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Amber Gray
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:30 am
Posts: 646
PostPosted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 7:13 pm 
 

Image

Germinal by Émile Zola, 1885

So mad props. It's very possible that this is the gnarliest and most harrowing book I've read but I'm drawing a blank on too much competition at the moment. Either way, it's easily one of them for sure. Old fashioned prose and insanely descriptive in all aspects from imagery to the very suffering of mankind. Like you can just feel the anguish this book exudes.

The strike got going earlier than I expected and from there on the book wasn't messing around. Certain moments of an especially severe nature had me thinking that it was the zenith of monstrosities but it just kept getting worse. Mutilated bourgeois genitals, horses dying in pain, brains spurting out everywhere, claustrophobia that damn near made me ache.

This was gripping, but in the way a vice would grip your skull until it implodes. Moving and without relent.
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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 1:13 pm 
 

darkeningday wrote:
Has there been much discussion on Kim Stanley Robinson in this thread? Just picked up his Mars trilogy; blown away so far.

The series is very strong. Having read the whole thing, that early sense of directionlessness doesn't last -- it develops gradually from several directions and the broad scope is more cohesive than it seems at first. Considering how much research went into these books, the plot is reliably organic. Once I got used to it, I found the almost impersonal narrative tone and perspective-dependent world building really effective. I'm looking forward to reading it again in a year or two.


Amber Gray wrote:

Germinal by Émile Zola, 1885

Sounds great. I'm not clear on what it's about, though ..
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Amber Gray
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:30 am
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 24, 2019 2:27 pm 
 

worker strike in a coal mine
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iamntbatman
Chaos Breed

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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 12:27 pm 
 

I read The Secret History of Twin Peaks by series co-creator Mark Frost. This is written in the form of a dossier meant to bridge the gap between Season 2 and Season 3 of the show. Having watched season 3 before reading this, there's really nothing revelatory about this. It suffers from some of the same issues as the show: the more wacky parts were really, really engaging, but the lengthy bits about the more uninteresting characters' lives were mildly interesting at best. However, there were a few stretches that delve into some old history surrounding Twin Peaks and some of the more fantastical elements of it that were really gripping, and repeatedly throughout the first third and some later sections of the book, nearly every page had me jumping to Wikipedia to find out if some of the stuff in there was real or not (turns out a whole hell of a lot of it is, and was absolutely bonkers shit I had no idea had happened).

I can't say it's absolutely mandatory even if you liked the show, but those who really love it would probably enjoy this about as much as I did. While I wish I could recommend it to people who haven't seen the show just because the interesting parts were REALLY interesting, I think out of the context of the show you probably would be left wondering why you should care about any of this.
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Razakel
Nekroprince

Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 8:36 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 5:23 pm 
 

Cool. I remember wanting to read that Twin Peaks book before the newest season came out but then I read an interview with Lynch in which he said that he hasn't read it and doesn't plan on reading it and, to him, none of it would have any bearing on the TV show. Pretty strange, but I guess Lynch just wants to keep his own Twin Peaks universe in his head, but yeah, it kind of deflated my interest in reading the book.

I'm currently reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch and loving it. It's a long book (my copy's almost a thousand pages) but I've only gotten more and more into it as it's gone on, and right now I'm just under 700 pages in. Narratively it's nothing too groundbreaking, basically a bildungsroman centered around this main character who tries to pull his life together after several traumatic events go down in his youth, but it's a joy to read. Filled with lovable - or at least believable - characters, and very well written. I might get to her two earlier books after I finish this one.

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BeholdtheNicktopus
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Location: Chicago
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:28 pm 
 

Anybody ever read that final Elric trilogy written in the 2000s (The Dreamthief's Daughter, The Skrayling Tree, The zWhite Wolf's Son)? I just started it after finishing The Revenge of the Rose (which was good if weirdly paced/incomplete feeling.

