September's Studious Search For Sonorous Snippets

[Rodders]

Swan Song's an outstanding read.

I just finished Greg Bear's Hull Zero Three. Interesting. A sad ending, but quite joyous at the same time. I enjoyed it.

Now onto something called "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline. A promising start.

[Spade]

Finally reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It's been in the collection for too many years.

[antiloquax]

Originally Posted by Rodders

Swan Song's an outstanding read.

Yes, I am enjoying it very much!

[D_Davis]

Tel Aviv Dossier

Don't think I'm going to finish this. There is a neat (really neat!) idea here, but a book is the wrong medium for the story. This should be an interactive, multi-media web site. The story is told from different POV, through different mediums, like podcasts, letters, videos, narrative, etc. However, it's all in a book. So the podcast part just says its a podcast, but you're reading it. These parts are labeled - AUDIO. And then there are video parts labeled as such.

OK.

But a podcast isn't live. A podcast has to be recorded and then uploaded to a feed, and then it has to be downloaded to listen to. But that really can't be happening because of what is happening during the story (if you read it you'll get what I'm saying).

And a video is seen with eyes and heard. How are we able to get inside the videogrpahers head to know what she is thinking? Why is the director telling me what he is seeing?

It doesn't work as a book.

Also, in the first 75 pages there are two instances in which a first person narrator dies at the end of their vignette.

???

Ending a chapter/section with something like, "...and then the helicopter was falling, and I tried to duck but the blades hit my he..." is not clever. That's stupid, dumb, idiotic and amateurish. It has to be assumed that if you are reading something written in the first person that the POV character is actually the one writing the words AFTER the events took place. So how is someone writing on paper while running away from and trying to dodge a falling helicopter?

Editors and publishers: please stop this from happening.

Writers: don't do this - ever. It makes no sense. You are not being clever, and it is not original. Leave this mistake to the first year creative writing students.

Also, the authors completely fail to create distinct voices for all of the POV characters. They all read the same. There is one passage from the POV of a child, but it reads in the same language as the passages from the adult POV. How is this possible?

Oh well, at least I only wasted part of a day on this.

[soulsinging]

Originally Posted by D_Davis

Also, in the first 75 pages there are two instances in which a first person narrator dies at the end of their vignette.

???

Ending a chapter/section with something like, "...and then the helicopter was falling, and I tried to duck but the blades hit my he..." is not clever. That's stupid, dumb, idiotic and amateurish. It has to be assumed that if you are reading something written in the first person that the POV character is actually the one writing the words AFTER the events took place. So how is someone writing on paper while running away from and trying to dodge a falling helicopter?

Editors and publishers: please stop this from happening.

Writers: don't do this - ever. It makes no sense. You are not being clever, and it is not original. Leave this mistake to the first year creative writing students.

It worked for American Beauty...

[D_Davis]

I don't think it ever works - I can't buy into the concept at all. It's easily my biggest pet peeve in fiction.

Maybe, maybe if it is a ghost remembering, or if the author invents some kind of fantastic device that channels the thoughts or memories of a dead narrator...I might be able to buy that.

But otherwise, I just cannot stand it.

And of course a found journal/diary thing works. But that's not the case here.

And like I always say about the stuff I don't like:

shrug and meh. There are plenty of things out there to read that I will like. No big whoop!

[Rosemary]

I have been doing a lot of re-reading - Rothfuss, Lloyd and Abercrombie - over the last few months while waiting for new releases of series I have already started.

The first three Books of Pellinor by Alison Crogon. Really enjoyed them and looking forward to her next book.

Then began re-reading Malazan Series by Steven Erikson, although have just put that aside so that I can read my first ever copy to be found here by Freda Warrington. Book One of The Jewelfire Trilogy which has some great characters, dialogue and details. I'm not too sure that I quite 'believe' in the main female character, Tanthe. She seems a little too far fetched, even for a Fantasy book.

[purple_kathryn]

Finished Dragonfly Falling, I actually wanted to immediately start the next book. but I have a list

and next on that list is Flashforward by Robert J Sawyer (yes what the short lived TV series was based on)

[Fried Egg]

I finished "Emphyrio" by Jack Vance the other day and now I'm reading "Day Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenko.

[soulsinging]

Originally Posted by D_Davis

I don't think it ever works - I can't buy into the concept at all. It's easily my biggest pet peeve in fiction.

Maybe, maybe if it is a ghost remembering, or if the author invents some kind of fantastic device that channels the thoughts or memories of a dead narrator...I might be able to buy that.

But otherwise, I just cannot stand it.

And of course a found journal/diary thing works. But that's not the case here.

And like I always say about the stuff I don't like:

shrug and meh. There are plenty of things out there to read that I will like. No big whoop!

Exception that proves the rule perhaps. I just have a natural disdain for the "rules" of writing. The obsession with 'show dont tell' and things like that are repeated like an unthinking mantra in all creative writing classes and it's cranking out tons of self-conscious purple prose all over the country... all "literature" is starting to read the same. I also think a number of great writers would be told to to quit for being amateurs that can't write if they handed in their work in such a class (PKD, Tolkien, Dickens). I've always felt that if the writing is natural, the reader will feel it. If it's self-consciously aiming for "good" writing, it shows (not tells, hehe).

Anyway, I'll shut it lest I derail this further. Not going after you or anything, just had to vent about my skepticism towards higher education writing classes.

[D_Davis]

I don't think it's a rule at all - just something that I think is problematic and amateurish. Also, I'm a pretty big fan of experimental fiction, so I do like things that "break the rules" or what have you. ?

****

Started this last night:



Very good so far. The book has received many mixed reviews, and so I am curious about what I'll end up thinking.

[Connavar]

I have read 1 american, 1 french and 2 German classic authors in a row so as a change of pace im reading African Psycho by Alain Mabanckou.

Apparently not in common with Easton Ellis famous American Psycho except title, lead role. Which is good, i wanted a dark, twisted african story. Funny the african authors i find in library is mostly from Congo. I thought Mabanckou was North African, algerian for some reason :P

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by D_Davis

Started this last night:



Very good so far. The book has received many mixed reviews, and so I am curious about what I'll end up thinking.

Yep, I've got it. I've only read the first part but so far thought it was really good. Sorokin as you probably know is something of a problematic figure for the Russian literary establishment, very much a firebrand but one with a definite dose of genius IMO.

It will be interesting to see if he is able to sustain the narrative momentum and quality of the story over three parts.

[D_Davis]

Originally Posted by GOLLUM

Yep, I've got it. I've only read the first part but so far thought it was really good. Sorokin as you probably know is something of a problematic figure for the Russian literary establishment, very much a firebrand but one with a definite dose of genius IMO.

It will be interesting to see if he is able to sustain the narrative momentum and quality of the story over three parts.

I'm about 1/2 through Bro, and I am loving it. Of course, I'm a huge sucker for this kind of metaphysical, mumbo-jumbo. Totally seems like my kind of thing.

I am very interested in reading more from the author.

I'm also impressed with the translation. It feels very natural.

[Vertigo]

Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination. It took a long time for me to get into this and I really didn't enjoy the first third of the book much. Which is particularly annoying as, had I known what sort of book it was going to be, I would probably have enjoyed it much more. The thing is that calling it science fiction is like calling Animal Farm a book on pastoral life in a farm. Brilliant though Animal Farm is, somebody looking for a book on pastoral life is going to be severely disappointed. Had I been expecting this kind of book I would have enoyed the whole read more and will probably enjoy it far more on a second reading some time in the future. Strangely enough it reminded me of another author who has popped on thie chrons recently; Herman Hesse!