Gfted1 Posted December 12, 2022 Share Posted December 12, 2022 New D&D Movie Novel Prequel Sets the Stage for Chris Pine's Bard (gizmodo.com) "I'm your biggest fan, Ill follow you until you love me, Papa" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcador Posted January 3, 2023 Share Posted January 3, 2023 Finished Centers of Gravity by Kloos. Disappointment, but was to be expected. Seems Kloos just wanted this series over with, the ending with the cavalry coming to save the day and happy endings all around, hah. Series started well, weird jingoism and blatant references aside, really dipped around book 3 or 4. Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartimaeus Posted January 16, 2023 Share Posted January 16, 2023 Mr. Lovecraft sure had a way with words: The Festival, my discovery courtesy of the game Signalis. Quote How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart. In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted February 5, 2023 Share Posted February 5, 2023 On 1/16/2023 at 9:36 PM, Bartimaeus said: Mr. Lovecraft sure had a way with words And an absolute tin ear when it comes to dialogue. But to be fair, I think he recognized it himself. (The reason may have been autobiographical: too much of a loner.) Currently reading God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. It's ok, but not one of his best. Some of his trademarks sometimes look like mannerisms; for instance, he likes to front nouns (persons, books, events, etc.) by two (not one, not three) adjectives, as in "the deplorable and untrustworthy Bill Clinton", and so on. It gets tiresome after a while. I also disagree with him at least in the sense that one thing religion does not poison is church architecture. It wouldn't exist without religion, and it is often quite exquisite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uuuhhii Posted February 22, 2023 Share Posted February 22, 2023 the grim company author are trying too hard with some character cole get a pretty good story arc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bartimaeus Posted March 14, 2023 Share Posted March 14, 2023 Peter Pan and the Starcatchers (2004). I recently read and enjoyed the original Peter Pan (or Peter and Wendy, its proper title), so I thought I would try the next one in the series. I did not know or notice that this was not the same author or made even remotely in the same time period as the original. It's effectively a competent but quite lame direct-to-DVD prequel in classic early 2000s Disney fashion, except it's a book instead of a movie. It's also literally authored by Disney - apparently, they let a bunch of people write what was essentially a pilot chapter, picked what they liked best and rejected the rest, then let their choice of author write five milquetoast Peter Pan books. I do not recommend. Quote How I have existed fills me with horror. For I have failed in everything - spelling, arithmetic, riding, tennis, golf; dancing, singing, acting; wife, mistress, whore, friend. Even cooking. And I do not excuse myself with the usual escape of 'not trying'. I tried with all my heart. In my dreams, I am not crippled. In my dreams, I dance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted May 17, 2023 Share Posted May 17, 2023 Currently reading El hombre que amaba a los perros (that would be The Man Who Loved Dogs in English), by the Cuban author Leonardo Padura. Looks excellent so far, and I highly recommend it to anyone who can find it in a suitable language. Also pertinent to these times, as the book deals with Trotsky's exile, his murderer, the Spanish Civil War, the Communist Cuba, and so on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uuuhhii Posted May 22, 2023 Share Posted May 22, 2023 (edited) Chronicles of the Black Gate extremely boring stereotypical setup of orc vs human iskra the most disgusting insufferable delusional hypocritical and idiotic main character get everything they wanted at the end asho is only slightly less disgusting most character are authoritarian bootlicker no matter how many times they prove they are wrong it maybe intentionally writen to show the limit of their environment but author are too incompetent to make it work or maybe author want to write some kind of bitter tragedy it is all so disappointing not a trilogy that worth waste any time on Edited June 16, 2023 by uuuhhii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted July 19, 2023 Share Posted July 19, 2023 Brief Candle in the Dark by Richard Dawkins; the second part of his memoirs. The name refers both to Shakespeare (obviously) and Carl Sagan's rather wonderful book on science. Dawkins is a good writer, although I agree with Neil deGrasse Tyson in that his confrontational style is not optimal for delivering the message he intends. Interestingly, Dawkins acknowledges the problem in this very book, but I don't think he really gets it, because I haven't noticed anything changing. For someone who's read Dawkins's earlier, more scientific works, the memoir is likely to appear a bit repetitive, because in going through what he has done in his life he will obviously talk about some of the content of what he has written. I didn't mind. What I did mind, a bit, was his all-too-frequent use of hyperbole to describe various people in his life. I don't deny that they are surely intelligent and capable, being famous scientists, Nobel