While picking up Blue Man Group's The Complex (after waiting two months for what was supposed to arrive in two weeks), I took the opportunity to visit Kinokuniya and grabbed two volumes of Astro City by Kurt Busiek. To be precise, Life in the Big City and Local Heroes, since those were the only two I could find.

Now, people familiar with me might remember that I have what is probably a low opinion of a lot of superhero comics out today, largely because they are too angsty, or too silly. It's as though there's no real middle ground: either the character is navel-gazing about What It Means To Be A Superhero and ending up with the conclusion that Everything Sucks and suchlike, or they're bouncing off and breaking the fourth wall and generally making it very difficult to concentrate on the story rather than the style.

I've heard good things about Astro City, however, so I'm hoping that this won't be a wasted purchase. I'm not sure why it doesn't seem possible for the major superheroes to go through life without their writers dumping on them. Maybe I'm not part of the market; I dunno.

(Also, why do hero vs hero fights always seem like they're actually between very dangerous eight-year olds? Have these people not heard of negotiation and compromise?)

Tags: books, ramblings, sad excuse for a life

From selecasharp:

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish/haven't finished, and strike through what you couldn't stand. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book."

Like her, I wish this list included authors.

( The list.Collapse )

Apparently not only am I well-read, I don't even like most of what I read.

Tags: books, survey

Sauron wants the One Ring to rule over Middle-Earth.

The questions are: how, and why?

"How" has to deal with the nature of the One Ring, which, apart from its allure of power and nigh-indestructibility and uniqueness, is also, nevertheless, a ring, as in a toroid meant to be worn around a finger.

Sauron is an eyeball. Flaming and massive (perhaps massively flaming), but still an eyeball. Eyeballs have no fingers.

"Why" is more a question of logistics and strategy. Sauron and Saruman have what looks like an immense army, as well as the potential (wastefully squandered) for a network of spies (see Grima Wormtongue). Battles between the Free Races and Sauron's army inevitably come down to the wire, unless one side overwhelmingly outnumbers the other. And Saruman appears able to churn out Uruk-Hai at an industrial capacity.

It's not like the men and elves and dwarves can send Bothan spies into Mordor willy-nilly, as one does not simply walk in there. Mordor (and Isengard) is thoroughly fogged with war.

Therefore, why the bother with the One Ring when Sauron can patiently bide his time and build up a force to overrun Middle-Earth? Warfare and the act of gearing up thereof tends to increase the pace of technological advancements, such as the genetic manipulations inherent in the creation of the Uruk-Hai.

I'm sure there are non-meta reasons given in the books, but not actually having the books with me, I have to ask.

Tags: books, question

Is there any particular reason why The Sword of Shannara reads like a sort of abridged The Fellowship Of The Ring? Or am I merely too early on in the book?

Tags: books

Obtained from the local Borders:

The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks - based on recommendations in the previous entry.

Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman - based on various recommendations around the CoH/V communities (official boards and LJ comm) to be "perfect for CoH/V players". (Yes, there are dissenting opinions. I will keep them in mind when reading.)


Considering:

Sir Apropos Of Nothing, Peter David - based on having read about this book from somewhere I can't quite recall, but Googling for reviews resulted in a few positive ones. I'm not sure if it's to my tastes, though, since the protagonist was described as being rather a jerk.

Temeraire/His Majesty's Dragon, Naomi Novik - can't find it in Borders. From the Wiki description, it looks like something focusing largely on a European theatre of war, with mention of something from the Far East. It won't be any fault of the books, but I'll probably not enjoy it as much as I could, mainly with the little niggling voice in my head going "but they could have focused more on China".


Any comments or further recommendations?

Tags: books

I've not had much luck tapping into the Collective Wisdom of the LJ friendslist, but this topic is oddly one of those with a success rate. Not a very good success rate, but that success rate exists nonetheless.

Anyway. I'd like a book recommendation for a 30-hour flight. (Actually it's about 25 hours, and I may spend some of that asleep, but I like to be safe.)

I read somewhere around a hundred pages an hour, so this would work out to be 3,000 pages worth of story. Therefore, I expect that it would turn out to be several books, which might make it easier, or maybe more difficult. I do need to have it all fit nicely inside a bag (easily stowable in the aircraft cabin), so Big Hardcovers are not a good idea.

Preferably I have not read these books before.

As for taste, I think that Terry Pratchett is the best writer EVER, so extrapolate from there. (I've read every single Discworld book out right now, except for the Science of Discworld books apart from the first. I've also read pretty much everything else Pterry wrote.) The books should not be weighted down with Angst and Drama, but should preferably not be so whimsical as to have next to no substance.

One of the most irritating trends I've noticed in a lot of fiction these days is the Gratuitous Erotic Scene. I won't immediately discount a book with one (or several), but I will be skipping over those pages anyway, which would compound the "not enough reading material" problem.

