"Mandibles" was incredible fun. Hilarious, action packed, just a fantastic read for a Saturday afternoon.
Strand may not be a master wordsmith, but he can certainly entertain.
"Mandibles" was incredible fun. Hilarious, action packed, just a fantastic read for a Saturday afternoon.
Strand may not be a master wordsmith, but he can certainly entertain.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Have begun reading King's "It".
Totally hooked already. Read 100 pages this afternoon without removing my eyes from the page.
King is a master storyteller. His ensemble casts, character-based storytelling and wicked imagination are all second-to-none.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Stop now!!! When it ends, you'll hate yourself for having wasted so much time on it!
One of my favorites.Quoting megladon8 (view post)
Haven't you disliked most everything you've read by King, though?
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Not even close. Liked most of what I've read, loved a few. Hated It. Absolutely preposterous, asinine last 200 or so pages. Had its moments, which is why I stuck with it to the end, but that ending is just unforgivable.
Was it...
[]
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
Nope. Not even close. I mean, that played into it a bit, but I have no problem with that as the manifestation of the evil in their town. It was the way they went about confronting it and ultimately defeating it that brought about my loathing of the novel.
Hmmm...you're making me even more anxious to read so we can at least talk about it a bit.
And colour me shocked on your opinion on King. I could have sworn I remembered you saying he was, more or less, a hack. I guess it was either someone else, or was in one of the many dreams I've had that involved you in some way.
"All right, that's too hot. Anything we can do about that heat?"
"Rick...it's a flamethrower."
It does get a bit conceptual at the end. Like the climax of Ang Lee's Hulk film where you're like "Huh?" but at the same time riveted because wtf am I experiencing?
I've been meaning to do a reread of Regulators/Desperation. Perhaps soon.
Nope. Love 'Salem's Lot, Rage, The Long Walk, Desperation, The Gunslinger, and The Shining. Liked Gerald's Game, Misery, and The Green Mile. Hated It and The Colorado Kid.
Yeah, that was mine, aside from the riveted part. My memory is fuzzy, so having a conversation would be difficult, but one detail in particular stands out in which I felt like throwing the book at the wall.
Really dig Desperation, though. Never got around to Regulators. I should amend that some day.
I thought the ending to It was pretty upsetting in terms of
[]
I get the point of it, but it's never sat well with me.
Regarding KF's point about the Ritual of Chud,
[]
Anyway, I think the book is decent, but the first half is kinda brilliant, and the back half deflates as it goes.
Also, the Ritual of Chüd is most likely based on the Buddhist practice called Chöd, whereby practitioners go into an extreme form of meditation in which their own turbulent emotions (including the notion of self) appear in the form of demons and try to hinder their enlightenment (similar to the way Buddhist "hells," while vividly described and imagined, are just metaphors for spiritual self-flagellation).
So you can say you learned something today.
I love the last section of It. The way its structured makes for such an exciting climax; I love the cutting between past and present, and how the two times link together. The part with Bev is a little weird, and I'm not sure exactly what King was getting at, but I wasn't about to let that little moment ruin the other 900 amazing pages.
I re-read Desperation a couple of years ago - fantastic.
I'm going to re-read The Shining soon, in preparation for Dr. Sleep in September.
I'm reading Mistborn, by Brian Sanderson, right now. It's entertaining enough, but totally meh in just about every regard. It reminds of a show that might have been on the CW or UPN. The dialog consists of nothing but exposition and the characters are tissue-paper thin. It is, however, entertaining me right now, and that's something I'm looking for in fiction at the moment, even if I am rolling my eyes at just about every single page.
However, what I am finding remarkable is that this is often a series that current readers of modern fantasy will suggest to friends and family, a series that is somewhat highly regarded and coveted. I've often thought that readers of fantasy are just about the least discerning of all readers, and this only strengthens that opinion. That Mistborn is so highly lauded and that it sells well, while genuinely remarkable, new, exciting, and challenging fantasy like Never Knew Another and Last Dragon, both from J.M. McDermott, go largely unnoticed absolutely blows my mind. McDermott can barely sell enough copies of his books to get the publishers to let him finish his small trilogy, while Sanderson just launched a planned 10 volume series, with each book over 1,000 pages.
