Pitt
Script Hume
Ungrateful Sonic Saxophonist
If Lando dies, I'll destroy your planet!
Posts: 7,007
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Post by Pitt on Nov 21, 2009 12:36:08 GMT
never heard of it......how is it? It's alright. I'm not really far enough in to draw a conclusion.
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Post by Super Sonic on Nov 21, 2009 13:02:50 GMT
Try reading it aloud. Its a lot easier to read then, I always find. I read it aloud on occasion in my best Christopher Lee impression.
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Post by Samface on Nov 21, 2009 20:08:42 GMT
I demand you film the results and put them on Youtube.
I'm reading Kazuo Ishiguro's short-story collection Nocturnes. Pretty good.
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Post by Super Sonic on Nov 21, 2009 20:22:07 GMT
I don't think it looks nearly as good as it sounds.
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Post by Samface on Nov 21, 2009 21:07:29 GMT
Wear a Christopher Lee mask while you do it.
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Post by Super Sonic on Nov 21, 2009 21:07:49 GMT
Buy me one.
<3
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Post by Samface on Nov 22, 2009 11:01:30 GMT
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Post by Pombar on Nov 22, 2009 11:13:03 GMT
At least for Chaucer, it's actually a Welsh accent that makes it sound the most like normal English. Second place goes to a Cornish accent. There's some merit in the 'accents travel south' theory of English linguistics.
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Post by The Shad on Nov 22, 2009 15:04:52 GMT
At least for Chaucer, it's actually a Welsh accent that makes it sound the most like normal English. Chaucerian English was London English. That's why its easier to read than, say, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, since London English became the standard.
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Post by Lost Mercenary on Nov 27, 2009 19:07:23 GMT
The Official DSA Theory Test for Car Drivers
500 Pages of Q&A. Bugger...
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Post by Samface on Nov 27, 2009 22:58:50 GMT
I'm about halfway through Mark Slouka's The Visible World at the moment. It's excellent.
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Post by Woodster on Nov 28, 2009 0:16:56 GMT
Terry Pratchett's 'Lords and Ladies. Alright so far, but 've never been too fond of the Granny Weatherwax stories.
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Post by The Shad on Nov 30, 2009 18:54:41 GMT
The Luttrell Psalter.
Its a gateway to a magical land, where monkeys drive carts and wear pimp hats.
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Post by The Tikal who had no Toes on Dec 3, 2009 17:31:25 GMT
I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison. Not something you should read if you're having a depressive episode. I blame TV Tropes for linking me to the damn thing.
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Post by Eleonora B.M on Dec 9, 2009 19:37:14 GMT
I just ended Mark Antony and Cleopatra!
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Post by Erinaceus Europaeus on Dec 13, 2009 2:56:57 GMT
I just ended Mark Antony and Cleopatra! Ah, the sequel to Julius Caeser (though I preferred Titus Andronicus by the same author) ~ Maybe I should go pick up Rosencratz & Gildenstern are dead.....
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Post by Eleonora B.M on Dec 21, 2009 15:13:34 GMT
I hate the book I just read! Shakespear really let me down after reading Romeo and Juliet, Amlet and my favourite "a midsummer night's dream". I think it's my absolute favourite theater act.
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Post by Badly-Drawn Manchild on Dec 29, 2009 14:17:37 GMT
Now one of the gifts I received for Christmas was Dracula: The Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Now I hadn't seen any reviews or hype for this beyond it being the "official" sequel to Bram Stoker's novel. Now Dracula is one of my favourite books, so I was curious to see how a sequel written by a Stoker descendant and a Dracula researcher would play out. Having finished it last night... I have peered into the depths of my own personal hell. This book - ALL of it - is embarrasingly bad. The alarm bells begin immediately as we see a letter from Mina Harker to her son, Quincey (named after Quincey Morris from the book, who died fighting Dracula), which is apparently a confession. The problems immediately begin since apparently both Carfax Abbey and John Seward's asylum are relocated to Whitby. Why? What was the point of that? It also re-writes the circumstances of Lucy Westenra's first fateful encounter with Dracula. The events of the first book also now took place in the year 1888, as opposed to circa 1897. At first I thought this was just a case of laziness and not checking the fine details in the book, but it turns out that this is very, very deliberate...
The main thrust of the plot is that, 25 years after the events of the first book, the vampire Elizabeth Bathory (based on the real-life Hungarian countess who was said to bathe in the blood of young girls) is hunting down and killing off the heroes of the first book. This potentially could have made for a decent story, and it could have been interesting seeing what happened to the characters and how they handle this new threat. That potential, however, is squandered.
For starters, John Seward is now a drug-addicted lunatic and wannabe vampire hunter. One annoying thing is that the book keeps referring to him as "Jack Seward". Now it's true that some people called John are referred to as Jack - hell, one of my neighbours is - and Seward's friends did sometimes refer to him as such in the first book. However, a neutral narrative should know better. It's just plain lazy. Anyway, he's soon killed off when he's run over by Bathory's driver-less coach.
The Harkers, meanwhile, are together in a loveless marriage for Quincey's sake. Jonathan is now a wreck of a man, addicted to drink and prostitutes. When he finally does get the resolve to man up, he is attacked by Bathory and impaled on a large pole, Vlad the Impaler style. Guess the option of redemption and good character development isn't permitted in this story.
