Eat any good books lately?

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

any good scary book recommendations for the season that I may or may not read?

[benji]

How was "Stupid TV, Be More Funny?"

It's fine but it has that problem a lot of these kind of books do (including some others I posted in that same post) where it started with too big of scope and never cut down then rushed so the subtitle way overstates the thesis and the whole thing feels like a paper written at the last minute. Half the book is about the journey from the idea to the start of the second season. Then the rest of the book rushes through like eight seasons with only a handful of pages for them. Plus an entire chapter about the Monorail episode because Conan bothered to talk to the guy. Then the conclusion is basically "and The Simpsons is still around today and lots of people know it." 

So you get a short book that's fairly interesting and has some new stuff, and right when you're fully sold the rest of the book is basically what you could read on Wikipedia. The Always Sunny book up there is this but worse especially because the author couldn't get any of the main people to talk to them and seemed to get like five minutes with Artemis as their big interviewee from the book. Just go watch all the podcasts and hear from the guys themselves with more detail!

[chronovore]

The two guys who wrote The Expanse under one nom-de-plume have started a new series, The Captives War. I read a novella of theirs called Livesuit that was really good.

[benji]

The Good


The Okay


The Meh


I want to take issue with Schreier for quoting magazines and websites while not only not naming the source but not citing it in his end notes. The book's also more like an extended Wikipedia entry that rarely does any reporting versus what looks like, from the end notes, him just using stuff people already wrote. He jams all the sexual harassment stuff into a single chapter and suggests it was just one guy who couldn't take a hint that they eventually fired. He's also not a very compelling writer though you can tell he thinks he is. 

[benji]

Great review, Phil. I totally understand why you gave it three stars.

[benji]

[DavidCroquet]

I find myself wanting to post in this thread more, but of all things, I feel like talking about the books I read is the most self-identifying I could post on a hate site.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

That's right, fellas, I am just that much of a literary iconoclast.

[Potato]

Post hog books

[Besticus Maximus]

Tried King Sorrow by Joe Hill, dropped it at about 70% because I actually hated everything about it. This makes me very sad because everyone on earth insists it is a kind of masterpiece and my ears and brain are telling me it's sub scooby doo drivel where every character has the same bitchy marvel voice and manner of speaking. The king arthur parallels are especially cringe.

So I started Old Soul by Susan Barker instead, and it's a lot more grown up and a bit wet but it appears to be about deathnote shinagamis so im sticking it out.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

I find myself wanting to post in this thread more, but of all things, I feel like talking about the books I read is the most self-identifying I could post on a hate site.

Let me guess...

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

[benji]

The Good:


The Okay:


The Meh:

[Potato]

Finished these two while on holidays: 



I read the first book Shadow of the Gods two years ago and finally started reading the second book early this year. 

It was a real drag for the first half and couldn't motivate myself to read it. Second half really kicked off though and I blazed through it while on holidays over Easter. 

Finished the third book in two days and stayed up until 3am to finish it.

Overall, great series inspired by Norse mythology with interesting characters and worldbuilding. Can't help but feel like there was a lot of missed potential though.

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

[Potato]

Counter to that tweet, I am currently reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (pen name of Sarah Monette).

The quasi Byzantine setting is refreshing and the writing and world-building is intelligent and interesting. Political/court intrigue without the YA trappings that so much of modern fantasy falls into. Messaging is also pretty progressive without beating you around the head with it.

Highly recommended. I hope it sticks the landing, because the lead up has been great.

[DavidCroquet]

Finally read a book that (I think!) is safe enough to post here without telling on myself. Yukio Mishima's Spring Snow. 

I've been interested in the guy for a very long time (thanks to fucking Shin Megami Tensei lol) and finally decided to crack into his books after watching the Paul Schrader movie.

It's good but in a way that defies a general description. Like, a synopsis is Romeo and Juliet in Glorious Nippon (sort of). But the inner moments of the characters worked wonders for me. One of the characters relates a Buddhist parable--not sure if it's real--about a barely-conscious monk who accidentally drinks water from a skull, not knowing that it is a skull. Whe he drinks it, it is the most invigorating water he has ever tasted. He is immediately brought to his senses, notices that he just drank from a skull, and vomits in disgust.

The character goes on to ruminate that maybe it would be possible to hold onto the sensation of that prior, uninformed understanding--this water is great!--and disrgard, without self-deception, the later informed response--holy shit, I just drank from a human skull!--and how, if such a thing is possible, a person could theoretically live genuinely happily in any circumstance of life. 

I read that and I was like, "ayo, this mf cookin'! 🔥🔥🔥🗣️🗣️🗣️"

This is the first of four books that Mishima had published on the day he committed seppuku. Some internet randos suggest that they function best when read as a single continuous work. So I guess my next book is gonna be Runaway Horses.

