TV adaption thing finally got me to read Hyperion.
Holy shit. Holy shit. Starts slow but once I got to the first tale, I was thoroughly hooked. The Shrike is such an awesome antagonist/whatever the hell it is. Frame story serves just to get to the good bits of everyone's individual stories. Personal rankings in regards to quality: Priest/Consul/Scholar/Poet/Soldier/Detective. All of them are great, but the priest and the consul struck a chord in me.
On to the sequel now, but I'm not as big of a fan of its framing device, and the AI/Keats stuff is starting to go over my head. Will continue on mainly because I want to know everyone's fate.
If SyFy doesn't fuck it up there's a great TV show waiting to be made here.
I wasnt a huge fan of this novel. About the only thing going for it was its dry humor. I felt that the characters lacked a distinct voice, the plot wasnt much and dragged and dragged, and the whole pacing of the novel was just fucked up. It felt like all of it happened in a week, but apparently it was several months.
A shame. I really want to read a good urban fantasy, but it seems that those are in short supply. Anyone have any recs? And yes, Ive read Dresden
Also reading this. Butcher does a great job of making Dresden a fun guy to be around and his magic system reads wonderfully like the best amalgam of Seventies Marvel magic mythologies. It's entertaining stuff.
Well, I've just completed it. The prose is indeed clean and crisp. I'd say more but I'm still waiting for my brain to process the book. It is a remarkable piece of work, especially when one takes into consideration the time in which it was written; that Capote painted such a humanizing portrait of two men who, ultimately, were murderers, in a time when capital punishment was rampant.
I'd have to say it makes for essential reading in one's collection, I think.
Well, as I finished it in under a week, when I usually don't get to reading all that much anymore, it's clear I liked it.
But that's all to it really. I like it. It's a fun read thanks to the premise, which funnels the plot forwards to the answer to the big question: does this man get of Mars alive. It helps that it is written in fluent, easy language too. I liked the character of Mark, and his heads up and crack a joke spirit in even the worst of circumstances.
What I didn't like was the repetition coming from all the math and explaining. I know this is what some people like about this book, that it is all thought out and plausible and scientificaly sound. But it is at times such a drag, especially since every setback goes trough the same motions. "I'm fucked". "I think I have a solution but this and this makes it impossible" "Eureka! I have a solution for this and that, you gonna call me crazy, but it'll work!"
It's also a bit of a shame Andy Weir didn't succeed in keeping the novel within a coherent storytelling style.
I liked how it jumped to Nasa, and that worked. But later on he needs flashbacks and text in italics describing something something and. It pulled me out of the novel at times, because I could feel the writer could not come up with a solution to tell his story in the style of prose he first set out to tell it in. Pretty ironic actually, considering the novel is al about solutions
But all in all, fun read. I'm looking forward to the movie too. Wonder how they'll adapt all that thinking and science-stuff to appealing scenes (as even in the book it can drag)
Well, as I finished it in under a week, when I usually don't get to reading all that much anymore, it's clear I liked it.
But that's all to it really. I like it. It's a fun read thanks to the premise, which funnels the plot forwards to the answer to the big question: does this man get of Mars alive. It helps that it is written in fluent, easy language too. I liked the character of Mark, and his heads up and crack a joke spirit in even the worst of circumstances.
What I didn't like was the repetition coming from all the math and explaining. I know this is what some people like about this book, that it is all thought out and plausible and scientificaly sound. But it is at times such a drag, especially since every setback goes trough the same motions. "I'm fucked". "I think I have a solution but this and this makes it impossible" "Eureka! I have a solution for this and that, you gonna call me crazy, but it'll work!"
It's also a bit of a shame Andy Weir didn't succeed in keeping the novel within a coherent storytelling style.
