The Zone

by **Wolfpack** on Thu Sep 01, 2011 8:42 am

Patriot Games by Tom Clancy. Tom Brady has not made his appearance yet.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Mon Sep 05, 2011 1:54 am

Recently finished The Big Bad City by Ed McBain. This is the first 87th Precinct novel I've read and I found it very entertaining. I then read the first few pages of James Patterson's 1st to Die which I believe is the first Lady's Murder Book Club or what have you that the broad from "Law & Order" was on the television show of and immediately quit reading because it was obviously not that well-written and I don't have time for this shit.

I am currently balls-deep in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. Robert E. Howard wrote stories so manly each individual letter has its own pair of large hairy cojones.

by **Wolfpack** on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:06 pm

Just started the third Necroscope book, The Source by Brian Lumley.

by **Bloo** on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:23 pm

caruso_stalker217 wrote:Recently finished The Big Bad City by Ed McBain. This is the first 87th Precinct novel I've read and I found it very entertaining. I then read the first few pages of James Patterson's 1st to Die which I believe is the first Lady's Murder Book Club or what have you that the broad from "Law & Order" was on the television show of and immediately quit reading because it was obviously not that well-written and I don't have time for this shit.

I am currently balls-deep in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. Robert E. Howard wrote stories so manly each individual letter has its own pair of large hairy cojones.

god Patterson sucks, even his Alex Cross books are barely tolerable.

I need to read those Conan books, sometime. I just plowed through Full Dark, No Stars and Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box. Trying to decide what to read next

by **caruso_stalker217** on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:29 pm

Bloo wrote:
caruso_stalker217 wrote:Recently finished The Big Bad City by Ed McBain. This is the first 87th Precinct novel I've read and I found it very entertaining. I then read the first few pages of James Patterson's 1st to Die which I believe is the first Lady's Murder Book Club or what have you that the broad from "Law & Order" was on the television show of and immediately quit reading because it was obviously not that well-written and I don't have time for this shit.

I am currently balls-deep in The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. Robert E. Howard wrote stories so manly each individual letter has its own pair of large hairy cojones.

god Patterson sucks, even his Alex Cross books are barely tolerable.

I need to read those Conan books, sometime. I just plowed through Full Dark, No Stars and Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box. Trying to decide what to read next

Man, for real. I don't think I've ever been put off by a person's writing so quickly before. It just reads as complete amateurish shit.

Howard, on the other hand, is fucking aces. Conan is a prehistoric Oleg.

I haven't gotten past the first story in Full Dark, No Stars yet. I've also yet to finish Just After Sunset or Duma Key, which I barely started.

I recently purchased The Searchers. I hope it's more rewarding than the film.

by **Bloo** on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:33 pm

the first story in Full Dark is probably the best, they slowly get...not worse but weaker.

by **minstrel** on Tue Sep 06, 2011 9:34 pm

Starting my project of reading Dante's Divine Comedy, one canto each night. Read a canto last night. Allen Mandelbaum translation, btw. Does anyone know a better translation, especially a verse one?

Also looking for a nice big literary novel to read. Maybe Pynchon or David Foster Wallace. Something challenging, but not Joyce - I have to warm up to him.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Sat Sep 10, 2011 1:50 am

So I started reading 1st to Die after all. I mean it's just sitting there in the break room at work, I don't have shit to do after I eat lunch, so I picked it up. Again, the writing isn't stellar. The lady cop protagonist goes on a bit too much about how she needs to prove herself as a lady cop or something (the book came out in 2001, a year in which I am sure there were plenty of lady cops in this country not bitching about this "man's world" stuff) and all she ever does is get weepy about the murdered newlyweds while secretly dealing with a pointless blood disease and making friends with some cunt reporter for no reason. Every chapter averages about three pages and I don't think any of them are longer than five. Maybe it's just me, but that comes across as pretty amateurish. Not that there are any rules on how long a chapter should be, but Jesus Christ, buddy, could you maybe just put a few of them together? I'm barely over a hundred pages into this thing and I'm on like Chapter 30.

