To expand my mind and teach me not to prejudge.Good answer :)
I'm a slow reader and there are like 15 books I want to read in any given time that sound like something I haven't read before, so for me I figured I can expand my mind reading stuff I like.
I try. :)
My reading speed it second only to Lt. Data's. It's ridiculous when I want to power through something. So I can generally blow through one or two chapters pretty quickly. If it grabs me, I finish. If not, I don't.
Hard to believe Ancillary Justice grabbed me, but there's no accounting for taste.
Reading Lev Grossman's The Magicians right now, with The Great Gatsby, Raising Steam, and Ready Player One on deck.
Ready Player One is sooooooooooo good!!!!!!!!
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hhhmm...in hind sight I don't think I would call it filler. I will say that a ton of things introduced in this book help set up the later books, without giving away any specific plot points. I would probably more refer to it as a "Bridging" novel.Finished Bloodrites (Dresden Files #6). Took me annoyingly long to finish a book that should have lasted a few short days, but apparantly there's this thing called "real life" that really cuts into one's reading time.
** spoiler omitted **...
In "filler" I was mostly referring to the plot of the novel -
Clearly the story is there because you need one for a book, but it is far from the main focus of Bloodrites. All these revelations about Harry's past and the changes in his life could have come while advancing the story introduced in the past few books. Instead, an entire book is devoted to them. not a bad choice in what will eventually be a 20+ book series, but it does make most of the contents of this one feel like filler. Again, not bad, book was very enjoyable, but it was stating outright that I shouldn't take it as seriously as the others. Like, actually stating it in the first two chapters.
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Immensely enjoying going back and forth between Hardy and Brackett.
For example,
"The crooked lane leading from their own parish to Mellstock ran along the lowest levels in a portion of its length, and when the girls reached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the rain had been to flood the lane over-shoe to a distance of fifty yards. This would have been no serious hindrance on a week-day; they would have clicked through it in their high pattens and boots quite unconcerned; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's-day, when flesh went forth to coquet with flesh while hypocritically affecting business with spiritual things; on this occasion for wearing their white stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac gowns, on which every mud spot would be visible, the pool was an awkward impediment. They could hear the church-bell calling--as yet nearly a mile off."
Compared with,
"I shot Laura three times, carefully, between the shoulders."
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Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.
Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.
I submit that Dickens may be his equal at some points...
Dickens has always been my go-to for verbosity.
Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.
I find it amusing that his modern-day namesake was given a total of maybe 6 words to say in the latest Mad Max movie...
"Your name is Thomas Hardy? Really?" (tears up script) "You don't get to talk, okay?"
Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.I submit that Dickens may be his equal at some points...
Dickens has always been my go-to for verbosity.
Not King? Not Robert Jordan? Tom Clancy? :)
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Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.I submit that Dickens may be his equal at some points...
Dickens has always been my go-to for verbosity.
Ah, the 19th century, when the paragraphs were as well-upholstered as the bustles.
I'm reading 'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir, as a sort of counterweight to all the Gor books.
Ah, the 19th century, when the paragraphs were as well-upholstered as the bustles.
They were often paid by the word or page.
Not King? Not Robert Jordan? Tom Clancy? :)Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.I submit that Dickens may be his equal at some points...
Dickens has always been my go-to for verbosity.
Excellent examples all, and I would throw Alexandre Dumas in there as well. I guess Dickens is my go-to because out of the guys we've mentioned, I found him first...
Excellent examples all, and I would throw Alexandre Dumas in there as well. I guess Dickens is my go-to because out of the guys we've mentioned, I found him first...Not King? Not Robert Jordan? Tom Clancy? :)Nobody can Hardy like Hardy. Nobody.I submit that Dickens may be his equal at some points...
Dickens has always been my go-to for verbosity.
I personally prefer Steven Z. Brust's Phoenix Guard series for verbosity.
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I personally prefer Steven K.Z. Brust's Phoenix Guard series for verbosity.
No fair -- he was intentionally trying to sound like Dumas (and largely succeeding).
verbosity...
Cold Comfort Farm parodies the style of Hardy et al. gloriously—the author, Stella Gibbons, even asterisks the sections she considers most "literary" to call attention to them.