I liked how it jumped to Nasa, and that worked. But later on he needs flashbacks and text in italics describing something something and. It pulled me out of the novel at times, because I could feel the writer could not come up with a solution to tell his story in the style of prose he first set out to tell it in. Pretty ironic actually, considering the novel is al about solutions
But all in all, fun read. I'm looking forward to the movie too. Wonder how they'll adapt all that thinking and science-stuff to appealing scenes (as even in the book it can drag)
? That seemed so clumsy to me. The moment that part starts you immediately know what is going to happen. The other thing that kind of pulled me out was when
he drives the truck down the entrance ramp. He could've just kept it in Marc's perspective and I think that's the only time where it switches perspective like that.
Still loved the book, though it sometimes tries too hard (
? That seemed so clumsy to me. The moment that part starts you immediately know what is going to happen. The other thing that kind of pulled me out was when
he drives the truck down the entrance ramp. He could've just kept it in Marc's perspective and I think that's the only time where it switches perspective like that.
Still loved the book, though it sometimes tries too hard (
Yup. That's the one. It was really clumsy, and i think it would have even been better if Weir sticked to his perspectives there and gave the reader no extra knowledge over Watley. Later nasa explains it anyway to him, so what is the point describing what is about to happen before it does?
Your in luck! The second book of the series, Finders Keepers just released a couple of weeks ago. I'm halfway through and enjoying it a lot. It's a perfect summer read.
says he has a field trip with the rover planned is different. I liked that he never mentioned what exactly he's planning and that you find out because the NASA guy figures it out. I liked that
Not murder mystery really but right after I finished watching True Detective s1 I immediately read Galveston by Nic Pizzolato (the guy that wrote True Detective) and I loved it. Scratched the itch for more TDesque stuff. You can totally picture "future McCoughnahay" as the main character. And it's set In Louisiana and southern Texas.
Not murder mystery really but right after I finished watching True Detective s1 I immediately read Galveston by Nic Pizzolato (the guy that wrote True Detective) and I loved it. Scratched the itch for more TDesque stuff. You can totally picture "future McCoughnahay" as the main character. And it's set In Louisiana and southern Texas.
I wasnt a huge fan of this novel. About the only thing going for it was its dry humor. I felt that the characters lacked a distinct voice, the plot wasnt much and dragged and dragged, and the whole pacing of the novel was just fucked up. It felt like all of it happened in a week, but apparently it was several months.
A shame. I really want to read a good urban fantasy, but it seems that those are in short supply. Anyone have any recs? And yes, Ive read Dresden
The Great Courses: The Medieval World, audiobook. It's really good. The lecturer is terrific, it's great when she starts reciting Anglo-Saxon poetry. I'm learning new things and still have over ten hours to go.
The Great Courses: The Medieval World, audiobook. It's really good. The lecturer is terrific, it's great when she starts reciting Anglo-Saxon poetry. I'm learning new things and still have over ten hours to go.
Nice. That is in my library. I love the Great Courses lecture series. All of the ones I have listened to have been excellent. Well, except the prehistory one. That was only okay.
Nice. That is in my library. I love the Great Courses lecture series. All of the ones I have listened to have been excellent. Well, except the prehistory one. That was only okay.
The Rise and Fall of the British Empire series was good. I still have the American Civil War series to listen to at some point.I loved Medieval history and Ancient history when I was in undergrad, but I have taken more of an interest in 17th-19th century history in recent years.
I've finished The Iron King, first in the Accursed Kings series. Now I'm going to try and finish The Three Musketeers. I've been chipping away at that for months. I plan to finish it in the next few weeks before moving on to book 2 in the Accursed Kings series, The Strangled Queen.
Finished Wolf Hunt by Jeff Strand. George and Lou are your average thugs for hire. They break thumbs, collect money and just generally do whatever heavy work the mob and various shady criminal types need done. This includes transporting an annoying guy in a cage across the state of Florida. They're told Ivan is a werewolf, but don't believe it. They really should have.
While it was definitely a werewolf book, it wasn't so much a horror book as an ultra black comedy. The writing style was fun, but really dialogue heavy. The prose passages weren't overly detailed, and more interested in conveying an attitude than going for the gross out. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of gore, but it feels more besides the point. That's not to say it wasn't fun. Quite the contrary. It was a really fast-paced, hilarious read filled with head shaking situations. It really feels like the literary equivalent of "The Bonnie Situation" from Pulp Fiction only with a werewolf. Who's an asshole. A very petty asshole.
