Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/9N6N63O.png
Pretty much every post is either someone asking for books written by or containing LGBTQ or Women characters (and one asking for written in AAVE style). It’s a weird look.
UPDATE: aaaaaand it’s done. That’s all folks! No more free rides until the next time.
[Information requested: how to read all of Will Wight’s books without giving him a dime.
Beginning report…]
Will Wight Giveaway, celebrating ten years of writing! By series (US Amazon):
Traveler’s Gate Trilogy - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CCBXYZ
Traveler’s Gate Side Stories - https://www.amazon.com/Travelers-Gate-Chronicles-Complete-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00Z92K3PG
Elder Empire Trilogy (Shadow) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CCVM2J
Elder Empire Trilogy (Sea) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074C78XPJ
The Last Horizon - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C11YDHB8
Cradle - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0753FP6SP
Traveler’s Gate is progression-adjacent fantasy following the friend of the chosen one. Elder Empire is this weird dual trilogy (each book has a counterpart from the other side happening at the same time) with eldritch horror themes. Last Horizon is the …
Tolkien, for better or worse, is such a giant that it often seems like the entire fantasy genre is in some sense oriented around him and his work, that all fantasy is in some sense a response to LOTR and The Hobbit. To an extent that is true of modern fantasy, and he did totally reorient the genre, but often people act as if he — with CS Lewis as his junior partner — is the father of modern fantasy, picking up where the Snorri Sturluson and Chrètien de Troyes left off, and that just isn’t true. There are so many great works of fantasy from the 19th and first half of the 20th century that have nothing to do with him, and despite these books all being at least 70 years old it is incredibly refreshing and feels very progressive for a fantasy novel to just not be in any sort of dialogue with Tolkien.
I didn’t find Dunsany’s King of Elfland’s Daughter or William Morris’ The Well at the World’s End to be anything special, they’re not bad and worth reading but they’re very quaint and …
I don’t even have the words, it was just absolutely amazing. Like, there are other series that I like better as a whole, but I think this might be my favorite individual book
This book had easily some of the funniest moments that I’ve read outside of the Discworld, until Locke came out of a certain barrel and humor took a backseat. Favorite character was definitely Father Chains, I love the grumpy old bastard. All of the twists were incredible, especially the few that I caught before they happened
Is this normal?? I’m reading The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and not only does he use vocabulary that I’ve never seen before but also uses so many scientific terms and names for people who are in certain professions that I’m not familiar with.
So every paragraph, I have to whip out my phone and quickly look up the definition to a word. Am I just stupid? I enjoy the book a lot otherwise but this vocabulary is out of my league.
Credulity, chauvinism, folly, syphilis, thalidomide, chiefly, cauterization, cadavers….. all some examples
Reading those books as an adult and, except for the first and the last, they are like reading The Glass Castle except Pa doesn’t have a drinking problem, and Laura never comes to realize she doesn’t have to live without friends or family (outside of her parents and siblings) nearly starving or freezing to death regularly (or being terrified by Indians or nearly dying of malaria).
All the stories make it seem like they just keep having extraordinarily bad luck, but they all manage to survive due to Pa’s intelligence and ingenuity. But they all got in those fixes because of Pa.
EDIT: Wow, such good discussion! First of all, clearly I mean “What Pa put them all through just because he could NOT share The Big Woods with a few more people is insane.”
I did not think people would be so interested, so let me elaborate a bit. When I was young girl, a daddy-loving tomboy much like Laura, I saw their lives as full of adventures with Pa showing them over and …
I’m an avid reader. Always have been. My wife? She might read a book a year. I’m on #6 for 2023.
As an English teacher, being with her has been such an insight into why people might not read so consistently. It’s showed me that, on one end, reading, especially novels, is very much a hobby like any other. But it’s also shown me that reading is an activity and a pleasure that is very much cultivated by guardians or parents in childhood. Might seem like an obvious truth, but as the old saying goes, many obvious truths hide in plain sight.
If anything, these realizations have made me a little more empathetic to those who don’t read. I think there is a tendency in the book community to be a little pretentious when it comes to reading and what kind of people do and don’t.
Anyway, curious to see what the experience of others is here!
Edit: a couple of things I wanted to remark upon.
