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[Haly]

LO WHAT TERRIBLE PROSE IRKS ME
MAGICAL FORTUNE CLAIMS ALL THE WORDS HERE
AS MIRACULOUSLY THEY MAKE IT THROUGH EDITING

(P.S. Rothfuss sucks)

I really like game of thrones so I'm trying out the novels. Talk about a slow read at first. Does it get better? I really enjoy these characters and this world but Martin tends to prattle on and on and on.

If you thought the first book was prattling "on and on"...

 

[Mumei]

I really like game of thrones so I'm trying out the novels. Talk about a slow read at first. Does it get better? I really enjoy these characters and this world but Martin tends to prattle on and on and on.

I think the first book takes ~100-ish pages to warm up. He has to introduce all the major perspectives and get the ball rolling. Subsequent books get things going faster, though.

 

[RoninChaos]

I think the first book takes ~100-ish pages to warm up. He has to introduce all the major perspectives and get the ball rolling. Subsequent books get things going faster, though.

k, good to know. I really like the story, and the world. Maybe it's just the setup.

 

[Talon]

Tales of the Jazz Age!!!

This. This. This.

 

[Row]

(P.S. Rothfuss sucks.

He really does - god name of the wind was bad

 

[Morrigan Stark]

There's a rather infamous (and informative) review of this book that people should check out before buying.

Thanks for the link. That review was awesome and very informative. The butthurt fans are hilarious in the comments. The reviewer is vitriolic, but she clearly outlines her reasons for that, and even provides cited examples. If I had a Kindle I'd certainly not waste $3 on that tripe.

 

[Tragicomedy]

Finished reading The Fault in Our Stars. Lovely, sad, and reassuring at the same time.

 

[jtb]

since people were mentioning the Pevear and Volkhonsky translation of Crime and Punishment earlier, would you recommend their translation of the Idiot and/or Anna Karenina also? I've been meaning to read both of those for a while though I'm a bit intimidated by the various options when it comes to any translation. I read the P/V translation of Crime and Punishment in school and liked it so I'm naturally leaning towards the familiar option but I figured I'd ask here to see if there's any particular translations that are noteworthy and/or preferable for either.

 

[Nymerio]

Finished Midnight Tides yesterday. The ending is just brutal.

Spoiler

First Tehol gets beaten to death, his friend tries to help him and dies for it, Hull gets stabbed just as he arrives hat Tehol's place and Brys drinks the poison. The Ceda is killed as well and by Trull none the less. At least Tehol survived in the end. I was a bit bummed because the story didn't as far as Trull's shorning, but I guess that'll be in one of the next books.

My favourite characters have been Tehol and Bugg. Their dialogs always had me smiling. They remind me of Kruppe, who I also like very much.

I'll be starting The Bonehunters shortly.

 

[Alpende]

I am Zlatan. Interesting read so far, I don't know a lot about his background and the book describes that so far. Very cool.

 

[Salsa]

I think the first book takes ~100-ish pages to warm up. He has to introduce all the major perspectives and get the ball rolling. Subsequent books get things going faster, though.

do they tho, I just gave up on Clash of Kings about a third way in cause it was boring me to hell

maybe they're just not for me. I'll watch the show

it was also getting needlessly (at least it felt nedless) complex, tho im sure part of that is the fact that even tho my english is pretty good, reading in a foreign language still gets in the way with stuff like fantasy books

 

[Kallor]

Finished Midnight Tides yesterday. The ending is just brutal.

Spoiler

First Tehol gets beaten to death, his friend tries to help him and dies for it, Hull gets stabbed just as he arrives hat Tehol's place and Brys drinks the poison. The Ceda is killed as well and by Trull none the less. At least Tehol survived in the end. I was a bit bummed because the story didn't as far as Trull's shorning, but I guess that'll be in one of the next books.

My favourite characters have been Tehol and Bugg. Their dialogs always had me smiling. They remind me of Kruppe, who I also like very much.

I'll be starting The Bonehunters shortly.

Soogood.gif @ Midnight tides. I really enjoyed the ending.

This series is growing on me more and more.

 

[Meteorain]

There's a rather infamous (and informative) review of this book that people should check out before buying.



Actual quote from the novel:

Measures thou see art but trifles. Walls, guards and the abyss stand least among the gauntlet. Lo what works of magic ensnare me! Magical locks claim all the doors here as smoke and dream they vanish with passage. (p. 113)

And then check out the comments for additional amusement.

I read this series not so long ago as a piece of filler while I looked for something of note to start reading. Now the reviewer really seems to have a much deeper grudge than I expected; true the books are not the greatest of literary works but to be so incensed about them seems a bit much.

