Author Topic: What are you reading?  (Read 845370 times)

Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #150 on: July 24, 2007, 01:59:18 PM
I'm about half done, and so far they're mostly bleh, except for "Zima Blue" itself, which is one of the coolest stories I have ever read.  (Hopefully, it'll be featured on Escape Pod someday!)

Write him an email and suggest it to him.  Steve says the best submissions he gets have a cover letter something like: "Several fans have told me that I should submit X, Y, or Z to you, so here is this."  Steve says it's the best way to get a famous author to take the risk of selling something to EP. 

I already did, actually.  I'm afraid his stuff is mostly on the long side, though.  "Zima Blue" is a bit over 8000 words.

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Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #151 on: July 24, 2007, 02:03:06 PM
Nooo!  As long as he's alive, there's some chance he'll write a sequel to Absolution Gap and tell us what the heck happens to everybody.  What you should do is kidnap his dog.  "Write the ending or we'll feed the pooch a Hershey bar!"

I wouldn't read it if he did - the Absolution Gap trilogy is marked by a clear "each book is worse than its predecessor" progression, so I would hate to see book number 4. I Reynolds is really best with stand-alones - Chasm City was excellent, and Diamond Dogs was also very good in a very disturbing sort of way.

Hmm.  I disagree.  I thought all three books were very good, with the caveat that they all leave loose ends floating like crazy.  Every book has more than one subplot that remains unresolved or is not fully explained.  I didn't mind that much because I figured everything would come together in the final book.  I think a fourth book that actually finishes the story and ties the loose ends to together would be very satisfying.  (Although your wish is obviously more likely than mine to be granted.)   ;)
« Last Edit: July 26, 2007, 07:58:46 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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Leon Kensington

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Reply #152 on: July 24, 2007, 04:00:42 PM
I love Reynolds writing and style it is jus that he always craps out in the last 10 to 15% of the book.  Which is one of the only two parts that create the story, without an end it a book becomes somewhat crippled.



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Reply #153 on: July 26, 2007, 06:47:02 PM
And now, my Narnia update.

So far, I think Dawn Treader was the most "visual" of the books -- it had the most eye candy in it.  In terms of engrossing-ness, it was only slightly second to TLTWATW.  I liked it a lot.  Except for the ending.  I was okay with what happened to Edmund and Susan, but like the previous Narnia books, I felt it wrapped up WAY too fast.

I'm now reading The Silver Chair, and so far it reads like "Narnia: the Next Generation"... we know what's happening, but Eustace is being used to tell us everything.  I'm not terribly happy with it so far; Jill Pole is not a very likeable character, even though Lewis uses her troubles at school to make us sympathize.  Even as a prat, Eustace was likeable in Dawn Treader.

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Reply #154 on: July 27, 2007, 04:08:21 PM
Recently (last two weeks) finished Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Sequel to Relic, Reliquary, et al.) followed by Dance of Death (Sequel to Brimstone) followed by Harry Potter 7 and I am now about 1/3 of the way into Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.


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Reply #155 on: July 31, 2007, 01:15:20 PM
Finished Narnia.  Was more than a bit disappointed by the last 20% of The Last Battle.  It made no sense to me, even after we found out WHY it was happening.

Started The Green and the Gray by Timothy Zahn.  So far I don't quite understand what's going on, but it's early in the story yet.  I bought the book because (a) it was $5 and (b) I liked Zahn's Star Wars books.  So we'll see how it goes.

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Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #156 on: July 31, 2007, 01:44:44 PM
What didn't make sense?

(It makes sense to me, so I could probably explain it, if you're interested.)

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Reply #157 on: July 31, 2007, 02:24:05 PM
What didn't make sense?

(It makes sense to me, so I could probably explain it, if you're interested.)

The whole come further up, come further in thing was weird to me, and then how they all seemed to transsubstantiate into higher beings... was that part of the "Christian allegory" thing?  And the real Narnia/false Narnia/real England/false England thing was a little peculiar also.  And I didn't think the reverse-onion metaphor worked.

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ClintMemo

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Reply #158 on: July 31, 2007, 05:04:39 PM

The whole come further up, come further in thing was weird to me, and then how they all seemed to transsubstantiate into higher beings... was that part of the "Christian allegory" thing?  And the real Narnia/false Narnia/real England/false England thing was a little peculiar also.  And I didn't think the reverse-onion metaphor worked.
[/quote]

I think that was just his version of Heaven.

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Leon Kensington

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Reply #159 on: July 31, 2007, 05:17:41 PM
Recently (last two weeks) finished Brimstone by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Sequel to Relic, Reliquary, et al.) followed by Dance of Death (Sequel to Brimstone) followed by Harry Potter 7 and I am now about 1/3 of the way into Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead.

Speaker for the Dead= worst book EVER written by ANYTHING in the entire 356478987 universes.

