All the Literature and Reading Stuff...

[Guard Dog]

King, Cornwell, James Patterson. and other writers who spit out a novel every month are like vanilla ice cream. Nothing wrong with it. Nothing great about it either. Some examples of it are better than others but they are all sort of the same.

[Hurlshort]

Those ultra productive writers have amazing discipline, though. They are practically from another era, nowadays so many writers seem to take forever to release. It helps that you can really strike it rich with one great novel. The greats of yesteryear have to write constantly to keep food on the table.

[HoonDing]

Final Dark Tower book was the last King I read. If ever a sequel to Black House appears I'll read that one too.

[ShadySands]

I thought that some of those writers had other writers working for them to keep cranking out the sausage money books

[injurai]

I thought that some of those writers had other writers working for them to keep cranking out the sausage money books

 

I've never considered this, but I know it's true that this happens in other mediums where name recognition becomes a starter to even remain competitive. Apparently the major axis of Hollywood cinema scoring are teams of many composers who all put out under one person's name. Of course that person has ultimate creative say (if they so wish) but who knows how often they use it. Hans Zimmer has like 40 people working under him.

 

I'm pretty certain King does write like a maniac. Some of the others though I'd be less than surprised if it turned out true.

[Guard Dog]

I thought that some of those writers had other writers working for them to keep cranking out the sausage money books

 

I know Cornwell's secret. He's cutting and pasting entire chapters from one book to the next and changing a few words. I was a big fan of the Saxon and Sharpe series. In both of them book after book is essentially the same. How many times have Uthred and Harold had the exact same conversation about the Danes and about Christianity. And Sharpe, gets girl, loses girl, gets promoted loses promotion. At least that series was moving a little bit.

 

King churns out very different books at least, but there is seldom a lot to them. A few of them are pretty good, like The Stand. The others he comes up with a situation and writes a 300 page book around it. Woman & child trapped in a car by a rabid dog. Got it. That's about 50 pages of story. Now add 250 pages of filler, sell the movie rights and count your money. Vampires hiding in a new England town. Got it. Repeat. 

Edited August 6, 2017 by Guard Dog

[Guard Dog]

I finished The Dog Who Could Fly last night after Thrones. That was a great book.

[Amentep]

'Salem's Lot isn't really about Vampires hiding in a New England town, to be fair, its about how a vampire comes into a town and slowly takes it over.  Pretty exciting stuff IMO, and creepy in a number of places.  I'd rank it with the best of his novels I've read.

 

Never read Cujo, though, as it it seemed to be a message book about vaccinating animals wrapped up with some scares of a being preyed upon by an animal and the usual King look at small town characters / life and that just didn't appeal to me.

[Heijoushin]

Also reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King. I know I throw a lot of shade his way when it come to the quality of his writing. But this story is so unusual I thought I might give it another try. So I checked the whole series out of the library. One thing I do have to admire though is the opening line of the first novella: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." That is brilliant. In one sentence, the FIRST sentence he introduces the antagonist, protagonist, central conflict and setting of a very complex story. And he does it in just 12 words. 

 

Yeah, the first gunslinger novel was nice and concise. But later books fell into Wheel of Time / Fantasy Must be Longwinded syndrome (Note how the books keep getting thicker in that series) and I lost interest.

 

Also, color me amused that Guard Dog recommends The Dog Who Could Fly  

Edited August 10, 2017 by Heijoushin

[Guard Dog]

 

Also reading The Dark Tower by Stephen King. I know I throw a lot of shade his way when it come to the quality of his writing. But this story is so unusual I thought I might give it another try. So I checked the whole series out of the library. One thing I do have to admire though is the opening line of the first novella: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." That is brilliant. In one sentence, the FIRST sentence he introduces the antagonist, protagonist, central conflict and setting of a very complex story. And he does it in just 12 words. 

 

Yeah, the first gunslinger novel was nice and concise. But later books fell into Wheel of Time / Fantasy Must be Longwinded syndrome (Note how the books keep getting thicker in that series) and I lost interest.

 

Also, color me amused that Guard Dog recommends The Dog Who Could Fly  

 

  I'm a sucker for books about dogs. That has nothing to do with my screen name though. That is an amusing story (IMO) that goes back to the big arguments over Bioware using forum members names in game as characters.

 

Now reading The Drawing of the Three, the second book.  Does King use LSD? This whole story seems like an acid trip. I still haven't decided if I like it or not. 

[LittleRose]

I've just realised, I've been so busy discovering other genres during the past years that I've let my favorite down. I've fallen behind on reading high fantasy! How could I? That's never happened before. I couldn't recommend anybody a newer series to save my life.

5 books to go before I may start a new series. Excuse me. I really need to get some reading time today. No surprise I'm so bored these days, the lighter stuff isn't doing it anymore. I need more complex new worlds and magical adventures to experience.

[Guard Dog]

I've just realised, I've been so busy discovering other genres during the past years that I've let my favorite down. I've fallen behind on reading high fantasy! How could I? That's never happened before. I couldn't recommend anybody a newer series to save my life.

5 books to go before I may start a new series. Excuse me. I really need to get some reading time today. No surprise I'm so bored these days, the lighter stuff isn't doing it anymore. I need more complex new worlds and magical adventures to experience.

If you have an Amazon Kindle (or the app) and have signed up for Kindle Unlimited you can read this one for free:

 

 

It has a "Planescape" thing going. I'm not a big fan of fantasy writing because with a few notable exceptions it's so unoriginal. This one does not really buck that trend but it's better than most I've tried to choke down. And it is free, so there's that.

[Raithe]

 

I've just realised, I've been so busy discovering other genres during the past years that I've let my favorite down. I've fallen behind on reading high fantasy! How could I? That's never happened before. I couldn't recommend anybody a newer series to save my life.

5 books to go before I may start a new series. Excuse me. I really need to get some reading time today. No surprise I'm so bored these days, the lighter stuff isn't doing it anymore. I need more complex new worlds and magical adventures to experience.

If you have an Amazon Kindle (or the app) and have signed up for Kindle Unlimited you can read this one for free:

 

 

It has a "Planescape" thing going. I'm not a big fan of fantasy writing because with a few notable exceptions it's so unoriginal. This one does not really buck that trend but it's better than most I've tried to choke down. And it is free, so there's that.

 

 

Sometimes there is a joy to a fun cliche / stereotype full story. That's one of the useful things about Kindle Unlimited, there might be a lot of garbage to wade through but there can be some gems found.  Although I'll admit, I do have a bit of a weakness for some of those "cheesily bad / mary sue-ish" stories that are both badly written but have a few interesting ideas.

[majestic]

Now reading The Drawing of the Three, the second book.  Does King use LSD? This whole story seems like an acid trip. I still haven't decided if I like it or not. 

 

Well he sure did use drugs so much that he ended up not knowing what he wrote sometimes but according to his own words he used Bolivian marching powder, not acid.

[the_dog_days]

 

Now reading The Drawing of the Three, the second book. Does King use LSD? This whole story seems like an acid trip. I still haven't decided if I like it or not.

Well he sure did use drugs so much that he ended up not knowing what he wrote sometimes but according to his own words he used Bolivian marching powder, not acid.

True story, Frank Herbert used amphetamines which is why his books got less and less coherent over the course of his life.

[LittleRose]

Thank you, Raithe, but I don't have a kindle. I've chosen another brand of e-reader, so I'm not bound to one store.

[Gfted1]

True story, Frank Herbert used amphetamines which is why his books got less and less coherent over the course of his life.

I didn't know that. Aside, I just Googled pictures of Frank Herbert "young" and "old" and he doesn't seems to have suffered the "Meth, not even once" body decay at all. I wonder what gives?

[Malcador]

Shame his son was on The Bad Stuff then

[the_dog_days]

 

True story, Frank Herbert used amphetamines which is why his books got less and less coherent over the course of his life.

I didn't know that. Aside, I just Googled pictures of Frank Herbert "young" and "old" and he doesn't seems to have suffered the "Meth, not even once" body decay at all. I wonder what gives?

Amphetamines and methamphetamines are two different things (amphetamine use is rampant in the MLB). Some authors believe that using drugs helps them write better.

[majestic]

Wouldn't know about better but amphetamines probably help them write a lot of stuff in a short time. Someone give GRRM some ADHD medication plx. =)

[Raithe]

Heh, Baen have put out a flow chart to help people get into the Honor Harrington series.

 

[Malcador]

Milking that. Hm reminds me to check up on Kloos even if the series is getting more boring (yay for the badass grizzled MoH winning NCO...)

[the_dog_days]

I was about to say that my favorite David Webber books are the Hammer's Slammers series, but that's David Drake.

[Guard Dog]

I've been looking for this book for a long time. Amazon kept saying they had sellers with used copies, I'd order it then get the "We're sorry but..." email. But I found it on ebay. You gotta love ebay.

 

 

It covers the story of the Panthers from expansion to the '96 Stanley Cup. Fortunately it stops there because it was all downhill after that!

 

Also reading:

 

 

This one has been on my to-do list for a long time.

[Hawke64]

Slowly reading through my backlog on Humble Bundle. Currently at "City of the Saints" by DJ Butler. Looks like steampunk/western.