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Uncle Taco, your spoiler just made me want to read the Perdido book. Specifically
It just scratches this itch I've been having ever since reading Butler's "Bloodchild"...or maybe since I first read Kafka.
I've just finished re-reading Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief. I just discovered there's a bunch of sequels and I needed to refresh my memory about what happened in the first book before reading those. 1997 was a looooong time ago!
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Mmmm, Gregor Samsa porn.
It reminds me, back in high school, we were assigned to do a "creative report" on The Metamorphosis. I brought in my guitar, performed a cover and then performed a little ditty I composed myself. I don't remember the whole thing, but I do remember one line about Gregor's "anal pleasure."
I got a C. Meanwhile, my girlfriend at the time whipped up some crappy crayon drawings the day it was due at lunch and she got an A.
School sucks.
Got a couple of chapters into PSS once and then put it down. Something about the writing style just didn't groove with me.
I like it, but it does occasionally suffer from "look at my great, big... vocabulary" syndrome.
Luckily that's disappeared in later books by him that I've read (without affecting his style noticably).
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler (named for the jazz-guitarist) is, so far, a good military fantasy romp which clips along at a very good pace - and as someone who read a ridiculous number of children's novels set during the Great Nordic War it's nice to see some muskets and X-pounders in action again. Could have done with some more humanisation of the Mujahedin-like antagonists, though.
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Mmmm, Gregor Samsa porn.
"You've got a hard shell, but your belly is soft
I'm trying to figure out how to get you off"Please yourselves, though - it's no skin off my nose, as the baby boy said to the Moyl.
Since it's been warm, I've been out in the garden reading Thongor - Thongor of Lemuria and Thongor in the City of the Magicians, though I'm only halfway through the second.
Finished Seven Wonders. It leans heavily on comic-book logic and I'm not quite sure if that's lazy writing or deliberate homage.
Time to finally read Scalzi's Redshirts.
Yay!
Just finished The Rhesus Chart. Shit went down. I'm a bit bummed that we didn't get to see some of it, though.
Now I think I'm back to a Lovecraft collection. A friend has been bugging me about an idle notion I had to run a Lovecraftian game based on my hometown, informed by the kind of vicious hatred and bleak realism that only a lifetime resident could possess.
Now I think I'm back to a Lovecraft collection.
Me, too -- been working my way through his collected works, one at a time.
A friend has been bugging me about an idle notion I had to run a Lovecraftian game based on my hometown, informed by the kind of vicious hatred and bleak realism that only a lifetime resident could possess.
In other words, you want to re-create True Detective?
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Now I think I'm back to a Lovecraft collection.Me, too -- been working my way through his collected works, one at a time.
A friend has been bugging me about an idle notion I had to run a Lovecraftian game based on my hometown, informed by the kind of vicious hatred and bleak realism that only a lifetime resident could possess.In other words, you want to re-create True Detective?
I ran a supers campaign set it in my current hometown, and the PCs got their superpowers from eating Jamaican Beef Patties and Corn Balls (deep fried balls of frozen creamed corn) while driving by Love Canal during a lightning storm. :-P
Just finished The Rhesus Chart. S$+& went down. I'm a bit bummed that we didn't get to see some of it, though.
Now I think I'm back to a Lovecraft collection. A friend has been bugging me about an idle notion I had to run a Lovecraftian game based on my hometown, informed by the kind of vicious hatred and bleak realism that only a lifetime resident could possess.
I expect at least five unnecessary adjectives per sentence in your review of the Lovecraft collection.
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I've been neglecting my reading, alas, but in my defense, we've recruited two more people to the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) in the past couple of weeks, and are set to recruit two or three more.
Vive le Galt!
But I did get to the death of
The differences between the book and the movie continue to blow my mind. Did you know Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron
I'm not quite done, as I said, but: I don't think I've laughed as much as I did reading other Irving novels, marsupial genitalia aside, but I sure have cried a lot. Also, since I've learned that Irving studied under Vonnegut in the seventies, I keep thinking about an essay the latter wrote about a fan letter that observed that none of his novels have ever had a straight-up villain. Irving doesn't go quite that far, I don't think, but even his not-so-nice characters are usually wrapped in layers of compassion and understanding.
