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Has anyone read The Discreet Charm of Charlie Monk? I'm about maybe 10-15% into it, and frankly I'm about to give up because one of the main characters is making just... retarded decisions. Brief semi spoilery idea of what I'm talking about : Woman's husband dies in airplane crash. Conspiracy theory guy contacts her and says HE GOT MURDERED, then he also gets murdered. She decides at this point the best option would be to GO TO RUSSIA WHERE HER HUSBAND WAS MURDERED to see wtf is going on. She finds a letter from the conspiracy theory guy in russia saying what's going on and where, so she goes to AN EX MILITARY BASE IN RUSSIA GUARDED BY EX MILITARY and gets her rear end kidnapped, then the evil company also kidnaps her kid. At no point in the above mentioned spoilers does she ever go "Maybe this is a bad idea", she just loving gung ho's into bad idea after bad idea, and it's staring to get annoying. It's not even airport fiction levels of MWAHAHAHAH EVIL RICH BILLIONAIRE BUILDS SPACE LASER kinda bad, it's just like "Why the gently caress would you do that?". I'm about -> <- that close to giving up unless someone tells me it gets better, because it's just not catching me with the tone or the idea.
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May 21, 2015 10:57
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 02:01 |
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I wanted garbage, not class A garbage! What's PETA's hotline number?
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May 21, 2015 11:03
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supermikhail posted:So, I've been meaning to ask but didn't know how to frame the question so it doesn't sound condescending. Maybe disclaiming any condescension will suffice? I think back in the 70s it was just pure word of mouth, "hey, there's this crazy book with a hosed up sex scene in it" and since there was no internet people went and bought the book just on that. edit: you say constant misery, but honestly, a big chunk of the book is super dull because they aren't in that bad of misery. They don't like being stuck in a room and an attic, sure, yeah it's bad, but that's basically it. They're bored because living in one room and attic is no fun. for like, 150 pages before anything really bad happens. boom boom boom fucked around with this message at 15:10 on May 21, 2015 |
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May 21, 2015 14:37
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supermikhail posted:So, I've been meaning to ask but didn't know how to frame the question so it doesn't sound condescending. Maybe disclaiming any condescension will suffice? It had a brief flare-up of popularity at my very Catholic school, purely because a teacher saw a girl reading it and completely lost it, declaring to all her classes that the book was filth and on no account should be read. Which, of course, made absolutely sure that every single girl -even those who normally hated reading- was desperate to get her hands on it and discover what was so drat filthy and interesting about it. Never underestimate the lure of the forbidden. I devoured it back in the day, and re-read it when I was 30, just to see why I had loved it so. And though it is sort of awful, I can see why it appealed to teenage girls. The whole thing is about how children are manipulated, forced into stasis and cocooned from the world by crazy adults for reasons they can't understand - its' a surefire way to appeal to teenagers starting to rebel and push for more freedom from their own parents. Then there's a twisted fairytale quality to the story (Evil grandmother! Blonde beauty locked in a tower room! Poisoned food!), and thats something that still appeals to the young adult market today. Those things and the frankly insane, overwrought style of its' flowery prose (everything's all silk gowns and heaving ivory bosoms), are pretty much like catnip to 12-16 year old girls.
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May 21, 2015 22:45
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Yea I remember my sister being incredibly into that book (even when ABC made a tv movie I think), and I was like "What's it about?" and when she told me I was just  That's hosed up."No it's a good book!" "Nope. Pretty sure it's hosed up." Then I got in trouble for saying a dirty word and promptly forgot about the book until this discussion.
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May 22, 2015 02:08
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 This is the money-grubbingest thing I've ever seen from a publisher. Each of these three paperbacks is about 200 pages. Did it really need to be split into three parts? Jesus christ 
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May 23, 2015 02:04
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Hedrigall posted:
Did they do the same thing with Rogues? Edit: They did not, though that's probably because it's from a different publisher.
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May 23, 2015 02:49
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It's GRRM, I bet his mobile phone text messages are split into three parts.
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May 23, 2015 08:46
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Edited by GRRM though They probably started some at 400 pages and ended up 2000.
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May 24, 2015 03:43
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I guess there aren't any CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) or Interactive Fiction threads around? I could have sworn there used to be, but I guess it faded away.
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May 27, 2015 05:43
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I want some kind of book tool where I can put in particular series/authors and then see a calendar of upcoming releases and get email notifications. Does such a thing exist?
