THE BORE

General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eschaton on September 09, 2014, 12:07:58 AM

Title: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Eschaton on September 09, 2014, 12:07:58 AM
karakand inspired this thread talking about his WH40k stanning.

Anyway, list shit we love that is :trash

I love the Deathstalker series. Corny, but endlessly readable space opera. Awesome worldbuilding, but really goofy dialogue and plot in general. Swords, cyborgs, superhumans, hackers, corporations, gladiators, space wizards, thieves, weird fucking aliens, it's enjoyable. Would make an awesome game or movie series. It has fucking everything.

Hilarious cover art:

(http://yuq.me/users/11/903/XGM0qtBibO.png)

Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 12:11:47 AM
I read some James Patterson in high-school. I liked Kiss the Girls but Pop Goes the Weasel was when I had enough of that nicca. There was one character whos only characteristic was being blonde and biting her lip, and you're supposed to feel bad when she dies and Alex Cross seeks vengeance. Vengeance against her murderer, some dipshit that gets gratification from making his families food too spicy (SRS).
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Great Rumbler on September 09, 2014, 12:15:03 AM
David Eddings' Belgariad/Malloreon series. They're really simple and straightforward, but they're handled in a way that makes them a quick, fun read regardless. I probably read through all ten books at least a half dozen times during elementary and high school.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 12:18:37 AM
My bad that bitch also had blue eyes :comeon

I'd def put Koontz, Rice and Clancy above Patterson and Brown tho. They may write shit, but they've also written some good books.

Brown and Patterson? :trash
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Mupepe on September 09, 2014, 12:18:49 AM
The Anne rice vampire books were the shit when I was younger.

Stephen king dark tower series is GOAT tier
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: toku on September 09, 2014, 12:24:00 AM
Up to around 2008 I had read almost every DnD and Drizzt books that R.A. Salvatore had written. Legacy of the Drow, Hunter's Blade's Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy. Epics about an emo ass dark elf who loves redheads.

 :goty2
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: benjipwns on September 09, 2014, 12:28:23 AM
Star Trek: New Frontier

Actually, most Star Trek novels.

I was reading the "relaunch" series for a while and then they somehow outpaced me...
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: toku on September 09, 2014, 12:30:10 AM
Recently I read the first two books in the The First Law trilogy. I started the third but never finished it:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Law

I liked them though. A bit like Salvatore's DnD books but with a harder edge.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Mupepe on September 09, 2014, 12:31:26 AM
Up to around 2008 I had read almost every DnD and Drizzt books that R.A. Salvatore had written. Legacy of the Drow, Hunter's Blade's Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy. Epics about an emo ass dark elf who loves redheads.

 :goty2
the drizzt books are entertaining as fuck bro. I used to lie when people would ask what they were about though. No way was I telling them
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Himu on September 09, 2014, 12:42:26 AM
I like anime. :fbm
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: toku on September 09, 2014, 12:43:11 AM
I never read them but you're like the third person I know who has said something along those lines. My high school chemistry teacher also tried to get me to read the Wheel of Time series? Something like that. It sounded interesting but I never got around to it.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: nachobro on September 09, 2014, 12:47:27 AM
Drizzt and Terry Goodkind books were my shit back in high school...and into my first couple years of college.  :-\
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 09, 2014, 12:53:14 AM
Also another series that is pretty fucking awesome full stop up to a certain point. It was supposed to be the chosen one, the successor to Lord of the Rings, the GOAT. Instead it bungled everything after the 5th book and became shit. But you could theoretically also read that up till the 3rd or 4th book and eat good.

