The Book Thread

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Ford Prefect
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Ford Prefect »

I've read Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and I'm reading Absolution Gap. I actually reviewed Revelation Space back on OZ, and I basically said that it had a compelling series of related mysteries driving the plot, populated by well realised characters (though some, like Sylveste and Sajaki, are more interesting than others). I honestly think it (and Redemption Ark, for that matter) does 'cosmic horror' better than any Lovecraft novel.

Also, they are most definitely not hard science fiction. It's got an interesting body of technology, and though some of it is real or plausible, even Revelation Space is dripping with magic. Of course, this isn't a slight against the books, as I really like them, but I had to say it to someone.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I just finished reading Scourge the Heretic in two days, and I must say that I found the book rather entertaining. Okay, it doesn't have much epic explosions or big battles, the biggest one just happening round the end, but it's totally awesome for its character interactions. This is a story set in the grim dark future of Warhammer 40,000, a story written by Sandy Mitchell - the author of the also-awesome Ciaphas Cain series. Now this book, it's totally great, totally character driven, and totally in good fun.

It's not as much of a parody of the GRIMDARK of 40k as Cain, though the stories aren't too outrageous, the main character (Cain) is a totally blatant and flippant subversion of everything 40k, in a totally awesome ass-kicking way.

The cast of Scourge the Heretic aren't total dicks like Cain, but they are very likeable and amicable characters, actually very much like Cain and the cast of his stories. That's what makes reading the story so fun, you get to like the characters and care about them.

From the sexy Redemptionist fanatic assassin girl who gets emotionally conflicted between her maturation as a woman and her training as an unstoppable killing machine, to the lowly Guardsman from a confining caste-driven society who is drafted into the Inquisitor's warband and finds himself developing from a shitpiece grunt into a total badass suave secret agent mang, they're all great guys! And it's all in good fun - even when you're uttering one-liners and pumping rogue psykers full of lead with your revolver.

Drake is a total badass, he should be tapping Keira's ass, not Horst!

Come on, he goes from being a shitpiece Guardsman running around in the frostbitten forests and becomes a hardass who says shit like "Do you think they'll have those little cheesy things on sticks?" while chambering his revolver as they prepare to raid opulent partygoing heretics.

It's a story about an Inquisitor's warband. The Inquisitor himself gets little screen time, acting as a central force for the plot and for the characters, but the main characters themselves seem to be his warband, the people under his command and how they go about their duties. Totally awesome!
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Artemis »

Continuing in the vein of Warhammer 40k novels, I just finished Only in Death, of the Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett. I'm really not entirely sure how this guy manages to keep pulling it off - what should be a decently entertaining, occasionally fun, series of franchise books just keeps kicking me in the ass - I found myself literally standing up and cheering, much to the confusion of my family, near the end of this book, whearas only a few pages before I'd had to put the book down and go for a short walk, disturbed as I was by a particular moment of despair in the story. Somehow, Abnett makes the world of WH40k, which is actually a very silly world if you step away from it for a moment, into a complete reality, and the people who inhabit it are just too damn easy to care for. This series really is the Band of Brothers of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and Only in Death is one of the most emotionally effective of them.

I also just had the pleasure of reading, in the span of probably 8 hours, Neil Gaiman's new thing, The Graveyard Book. It is, in essence, a very Gaiman-ized version of Rudyarp Kipling's Jungle Books, following a boy named Nobody (Bod for short) Owens, who was raised in a graveyard-turned-nature-preserve by its dead (or near-enough) inhabitants. It is really a collection of short stories, all following important events in Bod's growth, but these individual stories are set against a rather menacing concept that the reason Bod lives in a graveyard is that his family was murdered when he was an infant, by The Man Jack, who is eager to finish the job, should Bod ever leave the graveyard. This, and other parts of the stories, make the world of the dead seem all the more welcoming than that of the living, which is a neat trick to pull off if you ask me. There is one particularly snarled loose end in the story, but I have a sneaky suspicion that Gaiman intends to tie this off, either in a sequel of some nature or in a short story.