I've never read Jeff Strand before, so I have no idea how this book compares to his usual fare. Judging by some of the titles of his other works (Graverobbers Wanted: No Experience Necessary, Casket For Sale: Only Used Once) it seems about par for the course. But I quite enjoyed it. Lou and George are a rather lovable pair of goons and some of the situations they find themselves in are so ridiculous, it's hard not to laugh. There's a sequel that I'll definitely be looking into.
Up next:
Wolf Hunt may not have been the straight ahead werewolf book I was looking for, so I decided it was finally time to read this classic.
I'm almost done with It. Liking the book so far, interested to see how it finishes.
Been on a King kick after only reading Dark Tower books in my previous years. Already read The Stand, Salem's Lot and The Long Walk. After I finish It I'm going to watch whatever television/move adaptions there are for these works since I've never experienced them.
The Shining is next, but it will have to happen along with my ASOIAF reread.
I'm almost done with It. Liking the book so far, interested to see how it finishes.
Been on a King kick after only reading Dark Tower books in my previous years. Already read The Stand, Salem's Lot and The Long Walk. After I finish It I'm going to watch whatever television/move adaptions there are for these works since I've never experienced them.
The Shining is next, but it will have to happen along with my ASOIAF reread.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The premise is interesting, but the narrative is so dull and boring (Up to Chapter 7). I considered getting the spiritual successor Island at the same time but thought I should finish BNW first. Now I'm not too sure about whether I want to read it.
Also working on Blazeblue Phase Shift 3 among other light novels, but they're not in English, so I'm not going over them here.
A Prayer For Owen Meany gets my recommendation as well..
For other things I've read that I've classify as coming of age (which can be hard enough to classify)..(just going through my goodreads read list..)
Rocket Boys ( aka October Sky), all three of the Coalwood books really
Ordinary Grace
600 Hours of Edward
The Secret Wisdom of the Earth
Bunch of others I think I could've mentioned, as well as what I added on my to-read list, but everyone can have a different perception of what coming of age can mean.
Also, one of my favourite books I read last year, The Child Thief, may be a movie someday, very cool.. would be interested if other people would read this! Figured The Road gets so much love here, maybe this would interest folks. (And maybe I should read The Road..)
The Road to The Child Thief Movie
Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about survival stories. At least, I was a few months ago, but things have run away from me where blogging is concerned. It seems like everything has been SO busy, but I’ve been thinking about The Child Thief recently, because after a lot of back and forth negotiating, I’ve finally signed the movie option agreement. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a film will be made – the film business is something of a mystery to me – but it means there is some intent. So there ‘might’ be a Child Thief movie.
The Child Thief is a survival story. It’s about a man and his sons hunting a child killer across the winter wilderness in 1930’s Ukraine, but it didn’t start off that way. The original idea came to me after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
McCarthy’s setting is built with great skill, and the relationship between the two nameless characters is full of emotion. I was with the boy and the man every step of the way through the endless, soul destroying cold, and the awful, impenetrable dark. And McCarthy’s prose is some of the most beautiful I have ever read. I’ve also always loved the post-apocalypse thing, so was fascinated that McCarthy had used the setting in that way. Usually that kind of environment goes hand in hand with zombies or leather clad, gasoline-worshipping maniacs – which is awesome because I LOVE those things, but McCarthy’s post-apocalypse is more subdued. It’s a grey, impossible place full of very real horrors. And the man will go to great lengths to protect the boy. Ultimately, it’s a story about a father’s love for his son. Anyway, I got wrapped up in it and, after some time thought, ‘Yeah. Post-apocalypse. If McCarthy can do it, then why can’t I?
Well, because I’m not McCarthy, that’s why. And McCarthy had already done it with such brilliance.