I guess I can see why this Patterson fella sells a lot of books. The story moves at a brisk enough pace without having to bother with stuff like character development or realistic dialogue and shit and I bet there are a lot of middle-aged women out there working boring night jobs or something and they probably go through a lot of these books. Anyway, it's not Twilight, so that's a plus.

I will keep you all posted on my journey into this man's world of police-copping.

by **minstrel** on Sat Sep 10, 2011 12:46 pm

The nice big literary novel (that I mentioned above) that I have decided to read is Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. So far I like it. He overwrites, and sometimes his prose is amateurish, but the general effect is that of making ordinary everyday people and events seem to glow with a kind of celestial significance, almost holiness. Steinbeck was able to accomplish the same effect sometimes. I think I'm going to like this book.

by **Spandau Belly** on Sun Sep 11, 2011 1:21 pm

I Drink For a Reason
by David Cross

I don't have a lot of exposure to this Cross guy's comedy writing. In university days I used to go over to a buddy's place and do drugs and have sex with his roommate and he was always watching MR SHOW, but I really don't have a clear memory of that show other than that my buddy was watching it. I've seen Cross as an actor in stuff such as ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which annnoyed the living fuck out me. I have never seen Cross's standup. Somebody got me this book last Christmas and it came up in my shrinking book pile so I decided to read it.

This book is a fucking mess. Cross obviously shit it out pretty fast and without care. Sometimes Cross is very funny, usually when he's in an absurdist mode. He goes off on these wacky fantasies that are frequently pretty funny in their mocking of fame, showbiz, and capitalism. Other times he gets more into Ranty Dennis Humour (Leary, Miller), during which he's just too passionate about these issues to be funny in a social observation way. He especially hates religion and religious people and returns to this topic way too many times and without really ever being funny.

The worst parts of the book are the parts that feel like they belong more in a formal autobiography than a humour book. These are mostly Cross chronicling his bitchfights with other comedians (Larry The Cableguy, Jim Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg etc.) He includes lots of correspondence transcriptions and anecdotes, some of which have funny moments, but again, it feels like he's taking it too personally too step back and be truly funny. He's also hugely hypocritical. He gives other comedians shit for being lowbrow, bigoted, shock value, and doing shitty movies when Cross himself is not above combining poo jokes and Holocaust jokes, writing semi-homophobic fiction pieces about Jim Belushi fucking dudes and working as a crossdressing hooker(this was actually kinda funny), and Cross himself has done loads of shitty movies. He even includes a transcription of a talkback he posted on some girl's blog when she gave his standup show a bad review. Pretty petty if you ask me.

Cross is one of those guys where I mostly agree with his opinions, I can tell he's a bright guy, but I still find him a complete asshole and not in an amusing Bill Murray/James Woods way. I found this book to have some genuinely funny parts in it, but Cross's shitty personality and the book's lazy lack of focus gets it a thumbs down from me.

Anyway, maybe Cross will now come in here and bitch me out for writing this review and then include it in his next book.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Sun Sep 11, 2011 2:39 pm

Spandau Belly wrote:stuff such as ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which annnoyed the living fuck out me.

Say it ain't so, Spandau!

by **Bloo** on Sun Sep 11, 2011 6:02 pm

caruso_stalker217 wrote:
Spandau Belly wrote:stuff such as ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which annnoyed the living fuck out me.

Say it ain't so, Spandau!

seconded.

And dude if David Cross ventured into the zone you'd kick the shit out of him. I'm not much of a fan either. Mr Show was a lot of fun, but yeah dude has done a lot more shitty movies then he's done quality

by **Spandau Belly** on Sun Sep 11, 2011 10:12 pm

caruso_stalker217 wrote:
Spandau Belly wrote:stuff such as ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which annnoyed the living fuck out me.

Say it ain't so, Spandau!

