And see? Only 13 volumes in a Collected Works? Pfft. Trotsky's got 15 volumes just for 1929-40!!!
And look at how he ended up.... Everybody's a critic, I guess.
As I understand it, the criticism was very pointed.
And see? Only 13 volumes in a Collected Works? Pfft. Trotsky's got 15 volumes just for 1929-40!!!
Also, The Last Picture Show, both book and film, get the Anklebiter thumbs up.
Doodlebug, have you read Texasville, Dwayne's Depressed and When the Light Goes? Cause at some point the series turns into some sort of Emile Zola type generational saga about Texas or something.
No, I only got as far as TLPS. Which, filmed, has Cybil Shepherd naked, in case anyone is interested.
EDIT: Actually, though, it reminds me that I should check out Peyton Place. Don't know about the literary quality, but I understand it covers similar ground, caused a similar uproar, and takes place in New Hampshire instead of Texas. Live free or die!!
Was within pages of finishing The Queen of the Swords but I fell asleep before the ending. It's pretty biznitchin'.
Finished The Queen of the Swords while waiting for the tire guys to put on a new one and give me an alignment.
So, the joy of Moorcock's prose was kind of ruined by the loss of all the overtime money I've been accruing these past couple of weeks. :(
Next up, The King of the Swords. Again.
the series turns into some sort of Emile Zola type generational saga
I like Zola, but unfortunately, having read Trevanian's The Main, I now always associate the two of them (the protagonist in The Main is a Zola fanatic).
Which reminds me, Trevanian is the bomb. Probably my 3rd fave, along with (obviously) Vance and Hammett.
Only Zola I ever read was Therese Raquin, which, IIRC, was about some dude murdering his girlfriend.
Early Dead Girls in the Refrigerator, I guess.
The only Zola I ever read was The Masterpiece, but that one was a part of Les Rougon-Macquart; with the characters shared between the Thalia (The last Picture Show, etc) books and the Houston (Moving On, etc) books, and all the various sequels, McMurty's getting to the same point with the sprawling generational series thing.
Turns out I got the plot for TR wrong.
Anyway, I've got some McMurtry books, but I am not bumping them to the top of the list. I've still got Corum to get through, I've got to get back to The Bible someday, and I made the mistake of starting War and Peace a few weeks back. Gave it up when I realized there were two Princess Annas, and I put it down for when I can give it my undivided attention.
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Only Zola I ever read was Therese Raquin, which, IIRC, was about some dude murdering his girlfriend.
Early Dead Girls in the Refrigerator, I guess.
You've not read Germinal? The book about a big mining strike that ends with one of the main characters realising the power of Socialism?
Next we'll find out your Steinbeck reading hasn't included Grapes of Wrath yet. :p
You've not read Germinal? The book about a big mining strike that ends with one of the main characters realising the power of Socialism?
No, but I have read Gorky's Mother. I imagine it's similar.
Next we'll find out your Steinbeck reading hasn't included Grapes of Wrath yet. :p
Grapes yes; In Dubious Battle no.
Just finished Cheri Priest's Inexplicables from her Clockwork Century series. It kind of seemed like a work-for-hire, but the Epilogue hints at an interesting conspiracy.
Going back to Peter V. Brett's Daylight War.
The Book-Lovers by The Divine Comedy.
I know, I know, I'm mixing the threads.
EDIT: After years of listening to this song, I still have no idea who the first writer is. Even looking at the picture, I still can't tell. Anyone?
I finally figured out who that first one is, and, seeing as how the link is still active two years later...bump.
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I recently read Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild and other stories." I liked most of the stories, but I think "Bloodchild" is overexposed compared to her other short works.
I am still trying to read Lindsey Davis, and am considering giving up...again. It frustrates me that I don't know why I want to like her work so much, but just don't.
Tim Powers - Declare; fun, like him
Matthew Farrer - Shira Calpurnia omnibus; cannot make myself to read the third story. depressing although really good.
Bujold - Paladin of Souls; for the n-th time, the bathroom book
(Psst...Dicey! Two up!)
Uh, hi, Zeugma, have you met my friend, Lord Dice? He's got quite a library at his estate...no, don't look in the kennels!
[Don Juan de Doodlebug: Wingman Extraordinaire]
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(Psst...Dicey! Two up!)
Uh, hi, Zeugma, have you met my friend, Lord Dice? He's got quite a library at his estate...no, don't look in the kennels!
