Eat any good books lately?

[chronovore]

Exactamundo.

[benji]

Much like its subject, this gets worse as it goes on. Kevin Feige was a source for this so unfortunately he's treated as perfect, basically the smartest man to ever exist and someone with a career that's been flawless. Everyone else is treated more fairly and some get especially critiqued. But it basically stops at Endgame in terms of anything about the actors, directors, the films themselves, etc. But it still goes on. You just don't learn anything like what happened to Black Widow which was in development forever or any reasoning behind Eternals or the new Disney+ shows. They're sort of mentioned off hand as Feige continues to be perfect and it recounts how stuff like X-Men come back under Marvel's control. I think it should have probably been deliberately just the MCU up until Endgame but the same length for more content, rather than trying to keep up-to-date all the way to Kang getting fired. There's also a kind of amusing relation to the product itself because the book discusses how early on directors and actors had all this say and now Feige's team and "pre-visualizers" are increasingly deciding so much of the film before anyone else and the directors are handed these productions they can just allow Marvel to do the work for them on if they want to and make no real decisions about.



That was good enough that I'm interested in his sequel which will be the 1960's. The stuff about the actual industry is probably the most interesting. The chapters about the movies are often him just talking about the plot and actors and how much he likes them. There's paragraphs where he'll be like "monster movies were popular" and then lists like 30 monster movies or whatever. I have no idea why he does this, he's not saying they're good or bad, just listing them. One of the top Goodreads reviews that I see when I score the book was complaining that he's a left-winger who fills his comments with too much liberal crap about racism and women. But he literally argues multiple times that he disagrees with the current popular trend of evaluating everything by 21st century standards, mentioning things that are "problematic" with films for the purpose of arguing to look at them in the context of the time and see how progressive they actually were.

He also makes some negative comments about modern films but even if I probably wouldn't agree with his overstanning of the films he grew up with I do agree with his comments about pacing, editing and framing. Older films are slower, have fewer close-ups with nothing but the actors face, use the entire width of the frame for deliberate purposes, don't hyperactively cut as much, etc. I prefer this sometimes too!

[benji]

Just a sort of standard history so I don't have much to complain or praise. I did like the author mentioning how many times Truman rewrote events in his memoir even from his own diary and often mostly semi-irrelevant conversations to make other people look like jerks. Also, the image on the cover doesn't look this bad and looks fine, wtf Goodreads what did you do to this.



Similar to the above I don't have a lot to say other than one thing. The book spends all its time disproving the title, there was no miracle, instead a sustained deliberate effort that started with a number of advantages. Namely that half the people hated Seward and also most of his non-Lincoln opponents. As if determined to make clear it was not a miracle the book spends some time on how the Lincoln guys, because the convention was in Chicago, got to decide where delegates sat so they stuck New York away from everyone else and put the Lincoln states next to all the swing states so Seward people couldn't get over to grease palms and shake down people during the convention itself.



This was fine but it's mostly interviews with producers and executives. The "newest" name rapper to be interviewed was Ice Cube and he was only interviewed about NWA. So while like a lot of these books it's pretty interesting as it starts it skips over stuff and drags as it moves more towards today. Though most of the narrative of this book stops around 2000 anyway, I'm not really complaining about just a small discussion about Kanye or whoever, I mean like Jay-Z gets talked about in context of his first recording but everyone is talking about him as JAY-Z JAY-Z so you get a sort of "Jay-Z was a good rapper and he went to record an album... yada yada... he's a billionaire mega force married to Beyonce."

The other complaint is how much of the book is people talking about their region and everyone talking about how important regions are. "He had a Houston-LA flavor with Miami beats over Memphis vibe." "He from the Bronx so we don't fuck with dat we ride Brooklyn style." Nobody knows what the fuck this means, especially not us cacs. But it's whole pages and chapters of this. The thing is that the chapters about the smaller cities are more interesting than the NYC borough wanking that's the bulk of the book. Nobody outright says it but the book strongly suggests that a lot of the independent dudes in places like Houston, Atlanta, etc. were making tons more money than stars making it big in NYC and LA. Because the big labels, even stuff like Def Jam, are giving you pennies per copy sold while indies gave you many dollars and because of that region stupidity you would sell large in the region just on this factor. It wasn't until they were talking about Master P and No Limit that the reason why people weren't doing this, it took a lot of work, you had to actually go around and talk to people and understand pressings, inventory and so on. Ironically, though not mentioned in the book, the internet has essentially levelled this by eliminating the physical distribution problems. No wonder the labels have hated it forever.

[Potato]

Started reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.



About 1/4 way through it and the story is just starting to kick off after some pretty heavy scene/world setting. 

Really enjoying the writing style, which I'm a bit surprised about considering so much of the conversation about this book has been the whole gothic lesbians thing.

