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>> No. 5456 Anonymous
4th April 2014
Friday 3:02 am
5456 Vurt
This was really good.
519 posts omitted. Last 50 posts shown. Expand all images.
>> No. 7645 Anonymous
9th August 2023
Wednesday 7:18 am
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This was pleasant enough, but it's a fairly inconsistent book so there were parts of it where I felt my attention drifting after a few pages. IIRC, it wasn't originally written as a humorous book and was heavily edited down so that may be why it feels like it can't make its mind up entirely what it's meant to be.

Not entirely sure what a 'Margate nigger' is though.
>> No. 7646 Anonymous
10th August 2023
Thursday 7:10 am
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>>13951
A Google search tells me they were hwites doing minstrel shows in blackface for the tourists.
>> No. 7647 Anonymous
11th August 2023
Friday 10:29 pm
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This novella is about a plagiarist, someone who travels into simulated worlds to memorise their great works of literature. The twist is that the protagonist is part of a simulated world, with a plagiarist mining him for his output. It wasn't anything special.
>> No. 7648 Anonymous
22nd August 2023
Tuesday 9:11 pm
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Got round to reading Dogs of War. Thanks for the suggestion, lads, it was pretty good.
>> No. 7649 Anonymous
24th August 2023
Thursday 6:28 pm
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>>7648
Why is Danny Wallace on the cover?
>> No. 7650 Anonymous
29th August 2023
Tuesday 10:32 am
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The Black Company travel to the Southern continent, i.e. fantasy Africa. The first two-thirds or so of this book are largely an unremarkable interlude with the occasional fetishisation of negroids, brownies and glistening dark skin thrown in for good measure. It's fine when it does eventually get going, although most of the twists can be seen a mile off.
>> No. 7651 Anonymous
3rd September 2023
Sunday 4:40 pm
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This was much better.
>> No. 7655 Anonymous
15th September 2023
Friday 5:39 pm
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This spin-off is essentially The Black Company 3.5 as it's set at the same time as Shadow Games but concerns characters remaining north. It was good, for the most part, but patchy.
>> No. 7657 Anonymous
1st October 2023
Sunday 9:57 am
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This is the most experimental book in the series so far because a) it's non-linear in time due to traumatic events happening to the narrator and b) it features a comatose wizard who can be used to float through time and space for spying on people. However, it's largely set during the events of Dreams of Steel so the narrative barely moves on; ultimately, it's largely filler.
>> No. 7658 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 8:43 pm
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>>7657

What's the jist of this series? Looks like D&D fantasy.
>> No. 7659 Anonymous
2nd October 2023
Monday 9:55 pm
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>>7658
It's grimdark fantasy about an elite mercenary unit getting hired by an empire to help crush a rebellion, with many shades of grey involved. Glen Cook was in the US navy so they're well regarded as reflecting life as a soldier quite accurately; a lot of killing time with your unit, getting messed around by those higher up, having to react to sudden violent events, etc.

I'm currently reading the seventh chronicle (of nine, so far, if we exclude spin-offs like The Silver Spike) but, in hindsight, I should have probably stopped with the original trilogy as that wrapped things up nicely.
>> No. 7660 Anonymous
26th October 2023
Thursday 10:00 pm
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This has been my least favourite book of the series so far. I found myself losing interest and not really caring what happened. The ending was fairly interesting, provided that you accept the main characters become uncharacteristically stupid and careless enough to fall into an easily avoidable trap set out for them.

I think I'll take a break from these before I come back to the final two books in the series.
>> No. 7661 Anonymous
31st October 2023
Tuesday 2:38 pm
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Bob, who has just made a small fortune selling his software company, signs up to be cryogenically frozen when he dies and then goes off to a comic con to celebrate, which includes watching a panel discussing self-replicating spacecraft. The following day he is killed crossing the road. He wakes up in the year 2133 and finds out there has been a coup in America by religious fundamentalists known as Free American Independent Theocratic Hegemony (FAITH) who've destroyed his body but replicated his brain to be the pilot of their self-replicating spacecraft, Habitable Earths Abiogenic Vessel Exploration Network (HEAVEN), in their race against other empires to explore the universe.