My post-apocalypse felt silly and . . . not right. So I changed it. I found a setting that was just as bleak, and just as difficult. It was a time I hardly knew anything about; the year before the initiation of the man-made famine that starved millions of Ukrainians. As it turns out, whatever terrible things we can imagine, there’s a pretty strong chance that something far worse has already happened.
The Rise and Fall of the British Empire series was good. I still have the American Civil War series to listen to at some point.I loved Medieval history and Ancient history when I was in undergrad, but I have taken more of an interest in 17th-19th century history in recent years.
I do have the British Empire one as well (thank you Great Courses audible sale). so I will definitely listen to that one eventually.
Here are the ones that I've listened to
Living the French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon by Suzanne Desan ★★★★
How We Learn by Monica Pasupathi ★★★★★
Your Deceptive Mind by Steven Novella ★★★★1/2
Theories of Human Development by Malcom Watson ★★★★
Your Best Brain by John Medina ★★★★
Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive by Peter Vishton ★★★★
Human Prehistory and the First Civilizations by Brian Fagan ★★1/2
Ancient Greek Civilization by Blake McInerny ★★★★1/2
Economics by Timothy Taylor ★★★★
A History of the US Economy in the 20th Century by Timothy Taylor ★★
Legacies of Great Economists by Timothy Taylor ★★★★
The Vikings ★★★★1/2
I am currently listening to China: From Yao to Mao. It is quite good so far. The first episode made me real worried, but it got a lot better after that.
I just finally read Stoner after seeing it reccomended in these threads month after month. It's been awhile since I've read for fun, I forgot how much I enjoy reading fiction. The whole book, and especially the end were so emotional, the scenes between Stoner and his wife and Lomax were difficult to read at times. The regret and self-reflection at the end were just crushing.
It's an amazing book, but there's one thing I'm not clear about though. What was the deal with Edith when they got married? She goes from seemingly ambivalent towards Stoner (aside from the one scene where she opens up) to wanting to get married in an instant, and she's in a hurry to do it. I was convinced that she was pregnant by someone it would be socially unacceptable for her to openly be with, or the father had skipped town, or something like that. The scene where Stoner's father seems suspicious of her seemed to confirm this to me, but nothing came of it. I'm assuming that
Edith had a horrible home life and got married to escape exactly like Grace would later do
, but I'm wondering if I missed something.
I also wonder what the hell Walker had on Lomax. Doesn't really matter, but man, the scene where Walker is evaluated to see if he can continue in the program was infuriating.
This is a really interesting series so far. The first book, Annihilation was a breeze and while you didn't get a lot of answers I really kind of loved the style. It felt really unique. It was like an adventure in prose, because not a lot actually happened in the plot but a lot happened with words. That was cool.
The next book, Authority, was much much harder to get through. They pull back on the setting and it feels more grounded, but in a way that takes a lot away from what I liked in the first book. Aside from that it's no longer really "dangerous" in the way the first one was. There's no real sense of dread. I still think I liked it, but I just don't know I was necessarily in the right mood for it.
I'm kind of hesitating on going forward with the last book right now or waiting a bit. I mean I want to know what happens but part of me knows I'm not actually going to find out what happens anyway just because that's what these books do.
This is a really interesting series so far. The first book, Annihilation was a breeze and while you didn't get a lot of answers I really kind of loved the style. It felt really unique. It was like an adventure in prose, because not a lot actually happened in the plot but a lot happened with words. That was cool.
The next book, Authority, was much much harder to get through. They pull back on the setting and it feels more grounded, but in a way that takes a lot away from what I liked in the first book. Aside from that it's no longer really "dangerous" in the way the first one was. There's no real sense of dread. I still think I liked it, but I just don't know I was necessarily in the right mood for it.
I'm kind of hesitating on going forward with the last book right now or waiting a bit. I mean I want to know what happens but part of me knows I'm not actually going to find out what happens anyway just because that's what these books do.
You're basically a more articulate version of me right now.
I also just finished a couple of nights ago and my feelings were exactly the same. I still kind of liked the book but feel it could have been edited down to roughly the same length as the first and been more effective for it. I think I'm going to press on with Acceptance.
