Sunday Morning Book Thread - 03-24-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(Does it really make less disturbing if the heads are Lego instead of human? Think about it...)

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

Today's pic comes from a Lego display at the Welsh Hills School. This is the Ewok village from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. Not much to say about it other than it's a pretty neat Lego set, along with the other Lego sets that were on display.

DISTURBING BOOKS

"Disturbing" books usually involve elements of horror in some way, even if it's purely psychological horror. I'm no stranger reading disturbing books, though I haven't read any of these. I generally try to avoid those books that are going to make me extremely uncomfortable. Unfortunately, because I've read quite a bit of horrific stuff in my day, I suppose I'm somewhat desensitized to horror. There were parts of Malazan Books of the Fallen by Steven Erickson that would have absolutely horrified me 20 or 30 years ago, but now I just read them and move on, though I do still find those parts quite disturbing, if only because of the implications involved. Many authors known for their science fiction stories are also quite good at writing disturbing short fiction. Ray Bradbury, for instance, wrote a number of short stories that still haunt me because of how disturbing they are. "The Veldt," for example, is about a couple of children who have access to a holodeck that is entirely too real. They decide that they don't like their parents and lure them into a trap to be devoured by virtual lions. Harlan Ellison, of course, is well known for not only writing disturbing stories such as "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," but also for commissioning disturbing stories for his Dangerous Visions anthologies.

Here are a few books from my own collection that I find disturbing (in no particular order):

Blood Music by Greg Bear -- A sentient nanovirus takes over the Earth, transforming it into "grey goo."

American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett -- A woman inherits a house in a small, New Mexico town, only to discover the inhabitants are NOT what they seem...This book prompted to buy everything else Bennett has written because it was just that disturbing.

Bad Glass by Richard E. Gropp -- A man becomes trapped in a small American town that seems to have abandoned the normal rules of reality...

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis -- A remarkably prescient book on our present day situation. I read this during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and it was just a freaky reading experience.

The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer -- The normal rules of reality are altered and twisted in an ever-expanding section of Earth and we are helpless to prevent it.

Nightworld by F. Paul Wilson -- This is the end of his Repairman Jack / Adversary Cycle series (they run parallel to each other). Earth is slowly taken over by the "Otherness" that seeks to replace our reality with own better suited to its nature.

You may notice a common theme among some of the stories listed above. I enjoy those stories where our reality is threatened by an alien entity or force that seeks to replace the laws of physics as we know them with a completely different set. I don't know why I like those stories, but I do.

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HOW TO END A STORY

Reading, as we all know, is an emotionally charged experience. We like to be taken on an emotional roller-coaster throughout a story, experiencing vicariously the same emotions as those felt by the characters in a story. When we get to the end, we like to feel a sense of emotional fulfillment. A good author will give us a decent payoff at the end. The best endings will make you want even more stories from that same author.

In the video above, Jerry B. Jenkins, who has written over 200 books and surely knows a thing or two about endings, says that there are around six basic endings to stories, though there may be a few more out there:

The Closed or Resolved Ending -- Best used for standalone stories where ALL loose ends (or at least the majority of them) are tied up nice and neatly. The reader doesn't have to wonder what happens to any of the side plots because they are resolved at the end.

The Open or Unresolved Ending -- Typically found in stories where the author wants to give themselves a little wriggle room for extra stories set in the same universe or they are deliberately giving the reader a story hook for the next exciting adventure in the series. In Philip José Farmer's Riverworld series, for example, he had ONE SINGLE LINE at the end of The Magic Labyrinth that he used to expand into another novel (Gods of Riverworld) several years later.

The Ambiguous Ending -- The ending is deliberately vague so that readers have to form their own conclusions about how the story ends. Was there a resolution to the main plot? Was it all just a fever dream of the main character?

The Surprise or Twist Ending -- The author gives the reader an unexpected twist at the end that in some ways changes how the story should be read. A great example of this is Robert Bloch's short story, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper." It's really hard to discuss these stories sometimes because you don't want to give away the ending....

The Closed Circle -- This is an interesting variation where the beginning and the end are so intimately tied together that they may become one and the same. Sometimes an author will begin a story at the very end and then describe how the characters arrived at that point throughout the rest of the book.

The Expanded Ending (or Epilogue) -- Jerry's not a fan of this type of ending, but I think it can be used effectively. Long series, for instance, may use an epilogue to give characters a "happily ever after" chapter. J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has one so that we get to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione, all grown up with children of their own. J.R.R. Tolkien has TWO epilogues in Lord of the Rings. The first is the final chapter of The Return of the King, where Frodo and Bilbo travel to the Gray Havens and from there sail across the sea to Valinor. Only there can they be healed from their long exposure to the One Ring. The second is in the appendices, where Tolkien gives us a chronology of events that occurred after the main story, culminating with Gimli and Legolas traveling to the mouth of the river Anduin and from there passing over the seas, "and an end was come in the Middle-Earth of the Fellowship of the Ring."

Which is your favorite type of ending to read? Or write about?

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

There weren't too many Moron recommendations from last week. The discussion went in a variety of other interesting directions...

On the Kindle, I read Balancing On Blue: A Thru-Hiking Adventure on the Appalachian Trail by Keith Foskett. This is an Englishman's tale of hiking from Georgia to Maine along the AT in 2012 and about the characters he meets along the way. Reading this brought back memories of many backpacking hikes when my son and I were very active in a very active Boy Scout troop in California. The highlight of each year was a 5-7 day hike in the High Sierras. Saw some beautiful country and made many fond, lasting memories.
Posted by: Zoltan at March 17, 2024 09:16 AM (cfQ/i)

Comment: The Appalachian Trail is a very, very long trail, extending all the way from northern Georgia to northern Maine. Here's an interactive map that gives you a sense of just how long this trail is. About six years ago, one of my old college buddies was hiking along it (alone) and somehow fell off the trail, taking a disastrous tumble. He very nearly died from exposure as it took a couple of days before he was found and he was unconscious the entire time. Suffered a host of injuries including head trauma with some mild brain damage. Moral of the story: Never, ever, go hiking alone like that.

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Twenty five years ago, two English boys met aboard the Titanic, and both ended up surviving, and living in America. Now they meet again in England, both claiming to be Sir John Farleigh, and claiming to be heir to an English estate. The mystery only deepens when one of them dies while they wait for the proof of who is the real John Farleigh. John Dickson Carr presents us with this scenario in The Crooked Hinge. The dead man has three slashes across his throat, but witnesses say nobody was near him when he died in the garden - could it possibly be suicide? There are many false clues and theories for Gideon Fell to analyze, and the twists and turns in this tale are remarkable. Was the real John Farleigh killed, or the impostor? Was it murder or suicide? The plot is complicated by a padlocked room In the manor full of arcane books and objects as well as an automaton with arms of steel. So many clues lead in the wrong direction, and when the resolution comes, it is an astounding twist. Often the reader is convinced the trail leads to one suspect when it dead ends, and a new clue leads elsewhere. This is a clever mystery well worth reading.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 17, 2024 09:16 AM (bBPVf)

Comment: Based on recent comments in the Sunday Morning Book Thread by Thomas Paine, it sounds like he's working his way through all of John Dickson Carr's mysteries, which actually sound quite intriguing. If this were a Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child mystery, I'd suspect that there is an almost plausible actual science fiction resolution. Clones? Alternate reality duplicates? Androids? Taking all bets!

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

The Books of Earthsea - The Complete Illustrated Edition by Ursula K. LeGuin

I decided to stop after Book 4, Tehanu, and take a break for a bit. Book 5, Tales of Earthsea, is a collection of short stories that take place in the same world and provide deeper worldbuilding. I'm sure I'll get back to it eventually.

The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England by Brandon Sanderson

I've seen a couple of YouTube videos that haven't ranked this Sanderson story very highly. I get it. It's not for everyone and the ending was a bit "meh." However, I did enjoy the tongue-in-cheek "advertisements" and "FAQs" scattered throughout the text. Clearly, Sanderson was having fun with this story of a man who is trapped in an alternate past, one of an infinite possible pasts, where he could set himself up as a god-king if he so desired. Instead, the main protagonist is tracking another criminal from his own world/time in order to bring him to justice. Except the "hero" has forgotten most of his past life and doesn't know *why* he's so intent on capturing the villain....True to Sanderson's world-building skills, he is able to anticipate many of my questions with clever answers when I started thinking about the ethical and moral quandaries surrounding travel to an alternate dimension for the sole purpose of ruling it as a god-king...

Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Asimov's Foundation series explores the collapse of the Galactic Empire and is inspired by Edward Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire but applied to a much, much larger scale (an entire galaxy with 25 millions worlds). Protagonist Hari Seldon is a mathematical/psychology prodigy and conceives of a science he calls "psychohistory" where he is able to predict the future to some degree based on some initial conditions of humanity. In Prelude, which is a prequel to his original novel, Seldon spends most of the story dodging Imperial agents who want to use his psychohistory for their own purposes, even though Seldon readily admits there's no practical application of it--until the end of the novel when his experiences interacting with other cultures on Trantor, the Imperial Capital planet, unlocks the secret of the power of psychohistory.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Written in 1951, this is a collection of loosely connected stories that document the fall of the Galactic Empire and rise of the Second Empire. Hari Seldon, the greatest psychohistorian who ever lived, predicts that the collapse will lead to sociopolitical anarchy for 30,000 years, but the Seldon Plan is designed to reduce this to a mere 1,000 years of chaos, and then a new Empire will arise. The Foundation, based on a remote world at the edge of the galactic rim, creates a technological priesthood to preserve knowledge and manage the collapse and transition to the new society. Also, because this was written in the 1950s, EVERYONE smokes like a chimney--except for one character that is noted as being a nonsmoker.

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

The Foundation has survived the first few "Seldon Crises" that he predicted using his psychohistory. After 300 years, the Foundation now faces its most dire challenge--a direct confrontation with a weakened, but still powerful Imperial remnant that seeks to reclaim its lost territories. The Foundation is also threatened by The Mule, a strange entity that Seldon's psychohistory failed to predict. This wild card may completely unravel the Seldon Plan for restoring the Second Empire...

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov

In his wisdom Hari Seldon set up a second Foundation world at the opposite end of the Galaxy from the first, and more publicized, Foundation on Terminus. The Second Foundation is just a rumor, but the Mule *knows* it exists and will stop at nothing to eliminate the Second Foundation, which is the only thing stopping the Mule from achieving true Galactic domination...

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

Arcanum Unleashed by Brandon Sanderson -- Sanderson wrote a number of short stories that also take place within his larger "Cosmere" universe connecting his longer novels. Most of them are explorations of different world-building projects.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 03-17-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Pscyhohistory predicts the collapse of the Moron Horde approximately 25,000 years from now...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Finished reading Sarah Hoyt's "Darkship Thieves" last week. Almost finished on my own project.

Next read (well, re-read) might be "The Ancient City."

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 08:59 AM (0eaVi)

2 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2024 08:59 AM (fwDg9)

3 Good morning Perfessor.
Thanks for the Book thread.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 24, 2024 09:00 AM (u6WYG)

4 Currently rereading Dune

Posted by: vic at March 24, 2024 09:01 AM (A5THL)

5 I've subbed to Jerry's e-mails. I watched that clip above. I like a twist ending to my stuff. Not always, but often.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 09:01 AM (0eaVi)

6 Side trip
Anyway, reading Triumph Forsaken by Mark Moyar about Vietnam War 1954-65, it's a 3 part book series and is very good and informative.

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

7 Good Morning Bookies!

Posted by: p0indexterous at March 24, 2024 09:01 AM (QBwMV)

8 I tried to start a new book and failed.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2024 09:02 AM (ENQN6)

9 That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis -- A remarkably prescient book on our present day situation. I read this during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 and it was just a freaky reading experience.
Posted by: Open Blogger

I don't like 'horror' books or movies.
I've tried to read THS a number of times and just can't get started much less finish it.
The series was recommended by my mom when I was a teen. I don't know if I ever told here I read the 1st two and threw out the third.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 24, 2024 09:05 AM (u6WYG)

10 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:05 AM (zudum)

11 Vernor Vinge, the writer who coined the phrase "the Singularity" has passed away.

https://is.gd/zgwMHA

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at March 24, 2024 09:07 AM (PiwSw)

12 Stephen King needs to watch that video.
He is the absolute worst at ending a book!

Posted by: p0indexterous at March 24, 2024 09:07 AM (QBwMV)

13 I've seen people with pants on their heads but never the other way 'round.

Posted by: fd at March 24, 2024 09:08 AM (vFG9F)

14 I tried to start a new book and failed.
Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2024 09:02 AM (ENQN6)

Check the spark plug. Maybe it's dirty.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 09:09 AM (0eaVi)

15 Why read horror when you can read history?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 09:10 AM (LqqGi)

16 The middle book of the Souther Reach trilogy is creepy and disturbing, the other two books are more weird-surreal than psychologically disturbing.

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood is weird with some disturbing elements.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 09:10 AM (2bWp9)

17 It was long ago I read the Foundation series, and one bit really stuck with me. A politician visited, and they mathematically analyzed what he said during his visit. It all added up to zero.

