What Are You Reading?

[caruso_stalker217]

finished this today. Reminded me a bit of Doctor Sleep in that it's perfectly readable, but the ground has been so well-trod by King at this point that you have to wonder why he bothered writing it in the first place. Many of his tropes are here, but again the stakes are so low and the characters less vibrant and interesting than in most of his other work.

This book has an edge over Doctor Sleep in that it isn't actively terrible and the good guys at least incure a few losses, even if those characters weren't exactly crucial or left much of an impression.

Overall, the villain and his (its?) lacky are fairly impotent and ineffective and easily dispatched by the heroes.

I don't imagine I'll be taking this one off the shelf ever again.

[so sorry]

...Reminded me a bit of Doctor Sleep in that it's perfectly readable, but the ground has been so well-trod by King at this point that you have to wonder why he bothered writing it in the first place.

New York Times Current Best Sellers

At roughly 30 bucks a pop....

[caruso_stalker217]

The man doesn't need the money. Of course the truth is King couldn't stop writing if he tried, I think. It's not a switch he can flip on and off. So we get this stuff.

Here's a fun game to play. What is the most recent King book that you've actually read more than once?

For me, it's The Wind Through The Keyhole which was published six years ago. The next most recent King book I've reread? The Dark Tower VII, from 2004.

I think the man is done writing classics.

[TheBaxter]

i'm not much of a re-reader (too many books i haven't even read once yet, and not nearly enough time to read them (cue burgess meredith's broken glasses))... the only books on my list of King re-reads, not counting short story collections, are Salems Lot, Pet Sematary, The Stand, The Shining and It. i'm planning on re-reading It before the next film comes out, and was thinking of rereading the Shining because i'm staying a couple nights at the Stanley Hotel this summer, but i probably won't have time and so i'll just rewatch the Kubrick film, which i prefer to the book anyway.

so the most recent book of his i've reread or would reread is IT. from 1986. about the only recent work of his i'd consider re-reading is 11/22/63 or Joyland. both of those were much better than his typical output these days, but i'm not that driven to go back to either.

i agree King is a bit of a compulsive writer. i think he'd be much better if he spent more time rewriting and editing his stuff, instead of just endlessly churning it out, but who's gonna tell him to change, when any books of his is a guaranteed bestseller? if he was putting out a book every 2-3 years, instead of 1-2 books per year, the volume might go down but the quality would likely go way up.

[so sorry]

Here's a fun game to play. What is the most recent King book that you've actually read more than once?

I've read The Stand probably 3 or 4 times. Its been a while, maybe I'll dust it off later this year.

[Fievel]

I think I've only re-read The Stand and the Dark Tower series (some books more than others).

[Al Shut]

Probably The Green Mile but then again all King books I've read where burrowed from my parents and it could well be the last recent I read at all.

[Al Shut]

Digging through a box of German childhood horror-pulp bullshit.

Torment and delight at the same time.

[Ribbons]

Torment because the books are scary, or torment because the books are terrible?

[Al Shut]

Definitely terrible!

Scares are nonexistent, even tension is very rare, language is clunky to the point that at times it seems awkwardly translated although it was written in German.
At least once the author forgets what he wrote before and repeats a shocking revelation from twenty pages earlier.
It seems no idea is ludicrous enough to not be used, understandible at a pace of one story a week and part of it's insane appeal (the delight)

[Al Shut]

I just realized that the latest reissue has only reached #22 (of over 2000) and that the price has less than doubled in over two decades. Pretty tempted to jump right back in.

[so sorry]

I was rooting around my (small) collection for something to read (having re-read the GoT series again ), and came across some high school English class books I kept.

I read The Old Man and the Sea last night, and I can't for the life of me think of why this was decided to be a good high school English read. I was thoroughly bored, shocked at the sophomoric style of writing he used, and frankly left scratching my head at the significance of the book in general. I did a little google research today, and there seems to be some notion that this book brought Hemingway back on track in his writing or some such shit, but it gets a big studly MEH from adult me.


I just remembered that I also read Catcher in the Rye early this year too, man that Holden was a total dick.


Next up, the much more intense and worth-it The Lord of the Flies.

[TheBaxter]

it's not boring, it's "literary"

just be thankful you were never assigned War and Peace. it's 10x as long and probably 100x as boring. and don't get me started on Moby Dick. i'm pretty sure the teachers who assigned books like this were just bitter sad people who hated their jobs and hated kids and took it out on their students.