It was like ROYAL TENENBAUMS without the few things I liked about that movie such as Gene Hackman's wiley performance, the symetrical shot composition, and the nice 60s pop rock tunes. Just neurotic yuppies for hours on end. I've got a bit of an allergy to stuff about neurotic yuppies. It's really hard for me to watch movies and tv shows that focus on them. If you want further proof, I'm sure there are several threads around here in which I bitch about the films of Sam Mendes.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:51 am

Sam Mendes gets a lifetime pass from me for REVOLUTIONARY ROAD alone.

by **Nice Marmot** on Mon Sep 12, 2011 4:47 pm

I'm now reading 'The Help' by Kathryn Stockett. Told my wife I'd read it if she read Gaiman's 'American Gods.'

I'm liking it. Some surprisingly good humor in there. I flip-flop on how I feel about the white author putting words in the mouths of black women in early 60's Mississippi.

Also, my wife will read 'The Stand' if I read all of those Hunger Games books.

by **minstrel** on Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:42 pm

Nice Marmot wrote:Also, my wife will read 'The Stand' if I read all of those Hunger Games books.

Probably a bad deal for both of you. I set aside The Stand after 300-odd pages because King was just meandering all over the place in a more and more boring way (this was the unabridged version). And I've heard the the Hunger Games books are just typical young-adult blah.

by **Bloo** on Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:34 pm

Hungar Games aren't bad, much better then Twilight, not up to Harry Potter (or my favorite The Thief Lord). Right around that Artimas Fowl territory, where it's obviously well written, good ideas, but isn't really ground breaksing. (I have a friend that writes YA and I do YA theater, so I read a lot of YA)

by **caruso_stalker217** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 1:35 am

Bloo wrote:I have a friend that writes YA and I do YA theater, so I read a lot of YA

I believe this is code for "By law, I must remain at least 100 feet from playgrounds and schools."

by **Tyrone_Shoelaces** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:24 am

caruso_stalker217 wrote:
Bloo wrote:I have a friend that writes YA and I do YA theater, so I read a lot of YA

I believe this is code for "By law, I must remain at least 100 feet from playgrounds and schools."

Bloo has the best candy.

by **Nice Marmot** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:44 am

minstrel wrote:
Nice Marmot wrote:Also, my wife will read 'The Stand' if I read all of those Hunger Games books.

Probably a bad deal for both of you. I set aside The Stand after 300-odd pages because King was just meandering all over the place in a more and more boring way (this was the unabridged version). And I've heard the the Hunger Games books are just typical young-adult blah.

Only time I read The Stand (abridged) was way back in junior high when I was soaking up every bit of King I could. In my mind it rocks.

My guess is she throws in the towel well before midway through.

by **Bloo** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:54 am

Tyrone_Shoelaces wrote:
caruso_stalker217 wrote:
Bloo wrote:I have a friend that writes YA and I do YA theater, so I read a lot of YA

I believe this is code for "By law, I must remain at least 100 feet from playgrounds and schools."

Bloo has the best candy.

hehehehe

by **TonyWilson** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 11:58 am

The Magician King, sequel to The Magicians - it's bloody good so far, better then the first which I think is one of the best things I've read for the past 5 years. I'd heartily reccommend it to all Zoners unless you're an obsessive Harry Potter fan.

by **Ribbons** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:17 pm

TonyWilson wrote:I'd heartily reccommend it to all Zoners unless you're an obsessive Harry Potter fan.

You shut your mouth!

by **Al Shut** on Tue Sep 13, 2011 12:52 pm

Don't you mean

Silencio!

by **caruso_stalker217** on Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:57 pm

Okay, finished 1st to Die yesterday. James Patterson really is terrible. The book is readable, I'll grant you that. But by the end it just got really lazy and bad with several laughable plot developments. I won't call them twists, because they weren't so much surprising and unexpected as just fucking dumb. It's the kind of book where if the killer was like a clown or something the ending would be him holding someone at gunpoint and saying, "It looks like I got the last laugh after all!"

