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Illuminti posted:Redshirts by John Scalzi. Poorly written fan fiction. At points I literally couldn't tell who was talking because they all sound the same on the page. You think that was bad on the page. I listened to the Audiobook version. 'Performed' by Wil Wheaton, by which I mean he read every character's voice with the same slightly sarcastic WW delivery. Literally no attempt to differeniate between characters, which I had assumed up to that point was a basic requirement of an audiobook reader.
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Feb 23, 2018 15:36
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an audiobook of a john scalzi novel read by wil wheaton is something i would have to be sentenced to, by a judge
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Feb 23, 2018 16:39
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Sinteres posted:Have you read Cryptonomicon? It and Snow Crash are his only books I think are worth reading--the prequel trilogy had some good parts too, but was way too bloated with filler to be worth it. I mostly agree, but I loved Anathem after getting over the slow start, and Seveneves has pockets to good reading.
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Feb 23, 2018 22:48
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TresTristesTigres posted:I quit reading it twice at that exact same spot! It took me three tries to finish it. But dude, you should give it another try, it turns out to be way better than War and Peace. I agree the Anna/Vronsky parts are big bummers, and you know how it's going to end, but you need them to contrast with the Kitty/Levin parts. The scene where they write on the tablecloth is like the most I really need to give Anna Karenina another go, he has this amazing way of writing that feels almost hallucinogenic (the ice skating, the big feast they have) but I wish it was about anything else.
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Feb 24, 2018 17:46
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thing ever written.
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Anna Karenina is a perfect book and has no reason to be about anything else.
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Feb 24, 2018 19:19
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I tried to read Treasure Island when I was 8 and gave up. I didn't know how to read a book written in the 19th century and didn't have the patience to figure it out. I should give that another try. I also gave up on the Fountainhead when I was 16. There was a scholarship competition based on it. I even asked my dad about it. He told me it was a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright, and he thought it was great I was interested in an intellectually heavy book. I eventually forgave him. Those two ideas were the sum total of what he had heard about it, he really had no idea what that book was about. The only part I remember is the part that made me toss it. The protagonist (Ross, Rock?) started hatefucking one of the antagonists in private while they kept tearing into each other in public. The characters were just too stupid to put up with.
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Feb 26, 2018 22:25
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Like the other goon up-thread, I've started Gravity's Rainbow three times and can't make it past the first sitting. I want to read it and for some reason I feel it's important to read it, but...I eventually just say gently caress it and grab another book. I thought The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was extremely overrated. Actually, no--I thought it was junk and tossed it before I was done. The author seemed like such a skeeve and I can't imagine that book getting much traction had it come out post #metoo. And don't give me that "he was writing as a character" hand wave, because I was reading a short story in a mag years later and went, "Wait a second" because my perv alarm was going off, and sure enough, Junot Diaz with another story where he creeps it up about women, reducing them sex objects who do nothing more than shake their asses and tits to get men to do what they want. I don't know why he triggers me like he does, but he does.
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Feb 27, 2018 01:04
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Deptfordx posted:
You could argue that he in fact rendered the written words of Scalzi perfectly then.
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Feb 27, 2018 05:28
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I remember Old Man's War as being decent.
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Feb 27, 2018 06:52
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I always get John Scalzi and John ringo confused
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Feb 27, 2018 14:11
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I always get John Scalzi and John ringo confused Oh man, I read Ghost by John Ringo way back when. It's the only book I've read with my eyebrows raised the entire way through. I think there was a thread on SA about it at some point.... Just went to check the synopsis and remind myself of it...... quote:The central hero, Michael Harmon (A.K.A. Mike Jenkins, A.K.A. Ghost), is a self-proclaimed sadist, repressed rapist, former United States Navy Boatswain's Mate 1st Class, and a trainer of US Navy SEALs. Oh yeah I remember. Didn't give up reading it though!
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Feb 28, 2018 23:28
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I believe that thread was the origin of "John Ringo noooooo"
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Mar 1, 2018 02:34
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I believe that thread was the origin of "John Ringo noooooo" Edit: Here's the Something Awful thread.
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Mar 1, 2018 02:47
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The Belgian posted:Not that I hold Orwell to be some saint or great revolutionary leader, but calling someome who fought in the trenches for six months to defend actually existing socialism and got shot in the neck by a fascist for it opposed to existing socialism seems a bit off.
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Mar 4, 2018 13:34
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I had to stop reading an edition entitled The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde & Other Stories once I got as far as said other stories. Jekyll and Hyde is a really good novella but the other stories in the book were tedious. A Feast for Crows was another one. I'm not sure why, because I hadn't waited five years to be disappointed by it; I read the first four Song of Ice and Fire books one after the other over a few months and just couldn't get into A Feast for Crows at all.
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Mar 4, 2018 18:01
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Catfishenfuego posted:He literally had a dream one night about how great monarchy was and became a fervent anti-socialist later on, to the extent of ratting out other socialists to the authorities (especially for homosexuality, dude was a massive homophobe). This is a massive mischaracterization. He wrote a list of names of people he thought shouldn't write for the Information Research Department (hardly a "ratting out"; he wasn't calling for them to be arrested, or harassed, or even denied employment anywhere other than the IRD). He also had a longer list, which he kept in his private notebooks and never gave to the government, of people he personally thought might be communist sympathizers, with comments. The comments about Stephen Spender's "Tendency towards homosexuality" are from the latter, not the former. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Mar 5, 2018 |
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Mar 5, 2018 09:14
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A human heart posted:People who work in IT shouldn't be allowed to write books Yeah
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Mar 7, 2018 08:15
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Having read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and John Dies at the end I wholeheartedly agree.
