Umpologies that you never made it through

[DrMatt]

I was just going over in my mind some of the larger collections of giant works that everybody talks about like they're the cat's meow, where I've given up after the first phase or slept through major parts. Quite a list.

After propping my eyes open for Rheingold, I've slept through Wagner's Ring, briefly awakening for the Ride of the Valkyries...
After The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I gave up on CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia as hopelessly preachyweachy and inferior to Yellow Submarine in every way...
I saw Star Wars late in the first run, and on overseas flights I've seen without sound a few scenes from some other films in the series, but never felt that I was missing anything.
With the exception of Song of Songs, which is pretty good poetry, The Bible is a boring, sloppy excuse for a book--I certainly have never been interested in seeing any of the moive versions.


There are probably others, but I can't even remember 'em right now.

On the other hand,

Though I disagreed with him about almost everything, I enjoyed reading just about everything Heinlein wrote.
Assimov's fiction was nerdy, but his non-fiction was full of life, passion, and fascination, and as a kid I read it voraciously.
Carl Sandburg's Lincoln Portrait went on and on and on but somehow held my interest.
Beethoven's 9 symphonies, Mahler's 10 symphonies, all 96 movements of Bach's Welltempered Keyboard-... these are daily bread and butter for me.


I guess this just means that I'm sorry, but with limited years to live, I'd rather spend 'em investigating Haydn's hundred-odd string quartets and hundred-odd symphonies than see even just one more Star Wars film.
:crc:

[Soapy Sam]

"Consider the Lilies of the Field. They toil not, neither do they spin: Yet even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed as one of these.."

Be fair. There is a lot of lovely writing in the King James Bible- all the more when you consider that it is a seventeenth century translation into English of several different Iron Age sources.

I suspect we fail to appreciate some works of the past because we lack the cultural background knowledge to do so, which was taken as universal among educated people of the time by the relevant composers.

I wonder what 23rd century readers / listeners / viewers will make of 20th century art.

[Zep]

Dr Matt, I like both Star Wars AND the Haydn works, plus lots of other stuff of all genres. But do I care if you don't like the former? Heh, of course not! Here's drinking to your proclivities!

The thing with Star Wars is that, even though the plot can be written comprehensively in the space round the outside of a small postage stamp, it's really just fun! I usually find that if I leave my brain in neutral and sit close to the screen, it's a wonderful moving comic book, and a relief from having to out-think Microsoft and Dell on an hourly basis.

Anyway, I've got it all on DVD and so I can get myself another fix whenever I want. And the same goes for Haydn too!

[DrMatt]

Almost nothing happens in Illiad--but it's told so well I devoured it (Graves translation). Same with Joyce's Ullyses, though I must admit to skimming large portions of it that I'm convinced are padding, the author reveling in his own "voice". Couldn't make it past the second page or so of any translations of Kalevala though. Sorry, Finns!

[Zep]

I did not like Seinfeld. Dull. Dull. Dull. If it was a "show about nothing" then it certainly lived up to that mark for me.

Give me Mahler instead, please. At least it gives me something to be critical of.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Zep
I did not like Seinfeld.

Never seen it. Was it any good dull? Any better than the King James Bible? :D

I think I detect a pattern here. The pattern is: There's no accounting for taste. :p

[Charlie Monoxide]

Originally posted by DrMatt
Almost nothing happens in Illiad--but it's told so well I devoured it (Graves translation). Same with Joyce's Ullyses, though I must admit to skimming large portions of it that I'm convinced are padding, the author reveling in his own "voice". Couldn't make it past the second page or so of any translations of Kalevala though. Sorry, Finns!

Sounds like a Stephen King technique. Take basically a short story and add 600 or 700 filler pages.

Charlie (I still like King though) Monoxide

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Charlie Monoxide


Sounds like a Stephen King technique. Take basically a short story and add 600 or 700 filler pages.

