@shahnm It’s so good! That’s why! Or so you can watch the BBC series and have your mind blown by seeing Patrick Stewart with hair! OR because it was possibly I, Claudius that started Graham Chapman’s sexual awakening (I haven’t read A Liar’s Autobiography in awhile, so I may be overstating).
@f00l I have an original first edition hard cover “Illustrated man” I bought from an Amazon reseller for like $1.98. I guess it’s not worth much but it was just listed a “Used - Very Good” condition. I didn’t know it was a first edition when I ordered it. Score!
@QuietDelusions longest trilogy i’e every read. I’ve read a book of it each year since my original binge back in 1999. I was way to young for most of the jokes back then, but I still loved it. Very worried about the upcoming series Hulu is threatening us with.
I mean, the movie was downright awful. I made the mistake of watching it when it came out, and to be honest, I don’t remember much. Except that it was awful. The BBC series was better, it’s streaming on Amazon Prime so I watched it. Not great, not horrible. The book, and radio show, are really the best form of the story.
I can’t $ee why a $treaming $ervice want$ to e$tabli$h a $erie$, but I’m $ure Hulu can devi$e all $ort$ of rea$on$.
@billyrogers No worries. We’ve got Alexa set to remind us to remind Hey Google to remind the crowd. There’ll probably be more posts about here in the forums.
@f00l OR…you could go ahead and pre-order like most of us did two months ago and you’ll be reminded when the postman rings your bell and hands you your new book January 7th!
@RiotDemon@simplersimon As an author-in-training (MA student of English and fiction writing), I now see that King cranks out books because he’s found a formula—but it also makes his work a bit meh.
@RiotDemon I was just thinking the same thing. Although, it’s one of the very few books for which I dl’ed the Kindle sample and then didn’t buy the book.
I just last week read two newish King stories - The Institute and the novella Elevation.
Both were definitely pretty meh. What struck me though, was how I still tore through them in record time even while not really loving the stories. Something about the way he writes just keeps me turning pages.
Both stories seemed like re-treads of older, better King stories - The Institute is almost-but-not-quite a Firestarter sequel (the titular Institute is basically an incarnation of The Shop), and I kept thinking that Elevation should’ve been called Lighter, a la Thinner.
Currently reading Let the Right One In for the 3rd time, just for lack of other ideas what to read.
For those not familiar with it, it is a very creepy, disturbing vampire story. Would be a great read for Halloween season.
I think one of the things that’s so creepy and disturbing about it is that the author paints a very realistic world. It’s not magical, mystical, fantasy vampires like Interview or Twilight, just gritty, realistic, psychologically damaged characters.
Fair warning, it was originally written in Swedish and the translation can get kind of clunky sometimes, and it is likewise set in Sweden, which can make some of the cultural references difficult to relate to.
Also, the original, Swedish movie adaptation is one of the best book-to-movie adaptations I’ve seen, and way better than the American remake (which wasn’t all that bad).
My book just arrived in the mail today. It’s Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden. I’m setting it aside for a few days while I finish other projects, because I want to read it undisturbed.
So I’m habitually ‘reading’ a few books at a time. Lately – TBH for far too long – I just read the stupid internet instead of actual books.
But here’s a list of what is stacked on my table, partly read:
Nabokov’s lectures on Russian Literature
Four different chess books – two on pawn structures, two on endgames
Three Men in a Boat
The Gormenghast Trilogy – some credit to me for at least finishing the first book, which I loved
These Truths – Gift from a friend for my birthday last year. I’ve promised myself I’ll finish a chapter before my birthday comes around again.
@sammydog01 I read that one back in the 80’s and enjoyed it. Then when he collaborated with Stephen King on The Talisman, it was interesting to try to pick out the parts that showed more of Straub’s influence. (His imagery struck me as a bit wilder than King’s tends to be, and some scenes in The Talisman stood out as more his style.)
@macromeh I’m still reading Shadowland- it’s not an easy read. King is great for story telling but Straub is really descriptive and more fantasy than horror. I’m still enjoying it but it’s slow.
@macromeh I finally finished this stupid book. It took me two months to slog through it. I figured I must be dumb and looked for a summary to make sure I figured out what happened. I couldn’t find one but I did find a bunch of reviews by people that also didn’t like it. Maybe I should have checked the reviews first. Ghost Story was so good…
My next book will be something easier.
My favorite review from Goodreads:
I can’t even review this. I hated it. Finishing it was like Chinese water torture. I just… Hated it. I have no idea what the point was… It was just… Ridiculous and bad and ridiculously bad.
I don’t want to waste another moment thinking about it, so that’s my review.
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age From Microsoft’s president and one of the tech industry’s broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tools+and+weapons&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
I reckon it’s getting time for a re-read of both the Lord of the Rings and www.hpmor.com, though I may finish off the Wheel of Time series before I do. I’m in book ten at the moment, and it gets… weighty, somehow, thick, though it’s hard to point to a specific change that distinguishes it from the previous volumes. I’ve seen some comments that others have encountered the same difficulty, though book 11 is supposed to be everything the previous volumes were and more if you can only persevere. I’ve been taking a break with some lesser fanfics and nonfiction for what occurs to me is becoming a longish while - I’m pretty sure it’s more than a month now. I’m used to being in the middle of several stories at any given time; I’ll have at least one that I read via Kindle app, often one or two via browser whether mobile or computer-based, and at least one via audiobook for driving or similar eyes-occupied tasks that leave a mental language lane open for processing. Still, it wouldn’t do to leave Perrin in trouble…
Oh, and the audiobooks I’ve got going at the moment are The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Both highly recommended series starters, though neither series is complete (and both may finish around the same year, at this rate).
@jsfs I had never even heard of wheel of Time until recently. My son’s girlfriend’s family owns a mint and they make replica coins for book series like wheel of Time, Lord of the rings, game of thrones, etc. They gave me a big bag of assorted coins for Christmas last year and in it were some of the ones from wheel of Time. I took them to work to show a fellow GoT and LoTR fan and she went nuts at the wheel of Time coins. They have some pretty cool stuff. My two fav items that I wear all the time are the replica of the Moon stamped in silver and a green leaf shaped coin from LoTR made into necklaces. They did a stamped moon landing coin with the foot print for the 50th anniversary too.
