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Post by Tig on Jan 15, 2020 19:02:12 GMT -5
Enjoying Lucifer's Hammer. Had a delayed start but getting into it now.
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Post by Taibi on Jan 16, 2020 2:09:41 GMT -5
Same here, though infrequent time to read.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Jan 17, 2020 14:03:59 GMT -5
Nice. Let me know what you guys think once you are deep into it.
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Post by Tig on Jan 17, 2020 16:32:08 GMT -5
It's a bit slow start. 50+ pages in and nothing has happened. I can tell he's setting the board pieces up to knock them off the table so it's not boring. It does make me feel better about the pace of my own story and how I started it.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Jan 20, 2020 10:16:08 GMT -5
I dunno, I didn't feel like the start was particularly slow, especially in between reading Book 5 of Earth's Children and The Stand. Speaking of The Stand and slow, holy crap. I am at like 80% done, but man, he can go off-tangent on anything for a 2 chapter side-detour. King will literally be talking about something, like John Doe was walking through the store, when suddenly BOOM, 30 pages about how 20 years ago, he did A, B, and C with his daddy. He has good technical writing skills, and I'm generally more lenient to books/games meandering around than say Tig , but man, this guy could use an editor badly.
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Post by Tig on Jan 20, 2020 12:22:41 GMT -5
Yeah by the 80s King was definitely full of himself thinking people will read whatever he tosses into the story with reckless abandon.
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Post by Taibi on Jan 23, 2020 12:19:26 GMT -5
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Jan 24, 2020 13:03:21 GMT -5
Interesting, I read a lot, but I only read one book on that entire list (Sapiens).
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Jan 27, 2020 15:59:28 GMT -5
So I finished reading The Stand. A lot of spoilers ahead, so don't read if you plan on reading it anytime soon:
********************************************************************
I feel like there is a great divide between Stephen King the technical writer, and Stephen King the plot writer/book architect. As the former, he is outstanding, with lots of excellent characters, fleshed out to unbelievable depth, interesting little vignettes, and mini-stories. As the latter, he is beyond terrible, imho. I don't get the overarching plot of this book at all, and feel like I wasted almost a month to read through a bunch of unrelated short stories.
None of it jells for me at all. You have the great plague, to which the natural continuation would've been the rebuilding of society by the survivors, but here that's essentially pointless, since all their efforts are just an insult to God, who takes over from their failed, pathetic efforts. It's a struggle of good and evil, but in a completely obfuscated way. Is it God testing them like Job? Well, not really, because most of them die, and the survivors (e.g. Frannie) were among the biggest doubters. In the end, they have almost nothing to do with what happens (cue the Trashcan Man and the hand of God), I guess they take the leap of faith and all that in the end, but those that do mostly die, so ....
All the more interesting characters die, like Nick or Harold or Nadine, meanwhile the two most boring (high school jock and pretty girl) survive to have a family and thrive. Not one of them has any real character growth except Larry Underwood, but even that is poorly done (spontaneously goes from selfish ahole to leader without any real reason/explanation).
Oh and it's probably twice as long as it needs to be. If someone asked me now what it's about, I still have no idea. That's why it seems like a collection of shorter storylines rather than a cohesive novel.
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Post by Tig on Jan 27, 2020 22:09:47 GMT -5
Yeah after reading It, I'm not even going to attempt the stand. I can't take any more of his rabbit trails about life in small town America. He was better about preserving the perceived main characters at the climax in Under the Dome but suddenly several of the more obscure characters had more of the limelight. He just kind of does his own thing and you're along for the ride.
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Post by Mako on Jan 28, 2020 4:59:03 GMT -5
The only Stephen King book I've read was Cujo years ago when I was a teenager. Never had the desire to read any more of his work. Glad I'm not the only one critical of it.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Jan 28, 2020 10:19:39 GMT -5
So after The Stand, I needed something new to read on the ol' commute, checked Kindle sales on the train, and bought Age of Myth by Michael J Sullivan on an impulse. Never heard of the book or the author before, but they were selling it for $3 on sale, and it had 4.5/5 stars, so I figured what the hell. It's the first book in a fantasy series, a kind of new take on traditional Tolkienesque fantasy. Been reading it for a couple of days, it's not bad. The writing is definitely not on Tolkien's level, and of course they need to inject modern issues into it to keep with the times, so you got your lesbian elves and what not, but all in all, enjoyable flowing reading as long as you don't go in expecting too much. Will share more impressions as I get deeper into it. www.goodreads.com/book/show/26863057-age-of-myth
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Post by fantasiawht on Feb 1, 2020 9:49:53 GMT -5
Reading some more Witcher books! They're very enjoyable. It reminds me of how powerfully Witcher 3 stirred my emotions - the moment when I finally found Ciri, who I'd been trying to save the entire game, and had been talked about in the previous games, was really powerful. Poignant. Impressive for a video game to evoke such strong emotions.
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Post by Tig on Feb 1, 2020 11:03:09 GMT -5
I'm starting the first one next.
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Post by Tig on Feb 2, 2020 0:49:19 GMT -5
Finished Lucifer's Hammer. I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped. I can feel Niven and Pournelle's expertise in astronomy but characters' actions and responses to events were uneven and sometimes irrational to me. I was annoyed by one character in particular who fretted the whole book over a relationship with this one woman, but comparatively couldn't care less over the loss of his son. I had no attachment to any of the characters and found myself not caring about them at the conclusion. The politics were good, to an extent, and the overall economies of power and welfare were illustrated well, but certain outstanding obstacles were defeated way too easily. On the heels of Under the Dome, a novel that matches in politics and disaster, I just wasn't as entertained. :/
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