Charlie (I still like King though) Monoxide

Actually--that's the basic structure of language: take basic deep structure sentences like "gimme!" "mine!" "Me hungry!" and add padding and compound words until you've got scholarly German...
:D :D :D :D

[Chaos]

Originally posted by DrMatt


Actually--that's the basic structure of language: take basic deep structure sentences like "gimme!" "mine!" "Me hungry!" and add padding and compound words until you've got scholarly German...
:D :D :D :D

I might be inclined to take that personal.:crc:

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Chaos


I might be inclined to take that personal.:crc:

's okay, Icelandic poetry, with its recursively expanded modifiers, which can bloat a sentence into a page and a page into a good hour's recitation, is usually given as the extreme example of that principle of transformational grammar converting the merest everyday thought into a unique and personal expression.:cs:

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by Charlie Monoxide


Sounds like a Stephen King technique. Take basically a short story and add 600 or 700 filler pages.

Charlie (I still like King though) Monoxide Yes, I read the first 3 Dark Tower books, but he took a 10 year break between books, and I probably won't pick up another one.

I ain't reading anymore Tolkein. LOTR and the Hobbit were enough.

I also tried to like Asimov, but it's really boring.

My friends in college really liked Pink Floyd, but I never did drugs so there goes that...

[Mr Manifesto]

I haven't managed to get through the 28 489-book "Mission: Earth" series by L Ron Hubbard. Only got to page one of, "The Invaders (sic) Plan" (didn't this guy have an editor?) before hurling the damn thing out my window, down a five-mile shaft, where it was buried in concrete, lost forever.

[Deviant Pixie]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
I haven't managed to get through the 28 489-book "Mission: Earth" series by L Ron Hubbard. Only got to page one of, "The Invaders (sic) Plan" (didn't this guy have an editor?) before hurling the damn thing out my window, down a five-mile shaft, where it was buried in concrete, lost forever.

You could have nailed it to a frisbie, and flung it over a rainbow.
Like I did with War & Peace. I tried it order to feel slightly more intelligent.

Decided to wallow in my stupidity.

[epepke]

Beethoven's great, but Mahler's always sounded just like so many movie scores stuck together.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by epepke
Beethoven's great, but Mahler's always sounded just like so many movie scores stuck together.

Or on the other hand, so many movie scores aspire to sound like Mahler... :D

[local weather]

Originally posted by Mr Manifesto
I haven't managed to get through the 28 489-book "Mission: Earth" series by L Ron Hubbard. Only got to page one of, "The Invaders (sic) Plan" (didn't this guy have an editor?) before hurling the damn thing out my window, down a five-mile shaft, where it was buried in concrete, lost forever.

Ha! In high school I was reading those together with a friend, I think I got through book 3, he through book 4.

Then we both realized that they were terrible, terrible books with incoherent plots laced with Scientology crap.

[diddidit]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer

I ain't reading anymore Tolkein. LOTR and the Hobbit were enough.


Give The Silmarillion a go. Marvellous language, the best Tolkein created.

did

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by diddidit


Give The Silmarillion a go. Marvellous language, the best Tolkein created.

did I don't doubt it, but I'm not a language hound, and I've got a feeling if I found LOTR mostly boring, that would only be worse. I can barely find time to read books I really WANT to read lately. Damn baby, hogging all my free time.

[diddidit]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
Damn baby, hogging all my free time.

Ah, yes. Well, you could read it TO Hexx Jr.!

Little did, who is at this moment blowing bubbles from both ends in the bathtub, limits me to maybe 20 pages a night. He goes to bed, I get in bed and read until my eyes cross, which doesn't take long.

did

[kittynh]

I'm the only person I know that actually got through Marcel Proust. I mean, I loved each and every book. I read it during my lunch break when I was working. People would come into my office, and they would comment, "boy, I tried to get through that..."

I like Marcel Proust, but you have to accept his writing style as a style. Sort of like music, there are different types, rock, pop, R&B, hip-hop, rap, classical, baroque....

Did I zip through it, no! Marcel Proust is meant to be read and digested, it's not fast food fiction.

[Ove]

Beethoven's 5'th!!!!!!!!!!

It has one of the most haunting "riff's" ever written but after 2-3 repeats of it it really gets boooooooooooooring. I've never heard it to the end.
Tchaikovsky, on the other hand...;)

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Ove
Beethoven's 5'th!!!!!!!!!!

It has one of the most haunting "riff's" ever written but after 2-3 repeats of it it really gets boooooooooooooring. I've never heard it to the end.
Tchaikovsky, on the other hand...;)

Funny about B's 5--afficianados all agree that the opening "riff" is stupid-sounding, and what's fascinating is what he did with it over the subsequent 25 minutes of music. :D YMMV

[Wudang]

Various books leap to mind - Umberto Eco's "Foucaults pendulum", what-her-names "White Teeth", Seth's "A Suitable Boy", etc. Various reasons - Eco seemed a little too pleased with himself, the characterisation in White teeth I found poor and with Seth I'd realise I'd been staring at the same page for ages while my mind had gone off to do something more interesting - usually how to patch the old code at work into something reasonable.