I'm currently having Neal Stephenson's dictionary (I'm only half-kidding here), titled Anathem, read to me at night by a pretty decent cast of readers for the auidobook version. To give you some idea of the density of this story, the audiobook alone is heavy enough to kill someone with if dropped from two storeys onto the victim's skull.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

You should definitely try sampling the Cain books for something on an entirely different kind of awesome.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Artemis »

I've been trying to find them, and haven't had any luck! I might just break down and buy them off Amazon :D
"The universe's most essential beauty is its endlessness. There is room and resources enough for all of us. Whether there is room for all of our passions is the question, and the problem that we work tirelessly to find a solution to."

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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

That is what I dids! Have you checked Eisenhorn, by the way? Those books are Dan Abnett's best, totally atmospheric and totally gripping and stuff. Find 'em!

Still, the Cain books are a welcomed relief from all the GRIMDARK. It is humanizings!
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Artemis »

Oh yeah, I've read Eisenhorn. I actually like the little short stories he did more than the longer novels, though, specifically For a Back Cloak Additional.
"The universe's most essential beauty is its endlessness. There is room and resources enough for all of us. Whether there is room for all of our passions is the question, and the problem that we work tirelessly to find a solution to."

-Qhameio Allir Nlafahn, Commonwealth ambassador, during the signing of the Kriolon Treaty.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I've just finished an epic reading marathon of Y The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra(artist, it's a comic), and I'm not quite sure how to summarise it. Here's my attempt;
One fine day in the summer of 2002 every mammal with a Y chromosome, from mammal sperm up to blue whales and everything between, dies. Well, not quite every one. An unemployed, 22 year old escape artist named Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand (he was training it to be a helper monkey, if that's important) are mysteriously spared. After a few immediate problems Yorick finds himself assigned by what is left of the US government, along with a secret service bodyguard named Agent 355 (it's a very secret service) to go and find a genetic scientist named Dr Allison Mann in the hope that she'll be able to find a way of creating a genetic future for mankind. The quest is complicated by the fact Yorick is fixated on finding his girlfriend, in Australia at this point, and the fact that the trio just cannot catch a break from all their various problems. So begins this strange story.

Alternately, the writer summed it up thusly "the story of how the last boy on Earth becomes the last man on Earth", which basically makes it a coming of age story, which the author agrees with but adds that most stories are coming of age stories. Whatever the case, the characters are very important in these books, definitely more important than the plot, and it's got a good plot. This is especially apparent towards the end of the series, where, not meaning to give anything away, peoples ways of dealing with the aftermath of the plague are much more important than the explanation for it and the methods for giving humanity a reproductive future. There are many subtle (your mileage may vary, I don't think I'm a very subtle person) insights into the main characters lives and motivations, which I frequently missed at first and was then able to connect later on, and frankly if I read it again I'll probably discover new things about them and the story. As I said, it's these characters and the way they change over the course of the story which are the real driving force behind it, rather than all the things that happen to them, even though the things that happen to them cause a lot of those changes. See, things are connected, it's fantastic.

That said, there are a few moments which could be called clumsy flashbacks, most of them have redeeming features but there's one where 355 is facing imminent danger and her life essentially flashes before her eyes, not well done, in my opinion. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I must mention the artwork as well, it's very understated, realistic in that all the objects and subjects have all the right proportions, and that Pia Guerra is good at nuanced facial expressions. There are odd moments when the artwork seems to change, I assume because there are different artists doing different parts even if Guerra is a constant, for instance in one story all the females seem a lot curvier and wider-eyed and than in the others. Overall though it fits the tone of the books perfectly, good comics depend on author-artist collaboration and this one has it.

Or had it, rather, the run is now over. I'm not really sure what I think of the last few chapters, I was definitely left a bit... confused by the grand finale, not sure what to think. I'll admit a little dissappointed as well after a fairly dire looking cliffanger in the pen-penultimate episode. Certain things just didn't quite deliver their expected payload right at the end, in my opinion. Most people seemed to like it, though (and some people thought the cliffhanger was a monstrous betrayal, peoples comments on Vaughans forum make me look positively disinterested).

Anyway, I highly recommend this book, I probably haven't done a good job of selling it but I would nevertheless urge you to try it, the entire series is out in convenient large volumes now, none of that monthly-issue nonsense. A couple of things I should note: First, Yorick? Dr Mann? the names sound a bit outlandish, yes? Well the series is rife with significant names and connections, I like learning all of these things and why they are important, even if they aren't realistic. Second, Vaughan is a big fan of leaving some things up to the reader to decide or decifer, which can lead to frustration in some cases. For instance, he says that the explanation for the plague is somewhere in the books, but he won't say where.