The whole thing is an exercise in geek fantasy fulfilment. The other Bob ships get to name themselves, so we end up with ships called Riker (with the nickname Number Two because poo joke!), Goku, Bender, Homer, Bart, Bert and Ernie, etc., and the first potentially habitable planets are named Ragnarok, Vulcan and Romulus. There are popculture references on almost every other page, which is even used as a method of description such as "I was reminded of Bill Paxton's character in Aliens" and "...no human mind designed that. The best metaphor I could come up with was the alien ship in Prometheus."

He gets to tell the fundamentalists to go fuck themselves. He gets to say "bangarang, mofo!" when fighting a Brazilian Empire ship before declaring "all your base are belong to us!" when he wins. He gets to witness early sentient life on a planet, which he chooses to meddle in but there's no real reflection of the ramifications of this because it's played off as an epic adventure to keep the Deltans safe from the more primitive Gorilloids. I probably could go on, but it's better just to switch off your brain and not think about how many Funko Pops are in Dennis Taylor's collection.
>> No. 7662 Anonymous
3rd November 2023
Friday 11:31 am
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I've done it. I've read the book every woman in the world loves. It's definitely a women's book, but it is nevertheless very good. It's a thousand times better than I expected. The famously unrelenting horrifying child abuse and bum-rape is not unrelenting at all; there are only three or four bits like that although if you don't like self-harm and suicide, there's a fair bit more of that. It's very long, but it's easy to read so it's not a daunting prospect if you want to read it.

My favourite bit about it was its insights into human emotion; it does that very well. My least favourite bit is what pretentious wankers everyone is; it's like an American soap. There's a character named Citizen, like that's his actual name, his parents called him that, and everyone is obnoxiously rich and successful. At one point two characters run into their old friend from university, who is now the Bhutanese forestry minister. Fuck off. And it's so multicultural; everyone who appears is a Laotian-Nicaraguan lesbian hedge fund manager called Antarctica or some shit. God Almighty. This is not relatable to anyone. If you yourself actually got bummed or abused as a child, I wouldn't recommend you read this to see yourself in literature. If I could describe it in one word, I would go with "privileged". If I could pick another word, I'd pick wanky.

But if you can stomach that, and three or four rounds of child abuse, bum-rape and general misery, then you honestly should read it because it's fantastic. I'm even willing to forgive the weird literary tricks that I hated (the book will sometimes change grammatical tense in mid-sentence, like a first draft nobody bothered to fix, and the clever artistic decision to not name Jude a lot of the time - "He looked at Malcolm, and winked at him, and he smiled, and he told him it reminded him of the time Barack Obama asked for his advice on something" - is fucking confusing and terrible) and the occasional spelling mistake.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to pretend I didn't notice any of those problems, and make Guardian bitches wet when I tell them how much I loved their gay snuff book.
>> No. 7663 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 4:40 pm
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>>7661
>>7662

I think you two have just described the yin and yang of diametrically opposed but equally awful fiction.
>> No. 7664 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 4:55 pm
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>>7663
You never know, from the sounds of it A Little Life could also contain the dialogue "the butthurt is strong with this one."
>> No. 7665 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 8:56 pm
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Shadow of the Torturer is something I've seen recommended loads of times over the year so I thought I'd check it out. I feel like I've been tricked by the internet again because it's not very good even for a YA quasi-fantasy.

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting idea to set a fantasy novel in the far-future and all that comes with it. You probably will get weird techno-feudal societies at points, I don't have a problem with the setting. I do have a problem with how things just kind-of happen to the narrator and no matter how contrived or implausible you just have to roll with it. I don't give a fuck about the travelling performers, this isn't The Seventh Seal, I want to know about how Severian feels being cut-off from his identity and trying to navigate in a feudal society which would be terribly interesting even before you spice it with techno-magic like I'm reading a historical novel on a dangerous amount of acid.