I already like it quite a bit, though I was initially skeptical (and still remain somewhat so) of Elric fighting the Nazis (and visiting the Native Americans???). It's either gonna be good or really fucking awful and weird. So far so good, but I'm only 100 pages or so in.
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iamntbatman
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:32 pm 
 

Razakel wrote:
Cool. I remember wanting to read that Twin Peaks book before the newest season came out but then I read an interview with Lynch in which he said that he hasn't read it and doesn't plan on reading it and, to him, none of it would have any bearing on the TV show. Pretty strange, but I guess Lynch just wants to keep his own Twin Peaks universe in his head, but yeah, it kind of deflated my interest in reading the book.


Yeah, while I don't know this for sure, it definitely did reinforce my inclinations that Twin Peaks is basically this wacky intertwined X-Files/Lost type thing made by Mark Frost, but then filmed through the bizarro lens of David Lynch. Lynch's comments about the book don't really bother me, as having seen the show, it's not a huge stretch to try to apply that same Lynchian filter to the material in the book as you read it.
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Resident_Hazard
Possessed by Starscream's Ghost

Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:33 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 8:58 am 
 

A few weeks ago, I found The Essential Harlan Ellison at Half-Price Books. I was ecstatic. The book was there in December, but I held off on buying it because I was Xmas shopping at the time. Next time I went in, it was gone and they had no Ellison books in stock at all.

But then, a couple weeks back, I was picking up my ex from work, arrived an hour early, and went to Half-Price Books to kill time. Amazingly, the book was back so I finally bought it. It's fucking awesome. I love Harlan Ellison and I'm thrilled to have this book. I also bought two Terry Pratchett books on the advice of a friend, Going Postal and Making Money.
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BeholdtheNicktopus
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:01 pm 
 

Finished Elric. I quite liked The Dreamthief's Daughter and The Skrayling Tree, though The White Wolf's Son was slightly anticlimactic in my opinion. The Dark Empire stuff was cool, but wasn't quite as cosmic and didn't really add too much wild shit like The Skrayling Tree did. Still, I already miss Elric.

Doing Corum now (read the Swords trilogy in high school and loved it, already remembering why; might like it better than Elric honestly but it is hard to tell), then I'll hit Hawkmoon.
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Razakel
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 10, 2019 6:34 pm 
 

Just started The Little Friend because I finished The Goldfinch and now I want to read every word that Donna Tartt's published. So far it's amazing.

Also reading a collection of Joyce Carol Oates stories, Heaunted: Tales of the Grotesque. I came across one of these stories "The Doll" in a horror anthology a while ago and thought it was a masterpiece so I decided to order the collection it's from. Really good so far. Kind of Robert Aickman-esque stuff in that her stories are immensely creepy in a really strange, subtle way.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Sat Apr 13, 2019 12:57 am 
 

Razakel wrote:
Donna Tartt ... Joyce Carol Oates

Noted. I've been wanting to read more work by women. Thanks.
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failsafeman
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:02 pm 
 

For years and years Gene Wolfe was my favorite author of all time, having dethroned Tolkien in my late teens or early twenties. Book of the New Sun completely blew my mind, expanding by light years my perceptions of what science fiction and fiction in general could do or be. Every book of his I've read since then has only added to that feeling. Many dozens of books later, it's impossible for me to name any single author as The Favorite, but he'll always be a major deity in my literary pantheon. The defining trait of that pantheon is that their books are unmistakably theirs, and I don't think anyone could mistake a Gene Wolfe book for anyone else's. No imitation comes anywhere close.

Rest in peace.
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Razakel
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 15, 2019 8:21 pm 
 

Oh man, that's the first I've heard of Gene Wolfe's passing. I've still never read one of his books but I've been meaning to for a long time. RIP.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 7:34 pm 
 

Almost through with Dostoevsky's House of the Dead. Goddamn, prison in Russia during that time was no joke. How in the hell can a person go through 4000 lashings? Does anyone know if corporal punishment was used in this manner back then? I know this novel is based on a true story so I guess it's a possibility.