Posted by: davidt at March 24, 2024 09:10 AM (SYTee)

18 12 Stephen King needs to watch that video.
He is the absolute worst at ending a book!
Posted by: p0indexterous at March 24, 2024 09:07 AM (QBwMV)

Damnit! You took the words out of my mouth!

King simply cannot shut up and get to the point and he cannot ever close the sale.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 09:11 AM (LqqGi)

19 That second book cover of Foundation looks like (P)resident Poopypants sitting on a toilet. Very appropriate for our times.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 09:11 AM (0eaVi)

20 I'm midway through "The Four Feathers."

Harry Faversham's plan to restore his reputation sends him off by himself to the Sudan, where, posing as a Greek (and sometimes an Arab), he pursues opportunities to help his former brothers-in-arms.

Because all this waiting would make for dull reading, the scene shifts to the growing romance between his former fiancee and his best pal, who is yet another army officer -- and not one of those who sent the white feathers to Harry. What will happen to this triangle?

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 09:12 AM (p/isN)

21 I've seen people with pants on their heads but never the other way 'round.
Posted by: fd

Those pants are showing the only police mug shots that are allowed to be posted in CA now.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 24, 2024 09:12 AM (u6WYG)

22 Fire Upon the Deep rates top five sci-fi books of all time. The Fall of Relay is epic.

Goodbye Vernor.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 09:13 AM (2bWp9)

23 Good morning fellow readers.
I don't get the Ewok joke. What am I missing?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 09:13 AM (t/2Uw)

24 "Book? Book? What is Book?"
--that girl in that show, you know

Posted by: mindful webworker - look! up in the sky! at March 24, 2024 09:14 AM (+qxBh)

25 The Narrows is the channel between the Atlantic and Halifax harbor, Nova Scotia. In Curse of the Narrows, Laura MacDonald tells the story of the tragic day there on December 6, 1917, when the vessel Imo collided with the Mont Blanc, who carried 3,000 tons of gun cotton and explosives. The Mont Blanc drifted into the harbor ablaze, and shortly thereafter the largest man made explosion pre- Hiroshima destroyed everything within a mile radius, and a tsunami followed. Hundreds of people were killed outright, and hundreds more were blinded when the windows they were watching the ship through were shattered, mascerating their eyes. Telegraphist Vince Coleman sent a wire stopping the passenger train en route, saving their lives; it was his last act before dying at his post. Boston and other cities got the message too and loaded trains with doctors, nurses, and supplies to aid the devastated town, walking the last mile. Tales of both loss and heroism are recounted, like surgeon George Cox, who spent 72 hours straight treating eye injuries, and families bringing their dead to a damaged city hall morgue on sleds. This is a vivid account of the tragedy in a city that has never fully healed.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (2UMaG)

26 A politician visited, and they mathematically analyzed what he said during his visit. It all added up to zero.
Posted by: davidt

Semantics. IRL a politician's promises always distill down to zero.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (u6WYG)

27 After CBD included a couple of Hudson River School artists in this week's art thread I found "The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision" at the library. (I was shocked they had it on the shelves.) It's a gorgeous book with high quality color plates of most of the School members and well done text providing information on the artist's life, influences, and techniques. Also, their philosophy. Part of their purpose, bless them, was to get out from under the European attitude about American landscape art, which they regarded as provincial and unworthy. The American artists knew that this country offered glorious views of nature and creation and used their immense talents to show that. I like that 'in your face' approach and love the beautiful art they made. It will takes weeks, off and on, to go through the whole book. That's fine. It should be a slow, pleasurable experience.

continued..

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (zudum)

28 I got that Sanderson book for my oldest son last Christmas.

His fiancee said he had enjoyed a different book by Sanderson, so I hit B&N, and the title grabbed me. I haven't asked how he liked it.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (p/isN)

29 I don't get the Ewok joke. What am I missing?
Posted by: Sharon

Endor = indoor

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at March 24, 2024 09:16 AM (u6WYG)

30 Regarding Foundation series and Asimov. The guy had great ideas, but his writing was stiff and conversations very unrealistic. I say that after having read all the Foundation and Robot books.
Great writing should combine them. For me, Graham Greene and Tom Wolfe did it best in my lifetime.

Posted by: jimmymcnulty at March 24, 2024 09:16 AM (WQsZB)

31 Morning, book folken,

American Elsewhere by Bennett sounds intriguing, not least because it's set in New Mexico. I'll have to look for it.

Watership Down, the "thriller for rabbits," has both a closed ending and an expanded/epilogue finish. Without the first it would not be a thriller; without the second it would not be the epic classic that it is.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:18 AM (omVj0)

32 Check the spark plug. Maybe it's dirty.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 09:09 AM (0eaVi)

It was a set of scrolls that were not firing on all cylinders.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2024 09:18 AM (ENQN6)

33 continued from 27 ...

I was so impressed with the library edition of The Hudson River School book I went on Amazon to buy a copy. It is out of print but plenty of used copies are listed. My gripe is that the original price Amazon listed was 38 dollars. Not cheap but not bad for this kind of book. I went back less than a minute later and the price had jumped to 52 bucks. Same book, higher price. I ended up ordering a very good condition copy for half that cost. More and more I'm thinking Amazon can go F itself. It can be convenient but isn't always a bargain. I often have better results bypassing Amazon and going through the actual company offering the item. And they don't hike up their prices in the course of a few seconds.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:18 AM (zudum)

34 Dennis Lehane's "Shutter Island" was disturbing, with a twist ending. Haaated it.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 09:19 AM (6IDWi)

35 After a life of reading historical disturbing books, Sci-fi disturbing books wouldn't be a problem I think for me

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2024 09:20 AM (fwDg9)

36 How To Feed Your Dragon

At the risk of igniting a row
I don't 'get' epic fantasy no how
It's illogical, yet
They manage to get
Draggin' milk from a short legged cow!

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:21 AM (991eG)

37 It will takes weeks, off and on, to go through the whole book. That's fine. It should be a slow, pleasurable experience.

continued..
Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (zudum)

You might want to check it out, if you're reading in the library. They might get rid of it, like they did at my library in the middle of reading the Hessian diary mentioned last week.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 09:22 AM (0eaVi)

38 Morning, book folken,

American Elsewhere by Bennett sounds intriguing, not least because it's set in New Mexico. I'll have to look for it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:18 AM (omVj0)
----
The cover of American Elsewhere grabbed me. Then I read it and was blown away...

An experiment in NM (government sponsored, of course) goes horribly wrong...And the daughter of one of the scientists has to come in and clean up their mess.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 24, 2024 09:22 AM (BpYfr)

39 "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski was disturbing.
Had to read that for a college lit class.
It was funny because the professor immediately knew who hadn't done the reading and told them to leave.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 09:23 AM (6IDWi)

40 As for John Dickson Carr: Yes, capsule descriptions of his mystery novels could easily be ported into SF/fantasy. While Carr in his straight mysteries flirted with the possibility of the supernatural, he always resolved them in a non-supernatural way (with one exception that I won't mention the title of, as it would give the entire effect away).

He did have a number of novels in the 1950s that were historical mysteries set in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. A couple of those were time-travel fantasies, in which a 20th century man finds himself in the much earlier time period and must solve a mystery and other problems, not just to get back home -- he has no idea how to do that -- but to save his own neck.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:23 AM (omVj0)

41 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Two of the most disturbing books I've ever read were The Bad Seed by William March, and The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.

I can't have been more than 10 when I read the Bad Seed, because we moved when I was 11, and I read it at the old house. And the Exorcist, I read when I was, oh, probably 12 or 13.

Mom didn't really monitor our reading--there were always lots of books, and I'm sure she had these around for her own reading, but curious minds will be satisfied when unnoticed!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 09:23 AM (OX9vb)

42 Why read horror when you can read history?
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33

Often history is horror.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:24 AM (2UMaG)

43 Often history is horror.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:24 AM (2UMaG)

My point exactly.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 09:24 AM (LqqGi)

44 Vernor Vinge was a big favorite of mine for a while.

Even though some of his ideas irritated me, he always knew how to write a great story that utilized them.

Excellent SF writer.

RIP

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 09:25 AM (nFnyb)

45 Much of my diet is mystery novels, so I'm used to resolved endings.

Sometimes a book can have more than one kind. "The Dogs of War" has a definite ending, but it comes with a surprise twist.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 09:25 AM (p/isN)

46 The only 'disturbing' book in the list I've read is That Hideous Strength. Horror and similar books have no appeal for me. As much as I love Lewis' writing, I often skip parts of THS because they are truly horrifying, depressingly accurate, and enraging. If I didn't know the good guys succeed, I would seldom reread it. Part of the disturbing aspect is that Lewis was indeed a prophet about these matters but, like books on current events and politics, I avoid wallowing in that type of reading.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:26 AM (zudum)

47 >>I went back less than a minute later and the price had jumped to 52 bucks. Same book, higher price. I ended up ordering a very good condition copy for half that cost.

If you don't already use them, Thriftbooks.com is great for used books.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 09:28 AM (6IDWi)

48 Oh, yeah - Curse of the Narrows is really good - someone mentioned it on a thread a couple of years ago, and I went and bought a used copy. There wasn't so enormous a man-created explosion on earth, apparently, until the first atom bomb...
I was intrigued by mention of JD Carr's The Crooked Hinge. I got it on kindle, as it sounded intriguing and I had liked some of his other mysteries, especially the historicals like Most Secret ... but The Crooked Hinge left me unenchanted. I picked out who was the real Sir John early on, and the eventual resolution and identity of the killer was so far out of left field as to be really incredible. YMMV, as always.
I went back to reading Biggins' Otto Prohaska series.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at March 24, 2024 09:28 AM (xnmPy)

49 I like a good downer, so picking a most disturbing is difficult. If I had to make a list it would probably include a number of stories by Ellison, Silverberg, J. G. Ballard, and Ramsey Campbell. Kealan Patrick Burke's "Empathy" would be in there, and ditto Jack Ketchum's novel THE GIRL NEXT DOOR. I find Barry Malzberg's story "Gehenna" disturbing without quite being able to put my finger on exactly why. A number of Simenon's non-Maigret novels do it for me too, mainly THE CAT and THE HAND (also translated as THE MAN ON THE BENCH IN THE BARN).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 09:29 AM (q3u5l)

50 I just finished "A Fire Upon the Deep" and I am in the middle of Venor Vinge's compilation of short stories.

Great stuff.

I really was surprised I never read this guy before.

Cool name too.

Thanks Vernor.

Posted by: pawn at March 24, 2024 09:29 AM (QB+5g)

51 Disturbing books:

It seems to me that books which revel in the dark side of the human condition, tend to be merely gratuitous rather than being uplifting, inspiring or enlightening. A form of pornography if you may.

Just what an increasingly nihilistic society doesn't need.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:29 AM (991eG)

52 *I don't like 'horror' books or movies.*

Likewise.

Although I always enjoyed the GEICO commercial with the group of teenagers hiding behind all the hanging chainsaws.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at March 24, 2024 09:30 AM (dg+HA)

53 Jimmymcnulty - I tend to agree about Asimov's writing in the Foundation series (I haven't read much of his other stuff). I've read the Foundation series at least three times since college, and for some reason I can't retain most of the details nor has the overall story arc ever really stuck in my head. I do enjoy re-reading it, and may have to again one day, but I feel like I need one of those laminated cheat sheets you buy for classes that list all the important stuff in really small font.

Posted by: PabloD at March 24, 2024 09:30 AM (2Fraf)

54 I finished the third book in James Islington's Licanius trilogy The Light of All that Falls. This series is Islington's first published work. He was inspired by Brandon Sanderson and the complexity of his writing shows this. He does an excellent job of world building. It has magic, time travel, battles between good a d evil, mysterious characters....
Best of all, he finishes the book with a highly satisfactory ending.
Highly recommended.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 09:30 AM (t/2Uw)

55 I read The Key To Zion, the last book in The Zion Chronicles series, by Bodie Thoene. Operations are underway to equip the Israeli air force with surplus U. S. cargo planes and German fighters and to supply the Old City of Jerusalem with food and armaments. The story leads up to May 14, 1948, when Israeli statehood is declared. Five Arab states have their armies on the border ready to invade the new nation, so it seemed to me to be an odd place to stop the series.

Posted by: Zoltan at March 24, 2024 09:31 AM (cfQ/i)

56 Writers (or editors/producers/whoever makes the call) seem to have forsaken suspense for gross out factor.
Sorry, I don't read to be grossed out. I don't like to wallow in dreck.
The Comoron Strike series is a perfect example. Bot the first three, and read the first. Liked the story, did not like the antagonist's need to terrorize and torture lady assistant.
Second book, more of the same. Pretty good story, could have enjoyed it, but the focus on torture and terror was enough to put it down. And never take up the third.

Posted by: From about that Time at March 24, 2024 09:31 AM (4780s)

57 Yay book thread! I'm almost finished with Graham Greene's Getting to Know the General, and my replacement copy of Hillaire Belloc's The Great Heresies has arrived.

I'm going to read more of Greene. He writes well, though I'm sure this book is atypical of his work.

At this point, the treaty has been signed, and Central America continues its descent into war and revolution. A point Greene gets across is the fact that the Cold War was a time of great confusion and ambiguity. You had leaders who could maintain close friendships with Peronists and Communists, and otherwise committed Pro-Western regimes could make tactical alliances with the likes of Castro because other loyalties were also in play.