They say there's a movie in the works, for my money a TV series would be far, far better given the length and nature of the story, but I don't have enough money for that to be relevant.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Equiliari »

Ok... I just finished reading two of my StarCraft Novel madness (I ordered every single one of them) I finished Liberty's Crusade, and Nova. Mind you, I am not a reader. I did it to get to know the SC history more, plus get more insight in how to write a book since I am trying to get my story onto paper, and they are the first 2 books I have actually red without being made to read :P.
First conclution is, wow; Reading is more fun when you decide what to read yourself, and wow; Writing a book seems less hard now.

Liberty's Crusade can be summed up as the terran campaign on the original StarCraft but seen in a different perspective; Through the eyes of a reporter named Liberty. I read this one first so I do not remember much from it, but it was a nice deep addition to the SC lore. I even got some extra odd impressions that made me change my mind about certain things, to an example that James Raynor and Sarah Kerrigan never really were lovers. However I have yet to read "The Queen of blades" so I don't know it all yet.

Nova is basically the backstory for the ghost in StarCraft Ghost, weritten by Keith R. A DeCandido. I just finished reading this yesterday so I know the story here a bit deeper. Basically Nova Terra was a child in one of the old families on Tarsonis. Gets to whitness a traumatizing event, and ends up destroying the top of a tower with her telepathic AND telekinetic powers.
This novel happens at the same time as Liberty's crusade, Liberty is even mentioned in a funny sidenote, so you do get to read some familliar events happening.
We get a good glimplse into the ghost program, how ghosts are made, and rated. And why Nova became a ghost.
It was a good read.

Yet so far my favorite is Liberty's Crusade.

I guess I will go for Shadows of Xel Naga next, or Queen of Blades. Wish me luck!
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I heard the SC novels weren't all that good. They're in the local bookstore right now though, but I don't know if I want to spend money on them...

If someone else vouches for them, I might.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Equiliari »

I do vouch for Liberty's Crusade and Nova if you are interested in SC lore. Don't know about the rest yet.
I can't say much about quality since I am not much of a reader... but I did enjoy them. It can have something to do that I am a StarCraft fanatic.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Siege »

Finished The Darkness That Comes Before, the first book in the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. I am now officially hooked: this is easily the best fantasy I've read in years. It goes far beyond the tired old swords & sorcery schtick, including really interesting bits of philosophy, believable characters, and a number of scenes of unbelievable asskickery, particularly on the part of Anasûrimbor Kellhus (probability-reading monastic warrior) and Cnaiur urs Skiotha (MOST VIOLENT OF ALL MEN). I heartily advise everyone to read this.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

I just finished Duty Calls by Sandy Mitchell, so far the penultimate book of the Ciaphas Cain series. Which I bought yesterday. Or was it the other day?

Anyway, as far as the story goes, it's the typical entertaining affairs of Commissar Cain, paralleling the plot of For the Emperor and The Traitor's Hand somewhat - massive civil disturbance, treachery, and unexpected twists and a hidden final villain. The difference in this one, though, is that we see Cain's interaction with Amberley Vail's retinue, and his interaction with Amberley herself. ;)

Cain: *talking about a street vendor who he saved and who ended up drafted into Amberley's retinue* At least she's in good hands.

Amberley: I hope she's not the only one.

NEXT SCENE

Cain and Amberley are having breakfast in her hotel suite.

Oh, Cain. You smooth operator, you. ;)

The only criticism I can level against it is the fact that it follows For the Emperor and Traitor's Hand in terms of flow that it doesn't really bring anything new to the table - Caves of Ice and Death or Glory had survival ordeals and all that. Which is rather unfortunate, but the story is still really fun. It takes the GRIMDARK of 40k and subverts it rather well, with Cain being a coward in commissar's clothes but being a Big Damn Hero nonetheless.

Who else but the Commissar (and Jurgen) could've stopped a Hindenburg from incinerating their entire plateau-city through the clever use of an APC and a piece of expired pastry? :lol:

AND we see Tyrannids devouring a Brontosaurus to the bone.

Cain is totally awesome. Totally. What a bastard.

Oh, man, and Ernst Stravo Killian. :lol:

A rogue Inquisitor gone mad and falling into James Bond villain territory, to the point of dining pleasantly with the Commissar before showing him his true plan - muhahahaha - and having a diabolical escape plan to boot!