First, I really didn’t expect this to blow up like it is! Wow. …
So I work at a library in the circulation department and I saw this book while I was emptying the book drop one day. I have never seen the movie but heard really good things about it. I decided to read it and it is without a doubt one of the best children’s novels I have ever read. I was very impressed with the depth of how the author explored the ethics of experimenting on animals and how different civilizations struggle to survive. If the book is this good, I’m looking forward to watching the movie! Anyone else ever read it?
Humblebundle does charity deals where they sell digital products for extreme discounts for charity. Right now you can get the first six audiobooks in the Murderbot series plus 14 other books by various other authors for only $20.
I believe the offer is good worldwide, and the format is simple mp3 which can be used on any phone app or mp3 player.
https://www.humblebundle.com/books/marthawells-agriddle-and-more-audiobooks-books
I won’t lie and say that there any sorts or straight sex scenes that I love but I have no problem when they’re written well and actually move the story, but the way that he speaks in gratuitous detail about things like *the wetness between Moneta’s legs*in the Soldier’s tale or how in the Consul’s story he marks the passing of time and Siri’s age by the condition of her breasts, eg they’re still firm and girlish and has filled out in ways that were only suggested when she was a teenager when she’s 27 or how her nipples had grown darker and rougher at 37 and the way that he adds sexual elements that are completely superfluous, like describing how a character ran his hands down his girlfriend’s back and grabbed her behind before pulling her close instead just saying “I was scared so I pulled her close to me” is really strange. It makes me uncomfortable, like the author is so fixated on women’s’ bodies that he just can’t help himself when it comes to talking about them, or about men …
I thought I liked Hard Sci fi but “Diaspora” is kicking my ass. The long mathematical discussions related to inter-dimensional space, theoretical interactions between particles and even down to the very nature of who these characters are, where they are trying to go and what they are trying to do is just whooshing right over my head. My educational background is in the arts, not the sciences and I feel like I must be missing some fundamentals or something because man I feel dumb.
I’ve even visited his website with the visual aides for the mathematical models described in the book and found myself just grunting and nodding like a caveman… “yep that looks like what they were talking about.”
I do get the big, basic plot points so I’m embellishing a bit, but honestly, page after page of dialogue I find myself completely confused.
I read the KSR Mars trilogy like it was a comic book. Flew through “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” in a few weeks and I got overconfident I guess. Thought I was …
I bet we all have one or a few of these. Perhaps it’s one with sentimental value or a writer or novel you think slipped under the radar. I was rearranging my books recently (autobiographically!) and noticed a few including: The Moon and the Other by John Kessel and couple of Le Guin’s Hainish novels (other than Left Hand and Dispossesed.)
Just finished it today. I picked it up because I saw it, and knew my friend loved the author. And my God, I laughed, I was anxious, I teared up(that ending).
Anyone else read this? Man what a book.
Edit: I listened to the audiobook btw
I regret not watching ‘Bullet Train’ in theatres because it is a movie made to be seen with an audience. It’ a thriller-comedy if you will, with a healthy dose of stylish action and abundance of style. When you watch an action film these days, most times you gotta turn your brain off. But Bullet Train has a lot going on and keeps you engaged and thinking throughout. The plot takes quite a few turns and hence always remains unpredictable.
There are about 7-8 characters on the train, with different motives, & tasks. But they are all somehow connected to the ‘White Death’ a mysterious villain. All 8 of these characters leave a lasting impression.
Aaron-Taylor Johnson steals the show as Tangerine. His line deliveries are fantastic. Joey King is almost as good. The way she switches from cunning to innocent all the while maintaining a great British accent was terrific. Hiroyuki Sanada always adds gravitas whenever he enters the frame. Brian Tyree Henry …
I did it over the course of a few weeks and it was absolutely fascinating. Watching how things developed, from direction, to film technology, to musical score, to set pieces, to action choreography, to geopolitical and social issues, to fashion, to acting styles, and so much more, was an experience I won’t soon forget. I can’t recommend this enough for any film fans. I did not go into watching them for that reason, but after watching for a while (particularly as the Connery films transitioned into the Moore films) it became clear to me just what i was witnessing.
EDIT post title should read every “few” years