Star Wars - candy floss. At best something to do absent-mindedly. I prefer the intellectual rigour of Fred Quimby.

Pink Floyd - there's 1 track off Ummagumma? "Set the controls for the heart of the sun" that affects me like some Debussy - I settle down to listen and drift off in a reverie and hmmm, the musics stopped, where did the last n minutes go? Pleasant sensation and curiously refreshing.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Wudang
What if the hokey-kokey IS what it's all about?


That'd be the Hokey-Pokey, with a P in there somewhere.

Taken from sources elsewhere:


The composer of the Hokey Pokey, Larry LaPrise, a native of Detroit, died a few years ago in Boise, Idaho, at age 83. His song writing career pretty much ended with the composition of the Hokey Pokey in the early 1940s.

The story goes that Larry LaPrise’s funeral lasted a long time. The Hokey Pokey was playing in the background. The undertakers tried to get his body in the coffin. They put his left leg in, and the right leg would pop out, they put his right leg in and the left leg would pop out. They put his whole body in and he’d soon be sitting up and shaking, and turning around. But that’s what it’s all about.

As they wheeled his coffin out to the hearse, which was parked on a hill, the undertakers lost their grip and the coffin headed down the street, whizzing by traffic, going through red lights, and eventually flying in the open door of a local pharmacy, and coming to a crashing halt in front of the counter. The coffin cover fell off and the body sat up straight in its bier. The pharmacist leaned over the counter and asked, “Can I help you?” And LaPrise replied, “Yeah, have you got something that will stop this coffin?”

[Wudang]

I trust that you would not argue with the tweenies? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/tweenies/songtime/songs/t/thehokeycokey.shtml)

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by Wudang
I trust that you would not argue with the tweenies? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/tweenies/songtime/songs/t/thehokeycokey.shtml)

Of course I would. The Hokey Pokey is a published work, registered with the USA Register of Copyrights 19 June 1950, copyright renewed as RE-15-085.
For further information, go to www.copyright.gov
and click the link "Search Records",
select "books, music, etc.",
click the radio button for "author", and enter "laprise, larry", then click the "search" button.

The story about Hokey Pokey happening in the early 40's, though, is challenged a bit by the copyright record of 1950 (not to mention the fact that entertainment was in dire straits in the early 40's as a lot of resources were monopolized by other current events).

[roger]

Originally posted by DrMatt
Funny about B's 5--afficianados all agree that the opening "riff" is stupid-sounding, and what's fascinating is what he did with it over the subsequent 25 minutes of music. :D YMMV Have you heard the version that has two radio announcers talking over the top of the 5th, commenting on it like it is a baseball game? It's been a while since I've heard it, but I found it pretty funny. After run of the mill opening commentary, they start making comments like "OH MY GOD! What is the clarinet section doing? They've completely ignored the theme and are making their own statement...The strings come back strongly, restating the theme, but the oboes answer by inverting it!! It's chaos in the orchestra pit now, and I don't see how the conductor is going to pull this one off now..." It actually helped increase my appreciation of this overexposed piece.

[DrMatt]

Originally posted by roger
Have you heard the version that has two radio announcers talking over the top of the 5th,

It's by Peter Schickele, it's on "The Wurst of PDQ Bach", and it only covers the first movement. I've used it in teaching. What a hoot!

[roger]

That's it! Thanks.

[DrMatt]

I confess--I've not made it through most of the PDQ Bach stuff.

[DrMatt]

At this point, I suppose it's appropriate to refer to Milton Katims conducting Beethoven's 9th in Seattle. Plug it into Google...
:D

[Wudang]

Weird, I've always heard it as "c/kokey" and apparently I'm not alone but, from Google, seem to be in a minority. On the other hand, if the tweenies think it's okay.........:)

[Zbu]

I read the entire Mission Earth from Hubbard as a young tike (who got these books in a freaking library, of all places!) and finally caught on at the end that 1) Hubbard sucked as a writer, 2) his books were definitely vanity press pieces--right down to the Stephen King quote on Fear and the undescribeable awfulness that is Battlefield Earth, and 3) that he was definitely not right in the head, which lead me into looking up the background of Scientology and eventually getting a used copy of Dianetics that I knew was pure ******** from page one. "Be sure to look up all the words you don't readily know?" Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, okay!