[Don Juan de Doodlebug: Wingman Extraordinaire]
[snark]Doesn't a Private Message option on the boards obviate the need for wingoblins?[/snark]
Private Messaging?!? Goblins do it in the streets!
I just said the Xenogenesis Trilogy was worth reading was all.
Also, most of the books in my estate's library are those fancy leather bound volumes of blank pages we nouveau riche types keep to look like we're well read.
(I sold off all the first editions that came with with the estate a long time ago; Lady Dice called me a philistine, but I was all, "Hey baby, you may be of noble birth, but you married me for my financial 'acumen'." She didn't criticize my decisions after that, but she did spend all afternoon talking to her lawyer.)
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[Shakes head]
Dicey, when chattin' up the ladies, you don't mention: a) your wife; b) how often you send her to scurrying to her lawyer.
There's only so much a winggoblin can do, ya know?
WHO is responsible for giving the goblins wings?!
I've mentioned it before Limey: I hired a eugenist, to breed a race of docile, hard word-working goblins for the Dice Estate, but the result was worse than the killer bee experiment. I ended up with with a kennel full of tireless, mouthy, politically active goblins. Take it from me, eugenics is a bad idea . . . plus, sometimes they they fly!
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That's right, ladies. Tireless.
[Waggles eyebrows]
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Small feet, though. Unlike halflings.
After much procrastinating, and Paizo messageboard trolling, and New Hampshire gaming con attending (where I won at Call of Cthulu and was unanimously voted MVPC by a table of Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea players, among many other heroic accomplishments), I finally finished The King of the Swords.
It was, indeed, pretty awesome, with Multversal Three-in-Oneness and Wading God Big Revealness, and Runestaff Making a Cameoness and all kinds of othernesses, and, I think, thus far in my partial readings of Moorcock, the only time the heroes have actually found Tanelorn.
OTOH, I realize now that I have to go find all of the Erekose books, too...
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Corum: "The lords of Law will reward you!"
Kwll: "No so, because we slew all them, too, for good measure."
Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Makes me wonder, though, what he's gonna do for the second trilogy...
Been reading some of Elmore Leonard's old Western stories. Some of them art surprisingly good -- written long before he could afford to coast on his reputation. The next one of them up is "3:10 To Yuma" -- I'll have to compare it with both movie versions!
Read Allen Ginsberg's (rather short) volume, The King of May (1965).
There's a famous story that goes along with, that Ali G. was elected Kral Majales by the Prague university students before he was promptly deported. In fact, I think he got kicked out of a bunch of the Iron Curtain states, mostly for homosexual trysts, IIRC.
Anyway, here's Ali G. reading Kral Majales at City Lights in 1965 with Neil Cassidy in attendance.
Had to put down the Ted Grant in order to read Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism, An Infantile Disorder on the recommendation of some of the more senior comrades in Boston. I have no idea why...
Anyway, I've already read it before, like three times, and I still think international proletarian socialist revolution is the only way forward.
Vive le Galt!
And I'm reading 'Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky' . What are the chances, eh?
Also now know more about Napoleon's sexual preferences than I ever thought I would. From a different book, obvs.
And, read the first volume of KJ Parker's Fencers triology. Not really my cup of tea.
Hunted, from the Iron Druid Chronicles. It is awesome.
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And I'm reading 'Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky' . What are the chances, eh?
Also now know more about Napoleon's sexual preferences than I ever thought I would. From a different book, obvs.
Do tell!
Started The Bull and the Spear. Only read the first chapter. Sobbing over Rhalina, glad to see Jhary back.
OK, Leonard's story "Three-Ten to Yuma" is like 10 pages long, if that.
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Yeah, a movie would probably need at least 20 pages.
Stream of consciousness leads me to posting sexy Pam Grier videos. (Well, it could have been sexier, but this scene kills me.)
Also now know more about Napoleon's sexual preferences than I ever thought I would. From a different book, obvs.
Do tell!
There are tantalising hints that he was a bit of a bum fiend, which given his height* probably made life very pleasant for him. Hence the old marching song of the Imperial guard:
"J'aime les grands culs - Je ne peux pas mentir
Dondon rindondon rindondondan
Vous autres grognards ne pouvez nier (Etc, etc)"
*Alright, he was 5' 5", which wasn't exceptionally short for the time...
*Alright, he was 5' 5", which wasn't exceptionally short for the time...
Slightly above the average height for French men of the time, even.
Muse and Reverie by Charles DeLint. His 5th collection of short stories, mostly Newford stuff.