Ever since Ender's Game Card has seemed to go downhill.  It is like he can start a book well but after about 50 pages he just craps out for the rest of it.  Just look at my review of Empire.



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #160 on: July 31, 2007, 06:31:59 PM
I think that was just his version of Heaven.

Pretty much.  His idea of Heaven was not static: Lewis pictured Heaven (in several books) as a continual journey of maturation and growth.  In "The Great Divorce" he depicts this as a journey up a mountain of infinite height.  In Narnia he depicts it as a reverse onion.  In either case, the idea is that a person continually goes to better, more "real" places.

To Lewis, Hell is static and unchanging (and very dull).  Heaven is dynamic and moving, and everything in it is always growing.  Earth is defined retroactively.  In "Divorce" a character says that to people in Hell, Earth was just a part of Hell, while people in Heaven see Earth as simply the first stage of Heaven.

Note that this isn't necessarily Christian doctrine or even what Lewis believed: He was using fantasy to wrestle with big ideas, and he was strait-forward in saying that his stories are simply his thoughts, not a revelation from God.

It makes perfect sense, though.  Human life is not static: Growth and change define us.  Heaven, then, would be a place where positive growth and change–discovery, learning, creativity, love–could flourish without limit.  If there is such a place as Heaven, it must be something along those lines.

This is all highly compatible with speculation I've read about the Universe having a layered nature, but it would take a long time to digress on that.  Briefly: A "false" England might be like a flat Google Earth view: 2 dimensional.  A "real" England is the 3D version that Dr. Who hangs out in.  Above this there would be a higher-dimensional England (which I have no means to describe).  When the kids go from the "false" to the "real" Narnia, they are moving from a lower to a higher level of existence and a more complete perception and understanding of reality.

Hmm...  I hope I didn't just make things worse.  It's not a very simple or easy idea, really.  "The Great Divorce" explains it better (and is a great book).

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Reply #161 on: July 31, 2007, 06:58:13 PM
Speaker for the Dead= worst book EVER written by ANYTHING in the entire 356478987 universes.

Ever since Ender's Game Card has seemed to go downhill.  It is like he can start a book well but after about 50 pages he just craps out for the rest of it.  Just look at my review of Empire.

How did Card crap out with this one?  I loved it.  I don't think I liked it more than Ender's Game but sometimes I'm not sure.  True, it was a completely different kind of story but I thought it was still pretty enthralling.


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Reply #162 on: August 01, 2007, 03:32:03 PM
Let's see.

Just finished with "The Golden Compass" by Philip Pullman. Saw the movie was going to come out, saw that it was on my shelf, said why not and read it. A lot better than I thought it was going to be.

Right now I'm reading "The Illuminatus Trilogy" By Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. Reminds me of a more coherent version of Burroughs. Very good.



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #163 on: August 01, 2007, 04:29:28 PM
"The Golden Compass" is the only book I ever bought on the basis of its cover illustration.  The picture of Lyra, Pantalaimon and Iorek on the front was very cool.



I read it and loved it.  I loved the combination of fantasy and sci-fi elements, and the story was intriguing, and the end was a great cliffhanger.  I loved it so much that I went out and bought the sequel "the Subtle Knife" the same week as I finished "Compass."

I was disappointed.  It's not that "Knife" was bad, but it was definitely a step down from "Compass."  There were lots of cool ideas in it, but the whole thing seemed less coherent.  "Compass" was tightly focussed and suspenseful, while "Knife" kind of meandered.  I wasn't sure why people were doing a lot of things or where the story was supposed to be going.  Then half of the characters suddenly die three-fourths of the way through, and some of the other characters get special powers for reasons that aren't really explained.

So when "The Amber Spyglass" came around, I didn't buy it, but I was still curious to see how the story would resolve.  This time I was very disappointed.  Coherency?  Pshaw!  The whole story is a bunch of random events that are barely explained and not logically connected.  The previously established rules of inter-dimensional travel are tossed out the window.  Villains are suddenly heros and new villains spontaneously appear from nowhere.  People are endowed with cosmic powers for no apparent reason.  The end comes as a dues ex machina.  Loose ends dangle left and right.

In sum, the trilogy was possibly the biggest literary letdown I've ever experienced.

As far as I can understand, the only reason these books are popular is because they were reviewed well and pushed in the literary media: I don't think they would have remained popular by their own virtues.  And the primary reason they were praised by reviewers is because they are explicitly anti-Christian and therefore cool and trendy.  Never mind that the quality of literature declines precipitously as the series progresses, it's got the correct values, and that makes it good.

If I were you, Amory, I'd quit while I was ahead.  Stop with Compass, because Compass is really good.  Reading the rest of the series will just spoil it.