Good night you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England!
[Grabs the ether can and cries some more]
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Yeah, I didn't want to ruin it for you by even mentioning that a spoiler might be required, but at some point you were talking about how it was the it the only Irving movie you liked, maybe because you hadn't see the book, and I was all, "Wow, he's going to be really surprised by how much goes on after Wally gets back."
Don't bogart that ether can, Doodles!
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[Grabs the ether can and cries some more]
The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station.
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When I was in college, one of my room-mates filched a can of ether from the science lab. We kept it in the closet all year, where it whispered our names as seductively as that slot machine in the episode of "The Twilight Zone" they made out of that Harlan Ellison story, but we never had the balls to actually sample it.
I've been neglecting my reading, alas, but in my defense, we've recruited two more people to the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L)
Hey, you've turned Hoxhaist!
I got to the end of Nomads of Gor, which could be a very decent cheesy S&P adventure story if he'd leave off the slave girls for 5 minutes. However:
I can see why people find these books misogynistic, but in the first one, it was kept discreetly below the surface. In the second, it's a bit more obvious - Trowel Cardboard is sent to a city which is, in defiance of all that is good and natural, ruled by women; hence, Love and Joy are banned and only when Our Hero puts the wicked virago in charge over his manly knee does everything turn out as it should. This time:
"It means, I think (...) that only a woman who has utterly surrendered - and can utterly surrender - losing herself to a man's touch - can be truly a woman, and being what she is, is then truly free"
In practice, this appears to mean being used, sold, flogged and tied up in sacks full of dung. Being "real" women, Gorean slave girls are ecstatically happy with this state of affairs, of course, even if:
"[b]"The Goreans recognise that the truth is hard for women to understand, that they will reject it, that they will fear it and fight it"
If all he was doing was setting a novel in a society where this state of affairs was normal then there'd be nothing to it, but I get the impression he really believes it, which will no doubt come as a shock to nobody except myself. Maybe I'll continue reading the series, maybe I won't - I can put up with a lot, but what's coming will have to be really good to make up for stuff like that.
I've been neglecting my reading, alas, but in my defense, we've recruited two more people to the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L) in the past couple of weeks, and are set to recruit two or three more.
Vive le Galt!
But I did get to the death of ** spoiler omitted ** and I wept like a baby.
The differences between the book and the movie continue to blow my mind. Did you know Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron ** spoiler omitted ** Also, I was tickled pink by the way Melony ended up, ** spoiler omitted ** Irving doesn't say, but I like to imagine she ended up a steward in the IBEW.
Good night you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England!
[Grabs the ether can and cries some more]
I confess I have only read the book and not seen the movie, but after reading your comments above, I have to ask:
I've only seen the first two episodes, but I suppose so.
The show hit me pretty hard, having spent a lot of time working in Lake Charles, LA.
Stick with it -- Episode 4 is a real doozieAnyway, the point of my comment is that the writer, Nic Pizzolatto, grew up in Lake Charles, so he knows exactly the kind of twisted shit goes on there -- very, very close to what you were saying, although I have no idea what or where your own hometown may be.
I'd like the potential for it to turn open-ended and if they have the natural reaction of wanting to burn the whole place to the ground then that does limit things.
Yeah, I get that a lot, too, with some players. If it's a small town, you can always have the same kinds of creepy stuff going on in a lot of the neighboring towns, so all is not lost. If it's a major city, well, that makes it that much harder to burn down, so that's something.
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I confess I have only read the book and not seen the movie, but after reading your comments above, I have to ask: ** spoiler omitted **
Maybe I should be happy I have only read the book and not yet seen the movie?
[Puts on snob hat]
Yes, I think that's safe to say. As I said, I liked the movie because it still had a John Irving feel (he did write the screenplay, I read) but, to be honest, it was pretty much your typical nineties Miramax middlebrow costume drama fare. Charlize Theron's pretty hawt, though.
As for your spoilered question:
At least, that's what I remember.