That one still gets me deep in my chest. Like that girl you used to sit next to in AP English and was fine as hell but in college she did a lot of blow and chicken fingers and she hasn't been the same since. RIP in peace.
The Lost of epic modern fantasy prose.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not that I would know anything about either of those :smug
[close]

Read through book four of these chits in middle school:
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vOqHloGWJZk/UYcDyuw_v0I/AAAAAAAACQA/J1areUjy4I4/s400/Pendragon.png)
wangsty, super derivative, remember having fun w/ them
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: toku on September 09, 2014, 12:55:22 AM
All of the girls in my AP English class went on to either be crazy Ron Paul type supporters or preppy semi-professional do nothings with rich boyfriends or husbands.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 09, 2014, 01:02:16 AM
I didnt watch Lost because it looked dumb af but i'd say thats a pretty accurate comparison. Wheel of Time was supposed to be that nicca. Instead he bungled it, and then died before he could bring it back. Wheel of Time is like the Lupe Fiasco of books.
I was gonna say Jay Elec, but Wheel of Time actually delivered initially. (http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/lupe1.png)

spoiler (click to show/hide)
:heh
[close]

Also, anyone remember the Redwall series? I jumped into it with the fifth book and remember going :holeup. Anthropomorphism :holeup.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 01:02:25 AM
Reading fantasy tomes :larry I never could. I tried to read Malazan and ASOFAI but couldn't. I could recognize that they were both interesting tho.

It's crazy because I love fantasy films like Conan and shit and also like fantasy comics but actual books? Nah.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 09, 2014, 01:03:38 AM
It's kind of embarrassing brehs, but I like... Game of Thrones.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:05:43 AM
Not that they are mediocre, but I like Anne Rice novels. Yes, I realize this is problematic
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 09, 2014, 01:06:44 AM
Seriously tho, my fantasy introduction was... the OG Dragonlance books. I still remember all the feels I caught when Flint the dwarf died. So bad.

I then "progressed" to the Drizzt books and all manner of Forgotten Realms fuckery.

:fbm
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: nudemacusers on September 09, 2014, 01:17:27 AM
gonna have to throw in the ravenloft books. fun but kinda dumb and repetitive.
Not that they are mediocre, but I like Anne Rice novels. Yes, I realize this is problematic

I love the vampire chronicles nohomo
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 09, 2014, 01:21:47 AM
not embarassing, GOT is the best (standalone) book in the series :larry

immediately after I finished ASOIAF I went into Gardens of the Moon. big-ass culture/prose/narrative shock, made it about 200 pages deep, pretty ashamed that I both hate myself enough to initiate and yet don't have the stones to carry through my commitment :larry

tangential, but the only books I could read again and again and again w/o fatigue were those Calvin and Hobbes collections. I remember finding the first book (http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes_%28book%29) in a corner of a closet, cover beaten up, spine frayed, and immediately falling in love with it. Every vacation I'd demand/receive a new C&H book to keep me occupied; trips to different states were characterized by different books, hotel rooms littered with legos and comic strips. Those and old fairy tale anthologies were :lawd to an adolescent jake. :salute to Mr. and Mrs. Statefarm for indulging.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
and :heh @ you guys sneaking in "Lives of the Saints" and The Rhyme Bible into the legendarium, keep fighting the good fight
spoiler (click to show/hide)
:pacspit
[close]
[close]
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: larrydavid on September 09, 2014, 01:24:44 AM
yes, in fifth grade it was all redwall, tolkien (including ALL the extra shit like unfinished tales), dragonlance, narnia, wrinkle in time. basically by the time i was older i was all fantasy'd out.

but back in the day if it was fantasy and a trilogy, it was getting read no matter what.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: nudemacusers on September 09, 2014, 01:24:55 AM
vampire fiction is for girls and homos tbf
but when lestat and louis do their immortal homoerotic but not really* dance across the centuries :uguu

*but really
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:28:14 AM
Anne Rice basically writes erotic homo vampire fiction, I can tell why you like it :noah
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: nudemacusers on September 09, 2014, 01:31:46 AM
hey man you live for 1000 years and eventually you just suck a dusty vampire dick to pass the time :yeshrug
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:35:27 AM
It's like that forum law, if a thread stays open too long, eventually it will turn into a discussion about dicks. The average threshold on The Bore is something like 2 posts though so it's not like I need to tell you guys :hitler
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 09, 2014, 01:35:31 AM
So is Malazan good, then? I've been pitched these over and over again.
I've heard that the first book is a major slog, but once you get into the rhythm of the narrative and the characters come into focus shit turns up to (http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/ooh.png) tier.