Ideology was often a veneer for historical territorial claims, ethnic hatred and sheer greed. Marxist revolutionaries routinely turned on each other and of course the US regularly screwed everything up because they liked that one general better than the other one.

Still very relevant, though American ineptitude in 1980 was far less than it is today.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:33 AM (llXky)

58 Why read horror when you can read history?
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33

Often history is horror.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:24 AM (2UMaG)

Eh, even those living through that history told their own horror stories.

Look at all of mythology, folktales, and fairy tales. Almost all of them are basically horror stories, instructional horror stories but horror stories none the less. Some with happy endings and some not so much.

I would say they can perform a higher function than straight-up history. Not that they do today however.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 09:33 AM (nFnyb)

59 don't get the Ewok joke. What am I missing?
Posted by: Sharon

Endor = indoor
Posted by: AZ deplorable moron

Thanks 🤦‍♀️

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 09:34 AM (t/2Uw)

60 Well recent history see europa central from vollman for example it had a plutarchs lives quality of sketches for vlasov (the puppet russian army leader for the nazis to fanya kaplan the one who took a shot at lenin and in so doing touched off the terrors

Anyways the year of the locust was terry hayes follow up to his smash hit i pilgrim he almost augured in a 1500 eye popping pages because he dropped everything he had learned about arab cultures russian space travel and the forensics of engine design the protagonist is another special agent with a certain set of skills who is hunting this man al tundra who is a figure of terrible fury the next baghdadi how finds the man what he encounters along the way the fiendishly simple but demonic plot is the key

Then about 3/4 of the way he drops the ball taking an unexpected tangent the ending is unsatifying after that

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:34 AM (PXvVL)

61 37 ... "You might want to check it out, if you're reading in the library. They might get rid of it, like they did at my library in the middle of reading the Hessian diary mentioned last week."

That's exactly why I ordered my own copy. Too many of the books I used to get from the library aren't on the shelves anymore. And too damn many of the books they offer are only available as e-books. Bad enough for straight prose but irritating for history books with lots of maps and images and classics that have wonderful illustrations.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:34 AM (zudum)

62 After a life of reading historical disturbing books, Sci-fi disturbing books wouldn't be a problem I think for me
=====

A lifetime of reading SF has hardened me to history.

Posted by: mustbequantum at March 24, 2024 09:35 AM (MIKMs)

63 It seems to me that books which revel in the dark side of the human condition, tend to be merely gratuitous rather than being uplifting, inspiring or enlightening. A form of pornography if you may.

Just what an increasingly nihilistic society doesn't need.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:29 AM (991eG)
---
Same. I don't enjoy it and there are two many other books that will bring me joy to waste my time on them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:35 AM (llXky)

64 The Crooked Hinge left me unenchanted. I picked out who was the real Sir John early on, and the eventual resolution and identity of the killer was so far out of left field as to be really incredible. YMMV, as always.
I went back to reading Biggins' Otto Prohaska series.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at March 24, 2024

***
Yes, that one is a little beyond the edge. But Carr knew his stuff could be like that. He was much less concerned with realism than he was with telling a good story. In reviewing another author's book, he wrote, ". . . that I of all people should complain of improbable solutions would be like . . . St. Vitus objecting to the Twist."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:38 AM (omVj0)

65 Regarding C.S. Lewis, I tried to read the Space Trilogy, but what turned me off was just the sense that it was one long, extended, overdone allegory.

I'm with Tolkien - just say what you want to say, don't have everything stand for something else. I'm not going to get invested in your characters because none of them have any reality, they're all "of a type."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:38 AM (llXky)

66 How to End a Story

How to end a story? Where to begin?
If it's a story of fly-fishing men
At the end of the day
The one that got away
That last glimpse of a dorsal. Fin.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:39 AM (991eG)

67 I skipped the third cormorant atrike for that reason and galbraith rowling went over the top with the last two

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:39 AM (PXvVL)

68 I am Pilgrim is a great read.

Reviews of Year of the Locust are uniformly bad, so it gets a pass.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 09:39 AM (2bWp9)

69 Disturbing books:

It seems to me that books which revel in the dark side of the human condition, tend to be merely gratuitous rather than being uplifting, inspiring or enlightening. A form of pornography if you may.

Just what an increasingly nihilistic society doesn't need. Muldoon
=====

And nobody has yet mentioned Stephen Donaldson? I hope that means he has been consigned to the depths of evil where he belongs.

Posted by: mustbequantum at March 24, 2024 09:40 AM (MIKMs)

70 After I finish the short stories, I am going to read "Rainbows End" which has been on my reading list forever. I had forgotten that Vinge wrote it.

I wonder if Vinge and Ian Banks ever talked much? Bank's Culture could be seen as an extension of Vinge's libertarian vision.

Posted by: pawn at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (QB+5g)

71 If he had cut out those hundred pages

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (PXvVL)

72 Too many mystery novels these days start out with a gruesome murder. The more graphic, spine chilling the better. I am not a fan. I don't like horror movies, torture scenes, subjugation. I like the good guys to win. I like Justice to be served.
Maybe this is why I have been avoiding the news lately.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (t/2Uw)

73 Look at all of mythology, folktales, and fairy tales. Almost all of them are basically horror stories, instructional horror stories but horror stories none the less. Some with happy endings and some not so much.

I would say they can perform a higher function than straight-up history. Not that they do today however.
Posted by: naturalfake

Years ago, I ran across a book in the library that traced the original tales that ended up as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Many of the original oral stories were much more gruesome than what was eventually put to paper.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (2UMaG)

74 Speaking of Lewis, I found a fascinating essay on his long-hidden personal life. I shared it yesterday on the Prayer Thread, but it's also appropriate here:

https://tinyurl.com/3wdcm5nh

Short version is that during WW I he made a pact with a fellow soldier that if one should die, the other would look after his mother. The friend died, Lewis lived, and kept his pledge to make sure the mother was okay. They ended up becoming lovers for a time, but the relationship turned toxic.

It was known that they lived together, but it was assumed to be platonic - Lewis treating her as a surrogate mother. The essay (at First Things) I linked to references new evidence that proved it was sexual. Some Lewis fans will be disappointed, but I think this makes his conversion story more powerful.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (llXky)

75 I will agree that Asimov's writing is not the most gripping. He uses a very efficient writing style that doesn't allow for more florid, descriptive prose most of the time.

There's not a lot of emotional depth to any of the characters in Foundation...They almost seem like they are just going through the motions. Though, considering what the story is about, that's kind of appropriate.

Asimov was an incredibly prolific writer, so this may account for his rather bland, unremarkable storytelling in many cases. I usually give him a "B" in quality.

It is notable that Foundation did serve as (partial) inspiration for at least two of the most influential science fiction franchises in history: Dune and Star Wars.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 24, 2024 09:42 AM (BpYfr)

76 60...Then about 3/4 of the way he drops the ball taking an unexpected tangent the ending is unsatifying after that
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:34 AM (PXvVL)

Darn. I just got my copy from the library--haven't started it yet, but am looking forward to it. I Am Pilgrim was so good.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 09:42 AM (OX9vb)

77 Years ago, I ran across a book in the library that traced the original tales that ended up as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Many of the original oral stories were much more gruesome than what was eventually put to paper.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (2UMaG)
---
Didn't many of them originate from the carnage of the Thirty Years' War? That was pretty gruesome.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:43 AM (llXky)

78 Well i pilgrim did start that way it was integral to the plot even though its not what the villain does but it inravels it

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:43 AM (PXvVL)

79 Thanks for the Book Thread, Perfessor!

I finished reading "Folly and Glory" by Larry McMurtry. The book was on sale at the library, and as soon as I saw the author's name, I had to have it. Realized too late that it was Book 4 in the Berrybender Narrative. I'm fastidious about reading books in a series in their proper order but that went out the window with this book. The novel completes the story of the Berrybender family's journey from England to the American West in the early 1800s. The tale weaves a fascinating story of passion, boredom, pain, joy, discovery, and grit. We are introduced to a wide cast of characters and learn that it was not just the Indians who were brutal in this new world: Spaniards, Mexicans and the various white explorers were rough and not always kind to their fellow man. This volume picks up with the Berrybenders in posh confinement in Santa Fe, courtesy of the Mexican governor who is none too pleased to have them there, but who treats this upper crust English family as peers, mostly. The road leads through southern Nuevo Mexico, and ends in the disputed Texas territory. The fall of the Alamo plays a small part. Easy read, recommended.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at March 24, 2024 09:45 AM (U3L4U)

80 The Crooked Hinge left me unenchanted. I picked out who was the real Sir John early on, and the eventual resolution and identity of the killer was so far out of left field as to be really incredible. YMMV, as always.
I went back to reading Biggins' Otto Prohaska series.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom

In that time period, it was more or less a contest between mystery authors to put together stories that were required to give the reader plenty of clues, but make it impossible to guess the answer until the last page or two.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:46 AM (2UMaG)

81 "There's not a lot of emotional depth to any of the characters in Foundation..."

I think this can be said about the SF genre in general. It's about the story not the characters. The characters have roles.

Posted by: pawn at March 24, 2024 09:46 AM (QB+5g)

82 Hayes was an aussie foreign correspondent during watergate and his eye for detail shows here the villain is identified by an event that actually happened but not in that time period and not in the way described but you would not know it

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:47 AM (PXvVL)

83 Thank you, Perfessor, for another great book thread.

I finished Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey last night. Her writing is amazingly clear without feeling dumbed down. The characters, students and faculty at a women’s physical training college, feel like real people and even though there are many characters to keep track of it’s easy follow who’s who. How does she do that? There are some stories I’ve read where I’m a third of the way in before I’m feel like I’m able to keep track of the people in it.

Last week I was grumbling that I had not yet reached to “crime” in the story. Well, I did. It kept me guessing about “who done it” with a little bit of suspicion spread about on a few different women. Unlike some mysteries where one has to suspend disbelief a little, this story was plausible. Miss Pym’s thoughts and actions made sense, whether one agrees with them or not. Great writer, great story.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at March 24, 2024 09:48 AM (1Jjo3)

84 Ride off into sunset > Happily ever after > Deus Ex Machina >>>> Fade to black

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:49 AM (991eG)

85 Just finished Paulette Jiles's "Chenneville," set in 1866, a Federal war vet that spent a couple months in a hospital near Richmond recovering from a head injury suffered in the action just post-surrender, conducts a solo mission way south for vengeance.

There is a lot concerning telegraph messages. You went to a telegraph office, wrote out your message, paid 13 cents a word, and it got tapped out.

Telegraph operators DM'd each other. The phrase "OK" as we understand it today, originated with telegraph operators.

Travelers going into states that had rebelled, carried ID papers, and you needed to show them to check into a hotel or rooming house.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at March 24, 2024 09:50 AM (KiBMU)

86 Speaking of the CS Lewis space trilogy. Another off shoot from The Divine Comedy film and book, it made me wonder if Lewis had The inferno in mind when in Perelandra, he has Ransom struggling through the underworld of the planet eventually emerging into a Garden of Eden.

It's this kind of idle but fun speculation that really slows down my reading. Oh well.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:50 AM (zudum)

87 re-reading Schlichter's latest, The Attack; he must have started writing it on 10/8 ... it has a different sort of disturbing going on, it's not fantasy-disturbing, it's realness-disturbing.

the Kelly Whatsisname stories were entertaining reading, the topical bits he throws in are funny, but they were , I dunno, fluff.
Illustrated, they would make great manga.

With the oral-history approach that he took in this book it has an immediacy that makes it seem really real, and the topicality helps add to the effect. Time may show this to be Schlichter's best ever writing.

Subversiveness note:
I am buying print copies of this book and donating them to local libraries - maybe they will open a few eyes?

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 09:50 AM (PFYt9)

88 In that time period, it was more or less a contest between mystery authors to put together stories that were required to give the reader plenty of clues, but make it impossible to guess the answer until the last page or two.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024

***
Yes -- play fair but be ingenious. Not many authors could manage that on a regular basis. Ellery Queen, Carr, Christie, and maybe a few others.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:51 AM (omVj0)

89 The villains motivation was stronger in i pilgrim the saracen is evil in a real life version of the ras al ghul character in this one ok he had a hard life so what.

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:52 AM (PXvVL)

90 So this -

“The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm […] a complete and uncensored edition of Grimms' fairy tales.”

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 09:53 AM (n/VGw)

91 @73 --

The comics writer Bill Willingham used the characters as they were portrayed in the original tales for his Vertigo series, "Fables."

The characters are mostly in a section of NYC, where they have fled after their homelands were conquered by an unspecified "Adversary."

I didn't know that Snow White originally had a sister, Rose Red.

Great reading.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 09:54 AM (p/isN)

92 It's been a "get my shit together" sort of last two weeks. Front axle went out on my Jeep XJ so I went through the rebuild manual twice before I decided it would be easier to just buy a new a new axle. Also easier to get the new fuel pump into the Toyota Taco so I did that instead.

New boss politely asked if I would teach her (she seem to now realize I have many skills beyond what I do at work) Electronics.
So I aquired, reread for the hundredth time and gifted her Forrest Mim's An Introduction to Electronics.
IMO probably the least intimidating book of this sort. Hand written and illustrated it gives one the sence (falsely) that this electronics stuff is simple and easy while actually giving a pretty good amount of basic knowlege over about 45 pages. The rest of the book is simple projects. Read and understand those first 45 pages and you have more electronics knowlege that 99% of the people out there.