prize winners and so on, but the superlatives do get a bit heavy no matter how justified they ostensibly are. Anyway, a good book, and I would recommend it. Dawkins clearly has a great love for poetry, and his taste appears quite refined, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromnir Posted September 6, 2023 Share Posted September 6, 2023 am not a stephen king fan, but after not liking a couple o' his novels, we discovered we enjoyed more than one o' his short stories. in any event, we won't be reading the new king novel, but we thought the rolling stone article were interesting. HA! Good Fun! "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) "Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurlshort Posted September 6, 2023 Share Posted September 6, 2023 15 hours ago, Gromnir said: am not a stephen king fan, but after not liking a couple o' his novels, we discovered we enjoyed more than one o' his short stories. in any event, we won't be reading the new king novel, but we thought the rolling stone article were interesting. HA! Good Fun! Stephen King is amazingly prolific, though. I mean, his writing discipline is basically unmatched in this generation. It may not all be Shakespeare, (which is a misnomer, since Shakespeare actually did write quite a bit of average crowd pleasers in between the classics) but I definitely admire the work ethic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 On 9/6/2023 at 7:06 PM, Hurlshort said: Stephen King is amazingly prolific, though. I mean, his writing discipline is basically unmatched in this generation. It may not all be Shakespeare, (which is a misnomer, since Shakespeare actually did write quite a bit of average crowd pleasers in between the classics) but I definitely admire the work ethic. What about Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Cartland, R. L. Stine, Lauran Paine or Ryoki Inoue, for starters, when it comes to being prolific? There is no question that King is prolific, but calling him unmatched is not really justified. (James Patterson doesn't count because he doesn't write his own books.) Which Shakespeare works would you regard as average crowd pleasers? I mean, The Two Gentlemen of Verona is not very good, but as it was his first, it wasn't written between the classics. For me, The Taming of the Shrew would definitely qualify, but as you said "quite a bit", I wonder if you could specify at least some of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 On 9/6/2023 at 3:56 AM, Gromnir said: in any event, we won't be reading the new king novel, but we thought the rolling stone article were interesting. Thanks for the link! It was interesting, you're quite right. I have to say that towards the end, he was unintentionally being extremely funny, in my view. I mean this: "It’s like the difference between Budweiser and some generic beer. So both of them get you a little bit tingly, but it ain’t the same." If you asked me to name the most generic beer imaginable, my immediate response would be Budweiser, so King sounds hilarious here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
majestic Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 It happens every now and then that posts repeat on the forum after a while, but it seldom does within the same thread. 7 hours ago, xzar_monty said: What about Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Cartland, R. L. Stine, Lauran Paine or Ryoki Inoue, for starters, when it comes to being prolific? There is no question that King is prolific, but calling him unmatched is not really justified. (James Patterson doesn't count because he doesn't write his own books.) Although, well, this particular thread is a little long in the tooth, so that explains it, I guess. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 6 minutes ago, majestic said: It happens every now and then that posts repeat on the forum after a while, but it seldom does within the same thread. Ha! Well remembered indeed. (I certainly didn't remember.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hurlshort Posted September 20, 2023 Share Posted September 20, 2023 Hah, and I never responded originally, so I guess I can do it now. @xzar_montyI don't mean to take anything away from those other authors. I'd still argue that King has the edge, since his work has had the most exposure of the group, but it is definitely worthy of debate. As for the Shakespeare comment, it was made a bit flippantly, but I was pulling from what I remember from college, and that was 25 years ago, so forgive me. Looking at the list of plays, I'd say his shift to darker tragicomedies after Queen Elizabeth was what I meant as trying to please the crowd. Honestly I'm not familiar enough with his 37 (38?) plays to really speak on them all. I only know the hits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromnir Posted September 21, 2023 Share Posted September 21, 2023 4 hours ago, majestic said: It happens every now and then that posts repeat on the forum after a while, but it seldom does within the same thread. gonna disagree. happens often. am personal extreme consistent and have used the simpsons clip for king more than once. how many times in the wotr thread(s) did we make functional identical posts, particular when responding to complaints about poe and deadfire o' all things. were same complaints, so same response. if there is a