After wasting my time and spending a whole $10 total on getting the hardcover editions cheaply, they are good for two things: revealing how awful a person and writer Hubbard really was, and how they even out a desk very nicely.

And as long as I live, I won't even go into how the main heroine of the whole 'dekalogy' (ooh, fancy word for UTTER ********) didn't wear pants. Some things can only be explained by mental disease and drug usage. Oh, and God complexes.

[TragicMonkey]

I gave up on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. They're not that bad, fairly mindless though entertaining. After about nineteen of the damn things, though, I finally realized that he was going absolutely nowhere with the plot. He just added more and more characters, most of them too similar to ones he's already got. And I lost interest in all of them.

eta: Oh, and David Eddings went utterly senile or something. His latest series blew chunks. I only made it through half the second one before deciding I could better spend the time cleaning the bathroom. It would be more interesting.

[Chaos]

I gave up on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. They're not that bad, fairly mindless though entertaining. After about nineteen of the damn things, though, I finally realized that he was going absolutely nowhere with the plot. He just added more and more characters, most of them too similar to ones he's already got. And I lost interest in all of them.

Nine, actually, not nineteen. Although it feels like thirty or forty.


eta: Oh, and David Eddings went utterly senile or something. His latest series blew chunks. I only made it through half the second one before deciding I could better spend the time cleaning the bathroom. It would be more interesting.

"The Sleepers", or whatever it is called? Yeah... Pity, though, he used to be very good.

[TragicMonkey]

And saddest of all, I've given up on the Rumpole books. I love the old ones, and always will, but the last couple have illustrated that John Mortimer is getting sloppy, and so are his editors. He gets the names of characters wrong, and made twins out of children born years apart, brought a character back from the dead, and frankly, the mysteries aren't that mysterious any more. Sometimes Rumpole doesn't even go into court. It's all understandable, since he's very old and not in terribly good shape, but it's disappointing to see a giant fall. So no new Rumpole books for me.

[The Black Fox]

I've only ever read one David Eddings book: The Redemption of Althalus (think I got the name wrong there) which I thought was atrociously written. Worse, the book was advertised as a bestseller! There are loads of better fantasy authors out there, and people bought that one!

[TragicMonkey]

I've only ever read one David Eddings book: The Redemption of Althalus (think I got the name wrong there) which I thought was atrociously written. Worse, the book was advertised as a bestseller! There are loads of better fantasy authors out there, and people bought that one!

Because they didn't realize it would suck until they read it. Books sell because of the author's previous work.

[delphi_ote]

Sounds like a Stephen King technique. Take basically a short story and add 600 or 700 filler pages.

Or Neal Stephenson these days. That guy needs an editor. The Baroque Cycle has some wonderful moments in it, but not over 2,400 pages worth!

[delphi_ote]

And saddest of all, I've given up on the Rumpole books. I love the old ones, and always will, but the last couple have illustrated that John Mortimer is getting sloppy, and so are his editors. He gets the names of characters wrong, and made twins out of children born years apart, brought a character back from the dead, and frankly, the mysteries aren't that mysterious any more. Sometimes Rumpole doesn't even go into court. It's all understandable, since he's very old and not in terribly good shape, but it's disappointing to see a giant fall. So no new Rumpole books for me.

Sorry, but Michael Crichton wins the award for biggest no-effort, money-grubbing hack these days. His worst sin that I've read was Jurrassic Park 2:

In the first book, Ian Malcom is kicked by a tyrannosaurus rex. Knowing that he's bleeding to death internally and that they have no way to take him with them, his friends give him a fatal overdose of morphine. As his friends are leaving, they watch a group of raptors break into the room and ravage what is left of the guy. Then the island is bombed into oblivion, leaving no trace of life.

In Jurrassic Park 2, Ian Malcom walks with a slight limp.

[Darat]

The Wandering Jew - I forced myself (and I mean forced on the thread of terrible torture to myself) to finish it. It is the worlds most boring book, thankfully now I've read it I now know that whatever I read now will never be as boring. Having faced the worse is some comfort.