Other than that, I suck and didn't crack any of the many books on my stack.

Posted by: Reforger at March 24, 2024 09:54 AM (B705c)

93 Didn't many of them originate from the carnage of the Thirty Years' War? That was pretty gruesome.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

Yes, and also there were allegories that were meant to guide behavior, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was to greed, jealousy, and addiction.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:54 AM (2UMaG)

94 I enjoyed reading the Foundation series in high school. Tried rereading it some years ago and felt it hadn't aged well for my older taste. I still have my copies so maybe I should give it another shot.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:54 AM (zudum)

95 Uncle Hub from Secondhand Lions was not a fan of disturbing stories.

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtues mean everything. That power and money, money and power mean nothing; that Good always triumphs over Evil; and I want you to remember this: That Love, true Love never dies. Doesn't matter if any of this is true or not. You see a man should believe in these things
because these are the things worth believing in."

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:56 AM (991eG)

96 good for you, Reforger!
passing on knowledge is a blessing upon both parties.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (PFYt9)

97 Foundation was much like toynbee musings about civilization they worked parallel not derived from each other

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (PXvVL)

98 Years ago, I ran across a book in the library that traced the original tales that ended up as Grimm's Fairy Tales. Many of the original oral stories were much more gruesome than what was eventually put to paper.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (2UMaG)

Yes! Even a simple story like "Cinderella" takes an awfully dark turn on its way to a happy ending.

But, those were people who lived in much tougher times so they and even their children needed tough minds.

Today's society is so safe, that we breed soft minds. We need that physically tough, but we also need the mentally tough throughout society to be healthy.

If all you can stand to read are frilly, little pollen fairies floating round the meadows with darling wee lambkins then what will you do when the Godss of the Copybook Headings come knocking at your door?

Your mileage may differ.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (nFnyb)

99
I finished Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey last night. Her writing is amazingly clear without feeling dumbed down. The characters, students and faculty at a women’s physical training college, feel like real people and even though there are many characters to keep track of it’s easy follow who’s who. How does she do that? There are some stories I’ve read where I’m a third of the way in before I’m feel like I’m able to keep track of the people in it. . . .

Posted by: KatieFloyd at March 24, 2024

***
Tey, real name Elizabeth Mackintosh I think, had been educated as a historian, and she'd been a playwright too. So keeping a big cast clear to the reader or playgoer was something she had lots of practice at.

Her Daughter of Time, focusing on her Inspector's Grant's bedside exploration of whether Richard III was really the monster we've been told, is amazing in that sense. She lets you keep track of all the Tudor and Plantagenet people and their relationships to each other in DoT without a family tree at front or back of the book.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (omVj0)

100 I like the good guys to win. I like Justice to be served.
Maybe this is why I have been avoiding the news lately.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 09:41 AM (t/2Uw)

Have you read any of the 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain? They were written in the late 50's, and they are good police detective novels with interesting cases. Yeah, frequently a murder, but never gory description The detectives are compassionate and multi-faceted, and the stories are as much about human nature as they are about crime.

They are quick reads, and there are about a million of them, and they are free on kindle unlimited.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (OX9vb)

101 Yes, and also there were allegories that were meant to guide behavior, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was to greed, jealousy, and addiction.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 09:54 AM (2UMaG)
---
It's interesting how bland our fairy stories have become of late. Everyone's afraid of "triggering," but we are making the most fragile generation in human history.

Warning kids that if you misbehave you might get maimed or killed is an important lesson.

Wasn't it Teddy R who said "better a broken arm than a broken spirit"?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 09:58 AM (llXky)

102 I want to offer absolution to David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for the lame final season of 'Game of Thrones'. The opening sequence of '3 Body Problem' makes us even.

The sequence on the Cultural Revolution struggle session (with a wife and former student denouncing a physicist for teaching Relativity and the Big bang theories, before the defiant physicist is beaten to death) should be part of every college freshman orientation week.

Posted by: Candidus at March 24, 2024 09:59 AM (V1yiu)

103 I want to offer absolution to David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for the lame final season of 'Game of Thrones'. The opening sequence of '3 Body Problem' makes us even.

The sequence on the Cultural Revolution struggle session (with a wife and former student denouncing a physicist for teaching Relativity and the Big bang theories, before the defiant physicist is beaten to death) should be part of every college freshman orientation week.

Posted by: Candidus at March 24, 2024 09:59 AM (V1yiu)
---
It is possible that Game of Thrones' ending was Martin's fault, not the showrunners. Maybe that's why he stopped working on it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:01 AM (llXky)

104 I prefer the original ending to Cinderella where they throw her in the volcano.

Posted by: fd at March 24, 2024 10:03 AM (vFG9F)

105 Just got the paper copy of the third book in the 3Body series, Death's End so haven't finished it yet.
Starting watching the 3Body on Netflix even though I couldn't figure out how they could do such a complex book in an 8 episode series. The first two were great, laying out the story and helping the watcher keep track of the main characters even though there are flashbacks between present day and the past. So I had hope.
Then I watched episode 3. Sigh.
My advice. Read the books which are outstanding. TV, not so much.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 10:03 AM (t/2Uw)

106 I want to offer absolution to David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for the lame final season of 'Game of Thrones'. The opening sequence of '3 Body Problem' makes us even.

The sequence on the Cultural Revolution struggle session (with a wife and former student denouncing a physicist for teaching Relativity and the Big bang theories, before the defiant physicist is beaten to death) should be part of every college freshman orientation week.

Posted by: Candidus at March 24, 2024 09:59 AM (V1yiu)

Excellent scene and the sequelae to that scene are very nicely written as well.

I was shocked that GoT writers were involved after that pot of piss that was the final season.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (nFnyb)

107 I've been doing some rather intense reading lately: Civil War history, CS Lewis apologia, Kipling's Kim (beautiful writing but not a lot of laughs) and the like. I feel the need for lighter fare to go with my art books. I thought about Mark Twain but settled on my collection of Liturgical Mystery books by Mark Schweizer. Well written and laugh out loud funny.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (zudum)

108 Since our host brought up endings, it's interesting to see how common it is for stories these days to botch the endings. GoT is not unique in that respect. It's clear that the writers want to create an elaborate and complex plot with compelling characters, hidden agendas, sudden reversals of fate, but that is really, really HARD.

What we see instead are a series of set-ups with no payoff, hints of some big reveal that inevitably turns out to be a damp squib.

It is for this reason that I do not read current fiction. I'll wait until the series is over before investing time and effort into it.

Besides, there are so many great authors out there waiting for me to explore their work.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (llXky)

109 Sometimes I like to call the "epilogue" in a story that wraps up some of the last threads a "coda." Watership Down has that. Or a story where part of the protagonist's struggle has been to solve some painful family problem along with the main conflict. The major conflict is resolved, happily or not, in the penultimate chapter, let's say. In the coda we see the resolution of the minor problem (if we're lucky, it's a happy resolution). Leaving the coda out would leave the reader hanging.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (omVj0)

110 No they jumped thr shark at least two seasons before the targaryns are like the tudors and the borgias stripped of their propagandists like merton and il macchia

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (PXvVL)

111 Look at all of mythology, folktales, and fairy tales. Almost all of them are basically horror stories, instructional horror stories but horror stories none the less. Some with happy endings and some not so much.

I would say they can perform a higher function than straight-up history. Not that they do today however.
Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 09:33 AM (nFnyb)

History tells you what happened. Fairy tales and myths tell you what you can do about it.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2024 10:07 AM (D7oie)

112 The opening sequence of '3 Body Problem' makes us even.

The sequence on the Cultural Revolution struggle session (with a wife and former student denouncing a physicist for teaching Relativity and the Big bang theories, before the defiant physicist is beaten to death) should be part of every college freshman orientation week.
----
My oldest, 17, just happen to get home from school while I was watch so he saw this scene with me. I'm glad.
I mentioned this years ago, what is going on here in the US is very much a Cultural Revolution.

Posted by: lin-duh at March 24, 2024 10:07 AM (PZo5T)

113 Shirley Jackson could tell a horror story. The Lottery and The Haunting of Hill House are classics.

Robert McCammon has written some good horror. Boy's Life is one of my favorite books. It's about a kid in a small town who sees a car drive into the lake while making the rounds with his father, the milkman. Then weird things start to happen.

Joe Lansdale's The Bottoms and Moon Lake are what he calls East Texas gothic and set a pretty spooky mood.

Posted by: huerfano at March 24, 2024 10:07 AM (qeiBW)

114 Have you read any of the 87th Precinct books by Ed McBain? They were written in the late 50's, and they are good police detective novels with interesting cases. Yeah, frequently a murder, but never gory description The detectives are compassionate and multi-faceted, and the stories are as much about human nature as they are about crime.

They are quick reads, and there are about a million of them, and they are free on kindle unlimited.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024

***
McBain (aka Evan Hunter of Blackboard Jungle, Strangers When We Meet, and the screenplay of The Birds) started the series in like 1956, and he was still writing them and delivering good quality in the '90s not long before he died (in 2001, I think).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (omVj0)

115 It is notable that Foundation did serve as (partial) inspiration for at least two of the most influential science fiction franchises in history: Dune and Star Wars.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 24, 2024 09:42 AM (BpYfr)

(looks at own writings)

If he was a mediocre writer, how did he sell so much and inspire others?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (0eaVi)

116 Via @XVanFleet

“I translated the opening sequence of "3 Body Problem" from Chinese into English and wish It go viral in the Western world.”

https://tinyurl.com/mppam85k

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (n/VGw)

117 George RR Martin sucks.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (t/2Uw)

118 96 good for you, Reforger!
passing on knowledge is a blessing upon both parties.
Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (PFYt9)

Especially when someone is so antagonistic toward you in general (or am I thinking of the wrong person? ).

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (OX9vb)

119 Ride off into sunset > Happily ever after > Deus Ex Machina >>>> Fade to black
Posted by: Muldoon

Mike drop.

Posted by: From about that Time at March 24, 2024 10:09 AM (4780s)

120 If you don't already use them, Thriftbooks.com is great for used books.
Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 09:28 AM (6IDWi)
* * * *
I concur. And their search engine is easy to use and works well. Prices are comparable to the local used book store, if not a bit cheaper.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at March 24, 2024 10:09 AM (U3L4U)

121 No they jumped thr shark at least two seasons before the targaryns are like the tudors and the borgias stripped of their propagandists like merton and il macchia

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 10:04 AM (PXvVL)
---
When the whole thing started it was obvious to me that it was a D&D and pervy version of the Wars of the Roses. I watched the first season because the cast was really good and drew me in. The plot sucked, however, and I knew it was going to be nothing but bait-and-switch, which it was.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

122 Booken Morgen Horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 24, 2024 10:10 AM (TirNb)

123 84 Ride off into sunset > Happily ever after > Deus Ex Machina >>>> Fade to black
Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 09:49 AM (991eG)

I went to see Deus Ex Machina open for Rage Against the Machine but my vax cards did not show boosters iii, D, and Eta.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2024 10:11 AM (ENQN6)

124 Come to think of it, The Birds, both the film and the DuMaurier short story, has an unresolved or ambiguous ending. Mitch, his mother and little sister, and the catatonic Melanie drive slowly out through the ranks of "resting" birds; and that's it. We have no idea if the world will find a solution to the mass attacks of the birds. You could say to yourself, "Sequel coming?" Or you could say, "Nightmare being had by Mitch or Melanie or the little sister?" We don't know.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (omVj0)

125 Oh, did I sleep through the prime of the book thread? Oh, well...

Similar to the title pic, I like to keep lego displays on top of my bookshelves. Pirate ships over one shelf, and a custom castle on another. And ocassionally something seasonal...

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (Lhaco)

126 If he was a mediocre writer, how did he sell so much and inspire others?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (0eaVi)
---
Because the subject overcame the prose. Dune is a classic example of this. Herbert's writing is a mess, but he manages to convey an otherworldly setting that is captivating. The paradox of Herbert is that as the series continued, his writing got much better, but the substance of it withered away.

Also, there's something to be said for pioneering a genre. Being first counts for something, which is why so many people are desperate to claim it in some way.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

127 Reading AoS posts/comments for a week = how many books?

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (AwYPR)

128 15 Why read horror when you can read history?
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33

Too scary and dark - history, that is

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (TirNb)

129 “The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm […] a complete and uncensored edition of Grimms' fairy tales.”
Posted by: 13times

That is probably the one. I recall that their first edition was criticized for still being too violent, so they toned it down even more.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (2UMaG)

130 My current grim fairy tales recommendation:

Witches Abroad, by Pratchett.

Pratchett's writing is deceptively straightforward, but truly horrifying endings (the Wolf in the Red Riding Hood vignette) are displayed as a caution for the weight of public mythology. I recommend it to more naive 20-somethings of my acquaintance.

Posted by: mustbequantum at March 24, 2024 10:13 AM (MIKMs)

131 Hiya

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 10:13 AM (T4tVD)

132 Everyone's afraid of "triggering," but we are making the most fragile generation in human history.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

**********

Which is another way of saying "everyone's afraid of saying 'That's wrong!'". We are moving beyond moral equivalence to simply amoral.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 10:14 AM (991eG)

133 47 ... "If you don't already use them, Thriftbooks.com is great for used books."

