Xray the Enforcer Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Just walk away, X. You'll hate it. Don't be tempted by the pomosirens! Strength! Happy Ent, you seem to be emulating your nemesis, in a way. Different words, but the message is always the same. (BTW, glad you liked the Chabon.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Can't believe some people are really that in love with Vellum and Ink. I know tastes vary and all that, but man that was one horrible, horrible book. To see people blown away by it and praise it to the heavens, how different can people's tastes be? That's probably a rhetorical question Some artists draw atrocious stuff that looks like it's drawn by a 3-year old but some people see Imagery, Symbolism and Great Depth in it and the painting sell millions of dollars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Ent Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Oh, but Duncan can write. Not like the 3-year old. When he gets over his navel-gazing period I expect great things. (Danish film-maker Lars von Trier was much the same. His first movies are terribly clever commentaries on movie-making and the nature of narration and whatnot. It's something they need to get out of their system, apparently.) But everybody with just the slightest dislike of NAUSEATING POMO CRAP!!1! will automatically hate Duncan. By the way, I watched a movie called Caché last night (English title, Hidden). Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche. Looked really clever, lots of good reviews. Superb acting, camera, etc. But trust me: Just. Walk. Away. It's NAUSEATING POMO CRAP!1!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Fookin' NAUSEATING POMO CRAP!!1!!1111!! (Calibander -- it's a taste thing, honestly. And HE is correct, in that Duncan can write. Now whether he's going through a "phase" or if he's gonna mine the NPC!!1!!! for the rest of his career is an open question.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Reading Pasquale's Angel by Paul J. MacAuley. Serviceable prose and a plot that's been able to keep my interest, so far. Huge drop in quality from Hawksmoor though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellis Posted February 1, 2007 Share Posted February 1, 2007 I am so psyched for Ink now! With luck, I'll be able to report on it in the Feb thread, if it's released here by then. A couple shorter, fun, definately "nauseating pomo" reads: If Upon a Winter's Night a Traveller Italo Calvino. A book about a reader, reading books, and about writing, and the process of discovering books. If you love to read, or even read about reading, you need to pick up this book stat! The People of Paper - Salvador Plascencia. Also about the process of writing and of being in a book, about a town that wages war against .... the omniscient narrator. It's in fact quite excellent and I'll be buying it for everyone I know. And rounding out tonight and this month, Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle. Definately more traditional fantasy, set in an alternate Earth. Lots of cool references to secret societies, but not a conspiracy theory book. It's also quite refreshing to read a female fantasy author with many strong female, even lesbian, characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted February 1, 2007 Share Posted February 1, 2007 AGainst All Enemies - Everyone should read this book, Richard Clarke is amazing and he's extremely fair and unbiased in his assessment of his, his departments and the various government organizations succcesses and shortcomings. He also assesses the many presidents he works for and again comes to logically sound analytical conclusions that are unbiased but may aggravate some blinded by political ideology. Read This Book! Please. I listened to the audio book on my commute, and I think it's more powerful hearing Clarke himself, his inflections and intonations are priceless. unfortunately my audio was abridged which I didn't realize til halfway through. 1776 - Brilliant history. I want the sequel. No seriously, I really want an equally involving accounting of 1777 and the rest of the revolutionary war for american independence. I listenened to the unabridged audio while filing at work and David McCullough is an utterly superb reader, not good for road listening because his voice is in the lower registers but he's got passion pouring out of each word. Mayflower - technically I have less than a CD left. George Guidall does a great job narrating the unabridged audio (I do a lot of filemakering). This is a better piece of history than even 1776. Brilliant and fair accounting of the first 60-70 years of the Plymouth colony up through the end of King Philip's War. Wonderful book, incredible writing, never gets boring or too bogged down in details as McCullough sometimes can. Wild Seed - Octavia Butler is one of my new favorite authors and this is automatically one of my all time favorite books. I can't believe I've waited so long to read this. Mind of My Mind (still reading) it's got a great start. John Adams (still listening) I started listening to the abridged version and it was unacceptable, terrible narrator and a very rough abridgement. The unabridged version has a fine narrator, not as good as McCullough, but fine for Car Listening. Red Prophet - already read this several times, it's easily my favorite Alvin Maker, but this is my first time reading it since I stumbled across a fine condition 1st for 7$ at half price books. I just read the first chapter or so to remember what it was like, since it doesn't start out with Alvin and overlaps with the prior book's timeline. Before I knew it, I was sucked in, and finishing the book in a night or two. Can't wait for Scott to sign it next time he's in town. Great story and writing, superb command of dialect and narratorial voice. Easily the peak of the