Gideon the Ninth so far - I'm enjoying it a lot. The writing's very good and I really like Gideon. The setting continues to largely bemuse me
Like this is a world where necromancy is entirely a normal thing (though I'm not clear yet on whether lots of people are necromancers or just one per house). And yet the one group of people who look and behave like the classical D&D-type necromancers, just like turbo-goth, are seen as weird and spooky by the rest. Because it's possible to be a sparkly sunshine kind of necromancer.
I'm not really clear on what they use necromancy for yet, unless it's just making skele-servants. There's been mention of a war or something but I don't know who the belligerents are. There's apparently an emperor so I guess there's an empire, so are there people outside of the empire, and are they also necromancers?
Very curious.
I struggled with Gideon and especially Harrow until I openly embraced I had no clue what was going on until all was revealed. It helped
As far as the Houses, @Kana has a nice rundown that doesn't give too much away
To add to the Fourth House
The teens are the grunts in the space war against the Empires enemies and I think it's highly suggested they are genetically engineered to do so.
I am in the business of saving lives.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Ended up putting down and returning to the library "Ninefox Gambit". Made it about 60-70 percent through the book, and it just never grabbed me. Ended up getting a new video game and there was just no desire to pick the book back up. Felt bad because I heard a lot of good things! Guess that's the way it is sometimes.
That's too bad, I loved Ninefox Gambit and the other associated books a whole lot.
But they are weird af and probably not for everyone so I get it. Ninefox Gambit didn't really grab me right away either...not until near the end when...
lady eats a ghost
...and then I was hooked. I was probably a little hooked before that honestly, but that really clinched it.
Realizing what they meant by "calendrical" went a long way too. I can't not love something so brazenly buckwild.
It sort of mirrored my Ancillary Justice experience, where I didn't really understand most of the book until the end when it all clicked and I fell in love with it.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
That's too bad, I loved Ninefox Gambit and the other associated books a whole lot.
But they are weird af and probably not for everyone so I get it. Ninefox Gambit didn't really grab me right away either...not until near the end when...
lady eats a ghost
...and then I was hooked. I was probably a little hooked before that honestly, but that really clinched it.
Realizing what they meant by "calendrical" went a long way too. I can't not love something so brazenly buckwild.
It sort of mirrored my Ancillary Justice experience, where I didn't really understand most of the book until the end when it all clicked and I fell in love with it.
My main issue is that the protagonist just didn't grab me. I wasn't invested in her struggle. The world was certainly cool and unique though.
Since that loan was up I was able to checkout Uprooted by Naomi Novik and I'm already 100% invested in this book after the first chapter.
a few christmases ago, my younger sister gave me a book called A Stranger City, which is a prize winning book about the death of a girl and people in their 30s and 40s feeling alienated from London and not even knowing the city anymore and god
just a couple chapters in and it is just fucking wallowing in misery
I don't read a lot of true crime generally, but I did pick up I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michellle McNamara after hearing an interview with Patton Oswalt (her husband). It's very good. It's also, you know, like most true crime, pretty goddamn bleak.
Oh, god. I've got to read a true crime book for Winter Readfest. It's really not my genre. The Stranger Beside Me is probably the one, huh?
When you say "not really your genre" what don't you like about it? I read plenty of true crime so maybe I can find something that fits your niche?
I wouldn't go with The Stranger Beside me if you generally don't like the genre as it's pretty... archetypal, you know?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
I personally enjoyed I'll be Gone in the Dark but especially in light of having caught EARONS and having been completed after McNamara passed away it feels somewhat sketched out in the back half given how thoroughly done the front half is. I did NOT enjoy People Who Eat Darkness so maybe avoid that.
If you can count The Poisoner's Handbook I highly recommend it since it's about forensic science and poisons (and crime) but is far from a traditional true-crime book. Deborah Blum is a great author and her second book, The Poison Squad, is also good.
Similarly, there's Killers of the Flower Moon, or The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper...
Other possibilities that are non-fiction and about crime (sorta) but not "true crime" in the traditional sense:
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt
Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories
Forensics by Val McDermid
Does The Hamlet Fire count? Haha it's definitely about criminal negligence in our government and corporate responsibility at the very least. Or Evicted, same same.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I personally enjoyed I'll be Gone in the Dark but especially in light of having caught EARONS and having been completed after McNamara passed away it feels somewhat sketched out in the back half given how thoroughly done the front half is. I did NOT enjoy People Who Eat Darkness so maybe avoid that.
If you can count The Poisoner's Handbook I highly recommend it since it's about forensic science and poisons (and crime) but is far from a traditional true-crime book. Deborah Blum is a great author and her second book, The Poison Squad, is also good.
Similarly, there's Killers of the Flower Moon, or The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper...
Other possibilities that are non-fiction and about crime (sorta) but not "true crime" in the traditional sense:
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt
Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories
Forensics by Val McDermid
Does The Hamlet Fire count? Haha it's definitely about criminal negligence in our government and corporate responsibility at the very least. Or Evicted, same same.
Oh wow The Poison Squad is aces. It's not really a classic true crime book, in the sense that it focuses on a killer or other criminal. It's more of a true government story of how food labeling came to be and what an appalling state of affairs the American food industry was leading up to it. Deborah Blum is a crackerjack writer.
The thing that they often don't tell you when you sign up for a library card, but they should, is that you probably have access to a ton of online resources through your library's website. Most libraries have things like language learning resources, free legal forms, free sheet music, free genealogical info, and all kinds of other stuff that's criminally underused and worth checking out.
One weird trick!
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I personally enjoyed I'll be Gone in the Dark but especially in light of having caught EARONS and having been completed after McNamara passed away it feels somewhat sketched out in the back half given how thoroughly done the front half is. I did NOT enjoy People Who Eat Darkness so maybe avoid that.
If you can count The Poisoner's Handbook I highly recommend it since it's about forensic science and poisons (and crime) but is far from a traditional true-crime book. Deborah Blum is a great author and her second book, The Poison Squad, is also good.
Similarly, there's Killers of the Flower Moon, or The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper...
Other possibilities that are non-fiction and about crime (sorta) but not "true crime" in the traditional sense:
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt
Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories
Forensics by Val McDermid
Does The Hamlet Fire count? Haha it's definitely about criminal negligence in our government and corporate responsibility at the very least. Or Evicted, same same.
Thanks! It's not really a genre I actively dislike, just a blind spot I haven't had much experience with. I actually read Killers of the Flower Moon for Winter Readfest, but elected to use it to fill the Set In Oklahoma square. And we read I'll Be Gone in the Dark in book club, and I found it fascinating and highly stressful.
The Poisoner's Handbook looks great, thanks! I think I'll pick that one up for the challenge and put The Poison Squad on my to-read list.
I'm about a third into Gravity's Rainbow, and like most Pynchon books I have read, in about ready to say "fuck this" and read some other books for a few months
I'm reading it on my kindle, and I don't know if it's the font size I choose, or if it's just Pynchon, it's probably Pynchon, but there's paragraphs which are pages long and I lose track of what's going on or being ranted about and it's exhausting
I also saw the dust jacket of Charlie Kaufman's 720 page book, and to be fair authors have no control over dust jackets, but also I mostly don't like his movies so I believe it's accurately unbearable
B. Rosenberger Rosenberg, neurotic and underappreciated film critic (failed academic, filmmaker, paramour, shoe salesman who sleeps in a sock drawer), stumbles upon a hitherto unseen film made by an enigmatic outsider—a film he’s convinced will change his career trajectory and rock the world of cinema to its core. His hands on what is possibly the greatest movie ever made—a three-month-long stop-motion masterpiece that took its reclusive auteur ninety years to complete—B. knows that it is his mission to show it to the rest of humanity. The only problem: The film is destroyed, leaving him the sole witness to its inadvertently ephemeral genius.
All that’s left of this work of art is a single frame from which B. must somehow attempt to recall the film that just might be the last great hope of civilization. Thus begins a mind-boggling journey through the hilarious nightmarescape of a psyche as lushly Kafkaesque as it is atrophied by the relentless spew of Twitter. Desperate to impose order on an increasingly nonsensical existence, trapped in a self-imposed prison of aspirational victimhood and degeneratively inclusive language, B. scrambles to re-create the lost masterwork while attempting to keep pace with an ever-fracturing culture of “likes” and arbitrary denunciations that are simultaneously his bête noire and his raison d’être.
A searing indictment of the modern world, Antkind is a richly layered meditation on art, time, memory, identity, comedy, and the very nature of existence itself—the grain of truth at the heart of every joke.
Stop making obsessive self-indulgent art about self-indulgence and obsession! This is just a prank!