Incidentally, this dovetails with something I'd wanted to say about "Speaker for the Dead."  I really liked Speaker.  It sits proudly on my book shelf at home (next to The Golden Compass, as it happens).  But, like Compass, it ends on a cliffhanger, and the books that follow do such a terrible job of resolving it that you wish the author had just left you with the cliffhanger and not tried to write an ending.  "Ender" was great.  "Speaker" was almost as good.  But "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind" both sucked real bad.  Read "Speaker," but skip the sequels.  You're better off making up your own ending than watching the author's initially strong ideas fizzle out and die.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2007, 04:34:15 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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Reply #164 on: August 01, 2007, 05:39:42 PM
Interesting.  I don't even remember the cliffhanger Speaker of the Dead ended with but I do remember feeling terribly let down with Xenocide and Children of the Mind.  I'd still like to read Ender's Shadow, though.


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Reply #165 on: August 01, 2007, 06:15:35 PM
Quote
This is all highly compatible with speculation I've read about the Universe having a layered nature, but it would take a long time to digress on that.  Briefly: A "false" England might be like a flat Google Earth view: 2 dimensional.  A "real" England is the 3D version that Dr. Who hangs out in.  Above this there would be a higher-dimensional England (which I have no means to describe).

This sounds more like a description of Flatland's philosophy than Narnia or the Great Divorce. Flatland....another great book, but ultimately, it's all in Plato. Bless me, what do they teach at those schools!



Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #166 on: August 01, 2007, 06:16:30 PM
"Speaker" ended with a fleet of warships bearing down on the planet with the intention of reducing it and all of the characters to atomic dust.

The situation is resolved in "Children of the Mind" when one of the characters is arbitrarily given god-powers, which is always quite a cop-out, IMHO (anyone see "The Parting of Ways?).   >:(

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Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #167 on: August 01, 2007, 06:19:05 PM
Quote
This is all highly compatible with speculation I've read about the Universe having a layered nature, but it would take a long time to digress on that.  Briefly: A "false" England might be like a flat Google Earth view: 2 dimensional.  A "real" England is the 3D version that Dr. Who hangs out in.  Above this there would be a higher-dimensional England (which I have no means to describe).

This sounds more like a description of Flatland's philosophy than Narnia or the Great Divorce. Flatland....another great book, but ultimately, it's all in Plato. Bless me, what do they teach at those schools!

Eh.  I don't think I explained it real well.  Or rather, what I did was more to offer an interpretation than an explanation.  (It's not like I'm a genius or anything.)

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Leon Kensington

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Reply #168 on: August 01, 2007, 06:22:46 PM
Golden Compass sounds awesome, I'll need to pick that up.



Roney

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Reply #169 on: August 03, 2007, 12:03:22 AM
In sum, the trilogy was possibly the biggest literary letdown I've ever experienced.

I couldn't disagree more.  The Northern Lights / The Golden Compass is a thrilling adventure story about how Lyra gets pulled out of her everyday life.  But as its horizons expand, His Dark Materials keeps putting Lyra's previous victories into their context and presenting her with more meaningful challenges.  She starts by winning her battles by being smart and resourceful; by the end she needs to find emotional and moral strategies.  It's an immensely satisfying progression, although it's eventually heartbreaking for the reader.

I particularly have to quibble with
Quote
Villains are suddenly heros and new villains spontaneously appear from nowhere.

Characters have priorities that shift as they learn more about themselves, about their environment and about other characters.  Thus the same character may be at different times in direct opposition to Lyra, trying to manipulate her, accidentally obstructive to her, condescending to her or actively on her side.  A few characters appear to be remote from redemption but they're generally ones with such long habits (sometimes millennia) of selfish and arrogant behaviour that of course it's difficult for them to change.  So there are a few villains, no real heroes, and a lot of people in the middle who are guided by their understanding of their own interests.

I wouldn't agree that it's anti-Christian either.  It has a strong bias against any person or organization demanding obedience without first earning respect or being able to provide a logical justification for its actions.  The primary embodiment of this in the books (although hardly the only one) is a form of organized religion that's a kind of caricature of the mediaeval Catholic church.  (But I say that as an atheist, so I'll be less sensitive to off-hand slights.)

What I can promise is that the positive response is not a conspiracy of critics pushing an agenda.  My wife was even more taken by them than I was and has been recommending them to friends ever since she read them (even buying copies for her family) and they've been universally well-received (by a lot of people who wouldn't usually go near children's fiction or fantasy).  His Dark Materials is genuinely one of the most beautifully written and emotionally affecting stories that I've read.



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Reply #170 on: August 03, 2007, 05:15:00 AM
at the moment im on "Prelude to Foundation"
next comes either second foundation (already read the 1st 2)
or Slaughterhouse Five, or the Sirens of Titan

and i have required school reading: "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich"
its okay... so far...