Too bad the Commissar is somewhat genre savvy and the Inquisitor ends up dying rather messily. Hah.

It's also fun to note that both good Inquisitor and evil Inquisitor, Amberley and Killian respectively, are rather big eaters. And both discuss their schemes with their mouths full.

Man, Amberley-chan is such a genki girl - everyone in her crew are such goof-offs!

IN THE GRIMDRAK OF THE FUTURE THERE IS WUV AND FUNNI!
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Peregrin »

Today I finished reading the novel The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson. Yeah, the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas dude who was sorta like a hippy version of Tom Wolfe. It's about Paul Kemp, an American journalist who gets a job at the only English-language newspaper on Puerto Rico in 1959. However, he quickly becomes disillusioned with his new job since it turns out that everyone around him is either a jerk, a cloudcuckoolander or both. Feeling like the only sane man on the island, he ends up spending time getting drunk and getting into wacky hijinks with his less intolerable colleagues than on work. I don't know how much of it is based upon things that actually happened to Hunter S. Thompson but some of the things in the plot are quite heavy on the WTF? factor... it's still believable because it's written in a rather dry and journalistic way that deadpans most of the absurdity. Of course, this being a Hunter S. Thompson novel the narrator occasionally goes on a snarky rant about something he feels very strongly about, in a way that's slightly verbose but in a rather low-brow and informal way. I think it's what you call "sophisticated as hell". I found it rather funny as well as illuminating about the state of things in 1950s Puerto Rico (and journalism back then), though I have the feeling that how much you'll like it depends mostly on how similar your sense of humour is to Hunter S. Thompson's.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Booted Vulture »

I have recently finished off The fourth book in the Temeraire series entitled "Empire of Ivory" this review will be very spoilery. I know some of you read the series so if you've not read this one already: Beware.


wherein are heroes return to England only to discover the entire population of British dragons are sickened by plague; prompting the main character's dragon to hope on a boat with his entire ailing formation and head back to Africa where they stopped breifly in the last book and Temeraire recovered from a cold there, a cold which is the same as the early symptom of the big plague.

They get there and find enough mushrooms to cure their formation but not enough for the entirety of the british air force, upon further searching they happen upon a massive amount of the drug and start harvesting it only discovering after their dragons have left that the supply is in fact cultivated by local african tribes. Africans with very big dragons; capturing the crews and carrying them off deep into africa; where they're basically blamed for the slave trade. Their dragons stage a daring rescue and the formation escapes on their dragon transport but all the African ports are attacked and wiped out by the African tribes.

Upon returning to England; they discover that their Air force i recovering thanks the cure they sent but that the Admiralty has sent a captured and infected dragon back to France to wipe out the french air force. Horrified by this attempted genocide of intelligent sapient creatures; The main character and his dragon capture supplies of the mushroom (now cultivated in scotland) and take it to Napolean and then feels honour bound to return to England to be tried and hanged for treason. Ending on a bit of cliff hanger in that regards.

The novel is pretty standard for the series having many of what I would consider the same strengths and weaknesses: the books is very engaging and the characters and storyline remain very interesting but I always feel the pacing is rather off: dragging and rushing in odd sections. For example: the dramatic conclusion; wherein the main character commits treason, flees to frace, meets Napoleon and convinces him to to let the main character return to England to be hanged all takes place in maybe the last fifty pages, very quickly.

In contrast with previous books; the long travel times inherent to the period seem to slightly glossed over; a three month travel to africa occurs in the gap between chapters (although is subsequently revisited in flash backs).

Still what is nice to see his changes in the time line having effect upon events; In this version Nelson survived Traflagar in the first book; as opposed to be picked off by French sharpshooters; a firebreather sets Victory alit, dropping burning sails on him; which he survives and now has his medals half melted. His survival also means that the slave trade is not abolished as he leads his voice to defeating an abolitionist bill in the house of lords.