Their website is www.shirepostmint.com if you want to see their stuff. They gave me a copy of the first couple of wheel of Time books for Christmas but I just haven’t gotten around to reading them. I’m afraid if I do, I won’t get anything else done and I’ve got too many other projects going right now.
LOTR is long.
And it is, as JRRT and so many of his readers noted, way too short.
HP series is long.
GOT/SOFAI series is long and annoying, because perpetually unfinished.
Adam’s HHGTTG is a longish. And too short.
WOT series is long. As in really really long.
RJ appeared, basically, to lose control as a writer. He kept adding situations characters, locations, complications, storylines, sometimes without much payoff; and all the while being aware that he had a terminal medical condition and not a long prognosis.
And all the while promising to live to finish it.
He didn’t.
Near the end, I think with RJ’s knowledge and approval, Brandon Sanderson was contacted to complete it. It took three long books to do that, and there are arguments that Sanderson should have added another one, in order not to compress the stories too greatly.
It came out reasonably well. Not badly, considering. It’s a total YA story in tone. RJ was never the writer Martin, Tolkien, Rowling, Adams, or summer other were/are. Bout he knew how to construct and tell a compelling tale with good YA characters.
Just be prepared for it to take much time do get to the end.
@f00l@ivannabc@jsfs I tried to read WoT at some point, years ago. Got increasingly disenchanted and dropped the series by book three. Was it better than I remember, you think?
@f00l@InnocuousFarmer@ivannabc I’m with the not-so-foolish f00l on this one: if a series hasn’t managed to become interesting within three books, it’s probably not going to do so for me. There’s a ton of great material out there. Find something that does spark passion for you.
I thought early WoT was a lot of fascinating worldbuilding adventures that kept somehow managing not to lead to a resolution of their current plot lines. It was really a rather remarkable achievement. I had become at least kind of invested in the characters, and I personally find worldbuilding to be enjoyable, so I kept reading. It helped that the story felt at least most of the time to be mostly character-driven; while not every character - and there are a lot of them! - goes around corners, at least the main ones have most of their actions make sense as things they might want to do based on emotions or goals they’d have rather than the author’s need for them to be in a particular place at a particular time to serve the plot.
Then again, I’ve read the Silmarilion multiple times, and I enjoyed The Irregular at Magic High School despite its ridiculously overpowered protagonist and lack of believable conflict due to the really interesting worldbuilding they did around the edges of the series. I might just be right in the target audience for WoT, and you might not have been. There is no shame in finding a piece of art not to your taste; that’s kind of the point. Art is here to help us find tastes we didn’t know we’d enjoy, then satisfy them. Maybe you don’t like Miles Davis, Miley Cyrus, or even music altogether - that’s okay, too. One of those things at least would be sad, but hey. Life happens in the sad moments, too.
I’d say you gave the series a good college try. If you’ve heard a lot of good about it and still want to try again, it may be worth considering; I’ve enjoyed it, and you’re missing out on a lot of the really fun stuff that can be done with the One Power. Though if you think you’ve seen it all, wait until near the beginning of book nine. You’ve not seen anything yet. Brute force isn’t the only thing, either. Plus there’s that new TV series that is in development. I think principal photography was due to start relatively soonish? I’m pretty sure they’ve announced all the main cast now. Anyway, the TV show might be an option if you wanted to audit the content but not have to read the book like a plebian (leaving aside that it would be the senators who could read, or had time to). Also there’s audiobooks.
There have definitely been books that it was not the right time for me to read, so I’ve set them aside. Sometimes I’ve come back to them and found wonderful friends. Sometimes I’ve come back and found that the books still weren’t that good to me (or occasionally, needed an editor or three). It could be that WoT might be in one of these categories for you; I’ve certainly had fun reading it. If you didn’t, though, there’s no reason to slog through an unenjoyable read when there are so many wonderful experiences available. I don’t think I’d put up with three books of it again, at any rate.
@f00l@ivannabc@jsfs That all makes sense. Maybe I’ll give the books another try at some point. As far as I can recall, I was enthusiastic by the end of book 1. I don’t remember exactly what changed. Maybe I didn’t like the characters. I was in high school at the time.
Aria Hahn, by John Carnwright, of which Cameron ripped off, (not the first time), and made Avatar. Unique way in which the book was published. Also reading the Time’s Edge series by JM Dattillo. Both futuristic.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is still waiting to be read, even though I’ve had the book for years.
The Last Shot (Han Solo story) is sitting next to me night stand eagerly waiting for me.
And many others I can’t think of waiting on the shelf.
nelson demille books are always an enjoyable read. he was actually interviewed by the feds after 9/11 because of the similarity of one of his books and the events of that day. interesting trivia for you there.
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, an American journalist and author of nonfiction books. Same author who wrote Dead Wake (Sinking of the Lusitania) and Isaac’s Storm (Hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900). Both excellent reads.
Mostly mystery, crime, thrillers. All fiction. Currently reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding but not liking the writing at all. It may be deserted today.
@f00l@nasman6 Ready Player One was fun, but I also REALLY FUCKING HATED IT.
For a book that glorifies pedantry about 80’s pop culture, computers, and video games, he got a lot of things wrong.
Perhaps I fall into the latter category you describe. I honestly started it with the intent of enjoying it, and I did, but I don’t plan on ever reading another book by the guy again.
@f00l@Limewater watched the movie, kids liked it, as always with a movie based on book, wanted to read the book to see what was left out /changed. I enjoyed the book RPO, just now getting into Armada. So far it sounds just like The Last Starfighter…
@f00l@nasman6 I didn’t watch the movie because how how much the book pissed me off.
A few examples:
James Halliday talks about getting his Atari 2600 in 1979. Except that in 1979 it was the Atari VCS. It was not re-named to 2600 until 1982 when the 5200 was released.
The main character navigates to the center of “The maze from Adventure.” There are three mazes in “Adventure,” none of them have a center, and none can be topologically laid out on a flat surface.
The main character plays a high-scoring game of Robotron 2084 on his laptop. As a dual-stick shooter, there is no effective keyboard mapping for this game.
James Halliday is clearly a mash-up of Richard Garriott and Steve Wozniak. His early games take the place of Garriott’s Ultima series. Yet Garriott still gets name-dropped in the book, along with Ultima and Akalabeth.
