The Idiot Board Readers Corner - General Discussion

Just ordered the 15th and final book in the series. I'm just sad that I'm reaching the end of the story, it's been a great ride.

I've kind of started on The Lost Regiment series by William R. Forstchen while waiting for books to arrive in the mail from the Destroyermen series. I'm still on the first book (It's only a 9 book series) and it seems to be a decent story, not quite Destroyernen, but it'll do.

 

I’ve been reading this on your recommendation, and really enjoying it. I’m on book 7 now.

 

It did seem a bit rushed. I imagine after writing the series for a dozen years Anderson was ready to wrap it up with a nice bow and move on to something else. I'm glad he left the door open for possible volumes of work that, although not sequels, might continue adventures in that world.

 

Hell With the Fire Out

I took a break from sci-fi and read some actual history. This is a very well written history of the Modoc Indian War, there was a lot of treachery on both sides. I can't say that I've ever been fascinated with the old west, but since I bought property in Modoc county I wanted to learn a bit of the history of the area and I stumbled on this little gem. There's a couple of books available on e-bay for about $5. I highly recommend it.

 

Book 4 of The Stormlight Archive is fucking dense. I've been reading it on and off for about two weeks, drawing it out, and I just realized I'm only a little over halfway through. Sanderson is the best.

 

This is a review I wrote a few years ago; it popped up on my Facebook flashbacks yesterday



Cadillac Jack - Larry McMurtry

I've read a lot of McMurtry's work over the last couple of years, and this isn't his best book by a long shot. Why does he create such annoying female characters?
Now, I'm not a woman beater, but most of the women in his books make me want to fly into a rage and somehow reach into the book and pimp-slap the taste out of their imaginary mouths. (Note to self: consider switching to decaf) They are ignorant, stupid, egotistical, greedy cunts.
I have a theory about this: Larry McMurtry hates women.

Anyway, the book is about this guy who drives a Cadillac of unspecified vintage (Shame on you, McMurtry. You couldn't just pick a year? I didn't know what kind of Cadillac to picture as I was reading.) around the United States, buying and selling antiques.

He also lays almost every woman he meets; not a bad lifestyle, I must admit, but that's about all that happens.
He eventually realizes that there may be more to life than knick-knacks, gimcracks, gizmos, and doo-dads, but he doesn't actually DO anything about it.
It was just a "slice of life" story, sort of like "Napoleon Dynamite."
Talk about an overrated movie. But for some reason, it became wildly popular. Yeah, there were some funny parts, like everything involving Uncle Rico (You just KNOW that guy's gotta be some kind of sex offender. If he ain't been caught yet, he will be eventually.), but it falls into the category of "funny once," and gets progressively less funny with each subsequent viewing. I know this because I've had to sit through it A LOT of times against my will.

Look at me, I'm rambling. Bottom line: "Cadillac Jack" was a big letdown. Don't waste your time.
One last thing I want to mention: McMurtry didn't mention Jack's age until the very end of the book. The whole time, I got the impression that Jack was in his late 40's or early 50's, but it turns out that he's the same age I am! That fact makes Jack's "problems" seem a lot less important: it's not nearly as big of a deal to reinvent yourself/ your career in your early 30's than it is twenty years later. (I'm guessing; if I last another 20 years, I can give a more qualified opinion.)

 

I'm not sure I used the search function correctly on mobile, but it doesn't look like this has been discussed.

Red Notice by Bill Browder is fantastic. Interesting combination of finance, Russian thugs, and politics. Absolutely one of the most compelling reads of the past 10 years, for me. Not my usual fare, but I couldn't put it down. And it's all true.

 

Seconded.

It really shows just how horrifyingly corrupt Russia is, to the point I had to take a breather a couple of times while reading and say "Holy Fuck."

Good depiction of how terrifying it can be living under modern fascism.

 

There were a couple times where I audibly gasped while reading. I was reading it around family for part of the time and my brother-in-law said, I've never seen anyone shake their head so much while reading a book.

 

I believe he is one of the people responsible for the Magnitsky Act. He’s pretty popular in the Twitter world I think.

