Books, books, books...

[Tanukitsune]

I just finished The Last Unicorn, I haven't seen the movie, but I did have some idea of what the book was about, but it still surprised me to see that the unicorn fell in love almost out of nowhere with Lir, then again, it's a book from the 70's so it's almost surprising they didn't fall in love instantly. 

 

But man, the part where Molly Grue meets the unicorn for the first time, that's intense. 

[TheLastBaron]

I think I'm about to embark on A Dance to the Music of Time. I don't know if I'll make it, by which I mean I'm expecting to not finish it, but if I do I'll be super psyched.

[Frenetic Pony]

So drawn in by good reviews I read Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn".

 

And after one of the worst openings I've ever read it slowly grew on me until I was reading it 4+ hours a day, the first time in several years I'd done so with a book. Devouring it I went onto the second, which was something of a large downslope.

 

Sanderson has played too many video games (Large parts of Mistborn are obviously stolen from Morrowind). All he can imagine for conflict is a never ending series of incredibly obvious and direct obstacles for our protagonists to overcome. There's no variation in pacing or tone whatsoever for the entire second novel, it's absolutely maddening by the end, near which comes a "twist" which is just a hugely built up Deux Ex Machina for yet another book in the series having yet another obstacle to overcome because, GAH!

 

I'm finding something else to read, several things in mind. At the very least it's convinced me that I can change the pacing up in my own novel. My first main character's epic journey is over, and now I recognize I don't need to drag out any new obstacles or conflict to get in his way. He can get his thing, the second part can be set up, it's fine. I'll definitely be foreshadowing the conflict of my second character now, switching to her anyway. But thank you, Sanderson, for showing me how artificial and stupid a never ending series of unfortunate events feels.

[juv3nal]

In the weird experimental lit category: Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercises_in_Style

is pretty rad.

 

It may help to have some familiarity with the Oulipo though, in that some of the styles are types of constraints:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo#Constraints

gives some of them, but the (GREAT) Oulipo Compendium has a more comprehensive listing.

[Twig]

So drawn in by good reviews I read Brandon Sanderson's "Mistborn".

Yeah my nerd friends keep telling me to read that series and I am just so not wanting to read any huge-book tons-of-world-building fantasy series again. The closest I think I'll ever get is maybe one day finishing Wheel of Time (haha! hah!) and continuing to read Discworld, which does its world-building over the course of thirty books instead of 700 pages in one book.

 

I'm still interested in reading standalone fantasy books. Or books similar to Discworld, where they take place in the same world, but aren't necessarily connected. But dang.

[Frenetic Pony]

Yeah my nerd friends keep telling me to read that series and I am just so not wanting to read any huge-book tons-of-world-building fantasy series again. The closest I think I'll ever get is maybe one day finishing Wheel of Time (haha! hah!) and continuing to read Discworld, which does its world-building over the course of thirty books instead of 700 pages in one book.

 

I'm still interested in reading standalone fantasy books. Or books similar to Discworld, where they take place in the same world, but aren't necessarily connected. But dang.

 

Yeah I definitely feel like if you're going to have a fantasy series it's got to have a clear ending in mind from the beginning. The Lord of the Ring's works because you've got your one objective for three books "throw the ring into the volcano" and it spends the entire time getting there, with no need to introduce new problems or whatever just to keep the series going. Even Harry Potter ran afoul in the middle (4 and 5) because of this, the first three felt kind of disconnected like you mentioned, but then once 4 hit it has a hard time getting into that "LOTR" mode where you've got your one clear objective "defeat Voldemort" and you work towards that.

 

I quit Malazan for the same reason, it eventually just felt like it was going for the sake of going (introducing a handful of new characters every damned book too) without ever getting anywhere. It's the same reason I don't like most TV shows, I want to feel like there's a clear story arc and people are going some place rather than just in circles, and almost every TV show out there is set up specifically to drive its characters in the same circles for as long as possible.

[melmer]

I'm about 20% into the 2nd mistborn book. I found the first quite slow (but he maybe because I read incredibly slowly sometimes only managing four pages a night before falling asleep) but the end of the first book was really good

Books in a similar vein 'the night angle trilogy' which I absolutely loved, I ate those books up in a quarter of the time that I'm getting through mistborn

------

Also separately, I heard on the radio the Morrissey has written an autobiography entitled "autobiography"

[Max Ernst]

Feel vindicated for praising Alice Munro so much in this thread because she just won a goddamn Nobel. Good for her. Absolutely deserved.

[Tanukitsune]

I just finished a short book simply called Jade, about a girl raised by a dragon, I really enjoyed it up until "the handsome prince" showed up.

 

I rolled my eyes, continued and... Huh, the ending was still satisfactory and not as forced and predicable as I thought. 

[Max Ernst]

I'm re-reading As I Lay Dying because Nabokov said you don't really read a book until you have read it twice. He is right. 