Also (http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/stopit.png) at the supplantation of fekkitry in this thread. I wanna talk about anthropomorphism, large phallic blades of steel, the fair folk, and quixotic expectations of the male form and here you all are tacitly supporting the homosexual agenda.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 01:41:20 AM
vampire fiction is for girls and homos tbf

:gurl

I Am Legend and Salems Lot is not homo.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:41:26 AM
I really, really like Jules Verne books, I've read a metric ton of them. I've been thinking of maybe getting into the Steven King Dark Tower stuff, but it seems like a 100 book commitment :-\
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 01:45:19 AM
I heard The Passage is piff too. I have it on audiobook but audiobooks are kinda :larry I can't listen to audiobooks while I do other shit. My mind needs to create a visual.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 09, 2014, 01:46:11 AM
So is Malazan good, then? I've been pitched these over and over again.

Here's the thing about the Malazan books- the world is dense and there's so much shit going on even seasoned genre veterans will have trouble getting into it and keeping up with everything.

It doesn't matter, though. That fucker writes the best battles of any fantasy author I've read, and I've read pretty much all of them.

Coltaine's march in the 2nd book

 :lawd

Pretty much any of Karsa Orlong's fights, but especially his fight against Rhulad the Emperor of a Thousand Deaths... "I will kill you... once."

 :whoo

And then there's Quick Ben, who is, and I don't say this lightly at all brehs, the most bad ass wizard in all of fantasy history.

:noah
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:46:59 AM
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :lawd
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 09, 2014, 01:54:15 AM
Just went ahead and copped them shits from Avax, all ten of em :aah

BTW jake the neckbeard confessions in this thread only make me feel closer to you as a human being no homo. I've never felt a greater kinship with a man whose face i've never seen before :lawd so many shared interests

cac brothers from another mother :lawd
#realtalk multiple exchanges in plug have resulted in me thinking I was conversing with myself

spoiler (click to show/hide)
(http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/patrice.png)no homo
spoiler (click to show/hide)
(http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/patrice.png)no homophobia
[close]
[close]

I am truly the homosexually begotten lovechild of Esch's vitriolic cynicism and Karakand's cumbersome, self-effacing doubt

spoiler (click to show/hide)
adjusted for optimal melanin levels(http://i.imgur.com/7QX4XRf.gif)
[close]
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: benjipwns on September 09, 2014, 02:04:19 AM
I can never remember if Piers Anthony whole thing with Death and Time and so on is considered garbage or brilliant.

I liked most of it. Except for the incest.

spoiler (click to show/hide)
Okay, especially the incest.  :phil
[close]

Death book was still the best one though really.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 02:04:31 AM
Robert E Howard and Lovecraft (:hitler) belong in this thread.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 02:08:33 AM
spoiler (click to show/hide)
(http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/patrice.png)no homo
spoiler (click to show/hide)
(http://www.thecoli.com/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/patrice.png)no homophobia
[close]
[close]

:ufup


I'm going to have to report you for this, punishment is being the bottom in a gay pile
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: nudemacusers on September 09, 2014, 02:08:41 AM
i kinda get what you're saying but lovecraft redeems himself by finding clever ways to describe minorities.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 09, 2014, 02:34:15 AM
The last three books of the Dark Tower series are absolute shit. Please don't try to defend them.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: benjipwns on September 09, 2014, 02:37:39 AM
I read all the Zahn related stuff, sequels were kinda odd, and that one series where the Emperor comes back as a clone and Luke turns evil and then people fight for like five hundred pages and the status quo is restored at the end. And like nobody cares that like a hundred planets have been vaporized or something.