The main character fiddles with the volume knob trying to get a TI-99\4a tape drive to work. He should be fiddling with the tone knob.
Those are things that irked me and I remember them off the top of my head years later.
I didn’t expect “literature” going in. And I appreciated what he was doing, or think I did. So I had a blast with the book.
Have not yet seen the flick, mostly because I haven’t seen any films in “forever”.
As for the writer getting things wrong (I presume you mean he gets stuff wrong about the nostalgic time period he celebrates): I wasn’t a kid then. I did game, but only a tiny bit (< 20 hrs total prob), just to see what was going on. I wasn’t even aware of, or was barely aware of, much of the other 80’s stuff he references, except that I had seen the movies and heard the rock bands. (Rush, huh? Rush is fine. Just … not the amazing iconic rock choice for most people my age. But that’s OK too.)
My head and interests were elsewhere.
But: isn’t much of the fun of nostalgia the long arguments over details and catching someone else out in an error, the going down into endless rabbit holes, the remembering when we were all more innocent, so that obsessions with vid games and the like meant not worrying about the time and life-energy costs (pre-full-adulthood)?
So I’m still good with it all. Let the books be badly or even horribly written. Let them be full of nostalgia errors. Let the plots and characters be entirely derivative, or even let them entirely suck.
I think of these as being book equivalents to microwave popcorn.
So, still fun. For some of us.
But: isn’t much of the fun of nostalgia the long arguments over details and catching someone else out in an error, the going down into endless rabbit holes, the remembering when we were all more innocent, so that obsessions with vid games and the like meant not worrying about the time and life-energy costs (pre-full-adulthood)?
So I’m still good with it all. Let the books be badly or even horribly written. Let them be full of nostalgia errors. Let the plots and characters be entirely derivative, or even let them entirely suck.
I think of these as being book equivalents to microwave popcorn.
So, still fun. For some of us.
Normally this stuff wouldn’t bother me. However, the entire core of the book was about being pedantic about all of those little things. If it was just a nostalgia romp, I’d have no problem with a few anachronisms or mistakes.
But the hero literally saves the world by being the best at knowing all the silly little details. So, when those details are wrong, it’s really glaring and annoying.
I’m looking forward to Cline’s next book. It’s about a guy who spends his life in his basement watching pornography. Little does he know that this obsession will allow him to watch the pornography that will save the world…
@f00l@Limewater The main character fiddles with the volume knob trying to get a TI-99\4a tape drive to work. He should be fiddling with the tone knob. If I remember correctly, and I’m old so I might not, the tape drive I used with my TI-99 had no tone controls. It was mono and had volume only.
that thing took hours to load anything… Did have a neat space game with it, but you had to fly underground to refuel…
@f00l@nasman6 You’re thinking of Parsec. Yeah, it is pretty good. Did it get a tape release? I have it on cartridge, so it loads instantly. Apparently, if you have the speech module, it will talk. I don’t have one, though.
I still play Hunt The Wumpus, Hang Man, and A-MAZE-ING with my kids. It is at home, hooked to my CRT television right now.
And yeah, the official tape deck has a tone knob. If you’re using a different tape deck it may not.
@nasman6 If you’re not an 80’s trivia guru (snob?) then RPO is a really fun read. The concept isn’t new but the author takes it to a new depth. There is no writer out there that had the ability to write something that gets as much right as this does. The book may have need a better editor here and there but it’s not a history book. I think it’s sad to minimalize the author’s achievement over minor errors that may or may not be incorrect. Anyone who can ruin a book for themselves so easily should stick to history books but brace yourself: they get things wrong too. Nothing is perfect, celebrate what is great and enjoy the adventure.
Also - the audiobook is excellent and a great way to experience it with a lesser investment.
Armada was also good. Not as long, not as deep but still really fun. The main character can seem a little like the same person as in RPO. There are some major personality differences but the writing style can cause them to blend. This one isn’t as culture heavy.
@nasman6@RedHot The Audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton. That actually makes it worse.
It’s a fun book, and I said it was fun in my first post. But it’s also the most masturbatory work of fiction I’ve ever read.
I picked at the pedantic stuff because those are objective, verifiable issues that you can confirm yourself with little effort. My other problems with the book are my opinion, and that is much more subjective. But it’s okay to like garbage. I like lots of garbage.
Note: Wil Wheaton as narrator makes it better and funnier.
Re “masturbatory”
That’s a pretty useless comment, as it can be applied by someone somewhere who is at least somewhat intelligent to almost any human action. Let alone to any work of fiction.
I’m sure it makes sense in context to you and to people who know you well. The rest of us could prob use a little more precision in critical comments, if we are to understand that you meant anything substantial.
@f00l@nasman6@RedHot I listened to Wil Wheaton. I don’t like the guy. I can definitely see some overlap apart from the narration between people who like Wil Wheaton and people who would like Ready Player One.
To clarify my “masturbatory” comment: Cline has clearly spent a lot of time consuming entertainment and obsessing over it. I can’t judge. I’ve done the same, apparently with more concern for detail in the area of video and computer games.
It’s an enjoyable but purely selfish pursuit.
In Ready Player One, he takes that same purely selfish but enjoyable pursuit and makes it a virtue. The main character wins the game and saves the world by demonstrating this virtue more than anyone else. He also just constantly name-checks a bunch of “nerd culture” personalities and memes.
The synopsis for his second book looks like the same thing-- a guy does something of little value for his own amusement and that selfish action is turned into a virtue that allows the protagonist to save the world.
That is why I describe it as “masturbatory,” and why I suggested that his third book would be about viewing pornography. I’m sure this book would be fun, too.
I am now out of time, and will not be able to respond on this thread for a long time. Y’all have fun.
@f00l@Limewater@nasman6 I refuse to watch the PBS Masterpiece series Endeavour because of a plot hole so egregious that I can never, never forgive them even though I’ve forgotten exactly what it was. If I recall correctly, it was a number that nobody realized was a license plate until it was super-dramatic to do so, even though anyone alive at the time would have thought of it. Or maybe it was a phone number. I don’t want to remember, it was horrible. It was insulting. To history.
I can hardly keep up with a job, grandkids, a pool and one acre yard with gardens. As it is the newspaper (yeah… remember those?) gets read a couple of days late most times.
