Which Book Are You Reading Now? Volume XII

[AmazonQueen]

I just somewhat liked the Biter bit story. It has its problems, but was lively and rested on difference in point of view. But i am already seeing similar patterns in the Moonstone.
Not sure if i will be able to read the entire book (unless it becomes what i would like it to be; namely an attempt by Betteridge to cover up for his own responsibility for the loss of the Moonstone, by producing a bizarre version of what he was tasked to do. Maybe it isn't this at all, though ).

I also read Chesterton's short story about the "invisible man". Very simply written; didn't like it much. Collins writes simply too, though (compared to Poe or Irving).

I tend to like simple. I do think authors of this period have a tendancy to overcomplicate matters. As a friend said Sir Walter Scott would never say walk when he could say perambulate.

 

[Kyriakos]

I tend to like simple. I do think authors of this period have a tendancy to overcomplicate matters. As a friend said Sir Walter Scott would never say walk when he could say perambulate.

Which sucks for me, as a translator. Translating Collins would have been far easier/faster.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Which sucks for me, as a translator. Translating Collins would have been far easier/faster.

I never really thought about it from the point of view of a translator. Are there authors you particularly dislike translating? I can imagine Sir Walter Scott wouldn't be the easiest.

 

[Kyriakos]

I never really thought about it from the point of view of a translator. Are there authors you particularly dislike translating? I can imagine Sir Walter Scott wouldn't be the easiest.

Washington Irving uses a lot of peculiar and archaic terms. Far worse than Poe in that respect, though Poe means to use a lot of foreign terms (latin, greek, french and german) to present himself as well-read etc.

 

[Kyriakos]

Well, after reading 11 chapters, i decided to just rely on the synopsis for the rest (cause it is a large novel and i don't have time atm...).
Seems pretty good Though i am disappointed re the role of the butler. Generic :/

 

[EgonSpengler]

I haven't started them yet, but Amazon's Kindle store has Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas (1987) for $3 and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) for $2. I tried reading Stephenson's Seveneves and wanted to claw my eyes out after a while, but I've been assured that Snow Crash is his masterpiece. I figured for 2 bucks, wth. And if I get into Consider Phlebas, Amazon has acquired the rights and is developing a televisual adaptation.

If you like military sci-fi, Marko Kloos' entire Frontlines series is on sale for $2 each. I'm not sure it's worth recommending to folks not generally into military sf, but hey, 2 bucks; even if you decide it sucks, it's less than a cup of coffee.

 

[Kyriakos]

People tend to say that Lovecraft writes in a "purple" style, and using weird terms, but let me tell you that he writes utterly ordinary english if compared to Washington Irving

Btw, that cover is nice, but entirely misleading. For starters: In the story Zann is playing a viola, not a violin

Spoiler :

The monster and the fallen/petrified ones aren't in the story either.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I haven't started them yet, but Amazon's Kindle store has Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas (1987) for $3 and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) for $2. I tried reading Stephenson's Seveneves and wanted to claw my eyes out after a while, but I've been assured that Snow Crash is his masterpiece. I figured for 2 bucks, wth. And if I get into Consider Phlebas, Amazon has acquired the rights and is developing a televisual adaptation.

If you like military sci-fi, Marko Kloos' entire Frontlines series is on sale for $2 each. I'm not sure it's worth recommending to folks not generally into military sf, but hey, 2 bucks; even if you decide it sucks, it's less than a cup of coffee.

Dear god Seveneves is one of the worst slogs I ever got through. It starts off great, starts to go off the rails and the final section was just a huge let down. I do not understand why it got such glowing reviews and was a commercial success. I love the basic premise, he just can't hold the story together without things getting stupid.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Dear god Seveneves is one of the worst slogs I ever got through. It starts off great, starts to go off the rails and the final section was just a huge let down. I do not understand why it got such glowing reviews and was a commercial success. I love the basic premise, he just can't hold the story together without things getting stupid.

Same here. I didn't even finish it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Dear god Seveneves is one of the worst slogs I ever got through. It starts off great, starts to go off the rails and the final section was just a huge let down. I do not understand why it got such glowing reviews and was a commercial success. I love the basic premise, he just can't hold the story together without things getting stupid.

Sounds like the book analogue to Attack on Titan

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Same here. I didn't even finish it.

Spoiler :

The racial undertones that begin in the early chapters picks up steam until the descendants of the various Eves basically take racism with them into space and segregate themselves into separate sections of an orbital ring. It was really sad the way the book devolved into this stupid commentary on race relations. Also mole people that treat women as breeders show up on the surface (after the space racists have complete terraforming the Earth) and at the very end they find out that some people survived in submarines at the bottom of the ocean. Nothing happens, everyone is racist. The end.


But of course along the way was a ton of stupid hijinks where people actively try and kill themselves and the whole human race off through astounding stupid, nonsensical actions.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Spoiler :

The racial undertones that begin in the early chapters picks up steam until the descendants of the various Eves basically take racism with them into space and segregate themselves into separate sections of an orbital ring. It was really sad the way the book devolved into this stupid commentary on race relations. Also mole people that treat women as breeders show up on the surface (after the space racists have complete terraforming the Earth) and at the very end they find out that some people survived in submarines at the bottom of the ocean. Nothing happens, everyone is racist. The end.