It's a book for people who enjoyed Blood Meridian.

And he obviously diddled that mindwiped girl, who do you think you're fooling Gene? He literally describes her like a child when they meet her but then suddenly there's a lengthy discussion about her being 19. Oh yes, OF COURSE, she must be 19 now that she got naked and the other woman peeped at her. And I wonder how the current love-interest will now be booted out the picture now that we have that obstacle out the way.
>> No. 7666 Anonymous
5th November 2023
Sunday 9:53 pm
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Matthew Holness writes as Garth Marenghi, a self-obsessed egotistical narrsisistic horror author of questionable talent. The book is pretty okay, not quite the Garth Marenghi you'd expect from Dark Place, but it's similarly ironic, self-aware to a degree and easy enough to enjoy.

I do wonder however to what extent the irony masks mediocrity. It's only because of the self-referential meta that the book is worth reading. But how much is Matt Holness sweeping under the rug writing as Garth Marenghi? - at times it feels like a cheap tactic. But then again maybe that's the genius as a pulp-horror book, make money selling crap.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't go into reading this expecting good writing, it's just the meta perspective got me thinking of the real life process of writing, publishing and how differently that game can be played rather than for pure authorship.

Oh, and there's no "Blood? Blood. Crimson, copper smelling blood. His blood. Blood. Blood, blood .. and bits of sick", which was disapointing.
>> No. 7667 Anonymous
9th November 2023
Thursday 9:54 pm
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This was crap. There was a brief moment, probably about 230 pages in, where it vaguely threatened to get interesting but that soon fizzled out and it went back to being flat. Stories from the perspective of an overly naive character making observations on humanity don't do it for me, especially when they're about as insightful as you'd expect in a book for children.
>> No. 7668 Anonymous
22nd December 2023
Friday 8:45 pm
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I've read four Culture novels so far. I'd say this is my third favourite out of those and it was excellent.
>> No. 7669 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 10:45 pm
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I finally finished The Dark Tower series and wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they have a deep interest in Stephen Kings work. The series starts interesting but it gradually breaks down into a boring episodic quests toward the a lacklustre ending. The main character reaches The Dark Tower, and that's it. In a way I'm thankful for the ending as it's let the series simply fade out of my mind (I even forgot that I'd finished it one night when picking up the book for my reading session).

I hated the way with each book new characters were introduced and killed off (or otherwise left) soon after they'd furfilled their purpose to the plot. The mute artist was the worst of them, being critical to the opening of The Dark Tower (which we've been anticipating since the very begining of the series), yet he was only introduced a mere 3 chapers before the end of the book - what more with absolutely no reference to any of the previous books, he simply magics the door open. As said previously (>>7626), it's like King is pulling the story out of his arse - considering the timeframe between books I think it's likely the author just wanted to get the series over and done with.
>> No. 7670 Anonymous
23rd December 2023
Saturday 11:04 pm
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>>7669
I really enjoyed the middle ones, but it's absolutely true that the first couple and last couple are disappointing. I keep encountering hype that claims it's Stephen King's magnum opus, his greatest masterpiece, but it just isn't.
>> No. 7671 Anonymous
24th December 2023
Sunday 9:10 am
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>>7668

Funny, I just re-read that one last week. It doesn't compare to Excession or some of the others but still is very good.

>>7669

I gave up a few pages into the first. It was just... Empty. Uninspired, shallow. Something the shape of a book but without substance.
>> No. 7672 Anonymous
24th December 2023
Sunday 10:25 am
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>>7671
It didn't captivate me as Excession did, but I liked it in a different way. I'd rank the five Banks sci-fi books I've read so far:

1. Player of Games.
2. Excession.
3. Look to Windward.
4. Consider Phlebas.
5. Against A Dark Background.

With a considerable gap between the top three and the others. I know the last one isn't a Culture novel, but I like to think it's set in the same universe with a civilisation so remote they'll never make contact with another species; the only really interesting thing about the book is the title.

