Finished 'Salem's Lot. King has incredible moments of lucidity as a writer, interspersed with long stretches of blah. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that he writes so fast. It doesn't seem like he even revises or edits at all. Probably his editor does all of that.
Trying to get going in Dickey's Deliverance. Saw the movie, figured I should give the book a go, if only to see how the banjo bit is written out, but it seems I'll just have to skip to that and leave the rest. I just can't bring myself to keep going with it.
Paul Teague, Don't tell Meg I was really excited to read this because i like paul's writing pod cast and he seems like a really good bloke so when i saw the book on 99p kindle promo it seemed like a good buy Unfortunately its the biggest pile of shit I've had the misfortune to try to read in quite some time... ive tried three times and i just couldn't get into it essentially the story is protag has a one night stand, and that leads to a bunch of people getting killed ... unfortunately Mr Teague feels the need to explain every bloody thing about the protags life and how he met his wife, and what its like working in radio and zzzz thunk... i penetrated about a few chapters and finally reached the point where he meets his affair partner, and you think something might be going to actually happen, and then it swerves off on some more pointless back story. At that point i gave up and deleted it -lesson for us all here, back story might be important but feed it to the reader in little chunks interspersed with something actually happening there's also a thing here about reading the work of your writing heroes - Mark Dawson's first book the cleaner i couldn't get past the prologue where the MC empties an HK53 on full auto and then picks up his brass Same was true of Joanna Penn's first book Stone of fire, i finished it and its quite good in an unbelievable way except for a massive plot hole and unbelievably bad deus ex machina ending - what her editor was playing at i don't know. The only one of the indy gurus who's actually stood up to walking it like he talks it is Adam Croft
I was reading the Anglesey murders series by Conrad Jones. The first two were really good, the third was okay except that he reused names from the first book but for different characters, the fourth (ironically the first at full price) was so bad that for the first time in my life I returned an ebook for a refund. Essentially he decided to insert himself as a character and ask the reader to believe the book was a true account and that the satanists who are the antagonists in book 2 were now coming after him...utter and complete bullshit of the highest order, and totally destroyed the feeling of setting built up across the first three books I won't be wasting my time with books 5 and 6
Finished Story of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang as well as the third WoT book. Ted Chiang's stories are fine. Of course Story of Your Life was the best one. The other notable ones in the collection were Hell is the Absence of God and Divide by Zero. Good ponderings for all three. He always has a strong opening premise, but the rest of the collection's stories are weak on follow-through. Wheel of Time is whatever. That 'this is all padding' spidey-sense keeps tingling. It's unnerving.
The Wandering Inn series by pirateaba, is a fun ride. Save the Cat category of the fool triumphant. The world building is strong, with the culture clashes provides for wonderful character development.
If Robert Jordan had lived to finish the series, I might have as well. But with Brandon Sarison taking over the series, no.
Finished two books. (1) Sphere, Michael Crichton. I got a hankering for some sci-fi spookiness so I picked this up. Evidently a lot of folks aren’t a fan of the 1998 film adaptation — I am. And I’m glad I read the book. It’s a nicely executed page-turner. For me, the movie is scarier/more suspenseful, but I definitely prefer the novel’s characterizations of Beth and Ted. Because of that it’s hard to say which version I like more. Rating: 4 stars (2) Andrew Jackson, Robert V. Remini. I really enjoyed this short (224 pages) biography of Old Hickory. Remini has the dynamic prose of a bonafide writer of fiction. It’s a fast read. It’s an informative and enjoyable read. Rating: 4 stars For a time, all was serene. Jackson plunged into his law duties and rapidly drilled through a mountain of work that awaited him as prosecuting attorney. Debtors had refused to pay their legitimate obligations and had banded together to defy the law. They had working for them the only licensed attorney in the district, and since the sheriff was incompetent, creditors despaired of obtaining justice. Then the new prosecutor arrived—and suddenly the propertied classes in Nashville found their long-awaited savior. Within a month, he had enforced seventy writs against delinquent debtors. Naturally, their reversal infuriated the debtors, and one of them walked up to Jackson one day and to show his displeasure about the way things were going deliberately stepped on the young man’s foot. Without batting an eye, Jackson turned around, picked up a piece of wood, and calmly knocked the man out cold. Respect for the law, Jackson-style, had arrived in Nashville. ~ Andrew Jackson, Remini.
