286 replies to this topic

[Kopekemaster]

In the same book as The Time Machine was in, there were 3 other shorter stories by H.G. Wells (gosh that sentence was so poorly worded), The Empire of the Ants, The Country of the Blind, and The Man Who Could Work Miracles.

The first and last of those three were great. The first was quite gory (yus), and the last was just pretty awesome and funny. The middle one....

Meh.

I didn't see anything scifi or fantasy in it, and, really, not much of a plot. It's an interesting idea, to be sure, but still...

Also, he says that the valley of the blind had been secluded for 30 generations, which would be around 900 years (give or take a hundred). There's practically no way that their language would still be similar enough to Spanish that they would be able to speak to uh derp what's his name the guy they call Bogota.

But yeah. Continuing with The Great Hunt, now.

Edited by Kopekemaster, Jun 28 2014 - 08:07 AM.

[Elric of Melnibone]

Been on a Harlan Ellison kick lately, especially his essays,and just finished Xenogenesis.

[Kitania]

over the last two weeks i read:

 

- Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

- Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

- Book I of the Night Angel trilogy (I forget the title of the book in question, since I bought the three volumes written as one) by Brent Weeks

- Started Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare

- Started A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

- Started Game of Thrones (My sister owns the book, so I haven't finished it) by George R.R Martin

 

also wanted to reread The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde but can't find the book anywhere, might start Paradise Lost by John Milton soon (though that's an epic poem, but it's bound like a book and published on its own so there). 

[Vorahk1Panrahk2]

Walt Disney's Fantasia- John Culhane

 

Like the 'Art of' books published by Chronicle, this one tells the stories and shows concept art for all sections of Fantasia. If Art of Tangled was a 4.5/5, then this book is a 6/5. It's much longer than Chronicle's books (by forty pages), which means there's much more room for the author to write paragraphs on paragraphs of details like symbolism in the film, how the music was adapted to Fantasound, how characters were designed, and he even gets into criticism of certain elements. It probably has less art than Chronicle's books, but I think that's forgivable due to how comprehensive the material is. This is what an 'Art of' book should be, and any fans of Fantasia should definitely read it.

 

Up next, The Illusion of Life.

 

EDIT: Totally lied. Up next was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Art and Creation of Walt Disney's Classic Animated Film - J.B. Kaufman

 

It's basically an Art Of book that just wasn't published by Chronicle. It's longer (by almost 90 pages), but at the same time the amount of interesting or information is probably on par with their books. For one, the text resorts to a lot of summary of the film. Books such as these are meant to be written for someone who has already seen the film, and for that reason summaries are unnecessary. Aside from that, the concept artwork (which fills most of the book) is nice to look at it, but I also feel like there are too many examples of just cel backgrounds. I've seen the movie and I know what the backgrounds look like. They occasionally make them interesting by showing the different cel layers that make up a shot, but the book would have strongly benefitted from showing actual concept art. It's entirely possible that, as a result of how old the movie is, that this material didn't exist anymore. But, still, a note on that would have been nice.

 

Overall it's not as good as Culhane's Fantasia book, but still interesting. 

 

Up next: The Illusion of Life (for real this time) and an audiobook: Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl.

Edited by Vorahk1Panrahk2, Jul 10 2014 - 03:49 PM.

[Sumiki]

I read John Cage, a biography of the remarkably eccentric avant-garde American composer by Rob Haskins. It wasn't too long, but really gave me a sense of Cage's musical philosophy. He's perhaps best known for 4'33" - known as "The Silent Piece" - but he was a excellent mycologist (except for the time he accidentally poisoned himself and a group of friends), used coin flips and ancient Chinese books to determine parts of his compositions, and painted canvases with as abstract a mindset as he composed with.

 

(I got a bunch of composer biographies for my birthday - I'm about halfway through Ravel: Man and Musician now.)

 

I also read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I wrote a blog entry about this - in a word, meh. But I gave Green's writing another chance and read An Abundance of Katherines, and it was much better. If I were given both of those and didn't know their publication dates, I would have said that Katherines came after TFiOS, just because it's ... better.

[Primis]

Finished reading a few of the Psych tie-in novels: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read, Mind Over Magic and Call of the Mild. They were all pretty good, definitely felt like episodes of Psych, probably because the author was also a writer on the show.

 

Just started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone today. I've been meaning to read the Harry Potter books for awhile now, but I just never got around to it until now.

Edited by Primis, Jul 19 2014 - 12:20 AM.

[Vorahk1Panrahk2]

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn
 
Spoilers abound within the tag

Spoiler

Gone Girl is about a man (Nick) whose wife (Amy) disappears. As the community rallies to support him and help find her, clues start to emerge that point to himself as the kidnapper.
 
There are definitely some very interesting things going on in this novel. What I love about it is how Flynn uses the first person. Like a good storyteller, she only delivers the information when we, the readers, need to know it. This ups the tension as the reader can't tell what's going on in the head of the lead character. When he tells lies, the reader may or may not know depending on what the author has chosen to reveal. And like every one else in the investigation, the reader is allowed to put their own theories as to what is exactly going on.
 
The plot twist -which is also the middle of the book- is also extremely well done. Admittedly I have limited exposure to the mystery genre, but I've never seen a book filled with diary entries that later turn out to be completely fake. After we learn this in the second half, and that Nick's wife set him up to be blamed for her murder despite the fact that she is alive and well- the book turns into an incredibly tense game of cat and mouse as Nick tries to convince others of his innocence, while Amy is doing whatever it takes not to make herself look like the bad guy. Amy actually reminds me a lot of classic noir femme fatales, and I wonder if that's what the author is going for.
 
Overall, a very good, very tense book. I enjoyed it immensely.

 

I'm also almost half way through The Illusion of Life. I swear it's getting worked on.

Edited by Vorahk1Panrahk2, Jul 22 2014 - 10:38 PM.