I'm about a third into Gravity's Rainbow, and like most Pynchon books I have read, in about ready to say "fuck this" and read some other books for a few months
I'm reading it on my kindle, and I don't know if it's the font size I choose, or if it's just Pynchon, it's probably Pynchon, but there's paragraphs which are pages long and I lose track of what's going on or being ranted about and it's exhausting
It's definitely Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow took me like months to read because I could only ever cope with about 10 pages at once. And then I'd forget things that happened and have to do a bunch of re-reading to remind myself every time I picked it up.
I still like it, it's just very ... him.
I also saw the dust jacket of Charlie Kaufman's 720 page book, and to be fair authors have no control over dust jackets, but also I mostly don't like his movies so I believe it's accurately unbearable *snip*
If you asked me to write the ultimate parody of a Charlie Kaufman plot, this would be it. I can't tell if he irks me more when he's taking himself seriously, or when he's poking fun at himself taking himself so seriously.
... I was made to watch Synecdoche, New York a few weeks back and somehow I found it even more infuriating than "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", because at least the latter wasn't about a playwright /filmmaker/ scriptwriter
I'm about a third into Gravity's Rainbow, and like most Pynchon books I have read, in about ready to say "fuck this" and read some other books for a few months
I'm reading it on my kindle, and I don't know if it's the font size I choose, or if it's just Pynchon, it's probably Pynchon, but there's paragraphs which are pages long and I lose track of what's going on or being ranted about and it's exhausting
It's definitely Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow took me like months to read because I could only ever cope with about 10 pages at once. And then I'd forget things that happened and have to do a bunch of re-reading to remind myself every time I picked it up.
I still like it, it's just very ... him.
During wheat harvest, there's a whole lot of down time for the grain cart driver. You basically sit in a parked tractor for half an hour waiting for the combine to fill up the hopper, then spend five minutes driving alongside while the combine driver offloads grain into the cart. For twelve hours a day, if the weather holds.
Anyway, I burned through Gravity's Rainbow in a day and a half under these circumstances when I was seventeen, and I'm pretty sure that's why I forgot how to play the piano. Not recommended.
Reading Gravity's Rainbow is a physical, mental and emotional effort in many distinctive ways. I literally cannot conceive reading it in a day and a half under any circumstances.
Ugh at the library they had Shaun King's book published last month, how has this fucking dude not been forced into the woods yet
Is it weird that among all the grifters and shakedown artists coming out of the woodwork in the last few years I had completely forgotten about Shaun King.
Why did you do this to me Coinage.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I'm like halfway through Gideon the Ninth (shut up I read slowly). I still have very little idea what is going on, but I am enjoying it a lot. I think if I had to choose a favourite thing it would be that every time one of the Fourth kids are mentioned they are described as "the awful teens" or something similar. I don't know why but it really tickles me.
I'm like halfway through Gideon the Ninth (shut up I read slowly). I still have very little idea what is going on, but I am enjoying it a lot. I think if I had to choose a favourite thing it would be that every time one of the Fourth kids are mentioned they are described as "the awful teens" or something similar. I don't know why but it really tickles me.
Random items like that are a major part of why I enjoyed the book so much. Out of curiosity, how are you reading it ? In paper, ebook, etc?
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
Like they haven't even done anything bad, they're just awful because they're teens. It's so petty.
I also saw the dust jacket of Charlie Kaufman's 720 page book, and to be fair authors have no control over dust jackets, but also I mostly don't like his movies so I believe it's accurately unbearable *snip*
If you asked me to write the ultimate parody of a Charlie Kaufman plot, this would be it. I can't tell if he irks me more when he's taking himself seriously, or when he's poking fun at himself taking himself so seriously.
... I was made to watch Synecdoche, New York a few weeks back and somehow I found it even more infuriating than "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", because at least the latter wasn't about a playwright /filmmaker/ scriptwriter
Oh my fucking gawd he's fighting against inclusive language and Twitter? fuck this clown. Theres my critical response.
Posts
What
is
happening
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
A lot
And it don't stop.
I struggled with Gideon and especially Harrow until I openly embraced I had no clue what was going on until all was revealed. It helped
As far as the Houses, @Kana has a nice rundown that doesn't give too much away
To add to the Fourth House
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
But they are weird af and probably not for everyone so I get it. Ninefox Gambit didn't really grab me right away either...not until near the end when...
...and then I was hooked. I was probably a little hooked before that honestly, but that really clinched it.
