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Food, movie, music & literature thread
August 15th 2007, 21:26 CEST by assemblerer Let's discuss which Indiana Jones movie is the best (for the seventy-second time), which music you hate (along with seldom TOP N lists), which books made you nerdier and which carbohydrates taste better. Also, this would be the place to moan about the lack of PCwrite. |
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Topic: Food, movie, music & literature thread
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Fuck Altered Carbon anyway. Market Forces, now that would make for a fucking awesome movie. |
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#3954 by gaggle and all that whodunnit hooey. I.. er.. Wha.. Really? But... Hang o.. * BRAIN EXPLODES * |
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Cleanup in aisle four! "GUY WHO OUTRANKS YOU: Take Superfly here and reconfooble the energymotron."
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Book 13 of 30 (I'm fucked): JR by William Gaddis. Good, though a bit hard to read. |
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I have that. Haven't read it yet because I started The Recognitions and only got about a third through it before I put it down and eventually forgot all about it. It's on my shelf here, so I do plan to get back to it. What I read was good but, like you said, a bit of a chore. I survived Moby Dick though; this should be nothing. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY :)" - FoRmaT
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I also have A Frolic of His Own by Gaddis. Three books by the man and I haven't finished a one. This one is much easier to read because it's almost entirely dialogue. It's like reading a play without the stage directions. But good. I don't remember why I stopped reading it. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY :)" - FoRmaT
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I've read Frolic. I think it was easier to read than JR, but I liked the latter more. |
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Book 14 of 30: The Terminal Beach by J. G. Ballard. (Heh, check out the publication year on this one.) It didn't really grab me for all the praise lavished upon it. |
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Book 15 of 30: Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. It was OK, but I expected more after Market Forces. |
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Really? I loved Altered Carbon. Haven't read Market Forces yet though, so maybe it's a comparative thing. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Book 16 of 30: Szpital Przemienienia (Hospital of the Transfiguration) by Stanisław Lem. Unusually form Lem, this is not SF, but a story of a young doctor working in an inasne asylum in Nazi-occupied Poland. It was okay. |
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I don't know what number I'm on offhand, but I read Bonk which is a mediocre look at scientific studies of sex, and Appoloosa, a western by the always fabulous Robert B Parker. Which reminds me, are you reviewing Bonk this week Jamie? I'd hate to have people read two reviews of that thing. |
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#3964 by Shadarr Really? I loved Altered Carbon. Haven't read Market Forces yet though, so maybe it's a comparative thing. Actually it was better than okay. I guess I expected it to be superawesome. |
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Market Forces was Morgan's weakest book. Actually, second weakest. My least favourite Morgan book was Black Man. |
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Market Forces was Morgan's strongest book, if only because the setting wasn't a tired old cliche. But then again, I'm not a fan of detective novels, and many are. |
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Book 14: The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. So David Foster Wallace is dead. Hung himself. He is/was one of my favorite authors. Back in highschool I was looking for a new book among the new releases rack at Books A Million and I picked up Infinite Jest. The cover and title attracted me and the blurb sounded interesting and I did my usual thing of flipping to a random page and reading a few paragraphs and liked what I read, so I picked it up. And it was fantastic. I read it twice. Since then I've read all his other books except A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, of which I've only read a few essays. His books helped shape who I am. I am very depressed by this news. The Confusion is a lot stronger than Quicksilver. It has some very well done action/adventure sequences and characters have actual motivations for things, whereas in the previous book they just kind of stumbled around. It keeps the trend of randomly explaining tedium in detail while skipping large amounts of time and events of massive importance. For example, spoilers, about half of Jack's portion of the book is given over to his escape from slavery by means of the theft of a large amount of gold and his escaping punishment for this crime. Then he loses all the gold between chapters. Whatever Stephenson was going for with things like that, it failed. The ending provides a decent setup for the final book though. I've been 100 pages from finishing The Confusion since I left my job almost four weeks ago. After reading about David Foster Wallace tonight I finished the book in two sittings. So now I can read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again in full. That will be book 15. "That's not to say that games shouldn't have stories, I just think the story should be the player's story, and find more ways to celebrate and promote that, rather than the game designer's story that you're imposing upon them." - Will Wright
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#3970 by BobJustBob So David Foster Wallace is dead. Hung himself. He is/was one of my favorite authors. Back in highschool I was looking for a new book among the new releases rack at Books A Million and I picked up Infinite Jest. Bummer. I liked Infinite Jest, and he's written some amazing articles for Rolling Stone and Esquire. |
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Oops, didn't know this thread was still going. #3966 by jjohnsen Which reminds me, are you reviewing Bonk this week Jamie? I'd hate to have people read two reviews of that thing. I haven't reviewed it on my blog yet, but you can read my review on Goodreads.com or the QT3 52-in-52 thread. #3970 by BobJustBob Book 14: The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. So was it a step up from Quicksilver? I hated Quicksilver, but people tell me the 2nd and 3rd books are better. I've added Infinite Jest to my queue. blog | photoblog | PlanetCrap Flickr group
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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So was it a step up from Quicksilver? The Confusion is a lot stronger than Quicksilver. Hmm. "That's not to say that games shouldn't have stories, I just think the story should be the player's story, and find more ways to celebrate and promote that, rather than the game designer's story that you're imposing upon them." - Will Wright
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I CAN'T READ! blog | photoblog | PlanetCrap Flickr group
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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It's BACON! Funk. |
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Salt? MP3 Of The Week: Alton Ellis - Bless You.mp3 (?)