Genre preferences go in order of: science fiction, urban fantasy, high fantasy, mystery. Don't be too hung up on these, since I'll pretty much be willing to read anything except horror and romance.

I might clarify some more preferences later, but for now, do please recommend, or I'll end up reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon for the sixth time.

EDIT: Authors I like and have read most of:

Terry Pratchett, Discworld series - My absolute favourite series of books.

Jim Butcher, Dresden Files series - I appreciate the irreverent main character, but occasionally feel frustrated by his hard-headedness. Also, there's the occasional "Harry hasn't gotten Any in a long time" scene, which is always interrupted, but nevertheless tiringly jarring.

Neil Gaiman - After American Gods, Anansi Boys, Neverwhere, and Stardust, I don't think he's written any more prose novels yet. (Oh, and Good Omens.)

Neal Stephenson - Some very nice concepts, with a snarky turn of phrase, but the endings frequently need work. Also, I think I've read most of his solo works already. (Cryptonomicon, Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, all of The Baroque Cycle, and two collaborative works, Interface and The Cobweb.)

Isaac Asimov - Thoroughly entertaining, but I think I've read all his books already. At least, I've not seen a novel on the bookstore shelves that I've never read before several times.


Authors I have been told I really should check out:

Terry Brooks - The Sword of Shannara series had been recommended to me a few years back, and I've just never gotten around to steeling myself for an unbiased read.

Robert Jordan - I've been told that the Wheel Of Time series is AWESOME and such. I grabbed The Eye Of The World, and was almost immediately put off by how heavy the prose was. It was like reading Lord Of The Rings without the lighthearted wacky fun. I don't know if it gets better.

Tags: books, question

Unlike most people who watch the movie and then rant about it, I read the movie novelization and then rant about it.

( Spoilers.Collapse )

All in all, pretty much the sort of story which I'd expect from a movie aimed at action and special effects and not much plot. It's probably not as mindless eye-candy as Advent Children, but it's not going to win any story awards either.

Tags: books, review

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Douglas Hofstadter) (wiki) has to be one of the best books I've ever read, in terms of how much it made me think, and enjoy thinking.

However, one drawback (if it can be said to be thus) is that since the book deals with fairly complicated topics (about little things we take for granted), the language used is fairly esoteric. It's as if someone is trying to explain mathematics without using numbers. (Which the book actually tries to do at certain points.)

I'm taking my time with this book, trying to grok everything I can before moving on. Even at just Chapter 4, I've gotten plenty of new insights and ideas. Most of them, I must admit, are in the geeky-dorky sense of "Wow, now I can attempt to write some logical paradoxes and ideas into Clow Reed's mouth..."

For example, take a ciphered sentence: "THIS IS A HIDDEN MESSAGE". (Using the Alphabet Cipher/Vigenere Cipher for illustration purposes, "VVLWKGDLKRGIPAHWUOJI" with the key "CODE".) Now, "VVLWKGDLKRGIPAHWUOJI" is, indeed, a hidden message. However, once someone decodes it, it is no longer a hidden message, since it's now out in the open for the person reading it. But unless the message is decoded, nobody's going to know what it actually says, and so it's not much of a message, hidden or otherwise.

In other words, this is a hidden message that only works when nobody is looking.

It's the little things like this which make me happy.

Tags: books, geb, geekery
Apparently now I am: content

Operative word being "trying". Because damn it's painful.

Thus far I'm amusing myself by summarizing the passages I read in my head, and translating them into something a bit more readable. For example:

And Manwë said unto Melkor: "This kingdom thou shalt not take for thine own, wrongfully, for many others have laboured here no less than thou." And then there was strife between Melkor and the other Valar; and for that time Melkor withdrew and departed to other regions and did there what he would; but he did not put the desire of the Kingdom of Arda from his heart.

Translation:
Manwë: "Dude, you're not being a team player. Don't make me have to bitchslap you."
Melkor: "Screw you guys, I'm going home."

Tags: books

I want to get Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 and sequels novels, but I'm not sure if I should be buying them or borrowing them from the library. Borrowing is obviously cheaper, but since I have never actually used Teh American Library System before, I'm not sure if I need some form of ID to check out books. For some reason I don't think a passport counts.

Also, I'm not sure if the undergrad library has Clarke, and other than that I have no idea where the nearest library is. (I know roughly the location of a not-so-near library, but...)

Looking at my book collection (not counting manga), I have everything from straight sci-fi to sci-fantasy to high fantasy to not-so-high fantasy to urban fantasy to cyberpunk to geek to media tie-ins, and the one book that can be vaguely considered mainstream and not part of the SF&F section is Nabakov's Lolita.

Unless you count the other "classics" I have of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (sci-fi), the folk legend Beowulf (arguably fantasy), and Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court (also arguably fantasy). I may have missed others, I can't remember.

Which brings me to a question: what exactly is "mainstream fiction", anyway? Because I get the feeling that whatever books I have, they are not it.

Tags: books, notes to self