Having read the first Twilight book on the bog whenever I went before the movies were to come out; I think I have come to be desensitised a bit to poor prose and dialogue. I will forever hold it against my sister for leaving the damn thing there. Never have I come across such repetitive drivel as in that book.

 

[Maklershed]

Thought some people might be interested to know that the Mongoliad Books 1,2,3 (aka Foreworld Saga) are on sale today for $.99. They sound interesting and they're written by Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson.


The Mongoliad: Book One by Neal Stephenson


The Mongoliad: Book Two by Neal Stephenson


The Mongoliad: Book Three by Neal Stephenson

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I read this series not so long ago as a piece of filler while I looked for something of note to start reading. Now the reviewer really seems to have a much deeper grudge than I expected; true the books are not the greatest of literary works but to be so incensed about them seems a bit much.

I don't understand this mentality. Just because something isn't meant to be deep literature, doesn't make it acceptable when it's full of shitty prose, plot holes, clichés one after the other, contradictory and inconsistent and generally terrible characters. It's possible to write light, entertaining fantasy "just for entertainment" without having such problems, after all, so there's really no excuse.

 

[Mumei]

do they tho, I just gave up on Clash of Kings about a third way in cause it was boring me to hell

maybe they're just not for me. I'll watch the show

it was also getting needlessly (at least it felt nedless) complex, tho im sure part of that is the fact that even tho my english is pretty good, reading in a foreign language still gets in the way with stuff like fantasy books

Well, I thought so. I thought it took *forever* in A Game of Thrones to introduce every perspective first, and then it took at least a few chapters with any individual character perspective to see some plot momentum. This is true of any book in the series, but later books seemed to benefit from the fact that there were always character perspectives that carried over from book-to-book that didn't have to spend much (or any) time re-establishing the character.

It's not necessarily for everyone, obviously. I think it is much better than the show, though!

 

[Narag]

do they tho, I just gave up on Clash of Kings about a third way in cause it was boring me to hell

Series never started clicking for me until halfway through that book. Just felt like so much setup until then. Wish I could remember what in particular grabbed me but it's been too long.

 

[NekoFever]

do they tho, I just gave up on Clash of Kings about a third way in cause it was boring me to hell

maybe they're just not for me. I'll watch the show

it was also getting needlessly (at least it felt nedless) complex, tho im sure part of that is the fact that even tho my english is pretty good, reading in a foreign language still gets in the way with stuff like fantasy books

I misread your name as SansaStark just then, which made your opinion quite funny. I must have GOT on the brain.

I finished the first chapter (of seven) of Time of Contempt this morning. Too early to have any real opinion but it seems like they did a good job with the translation, which they should have considering how long it took to get the book done. Anyone who's tried to follow the politics of the Witcher games knows how heavy it can get in the respect, and this has a titanic load of exposition at the beginning that I'm hoping is just to catch people up so that it can get on with it.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Anyone read The Dog Stars?

 

[FL4TW4V3]

So, for anyone interested, here is my Goodreads profile.

 

[Tragicomedy]

Thought some people might be interested to know that the Mongoliad Books 1,2,3 (aka Foreworld Saga) are on sale today for $.99. They sound interesting and they're written by Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson.

Thanks for the heads up. I've always hesitated on these since there are like seven authors collaborating together, and that usually spells disaster. But for $3, I'm in.

 

[nakedsushi]

A handful of my coworkers are reading this and claim it's scary, so I'm starting too.


Night Film by Marisha Pessl

So far, I like it, especially the news/media snippets. It has a very creepy feeling.

 

[Tragicomedy]

Anyone read The Dog Stars?

We discussed it a few pages back (or maybe last month's thread). There were mixed impressions here. A couple of people said the writing style was very annoying, while another said it's a top notch post-apocalyptic story.

For what it's worth, I plan to read it soon and I'll definitely share my view on it when I finish.

 

[Liha]

A new adventure for Robert Langdon

 

[dream]

A handful of my coworkers are reading this and claim it's scary, so I'm starting too.


Night Film by Marisha Pessl

So far, I like it, especially the news/media snippets. It has a very creepy feeling.

I want this.

 

[Haly]

A new adventure for Robert Langdon

That is a pretty liberal use of "new".

 

[Liha]

That is a pretty liberal use of "new".

OK, You are right!

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Also, regarding The Great Gatsby, I think it's a lovely novel but I don't quite understand exactly why it's so highly regarded (aside from the fact that it's well written and has an interesting story and characters, etc). I'm incredibly dense and I'm not very good at picking out themes and symbolism and subtext and things of that sort, which, I figure, factors heavily into Gatsby's acclaim, so does anyone know of any good essays I could read on the subject or maybe a website or a book that could help me out with this type of stuff?