[Fievel]

I'm about 80% of the way through Bob Woodward's Fear. I had to stop. The whole Kavanagh debacle (and Trump's UN statements) elevated my feelings, but the book is just depressing as hell. I didn't find anything new in it. It doesn't present new facts, but rather it provides factual insight into what is already known. I knew that's what this book offered but still I tried. What a fucking clusterfuck. I hope to return to finish it at some point.

[so sorry]

I'm about 80% of the way through Bob Woodward's Fear. I had to stop. The whole Kavanagh debacle (and Trump's UN statements) elevated my feelings, but the book is just depressing as hell. I didn't find anything new in it. It doesn't present new facts, but rather it provides factual insight into what is already known. I knew that's what this book offered but still I tried. What a fucking clusterfuck. I hope to return to finish it at some point.

You better finish it now before the Gestapo comes to take it away for the book burning...

[TheBaxter]

looks like i've got another shitty Anne Rice Lestat book to read

[Wolfpack]

looks like i've got another shitty Anne Rice Lestat book to read

Performance Review with the Vampire?

[TheBaxter]

looks like i've got another shitty Anne Rice Lestat book to read

Performance Review with the Vampire?

"congratulations, Lestat! your review is in and you've received AB Positive!"

[TheBaxter]

finished reading Blood Communion, the latest and shittiest Anne Rice vampire chronicles book. the previous 2 books were pretty shitty, but i think this one has them beat.... which is saying a lot considering how bad those last two were. at least those books had some kind of coherent story to tell. this book starts off a jumbled mess, Rice seems to have no idea who she wants to be the villain of this particular book so she introduces a few possibilities, before finally settling on one about halfway through the book... leading to the only good part of the book, a way-too-brief section where a thing actually happens. once that thing happens, the book quickly returns to being an empty void of nothingness. seriously, the last 50 pages are so are devoted to a dance ball--a fucking DANCE BALL--which Lestat spends the entire time brooding over some grand personal revelation that, when finally revealed, has all the emotional Punky Power of a Sally Field oscar speech. that's 50 pages of an approximately 250-page book padded out with that shit (about the only positive thing i can say about this book is that at least it's short).

when Rice started writing Lestat books again, she gave some interview where she said the hardest thing about writing these new books is that she had so many ideas, it was hard to choose which ones to write about. if this book is any indication, she solved that problem by choosing not to write about any of them. though maybe that's better than writing about a really dumb idea, like she chose to do in her last book.

i've really disliked all 3 of these new Lestat books, and while a lot of that is due to the subpar writing, lack of originality, and just plain stupid crap that happens in these newer books, i realized by the end of this one another huge reason why these books just don't work for me. the original Vampire Chronicles books were all about the loneliness and isolation and alienation felt by these vampires, a heightened metaphor for the kind of alienation so many people feel. i read those books in high school, the time in most people's lives when those feelings of loneliness and alienation are at their height, so i could really identify with those characters. but in these new books, Rice is obsessed with the idea of her vampire "tribe" coming together and becoming a shiny happy family of bloodsuckers. this most recent book is the ultimate culmination of that effort, and it's incredibly dissatisfying. i don't want to read about happy vampires socializing and repeatedly telling each other they love them. i get that the whole miserable, self-pitying vampire thing has probably been done to death by now, but this is not a good substitute. vampires are supposed to be solitary creatures, not a bunch of fucking jaycees. at this rate, the next VC book is going to be 300 pages of Lestat worrying about what to make for the potluck dinner at next week's meeting of the vampire book club.

so yeah... this book really su-- er, stank.

couple other notes:
-- there are way too many fucking vampire characters in these books now. and the new ones are not nearly as interesting as the old ones.
-- the "replimoids", "atlanteans" and other silly fantasy-sci-fi characters introduced in the last book are still around. basically they're just background characters, but they still exist as a reminder of just how much Rice has fucked up her original vampire mythology with all that crap.
-- please make it stop.

[so sorry]

- the "replimoids"

Ha ha! Wtf are those?

[Wolfpack]

I'm reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation. I'm probably having more fun than Bax right now.

[TheBaxter]

- the "replimoids"

Ha ha! Wtf are those?

i can't even begin to explain. however silly that term makes them sound... multiply that by 1000.

this article gives a very brief summation....but seriously, it doesn't even begin to touch on how bizarre they are. for example, they can clone themselves by hacking off a body part, which then grows a new clone of themselves. i can only imagine the despair of that wiki author, probably a long-term anne rice fan, who was forced to add these things on to their wiki site.