Napoleon's being exceptionally short was British propaganda of that time. To the point that British ambassador who met him was surprised to see man of regular height...
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Finished John Scalzi's Redshirts. It was not as funny as the jacket blurbs led me to believe it would be. However, it was an entertaining read, if you don't think too deeply about how time-travel works in light of the "alternate time-line" hypothesis the story proposes. Also, I'm surprised the legal council at Tor let him get away with name-checking "Star Trek" the way he did in the text. Are they relying on satire-as-protected-speech status?
Now I'm reading Alexander McCall Smith's Tears of the Jiraffe. I'm sure the loose ends will come together at the end and I won't have to worry about time-travel at all.
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Been going through one of those funks where, instead of reading like a good little goblin, I drink whole barrels full of hard cider and troll the messageboards until I pass out. Bad goblin, bad!!
Anyway, within 20 pages or so of the end of The Bull and the Spear and, yeah, it's pretty awesome. I can't tell yet if Kirth is right that the second trilogy is better than the first, but, so far, this is one is pretty biznitchin' too.
I still miss Rhalina, though. :(
Down with the Fhoi Myore!
Vive le Corum!
Also, I noticed that you'd read Darkwalkers on Moonshaes recently, Limey.
I've been collecting some of the early TSR trilogies for sado-masochistic nostalgic self-abuse and I read that one, well, a couple of years ago, I think. Want to read the whole trilogy again, but I can't find the second book nowheres.
Anyway, I remember it being not too terrible...as far as TSR books go.
It suffers a bit from trying to tell the Lord of the Rings with one-third the page-count (and Doug Niles not being as good a writer as Tolkien, too).
Better than anything "Richard Awlinson" wrote, though.
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I'm pretty sure my FLSHBG has the lot... Also, a number of old FR/Dragonlance books have been turning up in charity/thrift shops around mine, so I might try the other two if I can find 'em. It was OK - I wasn't expecting to faint out of sheer pleasure halfway through, so worked out as expected.
Did read the Avatar books ages ago, but can't remember what it was like. Trust Kajehase's judgement, though :)
Managed to read the final volume of the Finder's Spur trilogy, which was an acceptable way to spend a couple of hours. Now for the Time of the Twins!
Napoleon is having trouble with mamelukes.
Avatar trilogy. Guh... And that's a comment. I suffered through that once. Not doing it again.
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Found a Robert B. Parker novel, Spare Change, that I hadn't read (one of maybe two or three of his still floating around that I somehow never got to). This is one of the awful Sunny Randall efforts, where Parker tries to write a female protagonist in the 1st person and ends up sounding like someone took Martha Stewart and Sylvester Stallone and spliced their speech at random. Still, an awful Parker book is better than no Parker book!
I'm pretty sure my FLSHBG has the lot... Also, a number of old FR/Dragonlance books have been turning up in charity/thrift shops around mine, so I might try the other two if I can find 'em. It was OK - I wasn't expecting to faint out of sheer pleasure halfway through, so worked out as expected.
Did read the Avatar books ages ago, but can't remember what it was like. Trust Kajehase's judgement, though :)
Managed to read the final volume of the Finder's Spur trilogy, which was an acceptable way to spend a couple of hours. Now for the Time of the Twins!
Napoleon is having trouble with mamelukes.
The second volume of the Finder's Spur trilogy keeps managing to elude me.
After completing the Twins trilogy a whiles back , I decided to switch over to Greyhawk for a while (recentish posts on this thread indicate what a mistake that was).
Ms. Price's comments on Edward Said in the not too long ago "Is Golarion Racist?" (paraphrased title) reminded me of a whole book about Napoleon and the mamelukes I read in college: Napoleon in Egypt.
Interestingly enough, I remember writing a Marxian paper that the poco and Subaltern Studies crowd would have ripped apart, but, IIRC, happily, my Turkish professor gave me an A.
The second volume of the Finder's Spur trilogy keeps managing to elude me.
I've got two copies, having forgotten that I had the 2nd one in the series when I was out shopping. Clearly they were ALL MEANT TO BE MINE.
Why would a mid 70s country rock band have ripped your paper apart?
Today, I finished 'I Choose Peace', by Konni Zilliacus, an 'avowed non-communist', according to Wikipedia.
Um.
And 'Death in St James' Park', by Susannah Gregory. Liked it up until the end, when she introduced John Wildman as a cackling, mass-murdering villain. Boo.