Lizzie,
Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't heard of them before.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 10:14 AM (zudum)

134 I mentioned watching a video on the oddest books ever found in a thread earlier this week and I guess it makes sense to share it here as well. https://tinyurl.com/378x3v3x

The first book he talks about the Linen Book of Zagreb or Liber Linteus is the most interesting - the oldest European book, written in Etruscan, found as wrappings on a mummy.

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:15 AM (ibTVg)

135 Harry harrisons stainless steel rat series was good fun i imagine chris pratt could have played him when he was younger

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 10:16 AM (PXvVL)

136
Which is another way of saying "everyone's afraid of saying 'That's wrong!'". We are moving beyond moral equivalence to simply amoral.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 10:14 AM (991eG)
---
Funny that you say that, I just finished a post for my author blog on how exhilarating it was to enter the Church and be able to say "THIS is right, YOU are wrong!" without any ambiguity. Yeah, there are squishes and weirdos (thinking of you, Your Holiness), but the Magisterium remains intact.

The Church of England is weighing offering a formal apology for evangelizing Africa, and destroying their diverse, traditional faith systems.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:18 AM (llXky)

137 >>“I translated the opening sequence of "3 Body Problem" from Chinese into English and wish It go viral in the Western world.” https://tinyurl.com/mppam85k

Oh wow, that is intense.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:18 AM (6IDWi)

138 Because the subject overcame the prose. Dune is a classic example of this. Herbert's writing is a mess, but he manages to convey an otherworldly setting that is captivating. The paradox of Herbert is that as the series continued, his writing got much better, but the substance of it withered away.

Also, there's something to be said for pioneering a genre. Being first counts for something, which is why so many people are desperate to claim it in some way.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024

***
Asimov was right there on the ground: an enthusiastic teenage SF fan who lived right there in NYC, as John Campbell was molding Astounding Science Fiction into the premier SF magazine, and molding modern SF as well. Isaac had original or at least clever ideas, he learned from other writers how to tell stories using them, he learned from Campbell (who, Asimov said, suggested the nugget of IA's famous "Nightfall" short story), and he had tremendous energy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)

139 96 good for you, Reforger!
passing on knowledge is a blessing upon both parties.
Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (PFYt9)

A conversation here about "old guys" and how they are vanishing got me thinking about how I should probably start teaching some of the tools of the many trades I have worked in to some of the younger peeps around me being as they all use me as their go to guy.

I'm starting to see it as a duty.
"I've forgotten more about "it all" than most will ever know. Therefore I'm a forgotitall not a knowitall". Opening statement at any class I give.
"What you don't know about this place could fill an encyclopedia. In fact it's right there, you should start on page 1 of volume 1." What I say when new overpaid idiot maintnence guy asks me anything.
With what he makes his knowlege should dwarf mine as I too applied for the job and was passed up fo it.

Posted by: Reforger at March 24, 2024 10:19 AM (B705c)

140 The first book he talks about the Linen Book of Zagreb or Liber Linteus is the most interesting - the oldest European book, written in Etruscan, found as wrappings on a mummy.
Posted by: 18-1

I assume everyone back then wanted to take a book into the afterlife.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:19 AM (2UMaG)

141 Oh hey, it's the Book Thread!

Sorry, I was reading.

Posted by: All Hail Ers at March 24, 2024 10:20 AM (3e3hy)

142 The 87th Precinct novels are a delight. Years since I read them, and I may have missed a couple of the last ones, but I can't recall ever feeling like I'd wasted my money on one of them. Great stuff.

And re:disturbing -- Evan Hunter's LAST SUMMER ain't too dusty either.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 10:20 AM (q3u5l)

143 If you go read "classic" SF from say the 50s to the 70s it is amazing how free it seems. You find stories from every political ideology and most without ANY. It is refreshing. And it leads to more interesting stories even if some of the science used is now pretty terrible.

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:21 AM (ibTVg)

144 If you don't already use them, Thriftbooks.com is great for used books.
Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 09:28 AM (6IDWi)

Better World Books is also very good for used books.

abebooks has Thriftbooks' and Better World's listings along with many other sellers, both in the US and abroad.

Posted by: Wethal at March 24, 2024 10:21 AM (NufIr)

145 Today's society is so safe, that we breed soft minds. We need that physically tough, but we also need the mentally tough throughout society to be healthy.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 24, 2024 09:57 AM (nFnyb)

And yet, dystopian novels are popular with the younger set. I have a theory about this. Our society is so safe that people are compelled to complicate it with gender confusion and cultural revolution.

I think they secretly yearn for dystopia because survival is basic and simple, and none of that other business matters when you're trying to make it to tomorrow.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (OX9vb)

146 Asimov was right there on the ground: an enthusiastic teenage SF fan who lived right there in NYC, as John Campbell was molding Astounding Science Fiction into the premier SF magazine, and molding modern SF as well. Isaac had original or at least clever ideas, he learned from other writers how to tell stories using them, he learned from Campbell (who, Asimov said, suggested the nugget of IA's famous "Nightfall" short story), and he had tremendous energy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)
---
He's up there with Lovecraft and Howard in creating something flawed but new and exciting. All of them have certain tics, and are ripe for parody, but they were above all else writing interesting stuff.

I haven't read Foundation, but I have read "Nightfall," and it's pretty good.

For the aspiring authors out there, these guys were also writing what they knew - subjects that meant a lot to them, that the deeply understood, and that comes through the text. So yeah, all the characters are somewhat flat, but there are other elements that compensate.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (llXky)

147 Most of the 87th Precinct novels are free to borrow on Kindle Unlimited, as are Donald Westlake's wonderful John Dortmunder capers. Sometimes Kindle Unlimited does the job that public libraries can no longer do (because of the endless tide of popular fiction, they can't keep everything they'd like to).

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (SPNTN)

148 If there is a book in your library you love that is out of print, you can try approaching the Librarian* and tell them that in case they ever have to withdraw that book from the collection you would like to buy it from them.
Offer to send them an email that same day so they don't forget.
*the one actually in charge of weeding the books - usually not the people at the front desk checking stuff in and out.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (TirNb)

149 The new Joe Pickett novel "Three Inch Teeth" was Box's usual gripping thriller, this time about a rogue grizzly attacking humans, and an ex con taking advantage of the fear and chaos to plot his own revenge against Pickett and others who put him behind bars. He makes his kills look like bear attacks. But this felt like kind of a miss; the villain's method is so bizarre and contrived I just couldn't buy it.

Posted by: All Hail Ers at March 24, 2024 10:23 AM (3e3hy)

150 If I want to read disturbing or horror, I'll read the captions on any newscast or pick up a newspaper. No need to pay for such a book when reality, and the reporting of it, are far worse. Ten minutes of MSNBC captions would make The Exorcist seem light and pleasant.

Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 10:23 AM (zudum)

151 18-1, exactly! that's what made it so good, and so fun; no rules.

arts of today are nothing but rules, rules, rules ...

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 10:24 AM (PFYt9)

152 Some of Flannery O'Connor's works are disturbing, written, as they are, in the Southern Gothic genre. One of her most famous short stories is A Good Man is Hard to Find, which examines an accidental encounter between a complacent middle class family and a group of escaped criminals, led by a man nicknamed "The Beast". A haunting tale that underscores the concept of chance in life, and how doom sometimes catches us completely unawares.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 10:24 AM (njExo)

153 The 3Body Problem on Netflix has English subtitles when people are speaking Chinese.
That opening sequence was why I was hoping the series would be good. But, it takes all the mystery out of what is happening by revealing too soon why what is happening is happening. Suspense builds in the books and each reveal moves the story along. But there were "gasp" moments. Like OMG, what just happened?
Don't expect that from the TV series.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 10:24 AM (t/2Uw)

154 A conversation here about "old guys" and how they are vanishing got me thinking about how I should probably start teaching some of the tools of the many trades I have worked in to some of the younger peeps around me being as they all use me as their go to guy.

Posted by: Reforger

I recently made a tour of 25-30 of my suppliers' manufacturing facilities of various types across North America, and was shocked. Almost none of the people on the floor were under 35 years of age. What happens when they retire?

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:25 AM (2UMaG)

155 And yet, dystopian novels are popular with the younger set. I have a theory about this. Our society is so safe that people are compelled to complicate it with gender confusion and cultural revolution.

I think they secretly yearn for dystopia because survival is basic and simple, and none of that other business matters when you're trying to make it to tomorrow.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (OX9vb)
---
I mostly agree with you, but I think they aren't comfortable, they know something is deeply wrong, but can't articulate it or do anything about it.

Killing zombies? Yeah, they can grasp that. It's a concrete problem to be solved. But how do you fight inflation? Open borders? Rampant crime? I think a lot of it is desire to take direct action that simply isn't possible. Yet.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

156 >>abebooks has Thriftbooks' and Better World's listings along with many other sellers, both in the US and abroad.

AbeBooks is an e-commerce global online marketplace with seven websites that offer books, fine art, and collectables from sellers in over 50 countries. Launched in 1996, it specialises in used, rare and out-of-print books. AbeBooks has been a subsidiary of Amazon since 2008.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:26 AM (6IDWi)

157 "That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis"

Some frightening imagery in that one, to be sure. Btw, the disembodied head manipulated by the chief villain has lately put me in mind of Joe Biden.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 10:26 AM (njExo)

158 computers in older sci-fi are the worst offenders, LOL!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 10:26 AM (PFYt9)

159 A lot of good classic SF was written and accepted because an editor was desperate to fill the pages of his newly acquired magazine.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 was allowed to be its weird little self because Ha! had to fill airtime and didn't care what the product was. Benign neglect.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:28 AM (3e3hy)

160 Sharon - Agree so much with you about George RR Martin. The Game of Thrones got me hooked for a while, but there is so much cruelty, so much depravity, that it was disturbing. I read most of the series thinking it would get better it seemed like Martin was just searching for more and more ways to shock as he sunk lower and lower. Finally, I could not take it anymore and his books are in a pile somewhere waiting to go in the trash. There are very few books that I won't try to pass along to other people with different tastes but not these ones.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at March 24, 2024 10:28 AM (W/K+Y)

161 Escape Pod’s anniversary podcast #100 is Azimov’s Nightfall.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 10:28 AM (UAlCg)

162 I've had good luck buying books on ebay through the various storefronts, many of which are thrift shops. More than once I've done the "buy 3 get 1 free" and for that purpose I have a list of classics that I need to acquire.

A couple of weeks ago I cleared out a whole shelf and now it looks lonely and forsaken.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:28 AM (llXky)

163 Also, there's something to be said for pioneering a genre. Being first counts for something, which is why so many people are desperate to claim it in some way.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

The early pulps were a good example of this, the Gernsback's Amazing Stories was pretty grim by modern standards, but it also mirrored the rest of the pulp writing at the time. But it was new, and exciting and took the whole science romance format of Jules Vern and H. G. Wells and made it a new genre.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2024 10:29 AM (D7oie)

164
And re:disturbing -- Evan Hunter's LAST SUMMER ain't too dusty either.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024

***
I came to Hunter by finding out he was McBain's literary doppelganger. He knew how to tell a story even if it did not focus on cops but more on ordinary people. Even my non-literary taste as a teen found his stuff quite readable.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:30 AM (omVj0)

165 >>I've had good luck buying books on ebay through the various storefronts, many of which are thrift shops. More than once I've done the "buy 3 get 1 free" and for that purpose I have a list of classics that I need to acquire.

I now frequent a local used bookstore.
Always and adventure to see what I can find.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:30 AM (6IDWi)

166 158 computers in older sci-fi are the worst offenders, LOL!
Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 10:26 AM (PFYt9)
---
The dinosaur pens filled with YUGE mainframes! But really, a big computer is more visually menacing. Who could have foreseen, back in the Jurassic, how it would be the little furry apps that would take over the world?

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:30 AM (3e3hy)

167 A little a field from books, but I was watching a review of the latest Matrix movie and the youtuber argued it was a crappier rip off of the first movie because the Wachowski brother that did it didn't really want to make the movie and had gone through a loss (his parents had died).

I've got a simpler theory - the Wachowski brothers are through and through creatures of the left - note they even went tranny. Back in the 90s when they were working on the Matrix the left had not gotten so authoritarian. This isn't to say the Matrix is a conservative movie or that the left didn't want leftist pap in movies even then BUT you could make a movie without a leftist slant.

But now? Extending the Matrix universe is very, very, very politically dangerous for any Hollywood writer. Think about it for a moment, in 1999 hell in the Matrix movie is being locked in a pod, fed through delivered food, only interacting with the world through the internet controlled by some politically correct AI. That is the left's definition of heaven on earth right now...at least for the plebes.

So the Wachowski brother just did the safest thing he could do - take the original, make it female/lame/gay

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:31 AM (ibTVg)

168 >>> 154 A conversation here about "old guys" and how they are vanishing got me thinking about how I should probably start teaching some of the tools of the many trades I have worked in to some of the younger peeps around me being as they all use me as their go to guy.

Posted by: Reforger

I recently made a tour of 25-30 of my suppliers' manufacturing facilities of various types across North America, and was shocked. Almost none of the people on the floor were under 35 years of age. What happens when they retire?
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:25 AM (2UMaG)

We're hiring H1Bs and migrants for them to train.