The oddest thing in the EU to me always was why nobody wondered how the Empire kept coming back as these "hidden offshoots" and suddenly equally powerful. It's like somebody had to notice a bunch of Star Destroyers just sitting around somewhere for the 15 years before they seized half the galaxy randomly one afternoon.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 03:08:09 AM
The last three books of the Dark Tower series are absolute shit. Please don't try to defend them.
Well I guess I'll give this a miss then
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 09, 2014, 04:09:22 AM
I finished a 40K book on tape on my drive home tonight. :goty2

My runner up: Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series.

Fun fact - the only time in my life I can ever remember being offended by a book was one of these. In one of them they talk about El Pollo Loco and then translate its name in an em dash tangent. I was so offended I had to set the book down and pace for 5 minutes before returning to the reading equivalent of hammering a nail through my dick.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: StealthFan on September 09, 2014, 05:43:52 AM


 Lauren Conrad's L.A. Candy series.


taco
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Eric P on September 09, 2014, 07:10:24 AM
it's not bad reading by any means, but the only series of which i buy every book is Joe R Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series.  Amazing and fun fiction set in East Texas.  Violent, funny, and full of men doing what they gotta do.  Bore approved as one of the main characters is gay.

First one isn't that great, but from book two on they pretty much kick ass.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: toku on September 09, 2014, 07:32:02 AM
Wolves of the Calla is okay. It starts off slow but I was with it by the end. Song of Susannah sucks until the last few chapters. The Dark Tower is like a crazy acid trip but in a bad way.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Eel O'Brian on September 09, 2014, 07:33:42 AM
When I was younger I tried getting into several series, but always gave up because it would be too hard to get all the books. You guys live in a Golden Age for that kind of reading. My crap book guilty pleasures were always movie novelizations.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Dickie Dee on September 09, 2014, 08:06:17 AM
I remember loving the shit out of the Robotech books when I was younger.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Great Rumbler on September 09, 2014, 08:27:34 AM
Another series I used to really love but probably wouldn't bother with today is Terry Brook's Shannara series. Man, they were so generic and by-the-book [:hitler], but I plowed through quite a few of them during my time regardless. Of course, that was during a period where I read basically any fantasy book I could get my hands on, so whatever. On the other hand, the Jerle Shannara arc that he did a little over 10 years ago was actually pretty good in its own right, because it was all about adventuring through unknown lands with a totally sweet airship.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Dennis on September 09, 2014, 08:33:40 AM
BattleTech books
Shadowrun books
WH40k books
Dragonlance books
Drizzt books

Why can't I hold all these nostalgia feels?  :'(
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 11:16:30 AM
Drizzt
:stahp

Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 11:37:56 AM
Does Katherine Paterson count? :hitler

The Great Gilly Hopkins :lawd
Jacob Have I Loved :tocry
Bridge to Terabithia :lawd
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom :whew

having a mother who made me read to her, and thus helped spark my passion for literature :lawd

mining the Newberry Medal book list as a kid :lawd
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 11:46:18 AM
At least it wasnt

(http://i.imgur.com/jtcN0yD.jpg)
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: HyperZoneWasAwesome on September 09, 2014, 12:36:07 PM
I dig mysteries, which means I on occasion read pulpy mysteries.  Lee Child's Jack Reacher series being my drug of choice for airport literature.  The quality of the books can vary from each installment, but I've yet to be bored and am sometimes rather impressed by the writing and plotting.

I've also been slowly getting into Donald Westlake (and his pseudonym Richard Stark), and I've been more consistently impressed by the Stark books so far.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Momo on September 09, 2014, 01:27:10 PM
Golden Compass :lawd
Narnia :lawd
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Steve Contra on September 09, 2014, 02:01:56 PM
Golden Compass is great. 
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 02:05:48 PM
The Silver Chair is the best Narnia book by a mile.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Dennis on September 09, 2014, 02:07:44 PM
I remember the first Narnia book (The Magician's Nephew) being weird as fuck.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 02:14:12 PM
Didn't really like the first book. Obviously the second is really good. The worst by a fucking MILE is the last one, The Last Battle. I don't dislike the religious imagery and metaphors - fantasy is full of them, whether they're intentional or not. But Susan getting thrown in the bushes of eternity because she wore makeup...nope, that was too much for me. SMH.

Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Steve Contra on September 09, 2014, 02:55:00 PM
I mean you could stan for Harry Potter :dayum
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Steve Contra on September 09, 2014, 03:14:19 PM
I was mocking PD.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 09, 2014, 03:16:08 PM
Loving Christian propaganda (narnia) and western atheist propaganda (compass) (https://i.imgur.com/r1d8pCz.png?1)

Must be more abrahamic #dualities at play here I'm missing out on.

I have an Ayn Rand book in the Soviet Literature section of my library. :hitler
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Steve Contra on September 09, 2014, 03:22:48 PM
PD went off the internet for like a fucking month to avoid spoilers to a shitty kids series.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 03:40:14 PM
PD went off the internet for like a fucking month to avoid spoilers to a shitty kids series.

brehs, Triumph was trying to pay Cheebs for my address. Drastic actions had to be taken.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 09, 2014, 03:43:19 PM
Snape kills Dumbledore.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Joe Molotov on September 09, 2014, 03:44:18 PM
PD is a fan of Creed too.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 03:48:16 PM
The biggest HP travesty was Prisoner of Azkaban winning the Hugo best (fantasy) novel award over fucking Storm Of Swords in 2000.
:what

PoA is one of the better HP books but come the fuck on.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 09, 2014, 03:51:26 PM
Srsly.

Abkhazia's legal status might be questionable, but it's hardly fantasy.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Howard Alan Treesong on September 09, 2014, 04:03:59 PM
for cheap fiction thrills I really like Charles Stross' Laundry files.

Hackers x Cthulhu x James Bond x British

(http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1262645028l/7149287.jpg)

they're dumb airport fiction but always enjoyable
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 04:27:26 PM
for cheap fiction thrills I really like Charles Stross' Laundry files.

Hackers x Cthulhu x James Bond x British

(http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1262645028l/7149287.jpg)

they're dumb airport fiction but always enjoyable

the cover is like a religious collab between 5 Percenters and The Watchtower.
:ohhh
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 08:08:36 PM
Not much of a Malazan fan but it doesn't belong in here imo. Erickson is a good writer. Bit too scatterbrained for me though, but I'll finish it one day.

Deadhouse Gates tho
:noah
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 09, 2014, 08:11:48 PM
Gormenghast
:lawd
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 09, 2014, 08:30:29 PM
Gardens of the Moon is an ok book; it doesn't really get good until the last 1/5 or so when all the shit hits the fan.

Anomander Rake tho

:badass

I think the general consensus (to which I agree) is that Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice are the best books in the series, so you have those to look forward to next. It's funny how he'll have someone that you think is a minor character in an earlier book come back and play a big part in a future book.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: chronovore on September 09, 2014, 10:22:08 PM
Up to around 2008 I had read almost every DnD and Drizzt books that R.A. Salvatore had written. Legacy of the Drow, Hunter's Blade's Trilogy, Icewind Dale Trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy. Epics about an emo ass dark elf who loves redheads.

 :goty2
Several friends recommended Drizzt stuff to me before, and I couldn't think of anything more lame than reading something that had fallen off the Dragonlance wagon. Then, this month, a collection of Drizzt stories went up available for free on Audible, and I'd been hankering for something generic and full of swords, and goddamn it if I'm not hooked now. Really fun, well-paced, and actually approaches some interesting moral, class, and race issues with a surprising amount of awareness.


