Topic: Books for 2012 - Discussion Thread

[wastrel]

Reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (about 65% through), and it is enjoyable I guess.....but I'm just not all impressed.  So far 6/10.  I hope the ending is awesome.

[pandamonium]

Reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (about 65% through), and it is enjoyable I guess.....but I'm just not all impressed.  So far 6/10.  I hope the ending is awesome.

Your opinions are worthless to me.

The ending is pretty awesome, imo. But I've only read the book, oh, five or six times.

[wastrel]

Reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (about 65% through), and it is enjoyable I guess.....but I'm just not all impressed.  So far 6/10.  I hope the ending is awesome.

Your opinions are worthless to me.

The ending is pretty awesome, imo. But I've only read the book, oh, five or six times.

So I'll rate it 8/10 after finishing.

It is a good story, and had a lot of clever bits (though I felt like the cleverness and wit was lacking when compared to Pratchett or Adams), but there was so many gaps in understanding the world I felt a bit unfulfilled.

I'm sure the intention was to make London Below seem mysterious and magical, but making stuff weird just so it's weird with no real explanation of mechanics just isn't my cuppa.

[pandamonium]

Iirc, Gaiman pulled a lot from English lore. So if you knew more about English mythology, you'd have gotten more out of it. He did something similar in Stardust.

Honestly, I like that he didn't spell out everything. The reader was as clueless as the protagonist, and Gaiman did it without having to resort to first person perspective--I liked that.

[Gaffer]

I wouldn't bother with The Power of Habit. I was hesitant to even read the thing and I was vindicated. It's another one of those "Yeah, but..." pop psy books with a simple theme, lots of anecdotes, and a handful of limited studies. I don't even understand how his discussing Rosa Parks was relevant to anything in the book. Even the author says it's a bit of a stretch to apply that section to his thesis. A lot of the notes seemed apologetic, repeatedly admonishing how things are far more complex blah blah blah. I felt the same way about Gladwell's terrible Blink.

[pandamonium]

So, I listen to several short story podcasts--one of which is PodCastle. They feature Tim Pratt quite frequently, and I've always been ambivalent about the stories of his that they feature. He's not terrible, but they seem to go on about him a bit too much in my opinion. I feel the same way about Cory Doctorow, actually--not a bad writer, and he comes up with some really great ideas... but I don't think they're developed thoroughly enough. Their stories always seem shallow to me.

Anyway, I picked up Pratt's "The Nex" for free on my Kindle. I'm about 70% done with it, and I'm feeling fairly 'meh' about it. Again, the general idea of the story is great--and many of the sci-fi elements are really interesting. But the execution just doesn't do it for me. I think part of the problem is that the main protagonist is supposed to be a teenaged girl... but I can't really buy it. I don't know why, exactly. And I don't get the motivations behind what the other two main protagonists are doing. *spoiler* They're kind of fighting against this maybe bad guy, but it's not very clear why he's bad, and they don't really give any compelling reason why they're revolting; it is revealed later that the bad guy did do some bad guy stuff--but again, I don't really have any reason to care.

I think this book was written for a pre-teen/teen audience, but that's no excuse. Harry Potter is a kids' book and I find it more believable than "The Nex." I think it's a difference in style.

[stretcher]

I'm starting The Lost Memory of Skin, which I picked up on a whim, after eating my green eggs and never mind. The synopsis sounded interesting (and possibly challenging) and I liked the writing style after reading several pages. I have nothing going on Sunday so I'm going to try and cover about half of it in the afternoon.

[pandamonium]

I just started "The Penelopiad" by Marget Atwood; it's promising to be a quick read, and I'm only ~8% into it, but so far it's quite enjoyable. Very dark, a tad dour. The book starts out with the lead character dead (telling this from beyond the grave), and she goes on to relate how her father tried to drown her as a child. Sweet.

[Avarice]

So I've been reading Hollywood Under Siege: Martin Scorsese, The Religious Right and The Culture Wars for school and this book is very interesting.

It's about the origins, production of, and massive controversy over the release of Scorsese's 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ and how the Christian Right pretty much used the film as a scapegoat in order to revitalize itself through bogus criticisms of the film. It's scary how much it worked, and how they got several thousand people to rally against a film they had never even seen, had no intention of seeing, and were actively trying to prevent the release of (While also claiming that they were the ones that were really being persecuted of course).

Fascinating read so far.

[stretcher]

140 pages into American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A fancy leather bound edition that's collected alongside Anansi Boys. It took a while to get to where it's going but now that it's here it's pretty good. The lead is one of the most likable characters I've read in a long time.

[Calinthalus]

140 pages into American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A fancy leather bound edition that's collected alongside Anansi Boys. It took a while to get to where it's going but now that it's here it's pretty good. The lead is one of the most likable characters I've read in a long time.

I read that a few years ago.  I really enjoyed where it went.

[amodeok]

discworld is the best series ever. even the "young adult" books are great. you have not met a literary race until you have met the wee free men!
i just finished "why are you athiests so angry?" by greta christina. i have to admit, i was a little disappointed. i think i hoped that a female author would inject a more feminist point of view on the subject. it could also be that as a cannuck i can't relate to the public fundalmentalism that seems to exist in the states.

[pandamonium]

discworld is the best series ever. even the "young adult" books are great. you have not met a literary race until you have met the wee free men!

Tiffany is my favorite character of the entire Discworld series, I think.

i just finished "why are you athiests so angry?" by greta christina. i have to admit, i was a little disappointed. i think i hoped that a female author would inject a more feminist point of view on the subject. it could also be that as a cannuck i can't relate to the public fundalmentalism that seems to exist in the states.

Sometimes just relating news stories is feminist. But, yeah, public fundamentalism seems to be uniquely USian. Boo.

[Grimner]

A quick shout-out for C.R.O.W by Phillip Richards.
If you like military sci-fi with a realistic bent and a down-to-earth style, this could be your cup of tea. Very (modern) British Army in language. No aliens, most of the tech is more or less on the horizon, while a couple of exotics (FTL and anti-grav), takes a backseat to mud, dust and blood.

In my view, it manages to build on the best parts of Starship Troopers, book and movie, and creates something on its own.

[Starnadohunter]

140 pages into American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A fancy leather bound edition that's collected alongside Anansi Boys. It took a while to get to where it's going but now that it's here it's pretty good. The lead is one of the most likable characters I've read in a long time.

American Gods is brilliant. I loved it loved it loved it. It had the same magic as his Sandman series, for obvious reasons. A very likeable character imo and coin magic too! All good. made me look up Thomas N. Downs and improve my rubbishy coin magic skills.
Neverwhere is not as engaging but it is still great.
My greatest pride comes from my 4 yr old son whose favourite films at the mo are:
Coraline
Princess Bride
Stardust
Labyrinth
So, two Gaiman works in there! Go on my son x
I am currently re-reading HP Lovecraft on my new Kindle. I have just read the short story 'The Tomb' in honour of Toren Atkinson (aka Thickets) from the podcast Caustic Soda. Very enjoyable and left me with more questions than answers...

eidt: jsut a stpuid tpyo