Any of the bloody Bronte crap - boring twittering fluff - Barbra Cartlands of their day.

Oh and Dickens - the most tedious obviously wrote to sell another episode next week pulp ever.

And I'm afraid most of Shakespeare - it ain't that clever, his plots are thin to non-existent, his characterisation is as trite as any soap opera and he was a obviously just a working hack author. Just because it is in "olde worlde English" don't make it great!

[delphi_ote]

Oh and Dickens - the most tedious obviously wrote to sell another episode next week pulp ever.

Dickens: Alright already! I get it. It sucks to be poor. I don't need 500 more pages. You pretty much had me convinced on page 2.

And I'm afraid most of Shakespeare - it ain't that clever, his plots are thin to non-existent, his characterisation is as trite as any soap opera and he was a obviously just a working hack author. Just because it is in "olde worlde English" don't make it great!

I totally disagree, but I love clever word plays. How can you not laugh at this:
HAMLET.
There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddits now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha?

HORATIO.
Not a jot more, my lord.

HAMLET.
Is not parchment made of sheep-skins?

HORATIO.
Ay, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLET.
They are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in that.

[Darat]

...snip...

I totally disagree, but I love clever word plays. How can you not laugh at this:

About the level of a Carry On film - which granted I enjoy but would never consider them great scripts.

[delphi_ote]

About the level of a Carry On film - which granted I enjoy but would never consider them great scripts.

Really? All in iambic pentameter? Beautiful prose? And expressing ideas like this in the same work?

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Shakespeare isn't the only and greatest literature of all time. Some people take it too far. But it's beautiful stuff if you give it a chance. He also makes a good common reference. Let's not be too mean to him just because a few lunatics believe life begins and ends with the Holy Bard.

[Zbu]

Any of the bloody Bronte crap - boring twittering fluff - Barbra Cartlands of their day.

Oh and Dickens - the most tedious obviously wrote to sell another episode next week pulp ever.

Are we talking the Brontes that did Jane Eyre (I won't bother looking up which as it brings back painful and horrific memories)? I freaking hated that book and was never able to finish it. All I got from it was just pathetic boredom combined with possibly the worst Women in Lit course I have ever had the misfortune to take, but I won't bore you with a class that only met half the time and was filled with women who apparently didn't believe that men should or could speak intelligently about dissecting literature....

I think I spent about $12 on a trade paperback of Eyre and throughout my college career I've never sold an English book back, keeping them in good condition for the day where I might need them again. Eyre is still in the backseat of my car, gathering mold from where the snowscraper drips on it.

[HarryKeogh]

Sorry, but Michael Crichton wins the award for biggest no-effort, money-grubbing hack these days. His worst sin that I've read was Jurrassic Park 2:

In the first book, Ian Malcom is kicked by a tyrannosaurus rex. Knowing that he's bleeding to death internally and that they have no way to take him with them, his friends give him a fatal overdose of morphine. As his friends are leaving, they watch a group of raptors break into the room and ravage what is left of the guy. Then the island is bombed into oblivion, leaving no trace of life.

In Jurrassic Park 2, Ian Malcom walks with a slight limp.

yeah, they needed Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm) for the movie's sequel so Crichton resurrected him.

now that's selling out!

[delphi_ote]

yeah, they needed Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm) for the movie's sequel so Crichton resurrected him.

now that's selling out!

No. This (http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=the_journalistic_triumph_of_michae l_cric&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1) is selling out.

[3point14]

The wheel of time, I read one, strted another, realised that no plot line was ever resolved and it was just going to go on till the author died, so stopped.

I cannot read Tolkien, not a popular opinion, but I like my fantasy fast paced, and it is not.

Later Eddings stuff just sucked, but maybe the earlier stuff did too, and I was just too young to notice.

N.B. - Shakespeare is not designed to be read, it's designed to be watched, makes a world of difference.

[rustypouch]

I have given up on Terry Goodkind's stuff.

His first few novels were entertaining, but the fact that he reuses the same plot devices to maintain tension loses something after a while.

[AmateurScientist]

Bazooka Joe isn't what it used to be either.

AS

[ZirconBlue]

I have given up on Terry Goodkind's stuff.

His first few novels were entertaining, but the fact that he reuses the same plot devices to maintain tension loses something after a while.