When I do get to read a book it is generally SciFi (or at least fiction) and preferably snarky (think the 5 book HGttG trilogy)
I don’t read books. I don’t watch movies with subtitles. If a book is any good they usually make a movie. And I don’t want that movie ruined by the book. Same with foreign movies, they will remake it in English. I don’t go to movies to read. I do read comic books but those are looked down on by real book readers
@j37hr0 Why not both?! I read a good number of long-form books, but I also really enjoy comics. I liked the recent WildStorm reboot by Warren Ellis. I’m also reading a series called The Magic Order and another called Wasted Space that I like a lot. The Weatherman is also good. Lots to read! Anyone that looks down on comics is just curmudgeonly.
Too many books in the backlog, and that’s just the easy popular stuff at the top of my mind (never finished Discworld, never finished Harry Fucking Wizardboy, overdue to read Douglas Adams for the second time, especially Dirk Gently).
Currently I’m stalled in the middle of Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. It is long, and it intersperses satisfying concepts and humor with chores. Probably get through it the next time I’m on a vacation. Books tend to be sprints the way I read them, get a running start, plow in, keep going… and done. This book does not support that approach.
I’m currently reading Fahrenheit 451. I love distopia novels though they’ve started to feel more real than not lately. I also love fantasy and sci fi.
I just finished the Bobiverse series and thought it was amazingly fun. It revolves around the happenings of a von neumann probe leaving a dystopian earth.
Currently listening to LotR again and it never gets old. Just finished listening to the Foundation series. WOT is lined up next.
@RedHot I am on book 6 listening to WOT. I have read the series a couple times.
Current read is Fire and Blood. I am not in love with it but still plugging away. It feels like GRRM had a outline for another long series and then decided not to create it.
Currently enjoying/sometimes hating catching up with the Gotham crew in DC Rebirth. Anyone else not a fan of the new Batgirl & The Birds of Prey. Also if anyone misses Scott Snyder’s amazing N52 writing check out All-Star Batman
I don’t know I want to read something sort of spooky for the Halloween season. I liked The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, any kind of zombie related media etc. Any suggestions?
@TargaryenThe Undead zombie series by RR Haywood is great fun until book 10 when Haywood takes a very dark and inexcusable turn. I never finished 10 and have no plans to continue this series. But up until then it was very enjoyable.
Also, the Zombie Fallout series by Mark Tufo. It’s distantly tied into Tufo’s Indian Hill series if you’re aware of that one.
I’m reading The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, which I read 20-25 years ago and did not enjoy, but don’t remember at all. I’m only a fifth of the way in, and and mostly disoriented by the setting. It was set in 1990 and published in 1993. The fashion doesn’t seem quite right (fluorescent leg warmers? maybe in Canada), and characters are talking about the Gulf War and I can’t remember what was going on then, vs. '93, vs. a decade later. It’s weird.
The “hippie” character works at a store called Radiance, which started as a head shop, then became an occult store called Okkult, then started selling goth makeup, then became a New Age store selling crystals and tea and cassettes of loon calls, and at one point the owner talks about turning it into a cheap stuff store called Scrimpers because of the recession. And I really, really, want to shop in/work at/own this fictional store in all its incarnations. This is probably not what I’m supposed to be taking away from the book, but it has me convinced that Margaret Atwood is a genius.
PS Kind of a dick move on the part of @mediocrebot to start a book discussion thread and not even acknowledge that we’ve been doing one every month for awhile.
Jonathan Cahn books—Read the Harbinger already and starting on the Oracle book now. Guess you can call futuristic as past events are repeating now so predicting the future.
Something imaginary…
Something with lots of pictures.
@therealjrn The kind that fold out, but you just read for the “articles”…?
@shahnm You too?
I think I’m going to read ‘I, Claudius’ next. I don’t know why.
@shahnm It’s so good! That’s why! Or so you can watch the BBC series and have your mind blown by seeing Patrick Stewart with hair! OR because it was possibly I, Claudius that started Graham Chapman’s sexual awakening (I haven’t read A Liar’s Autobiography in awhile, so I may be overstating).
I are a collage studint, I donut need to reed.
@phendrick Ivy League, I see…
@phendrick @shahnm No. Mom paid to get him/her into USC as a rower.
@Fuzzalini @phendrick @shahnm Probably not reading books because they make him/her cry:
Or using his/her books in this way:
Something non-fiction.
@DVDBZN The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger is one of the best books I’ve ever read. The movie IMHO was meh.
/image book something wicked this way comes
@f00l I have an original first edition hard cover “Illustrated man” I bought from an Amazon reseller for like $1.98. I guess it’s not worth much but it was just listed a “Used - Very Good” condition. I didn’t know it was a first edition when I ordered it. Score!
@therealjrn
Cool.
Read that one in HS. Prob need to read it again.
Cradle: Uncrowned, by Will Wight, comes out in a week!
I am having bad month, so I’m reading an old favorite that ticks three of the six categories. Hopefully it cheers me up!
@QuietDelusions Don’t Panic.
@QuietDelusions longest trilogy i’e every read. I’ve read a book of it each year since my original binge back in 1999. I was way to young for most of the jokes back then, but I still loved it. Very worried about the upcoming series Hulu is threatening us with.
@simplersimon An upcoming series?
Huh.
I mean, the movie was downright awful. I made the mistake of watching it when it came out, and to be honest, I don’t remember much. Except that it was awful. The BBC series was better, it’s streaming on Amazon Prime so I watched it. Not great, not horrible. The book, and radio show, are really the best form of the story.
I can’t $ee why a $treaming $ervice want$ to e$tabli$h a $erie$, but I’m $ure Hulu can devi$e all $ort$ of rea$on$.
@QuietDelusions @simplersimon
At 5 books it probably should be!
@QuietDelusions @simplersimon I love the radio show so much.
Come January 7th, I’ll be reading this book by Sean Adams, AKA meh blurb writer @dseanadams
@therealjrn hmm that looks interesting. I’ll probably forget by january, but who knows!
@billyrogers No worries. We’ve got Alexa set to remind us to remind Hey Google to remind the crowd. There’ll probably be more posts about here in the forums.
@therealjrn
Tell your cute alexa “spy-on-your-okie-life-thingie” to remind you on the day of the book launch to remind me that same day.