Tales of the Jazz Age!!!

This. This. This.

Sweet! I'll definitely try to check that out at some point.

 

[Meteorain]

I don't understand this mentality. Just because something isn't meant to be deep literature, doesn't make it acceptable when it's full of shitty prose, plot holes, clichés one after the other, contradictory and inconsistent and generally terrible characters. It's possible to write light, entertaining fantasy "just for entertainment" without having such problems, after all, so there's really no excuse.

What don't you understand?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Dismissing problems with a book simply because it's "not meant to be great literature." Some things are a matter of taste, and not everyone will agree on whether a given book is well-written or not, but "it's not meant to be good" is not a good excuse for, you know, not being good.

Same goes for other forms of entertainment. "This doesn't make any sense and it's poorly done." "lol it's just a movie." etc

Yep, pretty much.

 

[Meteorain]

Dismissing problems with a book simply because it's "not meant to be great literature." Some things are a matter of taste, and not everyone will agree on whether a given book is well-written or not, but "it's not meant to be good" is not a good excuse for, you know, not being good.

Same goes for other forms of entertainment. "This doesn't make any sense and it's poorly done." "lol it's just a movie." etc

However that's not what I was saying. I didn't dismiss anything; I was merely saying that I was surprised at how vehemently heated the review was.

I would like to clarify I don't excuse poor writing if that is the idea that poster got from my post. At the end of the day you're going to come across many terrible books during your lifetime, I try not to get too worked up over such a thing. Maybe that's just me though

 

[Haly]

Getting worked up over things is fun. The best reviews are the most extreme.

 

[Narag]

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn

Hadn't read this in forever and the kindle deal from a few weeks back had me figuring I ought to go through it again. Sadly, ti's basically as I remember: a fun little romp whose self-aware humor and in-jokes takes me out of the story as they seem like clumsy attempts to ingratiate themselves to the fan reading the book.

Might dig out the hardcovers I have of the rest of the trilogy, might not. On one hand, I do get pretty annoyed with this first trilogy. On the other, dat Thrawn.

 

[Maklershed]

Anyone read The Dog Stars?

Yes. One of my favorites in the past year and on the top of my list for post-apocalyptic fiction.

 

[Meteorain]

I don't generally get worked up about shitty books. I just toss them aside and move on to the next one.

Sometimes, though, a book is aggressively bad to the point where you get the feeling the author thinks you're a moron. I have absolutely gotten furious at how awful a book is before (specifically The Fifth Sorceress by whatshisface). It can be cathartic.

I feel you on that, but I believe Twilight has taken all of my hate. A book would have to hit that level of low to make me actively tell people how shit it is.

 

[Haly]

Here's a book that makes Twilight look good: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U34BZS/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Consider this an open challenge to anyone feeling particularly masochistic.

 

[Narag]

Here's a book that makes Twilight look good: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U34BZS/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Consider this an open challenge to anyone feeling particularly masochistic.

Can't resist at that price.

 

[Maklershed]

JULY THREAD IS UP ....

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=609071

 

[KidDork]

Re-reading Bonfire of the Vanities, which I originally read 20 years ago.
Also this past weekend I read and finished On Writing by Stephen King

I thought On Writing was the best book I've read on the craft. I've had friends who snootily dismiss all of King's work read that book and admit it was great.

 

[Fjordson]

do they tho, I just gave up on Clash of Kings about a third way in cause it was boring me to hell

maybe they're just not for me. I'll watch the show

it was also getting needlessly (at least it felt nedless) complex, tho im sure part of that is the fact that even tho my english is pretty good, reading in a foreign language still gets in the way with stuff like fantasy books

Hmm, Clash of Kings felt pretty fast paced to me in comparison to the first book. That and Storm of Swords were just incredible in my opinion. But yeah, the scope of the story and who all is involved balloons fairly quickly once you're into book two. Even now after five books the cast of characters is still huge.

Sidenote: wow @ reading something that epic in a second language. I'm a bit in awe (of you and anyone else on here who can do it, I'm sure there's at least a few others on here). I took French in school and got decent at it, but that was like 6 years ago. I wouldn't have a chance of reading epic fantasy in French these days :lol

 

[VGChampion]

A new adventure for Robert Langdon

I just finished it yesterday. I enjoyed it. It's been awhile since I've read the other Langdon books but I think Angels and Demons is still my favorite.

 

[ClassyPenguin]

nvm