And everything they say has to end with an exclamation point.

by **Bloo** on Sun Sep 18, 2011 2:29 am

I'm just about done with the Imganirum Geogrpahica series by James A Owen. It's kind of similar to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but with writers/scientests/explorers. I'm not quite sure who the audience is aimed for though, it's a little mature for YA but not quite mature enough for adult readers. Looking for the references to authors and their characters is really fun if you've read a lot of fantasy lit.

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:48 am

caruso_stalker217 wrote:Okay, finished 1st to Die yesterday! James Patterson really is terrible! The book is readable, I'll grant you that! But by the end it just got really lazy and bad with several laughable plot developments! I won't call them twists, because they weren't so much surprising and unexpected as just fucking dumb! It's the kind of book where if the killer was like a clown or something the ending would be him holding someone at gunpoint and saying, "It looks like I got the last laugh after all!"

And everything they say has to end with an exclamation point!

fixed it for you

by **caruso_stalker217** on Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:20 pm

TheBaxter wrote:
caruso_stalker217 wrote:Okay, finished 1st to Die yesterday! James Patterson really is terrible! The book is readable, I'll grant you that! But by the end it just got really lazy and bad with several laughable plot developments! I won't call them twists, because they weren't so much surprising and unexpected as just fucking dumb! It's the kind of book where if the killer was like a clown or something the ending would be him holding someone at gunpoint and saying, "It looks like I got the last laugh after all!"

And everything they say has to end with an exclamation point!

fixed it for you

Thank you! That works a lot better!

by **TheButcher** on Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:34 am

Lights Out in Wonderland: A Novel by D. B. C. Pierre

The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb, 1939-1949 by Jim Baggott

After Dark by Haruki Murakami

Rain Fall by Barry Eisler

by **justcheckin** on Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:15 pm

I am reading The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. They are classified as young adult so the reading is easy. I was just sortof interested.

by **DennisMM** on Tue Sep 20, 2011 11:52 pm

I got sidetracked from Down and Out in Paris and London by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That led, naturally, to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The edition I'm reading includes the first five books and the Zaphod short story. I think I'm going to have to force myself to stop when I'm done with Restaurant, so I can move on to heavier things.

by **Al Shut** on Mon Sep 26, 2011 1:13 pm

Rereading The City of Dreaming Books in preparation of the pending release of it's sequel. (advance order is out, can't wait)

This time slightly annoyed 99% of the allusions go over my head, but not much.

by **Al Shut** on Wed Oct 05, 2011 12:14 pm

Das Labyrinth der träumenden Bücher has arrived and is off to a flying start taking exactly one page to make me chuckle like a maniac, despite, or rather because of, threatening me with a horrible death.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:34 pm

Reading The Dialogues of Plato. And I've been dipping into Khalil Gibran's The Prophet because I thought my mom had a copy of it when I was a kid and it had some pretty awesome illustrations in it, but I don't think this is the same one so I guess she must've had something else by him because it was his name that drew me to it.

Anyway, I'm pretty fucking deep in my opinion.

by **Al Shut** on Sat Oct 08, 2011 4:53 am

Can't make up my mind if I'm mad at Das Labyrinth der träumenden Bücher or not. As usual with Walter Moers it's highly entertaining, wildly imaginative and digressive as fuck.

So digressive that what used to be the somewhat slower and less captivating parts of the book has been blown up to a full 427 pages, i.e. the complete book. Ending with the sentence 'The story starts here', sequel pending.

I know I hated on authors for similar offences, I'm looking at you Mr.Barker. Guess the amount of anger will depend on if and when the next book will be published.

by **Spandau Belly** on Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:24 pm

If I Were You
by L.Ron Hubbard

So my mum got me this book by L. Ron Hubbard because, like everybody else, I find scientology ridiculous. I was pretty excited to read the fiction works of a man who has created a popular religion. This book contains two novellas, 'If I Were You' and 'The Last Drop'. Both stories are about men changing sizes. Hubbard has obviously thought about shortness and decided it sucks. I wonder how this impacts Tom Cruise's faith? He makes some astute observations such as how short people have to take more steps to traverse the same distance as tall people and how short people are easy to physically abuse.