All in all, this is well worth the read. I'm know going to be looking out for the fifth (and final?) book in the series: Victory of Eagles. (A very foreboding title considering Eagles are Napoleon's thing)
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Heretic »

I have finally got a hold on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, and I am before Isabella's..ahem, Bella's vacation with Edward, and I am already insane. Maybe it's that I have been affected by the hatedom in the internet, thus having a prejudiced mindset, or that I'm still ticked that I can't seem to finish Robinson Crusoe, and every time I rent it, I get progressively worse when it comes to page numbers (I left of at the meeting of Friday the first time I picked it up, now I haven't even got to the point where Crusoe surveys the Island by boat. Have a knack to reread the whole thing If I put it away). Anyway, my review.

So, it starts off with the chapter where Bella talks about how she hates Fork, and all that angst. Meyers lampshaded Bella's emotionless by comparing her to Bella's mother, but that doesn't explain how she gets annoyed in a lovey way to Edward, and irritated by her normal friends. That brings up another issue. I seem to feel more sympathetic to her human friends, who she loathes when they just want to be friends, and gets shunned as she goes with a dangerous and potentially lethal vampire. Grr... Remee? What type of name is that?

Anyway, Bella goes moaning about how her life sucks compared to the one she purposely left in Phoenix. Stephanie Meyers took great pains to talk about how fabulously fabulous the Cullens are, how much Bella can't keep her mind of her stalker, and how rainy it is in Washington. The Washington part nearly made me laugh at how miserable she is. Being a native Washingtonian, I can go in clothes suited for barbecues while in heavy rain (having a huge ego, I want to say that I walk home from school wearing said clothes during the rainy season with no jacket). I can't point it out, but I feel like Bella has double standards. I just can't point it out...

Anyway, my first lengthy review is done (on my b-day), and I will report back once I finish (or halfway finish) the book. Now, I'm on a quest to find the damn Necromonicon to gain some sanity points back.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Booted Vulture »

Just finished Iain M Bank' latest Culture novel. It was a bit of a slog but I got there in the end.

I'm not keen on thi novel, as always with Bank's its chock full of cool stuff and world building but in the end the plot and characters I think suffer from it. Matter has an overabundance of characters and a lacking of pacing. The end being very sudden and once again killing off what was supposed to be the main character. (although maybe not she seemed to have less pages devoted to her than anyone else but she is the character the book's blurb talks about)

If this book had just been about her: a little girl from a barbarian world that gets traded to the culture and becomes an SC Agent, I feel the book would have been more interesting.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Somes J »

I just finished reading the Rifter Trilogy by Peter Watts. I'd already read Blindsight, so I was curious to see some of his other work. I found the Rifters books considerably more readable than Blindsight, although I don't really think this is because Blindsight is bad. I can definitely see the similarities though.

His writing in general is quite dark, especially in terms of characterization. He seems to love exploring characters who are outside the realm of human normalcy, or to put it more simply are what most of us would consider truly messed up people. There's maybe three significant characters I can remember in the entire trilogy who didn't come off as being some degree of messed up, and they were pretty much bit players. As in Blindsight he crams his writing with lots of really awesome but scientifically plausible ideas. I have to say it's a breath of fresh air compared to the rubber science sci fi that seems to dominate the genre, and I really wish this kind of stuff was more popular. I like the way he explores the implications of the biological nature of personality and awareness in all sorts of fascinating ways.

I'd say Maelstrom (the middle book) is the strongest, while Starfish (first book) is probably second best, and Behemoth (last book) is the weakest. Maelstrom is just crammed with interest and exciting stuff in a way that Starfish isn't, and Behemoth just didn't seem to fit well with the rest of the series. I got the feeling like there should have been another book between Maelstrom and Behemoth - there was a bunch of significant stuff that apparently just happened offscreen in the time between Maelstrom ended and Behemoth started.

Highlights:

The Ganzfeld Effect. I rather like how he tried to come up with a somewhat scientifically plausible explanation for telepathy. It's probably the "softest" thing in the book, but it's neat how he tried, and it was an original take on telepathy. The key is acute sensory deprivation or the trick of making the nerves fire faster, not "lol some special people just have super mutant powers".

The implanted traumatic memory thing. Yeah, Total Recall sort of did it already, but I like the way he made the whole scenario about ten times more gruesome, and used it to explore the ways in which such a technology could be horribly abused.

Fischer. I like how he very effectively went about showing how for some people, strange as it might seem, losing sapience might actually make them better off. The bit where his memories start coming back and his whole incredibly screwed-up life starts coming back to him is great at showing how this could be the case.