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May 27, 2015 06:51
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DontMindMe posted:I guess there aren't any CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) or Interactive Fiction threads around? There were a bunch in the LP subforum, I don't know if they were ever popular in TBB.
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May 27, 2015 09:03
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Cicero posted:I want some kind of book tool where I can put in particular series/authors and then see a calendar of upcoming releases and get email notifications. Does such a thing exist? I think goodreads has a function where it will email you upcoming releases by authors you've added to your shelves. But as far as a one-stop visual tool to get that kind of info, no idea. Do what I do and search Amazon for your favourite authors every few months, sort results by release date, then keep a text file of all the upcoming books to look forward to (in the same file I also have movie, album and game release dates and other stuff, it helps with budgeting in advance to buy that kind of thing) Often books will get listed on Amazon 6-12 months before release, even when there's no info. Publishers schedule future books well in advance and generally stick to release dates. For example I know I can look forward to Untitled Alastair Reynolds Novel in June 2016! 
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May 27, 2015 09:34
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I was meaning to check out some Raymond Chandler (the makers of Grim Fandango said it was a big influence and I'm an uncultured goon). Some quotes I've seen were pretty great. Any specific book stand out? The Grim Fandango guys mentioned Big Sleep which seems his most famous work, but I don't know if that's just because of the movie...
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May 30, 2015 10:06
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VagueRant posted:I was meaning to check out some Raymond Chandler (the makers of Grim Fandango said it was a big influence and I'm an uncultured goon). Some quotes I've seen were pretty great. Any specific book stand out? The Big Sleep is very good imo. Also you can get all his novels in 2 paperbacks, I bought them like that, they're short as hell.
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May 30, 2015 10:44
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blue squares posted:What book has the craziest "making of" type story behind it? Like weird things that go on with the author like bizarre research or something? IIRC Hitchhiker's Guide was written mostly drunk. Most of Michael Pollan's Stuff is awesome commentary on botany and he has no reservations about talking about drugs he's grown. EDIT: Just ordered The Road, A Canticle For Liebowitz and Foundation all in School/Library binding. I'm hard on books. SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 13:03 on May 30, 2015 |
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May 30, 2015 12:56
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:IIRC Hitchhiker's Guide was written mostly drunk. And it was originally written as a Dr. Who episode.
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May 30, 2015 13:05
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:IIRC Hitchhiker's Guide was written mostly drunk. A lot of books were. Probably because a lot of authors are terrible alcoholics. Steven King can't remember writing Cujo at all, for example.
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May 30, 2015 13:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:And it was originally written as a Dr. Who episode. Isn't it actually "Dirk Gently's..."? Unless Adams wrote everything originally as a Dr. Who episode. 
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May 30, 2015 20:43
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supermikhail posted:Isn't it actually "Dirk Gently's..."? Unless Adams wrote everything originally as a Dr. Who episode. Yeah, my understanding is that both of those things are true, but you can see the bones a little more clearly with Dirk Gently. To be honest I can't remember where I read that though.
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May 30, 2015 20:47
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As an unmentionable dork that I am, I've confirmed through Wikipedia that that's true for book 3. Also, drink was definitely involved.
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May 31, 2015 05:36
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:And it was originally written as a Dr. Who episode. Woah, didn't know that. Did the doctor's role morph into Ford? Or maybe Zaphod? Or is it too different note compared to the original concept to compare?
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Jun 1, 2015 19:57
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I'd imagine it'd be pretty different. For reference, you can compare Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Shada (an adaptation of the original Doctor Who idea). Pretty much only one charcater survived.
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Jun 2, 2015 07:04
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I read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls. That's a weird book. I've read Friday too, so I guess it's just Heinlein's thing to end every chapter with "and then they had sex"
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Jun 2, 2015 14:07
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regulargonzalez posted:Woah, didn't know that. Did the doctor's role morph into Ford? Or maybe Zaphod? Or is it too different note compared to the original concept to compare? Only the third book. The Doctor equivalent there is Slartibartfast.