I've just started Use of Weapons, then I'll probably have a break from Banks for a while.
>> No. 7673 Anonymous
24th December 2023
Sunday 1:23 pm
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>>7672

I'm working my way through number 5 with 4 and The Algebraist to go. Then I'll stop because I'll have re-read all of them this year. It's the ship banter that really makes the culture books but his writing is still excellent without them. Can't say I'm going to stretch to buying the art book. The price tag is excessive.
>> No. 7688 Anonymous
22nd January 2024
Monday 3:16 am
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>>7665
Doesn't this series have a notoriously unreliable narrator?
>> No. 7700 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 1:38 am
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A friend recommended this to me on Saturday night. I wasn't going to buy a copy, but when it's reduced by 110%, perhaps I should reconsider?
>> No. 7701 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 9:05 am
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>>7700
>when it's reduced by 110%,

So you are being paid to read it?
>> No. 7702 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 2:00 pm
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>>7700

It's my favourite book, but I'm a cunt.

It's great sci fi. I've only read one translation, but the way people communicate in it seems different from any western or Russian literature I've read before. The character of Red is fairly interesting, and the overarching theme is thought provoking. It's a short read, and I wrote a 2000 word 'essay' on it exploring some of the themes and significance of certain events, characters, and artifacts, so I'm always up for discussing it.
>> No. 7705 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 3:12 pm
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>>7701
That was my joke, but when I posted it, I immediately panicked that everyone would see that it really says, “Buy one, get one 10% off” and I would be abused mercilessly. This is why I prefer anonymous posting.
>> No. 7713 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 6:25 pm
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>>7700

This is one of my favourite books. I haven't read a lot of books, though.

Apparently there's a new translation which is loads better than the old one I read a PDF of about 10 years ago, so it might be worth looking into that.
>> No. 7714 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 6:42 pm
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>>7700
>>7702
I've read it once and found it wholly unremarkable, would love to hear why it's good however. I might even dig out the book for a re-read.
>> No. 7715 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 6:57 pm
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>>7714

It's just a good concept. It's short and to the point, but it still manages to make you care about its main character and his family, it gets its themes and message across without beating you over the head too much, it drops a few nice little tidbits of mystery and intrigue into the back story for you to wonder about, and then it wraps itself up nicely.

I suppose you could say it's better worldbuilding than an actual story. It's what the Stalker games were largely inspired by, as well as obviously the classic Andrei Tarkovsky film; but that one is really only a very, very loose adaptation.

I will die on the hill that that film Annihilation ripped it off wholesale and it's weird how some movie snobs will go to such lengths to deny it.
>> No. 7716 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 8:10 pm
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>>7669
>boring episodic quests
How I remember The Gunslinger.
>> No. 7717 Anonymous
24th January 2024
Wednesday 9:05 pm
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>>7715

The Southern Reach trilogy of books may have ripped it off but I'm not sure it's fair to say the film based on those books did.
>> No. 7718 Anonymous
25th January 2024
Thursday 2:18 am
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Why can't I find Phillip K Dick on Library Genesis?
>> No. 7719 Anonymous
25th January 2024
Thursday 12:50 pm
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>>7718

Because you can't spell Philip.
>> No. 7720 Anonymous
25th January 2024
Thursday 6:54 pm
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>>7719
Holy fuck it worked, I've been trying for years no shit.
Thanks mate :)
>> No. 7757 Anonymous
5th February 2024
Monday 2:19 pm
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Just finished reading Animal House by James Brown. It's the memoir of a Ln NME editor who went on to launch Loaded. Its made me all nostalgic for when magazines were good before the Internet and I do wonder if the moral crusade against lads mags in the 2010s is in part responsible for the rise of wronguns like that Tate character in prominence.
>> No. 7758 Anonymous
6th February 2024
Tuesday 11:21 pm
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>>7757

I feel like it's pretty obvious that the moral crusade against basically any male oriented cultural outlet in general over the last 10-15 years definitely is a huge reason for the rise of those sorts of characters.