That bit where they were lacing the food they gave to a bunch of impoverished refugees with mind-altering chemicals to make them less likely to make trouble. Man, that was some fucked up shit.

Spartacus. A pretty neat way of exploring the relationship of emotion and morality. Spartacus is a virus that changes your brain in such a way as to take away your ability to feel guilt. In the book, two of the characters got infected by it. Both were psychological basketcases to start with - one was an assassin who got turned on by the thrill of killing people, and the other was a closet sexual sadist. One of them stayed a relatively decent person, while the other went completely psycho now that he had no conscience to restrain his darker urges. Come to think of it, this might be interesting fodder for another ethics discussion...

The main downsides I can think of is, well, his style of writing can be a bit weird but I think it has a certain charm. I actually really like how he writes in the first person a lot; it gives you a sense that you're actually watching events happen, instead of hearing a story where the conclusion has already happened. My biggest beef is when he tries to make up future slang - it just sounds really lame. That and some of the politics is fairly ludicrous.

The books are available online and I recommend them. I suggest starting with Rifters and then moving onto Blindsight, as it is the more difficult read.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Peregrin »

Earlier this week I finished reading a comic book called Berlin: City of Stones by one Jason Lutes. It's the story of two people in late-1920s Berlin, aspiring artist Martha Müller and journalist Kurt Severing who meet on a train. They eventually get romantically involved, but the comic is not as much about them as giving a snapshot of interwar Germany and what exactly happened there so there are lots of subplots about political activists and WW1 flashbacks. It's a very great-looking comic, drawn in a black & white semi-realistic style that's like a cross between Tintin and 1920s/1930s advertising clipart. It's interesting, at least, and is very ambitious. I actually think it's a bit too ambitious, being a bit cramped with a lot of characters who aren't developed as much as they should, and all the storylines going on feel a bit too awkwardly connected. Maybe that kind of expansive historical fiction works better for prose fiction than comics? I don't regret reading this, though, and I also recommend it as a matter of fact but I'm not sure if it really is that good.

Right now I am reading The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley, a novel about a private detective who gets hired to find a woman who disappeared 10 years ago literally the moment he completes his last assignment, which results in him getting help throughout the story from a Charles Bukowski-esque washed-up beatnik author who happens to be the last disappeared person he found. Okay, I'm probably making this sound a lot more normal than it really is, because the plot doesn't have much of a conventional structure which would make it seem much more realistic if it weren't for the constant flashbacks and how the story generally jumps around in time and place. It actually feels less like a detective novel and more like what Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas would be like with a main character who isn't constantly stoned but even more cynical than Raoul Duke, because the plot is less the focus of the novel and more of an excuse for various anecdotes which gives the snarky first-person narrator a lot of anecdotes to vent his archetypical 1970s cynicism. (it's written and published in 1978) The thing that makes it work at all is that Crumley's got a great prose style and an absolutely fantastic sense of humour. The Last Good Kiss is probably one of the funniest books I've read in a long, long time. A lot of the dialogue and situations that happen are simply laugh-out loud hilarious in a really morbid and tasteless way. I wouldn't be surprised if I found out that this was one of Quentin Tarantino's favourite novels, though it's nowhere as artsy as anything he's done.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Heretic »

I tossed away Twilight as it got too slow and weird, so I got Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. One thing I learned was that the monster was not called Frankenstein, but that it's the doctor's name, but it seems like many newbies made that mistake (haven't seen the 1930 movie either). Well, I enjoy it, being one of the first horror and sci fi books, but one thing I disliked was that Mary Shelley took the time to describe everyone's feelings, romantic emotions, and the scenery, and less of the monster itself. Now, I haven't finished reading it, but I'm hoping that at least a more detailed description of it will come at the epilogue.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Somes J »

Heretic wrote:I tossed away Twilight as it got too slow and weird, so I got Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. One thing I learned was that the monster was not called Frankenstein, but that it's the doctor's name, but it seems like many newbies made that mistake (haven't seen the 1930 movie either). Well, I enjoy it, being one of the first horror and sci fi books, but one thing I disliked was that Mary Shelley took the time to describe everyone's feelings, romantic emotions, and the scenery, and less of the monster itself. Now, I haven't finished reading it, but I'm hoping that at least a more detailed description of it will come at the epilogue.
I read that book back when I was a teenager.

I think calling the monster "Frankenstein" was always just a shorthand for "Frankenstein's monster".

