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Post by nemesis on Jul 16, 2022 20:02:35 GMT
nemesis Shogun certainly defined “me” for a good period of my teens. I should find time to read it again. I had a great time reading it; wanted to immediately start Tai-Pan ( Tight Pants), but knew a lighter book would be a better idea. I do like reading a series in one go, however it was heavy enough I knew a break was a better idea. I’m still thinking about the book!
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Post by nemesis on Jul 16, 2022 20:05:58 GMT
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nazo
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Post by nazo on Jul 17, 2022 17:34:00 GMT
Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro
I do love Ishiguro's writing, there's something so compelling in the way he conveys the banal everyday lives of his characters. This one is quite similar to Never Let Me Go, set in the near future and told in 1st person from the point of view of Klara an artificial friend, designed to be a child's companion. Lots of themes are explored here without making any real judgements, the narrative is quite dreamlike and fragmented at times and it's never quite clear how literally we should take the events described, the ending being particularly ambiguous. I enjoyed it a lot but I don't think it's quite up there with his best. 4/5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2022 18:03:39 GMT
You guys have just made me buy Shogun. I hope you are happy. Kindle says 29 hours to read!
I literally know nothing about it, genre, period or themes, but may as well try.
And after the intro I was not expecting 16th century... the comments above about politics made me think it would be a contemporary thriller, but looks like The Baroque Cycle. Colour me intrigued.
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Jul 20, 2022 9:49:11 GMT
The Shining - Stephen King
A bit disappointing really. Maybe I went in with high expectations and in my mind I think I was constantly comparing it to the film watch doesn't help. It's just a bit dull with nothing happening until the final third and the writing really is clumsy and very dated at times.
5/10
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nazo
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Post by nazo on Aug 4, 2022 7:55:16 GMT
Men without Women - Haruki Murakami
I've enjoyed the long form stuff of his I've read but this collection of short stories didn't do anything for me. A couple of them looked like they were going to be interesting but then stopped before they went anywhere. None of them really had what I'd consider an ending. The last story, which shares the same title as the collection, is some of the most pretentious bollocks I've had the misfortune to read.
2/5
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2022 8:13:02 GMT
The Shining - Stephen King A bit disappointing really. Maybe I went in with high expectations and in my mind I think I was constantly comparing it to the film watch doesn't help. It's just a bit dull with nothing happening until the final third and the writing really is clumsy and very dated at times. 5/10 WTF
Actually, if this is your first time reading it... Yeah, I can see how that opinion could happen. I read it before I saw Kubrick's film and like many other's I was like "erm, this film is nothing like the book". Over time though I love it equally, albeit for different reasons.
The book though. One of the first things I read that gave me proper chills. It's atmosphere is also second to none. It's a bloody masterpiece.
Actually. I'll go back to my first reaction.
WTF man.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2022 8:19:21 GMT
Talking of Stephen King. I finally finished The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. I hated it when I first read it and it made me give up on the series. I'm reading them all again now, and adamant I'm going to do it all. Actually changed my opinion on this one. Liked it a lot more. Still reckon it should have been two books (or the first half should have been edited down to fuck and put in the previous book), but the second half is great fun.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 4, 2022 9:40:45 GMT
The second book is my favourite, but The Waste Lands is cool too. The train is really weird, though, don't know wtf he was smoking when he came up with that.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2022 9:45:23 GMT
Yeah the train was what did it for me first time through. Didn't mind so much this time for some reason. Probably because I was expecting it.
About 200 pages into Wizard and Glass now.
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Post by Trowel 🏴 on Aug 4, 2022 11:44:09 GMT
Wizard and Glass is the best in the series. The story within the story might be my favourite thing King has ever written (close tie with The Langoliers).
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Post by Deleted on Aug 4, 2022 12:27:57 GMT
Yeah I'm into that bit now. Actually really liked the beginning as well to this one with the Captain Trips shit going on. Then it started to lose me a bit with the thinnys, and now I'm in Roland's story.
It's all a bit fucking mental really isn't it.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 4, 2022 12:46:59 GMT
I actually didn't rate Wizard and Glass that much. I know it's regarded as some of his best, but it just felt a bit... YA fiction to me. And good god the man is terrible at writing sex scenes.
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Post by cptjohnnycasino on Aug 4, 2022 12:50:41 GMT
Wizard and Glass is the best in the series. The story within the story might be my favourite thing King has ever written (close tie with The Langoliers). Agreed. Wizard and Glass is the best in the series and then quality drops off dramatically for the last few books. All tied into him being hit by a car in '99. Apparently the Dark Tower graphic novels are worth a read too as companion pieces.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 4, 2022 14:15:04 GMT
I'm weird because I quite liked the whole series.
It's a great mix of classic cool and really random stuff. Plus I love the way he chucks in various characters from his other novels. MCU before its time!
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 4, 2022 14:37:57 GMT
I really liked the ending too. The one behind the "you probably won't like this" spoiler wall. It felt appropriate.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 8, 2022 9:11:03 GMT
Anyway, speaking of King, I'm thinking that I might just give up on The Tommyknockers.