I'm currently listening to Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut. I have to say, I've almost read his entire oeuvre now, and the later I go in his career, the less enjoyable and engaging his books are for me. I miss the exhilarating, thought-provoking fun of Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five. Those were the books that made him my favorite author in my twenties. Oh well. As the man himself would say, "And so it goes." BIG NEWS! (At least for me.) In November, with a month and a half to spare, I accomplished my goal of reading and audiobooking 500 BOOKS IN 5 YEARS! Woo!!! I know some of you out there hit those numbers all the time, but considering I read just over 150 books in my first 20 years out of high school, this was quite a feat. Next goal: 1000 books in 30 years since high school, which will only require about 70 books a year for 5 years. Hopefully I'll shatter that one. Yay! I did it!
Finished the last of William Gibson's Pattern Recognition trilogy. Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. There are only very loosely connected really, a few morsels dropped in now and then, the odd, obliquely referenced character. Very enjoyable reading, maybe a little dated, as a lot of Science Fiction stories become over the years, and well written, in that often terse prose that Gibson uses. Lots of reading between the lines but I like that it doesn't always spoon feed you; you have to work a little. May try some of the other Tolkien stories other than LOTR or Hobbit. Not the Sil, maybe The Fall of Gondolin or Unfinished Tales. Been meaning to get to these for a while now. Will definitely read more of Gibson's work though, like his style.
IMO his older work is better than the newest stuff. Go back to the Sprawl "trilogy" (same thing as Pattern Recognition as a trilogy, loosely connected in the same universe). His newest one, The Peripheral, I barely slogged through and didn't read the follow-on(s) for.
That's disappointing, I'm really enjoying the TV series so far. I was thinking of reading that one but not until the series had finished, I always find that reading before ruins one or the other. I did try listening to the Neuromancer once on audible but that was at work and I found it hard to concentrate, as you really need to do that for that book, the little I know about it. Gibson was narrating and he made it sound like the guy was stoned, a little bit, which isn't so far away for the main character.
Audible has a great conversation between Kevin Hearn, Iron druid series, and Luke Daniel's, who did the voice work for the audio books of the series. If was a fun look behind the curtain on how the voices for different characters were developed.
Finished two books. (1) Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow. This proved to be an oddly unsatisfying read. The prose was, on the whole, quite good, and the historical figures and setting (pre WWI America) were ideal choices for me. But because of how it was written, I rarely felt present in the story. The author opted to maintain a considerable narrative distance with his characters. And that resulted in me being largely uninvested in them, as well as unmoved by the book’s socioeconomic themes. Rating: 2 stars (2) The Shining, Stephen King. A pretty good read, but I definitely prefer the film. The book has some pacing issues that Kubrick’s version thankfully doesn’t have. And I felt the ending of the movie was both more memorable and fitting. Rating: 3.5 stars
Agreed, in many ways. In the book the hedge dinosaurs were just ridiculous. Hedge maze was far better. I also vaguely remember some weird stuff about a firehose coming alive. Again, I seem to remember liking the beginning, when characters and ideas are being introduced, but it comes apart when he reveals the monsters. He just doesn't do that part well. Somebody said (was it in here?) maybe he doesn't believe in them, and so can't write them well.
Yeah, with "The Shining," the movie was better than the book. Never watch the TV movie adaptation. It's really bad. The kid has this sucker fish mouth. You know those weird fish that hang on the aquarium glass? He looks like that constantly. I can't stand to look at him. The movie's also from that unfortunate era where every CGI effect was worth doing even though it looked like Roger Rabbit effect. (I liked Roger Rabbit, but that's no excuse.) The CGI aged like a carton of 2% milk. And they did that firehose in CGI with piranha teeth too. So stupid. So many movies from that era were ruined by dodgy CGI, the TV movies even moreso. our hero
I did. Yes!!! It starred that second-rate actor from, what was the show called? Wings or something? And King directed it himself. He's not a director. Note, in the movie Kubrick changed the color of the Volkswagen. I think it was powder blue. Was it red in the book? In the scene near the end, when Halloran is driving up toward the Overlook there's a crash on the snow-covered road, a big rig truck jacknifed, and it took out a Volkswagen the same color as the one in King's book. I think Kubrick was saying "Look Stevie, I crashed your crappy story and substituted my own."