"Amos looked at her, as though seeing her for the first, or perhaps the second, time. His huge body, rude as a wind-tortured thorn, was printed darkly against the thin mild flame of the declining winter sun that throbbed like a sallow lemon on the westering lip of Mockuncle Hill, and sent its pale, sharp rays into the kitchen through the open door. The brittle air, on which the fans of trees were etched like aging skeletons, seemed thronged by the bright, invisible ghosts of a million dead summers. The cold beat in glassy waves against the eyelids of anybody who happened to be out in it. High up, a few chalky clouds doubtfully wavered in the pale sky that curved against the rim of the Downs like a vast inverted pot-de-chambre. Huddled in the hollow like an exhausted brute, the frosted roofs of Howling, crisp and purple as broccoli leaves, were like beasts about to spring."
But fear not! She readily drops out of such overblown prose to move the plot and dialogue along, using the contrast in styles to play up the absurdity of various situations. (In the movie, they made the main character an aspiring author, and preserved some of these excerpts as voiceovers of her writing.)
In other news, sailed through White As Snow, now working on When Women Were Warriors.
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As for verbosity, I really can think of no other than Robert Jordan, may he rest in peace, probably because I have been reading his books for the past year. He is the one and only author that makes me skim through pages. I have a policy where if I see a passage starting with
1) description of cloths
2) a woman glaring at something/tugging her braid/smoothing her skirts/sniffing/etc.
3) a detailed description of every last person from some unimportant group the characters come across
I simply skip a couple of paragraphs. I never seem to miss anything that will hamper my understanding of the story.
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Black History and the Class Struggle, No. 13: Fight for Black Freedom! Fight for a Socialist Future!
Up to the issues that were published in the mid-'90s when a young Doodlebug was first coming around. Articles on the war on drugs and mass incarceration fifteen years before The New Jim Crow came out. No wonder I liked that book so much.
Got another vacation coming up which will consist of a trip to Brooklyn, so I better finish A Game of Thrones before I get down there. Hence, I'm putting aside Brackett for a while and focusing exclusively on Hardy.
There's a really nice grassy hill outside of work that I've started frequenting. Get to work an hour or two early, smoke a bowl, sit on the hill, wait for La Principessa to call and then read a book. Yesterday, since La Principessa never called, I read chapters XXVIII-XXX and they made me cry over and over. My love and Tess are very different people and have very different problems, but it was kinda like Hardy had peered through a telescope into the future and was writing a description of La Principessa. I bet she would've made a great milkmaid.
Anyway, I was totally rooting for Angel Claire, then I finished "Part the Fourth" and peeked a couple of pages ahead and I am no longer and now I say f&@& that douchebag! but my opinion might change as I keep reading.
I left Tess out in the rain last night.
:(
So you are the reason for that cautionary tingling I got in my spine! I just knew that someone out there was mistreating a book. Hrmph.I left Tess out in the rain last night.
:(
Pfft. I got it at a library sale for fifty cents. Every other paragraph was underlined and somebody had conveniently written "VIP" (Very Important Passage?) with an * every fourth page.
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Pfft. I got it at a library sale for fifty cents. Every other paragraph was underlined and somebody had conveniently written "VIP" (Very Important Passage?) with an * every fourth page.So you are the reason for that cautionary tingling I got in my spine! I just knew that someone out there was mistreating a book. Hrmph.I left Tess out in the rain last night.
:(
If your purpose was to make me even more sad for that book you did marvelously :(
Once, as a child, I got a chocolate smear from a sandwich I was eating on the Harry Potter book I was reading. I still feel the guilt today. Not that my books are all pristine, but some transgressions are worse than others.
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There, there, Lord Snow, there, there. It was printed back in 1960. It had a long, full life, Lord Snow, and is now making friends with overly-verbose 19th-century novels in Biblioheaven. It's okay, let it all out. There, there.
I'm with Lord Snow on purposefully mistreating books; having had young children around the house, though, I have (mostly) learned to overlook accidents.
One of my strongest memories from childhood was when I was in the 2nd grade and forgot two books I had checked out from the school library when I left the playground for home. It rained that weekend, and the books were ruined. There are few times I remember being so mortified as when I had to go to the school librarian and confess my heinous behavior.
I didn't purposefully mistreat the book! I left it out in the rain after [bubble bubble bubble]-ing and being distracted by company.
Sheesh, you guys.
I didn't purposefully mistreat the book! I left it out in the rain after [bubble bubble bubble]-ing and being distracted by company.
Sheesh, you guys.
I wasn't implying you ruined the book on purpose; my apologies if you thought that's what I meant.