As for Mina... Oh good Lord, her character is so badly butchered, it's unbelievable. She's portrayed as a complete dingbat who still lusts after Dracula. I don't know about you, but I never got this impression from Mina in the book. Yes, she had feminine desires, but I just never saw her as being infatuated with Dracula at any point in the book (not willingly, at least). She always gave the impression of being stronger than that. Oh, and none of the other characters treat her with an ounce of respect, apparently because she's a woman. Towards the end she willingly allows herself to be turned into a vampire and almost immediately dies from exposure to the sun (in a total reversal of Stoker's original mythos, where vampires could walk about in daylight but were restricted to mortal abilities).
Arthur Holmwood is now a suicidal recluse, eventually spurred into action after the obligatory dream sequence and eventually sacrifices himself to save Quincey. He's pretty much a one-note. Van Helsing is even less so, now a pastiche of his former self who is eventually turned into a vampire and killed by Holmwood. He is completely ineffectual to the rest of the story. New character Quincey Harker is supposed to give the impression of being a jackass... and he is, but how are you supposed to hate a guy for wanting to kill the man who essentially tore your family apart?
Yes, this book is firmly in the camp of Dracula being a romantic hero. I'm not against the idea of monsters not necessarily being monsters, but Dracula is now an impossibly pure Marty-Stu who is always right. It's never really made clear how he ressurected himself, but the book tries to portray him as a super-powered undead hero and warrior of God. Later in the book, both Mina and Quincey develop superpowers as well, apparently due to Dracula's blood in their veins. It's stupid, laughable and takes away any and all tension from the plot. In short, the characterisation is utterly juvenile.
The story also has a really annoying habit of piling on the references to characters and actors from the Dracula mythos, as well as celebrities from the time. It seems everywhere the characters go they meet someone famous. Bram Stoker himself appears, as does the original book, something which should have caused the universe of the story to implode in on itself. They use the idea that Stoker deliberately altered details in Van Helsing's account of what happened as an excuse to explain away the inconsistencies between the two stories, and eventually Dracula kills Stoker for besmirching his "good name". What a [censored]ing arse-pull. It all gives a bizarre post-modern feel to the story, which is stupid, pretentious, and annoying in the extreme. There's also a sub-plot about how Van Helsing is accused of being Jack the Ripper which in the end goes absolutely nowhere (Bathory is later revealed to be the culprit).
What worked about the original were the dilemmas the characters faced and the lurking sense of menace and evil that got under your skin and wouldn't let go. Though Dracula was rarely physically present, his presence could be felt in every scene. However, this book feels the need to have a cliffhanger or arbitrary action sequence every few pages. It just becomes corny and takes away any sense of tension or paranoia, all the way up to the incredibly obvious "twist ending", where it's revealed that Dracula is in fact Quincey's father.
The writing style is incredibly muddled, veering its language from Victorian to thoroughly modern, with characters spewing out unlikely lines all the time. It's badly-researched too, with especially little care taken to geographical accuracy (how the hell did Mina and Quincey manage to get to Whitby in less than a day, one on horseback and another in an old-fashioned motorcar? It's nowhere near London!) This story fails in every respect. The plot is a complete mess, there's no tension or sense of pacing, the whole thing is badly-researched and you could replace the cast with puppies and they still wouldn't be likeable. The Stoker estate should be ashamed of themselves for allowing such an atrocious mish-mash of nonsense to be thrown at the story randomly, overwriting the original book and erasing it from existence. This is like the [censored] lovechild of Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer; it's like a bad fanfiction, and is nothing but an insult to the original. True, there have been bad sequels before - official or otherwise - and there probably will be more to come, but never has one threatened to diminish the original like this does. I can only hope that Bram Stoker is now clawing his way out of his grave to kill his snotty relatives. Gods, that was horrible. I just hope this H.P. Lovecraft collection I also got will help to wash the sour taste away from my mouth...
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Post by Samface on Dec 29, 2009 14:29:20 GMT
Hahahaha, that sounds awful.
I'm reading 2666, a very large and very hyped novel by a Chilean fellow named Roberto BolaƱo. It's good, but a bit of a struggle to get your head round at times.
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Post by Dave on Jan 3, 2010 19:13:53 GMT
Star Wars: Darth Bane - Dynasty of Evil
Third and last in the Darth Bane trilogy. Loved it, couldn't put it down and read it in one day.
The fight at the end I felt wasn't as good as number two in the shock of it, but I thought the fact that Zannah (Banes apprentice) learning to use her Sith magic and the power of all the dark side power on Ambria was really clever and suited.
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Post by Super Sonic on Jan 3, 2010 20:21:56 GMT
AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor.
Gripping.
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Post by obsidian on Jan 12, 2010 11:23:17 GMT
Andrzej Sapkowski - The Last Wish Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum Michael Moorcock - Elric
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Post by The Shad on Jan 12, 2010 11:36:32 GMT
Piers Plowman.
Man, this guy really hates the Jews.
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Post by Lost Mercenary on Jan 15, 2010 21:07:29 GMT
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War - Max Brooks Pure flesh eating zombie brilliance
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Post by Badly-Drawn Manchild on Jan 24, 2010 16:36:36 GMT
Been working my way steadily through the H.P. Lovecraft stories. I've just got started on At the Mountains of Madness.
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