Right now I'm reading

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Wild Bill
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Re: Right now I'm reading

Post by Wild Bill »

Reading now (not ended yet).
so far great sci-fi.
wasn't published in Russian so i reading it in English, this is still hard for me but i do it when do not want to wait for translation.
In the ice, east of the Black Rock, there is a hole into which broken children are thrown.

On Abeth the vastness of the ice holds no room for individuals. Survival together is barely possible. No one survives alone.

To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is not the same.

Yaz is torn from the only life she’s ever known, away from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her days with, and has to carve out a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of difference and mystery and danger.

Yaz learns that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined. She learns that her weaknesses are another kind of strength. And she learns to challenge the cruel arithmetic of survival that has always governed her people.

Only when it’s darkest you can see the stars.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

Post by Croatoa »

Late to the party on this one but I’ve been going through my sister’s Stephen King collection.

Started with IT. Very enjoyable. Probably the longest book I’ve ever read.

Finished The Shining last week. Was surprised to see how different the characterizations are in the book compared to the movie.

I’ve burned through Misery over the past couple of days. Only have around 50 pages left.

Cujo is next up on deck.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

Post by Croatoa »

Wild Bill wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:45 pm
Bram wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 12:46 am
Glad to know there's more in that universe and appreciated the suggestion!

After First law trilogy were separate sequels. "Best served cold", then "Heroes" (Heroes is great! Highly recomend), then "Red country".
And now "Little hatred" is first book of new trilogy, already next generation.


Best Served Cold has been my favourite of all the sequels so far. I need to go back and read the original trilogy again.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Just picked up Germinal on the ereader and I'm really enjoying it.

It's my first Zola novel but I'm already thinking of wading into his Les Rougon-Macquart series.
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Fat Cat
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Watchout nigga we got an intellectual here!
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Croatoa wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 10:28 pm Late to the party on this one but I’ve been going through my sister’s Stephen King collection.

Started with IT. Very enjoyable. Probably the longest book I’ve ever read.

Finished The Shining last week. Was surprised to see how different the characterizations are in the book compared to the movie.

I’ve burned through Misery over the past couple of days. Only have around 50 pages left.

Cujo is next up on deck.
Gotten to The Stand yet?

Eyes of the Dragon is a very underrated King novel.

Salem's Lot was great. Liked Pet Sematary. The first Dark Tower. The Talisman with Peter Straub.

But for me at least, he takes a real big downturn and becomes practically insufferable. Right around the Gerald's Game/Dolores Clairborne years. After that he is barely readable.

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Re: Right now I'm reading

Post by Alfred_E._Neuman »

Finishing up Brian Greene's new book "Until The End of Time". I've been going down an existential rabbit hole lately and reading about the timeline of what's currently known about deep time and the fate of our universe is somehow soothing. Also have Sean Carroll's new general population book on quantum mechanics and the many worlds interpretation he favors.
Got a couple of garbage thrillers and some Star Trek paperbacks in the wings for brain candy.
I don't have a lot of experience with vampires, but I have hunted werewolves. I shot one once, but by the time I got to it, it had turned back into my neighbor's dog.

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Re: Right now I'm reading

Post by vern »

Fat Cat wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 6:05 pm The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin
Watching Jacques make gourmet pizza quickly changed my life.

“Wherever the crowd goes, run the other direction. They’re always wrong.” Bukowski

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Re: Right now I'm reading

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vern wrote: Tue May 19, 2020 12:37 am
Fat Cat wrote: Mon May 18, 2020 6:05 pm The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pépin
Watching Jacques make gourmet pizza quickly changed my life.

Oh he's he best, watching him I'm like, fuck ya I can de-bone an emu.

EDIT: gonna watch your clip tonight, looks rad.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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The Walking Dead Compendium 4. I like it when books have pictures.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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newguy wrote:Gotten to The Stand yet?

Eyes of the Dragon is a very underrated King novel.

Salem's Lot was great. Liked Pet Sematary. The first Dark Tower. The Talisman with Peter Straub.

But for me at least, he takes a real big downturn and becomes practically insufferable. Right around the Gerald's Game/Dolores Clairborne years. After that he is barely readable.
Haven’t gotten to the Stand yet although everyone has told me it’s a must read of his. Will probably get it after I read Cujo.

So early 90’s is when he drops off?