Remains to be seen if the story takes precedence or the "look, lesbians" thing gets in the way of that. Up to this point, it's been basically non-existent, but the seeds are definitely being planted.

[Potato]

Finished Gideon the Ninth. 

Fantastic. Highly recommended.

[chronovore]

Reading A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. So far it is every bit as enchanting as her other works.

[benji]

I don't really have too many complaints about this. For someone not familiar with the history (and it's all of them, staring with 1789) these mostly four or five page summaries of each election are probably more than they want to know. Minimal factual errors which is somewhat rare. My main comment about this is the part where he talks about how "no longer" can candidates become nominees without winning primaries and facing the people, the party bosses have been rendered irrelevant, etc. It's just amusing because of what recently happened this year since he uses strong language that was so quickly proven wrong. Though I don't want to seem like I foresaw it either, it was just amusing to be reading so shortly after it occurred.

[Potato]

Burned through The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. 

That was really really enjoyable and now I'm sad that I've only got two novellas of his to read before I'm at the dreaded "wait".

It's going to be a competition to see who publishes anything first between Martin and Rothfuss.

[chronovore]

Have you read Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamorra yet? 2nd and 3rd book are good, but that first book is great.

[Besticus Maximus]

Locke Lamora was good but I never read any of the others on account of being told they're not as good.

Rothfuss books were much better than the internet has you believe, the second one is not as good.

First Law (up to the end of the first trilogy) was great

Malazan however is absolute purest perfection

[Potato]

Have you read Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamorra yet? 2nd and 3rd book are good, but that first book is great.

Yep that's one of my favourite fantasy series of all time. That's another one on the "wait" list.

[clockwork5]

Speaking of “The First Law” I just finished The Blade Itself. I have to say, it was really good. Humor in the fantasy genre normally falls pretty flat for me and is often actually quite dreadful (looking at you Sanderson) but I got a laugh from almost every page of this book. Glokta was the star of the show but I enjoyed all of the POVs and honestly even the supporting cast was full of memorable characters. 

The world building was kept to a minimum and Abercrombie was really good at giving the reader just enough to give these characters a living world to make their way through and keep their motivations, hopes and fears relatable. No info dumps or pages and pages of lore, instead we are treated to “a day in the life” of these characters. The setting and world is actually fairly unimportant until about halfway through and by then the reader has picked up just enough through the lenses of Logan, Glokta, Jezel and Dogman that when something actually happens in the book it’s all relevant and the importance of plot points such as entering the House of the Maker have real weight. 

The plot itself was super light, not that much of import happens, and the ending was basically “thanks for reading the intro, hope you enjoy the story ahead,” but even that felt intentional. 

Could have used more interesting female characters… i think that is my only real criticism; though, Ardee is great and her budding romance with Jezel was well done. 

Great book overall and I’m excited to start the second. Hoping to finish the trilogy by the time the next Stormlight Archive book drops.

[Besticus Maximus]

I haven't read any of the later books and I'm curious as to whether they're good or not because the first trilogy at least set a very high bar imo. Glokta, ninefingers dogman great characters great guys  

[Potato]

If you get the chance, listen to the audiobook of Lies of Locke Lamora. It's how I first experienced it and it was phenomenal. I'm not really an audiobook person, but that and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell were really well done.

[Potato]

Speaking of “The First Law” I just finished The Blade Itself. I have to say, it was really good. Humor in the fantasy genre normally falls pretty flat for me and is often actually quite dreadful (looking at you Sanderson) but I got a laugh from almost every page of this book. Glokta was the star of the show but I enjoyed all of the POVs and honestly even the supporting cast was full of memorable characters. 

The world building was kept to a minimum and Abercrombie was really good at giving the reader just enough to give these characters a living world to make their way through and keep their motivations, hopes and fears relatable. No info dumps or pages and pages of lore, instead we are treated to “a day in the life” of these characters. The setting and world is actually fairly unimportant until about halfway through and by then the reader has picked up just enough through the lenses of Logan, Glokta, Jezel and Dogman that when something actually happens in the book it’s all relevant and the importance of plot points such as entering the House of the Maker have real weight. 

The plot itself was super light, not that much of import happens, and the ending was basically “thanks for reading the intro, hope you enjoy the story ahead,” but even that felt intentional. 

Could have used more interesting female characters… i think that is my only real criticism; though, Ardee is great and her budding romance with Jezel was well done. 

Great book overall and I’m excited to start the second. Hoping to finish the trilogy by the time the next Stormlight Archive book drops.

I really need to give Abercrombie another go. I read The First Law and wasn't impressed enough to go for the second book.

[clockwork5]

If you get the chance, listen to the audiobook of Lies of Locke Lamora. It's how I first experienced it and it was phenomenal. I'm not really an audiobook person, but that and Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell were really well done.