I have a big neckbeard hankering for these even if the last few installments have been subpar af. The dresden files. Shit started off as like a goofy episodic wizard film noir mystery affair and then turned into a more fleshed out overarching plot. I think the author fucked himself over by expanding with too many new series and other shit. Shame, because it was one of my faves up until White Night. Been reading these since i was like 12.

It also had an AWFUL SyFy tv series adaptation. Just appalling.

(https://www.worldswithoutend.com/blogpics/Dresden_Files.jpg)
I read the first of these, and the protagonist came off as a total fedora and trench coat "m'lady" type. I've been told that the character improves, and that the meta-story is pretty great, so I may go back to it.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 10, 2014, 01:46:44 AM
On another note, my teacher(yes an arab teacher) once recommended I read Atlas Shrugged cause I spoke the best english and he thought "I was smart enough to understand it".

He was right, I was smart enough to understand it's garbage.

A friend of mine was a fellow "I read Ayn Rand's oeuvre in my early teens" and we still laugh about Ragnar Danneskjold on the reg. :lol

I'm sure the prose is :trash but We the Living isn't like her other books which is why I've kept it for all these years. It's like a YA romance novel that's so Russian (even down to the frequent references to Primus stoves) mixed with John Le Carre, "Fuck your feels, lich, imma rip yo heart out now."

TBH since I'm in a #sadboys reading phase I'm morbidly tempted to pick it up and blow through it but it'll probably hit too close to home for me in certain respects. :goty2

On kind of a tangential note, I thought it was sort of funny (as I was reading it) that my favorite book ends the same way as We the Living... come to think of it, the protagonists are of a similar ilk too. :ohhh

On a related note, I noticed Google's doodle for today had Count Vronsky in it. Tragic hunks of Russian literature. :lawd
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 10, 2014, 01:51:45 AM
Dug up some choice passages. Shit is amazing. :lawd

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(http://i.imgur.com/pQJ9fId.png)
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Kira with the patented PD handshake date close. :dead

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 :ussrcry :ussrcry :ussrcry :ussrcry :ussrcry

Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 10, 2014, 01:56:23 AM
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 10, 2014, 02:35:56 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fkdBz2bds
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: benjipwns on September 10, 2014, 03:02:14 AM
I don't even have any Ayn Rand books.  :jawalrus

That said, We The Living shouldn't even count as owning one. It's like it's not even written by her other than the rough sex obsessed female character. It's the only one that doesn't lose its plot for diatribes.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: bluemax on September 10, 2014, 03:34:00 AM
I have a big neckbeard hankering for these even if the last few installments have been subpar af. The dresden files. Shit started off as like a goofy episodic wizard film noir mystery affair and then turned into a more fleshed out overarching plot. I think the author fucked himself over by expanding with too many new series and other shit. Shame, because it was one of my faves up until White Night. Been reading these since i was like 12.

It also had an AWFUL SyFy tv series adaptation. Just appalling.

(https://www.worldswithoutend.com/blogpics/Dresden_Files.jpg)

You might like this similarly themed book series I started reading recently called the Iron Druid Chronicles. About a druid who lives in modern day Tempe Arizona, has sex with ancient goddesses, kills fallen angels, has a werewolf AND a vampire as a lawyer. No big deal.

The biggest HP travesty was Prisoner of Azkaban winning the Hugo best (fantasy) novel award over fucking Storm Of Swords in 2000.
:what

PoA is one of the better HP books but come the fuck on.

GURM stays losing and salty about it forever.

And since we're nostalgic about shit we read as kids, aside from stuff already mentioned (SW EU, Drizzt) I also read those Red Wall books, which were like the British kids books of the day before that wack ass Harry Potter. Mice with swords having epic battles against ferrets, weasels and stoats? Fuck yeah!
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: chronovore on September 10, 2014, 03:47:28 AM
vampire fiction is for girls and homos tbf

:gurl

I Am Legend and Salems Lot is not homo.