 

Yes. The latter half of the book is mostly about how that Act came to be. (And Russia's response to it.)

 

It’s past time that I tried some of Dom DeLillo’s novels. Any recommendations other than White Noise, which is at the top of my list?

 

I'll third the support of this book. I picked it up on Rush's recommendation and I'm glad I did. I read it in two sittings, it was that interesting.

 

I started reading the series just after Christmas while we were camping, up to the 9th book now, and have been enjoying it for the most part. It does bug the shit out of me though how every book in the first few chapters he repeats a lot of stuff, I could understand it if it was part of the characters talking or they were designed as standalone books but as it is, it just annoys me.

 

I read a book that was an anthology of authors creating a story with their own characters in SM Stirling's Draka universe (An interesting read on it's own.) One author really stood out: John Barnes. His writing style really impressed me...humorous in a Douglas Adams sort of way, but not quite as over the top with the humor, just a really good read. If you can find "Timeline Wars", it's a compilation of 3 books (Patton's Spaceship, Washington's Dirigible, and Caesar's Bicycle) and a really good read.

I'm just about through the first book of another series of his (Directive 51, Daybreak Zero, The Last President), and it's great also. I was drawn more to the writing than the subject matter, but a brief synopsis of the series is an end of the modern world scenario.

 

Interesting. Have you read any other works by Simak? Personally, I consider Way Station to be by far his weakest work, although not outright bad, since Simak was a good writer and there are still enough of his charming qualities present. Here was my review some years ago;

Spoiler

More than once, I have read an author's most celebrated work only to consider it their weakest. At the same time, I understood why it attained its popularity. Simak's Way Station is unfortunately another such book.

It starts off with a typically imaginative scenario by the science fiction great; Enoch Wallace is a 140 year-old who fought in the Civil War, but has the appearance of a man of 30. That's because his house is a rest stop/way station for intergalactic travelers, and inside of it, he doesn't age.

The books is filled with Simak-isms. Sci-fi events occur in a rural, village setting that modern human civilization has largely forgotten. The aliens are mostly benevolent. It features powerful, mysterious, and original extraterrestrial artifacts. It even features a mentally simple/retarded character (in this case, a beautiful deaf-mute girl named Lucy Fisher) who possesses incredible mystical abilities. (For those who have read Simak's Hugo-award winning novella, The Big Front Yard, all of this should be familiar)

And yet, in key ways, Way Station is different from Simak's other works. This is a science fiction book with Big Ideas. The nature of humanity. The inevitability of conflict. What it means to be (practically) immortal. The devastation and horror of war, and how it can be prevented.

Simak devotes dozens of pages to nothing more than Enoch ruminating on these questions. Meanwhile, the story suffers. A conflict doesn't begin to take shape until about 100 pages in, halfway through, and even afterwards, there are lulls. Also, as much as I respect Simak as a genuine pioneer and great of the genre, writing cerebral, philosophical ruminations simply isn't his strength. It might be for a Milan Kundera or Joseph Conrad (although they always kept their stories fresh and moving along at a brisk pace), but Simak isn't on that level. His insights are too conventional and uninteresting. There is nothing wrong with this; even my absolute favorite science fiction authors Heinlein and especially PJ Farmer couldn't carry a book solely on philosophical musings.

As a result, the book often grows stale and boring, and has major pacing problems. Reading it, I kept comparing it to another novel I read by Simak, The Goblin Reservation. Published 5 years after Way Station, it didn't win a Hugo, nor is it as well-remembered. However, it's a damn thrilling, exciting book that presents an action-packed story with excellent pacing. Moreover, its futuristic world is just so much more vibrant, fun, and alive than the drab, depressing one in Way Station. (Which reminds me too much of Thoreau's Walden)

However, when Simak does decide to focus on the plot, it's a good, creative one. His greatest strength was his wonderfully creative ideas, and there are plenty of them here, especially with regards to the alien races and artifacts Enoch stumbles across. And while the socio-philosophical observations might get boring, they're never stupid, and written competently.

I was set to give this book a grudging 3 stars (although it was more "decent" than "good") until the absolutely disastrous ending.