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Book 17 of 30: Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. Good reading. |
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Great book once you get your head around the phonetic spelling. I love Banks' SF work. "I buy Captain Crunch because I like a man in uniform." - BobJustBob
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I'm sure G-Man will tell us how crappy it is. I've got a few more of his books lined up, I hope they're as good. The funny spelling doesn't seem really justified, does it? |
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Not really, no. If I remember rightly he never gives much reason for it other than "Bascule is a bit odd". I particularly enjoyed Excession and The Player Of Games, but by and large his standard is pretty high. If I hadn't been playing games so much recently I'd have finished Matter by now. It's alright, nothing spectacular. "I buy Captain Crunch because I like a man in uniform." - BobJustBob
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I could never get to grips with Feersum Endjinn and I'm a huge Banks fan (both with and without the M). It wasn't even the phonetic bits, that was just something you had to get used to and later on I found them easier going than the rest, it just didn't click for me overall. Excession is also probably my favourite, I'm a sucker for the Minds doing their thing so an entire book of it was lots of fun. Matter was... okay I suppose, nothing outstanding by Banks's standard but fairly solid. MP3 Of The Week: Alton Ellis - Bless You.mp3 (?)
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BTW, does it help to read the Culture books in order or are they independent of each other? |
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They're all independent. Usually the Player Of Games is cited as the best place to start as an introduction to the ways of the Culture, but jumping in anywhere works too. MP3 Of The Week: Alton Ellis - Bless You.mp3 (?)
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I read Consider Phlebas first, years and years ago, and didn't really like it. I should probably give it another go, I think it's the only Culture novel I don't own. Dumdeedum (#3981): Excession is also probably my favourite, I'm a sucker for the Minds doing their thing so an entire book of it was lots of fun. Yes. Moat.
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#3981 by Dumdeedum Excession is also probably my favourite, I'm a sucker for the Minds doing their thing so an entire book of it was lots of fun. Matter was... okay I suppose, nothing outstanding by Banks's standard but fairly solid. I agree completely. Just finished those two. Excession was brilliant! |
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Fucking hell, are we reaching some sort of accord? On PlanetCrap?? Moat.
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We should start an Excession fan club or something. We could dress up as spaceships and go to Sci-Fi conventions and run around: "I'm a Mind, pew pew! pew pew!" |
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I'm almost done with Cujo by Stephen King. It's boring. I'm a King fanboy, but this is the first of his early stuff that I've read that I didn't like. Demonically possessed cars and little girls that can blow stuff up by glaring at it and guys that can read your mind by touching you and haunted hotels that drive people into homicidal maniacs? That's the early Stephen King I've enjoyed so far. This is just a stupid dog. blog | photoblog | PlanetCrap Flickr group
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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I think Cujo is the only King I didn't read twice as a teenager. |
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I had to clean out my old room in my mothers house and I found a treasure trove of old books not in print anymore. I am re-reading several now. It's fun to see how the fantasy genre has matured since 20 years ago. And how immature it still remains. Funk. |
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How has it matured? Don't say more vampires. The only "vintage" fantasy I've tried to read outside of Tolkien is the first of Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series. I liked Covenant as a character (cranky leper inside whose diseased head this whole fantasy epic may be happening), but the fantasy world was just unbearably trite and cliche. I only finished the first book so I could write a bad review of it. blog | photoblog | PlanetCrap Flickr group
"It was a little hard to tell how bad I was bleeding on account of the salsa" -- Jibble |
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Funkdrunk (#3990): I had to clean out my old room in my mothers house and I found a treasure trove of old books not in print anymore. List some titles, don't leave us hanging. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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I spent a lot of time reading books that re-told norse mythology. So I found the Twilight of the Gods trilogy by Dennis Schmidt. I found Song of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Valkyrie by Thorarinn Gunnarsson, and the Vidar trilogy by Michael Jan Friedman. I also found my old Infocom books, like Enchanter by Robin Bailey, and my Ultima books by Lynn Abbey. I also found my Piers Anthony collection, my Dragonlance collection, my Dennis McKiernan books, my Raymond Fiest books, my Amber series from Zelanzy (along with many non-amber books, like Dilvish the Damned and Jack of Shadows), Dragonworld by Byron Preiss and Michael Reaves and many others. Funk. |