Much appreciated!
/giphy book launch
@f00l OR…you could go ahead and pre-order like most of us did two months ago and you’ll be reminded when the postman rings your bell and hands you your new book January 7th!
@therealjrn
I’d rather reply on your alexa. More fun that way.
For me!
Probably should get around to reading Doctor Sleep before the movie comes out in November.
/youtube doctor sleep movie trailer
@RiotDemon it was a solid meh. It just never grabbed me. Admittedly, nothing King’s done has grabbed me since I got out of college, but still.
@RiotDemon @simplersimon As an author-in-training (MA student of English and fiction writing), I now see that King cranks out books because he’s found a formula—but it also makes his work a bit meh.
@Gypsigirl213 @RiotDemon @simplersimon meh? meh? I LOVE MEH
@RiotDemon I was just thinking the same thing. Although, it’s one of the very few books for which I dl’ed the Kindle sample and then didn’t buy the book.
I just last week read two newish King stories - The Institute and the novella Elevation.
Both were definitely pretty meh. What struck me though, was how I still tore through them in record time even while not really loving the stories. Something about the way he writes just keeps me turning pages.
Both stories seemed like re-treads of older, better King stories - The Institute is almost-but-not-quite a Firestarter sequel (the titular Institute is basically an incarnation of The Shop), and I kept thinking that Elevation should’ve been called Lighter, a la Thinner.
Currently reading Let the Right One In for the 3rd time, just for lack of other ideas what to read.
For those not familiar with it, it is a very creepy, disturbing vampire story. Would be a great read for Halloween season.
I think one of the things that’s so creepy and disturbing about it is that the author paints a very realistic world. It’s not magical, mystical, fantasy vampires like Interview or Twilight, just gritty, realistic, psychologically damaged characters.
Fair warning, it was originally written in Swedish and the translation can get kind of clunky sometimes, and it is likewise set in Sweden, which can make some of the cultural references difficult to relate to.
Also, the original, Swedish movie adaptation is one of the best book-to-movie adaptations I’ve seen, and way better than the American remake (which wasn’t all that bad).
@mediocrebot What’s triggering you? Is it the word creepy?
@mediocrebot Huh.
My book just arrived in the mail today. It’s Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden. I’m setting it aside for a few days while I finish other projects, because I want to read it undisturbed.
/image Edward Snowden
@Shrdlu As if you aren’t perpetually disturbed?!
@Shrdlu @UncleVinny
Yeah I’ll do this one shortly.
Tho I assume all the “big reveals” (big by newsfeed standards) will hit my notifications before I read the book.
So I’m habitually ‘reading’ a few books at a time. Lately – TBH for far too long – I just read the stupid internet instead of actual books.
But here’s a list of what is stacked on my table, partly read:
Nabokov’s lectures on Russian Literature
Four different chess books – two on pawn structures, two on endgames
Three Men in a Boat
The Gormenghast Trilogy – some credit to me for at least finishing the first book, which I loved
These Truths – Gift from a friend for my birthday last year. I’ve promised myself I’ll finish a chapter before my birthday comes around again.
/image Shadowland Peter Straub
@sammydog01 I read that one back in the 80’s and enjoyed it. Then when he collaborated with Stephen King on The Talisman, it was interesting to try to pick out the parts that showed more of Straub’s influence. (His imagery struck me as a bit wilder than King’s tends to be, and some scenes in The Talisman stood out as more his style.)
@macromeh I’m still reading Shadowland- it’s not an easy read. King is great for story telling but Straub is really descriptive and more fantasy than horror. I’m still enjoying it but it’s slow.
@macromeh I finally finished this stupid book. It took me two months to slog through it. I figured I must be dumb and looked for a summary to make sure I figured out what happened. I couldn’t find one but I did find a bunch of reviews by people that also didn’t like it. Maybe I should have checked the reviews first. Ghost Story was so good…
My next book will be something easier.
My favorite review from Goodreads:
Too many words in those things.
@awk
How awk-ward
/giphy awk-ward
Is a book the old folks name for Kindle? I have Alexa read my Kindle subs aloud to me.
@hchavers is that to put you to sleep at night? (just kidding you)
@bayportbob well, yes, ever since my father passed away.
Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age
From Microsoft’s president and one of the tech industry’s broadest thinkers, a frank and thoughtful reckoning with how to balance enormous promise and existential risk as the digitization of everything accelerates.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=tools+and+weapons&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss
I reckon it’s getting time for a re-read of both the Lord of the Rings and www.hpmor.com, though I may finish off the Wheel of Time series before I do. I’m in book ten at the moment, and it gets… weighty, somehow, thick, though it’s hard to point to a specific change that distinguishes it from the previous volumes. I’ve seen some comments that others have encountered the same difficulty, though book 11 is supposed to be everything the previous volumes were and more if you can only persevere. I’ve been taking a break with some lesser fanfics and nonfiction for what occurs to me is becoming a longish while - I’m pretty sure it’s more than a month now. I’m used to being in the middle of several stories at any given time; I’ll have at least one that I read via Kindle app, often one or two via browser whether mobile or computer-based, and at least one via audiobook for driving or similar eyes-occupied tasks that leave a mental language lane open for processing. Still, it wouldn’t do to leave Perrin in trouble…
Oh, and the audiobooks I’ve got going at the moment are The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Both highly recommended series starters, though neither series is complete (and both may finish around the same year, at this rate).
@jsfs I had never even heard of wheel of Time until recently. My son’s girlfriend’s family owns a mint and they make replica coins for book series like wheel of Time, Lord of the rings, game of thrones, etc. They gave me a big bag of assorted coins for Christmas last year and in it were some of the ones from wheel of Time. I took them to work to show a fellow GoT and LoTR fan and she went nuts at the wheel of Time coins. They have some pretty cool stuff. My two fav items that I wear all the time are the replica of the Moon stamped in silver and a green leaf shaped coin from LoTR made into necklaces. They did a stamped moon landing coin with the foot print for the 50th anniversary too.
Their website is www.shirepostmint.com if you want to see their stuff. They gave me a copy of the first couple of wheel of Time books for Christmas but I just haven’t gotten around to reading them. I’m afraid if I do, I won’t get anything else done and I’ve got too many other projects going right now.