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Jun 5, 2015 02:01
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Viginti posted:I'm nearly at the end of Annihalation and I'm pretty torn about it. Cool ideas, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Should I stick with the series? Are the sequels worthwhile? This series is always going to be polarizing I think. tl;dr if you are not that taken with Annihilation then you probably shouldn't try the rest. I loved Annihilation. I was not keen at all on Authority, and I can see it being a struggle for people to stay interested enough. Having said that I really liked the ending or more specifically the part where things start to kick-off. Personally I liked Acceptance a lot, and making it through Authority was worth it to get to the end of the story, although its not up to Annihilation in my eyes. Overall I liked the whole story and if you want something that is dreamlike with some decent world building and detail you'll probably enjoy it. Then again I can quite understand the sentiment of just leaving the mystery as is after the first book. Would most people find it worth the time to read a not-so-good book? I'm not sure, depends on how much you want to know more of the situation after Annihilation.
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Jun 5, 2015 11:31
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blue squares posted:What book has the craziest "making of" type story behind it? Like weird things that go on with the author like bizarre research or something? Miller wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz because he bombed the monastery at Monte Cassino during WWII and felt really guilty about it. Philip K. Dick got the idea for Do Androids Dream About Electric Sheep when he did research for the Man in the High Castle. He came across a report where German soldiers complain about how the cries of children in the concentration camps kept them awake, which gave him the idea of writing about a synthetic lifeform devoid of things like empathy.
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Jun 8, 2015 19:51
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I read Moon Called. That's a weird book. Like, at first I liked how it was setting up this super hosed-up werewolf culture, like, goddamn, being a werewolf sounds absolutely loving miserable, and the main chick hates being involved with it, but then it turns out the Alpha is her love interest? Out of loving nowhere? After the book has established pretty hardcore that no one would ever want to be in a romantic relationship with a werewolf, not in a million years? Like, her love interest is a guy who she literally can't make eye contact with for too long because he'll become aggressive. It establishes a good reason for her to want to stay under the protection of werewolves, what with the whole thing about how most vampires would want to kill her immediately, but I liked it in the beginning of the book, where that was a lovely situation she had to deal with. The romance with the alpha just seems out of place and inappropriate, IMO. maybe one of the later books deals with how terrible of an idea it is. I swear, all these urban fantasy, paranormal romance novels make really good cases for why the paranormal species in them should be immediately wiped out by the humans. Except Good Fairies of New York. That was a good book, I liked Good Fairies of New York.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:41
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So I just finished The Road and am proud to say that I no longer yearn for the apocalypse...Nooope. All in all this was a fantastic read, and I finished it (save the last 40 pages) in a single 6 hour binge at work (Yay 3rd shift call center) There are so many things done in this book that probably wouldn't work anywhere else, but so much of this book is perfect. There was never a point where I wasn't on the edge of my seat. Even when things are going okay I'm just always expecting something bad to happen. The pacing is just fantastic,. perfect for the world he's built, I never felt like there was a 'good place to stop' when it came to reading. The suspense is perfect, and I love the fact that even when they encounter cannibals and road agents they never really get into open conflict with them save the one time early on in the book The antagonists when they're shown are terrifying and mysterious, and he does a really great job of painting the horrors of a high scarcity post-apocalyptic world. The part where [/spoiler]The Man and The Boy break into the basement and find the people farm where they're being kept as cattle to be flensed/eaten alive[/spoiler] is goddamned terrifying. The minimalist way he describes things, especially the horrible stuff is absolutely fantastic. He doesn't dwell on details..."Here's some really hosed up poo poo, we can't stay focused on it because we need to keep moving.' I love the fact that the default reaction is to run, and that it works, because with resources being so rare, and essentially everyone who would want to enslave/eat them being so emaciated it isn't worth the effort for anyone to hunt them, also while The Man would probably be a badass, he's trying to protect his son from the horrors of the world and doesn't want to kill/steal/etc if he doesn't have to. The way dialogue was handled bothered me at first, but really started to grow on me. I don't think anyone else could have pulled it off the way he did. The dialogue is probably the least important part of this story, and further serves to Again though, the worldbuilding is a complete home-run. It's timeless, not until near the end [spoiler]They reach the coast and scavenge the boats/ships did I start to wonder when in history the world was killed...Personally I figure sometime in the late 60s but that's unimportant. The narrative isn't padded with long-winded breakdowns of every detail around them...it reinforces the fact that everything is lovely, and derelict, and destroyed. I'm actually really glad he never goes into what killed the world and made things so bad. In my head, and from the descriptions of the way everything was, and the fact that he mentions everything is burned out and what not it makes me think that the earth was hit by a devastating CME from the sun, (which would cause global wildfires (and probably structure fires) and knock out electronics, kill plenty of people from heat/radiation if big enough, and cook off a significant portion of our atmosphere (as well as damaging our magnetic field)., It doesn't matter though, because I'm so immersed I feel like a survivor of whatever 'The Event' was. It happened in the past, and there's nothing I can do about it. The setting is timeless, It's never mentioned where they started and which coast they're trying to get to and I never cared. I assumed the West Coast but it's not like there aren't roads/mountains/rivers/waterfalls on both of them. I loved the ending too, bleak but still hopeful. [/spoiler]That The Boy managed to find decent people, and children his age[/spoiler] cheered me up just the right amount after he almost dies, and his father dies of sickness I think this has earned a spot next to Dune on my 'Read This Book Annually' List. Go read The Road if you haven't already. Go back and reread it if you have. It's hard to believe that this book only came out in 2006, reads like Classic American Literature.
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Jun 9, 2015 08:54
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:
Hopeful? Everyone are still hosed. Nothing grows, nothing lives. The only food are in tin cans and they will eventually run out and humanity will become extinct.
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Jun 9, 2015 17:42
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Alhazred posted:Hopeful? Everyone are still hosed. Nothing grows, nothing lives. The only food are in tin cans and they will eventually run out and humanity will become extinct. But they won't die alone. Everything is still screwed but there are still good people in the world which is all the boy really wanted.
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Jun 9, 2015 18:00
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I'm almost tempted to get the book myself. So I've gathered that most vegetation is gone, and that's making me wonder where oxygen comes from for people to breathe.
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Jun 9, 2015 18:30
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Get it, it's a pretty quick read. There's a Cormac McCarthy thread by the way: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3503637
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Jun 9, 2015 18:33
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Suttree is my new favorite McCarthy book. It was good enough that I feel like going back to Blood Meridian, which kicked my rear end the first time around. But first I'm going to read more Faulkner.
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Jun 10, 2015 05:23
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Chamberk posted:Suttree is my new favorite McCarthy book. It was good enough that I feel like going back to Blood Meridian, which kicked my rear end the first time around. I've got Suttree lying around and I'm about to read All the Pretty Horses when I'm done with Frankenstein. Blood Meridian is my current favorite - like you, it loving annihilated me when I read it.
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Jun 12, 2015 12:56
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I have a question. Not sure if this is the best place for it, but here goes: I stopped buying physical books years ago because I simply don't have room for them anymore. It was fine, because virtually every book I wanted was on Amazon Kindle anyway. That is, until they recently split off into regional stores. Now, as an Australian forced to use the Australian Kindle store, the titles I have access to are a tiny portion of what they were. More aggravating is that many of the book series I was reading are no longer available, so the new novels that have come out since the split are completely unavailable to me outside of physical copies sold in my country. This is a pretty common problem in Australia across all forms of media which I assume is perpetuated by people and companies who refuse to drag themselves into the 21st century and want to keep selling their physical media/cable TV/etc. What I'd like to know is if there is any reliable way to regain access to the US Kindle store again?
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Jun 22, 2015 07:25
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Mr Scumbag posted:I have a question. Not sure if this is the best place for it, but here goes: Set DNS to an American server or set up a proxy to an american server - should be enough.
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Jun 22, 2015 07:37
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My book club is having us read The Martian by Andy Weir and I'm really not feeling it at all. I'm trying to give it a chance, but it's just so boring. I'm only 10% through the book, and so far every chapter has been "I don't have enough ____! Okay, I think I found out a way to get _____. No wait! If I get _____ I'll die! Just kidding, I can get _____." I'm not a fan of the writing style, I'm not the biggest sci-fi fan, and so far this book is journal entries of a guy doing tasks. I was told this would be Jack London in space, but it's not that. Everyone else is loving this book. Does it get better? When does it get better? Or is it just not for me and should I move on?
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Jun 22, 2015 20:40
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Franchescanado posted:My book club is having us read The Martian by Andy Weir and I'm really not feeling it at all. I'm trying to give it a chance, but it's just so boring. Move on probably. I enjoyed it enough, but that was in spite of the terrible writing.
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Jun 22, 2015 21:18
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I found a copy of Philip K. Dick's Exegesis at the local used book store. Even as big a fan of PKD as I am, I don't know if I can get through this. It's legitimately harder to read than Ulysses.
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Jun 22, 2015 21:33
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