[Tanukitsune]

I just finished the second Xanth novel, Source of Magic and.. it kinda dragged in the middle and Piers Anthony is starting to seem more misogynistic that I thought and more than I'm comfortable with even though it's a book from the 70's.

 

Here's a quote from the  book: "What was the gorgon except the literal personification of the promise and threat embodied in every woman". It seems that to him, girls can be either dumb, pretty, evil or just annoying and nagging, if he's feeling generous he'll make a female character that's pretty and evil, but that's about it... :|

 

The whole quest starts because the men of the first book want to get away from their "nagging" ladies. 

 

I already bought the next book, so I hope it doesn't get any worse.

[gregbrown]

Funnily enough, the AV Club just posted a look at the series' misogyny:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/revisiting-the-sad-misogynistic-fantasy-of-xanth,104382/

[Tanukitsune]

Ugh, now I don't think I can even stomach the first book anymore... I had forgotten about a few things, probably because I didn't want to. :-(

[Ucantalas]

I just started reading Wolf Hall. So far, so good. It's been a long time since I've read something even mildly intelligent (except, I guess, the A Song of Ice and Fire books), so this feels almost refreshing to read.

As for the Xanth books, I read "A Spell for Chameleon" wayyy back in... 7th grade, I think. Maybe 8th grade. Definitely before I entered highschool. I thought it was entertaining, but I didn't notice misogynistic tones (this being entirely because I wasn't really tuned in to noticing things like that; looking back I can absolutely see it) The only reason I didn't read any more of them was that I could never find another Xanth book. The only other Piers Anthony book I was able to find in my home town was "Killobyte", which I tried multiple times to finish but simply couldn't.

[Twig]

I had a friend who liked those books, but I have vague memories of me wanting to buy a Piers Anthony book once during one of my extremely frequent trips to the book store with my mom and her talking me out of it. I don't remember why. Dodged a bullet there, huh!

[Tanukitsune]

I only discovered Xanth very late when I searched for adventure games and played Companions of Xanth, when I finally got the first book earlier this year, it did make me feel uncomfortable, but since a girl I knew from social networks well enough defended the books, I bought the next two.

 

I can't wait to read the third, since everybody has kids I bet it's going to be about motherhood and his own views on how mothers should behave.

 

I also just realized how dumb the ending of the second book is: 

The main character's power is that... nothing magical can hurt him, the power also make it's look like it's happenstance, so nobody will think of killing him with a normal sword, which is pretty hard to find in Xanth. Well... they kinda take away all the magic from the kingdom near the end, but his power brings it back... because of reasons!

 

What? So your power protects you from magic, but the moment you make magic go away it brings it back? Either your power is a sick thrill seeker or an idiot.

[osmosisch]

Man, yeah, Xanthony has not aged well at all since I read them as an impressionable teen. The Xanth books are actually a lot more restrained than some of his other series, if you'll believe it. The Geodyssey stuff is especially icky.

[feelthedarkness]

I read a few of those in late middle school/high school, but my main memory is the feeling that they were almost the exact same story over and over.

[Tanukitsune]

How so? In the "We don't need women, but we do, but we don't like them, but we do and the main character is trying so hard to not be a Mary Sue. Magic hijinx and puns ensue" sense?

[feelthedarkness]

I probably shouldn't have posted anything, as it was like 20 years ago, but the sense that there was a template for a plot arc, and each book hit the same beats at the same time, just with different names. 

[Max Ernst]

Finishing Bleeding Edge. It is a fine, fun novel, but it has less to say than some of his other works. It wonderfully details how pop culture becomes a vehicle for our understanding of ourselves and our shared experiences, and it does a great job of (as per the epigraph), making New York a character in itself. However, the book veers towards fun more than profound, and it lacks some of those passages about the human condition that makes Crying of Lot 49 one of my favourite novels. 

[Argobot]

I read Bleeding Edge immediately after reading Inherent Vice, and I think that greatly helped my opinion of the former. Neither of those books are like Crying of Lot 49, but they all contain that apocalyptic tinge that I'm starting to really love in Pynchon's writing. Of the two Bleeding Edge is much stronger, but I loved the descriptions of 1960s LA in Inherent Vice.

 

Bleeding Edge may not say anything profound about the human condition, but I think it does capture the horror of the tech culture and our modern paranoia, in this very stark, very humorous way.

[Max Ernst]

I will agree with that. Also, there is a weird, semi-racist Pokemon joke in there. Literature.

[Argobot]

If you follow me on twitter (hahah), I quoted some of the more hilarious Pynchon pop culture references. For being a nearly 80-year-old man, he sure knows a lot about Brittney Spears.

[Nappi]

Also lots of Idle Thumbs references, from the description of what is basically Gone Home gameplay to the specific mention of "idle thumbs" by a man named Shawn.