Before we get into it, I should confirm: are you being intentionally obtuse about the entire sub genre of mommy porn which has flourished in recent years?
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 10, 2014, 06:47:59 PM
I don't even have any Ayn Rand books.  :jawalrus

That said, We The Living shouldn't even count as owning one. It's like it's not even written by her other than the rough sex obsessed female character. It's the only one that doesn't lose its plot for diatribes.

I'm here to help you feel better about yourself*.

This is just based on skimming last night mind, but I feel the terser diatribes don't sidetrack the plot because she was devious enough to make them part of the plot itself by having the author surrogate be involved in a YA-y as hell teenage feelings triangle with an ideological enemy.



*Pending FDA approval.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 11, 2014, 08:06:26 PM
I guess it was hard to miss since the opening paragraph of the new 40K book on tape I'm listening to (:snoop) had ephemeral in it, but the lexical quality of Black Library's output is probably the most smartdumb thing this side of an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. I'm not even going to touch the fake Latin stuff because no one should know about that.

I bet they have a program that actually goes through submitted work and substitutes words. There's no fucking way that 10+ authors all think preternatural is an adjective worth using regularly.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 11, 2014, 08:26:01 PM
Order of The Phoenix is a really good fantasy book, I don't see the argument against it.

Ultimately I think the biggest problem with Harry Potter, and many fantasy books in general, is the general perfection of the protagonist. Think back: Harry is almost never outright wrong about anything. Nearly every book follows the same arc: Harry learns some secret, tries to tell everyone, and is lambasted or punished. He then breaks a variety of rules that he deems contrary to whatever truth he has discovered, and is lightly punished. And finally, after vanquishing whatever evil he warned everyone about, he is rewarded by the doubted who then proceed to apologize to him.

OOTP initially seems like the same trope is being deployed, but by the end Harry is not only wrong for once, he pays for it dearly (Sirius' death).

Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Human Snorenado on September 11, 2014, 08:49:18 PM
Gingers tho

:shaq
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 11, 2014, 09:04:16 PM
I enjoyed reading Philosopher's Stone.

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To my sibling when they were a wee thing. :neogaf
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Because home was broken by then and I knew neither of our parents was going to read to them at night. :fbm
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Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: benjipwns on September 11, 2014, 11:07:51 PM
I liked the movie of Chamber of Secrets. I started watching it like a third of the way through and it was the first thing Harry Potter I had ever seen/read. It was all this crazy mystery.

So I was kinda disappointed with the rest. Prisoner of Azkaban was alright though.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: chronovore on September 12, 2014, 08:12:58 PM
I liked the movie of Chamber of Secrets. I started watching it like a third of the way through and it was the first thing Harry Potter I had ever seen/read. It was all this crazy mystery.

So I was kinda disappointed with the rest. Prisoner of Azkaban was alright though.

Prisoner of Azkaban is the Empires Strikes Back of Harry Potter movies. It's got a lot more meat, stronger acting chops and actors more familiar with their characters, the characters grow more visibly over the course of the movie, and it ends on a less-than-successful note, allowing for a feeling of struggle as well as hope.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Phoenix Dark on September 12, 2014, 08:25:11 PM
It also has the best soundtrack/theme.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrZB9nPMvS4

Legit good movie by a great director.
Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: jakefromstatefarm on September 12, 2014, 08:52:33 PM
Read 5.5 of the HP books. I don't remember them being bad but I was in the target demo which has way more to do with how much I enjoyed them. Remember the arc ramping up starting w/ Prisoner and by the time Order came out the books were dense as fuck for an 8 year old Jake. Chamber was my favorite.

Honestly, the series is more of a timestamp than anything. I'll watch the movies and read the tvtropes page every couple years just for nostalgia's sake.

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That's my boy :tocry
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Title: Re: Mediocre fast food books/book series you like
Post by: Kara on September 13, 2014, 01:11:23 PM
I fell asleep while listening to my 40K book on tape. :shaq2

Now I have to go back and find where I was. :stahp

SELF ASSESSED L BREHS