I needed something while I wait for Cujo to arrive so I’ve gotten through the first 100 pages of Silence of the Lambs. Pretty good. The movie is a fairly close adaptation from what I’ve read so far. It’s a nice easy read.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Croatoa wrote: Tue May 19, 2020 10:21 pm
newguy wrote:Gotten to The Stand yet?

Eyes of the Dragon is a very underrated King novel.

Salem's Lot was great. Liked Pet Sematary. The first Dark Tower. The Talisman with Peter Straub.

But for me at least, he takes a real big downturn and becomes practically insufferable. Right around the Gerald's Game/Dolores Clairborne years. After that he is barely readable.
Haven’t gotten to the Stand yet although everyone has told me it’s a must read of his. Will probably get it after I read Cujo.

So early 90’s is when he drops off?

I needed something while I wait for Cujo to arrive so I’ve gotten through the first 100 pages of Silence of the Lambs. Pretty good. The movie is a fairly close adaptation from what I’ve read so far. It’s a nice easy read.
Around then and progressively worse after.

Here is my theory. Many artists owe their success to both their talent as well as those around them who are able to channel the talent. Editors, publishers, agents, directors, etc. There are people who act as natural brakes and curb these artists worse tendencies.

Stephen King was an author who spent his early professional life experiencing rejection. His talent never fully embraced. He sees himself as a great author. Even when he finally gets published and starts enjoying some commercial success, critical success eludes him. This leaves him bitter and you see this bitter author character in many of his earlier novels.

But success does come. And it keeps getting bigger and bigger. And pretty soon he is successful enough to become steven king and say fuck it, I am steven king and I'll do whatever the fuck I want. And what he wants is to write big bloated bullshit. And he is successful enough to do just that and no editor is ever again going to be able to tell him to cut that 1000 page novel down to 750.

The original It and the Stand are far superior to the "author" editions. And as he gets more successful, pretty soon critical success follows and continues to drive his downward spiral.


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Re: Right now I'm reading

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newguy wrote: Wed May 20, 2020 12:08 am
Croatoa wrote: Tue May 19, 2020 10:21 pm
newguy wrote:Gotten to The Stand yet?

Eyes of the Dragon is a very underrated King novel.

Salem's Lot was great. Liked Pet Sematary. The first Dark Tower. The Talisman with Peter Straub.

But for me at least, he takes a real big downturn and becomes practically insufferable. Right around the Gerald's Game/Dolores Clairborne years. After that he is barely readable.
Haven’t gotten to the Stand yet although everyone has told me it’s a must read of his. Will probably get it after I read Cujo.

So early 90’s is when he drops off?

I needed something while I wait for Cujo to arrive so I’ve gotten through the first 100 pages of Silence of the Lambs. Pretty good. The movie is a fairly close adaptation from what I’ve read so far. It’s a nice easy read.
Around then and progressively worse after.

Here is my theory. Many artists owe their success to both their talent as well as those around them who are able to channel the talent. Editors, publishers, agents, directors, etc. There are people who act as natural brakes and curb these artists worse tendencies.

Stephen King was an author who spent his early professional life experiencing rejection. His talent never fully embraced. He sees himself as a great author. Even when he finally gets published and starts enjoying some commercial success, critical success eludes him. This leaves him bitter and you see this bitter author character in many of his earlier novels.

But success does come. And it keeps getting bigger and bigger. And pretty soon he is successful enough to become steven king and say fuck it, I am steven king and I'll do whatever the fuck I want. And what he wants is to write big bloated bullshit. And he is successful enough to do just that and no editor is ever again going to be able to tell him to cut that 1000 page novel down to 750.

The original It and the Stand are far superior to the "author" editions. And as he gets more successful, pretty soon critical success follows and continues to drive his downward spiral.
Damn I don’t know what version of IT I read. All I know is it was like 1150 pages long.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Broken, by Don Winslow
A book of six novellas by the author of Power of the Dog. Great fun, great writing, great stories.

If you happen to be a Winslow fan and have read all his books, many characters in his previous books show up.