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How has it matured? Well, a crapton of old fantasy was exactly the same. Young nobody answers the call to become the only person who can defeat the evil foozle. He quests to gain some form of power, or control over foozles weakness, and then he defeats foozle. After many decades of this same story written over and over again (and I know this is the mythical hero's journey...yeah yeah yeah) the genre got really boring to me. I like that now we have authors who have decided to at least play with this concept. I like, for example, Sanderson and Lynch have successfully blended the heist concept into the genre. Or how some books now are about political intrigue but set in a fantasy universe. I like how authors are recognizing that the hero's journey isn't the only thing that can be told in a fantasy setting. Funk. |
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Me too. I love Glen Cook's Garrett books and George RR Martin. Who are Sanderson and Lynch and what books would you recommend as a first read? Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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I was a big fan of the Garrett novels, but now each one bring in so many characters from the other books - most of whom I've forgotten, that it becomes a chore to read them. Martin has my favorite ongoing series right now. Wish he'd finish the next one. Scott Lynch only has 2 books published in the US. He has a third in the UK. They're all part of a series about a pair of confidence men thief/priests. Brandon Sanderson has a few books out. His first, Elantris, was a more traditional hero's journey type book. It was good, but I didn't think too much of it. His Mistborn series, however, is where he breaks out. It's a confidence game blended with a hero's journey. Very entertaining. Funk. |
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Ffs, I stopped reading RR Martin fucking ages ago, after hitting the dead end. I figured I'd put it out of my mind entirely and just wait for the goddamn series to be available in full. But nothing seems to've happened. At this pace I'll be reading the series when I'm, like, thirty-fucking-five. Hope it's worth the wait. * A Game of Thrones (1996) * A Clash of Kings (1998) * A Storm of Swords (2000) * A Feast for Crows (2005) * A Dance with Dragons (forthcoming) * The Winds of Winter (forthcoming) * A Dream of Spring (forthcoming) "Braid breaks one of my personal most fundamental rules of games design within minutes of starting - they have timed puzzles."
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Funkdrunk (#3996): I was a big fan of the Garrett novels, but now each one bring in so many characters from the other books - most of whom I've forgotten, that it becomes a chore to read them. I didn't mind that so much, but I felt the series jumped the shark once Garrett started having money, and having powerful people owe him favours. The early books were the best when he was just this ex-marine who didn't like to work and always ended up running himself ragged because of his personal ethics. I think my favourite is probably the one where he gets the painting that hangs in his office in later books. That was just an emotionally powerful story. gaggle (#3997): Ffs, I stopped reading RR Martin fucking ages ago, after hitting the dead end.... At this pace I'll be reading the series when I'm, like, thirty-fucking-five. I haven't read Feast for Crows yet, because of the agony of waiting. I'll re-read all of them when the last book is published, even if I'm a 100 year old brain-in-a-jar. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Are Lynch and Sanderson's serieses finished or standalone books, or will I hit a Martinesque dead end? Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Lynch's first two books have concrete endings in them. The second starts where the first ends, but barely refers to the first book, so it's passable as a single story. The ending of the second book sets up the next book, but the con-game in the second book ends. I am working my way through the Mistborn series now, will give more details on them in a few days when done. I have completed the first book (which is mostly self contained - there is a definite ending here). I just have to stop detouring through the old books I've brought home. Re-reading the first Thieves World book now. Also, if you haven't read Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, you should. I think Ergo liked this series aas well. Funk. Funk. |
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oops. Funk. |
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Thanks! Won't be for a while though, I just started Richard Morgan's Broken Angels and Scalzi's Last Colony just came in at the library. Witnesses in the house heard Jones say "why did you pee on me Pooh Bear?" A few moments later, the witness heard the son say "Mama you done stabbed me."
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Funkdrunk (#4000): Funk. Funk. Now with DOUBLE the funk! Moat.
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I endorse double Funk. <Hugin_len> Basically, cheesy doesn't have awful taste in music, he's simply very white.
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