CHICKENS IN A BOOK: BOOK BOOK BGAWK (new book thread)

[milly balgeary]

He was a genius...

[jebreject]

I guess I just have no interest in reading about a character that is good at everything he does and is loved by most everyone. And who is an asshole in a completely uninteresting way. I don't necessarily need rich, challenging works or characters so fraught with pathos that it's all that's going on in the story. I like genre fiction too dude, and I don't think it needs to be defended. I just hated Rothfuss's protaganist so much that it made the book unreadable for me. You're right, calling it a piece of crap is probably too harsh. It's probably more a reaction to the way it's been received and the dedication of his fans. I just really don't think he's a particularily good author, and he's not deserving of the praise he's getting, nor is he anywhere near as good as the writers he's being compared to. And it bums me out that there is genuinely great sf out there and instead all this praise is heaped upon Rothfuss, who has moments of good-not-great prose, but also passages that read like they were written by a sophomore in high school. It's cool that a dude from Wisconsin is getting some noteriety. I just wish he more deserving of it.

[Ah_Pook]

jeb whats some genuinely great sf thats come out lately thats been passed over by the masses so that they can instead heap undeserved praise on patrick rothfuss?

[milly balgeary]

jeb whats some genuinely great sf thats come out lately thats been passed over by the masses so that they can instead heap undeserved praise on patrick rothfuss?

I got a couple!

KJ Parker
Stephen Deas (cheaing because I haven't read it)
R Scott Bakker (cheating but I doubt anyone has read im here)
The Dragons' Path by Daniel Abraham

[RavingLunatic]

R Scott Bakker (cheating but I doubt anyone has read im here)

I think I remember Andrew saying that Bakker's stories are nearly impossible to follow, so convoluted are they.

[davy]

Yeah, that actually kind of turned me off the dude forever.

[milly balgeary]

Naw babies, naw... that dude is the SHIT. I'm only cheating because White Luck Warrior ain't dropped YET, but I read the others like a fiend. Probably my second favorite big boy fantasy next to GRM, and maybe the dude Joe Abercrombie. Bakker's shit actually has a fear factor to it. Shit is FOR real. The bad guy makes Sauron look like a baby Annie doll.

[jebreject]

I recently finished Clockers and just picked up Lush Life, and I have to say, I'm becoming quite the fan of Richard Price.

[fishjim]

Heard great stuff about Price, still haven't read him. Is Lush Life his new one?

[jebreject]

'08, I think, and yeah, it's his most recent. It's such a pleasure to read.

[DCDave]

I am rereading Malazan Books of the Fallen since the Crippled God came out and they are the best epic fantasy hands-down.

[YojimboMonkey]

oh shit The Crippled God is out? oh shit I totally spaced on that, bookstore trip this weekend fo sho

[davy]

I'm all the time thinking about giving those books another go. That ninja battle on the rooftops of the walled city in the first book was really more than enough reason to stick it out through the complicated boring stuff.

Also, that sword which was also a prison of souls.

[Dick]

Man, that second novel sat on my toilet for like a year and a half before I was finally just like, fuck it.  I'm not going to finish this and rotated back in an old copy of MSC or something.

One thing I like to during bathroom reading time is read sections of books aloud to myself in different accents.  I read a big chunk of Blood Meridian this way, in my native accent, and it was awesome.  Kind of sounded like one very long sample for an Explosions in the Sky song.

[fishjim]

One thing I like to during bathroom reading time is read sections of books aloud to myself in different accents.  I read a big chunk of Blood Meridian this way, in my native accent, and it was awesome.  Kind of sounded like one very long sample for an Explosions in the Sky song.

Dick, record yourself next time. I would kill for some foreigner-inflected Blood Meridian.

OT: Cont'd from the movies thread:

I had the movie taped from TV when I was a kid. I just read the book for the first time. LOOOOOOVE.

Keep meaning to read The Last Unicorn. Beagle's novella Lila the Werewolf charmed the hell out of me.

Beagle was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford in the same class as Ken Kesey, Larry McMurtry, and a bunch of other soon-to-be-big-deal writers. It was a lucky couple of years for the program, which has been borrowing on the magic ever since.

McMurtry's essay on Kesey starts off with some gossipy stories of those years (1960 - 62, I think), including a few impressions of Beagle as a pup.

Beagle is great, better than McMurtry who is better than Kesey. I mean. Really. Kesey is a joke for 17 year olds who are taking acid on weekends and hitting up used book stores looking for (insert_, and Lonesome Dove was just a big dumb novel. Beagle on the other hand, wrote a great first novel "A Fine And Private Place" which holds up.

Milly, I can tell by your comment you've never read McMurtry's first novel, Horseman, Pass By. Do it. You'll think differently of him.

As for Kesey, you're right, he's nowhere near Beagle in style or imagination, but are there really people out there who don't like his first book, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? That's like saying you don't like To Kill A Mockingbird.

Both authors got lucky, and both wrote immortal books. 

[dumbfish]

As I recall, Dick's read wouldn't be foreign but very nearly perfectly matched to that in the author's mind. Of all of us, Swimmy might be the only one who could do it better.

[fishjim]

Ah, sorry - never met you, Dick, but somehow got the idea you had an Indian accent. And smell spicy.

[YojimboMonkey]

Dick is a midwestern guy who just happens to have some expertise in middle-eastern languages and also likes cooking the odd curry, nothing strange about that

[milly balgeary]

I am rereading Malazan Books of the Fallen since the Crippled God came out and they are the best epic fantasy hands-down.

Man I'm readin Essle's Stonewielder. I need to do the very same thing, except I can't imagine actually doing it.

[milly balgeary]

Also, I rep for Esslemont over Erickson,  100%, except not the first novel. I just thought that the second novel was more awesome than most of Erickson's novels, which get worse around bk6-7...stonewielder is cool...

[Dick]

As I recall, Dick's read wouldn't be foreign but very nearly perfectly matched to that in the author's mind. Of all of us, Swimmy might be the only one who could do it better.

Swimmy's from what, Middle Tenn.?  Definitely would be better-matched.

Dick is a midwestern guy who just happens to have some expertise in middle-eastern languages and also likes cooking the odd curry, nothing strange about that

Jim, you just valadated my hole live.

[Antero]

Jim, you just valadated my hole live.

[Greg Nog]

So I've never read any Terry Goodkind, or George R.R. Martin, but apparently I conflated the two due to skimmings of LPTJ; I only found this out now, when I was searching for information about the Magical Torture Dildo as it appears in A Game of Thrones.

[davy]

// bad page break

[davy]

So I've never read any Terry Goodkind, or George R.R. Martin, but apparently I conflated the two due to skimmings of LPTJ; I only found this out now, when I was searching for information about the Magical Torture Dildo as it appears in A Game of Thrones.

No No NOoooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOO

 

Terry Goodkind fucking sucks bad. He's a hack. Martin is a master.

However! Terry Goodkind's interview in the bonus material for The Legend of the Seeker is one of the funniest, saddest, most genuine portraits of douchebaggery I've ever seen on film, and for that, he should be applauded and despised, probably, in equal measure.



It should be noted that, as far as I can tell, Terry Goodkind wears black mock-turtlenecks exclusively.