This is a series that has been on my radar. Gotta get around to it. I’ve heard the dynamic between the lead characters is 10/10 and that is completely my jam. I’m glad to get a recommendation for the audiobook. I like both but I’ve got a pretty big backlog on the kindle and a considerably shorter list of audiobooks in the que.

[Potato]

Everything about it is wonderful. 

The setting is Venetian Renaissance, which for me was pretty unique and finally not more fucking mediaeval fantasy.

The characters are top notch and the world building too. The story goes along at a good rate of knots and it's just an almost perfect book. 

Can't recommend it enough.

[DavidCroquet]

I finished "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh.

Weird book in that I was drawn to read it because I saw a spoiler-filled plot summary and thought it seemed there's some interesting stuff going on there.

I still think there's some interesting stuff going on there now that I've finished, but also somehow it's not any more interesting than simply reading a plot summary.

Very weird reading experience.

[Besticus Maximus]

Speaking of “The First Law” I just finished The Blade Itself. I have to say, it was really good. Humor in the fantasy genre normally falls pretty flat for me and is often actually quite dreadful (looking at you Sanderson) but I got a laugh from almost every page of this book. Glokta was the star of the show but I enjoyed all of the POVs and honestly even the supporting cast was full of memorable characters. 

The world building was kept to a minimum and Abercrombie was really good at giving the reader just enough to give these characters a living world to make their way through and keep their motivations, hopes and fears relatable. No info dumps or pages and pages of lore, instead we are treated to “a day in the life” of these characters. The setting and world is actually fairly unimportant until about halfway through and by then the reader has picked up just enough through the lenses of Logan, Glokta, Jezel and Dogman that when something actually happens in the book it’s all relevant and the importance of plot points such as entering the House of the Maker have real weight. 

The plot itself was super light, not that much of import happens, and the ending was basically “thanks for reading the intro, hope you enjoy the story ahead,” but even that felt intentional. 

Could have used more interesting female characters… i think that is my only real criticism; though, Ardee is great and her budding romance with Jezel was well done. 

Great book overall and I’m excited to start the second. Hoping to finish the trilogy by the time the next Stormlight Archive book drops.

I really need to give Abercrombie another go. I read The First Law and wasn't impressed enough to go for the second book.

It works well as a trilogy. Each of the main characters have great (and satisfying) arcs and you don't know where you'll end up at the end of the first one.

Also a very good audiobook. Audiobook lends itself well to fantasy novels written in the third person past tense in particular.

[Potato]

Finished Leviathan Falls (last book of The Expanse).

What a wild fucking ride. Still processing my thoughts about the conclusion, but overall what an achievement as a series. 

Forget about the story and the writing which I really enjoyed, but the characters were where this series really shined. Amos, Alex, Miller, Bobby, Avasarala, Clarissa, Cortazar and so many more memorable and iconic characters. Great villains, omnipresent sense of doom, a story that just kept building the tension and the stakes without ever going into full parody (sometimes close though).

One of my favourite experiences and adapted so well into a very memorable TV show. 

Highly recommended if you haven't read the series.

[chronovore]

I like the TV show well enough, but the books are very good. I disliked the TV version being so confrontational within Roci's crew. The verbal antagonism present in the TV show is just a mechanism to allow characters to vocalize their different thought processes and personalities. In the books, we're allowed to read those firsthand.

[Potato]

After a few days to process, I kind of have some negative thoughts about the ending.

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

I didn't like how quickly things went from hard sci-fi into sci-fantasy.

Duarte just goes full magical telepathic and creates hiveminds in humans where nothing really paved the way for that before.

I still enjoyed it, but they should have planted that seed way earlier.

[clockwork5]

The Wastelands, book three of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King.

I liked this book quite a bit. I almost gave up on the series after thinking book two was among my least favorite of any Stephen King book I had read. I liked the Gunslinger, the crazy spaghetti western fever dream that it is but book two fell flat for me. 

The Wastelands though, from the Cyborg bear, Jake’s escape from the haunted portal house, Eddie and Susannah finally giving me reason to care about them, the desolate little town and its depressing inhabitants, the bridge, the city of Lud, that fucker Gasher, the psychotic train and holy shit… Oy the dog thing was the star of the show. 

I really liked this book, I finally care about these characters, I’m finally starting to understand what the hell is going on. This book redeemed the series and I’ll continue on for sure. 

A solid four stars and back to Stephen King tier work.

[Besticus Maximus]

The resort by Bentley little. Pure shit. Unadulterated trash. But truly fucking brilliant.

Re wastelands, it took me a year to grind through it. People like it best somehow. But the following books are more than worth it.

Wizard and glass is probably, technically, the best book he ever wrote.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Josh Brolins book is supposed to be beautiful according to Conan:

https://fromunderthetruck.com/

Gonna listen on the way home, and I ordered the physical one to be a hi falutin dork