Hey, you've turned Hoxhaist!I've been neglecting my reading, alas, but in my defense, we've recruited two more people to the Commonwealth Party of Galt (M-L)
I don't know anything about Gor except its reputation and the movie that we already talked about once that I saw as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I thought you might like to know that we've got a third-generation Chinese-American comrade with pronounced Maoist tendencies coming up next weekend to give us a talk on the Naxalites.
Modern classics without modernism.
Speaking of nineties costume dramas, I was consoling myself that I've read at least two of those books, but then I realized I've never read the Wharton, just seen the movie with Agent Scully.
Yes, I forgot and posted with my PBP alias. Everyone point and laugh. :)
Anyway, the point of my comment is that the writer, Nic Pizzolatto, grew up in Lake Charles, so he knows exactly the kind of twisted s@+& goes on there -- very, very close to what you were saying, although I have no idea what or where your own hometown may be.
I can imagine. It doesn't look like or sound like my town, but I can't see much from the first few episodes that would be all that out of place here. Cohle's ghost of a town comment is very fitting.
Yeah, I get that a lot, too, with some players. If it's a small town, you can always have the same kinds of creepy stuff going on in a lot of the neighboring towns, so all is not lost. If it's a major city, well, that makes it that much harder to burn down, so that's something.
I'd like the potential for it to turn open-ended and if they have the natural reaction of wanting to burn the whole place to the ground then that does limit things.
That's true; I could use the whole county. One of the players lived here too, so there's a lot of potential for little in jokes like making the site of his former home the scene of a human sacrifice. :)
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Found some books I'm very interested in for cheap at a used book store today, including the Rise of the Runelords anniversary adventure path, Triumff Her Majesty's Hero by Dan Abnett and the entire War of the Spider Queen series. Sweeeeeeeet. Not bad for $20.
Most recently, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425.
In no specific order:
- The Redemption Engine - James L. Sutter
- Tokyo Ghoul - Ishida Sui
- William Shakespeare's Star Wars - Ian Doescher
- The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordan
- Railsea - China Miéville
- Rein - Yoshino Takumi & Sumikawa Megumi
- "Dragon Egg": natural fantasy rpg - Okada Atsuhiro
- 30 Days of Night - Steve Niles
- To Reign in Hell - Steven Brust
Carry on!
--C.
Just finished W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton, just started The Last Policeman by Ben Winters.
"Temporarily" gave up on Shadowrise...which resulted in a month plus hiatus where I didn't really read anything.
Started reading Best Horror of the Year 5, edited by Ellen Datlow instead. Pretty good...I have read the last 4 volumes over the year, and it's been one of the most reliable horror anthologies.
Taking a break from re-reading Lovecraft in order to re-read some Thomas Paine.
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Vive le Galt!
Since I last checked in we have recruited two more members, including Omar the Former Arab Terrorist who was very upset when he discovered that I am referring to him as Omar the Former Arab Terrorist on these messageboards. "What the f*!#, I wasn't prosecuted for 'air terrorism,' I was prosecuted for 'false communication of intention to use an explosive device on an airline.'"
My bad.
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Wrapped up "The Black Lung Captain" (Tales of the Ketty Jay #2) in a small marathon session that ended gloriously at 3 AM, with me laying down my kindle and falling asleep in an instant.
Time to move on to "Sea of Silver Light" (Otherland #4).
THE BLACK LUNG CAPTAIN thoughts: yet another greatly entertaining read from Chris Wooding. However, for a series that emulates Firefly, I found the Ketty Jay series to be a bit too bleak for my taste, with some of the characters having truly grim pasts which mess them up, and others (Pinn) being completely unlikable.
Reading Scars by Chris Wraight. The Horus Heresy series meanders all around but it's fun it has finally hit the White Scars. Fun Astartes Chapter, so ignored in RL it has become a bit of a joke in the book.
Finished Redshirts. It was good, but was a little slow to start. I almost bailed before it got good. Ending was a bit meta.
Not sure what's next. Might wait for Reign of Stars.
Meant to get back to Lovecraft. For a combination of boring life reasons, and a well-timed Humble Bundle, I ended up digging into the Transformers comics instead. Never read them before and I've only ever been a peripheral Transformers fan.
Optiums Prime makes terrible decision.
I just finished Monster Hunter Nemesis (awesome), and I'm starting World of Trouble, the third book in the Last Policeman trilogy by Ben H. Winters. I really hope he doesn't botch it by replacing the low-key end-of-the-world mystery with a VAST MULTINATIONAL CONSPIRACY!
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Those Ranger levels were worthwhile after all - thanks to taking Favoured Enemy (low grade 70s fantasy paperbacks) I was able to track down and subdue the following today:
Wizard of Lemuria - Lin Carter.
The Quest for Cush - Charles R. Saunders (really looking forward to that one
Black Legion of Callisto - Lin Carter
The Second Book of Swords - Fred Saberhagen
Kyrik and the Lost Queen - Gardner F. Fox
Warlocks and Warriors (an anthology)
Whom the Gods Would Slay - Ivar Jorgensen
Day of the Minotaur - Thomas Burnett Swann
Hadon of Ancient Opar - Philip Jose Farmer
I also got hold of an old D20 sourcebook called Arrows of Indra, setting out rules for running a 3.5e campaign in ancient India. Pretty cool, but loses points for describing tulwars as two-handed weapons. Tsk tsk. And I read 'Jirel of Joiry' on the train there and back, which was first-class.
Limey: Gor doesn't exactly get better with increasing numbers. Trust me on this. Take one of the latter novels, read a random page, and it is hysterically bad. That in itself could forgive a lot, but worse, it is repetitive and boring.L
No - I'm now kind of expecting things to decline even further as the series progresses; if all I've got to look forward to is more of the same I'll probably quit it, unless I can find them super cheap.
Finished The Shadow Throne by Django Wexler, and enjoyed it quite a bit. Also slightly amused that it's the third fantasy story with a revolution as backdrop or main plot element I've bought so far this year (the two previous one being Surrendrer None by Elizabeth Moon, and Juliet E McKenna's trilogy Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution).
Moving on to a biography of the Swedish 17th-century chancellor and statesman Axel Oxenstierna, and David Peace's novel about Bill Shankly: Red or Dead.
Finished The Last Policeman and started Leviathan Wakes.
Lenin, a little more Sherlock Holmes, and now I'm trying to decide between Melville and Lieber. Decisions, decisions.
If I'm honest, I'm really reading this: Report of the special committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas,: with the views of the minority of said committee.
So far there's been hostage taking, a guy chased into a river at gunpoint, broken windows, a battering ram at a door, an attempt to literally bring a house down on the heads of the people inside, and a threatened decapitation...by hand.
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If I'm honest, I'm really reading this: Report of the special committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas,: with the views of the minority of said committee.
So far there's been hostage taking, a guy chased into a river at gunpoint, broken windows, a battering ram at a door, an attempt to literally bring a house down on the heads of the people inside, and a threatened decapitation...by hand.
The sad thing is that my first thought was "What's going on in Kansas now? How did I miss this kind of escalation?"
Then I realised it was you and probably a pre-Civil War reference.
I had a pretty good idea of what time period it was from but only because I had added Freedmen's Patrol to my list of blogs I read awhile ago.
In other news to give my bad eyes a chance to rest a bit I've taken to reading manga. Just finished DBZ and I'm looking now for a set of Full Metal Alchemist to read, a series unfortunately none of my friends own.
If I'm honest, I'm really reading this: Report of the special committee appointed to investigate the troubles in Kansas,: with the views of the minority of said committee.
So far there's been hostage taking, a guy chased into a river at gunpoint, broken windows, a battering ram at a door, an attempt to literally bring a house down on the heads of the people inside, and a threatened decapitation...by hand.
The sad thing is that my first thought was "What's going on in Kansas now? How did I miss this kind of escalation?"
Then I realised it was you and probably a pre-Civil War reference.
Yeah, the report was written in 1856. They actually sent a panel out from Congress to Kansas to question the witnesses, so it's a great collection of firsthand accounts. Some of this stuff is so wild you'd expect it of a party of adventurers gone off their meds.