Borecast 32: Genre Book Club, Nintendo DS RPGs, Dark Void

[Eel O'Brian]

direct download - http://media.libsyn.com/media/borecast/Borecast32.mp3

Janet joins us again for The Borecast Book Club: Genre Ficton Edition, we discuss a few current games, Janet critiques the show, and we have our most awkwardly drawn-out ending ever!

SEGMENT ONE: BORECAST BOOK CLUB

(3:00) Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind)

(19:20) Take a bath, George RR Martin

(24:45) Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me, POP 1280, Savage Night, A Hell of a Woman, Wild Town)

(42:45) John Connolly (Charlie Parker supernatural detective novels)

(48:00) R. Scott Bakker (Prince of Nothing trilogy)

(54:00) Joe Abercrombie (First Law Trilogy), boring fantasy fiction fans

(1:02:22) Terry Pratchett

(1:04) Shadows over Baker Street

(1:10) Stephen R. Donaldson (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever)

(1:13:15) Greg Keyes (Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, Elder Scrolls series)

SEGMENT TWO: GAMES

(1:25:30) Sands of Destruction

(1:27)  Glory of Heracles

(1:29:15)  Dark Void

(1:34:15)  Titan Quest

MISC SHOW STUFF

(1:36) Either/Or: Ugly Fiction Writers Edition

(1:38) Janet critiques the show

(1:41) Kevin addresses accusations that he's a filthy poor

...awkward ending

Talk to you all next week!

[Howard Alan Treesong]

hey, I know I haven't guested in a while, but if you ever do a SF show I want in on that shit

downloading now!

[Phoenix Dark]

(19:20) Take a bath, George RR Martin

finally a reason to download one of these things

[Eel O'Brian]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=386073

[Bloodwake]

Well, I finally got my free copy of Windows 7, meaning I have to wipe my iPod and reinstall iTunes.

Meaning I can't listen at work today, but tomorrow, I will.

[Reb]

You can download it on your iPod itself, assuming it's a touch.

My travel time increased drastically, so I'll be listening to you guys again!

[dicklaurent]

ho ho ho.

love this

[Phoenix Dark]

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/05/neil-gaiman-george-rr-martin-is-not-your-bitch/

[Fragamemnon]

Man I'm glad I'm not starting as third seat until the next show-I basically just read nonfiction (mostly history) and scifi, I'd be DERP DERP all throughout that entire first segment.

[Van Cruncheon]

hey, I know I haven't guested in a while, but if you ever do a SF show I want in on that shit

downloading now!

we probably should do another sf episode, fo' sho. we shall ping you!

[Van Cruncheon]

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/05/neil-gaiman-george-rr-martin-is-not-your-bitch/

joe abercrombie and the dude who writes the "night angel" series ripped up gaiman for this on sffworld

[Cormacaroni]

Why?

Did you see Patrick Rothfuss' huge blog post about why his book is late and why you should get off his dick? He's very straightforward, and after reading it, I had great sympathy for his situation. He blogs so much that I can't find it now unfortunately.

[Eel O'Brian]

hey, I know I haven't guested in a while, but if you ever do a SF show I want in on that shit

downloading now!

we probably should do another sf episode, fo' sho. we shall ping you!

that's the episode i'll be going derp derp throughout

[Eel O'Brian]

although i do have buck rogers in the 25th century in my ipod touch stanza library

[Eel O'Brian]

i just read frank miller has a buck rogers movie in the works

is there no treasured comic book or strip character safe from his claws

[Phoenix Dark]

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2009/05/neil-gaiman-george-rr-martin-is-not-your-bitch/

joe abercrombie and the dude who writes the "night angel" series ripped up gaiman for this on sffworld

I'll have to look that up, should be interesting.

The only problem I have with Martin is that he's put himself in a bad position by creating deadlines for fans to hold him to. The most famous of which came in 08 imo, when he said if he could finish it before the summer tours/conventions, it would be out in late 08. That was followed by months of posts on his blog about the NFL, pizza, Wildcards miniatures, calendars, and the other products he pimps - which created the impression that he was too busy doing other things to "focus" on ADWD. As if it's the only product he's working on, or should be working on.