'If I Were You' is about an arogant asshole midget in a circus. This midget pisses everybody off, including the circus's wizard. So on his deathbed the wizard pretends to be giving the midget a gift in the form of some books that teach him how to zap his soul into other people's bodies. The midget gets to take over some big strong men's bodies but realizes that true bigness comes from within and he's a short piece of shit no matter how big he becomes. There's a good fight scene against some tigers and a lots of midget kicking and insight into the accounting and book-keeping of a circus operation. But this is no THE TIN DRUM. Gunter Grass set the bar pretty high for midget exploitation and Hubbard definately isn't up to that standard.

The other story 'The Last Drop', involves some Irish-American gangsters drinking shrinking-growing potions and chasing each other around. Obviously, being the size of a mouse is a pretty big disadvantage in the crime world, but I'm glad the gangsters play fair by drinking the shrinking potion so that they can all be a similiar size during a fight. There's some funny stuff with the tiny men fighting with razor blades as swords. I liked that.

Both of these stories are written at a child's level of English, so I think little kids might like them. They're simple pulp stories with some funny moments that would probably be a lot cooler to the mind of a 7 year old. I don't really recommend adults reading this book unless you have some deep interest in oldschool pulp stories. If you put more tits in them they'd probably make okay TALES FROM THE CRYPT episodes.

by **TheBaxter** on Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:22 pm

for my halloween reading, i have been reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

i know i have read it before, but it must have been some time ago. even though it's a short novel, it's a tough slog. it's not a very well-written book. the underlying concept is great, but the writing itself is very melodramatic and a bit over-the-top at times, especially the dialogue. i can see why this is the only book by her that had any significant success, and it's staying power is more a function of the inherent interest of the subject matter, than the talent of the writer.

by **minstrel** on Mon Oct 24, 2011 4:56 pm

I just downloaded The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje onto my Kindle. I figure I need to read some Canadian (?) literature, and, beside Margaret Atwood, I'm told he's the best (now that Robertson Davies is dead).

So I'll be reading that for a while. But I have another site install to do from tomorrow through Friday, so I probably won't be doing much reading.

by **Bloo** on Mon Oct 24, 2011 8:45 pm

after reading some positive comment upon the main page about it, I downloaded Ernest Cline's Ready Player One unto my Kindle awhile back. I've read it twice now. I see Harry Knowles is praised in the acknowledgments, so I see why it's gotten a free pass up top. That's not to say it's a BAD book (it's not) it's just one that could have used some tightening and editing in my opinion. I really like the idea though, but I thought the idea of setting it in a dystopian type future wasn't necessary. Just because your villain is an evil corporation, doesn't mean you need to make the US almost dystopian, falling apart at the seams.

There are a few other nitpicky things, like how the virtual world is set up, but overall not a bad way to spend an afternoon reading.

I'm moving on to Robert Parker's western books now, I've read the first two (Appaloosa and Resolution) and enjoyed them. I want to see if Parker was able to conclude her series satisfactory before his death. I'll probably read his book on Wyatt Earp as well.

by **magicmonkey** on Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:59 am

I've got a few on the go at the moment. But, I managed to polish off Ibsen's "The WIld Duck", the play as opposed to his novel. Powerful stuff. Then attempted my foray into the LotR , I really enjoyed much of Fellowship, but "The Two Towers" is seriously pushing my tolerance for twee. I really don't think Tolkien can write valiant, heroic males. Mages, oddballs and provincials maybe... either way, I honestly can't see myself struggling through it. Should I? I think I stopped enjoying Fellowship after he ceased describing their three meals a day.