@ivannabc @jsfs
LOTR is long.
And it is, as JRRT and so many of his readers noted, way too short.
HP series is long.
GOT/SOFAI series is long and annoying, because perpetually unfinished.
Adam’s HHGTTG is a longish. And too short.
WOT series is long. As in really really long.
RJ appeared, basically, to lose control as a writer. He kept adding situations characters, locations, complications, storylines, sometimes without much payoff; and all the while being aware that he had a terminal medical condition and not a long prognosis.
And all the while promising to live to finish it.
He didn’t.
Near the end, I think with RJ’s knowledge and approval, Brandon Sanderson was contacted to complete it. It took three long books to do that, and there are arguments that Sanderson should have added another one, in order not to compress the stories too greatly.
It came out reasonably well. Not badly, considering. It’s a total YA story in tone. RJ was never the writer Martin, Tolkien, Rowling, Adams, or summer other were/are. Bout he knew how to construct and tell a compelling tale with good YA characters.
Just be prepared for it to take much time do get to the end.
@f00l @ivannabc @jsfs I tried to read WoT at some point, years ago. Got increasingly disenchanted and dropped the series by book three. Was it better than I remember, you think?
@InnocuousFarmer @ivannabc @jsfs
If you aren’t into it and wanting to continue by book 3, i’d say, “give up and move on to the next interesting read”.
@f00l @InnocuousFarmer @ivannabc I’m with the not-so-foolish f00l on this one: if a series hasn’t managed to become interesting within three books, it’s probably not going to do so for me. There’s a ton of great material out there. Find something that does spark passion for you.
I thought early WoT was a lot of fascinating worldbuilding adventures that kept somehow managing not to lead to a resolution of their current plot lines. It was really a rather remarkable achievement. I had become at least kind of invested in the characters, and I personally find worldbuilding to be enjoyable, so I kept reading. It helped that the story felt at least most of the time to be mostly character-driven; while not every character - and there are a lot of them! - goes around corners, at least the main ones have most of their actions make sense as things they might want to do based on emotions or goals they’d have rather than the author’s need for them to be in a particular place at a particular time to serve the plot.
Then again, I’ve read the Silmarilion multiple times, and I enjoyed The Irregular at Magic High School despite its ridiculously overpowered protagonist and lack of believable conflict due to the really interesting worldbuilding they did around the edges of the series. I might just be right in the target audience for WoT, and you might not have been. There is no shame in finding a piece of art not to your taste; that’s kind of the point. Art is here to help us find tastes we didn’t know we’d enjoy, then satisfy them. Maybe you don’t like Miles Davis, Miley Cyrus, or even music altogether - that’s okay, too. One of those things at least would be sad, but hey. Life happens in the sad moments, too.
I’d say you gave the series a good college try. If you’ve heard a lot of good about it and still want to try again, it may be worth considering; I’ve enjoyed it, and you’re missing out on a lot of the really fun stuff that can be done with the One Power. Though if you think you’ve seen it all, wait until near the beginning of book nine. You’ve not seen anything yet. Brute force isn’t the only thing, either. Plus there’s that new TV series that is in development. I think principal photography was due to start relatively soonish? I’m pretty sure they’ve announced all the main cast now. Anyway, the TV show might be an option if you wanted to audit the content but not have to read the book like a plebian (leaving aside that it would be the senators who could read, or had time to). Also there’s audiobooks.
There have definitely been books that it was not the right time for me to read, so I’ve set them aside. Sometimes I’ve come back to them and found wonderful friends. Sometimes I’ve come back and found that the books still weren’t that good to me (or occasionally, needed an editor or three). It could be that WoT might be in one of these categories for you; I’ve certainly had fun reading it. If you didn’t, though, there’s no reason to slog through an unenjoyable read when there are so many wonderful experiences available. I don’t think I’d put up with three books of it again, at any rate.
@f00l @ivannabc @jsfs That all makes sense. Maybe I’ll give the books another try at some point. As far as I can recall, I was enthusiastic by the end of book 1. I don’t remember exactly what changed. Maybe I didn’t like the characters. I was in high school at the time.
Aria Hahn, by John Carnwright, of which Cameron ripped off, (not the first time), and made Avatar. Unique way in which the book was published. Also reading the Time’s Edge series by JM Dattillo. Both futuristic.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is still waiting to be read, even though I’ve had the book for years.
The Last Shot (Han Solo story) is sitting next to me night stand eagerly waiting for me.
And many others I can’t think of waiting on the shelf.
nelson demille books are always an enjoyable read. he was actually interviewed by the feds after 9/11 because of the similarity of one of his books and the events of that day. interesting trivia for you there.
The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, an American journalist and author of nonfiction books. Same author who wrote Dead Wake (Sinking of the Lusitania) and Isaac’s Storm (Hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900). Both excellent reads.
Mostly mystery, crime, thrillers. All fiction. Currently reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding but not liking the writing at all. It may be deserted today.
Ready Player One then Armada by Ernest Cline
@nasman6
If you get into the spirit of what the writer is doing in these books, these can be wonderful fun.
If you don’t, well, then a lot of people seem have enjoyed reading them in order to tear them apart.
@f00l @nasman6 Ready Player One was fun, but I also REALLY FUCKING HATED IT.
For a book that glorifies pedantry about 80’s pop culture, computers, and video games, he got a lot of things wrong.
Perhaps I fall into the latter category you describe. I honestly started it with the intent of enjoying it, and I did, but I don’t plan on ever reading another book by the guy again.
On a scale of
whattothe fuck- how many email notifications is @carl669 getting for these?@f00l @Limewater watched the movie, kids liked it, as always with a movie based on book, wanted to read the book to see what was left out /changed. I enjoyed the book RPO, just now getting into Armada. So far it sounds just like The Last Starfighter…
@f00l @nasman6 I didn’t watch the movie because how how much the book pissed me off.
A few examples:
James Halliday talks about getting his Atari 2600 in 1979. Except that in 1979 it was the Atari VCS. It was not re-named to 2600 until 1982 when the 5200 was released.
The main character navigates to the center of “The maze from Adventure.” There are three mazes in “Adventure,” none of them have a center, and none can be topologically laid out on a flat surface.
The main character plays a high-scoring game of Robotron 2084 on his laptop. As a dual-stick shooter, there is no effective keyboard mapping for this game.