Posted by: super SMAHHHHRRT MBAs at March 24, 2024 10:32 AM (llON8)

169 Some of Flannery O'Connor's works are disturbing, written, as they are, in the Southern Gothic genre.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 10:24 AM (njExo)
---
I did not really know that genre until I married a Southerner and learned that it is based on FACTS. My (deceased) mother-in-law was a real-life version of Blanche DuBois. The family history includes a serial killer, unacknowledged children by a mentally incapable man under guardianship, unexplained gunfire hitting the house, and one of those "you have to be making this up" events where laying the matriarch to rest in the (of course) family funeral plot leads her daughter to go into labor. And thus my wife was born.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:32 AM (llXky)

170 computers in older sci-fi are the worst offenders, LOL!
Posted by: sock_rat_eez

An early warning about AI, and very prescient.

Given how so many books and movies have been presented about the dangers of government power, one would think people would see what is happening in reality.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:33 AM (2UMaG)

171 Living through COVID really made me think a lot about That Hideous Strength with NICE trying to create a hellscape on Earth.

Also...I do sometimes wonder if our elites have done their own version of a Macrobe experiment and that is why things have become so depraved...

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:33 AM (ibTVg)

172 One of the best non-fiction books I've read is The Prize, a history of the oil industry written by Daniel Yergin an industry consultant. It doubles as an insightful history of the 20th Century. That's because oil affects eveything.

e.g. Follow the oil money.

Without the spike in oil prices from the 70s embargoes, the Soviet union would have collapsed a decade earlier.

How to keep Putin on a leash? Low oil prices.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2024 10:34 AM (Gse2f)

173 And speaking of revenge, I also read "Maude Horton's Glorious Revenge" by Lizzie Pook. A young woman stows away disguised as a cabin boy on a ship bound for the Arctic in search of the lost Franklin Expedition. She overhears a criminal plot involving the ship's mercenary scientist and her days are numbered. The smug oily villain Edison Stowe is very Dickensian, and his too-clever gambits keep digging him deeper in debt and willing to take desperate measures.

Her sister doesn't buy the official story that her "brother" died in a tragic accident, especially when she discovers her hidden diary detailing Stowe's suspicious behavior. She starts stalking Stowe around London, plotting payback.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:35 AM (3e3hy)

174 Eris, I just finished Three Inch Teeth last night, the the same opinion. Revenge and mayhem! And I was surprised that some of the usual characters didn't survive it. Maybe Box is wrapping up the Pickett series. Much as I've loved them, it's probably time.

I wonder if he'll start a new series featuring April Pickett, who is working as a private investigator in Montana. Might be a way to keep the Pickett fans interested with new characters and environment, but a tie to the old.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:37 AM (OX9vb)

175 When I finally read the Foundation series, it was every bit the classic it had been advertised to be. Until I got to the part where Asimov picked up the story some decades later. It seemed evident to me that he had “lost” the thread of the story. The difference between the first and last few books was very hard to reconcile that they were even happening in the same universe.

I picked up a bargain on a couple of books written by (I believe) Frank Herbert’s son and another writer. It was eventually a whole series that covered the Dune universe past history and tied it into Frank’s books. It was kind of in the same vein as Christopher Tolkien “finishing” his father’s notes. They weren’t great novels, but they made a fun read.

Posted by: Advo at March 24, 2024 10:37 AM (VHN21)

176 Evan Hunter was a terrific storyteller. Haven't read all of his stuff, but as with the 87th Precinct-McBains, I never read one that left me feeling I'd wasted time & money. A lot of his work as Hunter is now out of print -- Open Road did a number of them as ebooks, but not very many.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 10:38 AM (q3u5l)

177 91 @73 --

The comics writer Bill Willingham used the characters as they were portrayed in the original tales for his Vertigo series, "Fables." .....

I didn't know that Snow White originally had a sister, Rose Red.
****
In the original folkloric "canon" (because there really isn't one, of course), "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (dwarfs (duh) and a witch) and "Snow White and Rose Red" (enchanted prince turned into a bear, and a witch) are two completely different stories. "Snow White" is sort of a standard character name, as is "Jack" -- and surely you agree: boyoboy, does Bill Willingham ever have fun folding all the Jacks into a single character!

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at March 24, 2024 10:38 AM (SPNTN)

178 My least edifying and most fun read was "GURPS Weird War II: Secret Weapons and Twisted History" by Kenneth Hite. I don't game much anymore but I love GURPS manuals! You can learn a lot of alternate universe history in their pages.

One of my favorite scenarios: Hitler teams up with the Aryan supermen of Hollow Earth and launches a surprise attack on America through caves and volcanoes. Imagine the postwar interviews in *that* version of "The World at War"!

Or: Nikola Tesla never emigrated to the US, but set up a domain ruled by Science! and Reason! and defended by giant robots and death rays.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:38 AM (3e3hy)

179 The oil crisis happens because brezhnev saw nixon was weak so he made his move and schesinger countered also after the oil spill in california opec saw its power

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 10:39 AM (PXvVL)

180 I picked up a bargain on a couple of books written by (I believe) Frank Herbert’s son and another writer. It was eventually a whole series that covered the Dune universe past history and tied it into Frank’s books. It was kind of in the same vein as Christopher Tolkien “finishing” his father’s notes. They weren’t great novels, but they made a fun read.

I remember reading a book on the Butlerian Jihad and enjoyed it. I haven't gone and read all the other books his son wrote though....

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:39 AM (ibTVg)

181 And yet, dystopian novels are popular with the younger set. I have a theory about this. Our society is so safe that people are compelled to complicate it with gender confusion and cultural revolution.

I think they secretly yearn for dystopia because survival is basic and simple, and none of that other business matters when you're trying to make it to tomorrow.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (OX9vb)
* * * *
Reading historical novels is another way to satisfy the need for complication. Survival back then was hard and not guaranteed. Bad water, lack of food, and coping with the weather takes all time and energy available. The right moral foundation provides guidance to survive and thrive.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at March 24, 2024 10:39 AM (U3L4U)

182 155 And yet, dystopian novels are popular with the younger set. I have a theory about this. Our society is so safe that people are compelled to complicate it with gender confusion and cultural revolution.

I think they secretly yearn for dystopia because survival is basic and simple, and none of that other business matters when you're trying to make it to tomorrow.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:22 AM (OX9vb)
---
I mostly agree with you, but I think they aren't comfortable, they know something is deeply wrong, but can't articulate it or do anything about it.

...
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

A slightly different take: in dystopian novels, it is obvious that there is something wrong with society. And the hero/heroine is often on a mission to Set Things Right (tm). There's some clarity there that isn't present in real life.

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 24, 2024 10:40 AM (Lhaco)

183 Good morning horde. Late to the thread. Duty calls elsewhere but wanted to thank the Perfessor and the horde. Good content. Will catch up on the comments in a bit.

Posted by: TRex at March 24, 2024 10:42 AM (IQ6Gq)

184 Muldoon, Thanks for the Secondhand Lions reference. Great quote. Wonderful scene.

Posted by: Mrs JTB at March 24, 2024 10:42 AM (zudum)

185 Yes those precursor book are not as character driven but they do show the empire arose

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 24, 2024 10:42 AM (PXvVL)

186 Dash, I was surprised by that plot twist too. It seemed unnecessarily cruel, TBH.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:42 AM (3e3hy)

187 I have to head out and collect my palm fronds shortly, so I will make my obligatory plug for folks to check out Long Live Death, my history of the Spanish Civil War.

People want to focus on Imperial Rome, but events in Spain are just so similar that its eerie.

Historian Stanley G. Payne, who has written extensively on the topic (I cite him a lot), observed not long ago that one of the pre-conditions for republican government to fall is military defeat. After the debacle in Afghanistan, I emailed him and remarked that we had now checked that box. He agreed that the parallels were piling up, and even wrote some columns in First Things about this.

Anyhow, if you want an idea of how things could go, grab a physical copy of it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:44 AM (llXky)

188 I went to see Deus Ex Machina open for Rage Against the Machine but my vax cards did not show boosters iii, D, and Eta.
Posted by: rhennigantx at March 24, 2024 10:11 AM (ENQN6)

You should have taken your mulitpass with the Gattica apostille

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2024 10:45 AM (D7oie)

189 I did not really know that genre until I married a Southerner and learned that it is based on FACTS. My (deceased) mother-in-law was a real-life version of Blanche DuBois. The family history includes a serial killer, unacknowledged children by a mentally incapable man under guardianship, unexplained gunfire hitting the house, and one of those "you have to be making this up" events where laying the matriarch to rest in the (of course) family funeral plot leads her daughter to go into labor. And thus my wife was born.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024

***
Stephen King commented that a lot of Faulkner's stuff is Southern Gothic, or next door to it. Santcuary, he says, has a scene where a character is about to be hanged. The guy is kind of vain; even as he stands on the scaffold, he's trying to flip his hair back out of his face. The hangman says, "I'll fix that for you," and jerks the lever to open the trap. Exit one miscreant, hair in his face.

King submits that no one brought up outside the South could have written that scene, or done it well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:45 AM (omVj0)

190 @177 --

I liked a lot of what Willingham did, but his companion series, "Jack of Fables," left me cold. Glad I got those from the library.

I do think he missed an opportunity regarding the identity of the Adversary. My wife said the Adversary should have been the Evil Stepmother.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 10:46 AM (p/isN)

191 So true, Eris! big is more menacing.
and really, they were just extrapolating from what they knew.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 10:46 AM (PFYt9)

192 182 -- "...clarity there that isn't present in real life."

Not just dystopian novels, maybe, but perhaps horror fiction as well. The menace is often identifiable and can be fought (even if not successfully). Sometimes I think a big part of our current problems is that too many people don't want to believe that the calls are coming from inside the house...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 10:47 AM (q3u5l)

193 I am well into book 2 of Ian Toll's history of WWII in the Pacific and it continues to be great. Also started Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. so far, so good.

Posted by: who knew at March 24, 2024 10:48 AM (4I7VG)

194 I assume everyone back then wanted to take a book into the afterlife.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 24, 2024 10:19 AM (2UMaG)

That is a better explanation than "Harry Tuttle"

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2024 10:48 AM (D7oie)

195 How to keep Putin on a leash? Low oil prices.
Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2024 10:34 AM (Gse2f)

I’ve lost track of how many times I have said something similar. (One time some wiseass attempted to correct me by lecturing me on how many other natural resources Russia had. Problem is, Russia bases its budget on the price of oil, not on diamonds, nickel, etc)

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 10:48 AM (LqqGi)

196 >>Not just dystopian novels, maybe, but perhaps horror fiction as well. The menace is often identifiable and can be fought (even if not successfully). Sometimes I think a big part of our current problems is that too many people don't want to believe that the calls are coming from inside the house...

And maybe also that these contain a hero's journey, while these kids are living in an environment where "everyone gets a ribbon" and 'the bravest people' are determined by victimhood?

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:49 AM (6IDWi)

197 "It is possible that Game of Thrones' ending was Martin's fault, not the showrunners. Maybe that's why he stopped working on it."

The showrunners passed what Martin wrote and left on their own. Trouble is that the books and series described an entire complicated world, which is hard to end tied up with a bow.

The series worked well because it was character driven. Then the showrunners were compelled to resolve everything at once with those characters going against what had been developed.

I always thought the Children of the Forest parts were lame because they weren't good characters.

My alternative ending would have been Danerys dying in childbirth like so many other mothers did in the series, leaving John to raise the one true Targaryen heir. A real tear jerker it would have been.

Posted by: Ignoramus at March 24, 2024 10:49 AM (Gse2f)

198 Blood Music by Greg Bear is fantastic.

Posted by: Sharkman at March 24, 2024 10:50 AM (829Kb)

199 I have two Achilles heels: 1) the book thread and 2) watching authors on CSPN. Both cause my TBR pile to grow and my bank account to shrink. Most recently I saw a Braxton Bragg expert (yes, there is such a thing) praise Edward Porter Alexander's Memoirs extravagantly so, of course . . . Alexander was Robert E. Lee's artillery wizard and an intelligent, perceptive man who had his Memoirs published around 1910 when passions had somewhat cooled. (Well, not here but in the real world.) His take looking back was thank God we Confederates lost the war! Our states, our country, and the world are better off for it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 10:50 AM (FVME7)

200 152 Some of Flannery O'Connor's works are disturbing, written, as they are, in the Southern Gothic genre. One of her most famous short stories is A Good Man is Hard to Find, which examines an accidental encounter between a complacent middle class family and a group of escaped criminals, led by a man nicknamed "The Beast". A haunting tale that underscores the concept of chance in life, and how doom sometimes catches us completely unawares.
Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 10:24 AM (njExo)

Or “Good Country People”. The moral of her stories? You never know when you will run into an asshole, for assholes are all over society.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 10:51 AM (LqqGi)

201 And maybe also that these contain a hero's journey, while these kids are living in an environment where "everyone gets a ribbon" and 'the bravest people' are determined by victimhood?
Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:49 AM (6IDWi)

Yes! That, too.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:51 AM (OX9vb)

202 Re: my 189: That's pretty much all I know about Southern Gothic. Though a little worm in my head tells me that Anne Rivers Siddons with her The House Next Door (a fine creep story, by the way) was in that genre too, at least for that book. The novel takes place in the late '70s in a suburb of Atlanta, so it's Southern for sure; and the Gothic part . . . well, I don't want to give anything away. But the horrors are based on character, not on revenants.