A whole generation of young men grew up being gaslighted about poisonous manliness and so on and we're surprised that they internalised that message. I mean who could have seen that coming, honestly, what a totally unforeseeable outcome.
>> No. 7759 Anonymous
7th February 2024
Wednesday 6:31 pm
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>>7758
>A whole generation of young men grew up being gaslighted about poisonous manliness

*Are growing up
>> No. 7760 Anonymous
7th February 2024
Wednesday 9:40 pm
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>>7759

This, again?

Both of you.
>> No. 7767 Anonymous
16th February 2024
Friday 1:01 am
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>>7719
The Unteleported Man started with interesting premise - namely an 18 year long journey to a utopian offworld colony suspiciously reachable only via one way teleportation - but half way through turned into lurid descriptions of LSD trips and parallel realities that tied poorly into a barely resolved narative.

Phillip K Dick - they're all going to be like this, aren't they?
>> No. 7768 Anonymous
16th February 2024
Friday 10:56 am
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I'd put this at #4 on the list so far.
>> No. 7769 Anonymous
18th February 2024
Sunday 10:45 am
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Rory Stewart's Politics on the Edge put to bed any desire, however unlikely, to become an MP. Fascinating but utterly miserable sounding existence.
>> No. 7770 Anonymous
18th February 2024
Sunday 12:20 pm
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>>7769
Just finished that as an audiobook. Yes, fascinating but appalling.
Obviously one man't observations, and surely a bit self serving, because it has to be, but it did feel plausible.
Recommended.
>> No. 7771 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 1:40 am
7771 House of Leaves
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House of Leaves is okay, I guess. Sure, it's experimental, but that's really all it is. It's a book about, effectively, that Simpsons Halloween special where Homer gets lost in "the third dimension", and I loved that far more than I liked House of Leaves. My main problem is, the author will have fun and interesting ideas for the layout, but he still needs words to type, and he often just reverts to empty filler. For example, the chapter in this picture I found is pretty much as weird as the book gets, and there's a footnote about architecture that occupies the side of about 15 consecutive pages, before ending with another footnote which starts on the opposite page and continues, backwards, to the page you initially started on. That's a cool idea, but what do these footnotes actually entail? Well, one is a list of every single famous architect ever throughout history, and the other one is a list of names of probably over 1000 film directors. A cool idea it may be, but it's not enjoyable to read and it feels like the author couldn't be bothered to actually write a proper story.

Nevertheless, it's easier to read than Ulysses by James Joyce, and makes more sense and is more coherent than that as well.
>> No. 7772 Anonymous
21st February 2024
Wednesday 8:14 pm
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>>7771

Yeah, it's definitely one of those works that's more interesting to read about than it is to actually read by itself.

It's saying something when a book works better in a Doom wad adaptation.
>> No. 7773 Anonymous
23rd February 2024
Friday 3:33 pm
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Mogworld and Jam are decent enough stories which are quite poorly written. Will Save the Galaxy for Food is a dull story, quite poorly written.
>> No. 7774 Anonymous
10th March 2024
Sunday 2:55 pm
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This is a retelling of Peter Pan from the perspective of Jamie, Peter's right-hand man, who realises over time how evil Peter really is. The ending of the book, where he has turned from Lost Boy to Captain Hook, was obvious from the very beginning so it was more an exercise in trying to unsettle the reader and build up suspense (at least by YA standards) with what Peter gets up to in the meantime. It was an inventive enough premise but the writing was a little infantile for me, although that could be because the protagonist was a child.

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