Realizing what they meant by "calendrical" went a long way too. I can't not love something so brazenly buckwild.
It sort of mirrored my Ancillary Justice experience, where I didn't really understand most of the book until the end when it all clicked and I fell in love with it.
My main issue is that the protagonist just didn't grab me. I wasn't invested in her struggle. The world was certainly cool and unique though.
Since that loan was up I was able to checkout Uprooted by Naomi Novik and I'm already 100% invested in this book after the first chapter.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
just a couple chapters in and it is just fucking wallowing in misery
not vibing with it at all
Steam // Secret Satan
but i just feel no desire to connect with these people
Steam // Secret Satan
On to The Stranger Beside Me by Anne Rule
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
When you say "not really your genre" what don't you like about it? I read plenty of true crime so maybe I can find something that fits your niche?
I wouldn't go with The Stranger Beside me if you generally don't like the genre as it's pretty... archetypal, you know?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
If you can count The Poisoner's Handbook I highly recommend it since it's about forensic science and poisons (and crime) but is far from a traditional true-crime book. Deborah Blum is a great author and her second book, The Poison Squad, is also good.
Similarly, there's Killers of the Flower Moon, or The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper...
Other possibilities that are non-fiction and about crime (sorta) but not "true crime" in the traditional sense:
The Trauma Cleaner: One Woman's Extraordinary Life in the Business of Death, Decay, and Disaster
Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt
Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories
Forensics by Val McDermid
Does The Hamlet Fire count? Haha it's definitely about criminal negligence in our government and corporate responsibility at the very least. Or Evicted, same same.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
Steam // Secret Satan
Oh wow The Poison Squad is aces. It's not really a classic true crime book, in the sense that it focuses on a killer or other criminal. It's more of a true government story of how food labeling came to be and what an appalling state of affairs the American food industry was leading up to it. Deborah Blum is a crackerjack writer.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Same here! Free books are nice.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I'm actually going to just start yelling this at people when they look sad
Saga is soooooo gooooood.
Criminal how good it is.
One weird trick!
Thanks! It's not really a genre I actively dislike, just a blind spot I haven't had much experience with. I actually read Killers of the Flower Moon for Winter Readfest, but elected to use it to fill the Set In Oklahoma square. And we read I'll Be Gone in the Dark in book club, and I found it fascinating and highly stressful.
The Poisoner's Handbook looks great, thanks! I think I'll pick that one up for the challenge and put The Poison Squad on my to-read list.
I'm reading it on my kindle, and I don't know if it's the font size I choose, or if it's just Pynchon, it's probably Pynchon, but there's paragraphs which are pages long and I lose track of what's going on or being ranted about and it's exhausting
It's definitely Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow took me like months to read because I could only ever cope with about 10 pages at once. And then I'd forget things that happened and have to do a bunch of re-reading to remind myself every time I picked it up.
I still like it, it's just very ... him.
If you asked me to write the ultimate parody of a Charlie Kaufman plot, this would be it. I can't tell if he irks me more when he's taking himself seriously, or when he's poking fun at himself taking himself so seriously.
... I was made to watch Synecdoche, New York a few weeks back and somehow I found it even more infuriating than "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", because at least the latter wasn't about a playwright /filmmaker/ scriptwriter
During wheat harvest, there's a whole lot of down time for the grain cart driver. You basically sit in a parked tractor for half an hour waiting for the combine to fill up the hopper, then spend five minutes driving alongside while the combine driver offloads grain into the cart. For twelve hours a day, if the weather holds.
Anyway, I burned through Gravity's Rainbow in a day and a half under these circumstances when I was seventeen, and I'm pretty sure that's why I forgot how to play the piano. Not recommended.
Hat is all the way off to you my OK friend.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Is it weird that among all the grifters and shakedown artists coming out of the woodwork in the last few years I had completely forgotten about Shaun King.
Why did you do this to me Coinage.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
Random items like that are a major part of why I enjoyed the book so much. Out of curiosity, how are you reading it ? In paper, ebook, etc?
I'm reading on kindle
Oh my fucking gawd he's fighting against inclusive language and Twitter? fuck this clown. Theres my critical response.
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan
Though I guess in a story about necromancy that might not last...
Don't click, smof. Late book awesome line spoilers
Steam - Talon Valdez :Blizz - Talonious#1860 : Xbox Live & LoL - Talonious Monk @TaloniousMonk Hail Satan