I don't remember the book ever really describing the monster, except that he's huge and ugly.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Dakarne »

It was actually described as a mix of beautiful and ugly features that were put together wrongly, and it was worse for it.
In Chapter 5, Mary Shelley wrote:How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Siege »

I'm in the process of wrestling my way through R. Scott Bakker's The Warrior Prophet, the 2nd installment in his 'Prince Of Nothing' saga. It's just as expertly written as its predecessor (The Darkness That Comes Before), and easily ranks among some of the best 'high fantasy' I've ever read... But I have to say it's hard to feel much sympathy for the characters because the vast majority of them are misogynistic douchenozzle assholes. Which is a mindset that makes sense, given that this is a medieval(ish) setting we're talking about, but the sheer assholery of some of the characters gets grating after a while. Then again, there's a lot of political backstabbing going on as well, which I enjoy, and after a book and a half we finally got our first major battle, so I'm hopeful that now that the pace seems to pick up the prickishness of the characters will fade to the background somewhat...
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

In terms of actual, proper books with paper and ink and so forth I am reading Tom Hollands Millennium. Tom Hollands books are narrative history, so he describes the lead up to big events in a vivid and evocative way, sketching out the characters, the places they lived and the ideas that suffused their world. His previous two books have been Rubicon, which describes what events led to Caesar crossing the aforementioned river (beginning from Sullas takeover) and Persian Fire, which describes the events leading to Xerxes invasion of Greece (and heroically endeavours to put a sympathetic face on Persia). The central subject of Millennium is harder to pin down, since it talks about different happenings around western Europe around the year 1000, but the central theme is the interaction of politics and religion and the slow death of the idea of a western Roman Empire(I think he says the idea became totally unfaesible with the death of Otto III in about 1002, some ideas really do outstay their welcome). I like the book because it has a lot of the same descriptive flair as in the earlier books, but it isn't as gripping because of its wider subject matter, which I think he's not as suited to describing.

-Note; I'm not sure how respected Tom Hollan is as a historian, as someone with a laymans understanding of history I have learned from his books (for instance: the Spartan king who kicked those guys down the well was Cleomines, not Leonidas, and the Spartans wouldn't help out at the battle of Marathon because it would interrupt a festival of naked, oiled, manly callisthenics), but I mostly read them because in terms of describing fantastic and exotic worlds (which just happen to have actually existed) he puts most fantasy authors to shame.

However, I've been spending more time reading an original work on the internet: Children of Heaven by alias Bladed_Crescent, which I was at one point following as it was updated, then decided to reread from the beginning once the last chapter was put up. I'll try not to give too much away, but the story is: In the 43rd century the United Terran Confederacy is essentially unchallenged in the galaxy, having squashed nearly all human opposition and found only the long dead remains of aliens who could match them. But one cold september day, AD 4233, all of that suddenly and horribly changes. The human race, and in particular a young woman named Natalya Archer, must fight off new enemies, uncover conspiracies, negotiate with monsters and generally learn quickly that the universe is not as nice as they'd assumed.

Considering that it's an amateur work this story is extremely well written, it's largely military sci fi, but I liked the military aspects even though my eyes usually glaze over when reading space battles or descriptions of military hardware. The characters are a good and varied bunch, although they sometimes slip into basic types, eg: Grimly determined and patriotic officers, moustache twirling tax-hungry politicians (this is really grating in the first few chapters) and vicious and enigmatic aliens. Actually the aliens don't vary much from this type, and if you're anything like me by the end you will want to smack every single Lefu in the face and say "get the fuck over yourself!" The plot hangs together really well with every action having consequences that are followed up on. I must warn you that the ending is very, very frustrating, and much of the story is really pretty depressing as the aliens philosophy is based on the Killing Star Principle. And as I mentioned they really are a bunch of self righteous pricks about it.
Goddamn Lefus.
I don't feel bad about putting this in the book thread since it's as good as many actual books, and the author does plan to publish it someday, so go, look upon his works and despair...
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Re: The Book Thread

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

My Little Echo!!!

^______________^

and the Spartans wouldn't help out at the battle of Marathon because it would interrupt a festival of naked, oiled, manly callisthenics)
What a bunch of dicks. :mrgreen:

OILED CALISTHENICS!

The greatest thing on Earth.
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