Darned internet, negating tone and inflection and obscuring intention on a conversation. I blame Cosmo... oh, wait, wrong thread. :)
What I meant to get across, DA, was that I get that it was an accident, which sucks, especially because now you'll have to track down another copy of the book.
I found tooth marks all over the volumes in the library, Doodlebug, and I've elected not to inquire about the stains all over the lingerie models in Lady Dice's fashion magazines . . .
I learned the hard way * never * to lend books to Mrs Gersen or her father. The first thing they do is open the book so that the front cover and back cover meet and the spine cracks apart. They claim it makes the book easier to hold or something, but it also makes all the pages fall out. They also tend to use paperbacks as coasters, so the books end up all soggy and wrinkled and bedraggled.
A lot of my paperbacks are relics, long out of print, so I feel like I'm justified in not loaning them. Is that wrong of me?
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Anyone who breaks the binding loses their borrowing privileges! Hell, I don't let people manhandle my comic books like that, and most of them are staple bound . . .
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The first thing they do is open the book so that the front cover and back cover meet and the spine cracks apart.
Ggaaahh! *Cringes*
A lot of my paperbacks are relics, long out of print, so I feel like I'm justified in not loaning them. Is that wrong of me?
No. Never loan out anything you can't replace, unless you trust that person implicitly; especially books.
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I learned the hard way * never * to lend books to Mrs Gersen or her father. The first thing they do is open the book so that the front cover and back cover meet and the spine cracks apart. They claim it makes the book easier to hold or something, but it also makes all the pages fall out. They also tend to use paperbacks as coasters, so the books end up all soggy and wrinkled and bedraggled.
A lot of my paperbacks are relics, long out of print, so I feel like I'm justified in not loaning them. Is that wrong of me?
I've been ridiculed for showing reluctance to lend out my books for that reason.
I left Tess out in the rain last night.
:(
Starts singing: "Someone left the book out in the raaaiiinnn/I don't know if I can stand it/It took so long to scan it/And I'll never have that edition agaaaaiiiinnnn..."
Sorry, someone had to. ;)
Actual reply, when I request a book not be destroyed:
"What do you care -- you've already read it!"
(Sad headshake)
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Actual reply, when I request a book not be destroyed:
"What do you care -- you've already read it!"
(Sad headshake)
That right there is how the Dark Ages happened !!!!!111!
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins.
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You are in for a treat. These are two of his absolute best.I just reread Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Crazy awesome - emphasis on the crazy. ^_^
The sequel is next on my list, along with Sir Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures and Small Gods.
I've read them several times before... (and I agree.)
His system of "gods fueled by belief" was a big inspiration for my homebrew campaign world. As for MP, I love the little references to various real-world cinema - the Paramountain, a goddess surrounded by stars, the golden guardian, etc. Soul Music has a lot of the same.
I've read just about everything he's written - every Discworld book (with the exception of a couple of obscure ones, like The Science of Discworld), the Johnny Maxwell series (excellent YA work), and the Bromeliad Trilogy. Plus, obviously, Good Omens. ^_^
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You are in for a treat. These are two of his absolute best.I just reread Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Crazy awesome - emphasis on the crazy. ^_^
The sequel is next on my list, along with Sir Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures and Small Gods.
I've read them several times before... (and I agree.)
His system of "gods fueled by belief" was a big inspiration for my homebrew campaign world. As for MP, I love the little references to various real-world cinema - the Paramountain, a goddess surrounded by stars, the golden guardian, etc. Soul Music has a lot of the same.
I've read just about everything he's written - every Discworld book (with the exception of a couple of obscure ones, like The Science of Discworld), the Johnny Maxwell series (excellent YA work), and the Bromeliad Trilogy. Plus, obviously, Good Omens. ^_^
I am still very far off the mark of reading everything he's ever written (and would, with all likelihood, never quite get there as I am less interested in books such as the Long Earth and some other of his non Discworld fiction).
In Moving Pictures
What is your favorite Discworld series? Mine is the Guardsman, though the Witches come very strong (Weatherwax Vs. Vimes is a tough one), followed by Death and Rincewind who are themselves very close. Have not read any of the Von Lipwig stuff yet, so don't know about that.
I understand the love for Pratchett, but don't share it. He relies on the same general brand of humor as Douglas Adams (whose novels I also didn't like) and, to some extent, Monte Python (whom I also don't think are all that funny).
