Hamilton ripoff..."
So I looked it up, and found this:
In 1996 he enrolled in a writing class where he was encouraged to write a novel similar to the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton, rather than the more traditional high fantasy that had been his focus in the past, as Butcher had previously stated that he enjoyed the Anita Blake series. Despite initial resistance, he wrote the first book that semester, closely following the instructions of his teacher, author Deborah Chester.When I finally got tired of arguing with her and decided to write a novel as if I was some kind of formulaic, genre writing drone, just to prove to her how awful it would be, I wrote the first book of the Dresden Files.
Thanks for this anecdote, Kirth. I love it when authors expose their process/confess: "Yes, I expected it to be s*&#ty."
The first two Dresden Files books are just awful. I only made it through the first one because I was spoiled for the plot by the tv show. I think I hated just about everything distinctive about it. The second one felt like a step down from there and I just barely finished. But then it teased metaplot, which got me though the next one. Things improved considerably from there. Honestly, I'd advise skipping to the third, fourth, or fifth book for a better introduction to what the series feels like.
Harry Dresden? Oh pish, I far prefer Stephanie Plum! I mean, if you want that sort of thing and you've already memorized every single one of Robert B. Parker's Spenser books.
The Jesse Stone stuff is pretty good, but there aren't like forty books in the series or anything . . .
87th Precinct? Never heard of it, but I'm pretty sure Alfred Hitchcock wrote the script for The Birds. :P
Just finished The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi and started Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld.
Samnell, The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick and War of the Oaks by Emma Bull are good.
There's another one about a female mechanic in a Pittsburgh that keeps switching places with bits of Elfland, and oni are involved. I just forget who wrote it or what it's called.
I know, petit bourgeoisie tools of the plutocracy. :)...because I wanted to see if they carried The Jacobin. Next issue looks to have a lot of promising content.
I know you know, but others might not. Also, finished all 24 issues of Black History and the Class Struggle and I get itchy if I don't get to post black-and-red stuff.
Speaking of...here's their interview with Eric Foner with a picture of DuBois:
'King Solomon's Mines' by H. Rider Haggard. I quite liked it. There were jokes about trousers in it..
I quite liked it, too. Meant to read some of the sequels/other shiznit by HRH, but never got around to it.
I should have both The Return of Sherlock Holmes and A Game of Thrones done by the end of the week.
Finished watching the first season with La Principessa while in Brooklyn over the weekend. Kind of in a quandary. If I read first and then watch, I get mad at the show; if I watch first and then read, I get bored because I already know what will happen. I swear, I didn't have these kinds of problems when I was single.
Bought La Principessa a copy of The Name of the Wind when I was down there in July. I've noticed that she hasn't read a single book the entire time that we've been dating. Told her she had to read it by the end of the summer. She agreed, but I don't think it's going to happen. What's the f*!%ing point in having a Master's Degree in English if you're not going to read books?!?