2009 started with a mixture of NFL and "i'm depressed" posts, etc. Then the HBO stuff really started picking up, and Martin's internet mood got way better. He once again started posting about ADWD, but this time more in terms of little updates on his progress, mainly with the "Mereenese Knot." And more importantly, he finished most of the shit he was working on over the last couple years (Suicide Kings, Songs of the Dying Earth, and most recently Warriors). With that stuff out the way he has more time to work on ADWD, and every indication suggests he's almost done with it.

Maybe I'd have a different opinion if I had waited as long as many fans have, or if I had waited 5 years for AFFC only to be massively disappointed. Personally, I'm not upset because I know it's going to be awesome when it's done. It's sort of like waiting for a Blizzard game. You might get pissed if they miss an announced release date, but overall you're pretty chill because you know it's gonna kick ass.

[Eel O'Brian]

wait, there's a wild cards miniatures game?

i wonder what the fortunato figure looks like

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Didn't feel this one at all.  Sorry.

[Phoenix Dark]

Mrs Prole sounded hot tho. podcast redeemed

and it sorta made me want to start the Prince of Nothing trilogy. But I'm reading Use of Weapons and that's dense enough, I can't read that and another dense book at the same time yo 

[Van Cruncheon]

admitedly, i wasn't as prepared for this podcast as i shoulda been, and it kinda shows. we all have our off weeks. :-(

[Phoenix Dark]

and you wouldn't let eel talk. i want more eel dammit

[Van Cruncheon]

whaddaya mean? 24 to 42 is all sexy smooth southern drawl, baby!

[Eel O'Brian]

no one prevented me from talking, i just didn't have a lot to offer up for this episode other than talking about the jim thompson books i'd recently read

and i didn't want to waste a whole lot of time on dark void since i didn't like it

[Phoenix Dark]

speak of the devil, Martin just updated

Snowing like hell in Santa Fe today. I feel like Jon Snow on the Wall. White everywhere I look, and still coming down.

Of course, I'm writing about Meereen, where the weather is hot and muggy, oppressive. If the snow keeps falling, I better take it as an omen, switch to a Jon chapter tomorrow.

The good news: finished a chapter today.

The bad news: it's one I've finished at least four times before.

This time, though, I think I finally got it right. We'll see. Still whacking at the Meereenese knot.

I took an especially vigorous hack two days ago, by switching to a new POV. It seems to have helped. Helps to have a pair of eyes on the inside rather than the outside here. And back story works better in recollections than in dialogue.

Let's hope that when next week comes, I still like what I did this week.

Writing, writing...

More on the knot. Clearly he wrote himself into a corner by having 3-5 main characters converging on the same spot, to meet the same person.

[Eric P]

eel, after you've done some highsmith, we could tackle "twisted crime books"

[Eel O'Brian]

i'd love to!

[Kestastrophe]

Great podcast. Eel and Mrs Prole carried this episode. I loved the way that they talked about what made Rothfuss and Jim Thompson different and entertaining reads, and I feel especially interested in Savage Night. It resulted in several additions to my Amazon wish list

[border]

Not bad, but I'd be lying if I said all the book discussion didn't leave me cold.  I guess it doesn't help that I'm not really interested in genre fiction, or that nobody else has read the books aside from the person talking about them (and most of the speakers are careful about spoilers).  With that many people interested in genre books though, I would like to see a discussion of licensed/expanded universe genre fiction.  I've gotta imagine that between the regulars a good number of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who novels have been read.  I doubt much of it is any good, but it'd be nice to hear about the truly awful stuff as well as whatever gems might be in the rough.  Plus the continuity of the books is already established, so you aren't stuck explaining an entire universe for unfamiliar listeners.  Even if the likes of Doug, Janet, and Kev haven't delved that much into expanded universe stuff it'd be cool to hear why they aren't into it, or if they think it's possible for licensed genre fiction to be any good (since obviously there are limitations on what an author can do).  A couple episodes of the new Doctor Who were based on novels, and while it didn't encourage me to start reading Doctor Who books, it certainly makes me more optimistic that the books aren't just a dumb cash-in.