Highly recommended.
Last edited by seeahill on Wed May 20, 2020 4:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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King has a pretty common problem among very good but not great writers... good build up and middle but weak endings. It happens a lot with very ambitious or experimental writers who don't know in advance how they intend to wrap things up. Grant Morrison is frequently guilty of this- I enjoy the crazy hallucinogenic flights of fancy but then he crashes because he was doing something like the plot was his dreams or automatic writing so there's no elegant denouement.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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King has written over 6 novels and 200 odd short stories over the last 45 years. That's a pretty insane pace.

Tolstoy, on the other hand, only wrote 11 novels.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Quantity is not neccesarily particularly relevant to quality. I'm not saying he's bad. I'm critiquing his weak point.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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newguy wrote: Wed May 20, 2020 12:08 amHere is my theory. Many artists owe their success to both their talent as well as those around them who are able to channel the talent. Editors, publishers, agents, directors, etc. There are people who act as natural brakes and curb these artists worse tendencies.

Stephen King was an author who spent his early professional life experiencing rejection. His talent never fully embraced. He sees himself as a great author. Even when he finally gets published and starts enjoying some commercial success, critical success eludes him. This leaves him bitter and you see this bitter author character in many of his earlier novels.

But success does come. And it keeps getting bigger and bigger. And pretty soon he is successful enough to become steven king and say fuck it, I am steven king and I'll do whatever the fuck I want. And what he wants is to write big bloated bullshit. And he is successful enough to do just that and no editor is ever again going to be able to tell him to cut
Yeah: King has always needed an editor.
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Schlegel wrote: Wed May 20, 2020 3:56 amGrant Morrison is frequently guilty of this
Love Grant Morrison; but the best "episode" of every one of his story arcs, is always the penultimate one. Still love him, though.
“War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want.”
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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Just finished The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré (1977). It's the sequel to Tinker-Tailor-Soldier.

The first le Carré I've ever read. First ~50 pages or so I thought the prose was crazy; very weird style. Then I caught on or something, and was hooked. Devastating ending.

Been on a spy kick since COVID hit: movies, now a book.
“War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple remedies were within their choice. You know it and they know it, but they wanted war, and I say let us give them all they want.”
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Re: Right now I'm reading

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JimZipCode wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2020 3:40 pm
Bram wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2020 8:49 pmHalf-way through "The Blade Itself," book 1 of the First Law Trilogy. Fantasy, violence, funny, grotesque, political – about 5 stories (so far) woven together in a world of magic and horrible death.
I didn't get thru more than two chapters of The Blade Itself. My bro-in-law, whom I highly respect, gave me the trilogy one year for Christmas. It's one of those, "If you liked Song of Ice and Fire, you'll love this!" I found the comparison stupid. First couple chapters of Blade Itself read like a middle-schooler wrote them. Annoying and juvenile.

If you tell me it gets better, maybe I'll give it another chance.
I read the whole trilogy in two weeks.

I felt my review of the first half of the book (above in the quote) carried through the rest of the trilogy.

My local bookseller hooked me up with a free preview copy of "A Little Hatred." The main characters children are coming of age and it's their story, could not get into it.

Thanks Croatoa for the "dish served cold" suggestion!
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JimZipCode wrote: Thu May 21, 2020 12:01 am Just finished The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré (1977). It's the sequel to Tinker-Tailor-Soldier.

The first le Carré I've ever read. First ~50 pages or so I thought the prose was crazy; very weird style. Then I caught on or something, and was hooked. Devastating ending.

Been on a spy kick since COVID hit: movies, now a book.
They have turned Le Carré's Little Drummer Girl into a series now that my wife and I have been checking out. Also, if you haven't seen it, definitely check out The Night Manager (also Le Carré) miniseries starring Tom Hiddleston.
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Schlegel wrote: Wed May 20, 2020 5:14 am Quantity is not neccesarily particularly relevant to quality. I'm not saying he's bad. I'm critiquing his weak point.
Touche.
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JimZipCode wrote: Thu May 21, 2020 12:01 am Just finished The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré (1977). It's the sequel to Tinker-Tailor-Soldier.

The first le Carré I've ever read. First ~50 pages or so I thought the prose was crazy; very weird style. Then I caught on or something, and was hooked. Devastating ending.

Been on a spy kick since COVID hit: movies, now a book.
Ever read the Alastair Maclean books? I can’t remember what I read yesterday, but still remember the boat trip to Bear Island. No John Le Carre, but good easy reads. Ice Station Zebra. Guns of Navarone.
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