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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 16, 2019 8:25 pm 
 

It was a clear night, and chill; each star in heaven seemed a gem. I found I knew where my own star hung, just as the gray salt geese never fail of their landing, though we hear their cry through a league of fog. Or rather, I knew where my star should be; but when I looked, I saw only the endless dark. Rich-strewn stars lay in every other corner of the sky like so many diamonds cast upon a master's cloak; and perhaps belonged, every star, to some foolish messenger as forlorn and perplexed as I. Yet none were mine. Mine was there (somewhere), I knew, though it could not be seen.

:( Truly a terrible way to start the week. I don't think I will again encounter an author with Wolfe's talent, nor a work of literature that got its hooks into me and stayed there the way "The Book of the New Sun" did.


Marc Aramini, a teacher who's written quite a lot about Wolfe, posted this on his Facebook:

Quote:
I have written over 1.2 million words about Gene Wolfe, and yet here at last is one inescapable thing I am at a loss on how to write. Anyone who has ever talked books with me knows how I force Wolfe upon them, and sometimes I reveal the quite personal reasons that such a virtuoso of cryptic prose maintains such an important position in my life.

When I was a lonely child, his stories were there to keep me company. When I was a young man, his kind responses to a fan’s letters made such a difference in a world that is often completely indifferent. Now that I am a man, it is infinitely clear that without Gene Wolfe, no one would ever remember my name. My professional and personal lives are so intertwined around him that I can’t imagine a world without him; there is nothing I would rather write about, but there is nothing I want to write less than these paragraphs.

Wolfe passed away on April 14th. I don’t want to go into details of his biography save to repeat what you can find anywhere: Gene Wolfe was drafted and fought in Korea, married Rosemary Wolfe, converted to Catholicism for her, helped invent the machine which makes Pringles, and became the most literary and erudite of science fiction writers somewhere along the way. When Rosemary ailed with Alzheimer’s, Gene took care of her. I have been prepared for this day for some time, but I was ready for it to be tomorrow, or next year, and never today. Now the day is past, and all those words that I thought would save me can’t do anything at all to describe how kind he was, and what a great man he will always be in my mind. There are a lot of personal stories I could relate from his nearly two-decade correspondence with me, but I would rather end it with a truth: he was a true genius with an iconic bushy mustache and an infinitely greater heart.

Of course, he would know what to say about our existences here when I falter, so I will leave it to him:

“Whether all that came to good or evil, I don't know. Until we reach the end of time, we don't know whether something's been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted … Perhaps death is only horrible to us because it's a dividing of the terror of life from the wonder of it. We see only the terror, which is left behind.”

I hope there is only wonder for my friend now when I feel that horror for myself and his family, friends, and fans. Gene Wolfe had the chance to live a full life of acclaim that was never quite loud enough; he was brimming with a kindness that was never insufficient. At the closing of the 2012 Fuller Award Ceremony I caught Gene Wolfe alone before leaving, and, with a crack in my voice and a tearful grimace on my face, kneeling down below his seated figure, I said, “You’ll always be my hero, and I love you, Gene.” Some things can never change, though no one can straighten what God has made crooked.

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caspian
Old Man Yells at Car Park

Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:29 pm
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 17, 2019 8:31 am 
 

Well it's hardly literature but most stuff here probably doesn't come under that heading anyway, but finished Guy Gavriel Kay's "Tigana" and thought it was pretty good. Just a fantasy, it's not some crazy revolutionary take on the genre but I thought it had its' own voice and was a lot of fun to read. Recommend it.

And yeah, RIP to Wolfe! Book of the New Sun was a wild ride. Wolfe forever manages to be halfway between confusing as hell, startlingly profound and really entertaining, a unique trait.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:58 pm 
 

Well, I guess it's official: Gene Wolfe had one last book in him. He turned in a sequel for A Borrowed Man to Tor books, per Tor's editor in chief: https://twitter.com/pnh/status/1121644271545671680

Looks like we'll have at least one posthumous publication of new Wolfe material.

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Grave_Wyrm
Metal Sloth

Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 29, 2019 1:33 am 
 

87 years and a ton of great ideas that will never go away, waiting patiently to be found and returned to -- grown with.