[Al Shut]

Digging through a box of German childhood horror-pulp bullshit. [...] Pretty tempted to jump right back in.

Needless to say I succumbed. And since my dealer sent me a free copy of a different series I'm now also knee deep in German sci-fi dime novels. I figured issue 3000 would be a good point to get started. Unfortunately mixing an ongoing series, old reprints and a reboot can be getting a bit confusing.

[Al Shut]

Pet Sematary, inevitably

[Wolfpack]

Choices of One A Timothy Zahn Star Wars book set between ANH and TESB.

[so sorry]

Choices of One A Timothy Zahn Star Wars book set between ANH and TESB.

If its a Zahn book, does that mean that the Blue Meanie is in it?

[Wolfpack]

Choices of One A Timothy Zahn Star Wars book set between ANH and TESB.

If its a Zahn book, does that mean that the Blue Meanie is in it?

He's in there. He's a mere senior captain, though.

[Maui]

I just finished Whisper Network by Chandler Baker. It feels a bit like the movie 9 to 5 only add the #metoo movement and dash of suspense.
It's an average read - a good summer book I suppose.

[Maui]

I have been reading quite a bit as of late, tis the times.

I have read:

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins 5/5
Sourdough by Robin Sloan (only because I am making a lot of bread lately and thought I could relate to this gal's obsession with her sourdough starter) 3/5
Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz 5/5 Really enjoyed the history of SF in the 60s while the Mom cooked up illegal sticky brownies - the whole vibe with the Summer of Love, George Moscone/Harvey Milk, Patty Hearst, yada yada. Good stuff.
Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon (shame on you Apple TV for drastically changing the plot....grrr!) 4/5

[TheBaxter]

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay

a Dumbledore couple and their adopted daughter are staying in a secluded NH cabin on vacation when a group of 4 people invade and take them hostage, tell them a crazy-seeming story, and force them to make a terrible choice. pretty easy to sum up. there's not much plot, per se, it's more about a situation and the characters and how they interact to influence the outcome of the situation.

i liked this book. it's pretty timely in how it deals with truth/reality and how people can get sucked into cult-like behavior, what may make one person more susceptible to crazy theories and apocalyptic thinking when another is able to resist it, and how the internet and cable tv can play into reinforcing mental illness and delusion. in this age of QAnon and internet-fueled conspiracy theories, it feels particularly relevant. i don't think that was necessarily the author's intent, this book was published back in 2018 when QAnon was still pretty fringey and under-the-radar, but given where we are now in the world, it takes on a different feel.

without giving too much away, the ending, and to an extent the whole book, is a bit of a rorschach test, which is reflected in the previous paragraph, since a different person could interpret this book in a whole different way. those different viewpoints are reflected by the two members of the Dumbledore couple and how they react to what they are being told and shown by their captors. there are potential clues (the fact one of the victims is suffering from a significant head injury, for example), but ultimately i was aware that the side i came down on is a reflection of my own preconceptions about these topics, which might be the author's point. it feels fitting for this post-truth world we live in. it's even reflected in the writing style, how this book is written in present tense. i usually don't care for present tense, it feels a bit precious when past tense would do just fine. but past tense implies a story being told from some unknown future, and for a story like this, where the very existence of a future is an open question, writing only in present tense reinforces the idea that there may be an actual apocalypse coming.

i can see how some people would be disappointed or frustrated by this book. the ending, i think, is more emotionally satisfying than it is narratively satisfying, which i wasn't really expecting but i was ok with, because it was done so well. i could make a more specific comparison regarding QAnon/cults/conspiracy theories, but it would probably give too much away. at the risk of scaring people off, i'd say the ending reminded me kind of Lost, which i also found more emotionally than narratively satisfying. i also really liked the Lost finale, but over time, the flaws began to bother me more, so i suppose the same could happen here, though unlike Lost, i had a lot less time and emotional energy invested in the story, so i can accept the "flaws" (i wouldn't really called them flaws, since it is obviously the author's intent and purpose to write the book this way) a bit more easily.

[Maui]

Well I have been reading a ton as of late.

Dearly: New Poems by Margaret Atwood
If It Bleeds by Stephen King
The One by John Mars
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
Rabbit Foot Bill by Helen Humphreys
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey