Why oh why did I click on Treppa's link?
Lol, I haven't actually read that story but I know it by reputation.
Don't think I will ever read it though, I would really prefer not to sodomize my imagination with underage Victorian smut. (apparently the main character is like 13 or something and gets molested by a bunch of adult women, though he likes it I guess.)
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Why oh why did I click on Treppa's link?Lol, I haven't actually read that story but I know it by reputation.
Don't think I will ever read it though, I would really prefer not to sodomize my imagination with underage Victorian smut. (apparently the main character is like 13 or something and gets molested by a bunch of adult women, though he likes it I guess.)
It's Naughty Treppa's fault, not yours, CH. And the story gets much worse than that as it goes on, Yuugasa, so you've dodged a bullet there. What our Glorious Empire-Building Forebears liked to relax with at the end of a long day shooting people browner than themselves was a rollicking tale of spanking 'n' incest, going by that and other similar books I've read. Make of that what you will.
Not counting the AP books I'm going back and forth between while running one campaign and preping another?
Barry Lyndon.
Why oh why did I click on Treppa's link?Lol, I haven't actually read that story but I know it by reputation.
Don't think I will ever read it though, I would really prefer not to sodomize my imagination with underage Victorian smut. (apparently the main character is like 13 or something and gets molested by a bunch of adult women, though he likes it I guess.)
Geez, that's only the first few chapters. He ages during the process of "character development".
Apologies, never judge a book by its cover, and never judge a smutty story because it begins with adults sleeping with a 13 year old....wait...=)
What our Glorious Empire-Building Forebears liked to relax with at the end of a long day shooting people browner than themselves was a rollicking tale of spanking 'n' incest, going by that and other similar books I've read. Make of that what you will.
Sounds more intriguing than Horatio Alger novels and Natty Bumpo stories...
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A collection of William Hope Hodgson's classic weird-fiction "Carnacki: The Ghost Finder" pulp stories, about a spritualist-detective... it's kind of like Ghost Busters meets Sherlock Holmes.
I recently finished a collection of Robert Aickman's ghost stories, a collection of Dunsany's fantasy stories, and a collection of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels (now that I've finally read them, the John Carter stories are a very obvious inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons - far more so than Tolkien's work!)
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Finally finished reading Lord of Chaos (The Waste of Time #6). I am actually somewhat dazed for having finished the book today and watching the Avengers: Age of Ultron right after, so I'm not even sure what I'll read next. There are a couple of endless series that I have neglected lately (Repairman Jack and The Dresden Files), a couple of trilogies that I am one book away from finishing (Revelation Space, The First Law) and of course a few dozens of other books I would be interested in reading. I think I'll sleep on it tonight and decide what to read next tomorrow.
It gets even worse - after spending dozens of chapter doing nothing in Salidar, Nynaeve and Elayn finally set out to find adventure in the city of Abo Dar, where they... search the streets for a couple of chapters? And nothing happens? Why were they even in this book?
The change of pace that the last 50 pages brought was very jarring. Before that, the most people who can channel we had in a single fight were... 4? maybe 5? Suddenly, there are over five hundreds of them, all flinging fireballs and shaking the earth. It feels as if Jordan suddenly recalled that there was no action in the book and shoved some in for an explosive finale.
It's not that the book was entirely a chore to read - certain aspects of the series are alluring to me and I kept enjoying them, but certainly this is the weakest book in the series so far, and by quite a fair margin.
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Black History and the Class Struggle No. 7: Glory: Black Soldiers Fight for Freedom
I went back and re-watched Glory after reading Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers by David Wright and David Zoby.
Link: Goodreads page.
I really liked this book, and it taught me about what happened to a lot of black Civil War soldiers during Reconstruction (not a generally happy time, by any stretch). I also think it would make a great movie or miniseries.
Black History and the Class Struggle No. 7: Glory: Black Soldiers Fight for FreedomI went back and re-watched Glory after reading Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers by David Wright and David Zoby.
Link: Goodreads page.
I really liked this book, and it taught me about what happened to a lot of black Civil War soldiers during Reconstruction (not a generally happy time, by any stretch). I also think it would make a great movie or miniseries.
I've been watching a lot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I wonder what Andre Braugher was doing between Glory and now?
I know he played a big-time thief who has to carry out a major heist while not alienating his step-daughter after his wife dies in Thief.
Also Homicide: Life on the Streets FFS!
I know he played a big-time thief who has to carry out a major heist while not alienating his step-daughter after his wife dies in Thief.
Also Homicide: Life on the Streets FFS!
He was also in a sitcom/drama (?) with Ray Romano and Scott Bakula (?).
I'm now reading Half a World by Joe Abercrombie.
Taking a break from Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson. It seems like a weak version of Daniel Suarez's Daemon and Freedom TM series.
I know he played a big-time thief who has to carry out a major heist while not alienating his step-daughter after his wife dies in Thief.
Also Homicide: Life on the Streets FFS!
He was also in a sitcom/drama (?) with Ray Romano and Scott Bakula (?).
One of the higher-digit channels here used to have it on around when I get home rrom work. Think it was called "Men of a Certain Age," and Ray Romano was surprisingly good.
No new books for me at the moment as I'm binge-watching Orphan Black.
Orphan Black is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!!!!
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Orphan Black is great, though it relies *heavily* on Maslany's performance. It would have never worked with anyone who is even a bit less talented than she. Plus, it has one of the less coherent stories I have ever seen. As one who found it easy to navigate the endless ranks of characters and schemes of A Song of Ice and Fire and who almost never gets confused while watching a movie, I am embarrassingly befuddled by whatever the hack is going on in Orphan Black.
At the start of each season things are pretty straightforward, but by the end I feel like I have only the most tenuous grasp on the identity and motivation of just about everyone involved.
Seeing as how it's a story that's all about scrambling the main characters' sense of identity, I can be convinced that the confusion is intentional - that the maze of shadowy figures and conspiracies is supposed to reflect the confusion of the characters, to show a world that is weird and somewhat out of focus, blurry.
Still sets my head to spinning, though.
Yeah, that's one of the problems with conspiracy theories--they never make any sense. Mostly because real life people and organizations are so bad at keeping secrets.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Alastair Reynolds "Poseidon's Wake"
Loved the first two (and pretty much everything he's written) - looking forward to seeing what the elephants are up to :-)
Re-reading Brust's The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars (one of his best), about a guy painting a painting. Also still trying to get through Clausewitz' On War. I mean, I can dig most of what he's saying, but the dude couldn't write worth a damned.
The Collected Works of Lord Byron. Very good when it's good, but pretty often drivel. Also, there's absolutely poetic buckets of it, so I'll be kept busy for weeks, I should think.
EDIT: Hello, Kirth! :)
Yeah, been a while! But I'm back in H-Town and rollin' hard, now.
Huzzah!
I read 'The Intrepid Enchanter' by L. Sprague De Camp and Fletcher Pratt while on the train today, and also bought:
'Watchtower' by Elizabeth A. Lynn
'Deathblinder' by Bernard King
And 'Discipline of the Private House' by Esme Ombreux (yes, really), who is, of course, a very close personal friend of our very close personal friend, the beautiful and talented Vanessa P. Shachtman!
Bah! Your silver tongue won't work on me, Longears!
That's not what you said last...
Currently finishing Of Dice and Men, by David Ewalt. For those who haven't read it yet, it's a narrative history of Dungeons and Dragons, with some observations about RPGs and roleplaying in general thrown in. There's not much there I didn't already know, but it's enjoyable reading it in a comprehensive storyline.
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I'm reading The Voyage of the Basilisk: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan. It's the third book in the series. So far it has been a fun read, full of nautical adventure, and I like Tod Lockwood's illustrations, but I don't like the blue ink the publisher chose to use. I think it's supposed to make it look "old-timey" but it just makes it harder for me to read and does Lockwood's illustrations a disservice IMO.
I, too, am a great big fan of the works of Vanessa Pablovovitch Shachtman.
Semi-related, it's not Petrarch or nothin', but I used the above Ian McEwan quote on La Principessa and it worked like a charm.
Immature poets borrow, mature poets steal!
Currently finishing Of Dice and Men, by David Ewalt. For those who haven't read it yet, it's a narrative history of Dungeons and Dragons, with some observations about RPGs and roleplaying in general thrown in. There's not much there I didn't already know, but it's enjoyable reading it in a comprehensive storyline.Read this two years ago, hated it, worst book I've ever read.
What was it that turned you off of the book so badly, Terquem? While it's nowhere near the best writing I've ever seen, I must say I've also read far worse.
Just finished The Fall by Bethany Griffin, whose writing schtick is to retell/expand Poe classics. This one is The Fall of the House of Usher as told from inside the family. Kind of interesting, though it would have been much better if I were vulnerable to creepiness/horror. It has a kind of Silent Hill vibe.
Pet peeve: in The Fall, one person picks up "the reigns" of the carriage. "Reigns"? Really? In a professionally written and edited book? I understand average people getting this wrong, but hate hate HATE to see it creeping into published works. (kind of like lie/lay)
Just started The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Too soon to say yet, but interesting so far.
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Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall Trilogy just got re-release, so I had to read them. Every bit as enjoyable as I remembered them, even the things I mis-remembered.
Started reading Neal Ashers Dark Intelligence Book 1 - Transformation.
Never read anything by him before, but the blurb on Amazon looked interesting. I'm about 2/3 of the way through. Fun read.
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Finished reading Last Argument Of Kings (The First Law #3, by Joe Abercrombie). I was going back and forth on the question of my next read. It has been some time since I advanced through either the Repairman Jack cycle or the Dresden Files series - the two structurally similar urban fantasies I am reading.