I understand the love for Pratchett, but don't share it. He relies on the same general brand of humor as Douglas Adams (whose novels I also didn't like) and, to some extent, Monte Python (whom I also don't think are all that funny).
What kind of a nerd are you, that you don't like Monty Python!? :-P
As the esteemed Mrs Gersen once put it, "You're a dork, honey, but at least you're not a super-dork like those Star Trek people."
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As the esteemed Mrs Gersen once put it, "You're a dork, honey, but at least you're not a super-dork like those Star Trek people."
Guilty! :)
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I understand the love for Pratchett, but don't share it. He relies on the same general brand of humor as Douglas Adams (whose novels I also didn't like) and, to some extent, Monte Python (whom I also don't think are all that funny).
I tried, but I detest the guy's work. Same with Adams. I can take Python in small doses, but every time I tried to watch a full episode I found the experience utterly tedious. Actually dozed off once.
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I understand the love for Pratchett, but don't share it. He relies on the same general brand of humor as Douglas Adams (whose novels I also didn't like) and, to some extent, Monte Python (whom I also don't think are all that funny).
Unlike the Monthy Python and Adams, though, Pratchett usually tells stories that actually have merit. It is astounding to me how many times I found myself actually on the edge of my seat reading a Discworld novel. He has real things to say and real stories, sometimes even about characters you can care about.
I know, I know, his stories happen in an intentionally silly world with intentionally silly rules, but... the lion king is about talking animals, yet that doesn't make the story in it any less engaging, right?
Now if you find the humor more annoying than fun I can see why reading the books wouldn't be as interesting for you. I just think that in many ways Pratchett is a step above Adams or MP. There is a method to his madness.
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I am still very far off the mark of reading everything he's ever written (and would, with all likelihood, never quite get there as I am less interested in books such as the Long Earth and some other of his non Discworld fiction).
In Moving Pictures
** spoiler omitted **What is your favorite Discworld series? Mine is the Guardsman, though the Witches come very strong (Weatherwax Vs. Vimes is a tough one), followed by Death and Rincewind who are themselves very close. Have not read any of the Von Lipwig stuff yet, so don't know about that.
I read fast - one, maybe two, novels in a day, when the mood strikes me. Makes it easier. (I've finished one since that last post.) ^_^
I don't know if I could pick a favorite series - each has its own distinct flavor, and it depends what I'm looking for at any given time. If I had to try, though...
-Guards: Most consistently enjoyable, I love Men at Arms (and will probably drop an intelligent weapon in a campaign someday along those lines). Night Watch and Thud! are his most powerful works. Anyone who thinks his work isn't "serious" enough should give those two a spin.
-Death: Death tends to have the best villains. The Auditors and their minions (the Combine Harvester and Mr. Teatime) might be my favorite of the series. I don't like Susan all that much, though.
-Unassigned: There's a couple of old ones here - Pyramids and Small Gods - that I love. I may have liked the Auditors, but the antagonist of Pyramids is the best. This is how you do a Lawful Neutral villain. Also, on belief:
Dios stared in astonishment at the staff. It had never done this before. But seven thousand years of his priests had believed, in their hearts, that the staff of Dios could rule this world and the next.
There's also The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and The Truth, but other than the Rat King (chilling villain), I wasn't as excited by these.
-Witches' Coven: These rely a bit too much on parodying other work for me to really get into them. I love his take on elves and "the love of iron", though. Again, grist for future campaigns.
-Tiffany Aching/Nac Mac Feegle: Great work, although hampered a little by the childrens' book aspect and the softening of Granny Weatherwax. Some very imaginative entities appear, though - dromes, the hiver and the Wintersmith come to mind.
-Rincewind: This was my favorite when I was younger, but it's a little one-note for me these days. I only have TCoM/TLF in a heavy anthology that's a bit hard on the wrists, so I haven't read them in a while.
-Von Lipwig: They're well-written, but something about these just doesn't work for me. They're still enjoyable, but I can't rank them highly.
Finally - and it pains me to speak of him so - you can tell when he took a turn for the worse. I had very little use for Unseen Academicals and Snuff - the latter was a terrible let-down after Thud!. I haven't picked up some of his final works yet... I will when it's convenient, but I just can't find it in me to hurry. :(
Outside of Discworld, I can't recommend the Johnny Maxwell series enough. It's a bit more British, though, for those who don't care for that. ^_^