I just finished "Catcher in the Rye", was absolutely absorbed for much of it and was very pleasantly surprised with what I found. Certainly one I shall return to.

Currently just started "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", its got its hooks in! Gah!

Also reading Elmore Leonard's "Tishomingo Blues", fun beach reading.

by **caruso_stalker217** on Tue Oct 25, 2011 4:14 am

I am currently reading The Two Towers myself (I found it in the break room at work) and I like it a lot more than The Fellowship of the Ring which I tried (and failed) to read ten years ago. I'm already familiar with the movies, so I liked being able to drop into the story a third of the way in and not have to bother with that boring Hobbit shit at the beginning. Not surprisingly most of the action gets glossed over in lieu of descriptions of various journeys on foot and horseback and in caves and a lengthy conversation about pipe-weed. But I really enjoy all the formal, elegant speech. I'm still not crazy about all the singing, though. That's one thing they improved in the movies.

I would like to go back and read from the beginning, though, now that I've gotten a taste.

by **TheBaxter** on Tue Oct 25, 2011 9:16 am

i'm planning on re-reading the LOTR trilogy sometime after halloween. i read the hobbit not long ago, a book i previously could never get through because of all the "twee" stuff, as it's been so elegantly put, and all the singing as well. somehow it didn't bother me this time as much as it did on previous attempts. my memory of Fellowship is it starts off an awful lot like hobbit in that respect, but by the time you get to Two Towers, it's become much better, and much less "twee".

by **Wolfpack** on Sun Oct 30, 2011 7:51 pm

I've been reading Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane trilogy. I'm on the third volume, Dynasty of Evil.

by **TheBaxter** on Thu Dec 08, 2011 3:13 pm

just finished reading The Night Eternal, 3rd book in del toro's strain trilogy. overall, i guess i was a bit underwhelmed. didn't care that much for the first book, but i'd heard good things about the 2nd one and how it got more into the mythology and less into the scientific/biological vampire explanations, and i liked the 2nd book the best of the 3. the 3rd book REALLY gets into the mythology, so much so that it almost completely negates any of the "scientific" stuff from the first book. i think i liked the 2nd book because it struck the better balance between the two. it's odd how a serious that started off so much based in facts and science, ends up completely the opposite, overwhelmed with religion and mythology. i mean, this book, literallly, has archangels. it's quite a stretch. oh well. it was a decent ending, and i like the mythology to an extent... del toro definitely didn't shy away from going all the way with it.

by **Al Shut** on Mon Dec 12, 2011 2:37 pm

The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

Not far in. A bit confusing, it is yet unclear if the main character has just lost his memory or is also his neighbour who also lost his memory. But reads pretty interesting.

by **Wolfpack** on Sun Jan 08, 2012 2:56 pm

Organic Chemistry by Paula Yarkanis Bruice. I don't particularly care for the protagonist Carbon.

by **justcheckin** on Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:00 am

Wolfpack wrote:Organic Chemistry by Paula Yarkanis Bruice. I don't particularly care for the protagonist Carbon.

Nice...

I am finally reading The Girl Who Played with Fire

by **Nice Marmot** on Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:41 pm

I have one chapter of 'Ender's Game' under my belt. Can't really comment yet . . .

Previously read some short story's from Gaiman's 'Fragile Things' and I so loved his Sherlock Holmes tail w/ a twist. Won't say any more for those who might check it out . . .

by **Bloo** on Tue Jan 17, 2012 9:49 pm

well I'm reading some classics in my Intro to fiction class...and The Hunger Games. Between this class and Survey of American Lit, I'll doubt I'll have much time for pleasure reading

by **Yelsaeb** on Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:11 pm

I just finished reading a Clockwork Orange. I read a fifty year old copy from the library so the infamous final chapter wasn't included, which I didn't know untill the book ended with "I was cured alright". I was expecting the final chapter, so I was a little bezoomny. And that book would've been impossible to read without that glossary in the back.