That said, I liked hearing about Sherlock Holmes versus Cthulu, and I'll definitely check out that book that Doug said was 400 pages of rape!  (j/k)  Kevin is getting progressively more scary as I hear him talk about all this weird ghoulish stuff he spends his free time reading.  My imagination will of course be running wild as I picture what a lesbian encounter between Charlaine Harris and Janet might look like.

[Van Cruncheon]

expanded universe material is a good idea and would make for a good discussion

[Eel O'Brian]

my ghoulish tastes are pretty limited, really

i don't like "torture porn" movies or extreme gore in anything, i just find twisted characters interesting

i'm fairly mild compared to my friend who watches stuff like "human pork chop" for kicks

[Phoenix Dark]

Martin's twitter is amazing

First off, I "log in" to twitter by plopping a floppy disk labeled, "TWITTER" into my DOS box. I celebrate by gorging on a whole duck.

Pat's fantasy hotlist shows you how to dunk your eggs on mystery night. I'm ready to pluck my magic twanger just thinking about it!

[Bloodwake]

Man, I used to read a LOT and now I don't read hardly anything at all. Maybe this is a good starting point.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I'm just not into the fiction genre.  I hate epic novels and I hate sci-fi shit, which is what most novels seem to be these days.  I do like some fiction but most of what I like isn't getting made anymore.  Which is why I stick to dry non-fiction.

My criticisms of the Borecast are:

- Doug didn't review Magna Carta 2 enough.
- The episodes where tech, funny stories, and games seem to be better because it appears that the participants seem to participate more.  Episodes based on novels, movies, and comics don't work well because it seems to be more of a recommendation episode, which I don't care much for.  Not everyone wants to be recommended to stuff constantly and just wants to enjoy themselves.  I even think that everyone tends to get more animated discussing tech, stories, and games than the somewhat wooden "I recommend this because blah blah blah."

[Eel O'Brian]

maybe for a future book club all the participants will agree on a couple of books that we'll all read and discuss, that would probably solve the lack of back-and-forth discussion flow

i enjoy the book club and other episodes where i haven't read/watched the media, it's nice to sit back and absorb some information about things i haven't been that exposed to in the past

but i can see your point, and we know that not every episode will appeal to everyone across the board - which is why i always try to time stamp, even though it is a huge pain in the ass

[Bloodwake]

maybe for a future book club all the participants will agree on a couple of books that we'll all read and discuss, that would probably solve the lack of back-and-forth discussion flow

i enjoy the book club and other episodes where i haven't read/watched the media, it's nice to sit back and absorb some information about things i haven't been that exposed to in the past

but i can see your point, and we know that not every episode will appeal to everyone across the board - which is why i always try to time stamp, even though it is a huge pain in the ass

That would be a good idea, just have everyone read the books.

However, I enjoy these episodes as well, I might read one or all of the books or the authors mentioned, especially those pulp novels you mentioned. They sound badass.

[Eel O'Brian]

they're authentically gritty in a way a lot of soft modern writers can't pull off, simply because thompson led such a knucklebusted personal life

http://www.crimetime.co.uk/features/jimthompson.php

when he describes someone getting beaten to death, you know he probably saw something like that happen a few times

[Kestastrophe]

Yes, a bookclub episode does sound like a good idea. Like Bloodwake, I enjoy the book episodes and often come away with books to read. Its kind of hard for me to get good book recommendations, since I don't talk about books too often with friends. Most of my reading list has come from NPR, Wall Street Journal, or forum reviews   

[Kestastrophe]

I added them to my Amazon wishlist on your recommendation 

[Eric P]

Yes, a bookclub episode does sound like a good idea. Like Bloodwake, I enjoy the book episodes and often come away with books to read. Its kind of hard for me to get good book recommendations, since I don't talk about books too often with friends. Most of my reading list has come from NPR, Wall Street Journal, or forum reviews   

that's how i grab a lot of books too, really