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Mar 7, 2018 10:22
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learnincurve posted:Having read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore This book was an abomination and it makes me actually physically angry to think about it
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Mar 7, 2018 16:28
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learnincurve posted:John Dies at the end i read this book when i was 16 and it wasn't funny then and every time goons in the horror thread rave about it big question marks appear visibly above my head like in a carton Mel Mudkiper posted:This book was an abomination and it makes me actually physically angry to think about it it got a good review in the new york times tho
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Mar 7, 2018 16:43
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chernobyl kinsman posted:it got a good review in the new york times tho no one bats 1.00
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Mar 7, 2018 16:58
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Some parts were funny, like the... No but really, the thing at the end with the adventurers from another dimension was pretty funny, but the whole thing was about as connected and polished as a nosleep post.
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Mar 7, 2018 23:03
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I've given up on Dune multiple times, so my memory of it is essentially "useless rich child is rewarded for not being assassinated by being taught how to be a Jedi by space muslims." Is this right or am I an idiot?
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Mar 12, 2018 14:36
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The Deleter posted:I've given up on Dune multiple times, so my memory of it is essentially "useless rich child is rewarded for not being assassinated by being taught how to be a Jedi by space muslims." Is this right or am I an idiot? dune bad
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Mar 12, 2018 16:56
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It's not about Paul; the Bene Gesserit are the true protagonists.
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Mar 12, 2018 17:21
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Optimally, you should either read zero Dune books or four Dune books (through God-Emperor). If you just read the first one, you get a pretty cool heroic coming of age wish fulfillment story that's been done many times since then but still is interesting for its place in history and its cool details. But unless you have an interest in historic sci-fi, it doesn't stand out that much on its own. If you read the first four, you get to explore Herbert's interesting ideas about destiny and free will and God vs. Man, and get a chance to see what science fiction can really accomplish as a genre in exploring questions and unpacking metaphors in a way that traditional literature can't. Even if you don't agree with Herbert's obsession with Islamic mysticism, it is still great way to challenge your own thoughts. If you read past the first four, you get to watch first Frank Herbert and then his son flog the literary universe that Frank created as a method to explore his philosophy into a banal piece of over-sexed crap.
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Mar 12, 2018 17:46
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Lewd Mangabey posted:If you read the first four, you get to explore Herbert's interesting ideas about destiny and free will and God vs. Man, and get a chance to see what science fiction can really accomplish as a genre in exploring questions and unpacking metaphors in a way that traditional literature can't. Yes, because Notes from the Underground would have been much better served if the narrator was a giant space slug
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Mar 12, 2018 17:55
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Sinteres posted:Have you read Cryptonomicon? It and Snow Crash are his only books I think are worth reading--the prequel trilogy had some good parts too, but was way too bloated with filler to be worth it. I tried reading the prequel trilogy and bailed halfway through the first one, never got around to cryptonomicon. Is it really that much better than his other stuff?
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Mar 12, 2018 18:10
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Yes, because Notes from the Underground would have been much better served if the narrator was a giant space slug  Also my copy includes the intergalactic fable "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" which is sci-fi too so you're double wrong.
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Mar 12, 2018 18:53
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I've been trying to read Blood Meridian for like 8 loving years but, no matter how hard I try, I can't manage it. I've read The Road and No Country several times each.  It just doesn't grab me.
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Mar 12, 2018 21:41
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I’m too old to keep trying again with books, what’s the point in struggling with something that other people tell you you should like, when you could be reading something you actually like instead.
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Mar 12, 2018 21:59
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Blood Meridian is seriously great, but you have to read it high.
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Mar 12, 2018 21:59
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LeeMajors posted:I've been trying to read Blood Meridian for like 8 loving years but, no matter how hard I try, I can't manage it. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Blood meridian. The philosophy is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the dialogue will go over a typical readers head. There’s also Judge Holden’s nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The scholars understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these paragraphs, to realise that they’re not just rhetoric- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Blood meridian truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn’t appreciate, for instance, the truth in Judge Holden’s existential catchphrase “Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent,” which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev’s Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I’m smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Cormac McCarthys genius wit unfolds itself on their book pages. What fools.. how I pity them.
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Mar 12, 2018 22:20
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lmao
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Mar 12, 2018 22:48
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learnincurve posted:I’m too old to keep trying again with books, what’s the point in struggling with something that other people tell you you should like, when you could be reading something you actually like instead. what's the point in challenging yourself in any way ever, just masturbate on the couch until the accumulated fluids cement you there and the fire department has to pry you out with the jaws of life
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Mar 13, 2018 01:41
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Hmm. I don't know. Most of the people I know who cultivate self worth by reading difficult fiction also spend a lot of time masturbating in sitting positions.
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Mar 13, 2018 03:55
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Randallteal posted:Hmm. I don't know. Most of the people I know who cultivate self worth by reading difficult fiction also spend a lot of time masturbating in sitting positions. Personally I only masturbate standing up, and I read lots of 'difficult' fiction
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Mar 13, 2018 04:18
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Randallteal posted:Hmm. I don't know. Most of the people I know who cultivate self worth by reading difficult fiction also spend a lot of time masturbating in sitting positions. what position do you masturbate in?
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Mar 13, 2018 04:28
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why masturbate at all when you can just feel La jouissance du texte
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Mar 13, 2018 04:31
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poo poo gets real on page 35. I tried to read The Stormlight Archives on a recommendation. I got through the first book fine, but in the second book when there's that chick who is pretending to be someone else and they start getting into wacky adventures with bandits and poo poo I could see where it was going and just went "meh". If someone told me it got really good I would probably go back to it but for now I have way too much stuff to read to stick with anything that's just OK.
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Mar 13, 2018 05:46
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