[Potato]

It's good but in a way that defies a general description. Like, a synopsis is Romeo and Juliet in Glorious Nippon (sort of). But the inner moments of the characters worked wonders for me. One of the characters relates a Buddhist parable--not sure if it's real--about a barely-conscious monk who accidentally drinks water from a skull, not knowing that it is a skull. Whe he drinks it, it is the most invigorating water he has ever tasted. He is immediately brought to his senses, notices that he just drank from a skull, and vomits in disgust.

The character goes on to ruminate that maybe it would be possible to hold onto the sensation of that prior, uninformed understanding--this water is great!--and disrgard, without self-deception, the later informed response--holy shit, I just drank from a human skull!--and how, if such a thing is possible, a person could theoretically live genuinely happily in any circumstance of life. 

Sounds like a "separate the art from the artist" kind of fable to me, but it can also apply in many other contexts.

[chronovore]

Counter to that tweet, I am currently reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (pen name of Sarah Monette).

The quasi Byzantine setting is refreshing and the writing and world-building is intelligent and interesting. Political/court intrigue without the YA trappings that so much of modern fantasy falls into. Messaging is also pretty progressive without beating you around the head with it.

Highly recommended. I hope it sticks the landing, because the lead up has been great.

Keep us posted on that landing-sticking-or-not. 

I enjoyed Gareth Hanrahan's The Gutter Prayer, which covered some amazing worldbuilding and a couple different genre in the same novel. Recommended!

[DavidCroquet]

I posted in the Journal about Woman on the Edge of Time. 



I picked it up because at some point it acquired this reputation of "first Cyberpunk book EVER" which made me curious. I'm halfway through and there's nothing I would call remotely cyberpunk happening at all...but there's a lot of hamfisted politicizing and repetitive writing. 

I thought I would continue that discussion here.

So per can opt out from the meetings and throwing a party for the losers? (Why would there need to be losers, or merit-based competition, if every social situation is settled win-win?)

My favorite part of any utopian work is when they outline the mandatory discussion structures.

As it turns out, I just got to this part, and they can. 

"All right, suppose I don't want to go to meetings." 
"Who could force you? People would ask you why you no longer care. Friends might suggest you take a retreat or talk to a healer. If your mems [DC: family members] felt you'd cut them off, they might ask you to leave. If too many in a village cut off, the neighboring villiages send for a team of involvers."

"Involvers". That sounds not at all ominous, and extremely Utopian! 

I also thought Bireans might enjoy this description of one of their utopian holiday celebrations:

"the feast of July nineteenth, date of Seneca Equal Rights Convention, beginning women's movement. Myself, I play Harriet Tubman. I say a great speech--Ain't I a woman?--that I give just before I lead the slaves to revolt and sack the Pentagon, a large machine producing radiation on the Patomac"

[Besticus Maximus]

2026 is the worst year for books for me in my adult life. Bailed out on more novels than I’ve finished by far. Something must be done to save fiction from the passive tense.

[Potato]

I posted in the Journal about Woman on the Edge of Time. 



I picked it up because at some point it acquired this reputation of "first Cyberpunk book EVER" which made me curious. I'm halfway through and there's nothing I would call remotely cyberpunk happening at all...but there's a lot of hamfisted politicizing and repetitive writing. 

I thought I would continue that discussion here.

So per can opt out from the meetings and throwing a party for the losers? (Why would there need to be losers, or merit-based competition, if every social situation is settled win-win?)

My favorite part of any utopian work is when they outline the mandatory discussion structures.

As it turns out, I just got to this part, and they can. 

"All right, suppose I don't want to go to meetings." 
"Who could force you? People would ask you why you no longer care. Friends might suggest you take a retreat or talk to a healer. If your mems [DC: family members] felt you'd cut them off, they might ask you to leave. If too many in a village cut off, the neighboring villiages send for a team of involvers."

"Involvers". That sounds not at all ominous, and extremely Utopian! 

I also thought Bireans might enjoy this description of one of their utopian holiday celebrations:

"the feast of July nineteenth, date of Seneca Equal Rights Convention, beginning women's movement. Myself, I play Harriet Tubman. I say a great speech--Ain't I a woman?--that I give just before I lead the slaves to revolt and sack the Pentagon, a large machine producing radiation on the Patomac"

So, what is the actual conflict in this book?

Edit: Read a plot summary. Lol.

[chronovore]

Finished Joe Hill's KING SORROW this morning. It's as hefty as any of Stephen King's books, excepting The Stand. It was a great ride, no filler or dead spots, and no shortage of surprises.

[Besticus Maximus]

Finished Joe Hill's KING SORROW this morning. It's as hefty as any of Stephen King's books, excepting The Stand. It was a great ride, no filler or dead spots, and no shortage of surprises.

I really didn't like this but I did it on audiobook. Felt like every character in the book was the same character with the same voice except the dragon who was cringe. Maybe im the problem 


Anyway trying to break my book funk with a weird little folk horror book called Water Shall refuse them which I found out about at a lecture about folk horror in a ballet dance studio