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Leon Kensington

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Reply #171 on: August 03, 2007, 03:49:10 PM
Just hope your not forced into The Scarlett Letter.  It is the only book that made me contemplate becoming a vampire hunter.  Then I could legally re-kill Hawthorne.



Bdoomed

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Reply #172 on: August 04, 2007, 06:39:43 PM
oh ive already been forced into reading that book.  it just made me want to murder people.

I'd like to hear my options, so I could weigh them, what do you say?
Five pounds?  Six pounds? Seven pounds?


Mr. Tweedy

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Reply #173 on: August 06, 2007, 03:10:30 PM
In sum, the trilogy was possibly the biggest literary letdown I've ever experienced.

I couldn't disagree more.  The Northern Lights / The Golden Compass is a thrilling adventure story about how Lyra gets pulled out of her everyday life.  But as its horizons expand, His Dark Materials keeps putting Lyra's previous victories into their context and presenting her with more meaningful challenges.  She starts by winning her battles by being smart and resourceful; by the end she needs to find emotional and moral strategies.  It's an immensely satisfying progression, although it's eventually heartbreaking for the reader.

I particularly have to quibble with
Quote
Villains are suddenly heros and new villains spontaneously appear from nowhere.

Characters have priorities that shift as they learn more about themselves, about their environment and about other characters.  Thus the same character may be at different times in direct opposition to Lyra, trying to manipulate her, accidentally obstructive to her, condescending to her or actively on her side.  A few characters appear to be remote from redemption but they're generally ones with such long habits (sometimes millennia) of selfish and arrogant behaviour that of course it's difficult for them to change.  So there are a few villains, no real heroes, and a lot of people in the middle who are guided by their understanding of their own interests.

I wouldn't agree that it's anti-Christian either.  It has a strong bias against any person or organization demanding obedience without first earning respect or being able to provide a logical justification for its actions.  The primary embodiment of this in the books (although hardly the only one) is a form of organized religion that's a kind of caricature of the mediaeval Catholic church.  (But I say that as an atheist, so I'll be less sensitive to off-hand slights.)

What I can promise is that the positive response is not a conspiracy of critics pushing an agenda.  My wife was even more taken by them than I was and has been recommending them to friends ever since she read them (even buying copies for her family) and they've been universally well-received (by a lot of people who wouldn't usually go near children's fiction or fantasy).  His Dark Materials is genuinely one of the most beautifully written and emotionally affecting stories that I've read.


It's been a while since I read them (5 years) so I've forgotten a lot of the reasons for disliking them that I had had.  My main gripe was that the story simply didn't make sense.  Like I said, loose ends everywhere.  How does Lord Asriel get his army?  Not explained.  Why, exactly, are Lyra and Will the new Adam and Eve?  What makes them so special that their falling in love is the event that marks a new cosmic era?  Not explained.  Why does inter-dimensional travel suddenly become so easy when previously it had been so hard?  Not explained.  Why should I suddenly have sympathy for characters (Asriel and Coulter) who spent the last two books murdering all the characters we were supposed to care about?  A bigger, badder villain than either of them is introduced, and we're supposed to root for them because they're against the greater evil, but the greater evil comes in so late in the game that swapping my allegiance is very unsatisfying.

As for it being anti-Christian, maybe you should go back and reread "Spyglass": The anti-Christian element is so strong that there is no story at all without it.  The villain in the story is God.  The whole thing is about a rebellion against God, which ends with God being killed.  It is explicitly stated several times that this character is not ambiguous: He is the God of the Bible.  Satan, although mentioned only briefly, is the great hero of history, the founder of the rebellion against the oppressive totalitarianism of God.  All of the bad actions of every character, even those who spent the first books murdering Lyra's friends, are justified because their actions were directed against God, and so were for a worthy cause.  It is explicitly stated that there are no Heaven or Hell: These places were made up by God so that He could manipulate people with hollow threats and promises.  Quotes like these are sprinkled throughout the stories:

"For all of [the Church's] history...it's tried to suppress and control every natural impulse. And when it can't control them, it cuts them out."

"That's what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling."

"the Christian religion…is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all"

The whole point, the philosophical crux of the series, is that people need to be free of religion with its externally-originated principles and ideas.  Saying the books are not anti-Christian is akin to saying that "Atlas Shrugged" is not anti-Communist or that "The Chronicles of Narnia" or not pro-Christian.  If you don't think they were anti-Christian, then I frankly wonder if you understood them.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2007, 03:21:10 PM by Mr. Tweedy »

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Reply #174 on: August 06, 2007, 04:29:51 PM
Finished "The Green and the Gray", by Timothy Zahn.  Very good, great storytelling, and quite interesting.  The ending was a tad too talky for my taste, but otherwise no complaints.

Now re-reading "The World on Blood" -- I needed something easy, that I'd read before, before getting into anything new.

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