I just can't. I love me some King, but I just fucking can't. It's like trying to follow someone with ADD, jumping between perspectives with no rhyme or reason. There's flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks. Long, rambling sentences straight from his coke habit to the page, apparently without any editor telling him no.
And he does the "two weeks before *insert terrible thing*" foreshadowing that worked so well in Pet Sematary. But it worked in Pet Sematary because it was jarring and unexpected, whereas here he uses it Every. Fucking. Chapter. To the point that there's no tension at all, because you're usually informed of what happens to someone before you even meet them!
Gah. It's not even bad in a fun way!
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nazo
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Post by nazo on Aug 8, 2022 9:16:12 GMT
I read that was I was a kid, the only thing I remember about it though was the rhyme. King himself says it's an awful book so I don't think anyone would blame you for giving up.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2022 9:20:40 GMT
Never read that one. I remember watching the miniseries that was done round about the same time as The Stand. Thought it was pish, which put me off reading the book. Dodged a bullet there.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 8, 2022 9:24:46 GMT
I'm actually kind of interested to see the upcoming adaptation of it. Because the whole "hivemind of screaming voices in your head" thing could very, very easily be applied to social media.
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Post by Vandelay on Aug 8, 2022 15:37:45 GMT
I've been reading The Dark Tower for the first time myself. Finished book 5 a couple of weeks ago. I've been enjoying them quite a bit, although I would say that the hand of the editor could be more present in a couple of the books.
Wizard and the Glass I thought was just OK. I think the main reason I didn't get quite so into it is because it felt like a bit of a distraction from the main story. I got more into it as it went on though and the final acts were really good.
The second book has probably been my favourite. I really enjoyed the way that was structured and the introduction of the two members of Roland's ka-tet is very enjoyable. Roland himself also becomes a more interesting character than the already interesting figure he is in the first book.
Also really liked the first half of book 3, but felt it tailed off a bit in the second half. The train at the end was cool though.
Book 5, Wolves of Calla, really went places and the ending I could see people groaning a bit at, but I loved it. Has me really interested to see just how mad it is going to go in the next book.
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Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 9, 2022 5:12:58 GMT
I wish The Dark Tower had been a tv show instead of a movie. Also, much as I love Idris, I'm not sure he was really right for Roland.
That said Matty McC is perfect for the man in black, but he didn't really get enough chance to do anything with it in the somewhat generic movie.
If it had been a bit of a Westworld (s1!) type show it'd have been great.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 9, 2022 5:28:17 GMT
I barely remember Books 5 and 6 for some reason, but I have to agree that Wizard and Glass seems like an odd addition to the series. I mean as an integral part of the progression. If it had been shorter or more integrated into the journey of Roland and his companions, then ok, but if I don't completely misremember, then almost all of the 1000 pages are dedicated to just Roland's background.
I have finished the first book of the Otherland-series by Tad Williams, City of Golden Shadow. It was a slow, long read and while it always did manage to keep my interest it felt like there are often dozens of pages with little of interest going on. Don't get me wrong I understand how you have to spend time to build the characters and to do atmospheric writing and so on, but this one feels particularly slow, even for Tad Williams. A bit too much time spent in between events that progress the story or provide something new. The overall ideas for plot and setting are really quite interestsing though. (3,5/5)
Edit: @reductionistbill:
Well, assuming some good writers, or at least writers respectful to the material. But yeah, at least the format would've been better. I assume the movie was more of a random mash-up of stuff from the books?
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Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 9, 2022 5:35:28 GMT
I assume the movie was more of a random mash-up of stuff from the books? It became a pretty generic action hero type movie. Most of the weird stuff from the books was taken out, so it was basically hero rescues kid and then they have a gunfight against the bad guy. It wasn't awful, but it was pretty forgettable and solidly 7/10 fluff.
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Aug 9, 2022 5:42:32 GMT
I assume the movie was more of a random mash-up of stuff from the books? It became a pretty generic action hero type movie. Most of the weird stuff from the books was taken out, so it was basically hero rescues kid and then they have a gunfight against the bad guy. It wasn't awful, but it was pretty forgettable and solidly 7/10 fluff. I see, so mostly the first book, except with random changes of their own?
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Post by drhickman1983 on Aug 9, 2022 7:00:10 GMT
It's been a long time since I read it, but I always found the way King inserted himself into the Dark Tower series a bit indulgent. Not necessarily bad, but indulgent.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 9, 2022 8:03:37 GMT
It is indulgent, and honestly kind of bad also. He's written books that are basically about himself before (Misery, The Dark Half), so the "what if I overcome writer's block by writing my writer's block into the story" isn't 100% new. But making your writing the literal linchpin of an entire universe is... something else. Still, if anyone had the right to pull that kind of shit, it'd probably be him.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Aug 9, 2022 8:04:51 GMT
Should that be spoilered? Is there anyone planning to read The Dark Tower that hasn't yet?
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Post by drhickman1983 on Aug 9, 2022 8:07:44 GMT
MolarAm🔵Thats a fair shout, maybe it should be a spoiler. Added the spoiler tag to mine.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2022 8:11:15 GMT
Tbf I haven't got to that bit yet, but I was aware of it. I'm actually pretty sure it's in the synopsis of whatever book it occurs in.
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