James Halliday is clearly a mash-up of Richard Garriott and Steve Wozniak. His early games take the place of Garriott’s Ultima series. Yet Garriott still gets name-dropped in the book, along with Ultima and Akalabeth.
The main character fiddles with the volume knob trying to get a TI-99\4a tape drive to work. He should be fiddling with the tone knob.
Those are things that irked me and I remember them off the top of my head years later.
@Limewater @nasman6
I didn’t expect “literature” going in. And I appreciated what he was doing, or think I did. So I had a blast with the book.
Have not yet seen the flick, mostly because I haven’t seen any films in “forever”.
As for the writer getting things wrong (I presume you mean he gets stuff wrong about the nostalgic time period he celebrates): I wasn’t a kid then. I did game, but only a tiny bit (< 20 hrs total prob), just to see what was going on. I wasn’t even aware of, or was barely aware of, much of the other 80’s stuff he references, except that I had seen the movies and heard the rock bands. (Rush, huh? Rush is fine. Just … not the amazing iconic rock choice for most people my age. But that’s OK too.)
My head and interests were elsewhere.
But: isn’t much of the fun of nostalgia the long arguments over details and catching someone else out in an error, the going down into endless rabbit holes, the remembering when we were all more innocent, so that obsessions with vid games and the like meant not worrying about the time and life-energy costs (pre-full-adulthood)?
So I’m still good with it all. Let the books be badly or even horribly written. Let them be full of nostalgia errors. Let the plots and characters be entirely derivative, or even let them entirely suck.
I think of these as being book equivalents to microwave popcorn.
So, still fun. For some of us.
/giphy all good
@Limewater @nasman6
You may be both the “perfect reader” and the “perfect critic” for Cline’s books.
/giphy perfect reader
@f00l @nasman6
Normally this stuff wouldn’t bother me. However, the entire core of the book was about being pedantic about all of those little things. If it was just a nostalgia romp, I’d have no problem with a few anachronisms or mistakes.
But the hero literally saves the world by being the best at knowing all the silly little details. So, when those details are wrong, it’s really glaring and annoying.
I’m looking forward to Cline’s next book. It’s about a guy who spends his life in his basement watching pornography. Little does he know that this obsession will allow him to watch the pornography that will save the world…
@Limewater @nasman6
to me, that just makes the book (as a phenomenon) that much funnier.
I suppose he should hasn’t bothered to get it right. But I’m kinda charmed that he didn’t.
It’s like he’s being a 12 year old fan-kid, but who has no real savvy. Not quite as lame as a poseur, but not the real deal either.
Oh well. What’s next? Perhaps you are into his “great work in progress”.
@f00l @Limewater The main character fiddles with the volume knob trying to get a TI-99\4a tape drive to work. He should be fiddling with the tone knob.
If I remember correctly, and I’m old so I might not, the tape drive I used with my TI-99 had no tone controls. It was mono and had volume only.
that thing took hours to load anything… Did have a neat space game with it, but you had to fly underground to refuel…
@f00l @nasman6 You’re thinking of Parsec. Yeah, it is pretty good. Did it get a tape release? I have it on cartridge, so it loads instantly. Apparently, if you have the speech module, it will talk. I don’t have one, though.
I still play Hunt The Wumpus, Hang Man, and A-MAZE-ING with my kids. It is at home, hooked to my CRT television right now.
And yeah, the official tape deck has a tone knob. If you’re using a different tape deck it may not.
@nasman6 If you’re not an 80’s trivia guru (snob?) then RPO is a really fun read. The concept isn’t new but the author takes it to a new depth. There is no writer out there that had the ability to write something that gets as much right as this does. The book may have need a better editor here and there but it’s not a history book. I think it’s sad to minimalize the author’s achievement over minor errors that may or may not be incorrect. Anyone who can ruin a book for themselves so easily should stick to history books but brace yourself: they get things wrong too. Nothing is perfect, celebrate what is great and enjoy the adventure.
Also - the audiobook is excellent and a great way to experience it with a lesser investment.
Armada was also good. Not as long, not as deep but still really fun. The main character can seem a little like the same person as in RPO. There are some major personality differences but the writing style can cause them to blend. This one isn’t as culture heavy.
@nasman6 @RedHot The Audiobook is narrated by Wil Wheaton. That actually makes it worse.
It’s a fun book, and I said it was fun in my first post. But it’s also the most masturbatory work of fiction I’ve ever read.
I picked at the pedantic stuff because those are objective, verifiable issues that you can confirm yourself with little effort. My other problems with the book are my opinion, and that is much more subjective. But it’s okay to like garbage. I like lots of garbage.
@Limewater @nasman6 The 80’s were full of garbage! Wonderful, amazing garbage that no one ever needed but that didn’t make us want it any less.
@f00l @Limewater Parsec, on a cartridge. Yup. I had a “portable” GE tape deck for mine.
@Limewater @nasman6 @RedHot
Note: Wil Wheaton as narrator makes it better and funnier.
Re “masturbatory”
That’s a pretty useless comment, as it can be applied by someone somewhere who is at least somewhat intelligent to almost any human action. Let alone to any work of fiction.
I’m sure it makes sense in context to you and to people who know you well. The rest of us could prob use a little more precision in critical comments, if we are to understand that you meant anything substantial.
@f00l @nasman6 @RedHot I listened to Wil Wheaton. I don’t like the guy. I can definitely see some overlap apart from the narration between people who like Wil Wheaton and people who would like Ready Player One.
To clarify my “masturbatory” comment: Cline has clearly spent a lot of time consuming entertainment and obsessing over it. I can’t judge. I’ve done the same, apparently with more concern for detail in the area of video and computer games.
It’s an enjoyable but purely selfish pursuit.
In Ready Player One, he takes that same purely selfish but enjoyable pursuit and makes it a virtue. The main character wins the game and saves the world by demonstrating this virtue more than anyone else. He also just constantly name-checks a bunch of “nerd culture” personalities and memes.
The synopsis for his second book looks like the same thing-- a guy does something of little value for his own amusement and that selfish action is turned into a virtue that allows the protagonist to save the world.
That is why I describe it as “masturbatory,” and why I suggested that his third book would be about viewing pornography. I’m sure this book would be fun, too.