Given the emotional trauma that Last Argument of King was, I think I can't stand the vaguest notion of a "shades of grey" character, and Dresden is more that than Jack is. I think. Maybe not. Ugh.
Anyway, the scales have been tipped slightly toward Jack's end of the specturm. The latest I read in the series was Hosts (#5), and it was also by far the weakest entry in the story, which was the reason I put it aside for a while. But it is time to come back, I think.
To say that Abercromibe deconstructed the fantasy genre would not come close to fully describing his debut trilogy. To say that he tore the genre limb from limb would be more accurate.
He seemed to be of a mind that in order to break something down you have to build it first. So he spent an entire book, The Blade Itself, to give us the most bland fantasy setting we have ever seen. A distinctly British central kingdom on an island, barbarians and a race of monsters up north, an empire of glory and power built on the back of slaves to the south. The book didn't in particular have a plot. I remember being seriously annoyed that the kindly wizard, Bayaz, seemed to be the only one who actually knows what is going on and why, but none of the characters bothered to ask him about it.
Then came Before They Are Hanged, and set readers up for the sucker punch. It made the reader really like the characters, despite how despicable each of them is in their own way. Glokta was actually hunting for truth for once, and have shown compassion a number of times. Jezal seemed to mature and better himself, hardened by harsh lessons. Logen became a very positive leader and an example for Jezal and Ferro - who herself found some measure of warmth for her travelling companions. The book ended by failing all the characters despite their obvious compatence - Glokta couldn't win the impossible fight to save a besieged city, and the quest item Bayaz was looking for turned out not to be there, at the end of the world, making a book long journey completely pointless.
But then came Last Argument of Kings. A major theme in it was that people can't change. Put them in a new environment, like in the second book, and they can use a fresh start - but return them to their previous environment and they'll slide right back to what they used to be.
Glokta goes on inane murder sprees, causing an endless amount of suffering for really not much of a better reason than because it occupies him. Jezal has maybe learned a thing or two and became less of a moron, but he is still very much the self centered bastard he used to be, so easily swayed by compliments. Much worse, Logen returns to claim his nickname, The Bloody Nine, with sickening speed. He becomes the terrifying monster that he always described himself as being in the past. We even learn that he very probably was as guilty as Bethod himself was at the way things got worse in the north.
Worst of all, of course, is Bayaz. Even though there were some doubts to him earlier in the series, I was inclined to support him because he was likable and his enemy appeared to be a terrible monster, creating an army of Eaters and attempting to conquer the world. Well, it appears that all this time the characters were fighting against Hitler - and that is still true, Khalul is by all accounts evil - but they have been working for the devil all along. Bayaz already practically controls much of thw world, and his megalomaniac insanity caused more strife throughout history than is imaginable.
The ending was incredibly well constructed. Just about each character got a "happy ever after" that was twisted horribly. Everything coming back to how things started, except for the added lair of misery that the events of the story brought.
It is brilliant. It is exhausting. It is miserable. Quite the book.
Anyway, on to Repairman Jack punching some horrible tentacled monsters in the face with The Haunted Air (Repairman Jack #6)
Just finished The Book Thief and highly recommend it. Now I need to go wash my face and try to get my eyes less red.
I'm taking another break from Robopocalypse.
Started reading Promise of Blood, the first Powder Mage novel by Brian McClelland.
Activism and drama have prevented me from getting much reading done, but I am happy to report that Mr. Comrade has moved on to the second Corum trilogy.
I am headed to Brooklyn this weekend, and hope to take down The Whispering Swarm on the bus. Last time I was reading it, Mike had just run into this book's version of Jerry Cornelius. Huzzah!
And, oh yeah, F+!+ Bayaz!!!
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Did indeed read a great big chunk of The Whispering Swarm on the ride down to Brooklyn. I can see how the undevoted might not care, but I'm loving this shiznit. Whole bunch of name-dropping that would thrill readers of this thread ("I went to lunch with John Wyndham and Alfred Bester and we talked about Fritz Leiber..." runs a part that I just made up) mixed in with a good dose of class war (at one point he and his fictional girlfriend/muse hold up a train full of executive wage packets to give to the union so that their families won't go hungry during a strike). Had to put it down when I got to the part (autobiographical, I'm guessing) about his inability to console his clinically depressed first wife, which hit a little too close to home as La Principessa went from exultation that I was coming down a day early to sobbing depression to barely suppressed irritability within the course of three phone calls over the span of three hours. [Sigh]
Anyway, mixed it up with a book by dissident Marcyites called China: Revolution and Counterrevolution which is much too soft on Chairman Mao but, at the same time, makes me incredibly jealous because at least they're not running around saying the PRC is "state capitalist". [Shakes fist]
Anyway, I think this is the first time I've been left in La Principessa's apartment while she's at work when there hasn't been snow on the ground, so I'm thinking of going out to a park and drinking some cider and reading some more Moorcock. Hopefully, I won't get Broken Window-ed.