a crpg romance discussion and Gromnir makes the bad choice to respond, you will once again get our views on bg2 romances and ravel from ps:t. same bat time... hans blix, crt, free speech in europe, etc. y'know how often we invoke groundhog day on this board? sure, once we used a clip to show the curious physical and behavioral similarities 'tween ned ryerson and gordon sondland but that were an exception to our typical invocation o' the film. am having observed, more than once, most o' our posts qualify as spam. the terrible reality is, if you got a good enough memory, you will not be shocked by how often the exact same conversations occur, sometimes only months apart. recommendation: roll with it. HA! Good Fun! 1 "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) "Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted September 21, 2023 Share Posted September 21, 2023 7 hours ago, Hurlshort said: @xzar_montyI don't mean to take anything away from those other authors. I'd still argue that King has the edge, since his work has had the most exposure of the group, but it is definitely worthy of debate. As for the Shakespeare comment, it was made a bit flippantly, but I was pulling from what I remember from college, and that was 25 years ago, so forgive me. Looking at the list of plays, I'd say his shift to darker tragicomedies after Queen Elizabeth was what I meant as trying to please the crowd. Honestly I'm not familiar enough with his 37 (38?) plays to really speak on them all. I only know the hits. Well, surely King's exposure has little to do with how prolific he is, right? I mean, J. D. Salinger has huge exposure and it's all based on just the one book. Your original point was that King's writing discipline is unmatched in this generation. But it's not. He sure is prolific, no question, but he is not unmatched. As for exposure, let us just keep in mind that Barbara Cartland, for instance, has sold more than twice the amount of books that King has. We know very, very little about the life of Shakespeare -- that's why there is, for instance, no definite biography available, or even much of a biography at all. We have no grounds to say just about anything about the reasons Shakespeare wrote any of his stuff; whether there was an attempt to please the crowd or whatever. This stuff surely cannot be deduced from the texts alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcador Posted September 28, 2023 Share Posted September 28, 2023 Got the novelizations of Ep 1 to 3, good to read during meetings at work. Decent enough books, the novelizations of AOTC is a bit better than the film, RoTS' novelization is much better - Anakin turning makes a smidge more sense. Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted September 28, 2023 Share Posted September 28, 2023 Reading the Lord of the Rings in Spanish, just to improve my skills. Every reference to Anduin as "El Río Grande" feels so wrong, even though the translation from English ("The Great River") is accurate. The translator should surely have used an adjective other than "Grande". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melkathi Posted September 28, 2023 Share Posted September 28, 2023 Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand Just like that river twisting through a dusty land And when she shines, she really shows you all she can Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande I guess that is a bad translation back to English from Spanish and the original song lyrics were Her name is An and she dances on the sand Just like that river twisting through a dusty land And when she shines, she really shows you all she can Oh An, An dance across the Anduin ? Unobtrusively informing you about my new ebook (which you should feel free to read and shower with praise). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xzar_monty Posted October 3, 2023 Share Posted October 3, 2023 Mary V. Dearborn's newish biography of Ernest Hemingway. An endlessly fascinating, horribly troubled charcter whose family tree is a sorry picture of bipolar disorder, depression, tormented sexuality and suicide. I agree with Dearborn that the work most likely to survive are the short stories and The Sun Also Rises, with some minor additions to that. Dearborn's focus is on how such a talented person started to have his life go so wrong so early and why he died so young. Good stuff with wonderful photos I hadn't seen before; the one with Marlene Dietrich is particularly charming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadySands Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 All the WoT talk in the TV thread reminded me that I have like 2 books in Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series to read still. 3 Free games updated 3/4/21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azdeus Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 @Bartimaeus@Sarex Did either of you two read either the Deverry or Paksenarrion series? Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InsaneCommander Posted October 21, 2023 Share Posted October 21, 2023 18 hours ago, ShadySands said: All the WoT talk in the TV thread reminded me that I have like 2 books in Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series to read still. I still have to read The Last Metal and the secret novels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now