I am now out of time, and will not be able to respond on this thread for a long time. Y’all have fun.
@Limewater @nasman6 @RedHot
And I hope you find books out there more rewarding for you to spend time on.
Fortunately, I gather there is a good selection on offer.
@f00l @Limewater @nasman6 I refuse to watch the PBS Masterpiece series Endeavour because of a plot hole so egregious that I can never, never forgive them even though I’ve forgotten exactly what it was. If I recall correctly, it was a number that nobody realized was a license plate until it was super-dramatic to do so, even though anyone alive at the time would have thought of it. Or maybe it was a phone number. I don’t want to remember, it was horrible. It was insulting. To history.
Does the Meh forum count?
I can hardly keep up with a job, grandkids, a pool and one acre yard with gardens. As it is the newspaper (yeah… remember those?) gets read a couple of days late most times.
When I do get to read a book it is generally SciFi (or at least fiction) and preferably snarky (think the 5 book HGttG trilogy)
Re-reading Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice
I don’t read books. I don’t watch movies with subtitles. If a book is any good they usually make a movie. And I don’t want that movie ruined by the book. Same with foreign movies, they will remake it in English. I don’t go to movies to read. I do read comic books but those are looked down on by real book readers
@j37hr0 Why not both?! I read a good number of long-form books, but I also really enjoy comics. I liked the recent WildStorm reboot by Warren Ellis. I’m also reading a series called The Magic Order and another called Wasted Space that I like a lot. The Weatherman is also good. Lots to read! Anyone that looks down on comics is just curmudgeonly.
@mrhanlon The Magic Order is great. Anything by Warren Ellis. Really enjoyed A Walk Through Hell by Ennis. Pearl is pretty good.
@j37hr0 Books > TV = comics > movies.
Unless the movie is a comic book. Then sometimes it is good.
I like about 3/4 of things published by Image.
I’m reading two right now, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, and also re-reading Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein.
@mrhanlon I really enjoyed the First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.
I’m re-reading Hunt for Red October. One of the best books I’ve ever read.
I’m going through the Preacher comic series. I love the show, so I wanted to see how it differs from the comic.
I’m also reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
@mikeeyes I’ve enjoyed the show up until the current (final) season. IMHO, they’re really phoning it in this time around.
@macromeh This is the last season, so I think they are just trying to cram everything in for a big finish. Another reason to read the comic.
Too many books in the backlog, and that’s just the easy popular stuff at the top of my mind (never finished Discworld, never finished Harry Fucking Wizardboy, overdue to read Douglas Adams for the second time, especially Dirk Gently).
Currently I’m stalled in the middle of Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. It is long, and it intersperses satisfying concepts and humor with chores. Probably get through it the next time I’m on a vacation. Books tend to be sprints the way I read them, get a running start, plow in, keep going… and done. This book does not support that approach.
I’m currently reading Fahrenheit 451. I love distopia novels though they’ve started to feel more real than not lately. I also love fantasy and sci fi.
I just finished the Bobiverse series and thought it was amazingly fun. It revolves around the happenings of a von neumann probe leaving a dystopian earth.
Currently listening to LotR again and it never gets old. Just finished listening to the Foundation series. WOT is lined up next.
@RedHot I also reread Treasure Island and The Lost World every six months or so. true literary gold.
@RedHot I am on book 6 listening to WOT. I have read the series a couple times.
Current read is Fire and Blood. I am not in love with it but still plugging away. It feels like GRRM had a outline for another long series and then decided not to create it.
Currently enjoying/sometimes hating catching up with the Gotham crew in DC Rebirth. Anyone else not a fan of the new Batgirl & The Birds of Prey. Also if anyone misses Scott Snyder’s amazing N52 writing check out All-Star Batman
I received a beautiful collection of Tennessee Williams plays for Christmas last year and I’m finally carving out time to read it.
I don’t know I want to read something sort of spooky for the Halloween season. I liked The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, any kind of zombie related media etc. Any suggestions?
@Targaryen The Undead zombie series by RR Haywood is great fun until book 10 when Haywood takes a very dark and inexcusable turn. I never finished 10 and have no plans to continue this series. But up until then it was very enjoyable.
Also, the Zombie Fallout series by Mark Tufo. It’s distantly tied into Tufo’s Indian Hill series if you’re aware of that one.
@ruouttaurmind That sucks because I have a hard time not finishing books even if they are bad. I’m going to look into this. Thanks
I’m reading The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, which I read 20-25 years ago and did not enjoy, but don’t remember at all. I’m only a fifth of the way in, and and mostly disoriented by the setting. It was set in 1990 and published in 1993. The fashion doesn’t seem quite right (fluorescent leg warmers? maybe in Canada), and characters are talking about the Gulf War and I can’t remember what was going on then, vs. '93, vs. a decade later. It’s weird.
The “hippie” character works at a store called Radiance, which started as a head shop, then became an occult store called Okkult, then started selling goth makeup, then became a New Age store selling crystals and tea and cassettes of loon calls, and at one point the owner talks about turning it into a cheap stuff store called Scrimpers because of the recession. And I really, really, want to shop in/work at/own this fictional store in all its incarnations. This is probably not what I’m supposed to be taking away from the book, but it has me convinced that Margaret Atwood is a genius.
PS Kind of a dick move on the part of @mediocrebot to start a book discussion thread and not even acknowledge that we’ve been doing one every month for awhile.
@mossygreen
Weeeellllll … @mediocrebot is acknowledged to be a complete dickly fuckhead. So I suppose it’s all in character.
/giphy character.
I keep clicking on this thread thinking it says “let’s talk boobs”
@therealjrn here you go
/giphy boobs
@tinamarie1974 Bob! That was a weird-ass movie.
/image pair of boobies
@therealjrn oh I have never seen Bob
Those boobies are pretty cute though!!!
@tinamarie1974 Bob is the man from Fight Club who gives those comforting hugs.
I guess you have to have seen the movie.
Jonathan Cahn books—Read the Harbinger already and starting on the Oracle book now. Guess you can call futuristic as past events are repeating now so predicting the future.
@AttyVette I zombified this thread with a book that took forever to read. We have a monthly thread if you want to join us there!
https://meh.com/forum/topics/new-month--nov-2019--new-book-topic---whatcha-reading