SG might be the kind of thing where you say, "It's hard to define, but I know it when I see it."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:51 AM (omVj0)

203 Off to Mass! Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:53 AM (llXky)

204 In the original folkloric "canon" (because there really isn't one, of course), "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (dwarfs (duh) and a witch) and "Snow White and Rose Red" (enchanted prince turned into a bear, and a witch) are two completely different stories. "Snow White" is sort of a standard character name, as is "Jack" -- and surely you agree: boyoboy, does Bill Willingham ever have fun folding all the Jacks into a single character!
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at March 24, 2024 10:38 AM (SPNTN)

There's an old kids book called "Dealing With Dragons" which revolves around weaving classic fairy-tale tropes into a consistent setting. There was one scene where a giant goes off on a tirade against people named 'Jack,' because it is always 'Jack' who is stealing from him, or trying to kill him in his sleep or whatnot. Basically the giant saw 'Jack' the same way we see 'youths' (on the news).

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 24, 2024 10:53 AM (Lhaco)

205 The most disturbing book I ever read is The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. He hates his characters, he hates his readers, why write books, bro?

Posted by: San Franpsycho at March 24, 2024 10:53 AM (RIvkX)

206 How to keep Putin on a leash? Low oil prices.

Well, you have to remember while the Junta does want to defeat Vlad it is a much lower priority then looting the US treasury. The Uke graft is great for them but the enviro-crap is one of their primary methods to make money.

They'd rather have Putin owning all of Eastern Europe then giving American oil drillers full ability to tap our oil resources.

Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:54 AM (ibTVg)

207 Especially when someone is so antagonistic toward you in general (or am I thinking of the wrong person? ).

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (OX9vb)

Probably not but I am a professional at work. I leave my personal feelings at the door and do what I am paid to do to the best of my ability. Which bites me in the ass quite a bit but whatever.
Being the goto guy means you get blamed for a lot of shit too.
I work in Admin but am on the shop floor, taking the Maint job would have been a demotion but a raise. I have athority but no power.
When I quit they will find out how many shoes I am filling right now because nobody was and it was affecting my life so I just started doing it as a matter of course.
The owner of the company died and I'm mostly hanging out to try and prevent one of the last foundries in America from going under.
Metal, both shop and music is in my blood. It's sort of a labor of love and I'm in the second most perfect position in the company.
Way easier than anything else I have ever done. Which is good as my body is falling apart.
I need my clone about now.

Posted by: Reforger at March 24, 2024 10:54 AM (B705c)

208 >>The most disturbing book I ever read is The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. He hates his characters, he hates his readers, why write books, bro?

I remember seeing the movie version when it came out.
Yikes.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 24, 2024 10:54 AM (6IDWi)

209 205 The most disturbing book I ever read is The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at March 24, 2024 10:53 AM (RIvkX)

That one is truly depraved. Ick.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 10:55 AM (OX9vb)

210
Killing zombies? Yeah, they can grasp that. It's a concrete problem to be solved. But how do you fight inflation? Open borders? Rampant crime? I think a lot of it is desire to take direct action that simply isn't possible. Yet.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 24, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

To solve inflation: spend money on 1) a good 2) a service. Government, which is neither a good or a service, should have money spent on it as sparingly as humanly possible.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 10:56 AM (LqqGi)

211 The most disturbing book I ever read is The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. He hates his characters, he hates his readers, why write books, bro?
Posted by: San Franpsycho at March 24, 2024

***
I couldn't finish that one. Somehow I got through The World According to Garp, but it's not a book I have any interest in rereading. (And no, I've never seen the film; it might be better.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 10:56 AM (omVj0)

212 169. I did not really know that genre until I married a Southerner and learned that it is based on FACTS. - A.H. Lloyd

You're right about the factual basis. In my own family, there was a great uncle who went nuts one day and took an axe to all his hogs (the family called the sheriff who came out and calmly disarmed him). Another great uncle kept a still in his chicken coop (much like the cartoon character, Snuffy Smith). The old patriarch of my paternal grandmother's side of the family, who had been a big landowner, went broke after putting his money into bonds issued by the side that came in second in the Civil War. And when my father died, it turned out that the people who had constructed the above ground crypt - a sort of large granite box in which his third wife had already been buried - had gone out of business and nobody knew how to open it. They had to drive pop back to the funeral home and prop him up for a couple of days somewhere until they figured it out.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 10:56 AM (njExo)

213 My favorite "King of the Hill" episode was our introduction to Bill Dauterive's relatives, the D'hauterives, straight out of a Tennessee Williams play:

https://tinyurl.com/yc4yj64a

Very Southern Gothic.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 24, 2024 10:58 AM (3e3hy)

214 Also...I do sometimes wonder if our elites have done their own version of a Macrobe experiment and that is why things have become so depraved...
Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:33 AM (ibTVg)

Maybe their doing such weird things because they know the ageing problem is with bodies breaking down? Someone might being trying to extend lives because they know brain transplants won't work.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (0eaVi)

215 200. Or “Good Country People”. The moral of her stories? You never know when you will run into an asshole, for assholes are all over society. - Catch Thirty-Thr33

Ain't that the truth!

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (njExo)

216 Disturbing books: "Lincoln in the Bardo" by Some Dude. It was the "It" book a couple of years ago. About 2/3rds through, I felt like I took the brown acid they were handing out at Woodstock. I do not recommend. Unsatisfying and weirdly terrifying.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (lPeS+)

217 It is NOT warm out thar !

My birdbath is just beginning to thaw !

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (T4tVD)

218 An interesting difference between dystopian novels and dystopian reality is that novels tend to have a single hero or small band of warriors attempting to "Right the Wrong". Epic heroism on an individual scale.

In the real world (WWII is a good example) righting the wrong took hundreds of thousands, even millions of heroes doing the small task in front of them and collectively triumphing. Mundane heroism on an individual scale with cumulative impact.

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (991eG)

219 Maybe their doing such weird things because they know the ageing problem is with bodies breaking down? Someone might being trying to extend lives because they know brain transplants won't work.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 11:00 AM (0eaVi)

The money is all gone and no one is taking the IOUs. The only thing keeping it together is no one wants to admit they are not rich, and the baker and butcher and the department store all need to be paid and the money has to come from some schnook who doesn't realize he isn't going to be paid back.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 24, 2024 11:04 AM (D7oie)

220 oh, very good (true) point there, Muldoon!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades at March 24, 2024 11:04 AM (PFYt9)

221 117 George RR Martin sucks.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 24, 2024 10:08 AM (t/2Uw)

Larry Correia hates Martin with a passion. Per Larry, Martin's failure to complete 'A Song of Fire and Ice' has devastated the sales of fantasy books, as readers have decided to not start a series until they actually see the final book published - fool me once. (There is another fail-to-finish fantasy author as well I believe).

Posted by: Candidus at March 24, 2024 11:05 AM (V1yiu)

222 oh, very good (true) point there, Muldoon!
Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades

Muldoon's no dummy !

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:05 AM (T4tVD)

223 I was channel surfing and came across Joseph Pearce on EWTN discussing great books every Catholic should know. (I'm not Catholic but they didn't check my ID at the door.) This episode concerned three Shakespeare plays, Othello, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet. It was very interesting in that he found God in these plays. A point of departure was his belief that Shakespeare was a hidden Carholic, hidden because Catholics were being persecuted in his day. This is a controversial take. The most interesting part for me was his discussion of true love and false love in which Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, Ohelia, and Desdemona all come up short and all suffer for it. It was an eye opening discussion causing me to see my own failures. (I'm hoping to avoid the suffering, though.)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 11:06 AM (FVME7)

224 "It is possible that Game of Thrones' ending was Martin's fault, not the showrunners. Maybe that's why he stopped working on it."

Probably not. All the online scuttlebutt says that Benioff and Wiess chose to rush through the final season, because they wanted to move on to other projects. Both Martin and HBO wanted the show to go longer (and conclude with a slower pace) but the showrunners over-rode them. The 'Pitch Meeting' on YouTube jokes about this decision many, many times...

I think it's totally fair to blame Martin for not finishing the books, but Benioff and Weiss deserve their share as well. Which is why many of the projects were going to do (Star Wars) fell through, and 'Three body Problem' is the first thing they've done since GoT.

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 24, 2024 11:06 AM (Lhaco)

225 I have a question....Ya know that song "Jimmy cracked corn "

Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care ?

How does one "Crack corn " ?

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:07 AM (T4tVD)

226 If you go read "classic" SF from say the 50s to the 70s it is amazing how free it seems. ...
Posted by: 18-1 at March 24, 2024 10:21 AM (ibTVg)

It was in reading the '3 Body Problem' translation that it really hit me that the American Century was over. Killed by the baizuo, as we had previously imagined the future in classic SF, and the publishing AWFLs had killed that genre, with the torch passing to China.

Posted by: Candidus at March 24, 2024 11:08 AM (V1yiu)

227 How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:07 AM (T4tVD)

corn mill

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:09 AM (AwYPR)

228 I have a question....Ya know that song "Jimmy cracked corn "
Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care ?

How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT

********

Why do you care?

Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 11:10 AM (991eG)

229 Also, there's something to be said for pioneering a genre. Being first counts for something, which is why so many people are desperate to claim it in some way.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd a
======
Is this an oblique reference to our speedster, Sponge?
Or a direct one.

Posted by: From about that Time at March 24, 2024 11:12 AM (4780s)

230 I have a question....Ya know that song "Jimmy cracked corn "
Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care ?

How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT

...or he cracked open a jug of "corn"

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:12 AM (AwYPR)

231 How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:07 AM (T4tVD)

corn mill
Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:09 AM (AwYPR)

Oh.
Thank you.
What's a corn mill ?

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:13 AM (T4tVD)

232 Thank you.
What's a corn mill ?

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:13 AM (T4tVD)

grain mill....roller mill

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:14 AM (AwYPR)

233 Ya mean corn squeezins?

Posted by: Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies at March 24, 2024 11:15 AM (dg+HA)

234 Why do you care?
Posted by: Muldoon

I was thinking mebbe we could rework the song to "Brandon CRAPPED corn"

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:17 AM (T4tVD)

235 Morning.

Today is a beautiful day.

Before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of today's activities make sure to stop and take a moment to tell your coffee you love them.

Posted by: Robert at March 24, 2024 11:17 AM (1Yy3c)

236 Ya mean corn squeezins?

Posted by: Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies at March 24, 2024 11:15 AM (dg+HA)

yup

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:18 AM (AwYPR)

237 In Pirates of the Caribbean, Elizabeth tells Barbarossa that she doesn't believe in ghost stories. He tells her she'd better because she's in one. Now . . .

Me: I don't believe in dystopian worlds!

Reality: You'd better because you're living in one!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 11:21 AM (FVME7)

238 I read a psychological thriller recently, "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London.

It starts with a man finding himself drowning after his ship capsized in the dense fog. He prays for someone to save him.

He is plucked out of the water by a vessel heading out to sea to hunt seals. They refuse to back track to take him home and he becomes their prisoner.

The captain is the Sea Wolf. He is highly intelligent but inhumane. He understands what it is to be human, but considers it a character flaw. He doesn't terrorize his crew just with threats of physical abuse, he gets into their heads, their hearts and their souls. Our castaway attempts to humanize the captain by trying to understand him.

Very good read.

I may read it again in another few years.

Posted by: nurse ratched at March 24, 2024 11:21 AM (uRmkM)

239 Currently I'm reading a 2008 short story collection by Stephen King, Just After Sunset. Yes, I know, he's deranged about Trump and many other things and has let it splash over into his fiction nowadays. But these are from ca. fifteen years ago and lack that poison. A ghost story leads off, then a suspense novelette about a woman who takes up running to avoid remembering the death of her infant son, then a short about a high school girl who watches from miles away as a nuclear weapon actually detonates in NYC; and more. Readable -- as always with King when he isn't sharpening his axe about something political.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:22 AM (omVj0)

240 Morning.

Today is a beautiful day.

Before you get caught up in the hustle and bustle of today's activities make sure to stop and take a moment to tell your coffee you love them.

Posted by: Robert at March 24, 2024 11:17 AM (1Yy3c)

yes it is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykLVZR7RG_w

Posted by: BignJames at March 24, 2024 11:23 AM (AwYPR)

241 A dystopian world?
You're soaking in it.

Posted by: Madge at March 24, 2024 11:23 AM (dg+HA)

242 A dystopian world?
You're soaking in it.
Posted by: Madge at March 24, 2024

***
I was always surprised that network TV didn't try to develop a sitcom around Madge way back then. It probably wouldn't have been anything special, but I'm surprised some producer didn't attempt it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:25 AM (omVj0)

243 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024 11:26 AM (u82oZ)

244 How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT

********

Why do you care?
Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 11:10 AM (991eG)

*snort

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 24, 2024 11:27 AM (OX9vb)

245 King has a new collection of short fiction coming soon, and I'll probably pick that up even though I've fallen off on his novels. There's not as much space in a short piece to go off on a political lecture and so far he still seems to be enough of a craftsman to keep a lid on it (mostly) in the short fiction.