But of course along the way was a ton of stupid hijinks where people actively try and kill themselves and the whole human race off through astounding stupid, nonsensical actions.

Well, that didn't go where I thought it was going to go. Although you did confirm my suspicion that...

Spoiler :

...the people who went into the underground shelters at the beginning were going to reappear, in some fashion. I thought maybe some kind of cultural ark, like the "Doomsday vault" in Norway.

 

[rah]

Gods of Blood and Powder and
Sins of Empire, by Brian McClellan
Books IV and V in the Powder Mage Series.

A trashy enjoyable romp. He's a good story teller with interesting characters. I read the original trilogy a while back so it took be a few pages to remember everyone. Worth the effort.

 

[Dachs]

just blazed through Zahn's new Star Wars joint, Thrawn: Alliances

it's in line with other Zahn work in terms of quality, thoughtfulness, and humor, although I think this is the first time he's done past and present stories simultaneously in his Star Wars tie-in fiction

also hoooooooly crap there is a lot of continuity porn for the Clone Wars and Rebels shows

 

[tjs282]

I haven't started them yet, but Amazon's Kindle store has Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas (1987) for $3 and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) for $2. I tried reading Stephenson's Seveneves and wanted to claw my eyes out after a while, but I've been assured that Snow Crash is his masterpiece. I figured for 2 bucks, wth. And if I get into Consider Phlebas, Amazon has acquired the rights and is developing a televisual adaptation.

I really liked Snow Crash.

And Banks is just great. CP is a bit of an odd bird, though: it's the first of his 'Culture' novels (FTR, if there's any justice in this Universe, the Culture is where he went to live after his pancreatic cancer 'killed' him), but he wrote it from the antagonist's point of view.

Spoiler Why do you need a title for this spoiler...? :

So it... erm... doesn't end well...

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[Ajidica]

I haven't started them yet, but Amazon's Kindle store has Iain Banks' Consider Phlebas (1987) for $3 and Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992) for $2. I tried reading Stephenson's Seveneves and wanted to claw my eyes out after a while, but I've been assured that Snow Crash is his masterpiece. I figured for 2 bucks, wth. And if I get into Consider Phlebas, Amazon has acquired the rights and is developing a televisual adaptation.

If you like military sci-fi, Marko Kloos' entire Frontlines series is on sale for $2 each. I'm not sure it's worth recommending to folks not generally into military sf, but hey, 2 bucks; even if you decide it sucks, it's less than a cup of coffee.

Snow Crash is enjoyable, but it suffers from the problem all of Stephenson's work suffers from - that he has absolutely no idea to write an ending and just punts. (This was really bad in Diamond Age.) Plus, while I was super impressed with the mythological research Stephenson put into Snow Crash, after seeing how he butchered Chinese Confucianism and the concept of filial piety in Diamond Age, I wonder how much he 'adjusted' Sumerian mythos to make it fit in Snow Crash. (Plus, there is the whole sort of racist vibe I got in the ending of Diamond Age where he has his heroes rescued by a bunch of white supremacist Afrikaaners and kill several thousand Chinese because all the Chinese were brainwashed. Also some super tone-deaf comments about Native Americans in the beginning, which may have hit closer to home because he specifically mentioned the Ojibwe and Souix and Minneapolis.)

 

[EgonSpengler]

Snow Crash is enjoyable, but it suffers from the problem all of Stephenson's work suffers from - that he has absolutely no idea to write an ending and just punts. (This was really bad in Diamond Age.) Plus, while I was super impressed with the mythological research Stephenson put into Snow Crash, after seeing how he butchered Chinese Confucianism and the concept of filial piety in Diamond Age, I wonder how much he 'adjusted' Sumerian mythos to make it fit in Snow Crash. (Plus, there is the whole sort of racist vibe I got in the ending of Diamond Age where he has his heroes rescued by a bunch of white supremacist Afrikaaners and kill several thousand Chinese because all the Chinese were brainwashed. Also some super tone-deaf comments about Native Americans in the beginning, which may have hit closer to home because he specifically mentioned the Ojibwe and Souix and Minneapolis.)

Sudden swerve: iirc, the woman who plays Capt. Drummer in The Expanse is Ojibwe.

 

[Kyriakos]

A couple of weeks ago:

Overall it isn't a good treatise, imo. It also isn't what the title suggests; it includes a lot of stuff which Lovecraft himself names as not tied to "cosmic" (ie non psychological in the context of the story) horror, identifies others as cosmic horror when arguably psychological would be more fitting, and starts with the gothic novel, as if nothing prior to that was written in horror.
Also i found that the treatise is written in uneven style; some parts are better described than others.
Maybe it is mostly useful as a source of possible reading material, for people who like this type of literature, but i doubt it is important as an actual treatise.
Eg it is far less interesting than Freud's treatise on the Uncanny.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

if you want that kind of stuff you need "Das Unbehagen in der Kultur" in your life