Two major events occur in the ending. The first resolves the plot for the Earth and universe as a whole. The resolution and revelation was so insanely predictable that it was my first idea when the conflict was first introduced half a book earlier. I hoped that this was just a red herring and Simak would surprise me with something more creative. Alas.
The second event is a resolution for the main character, Enoch Wallace. I will grant that it was utterly unpredictable. However, it was so goddamn stupid, I'm amazed that Simak wrote it, and his editor accepted it.

Spoiler

Why the hell would Mary choose death over living with her love, Enoch? Of course it's utterly different than their previous relationship, and might not work. It doesn't between most couples that love one another. Is that reason to never even try? Or go to the utterly drastic step of ending one's existence? As for Enoch remembering that she was originally a mental construction of his, so what? If that was the biggest problem facing most married couples, there would be a lot less divorce and marital strife.
And if Mary realized her and Enoch could never be together, why did she show up in the first place?

To give the book an emotional exposition scene? This is crap writing.

It's a lame attempt at being poignant and trying to garner emotion and sympathy from the reader that the book hadn't done enough to deserve.

If you're interested in one of Simak's exciting, imaginative works, check out The Goblin Reservation or his very good short stories.

If you want a novel with flashes of his brilliance derailed by putting ponderous philosophical ruminations ahead of a good story and capped off with an all-time awful ending, read Way Station.

Lem is absolutely one of the most intellectual and brilliant science fiction writers ever, although I've generally preferred his short stories over his novels. If you're new to him, I recommend the two Ijon Tichy books, especially the second one, which has the greatest, most haunting examples of science fiction horror I've come across.

 

A few weeks ago I re-read Rendezvous with Rama after about 40 years. It was then I became aware there were subsequent books written by Clarke with Gentry Lee (Chief engineer for the Galileo project), so I read those too. I found them somewhat annoying because instead of focusing on the story they tended to get into the interpersonal relationships and intrigue a little to much. The story however was still good throughout the books. My biggest complaint is when they were writing dialogue for "Rougher" characters it was apparent they were totally out of touch with how "Rougher" people speak. It came across as very sit-com/cartoonish...ie..."What are you rebeling against?" "What ya got?"

Earlier this week I picked up Gentry Lee's first solo work "Bright Messengers", which is kind of set in the Ramaverse. (No need to read the original Rama stories.) Aside from the aforementioned dialogue from rougher characters, what a great story! It starts out on Earth, progresses to Mars, then they end up on a Rama like craft. It's one of the few books I couldn't put down. There is a second book, but I was unable to find it in local used books stores so I had to order it off the internet this evening. I highly recommend Bright Messengers.

 

I've always been leery of reading Arthur Clarke since he was a serial pedophile and I think Kubrick's version of 2001 is perhaps the most painfully overrated, boring cinematic experiment ever. Of course, that's not entirely fair of me. Lots of shitstains can be good, even great authors, and a movie adaptation may have little to do with the original book, especially considering what Kubrick did to books like Lolita or The Shining. Anywho, how would you compare Clarke's style to that of other science fiction writers, if you're able to?

 

I can't say I'm a fan of Clarke. The Rama stuff is all I've read. At the end of each book they always included excerpts of other books of his and I read those, but I didn't find anything even remotely interesting enough to coerce me to read another one of his books.

 

I've been reading the works of PG Wodehouse, especially the Wooster and Jeeves series. Acclaimed British humor novels of the early 1900s can be excellent (Jerome K Jerome's Three Men in a Boat), decent (Bashford's Augustus Carp, Esq), or poor (Diary of a Nobody), so I had no idea which direction this one would go.

Well, I'm happy to state this is elite-tier humor, a series of splendidly funny adventures featuring a lazy, dull-witted, good-for-nothing, but likeable rich nobleman and his seemingly genius but tyrannical butler. The non-Jeeves short stories Wodehouse wrote are also outstanding and worth checking out. He has a very unique voice, with his narrators employing an early 1900's slang popular in dance and stage halls of the period which is somehow perfectly comprehensible to a reader nowadays. And of course, the pacing of the stories is lightning-quick.

Highly recommend his works to anyone, many of which are available on Project Gutenberg.