Rest in peace. We honor your contribution to our lives.
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BeholdtheNicktopus
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Mon May 06, 2019 10:03 pm 
 

I finally finished my Moorcock binge, did all of Elric, Corum, Hawkmoon, and Erekosë/John Daker, as well as Gloriana. While all was good, the Quest for Tanelorn/Sailor on the Seas of Fate episode and Corum's run-in with Kwll were definite high-points. Amazing stuff.

Just starting Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. Already completely in love with it. Anybody else read this? It's like if Conan had even more metal trappings. Like if Robert E Howard's favorite bands were like, Morbid Angel and Immolation.
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Resident_Hazard
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PostPosted: Tue May 07, 2019 8:45 am 
 

Recently finished writing something. Finally started reading something.

Based on recommendations from a close friend, I have started my first foray into Terry Pratchett with Going Postal. Only 50 pages in, and it's pretty great. The dialog is outstanding.
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PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 11:29 pm 
 

Reading the Dostoyevsky's The Gambler at the moment. Started off very boring but then got really good. I've read so many damn novels by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

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Razakel
Nekroprince

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PostPosted: Wed May 08, 2019 11:54 pm 
 

BeholdtheNicktopus wrote:
Just starting Karl Edward Wagner's Kane. Already completely in love with it. Anybody else read this? It's like if Conan had even more metal trappings. Like if Robert E Howard's favorite bands were like, Morbid Angel and Immolation.


Kickass, where did you score a copy of this? I always keep my eye out for those books but have never come across them in any used bookstore, and I think they're pretty pricey online.

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BeholdtheNicktopus
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 10:26 am 
 

Razakel wrote:
Kickass, where did you score a copy of this? I always keep my eye out for those books but have never come across them in any used bookstore, and I think they're pretty pricey online.


I got the two collections, "Gods in Darkness" and "Midnight Sun", on the Amazon marketplace. They were indeed pricey, one about 120 the other like 150. But so far so worth it. I think they really ought to reprint his works, I was looking to also get some of his horror stories but the collections are even more expensive than Kane! I'd been watching the price for a few months and didn't see it go any lower than that, so thought what the hell.
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Razakel
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PostPosted: Thu May 09, 2019 7:21 pm 
 

Oof I assumed you scored them cheap somewhere but yeah those are about the prices I've seen online. Unfortunately I'm not willing to throw that kind of fliff around so I guess I'll just eventually get them on my ereader if I can never find decently priced physical copies.

Yeah I've read a couple of his stories in some anthologies I have and he's a great writer. His best-known story "Sticks" is definitely a Weird/Lovecraftian classic.

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KrigareTjovane
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2019 6:55 pm 
 

I read Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates the other night. Sickening shit but I loved it. My sister and I both love fucked up depraved books but honestly I'm not comfortable letting her borrow this one. Can't decide what I'm going to read next. Summer of Night by Dan Simmons is one thick puppy so I'm a bit intimidated by that, especially since I tend to read novels in one sitting.

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Razakel
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PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2019 2:05 am 
 

Joyce Carol Oates is such a great writer. I've only read her short fiction so I should get around to a novel sometime. She's prolific as absolute hell though, so I dunno where to start with that. The premise of that one sounds fuuuuuuucked.

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KrigareTjovane
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2019 3:15 am 
 

I think the craziest thing about Zombie is how innocently every vile act comes across since it's in sort of a loose 'journal' format. It's filled with a lot of stream of consciousness run-on sentences that take a bit to get used to, but overall they make the story as strong and believable as it is. I've seen it described as a 'horror' novel but it never really comes across as one to me, despite the horrific subject matter. I'm definitely interested in more of Joyce's work though. She really IS a great writer.

EDIT: I saw you mentioned Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque a little earlier in this thread, and that's the next book of hers I was interested in actually!

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Razakel
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PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2019 1:54 pm 
 

I really liked it overall. The stories varied in quality/memorability, but that could be said of almost any collection. Some tended to be a bit more experimental, which I'm fine with, but in this case I actually preferred the ones that were more straightforward.