And that the later books read like some sort of cheap Ayn Rand knockoff.

[delphi_ote]

And that the later books read like some sort of cheap Ayn Rand knockoff.

As if there wasn't enough garbage in Rand's own novels. :D

[Jon.]

Having enjoyed some of his previous works, I picked up the first book in Stephen R. Donaldson's The Gap Into... series. Blech. Full of violent, sadistic, sex for no real purpose. I couldn't bear to try any of the subsequent books. I mean, I can get violent pointless sex at home any time!

[Curnir]

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey :
I gave up on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. They're not that bad, fairly mindless though entertaining. After about nineteen of the damn things, though, I finally realized that he was going absolutely nowhere with the plot. He just added more and more characters, most of them too similar to ones he's already got. And I lost interest in all of them.

Chaos
Nine, actually, not nineteen. Although it feels like thirty or forty.


Eleven actually, twelve if you count the full length prequel, thirteen if you count 'the world of wheel of time'

I devoured Edding's Belgarion and the first Sparhawk series when I was in junior high, the next series (tamuli?) I just couldn't bear. And I havn't read any other of his books.

Orson Scott Card, enders game was good, I also liked ender's shadow and shadow of the haegemon (sp?) but I havn't gotten through the Ender followup books, maybe if I get enough time + a comfy chair + some nice tea.

Stephen Donaldson, his white gold books are good but so longwinded, got stuck in the second book of the second trilogy (Robert Jordan's books caught my attention) and I havn't found my way back yet.

Terry Goodkind, *sigh* well the first 2-3 books are okay,but there is too much of what I, as a Jordanite, see as wheel of time rip-off.

I barely listen to music, although lately I have started to listen to 'renaissance festival podcast'.

(cheers, my first post) :D

[ZirconBlue]

Terry Goodkind, *sigh* well the first 2-3 books are okay,but there is too much of what I, as a Jordanite, see as wheel of time rip-off.


Goodkind claims he hasn't read any Jordan (or, really, any Fantasy). Of course he's a pompous ass, AFAICT.

Did you hear about the Terry Goodkind book (Debt of Bones) that was printed with the copyright listed as belonging to Robert Jordan?

[LW]

I gave up on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series.

Me too, but I have to admit that I did it before starting to read them. I read two of his Conan novels and they were enough to convince me that I really don't want to read anything by him again.

[alfaniner]

Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson is the only book I ever stopped reading after about 500 pages (with what, 1000 left to go?) and just started flipping through them to see if anything interesting was going to happen at all. I have never been so mind-numbingly bored by a book. People go places and do stuff. Nothing at all happens in the first 500 pages. The only thing I found remotely interesting was the instructions for Solitaire, but entirely too complicated to use in reality (nothing that I'd need it for, anyway).

I'd picked up one by Greg Benford, Timescape. I got through about 100 pages before realizing it was very dull and all sounded familiar. I checked my personal library and found that I already had it in my "garage sale" stack. So I'd bought it again, without even realizing that I didn't like it the first time I didn't finish it. The cover was cool, though, and the premise sounded interesting.

[delphi_ote]

Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson is the only book I ever stopped reading after about 500 pages (with what, 1000 left to go?) and just started flipping through them to see if anything interesting was going to happen at all. I have never been so mind-numbingly bored by a book. People go places and do stuff. Nothing at all happens in the first 500 pages. The only thing I found remotely interesting was the instructions for Solitaire, but entirely too complicated to use in reality (nothing that I'd need it for, anyway).

Sadly, I have an obsession problem. I can't put down a book once I've started reading it. Unlike Stephenson's editor, I read every page of Cryptonomicon. It definitely has its moments, but it wasn't worth all that text. A great moment that springs to mind is when the marine Shaftoe is being interviewed by a young war correspondent:

Ronald Reagan has a stack of three-by-five cards in his lap. He skids up a new one: "What advice do you, as the youngest American fighting man ever to win both the Navy Cross and the Silver Star, have for any young Marines on their way to Guadalcanal?"
Shaftoe doesn't have to think very long. The memories are still as fresh as last night's eleventh nightmare: ten plucky Nips in Suicide Charge!
"Just kill the one with the sword first."
"Ah," Reagan says, raising his waxed and penciled eyebrows, and cocking his pompadour in Shaftoe's direction. "Smarrrt--you target them because they're the officers, right?"
"No, f***head!" Shaftoe yells. "You kill 'em because they've got f***ing swords! You ever had anyone running at you waving a f***ing sword?"