Had heard okay things about the new novel HOLLY, but bagged it after the sample. Lectures. And I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about his Holly Gibney character as he is.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 11:29 AM (q3u5l)

246 All you Stephen King fans, there's a new Dean Koontz book out. Haven't had a chance to read it yet though.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 24, 2024 11:32 AM (TirNb)

247 Everyone's afraid of "triggering," but we are making the most fragile generation in human history.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

**********

Which is another way of saying "everyone's afraid of saying 'That's wrong!'". We are moving beyond moral equivalence to simply amoral.
Posted by: Muldoon

With a heaping helping or pure crazy.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 11:32 AM (FVME7)

248 How does one "Crack corn " ?
Posted by: JT

********

Why do you care?
Posted by: Muldoon at March 24, 2024 11:10 AM (991eG)

I'm gonna apply to Harvard.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:33 AM (T4tVD)

249 King has a new collection of short fiction coming soon, and I'll probably pick that up even though I've fallen off on his novels. There's not as much space in a short piece to go off on a political lecture and so far he still seems to be enough of a craftsman to keep a lid on it (mostly) in the short fiction.

Had heard okay things about the new novel HOLLY, but bagged it after the sample. Lectures. And I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about his Holly Gibney character as he is.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024

***
I bailed two chapters into his recent Gwendy's Final Task, as the wokeness and TDS was baked into the central character right from the start.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:34 AM (omVj0)

250 I tried reading The Never Ending Story but couldn't finish it...

Posted by: Diogenes at March 24, 2024 11:35 AM (W/lyH)

251 Late to the thread (was wearing a couple hats at my local church this morning) but one of the books I've read that struck me the most as a disturbing story was Shute's mid-apocalypse classic, On the Beach. Less of the supernatural or creepy in that one, but the melancholy tone brought by the inevitable creeping approach of unavoidable death really left an impact on me as a reader.

To this day it's one of the few books I don't try re-read every so often, but still count as a favorite.

Posted by: Ham Biscuits at March 24, 2024 11:35 AM (+WUwp)

252 Late to the thread (was wearing a couple hats at my local church this morning) but one of the books I've read that struck me the most as a disturbing story was Shute's mid-apocalypse classic, On the Beach. Less of the supernatural or creepy in that one, but the melancholy tone brought by the inevitable creeping approach of unavoidable death really left an impact on me as a reader.

To this day it's one of the few books I don't try re-read every so often, but still count as a favorite.
Posted by: Ham Biscuits at March 24, 2024

***
I've mentioned Shute here several times. He's what I'd call a "low-key" writer. He never hits you over the head with what he has to say, but takes you where he's going without fuss or delay. And when you're done, you've had a vicarious adventure or an exploration of the human heart that you didn't know about before.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:37 AM (omVj0)

253 Oh.
Thank you.
What's a corn mill ?
Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:13 AM (T4tVD)

Golly. Twenty posts and no "$20, same as in town."

What's wrong with you guys??

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 11:37 AM (0eaVi)

254 The Surprise or Twist Ending --
Catch-22 and Pournelle's Birth of Fire have this. I like it when well done.

The Closed Circle -
The Expanded Ending (or Epilogue)
LOTR and Watership Down combine these endings for a satisfying experience. I like this combination.

Don't like an Ambiguous ending.

Fire on the Deep has a good Closed Ending, and it's prequel A Deepness in the Sky makes it a backwards Open ending.
Both are fine, if done well.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024 11:38 AM (u82oZ)

255 Right now I'm reading "The Wager."

Its nonfiction. It takes place in the 1720s and recounts, through various ship's logs and then military court proceedings the mutiny, and shipwreck of the Wager.

Humans can become animals if they are desperate enough and hungry enough. And some humans fight with their very last breath to maintain dignity and respect. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.

Posted by: nurse ratched at March 24, 2024 11:39 AM (fjTbJ)

256 Golly. Twenty posts and no "$20, same as in town."

What's wrong with you guys??
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 11:37 AM (0eaVi)

Due to the current inflation its gotta be AT LEAST Forty bucks !

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:40 AM (T4tVD)

257 One thing I have learned over the past six months: Cats do not respond to command voice.

Posted by: Cloud William at March 24, 2024 11:40 AM (zXGrh)

258 238. I read a psychological thriller recently, "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London. - nurse ratched

The book was made into a pretty good movie in 1941, starring Edward G. Robinson as the evil captain. He was exceptionally good at conveying a kind of detached cruelty.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 11:40 AM (njExo)

259 Larry Niven's super-classic Ringworld has no less than three of the ending types: Surprise/Twist, Closed/Resolved, and at the same time Open, leaving a door ajar for future stories in the same environment. Which Niven eventually did write, though it took quite a few years for the first such story to emerge.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:42 AM (omVj0)

260 Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

I am a Nevil Shute Norway completest. I like his style and his emphasis on work as a calling. It resonates with me.

Ruined City, Round the Bend, Trustee from the Toolroom, and Slide Rule are my top favorites, but his worst books like Beyond the Black Stump are still better than many author' works.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024 11:42 AM (u82oZ)

261 I read a psychological thriller recently, "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London. - nurse ratched
*
The book was made into a pretty good movie in 1941, starring Edward G. Robinson as the evil captain. He was exceptionally good at conveying a kind of detached cruelty.
Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024

***
I can still hear EGR's voice as Wolf Larsen.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:43 AM (omVj0)

262 So, it looks like the takeaway this week is America Elsewhere.

And a re-re-reread of A Fire Upon the Deep.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 11:44 AM (q39eX)

263 I tried reading The Never Ending Story but couldn't finish it...
Posted by: Diogenes

I see they're making a new Never Ending Story movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 11:44 AM (FVME7)

264 I can still hear EGR's voice as Wolf Larsen.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

There's pills for that.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:46 AM (T4tVD)

265 Lonesome Dove had one of the best endings, in my opinion. It felt complete but powerfully sad, yet with a bit of "wonder what Call will do next" element.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Shopping at Bloodbath and Beyond at March 24, 2024 11:46 AM (MvA9C)

266
I am a Nevil Shute Norway completest. I like his style and his emphasis on work as a calling. It resonates with me.

Ruined City, Round the Bend, Trustee from the Toolroom, and Slide Rule are my top favorites, but his worst books like Beyond the Black Stump are still better than many author' works.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024

I've been trying to find hisNo Highway, the basis for that excellent film with James Stewart. I guess I need to try Thriftbooks. Funny thing about Shute: He apparently had some admiration for and interest in science fiction. Along with On the Beach, his In the Wet is a good example.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:47 AM (omVj0)

267 Guess I'll think about doing something constructive...

I won't actually do anything constructive, but I'll think about it.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 11:48 AM (q3u5l)

268 I tried reading The Never Ending Story but couldn't finish it...
Posted by: Diogenes
I see they're making a new Never Ending Story movie.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 24, 2024 11:44 AM (FVME7)

I always thought a woman sang that theme song for the movie but it was some English dude with a funny name. He sang and a some broad chimed in with a duet and background I think.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 24, 2024 11:49 AM (R/m4+)

269 Wolfus, re: No Highway

https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20120814

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 24, 2024 11:50 AM (q3u5l)

270 "I see they're making a new Neverending Story movie."

I wonder if Lionel Hutz ever settled his lawsuit with Disney over the title...

Posted by: PabloD at March 24, 2024 11:50 AM (2Fraf)

271 If you bet the over in this week’s Tolkien over/under pool, collect your winnings at the AOSQ parimutuel window.

Posted by: 13times at March 24, 2024 11:52 AM (q39eX)

272 261. I can still hear EGR's voice as Wolf Larsen. - Wolfus Aurelius

"My strength justifies me, Mr Van Weyden. The fact that i can kill you or let you live, just as I choose."

Great stuff!

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 11:52 AM (njExo)

273 *Humans can become animals if they are desperate enough and hungry enough. And some humans fight with their very last breath to maintain dignity and respect. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.*

As COVID taught us.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at March 24, 2024 11:52 AM (dg+HA)

274 Yeah, time to finish up some chores and nap for a bit. As usual, a great Book Thread!

JSG, I'll open that Shute text up and see if I can read it on the computer. Thanks!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 24, 2024 11:54 AM (omVj0)

275 Wolfus Aurelius

In the Wet has a long framing sequence, but the real story has parallel to today's politics.

What if the UK became a land of unthinking, backwards people? And the Royal Family did not want to rule in the UK? But they wanted to rule the Commonwealth. A good love story as well.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024 11:55 AM (u82oZ)

276 Humans can become animals if they are desperate enough and hungry enough.

It is their - our - capacity for becoming worse than animals that is most frightening.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 11:57 AM (njExo)

277 Chores.

Good book thread. Thank you, "Perfessor" Squirrel.

The horror books I read are non-fiction, like The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 24, 2024 11:57 AM (u82oZ)

278 Thanks Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:58 AM (T4tVD)

279 Ah, end of the Book Thread again. Thanks, Perfessor and commenters.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 24, 2024 11:58 AM (0eaVi)

280 260. I am a Nevil Shute Norway completest. I like his style and his emphasis on work as a calling. It resonates with me. - NaCly Dog

An Australian friend introduced me to Nevil Shute's books. A splendid writer.

Posted by: Paco at March 24, 2024 11:59 AM (njExo)

281 The Pants guy might OWN a weedwhacker, but I don't think he knows how to use it.

Posted by: JT at March 24, 2024 11:59 AM (T4tVD)

282 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at March 24, 2024 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

283 I have a question....Ya know that song "Jimmy cracked corn "
Jimmy cracked corn and I don't care ?

How does one "Crack corn " ?

One explanation I read was that the refrain was originally "Gimme crack corn, I don't care" where crack corn was a lower quality field corn used for animal feed.

The much more interesting thing, and the reason I read up on it, is that I think it's the story of a slave who murdered his master by spooking the horse with the hickory broom and got away with it by blaming the blue tail fly. "Gimme crack corn, I don't care. My master's gone away."

Posted by: Oddbob at March 24, 2024 12:07 PM (sNc8Y)

284 A few bookish thoughts as I wait for Sunday School to end:

I read the title of the Brandon Sanderson book mentioned and we both agreed we'd definitely read it. Now I have to dig out my library card and see if it's still valid (if you're not active for a year, the town puts your card in dormant status [due to the proximity of the college]).

As for nonbookish:

Mr. Ballen's stories of hikers make me want to never, ever hike alone. He has one of someone being stalked on the Appalachian Trail, as well as others from the Pacific Northwest. TAKE A HIKING BUDDY!

Posted by: pookysgirl doesn't usually do horror but there are exceptions at March 24, 2024 12:11 PM (dtlDP)

285 *book mentioned aloud to Pooky

Pregnancy brain, sheesh!

Posted by: pookysgirl, counting down the weeks at March 24, 2024 12:14 PM (dtlDP)

286 Just a comment about ending a story. I can't count the number of books I have read that had interesting and well-thought-out beginnings, but they descend into mush in the last third or quarter of the book. I guess it's difficult to write a good ending.

I'm not a big fan of stories that end horribly, but I'm also not a fan of trite and pat endings where everything is just peachy keen either.

Maybe I am just hard to please when I read a book. I'm willing to believe that. There aren't that many books I read that I think are really good.

Posted by: Ralph at March 24, 2024 12:19 PM (TysyT)

287 I also read the Foundation series in high school but couldn’t remember it very well. I thought it was because my memory is fading but that could be another reason, that the characters took a back seat to the overarching ideas.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at March 24, 2024 12:28 PM (V4ZWy)

288 Mr. Ballen's stories of hikers make me want to never, ever hike alone. He has one of someone being stalked on the Appalachian Trail, as well as others from the Pacific Northwest. TAKE A HIKING BUDDY!
Posted by: pookysgirl doesn't usually do horror but there are exceptions at March 24, 2024 12:11 PM (dtlDP)

Easier said than done.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 24, 2024 12:54 PM (LqqGi)

289 @242 --

Maybe somebody did, and the proposal never reached pilot stage.

When you read about how few shows ever make it to the air, you wonder how much dreck is out there.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 24, 2024 02:09 PM (0ASsg)

290 I saw some twit on X try to argue that "The Three Body Problem" was better at story telling over millennia than the Foundation Series.

What hogwash. With the exception of Foundation and Earth (which had a most communist and unsatisfying ending - at least it has always seemed to me), the Foundation Series is probably one of the best hard science fiction stories ever.

The idiots on X just don't know when they are spitting out what the machine wants them to say to promote the latest Netflix regurgitation.

No offense to any of the fans of The Three Body Problem. You're just morons.

Posted by: Jake Speed at March 24, 2024 04:00 PM (Vu1jV)

291 Thankfսⅼness to my fɑther who informed me reցarԀing this weЬlog, thiѕ weblog is genuinely amazing.

Posted by: beebe at March 24, 2024 05:08 PM (sFWm5)

292 I haven't read 100% of the comments but I sady note that no one has mentioned HP Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith and then there is Anne Rice, Dean Kontz, Stephen King and a guy named Bram Stoker and a lady named Shelley.... oh yea.. Poe

As for stringing you along in fantasy adventure Robert E Howard did a great job, although shortened by his suicide.

As for Asimov, his Robot series is an easier read than Foundation.

Posted by: James Lewis at March 25, 2024 01:14 AM (gpRTs)

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