You're basically a more articulate version of me right now.
I also just finished a couple of nights ago and my feelings were exactly the same. I still kind of liked the book but feel it could have been edited down to roughly the same length as the first and been more effective for it. I think I'm going to press on with Acceptance.
I probably will too. I'm headed into A Song of Ice and Fire after this and have already started. Maybe I'll just take a few days or a week or something break before heading into Acceptance.
I just finally read Stoner after seeing it reccomended in these threads month after month. It's been awhile since I've read for fun, I forgot how much I enjoy reading fiction. The whole book, and especially the end were so emotional, the scenes between Stoner and his wife and Lomax were difficult to read at times. The regret and self-reflection at the end were just crushing.
It's an amazing book, but there's one thing I'm not clear about though. What was the deal with Edith when they got married? She goes from seemingly ambivalent towards Stoner (aside from the one scene where she opens up) to wanting to get married in an instant, and she's in a hurry to do it. I was convinced that she was pregnant by someone it would be socially unacceptable for her to openly be with, or the father had skipped town, or something like that. The scene where Stoner's father seems suspicious of her seemed to confirm this to me, but nothing came of it. I'm assuming that
Edith had a horrible home life and got married to escape exactly like Grace would later do
, but I'm wondering if I missed something.
I also wonder what the hell Walker had on Lomax. Doesn't really matter, but man, the scene where Walker is evaluated to see if he can continue in the program was infuriating.
I honestly did not come to that pregnancy conclusion. Its been too long for me to really remember the details so I can't tell you if it makes sense or not. I took her to be very sheltered and naive. She had a picture in her head what it was like to be married and thought it would be exactly like that, where she was loved, spoiled, taken care of and everything was a fairy tale.
When it was not like that. It was hard work and dirty. One conclusion that I came to that no one who I have talked to have seen or really agreed with was that the main reason why his wife rejected him so completely after they first had sex was that she depicted that act as rape, as a defilement. She did not want to do it and was not ready to do it, but Stoner forced it upon her anyway and she never forgave him because it completely ruined her fairy tale picture of marriage.
I honestly did not come to that pregnancy conclusion. Its been too long for me to really remember the details so I can't tell you if it makes sense or not. I took her to be very sheltered and naive. She had a picture in her head what it was like to be married and thought it would be exactly like that, where she was loved, spoiled, taken care of and everything was a fairy tale.
When it was not like that. It was hard work and dirty. One conclusion that I came to that no one who I have talked to have seen or really agreed with was that the main reason why his wife rejected him so completely after they first had sex was that she depicted that act as rape, as a defilement. She did not want to do it and was not ready to do it, but Stoner forced it upon her anyway and she never forgave him because it completely ruined her fairy tale picture of marriage.
She did become extremely sexual when she decided she wanted a kid though. The book mentions that she was raised to view having sex as a sort of martial duty, and not something that you do for pleasure. Clearly she wasn't ready and didn't enjoy it but I don't think that's why their marriage failed.
Edit: well that was bloody extraordinary. Read it till the end, and you may discover why people read this 100+ years later. Even if you happen to think little of the characters. And disagree wholeheartedly about their final decisions.
I honestly did not come to that pregnancy conclusion. Its been too long for me to really remember the details so I can't tell you if it makes sense or not. I took her to be very sheltered and naive. She had a picture in her head what it was like to be married and thought it would be exactly like that, where she was loved, spoiled, taken care of and everything was a fairy tale.
When it was not like that. It was hard work and dirty. One conclusion that I came to that no one who I have talked to have seen or really agreed with was that the main reason why his wife rejected him so completely after they first had sex was that she depicted that act as rape, as a defilement. She did not want to do it and was not ready to do it, but Stoner forced it upon her anyway and she never forgave him because it completely ruined her fairy tale picture of marriage.
Wasn't it also kind of implied that she was abused by her father? That's what I took away from her reaction when her father died and she threw away all the stuff she got from him.