Or that the super hacker Randy Waterhouse constantly views people in terms of Lord of the Rings.

In the Tolkien, not the endocrinological or Snow White sense, Randy is a Dwarf. Tolkien's Dwarves were stout, taciturn, vaguely magical characters who spent a lot of time in the dark hammering out beautiful things, e.g. Rings of Power. Thinking of himself as a Dwarf who had hung up his war-ax for a while to go sojourning in the Shire, where he was surrounded by squabbling Hobbits (i.e., Charlene's friends), had actually done a lot for Randy's peace of mind over the years. He knew perfectly well that if he were stuck in academia, these people, and the things they said, would seem momentous to him. But where he came from, nobody had been taking these people seriously for years. So he just withdrew from the conversation and drank his wine and looked out over the Pacific surf and tried not to do anything really obvious like shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

Waterhouse's ritual of eating Captain Crunch is also hilarious, as is his grandfather's mathematical analysis of his own sex drive.

I have proof on my editor comment, by the way. The end of the book is riddled with typos and grammar errors. On one page, plain as day you can read "The the." That nobody else ever mentions this I take as proof that I am, in fact, the single human in the world who actually read this entire book.

Also, if you think that's sad, I somehow ended up with a copy of Quicksilver. Stephenson has exactly the same problem in his Baroque Cycle, but worse. Last night, I finally finished the last page of that series (because I can't just stop reading.) 2700 pages...

[Orphia Nay]

Well I made it through A Suitable Boy, and White Teeth, and loved them both, not considering them umpologies until someone posted about them earlier. But I too, drew the line at Crytonomicon. I've tried twice, and failed. Boring, and pretentious. Life's too short.

[Stormraven]

I generally have mixed feelings about Eddings. He's mostly using the same plot over and over again - 'Protagonist seeks great, majorly powerful item in response to prophecy to battle a terribly evil' - but he's very good at making the characters fun. For that, I'm usually willing to forgive him his flaws.

Jordan I stopped reading after book six or so, when I realised that I could have finished the story by that point, and still covered all the interesting plot points he'd presented.

Goodkind I gave up on after the third, I think - or maybe the fourth. I just got tired of his 'rape, rape, rape, rape - oh, and here's a little fetish for you' scenarios. I haven't noticed his writing presenting anything along the lines of Rand's philosophy, but maybe that only became obvious after I started reading. Frankly, even though I like Rand, combining her philosophy with his fetishism would probably make me hurl.

One I almost didn't make it through - despite some fairly decent writing - was Sharon Green's 'The Blending'. Her nobles were archetypes of utter stupidity and political idiocy without redeeming values at all (at least in most of the first series), and her characters' stated worldviews were at odd with their actions almost entirely. I made it through, and on balance like it well enough that I'll read it again, but it was tough, initially.

[TragicMonkey]

I generally have mixed feelings about Eddings. He's mostly using the same plot over and over again - 'Protagonist seeks great, majorly powerful item in response to prophecy to battle a terribly evil' - but he's very good at making the characters fun. For that, I'm usually willing to forgive him his flaws.

It's not just the plots he recycles; he uses the same characters again with different names. They're pretty good characters, but not good enough to reuse forever like that.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Salvatore's Dark Elf series; plots were fine for fluff, but I just got so tired of reading the same description of the sword fighting _every_ _single_ _fight_.

[RSLancastr]

I confess--I've not made it through most of the PDQ Bach stuff.Have you never heard The Seasonings?

"To curry favor, favor curry..."

[Marker]

I confess--I've not made it through most of the PDQ Bach stuff.

(in the style of G F Handel)

Recitative :

What is is like to be running?
Only a man who is running knows.

Chorus:

Running knows! Running Knows! Running Knows!"

(PDQ Bach).

[ZirconBlue]

And that the later books read like some sort of cheap Ayn Rand knockoff.


I am happy to report that I just finished the most recent book in the series, Chainfire, and it doesn't suck! He's gotten back to actually advancing the story rather than preaching for half the book.



ETA: This is regarding Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, if that was unclear.

[treble_head]

Oops. This isn't the thread I thought it was. My sincerest umpologies to you all.