Right now I'm reading Ian McEwan's first novel (or long novella? about 130 pages), The Cement Garden. So far it seems to be a pretty bleak, sad, gothic tale, and the prose is lovely. I've actually never read one of his books before, so when I came across his first one in a used store recently, I thought what the hell.

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KrigareTjovane
Metalhead

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PostPosted: Thu May 16, 2019 10:31 pm 
 

Summer of Night was amazing. It has a lot of central characters and even by the end of 500 pages, I still had some issues putting faces to every one of them. It's sufficiently creepy though. To anybody who does read it: if you get the 2011 edition, SKIP THE INTRODUCTION as it spoils a major plot point. It's not exactly specific in the spoiler, but it does give you something to think about throughout the read that is nothing more than a distraction from the book itself and I was pretty bothered by it frankly.

Also present in the introduction are links to two epilogues on Dan Simmon's website which are... complete fucking garbage including one of the main characters going on to become a senator, getting AIDs, and helping to rig the election for... President Obama?!

WISH I WAS MAKING THAT UP because it's FUCKING NUTSO and in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM representative of how wonderful the novel itself is.

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Amber Gray
Metalhead

Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:30 am
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PostPosted: Thu May 30, 2019 3:58 pm 
 

Image

Arcadia by Iain Pears, 2015

I bought a fire signed first edition of this book from the dollar tree and now it's one of my favorites.

It's a virtuosic smorgasbord of themes, genres, and plot lines that should please if not completely arouse to ejaculation any fans of sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and even maybe political thrillers alike. It's simply loaded to the brim with awesomeness and surprises and putting it down proved to be a nuisance.

A mathematician from some distant future (who knows which one) is devising highly polarizing technology supposed to have the capability of accessing parallel dimensions and/or time periods, which is tested with the open ended fantastical jottings or a brilliant professor. The device feeds off the information to create a sort of projection of the story, a Tolkieny fantasy land of swords and lords. A young girl wanders in on accident and complications arise. And these complications are quite complicated. There's blackouts and deaths and the institute that formerly employed the machine's creator needs to track her and it down in the interest of public safety. But the whole nature of the technology is to study the inverse of cause and effect and whether the future can alter the past as it does the other way around.

So new universes come to be and that's just not the way things are supposed to be so the timelines of the respective worlds have to conform to keep the story logical, thereby sending the other into a state of complete never-existence because the nature of things is that it's all just one universe after all. You never really know when or where the dimension is located with respect to the other and the way they're connected also ought to be a subject of deep speculation.

Arcadia is amazingly inventive and deft in so many fields and impossibly gripping. A true feat.

5/5
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Nahsil
Clerical Sturmgeschütz

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:47 am 
 

I'm reading Rothfuss's Name of the Wind and loving it. What should I read once I'm done with these books? I know nothing about fantasy or what might be similarly good.
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stickyshooZ
TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 28, 2019 2:58 pm 
 

I'm reading Alan Clark's Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-1945. It's something of a mixed bag so far. At times it can be a major snooze, because it stresses military tactics, which I have no real knowledge of. It's expected that tactics would be a big theme, because it is a book about a major military conflict (I just have difficulty following it at times). But on the other hand, it does contain valuable information in terms of witness testimony, as well as the political on-goings for why certain actions were taken and others were not.

It's also interesting to know just how much insubordination occurred within the German military command structure and how much disaffection there was even in 1941. Very surprising, because its kind of unusual at face value for there to be sour moods when the Germans were winning most of their big military conflicts at that time.
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~Guest 375902
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 4:48 am 
 

It's been close to two years without reading any fiction. I almost swore to read nothing but genre classics after run-ins with some puerile stuff. Anyway, I am currently turning the pages of The Cosmic Computer. The downside is worlds are introduced fleetingly to almost overwhelm the reader, with the writing a bit quick, but for one written in the 60s, it sounds like a lot has not changed. Those worlds reminded me looking up to see if anyone had charted the systems that form the grounds for the Lensman universe but alas!