series. And having read Wild Seed now, I see where the initial idea of knacks came from, because there's not an exact similarity but putting them in America to florish is a pretty similar idea and Card loves and admires the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maia Posted February 4, 2007 Share Posted February 4, 2007 Better late than never! Menschen wie Götter(orig: Люди как Боги) by Sergei Snegow. I have read it before many years ago and recently found out that there is a reprint out. A cool SF tale Mind providing some details, please? The guy is totally unfamiliar to me and I'd like to try him if he is good. When was this written, BTW? Red Sun: Right now, I'm re-reading Lion Feuchtwanger, Der Jüdische Krieg So, he is still being read, is he? I loved his stuff as a kid, but I read my grandparents books and had a strong impression that Feuchtwanger has been pretty much fogotten. Nice to be wrong - his novels were ripping yarns, IIRC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waset the Warped Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 No, I did not get a wrong thread. I promised to myself this year to write something about every book I read. Well, here goes my January list. 1. The Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll Such a frustrating novel. A book full of could have beens and should have beens. There are enough ideas and potential plots in there to fit at least a dozen novels, and all of it crammed in 250-odd pages. Naturally, there is just no time (or space) to dwell on the nature of obsession, consider the co-dependency that links an author and his readers, examine the relationships between creator and creations… I won’t go into the details, ‘cause I don’t want to spoil anything, but this novel is full of stories not told. Land of Laughs is exactly the sort of book that makes fanfiction appear almost tempting. Still, it is definitely a book worth reading, even if for the headache it will give you. It is not a story you can let go off easily, chances are you’ll be thinking about it weeks after finishing the book. I know I did. 2. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire A rare treat of a book: witty, intelligent, sharp, impeccably well-written. For those who have seen the musical (or are just prejudiced): the plot of a novel differs quite substantially from the show, the book is also much darker and raises quite serious issues. Don’t be misled by the “kiddie†setting. Maguire has a gift for creating vivid settings and complex characters. What’s more astonishing, he manages it without spending paragraphs upon paragraphs describing things (behold, a fantasy novel without infodumps!) or resorting to grotesque. Of course, to call the place and the people (and Animals) he writes about “quirky†would be an understatement, but it is not just strangeness for strangeness’ sake. I’d love to see his talents applied to a high/epic fantasy setting in an original world. Too bad he seems to have found a niche. 3. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire After the joy that was “Wickedâ€, this novel turned out to be a huge disappointment. A story of Cinderella, set in the 17th century Holland (amidst the tulips and the painters), told through the eyes of a … less fortunate sister. I found his take on the story to be … well, pointless really. It reads well but this retelling adds nothing to the original story. I mean, why? 4. His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman The Northern Lights - Joy and delight on every page. The Subtle Knife - A great follow-up, with its share of delicious developments (and this comes from somebody who detests crossovers) The Amber Spyglass - Erm… is it ok, if I just pretend that this book does not exist in this universe? Except that I can’t. Shame. 5. Songmaster, Orson Scott Card It is an early novel of Card’s, a bildungsroman about Ansset, a child of an extraordinary talent brought up in the Songhouse, an ancient and almost mythical establishment. Ansset is destined become a Songbird for the Emperor Mikal. In order to do that he has to master Control over his feelings and emotions and sacrifice his adulthood for an artificially prolonged period of childhood and purity of voice. The book takes us through Ansset’s study years, shows his relationships with the two emperors and Ansset’s later life after the trauma of losing his voice. Not a perfect novel, it is nevertheless worth reading. (I still don’t know though, why the author had to bring the sheep into the equation. Can’t get over the sheep.) Whatever his current views and inclinations may be (and I don’t want to start an argument here) this book once again shows Card as a master of the writing craft: it takes him barely a dozen paperback pages to set up a world, familiarize the reader even with its more bizarre aspects, introduce the main characters and make them come alive. Incidentally, this book also shows that once the author himself was capable of compassion. 6. The Rosetta Codex, Richard Paul Russo I picked this one up because I wanted something quick, straightforward and easy (but fun) to clean the palate. It turned out to be the most dull, derivative, sloppily-written, pointless timewaster of a novel I’ve read in years. Literally. Shame, Unto Leviathan showed promise. 7. The Road, Cormac McCarthy Wow. Just wow. The haunting hunted kind indeed. I dare anybody to finish this book late in the evening and then go to sleep with a light heart and an easy conscience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winterfella Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 The Amber Spyglass - Erm… is it ok, if I just pretend that this book does not exist in this universe? Except that I can’t. Shame. Agreed. WTF was that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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