Fuck that.
Fantasy readers need to demand more, expect more, and be more discerning.
You care way too much about what other people enjoy reading.
False. I care about people reading the best stuff so that the best stuff sells well and so that publishers will publish more better stuff, so that I have more better things to read.
It's called being a champion of good things. I would hope that everyone who loves good things would feel the same.
That thought process makes the assumption that everything you like is "the good stuff".
I read "Last Dragon" and got nothing out of it - I found it quite a bore. But you seem to think it is objectively better than, say, "Mistborn". Which it is not. If a person enjoys the latter more, then they will support that one with their money, and are not wrong in doing so.
Lest we forget, one of your favorite writers - King - is considered by many a literary mind to be no nore than a dimestore shock horror writer with no literary value at all.
I really don't want to get into this yet again because it's a discussion you and I have had a few times in the past.
I just find it a bit bothersome how eager you are to poo-poo what other readers like when it doesn't fall within your realm of quality, worthwhile reading.
Heh! Agreed all around. Fantasy fans are forced to have low standards because the genre is so narrow and thin.
Sanderson is an odd bird. He's gotta be the luckiest mid-lister to ever live, and all because Robert Jordan died. He does a weekly podcast with a bunch of other authors called "Writing Excuses" that's very good; it's fifteen minutes of rapid advice and business talk. I saw a bootleg video series of a class he taught at a local college (in Utah? Arizona?) which was also good. He's very knowledgable about publishing and a certain kind of writing.
But his focus is entirely genre writing, and mid-lister genre writing at that. I think of guys like Sanderson as "turnover" authors, because they've got to turn over so much prose in an incredibly short amount of time in order to have any chance at making a living. Their money comes from volume, not quality. In having twenty novels in print and on the market at the same time.
So they are forced to pump out 90,0000 word drafts every three months, which is why everything they do has that "SyFy" stink about it.
It is. Some things are simply better than others. Every single person I've suggested Last Dragon to has said it is one of, if not the best, fantasy they've read, except for you. That's cool. Three of the seven people I've gotten to read it have gone on to read and buy everything McDermott has done, and those three people happen to be three of the most discerning constant readers I've ever met.
It is a simple fact that some things are better than others; not all opinions are equal, or valid, but everyone can have one. McDermott is the better writer; his characters have more nuance, he uses far more challenging sentence structure, better metaphors, more concrete language, with more complex themes and better prose.
I want more better things that I love.
There are too many mediocre things in genre literature, simply because most genre fans have terrible taste and they aren't very discerning.
When it comes to genre fiction, I have no problem proclaiming myself an arbiter of good taste - I've read a ton of it, I am very discerning with my fiction, can defend what I like with more than "It was fun!" and love to champion the things that I think are worthy of anyone's time and money. A genre book recommendation from me is a very honorable stamp of approval.
Some genre fans are so undiscerning that they would read other fantasy books instead of Mervyn Peake.
Meg - three books in your top 10 of 2013 were recommended by me.
I give great recs.
You just didn't like LD - but I think you weren't in the mood for something like that when you read it, because it is very much in the same ballpark as something like The Divinity Student (McDermott and Cisco both admire each other a great deal). Maybe try reading it again.
There have been many books that I've had to return to in order to really like.
Off-topic, but every time King goes off on this I just roll my eyes. He does get grief from the literary fiction set, but a lot less than he complains about.
The thing that kills me is that he's too sort sighted to see his own value. Raymond Chandler, James M Cain, and Jim Thompson were all considered dime store hacks in their lifetimes, and they are all great writers and considered such now.
Also, Davis, every time you mention "The Last Dragon," I think of this guy.
Hey, I've tried twice, and will try again! The last time was simply because the book was too large to take with me. I'm going to get an e-version and read it this year.Some genre fans are so undiscerning that they would read other fantasy books instead of Mervyn Peake.
Like I said, it just hasn't spoken to me....yet!
I have The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon in my bag atm to start reading today. My 3rd King book (+ the short story 'The Jaunt'). Bought it for 10 cents.
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