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~Guest 375902
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 15, 2019 4:57 am 
 

Finished The Cosmic Computer, didn't like the stroy-telling on an overall. It was almost running flat, with two but effective Checkhov guns. For an autodidact, H. Beam Piper has his hard science terrifically reliable. I'm stoked to delve into Second Variety by PKD, given how much I enjoyed The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. I wonder what current invention matches the one mentioned there - as a kind of visual system that allows you to insert copies of an artist's paintings and appreciate their whole catalogue at your own comfort on a larger scale.

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KrigareTjovane
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:44 am 
 

I've decided I'm gonna write a thriller novel so well... I'm writing a goddamned thriller novel! I have a couple pages of basic info written out, as well as several pages of my 13 characters' backstories. I'm still working on the entire plot but I think my premise is original and compelling. Of course a writer can't be any good unless they 1. write a lot and B. read a lot, so I'm planning on busting into my library of unread books that I've amassed. The process has been arduous so far to say the least but I'm determined to finish the job.

If I'm able to get it done and nobody likes it, oh fucking well, at least I did it and proved to myself I could!

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Osore
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Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:55 am
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Location: Serbia
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:00 am 
 

KrigareTjovane wrote:
I've decided I'm gonna write a thriller novel...
Good luck! Have you decided in which tense it will be narrated? I think the present tense works best with thrillers. You might have read Alex by Pierre Lemaitre. It seems very stupid and trivial, but present tense works well.
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KrigareTjovane
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Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:06 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:14 am 
 

Osore wrote:
KrigareTjovane wrote:
I've decided I'm gonna write a thriller novel...
Good luck! Have you decided in which tense it will be narrated? I think the present tense works best with thrillers. You might have read Alex by Pierre Lemaitre. It seems very stupid and trivial, but present tense works well.


I have not! But that seems most logical and easiest, especially for a complete rookie like myself. I haven't read Alex, but I will look into it.

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Grave_Wyrm
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Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Sun Jul 28, 2019 3:01 pm 
 

stickyshooZ wrote:
Alan Clark's Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-1945.

Ah sweet. I have that book. Bought it to supplement a (really excellent) wargame I bought on the conflict.


I've been getting into oral histories lately. Currently reading Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South, edited by Chafe et al. (The New Press). Oral histories from tragic periods of time are indispensible. Not only are first-hand accounts indomitable in world building, but they give us windows into the wide variety of experiences had during a period otherwise easily abstracted.

Among the period's many grim and alarming features, its timeline is extensive and recent. Jim Crow saw the twilight of the Victorian era, the turn of the 20th century, the modernist art movement, saw both world wars occur, and still wouldn't end for more than a generation after that. But they said slavery ended, and that didn't make things much easier for black people trying to walk down the street or get a day's pay for a day's work, much less educate their children and buy a home. Depending on where you stand, or what skin you're standing in, an argument can be made that Jim Crow never ended at all.

If one isn't already intimately familiar with it, I can't see looking into this period of history as being anything other than mandatory.
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stickyshooZ
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Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 12:29 am
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 8:40 pm 
 

I've read South of Freedom as part of one of my history courses years ago, which covers the same kind of topics. Very eye opening.

Has anyone here read T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom? I've considered picking it up, since I'm really curious to read his own accounts of his exploits in the first World War, but from the tidbits I've read about it, it was kind of a tedious read. I'm interested in hearing feedback if anyone can offer any.
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Grave_Wyrm
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Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2012 5:55 pm
Posts: 3928
PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:56 pm 
 

stickyshooZ wrote:
I've read South of Freedom as part of one of my history courses years ago, which covers the same kind of topics. Very eye opening.

I've heard of it, but haven't looked into it. That's about to change.

Awesome that your history course included that. What was the course itself?

stickyshooZ wrote:
T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom?... I'm interested in hearing feedback if anyone can offer any.

Wish I had some. It's right there on the shelf next to Peter Hart's The Great War, waiting around for a cellar blood ritual to get it moving again, one of my many "books of potential."
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