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[jill_valentine]

Originally Posted by Iwata

I finally got this:



YAY!

I'm not a huge Colbert fan, but this book has the best title ever.

[Quintessa]

I love Colbert, his book, and the title.

I hate hate hate Pride and Prejudice, however.

HATE.

[Sharky]

Currently readin The Best of Tharg's Future Shocks, reccommended to me by my Imaginative Writing Tutor as a good example of concise science fiction writing - something me and my imagination have a problem with. The idea behind the Future Shocks, so I'm told, was for new writers to prove themselves by writing independent stories that lasted no more than a few pages each.

Whilst entertaining, I find it reads like a massive episode of Robot Chicken - a huge wealth of ideas, but you're just killing time between the decent ones.

There was a brilliant one about firing a futuristic weapon into an apparant alternate dimension to test its affects, only to find that it wasn't an alternate dimension but our dimension 60 hours in the future....

[mack]

Originally Posted by Quintessa

yes i'm reading it in its original french. and it sure does take longer. it's not that incredibly much harder, but my french is pretty contemporary, whereas I feel like the book's is not.

yeah - i figured you would read it in its original french because I remembered that you said you went to a french immersion school when you were really young. french is your "thang" as it were. cool. i have south american friends who have had to read formal spanish from spain, and they say its a pain. (hey, i rhymed!) to read, i mean.

would you say reading old french as opposed to modern french is akin to Americans reading the KJV of the Bible, with all the "thee's" and "thou's"?

you DO know I consider you sciflicks own living, breathing Hermione, right?

currently reading the Illuminatus trilogy, book 1. so far, so good.

[Camfan]

Currently reading Hamlet.... again..... I love it, what can I say, everyone should be made to read it.

[Quintessa]

Have you read or seen the play or film rosencrants & guildenstern are dead? fabulous.

Originally Posted by mack

would you say reading old french as opposed to modern french is akin to Americans reading the KJV of the Bible, with all the "thee's" and "thou's"?

you DO know I consider you sciflicks own living, breathing Hermione, right?

Well, it;s not quite as 17th century would be to English now. Think more along the lines of 50s english to now. It's not really that noticeable at all anyway because its reading and i've really only learned formal french (from textbooks from the 50s, ziiiiiiiiiiing public school systems!). I can see it in the dialog, though.

You're not the only one with the inclination to compare me to Hermione. Ah, middle school was fun!

[Camfan]

Originally Posted by Quintessa

Have you read or seen the play or film rosencrants & guildenstern are dead? fabulous.

If you're talking to me then yeah, I have both seen and read the play. And you are quite correct, fabulous indeed it is.

Funny you should be compared to Hermione, I'm staring at a 12 foot picture of her now..... well, of Emma Watson anyway, doing her modelling thing for Burberry so I can't really avoid it.

[Wachesaw]

Originally Posted by mack

Judging by the cover and title, that book looks absolutely awful.


I'm currently switching between Le Rêve (but translated) from my great-granddad's Zola collection from 1930, and the Ananda Sutram with commentary.
They smell good, too.

[Camfan]

Okay okay, so I'm very behind the times in reading this, but it just kinda passed me by completely. I mentioned to my girlfriend that I had nothing to read and she just passed me this, I have to say, I'm only about half way through and I think it's excellent. Extrremely well written, a good page-turner, yet it has it's nice deep moments too.

If you like murder mysteries you'll love this, if you love history you'll love this, trust me, if like me, you haven't read it yet, get a copy.

N.B. Bearing in mind I'm only half way through, if I get to the end and it turns out to have a ****ty ending (which I doubt) then I will retract all of what I said above.

[mack]

wow. this is officially the first time im irritated that Sciflicks doesnt have a multi-quote button. this place is so behind.

Originally Posted by Quintessa

You're not the only one with the inclination to compare me to Hermione. Ah, middle school was fun!

i think the its the hair. and the bookishness. in fact, i can totally see you as the girl that takes overmuch classes, and sits in the front of the class raising her hand repeatedly. now you just need to make sure that you find your Ginny, Ron and Harry. its nothing wrong with being Hermione: its that even Hermione needs to be understood (and I dont mean academically). Ron, Ginny and Harry provide that.

im not a 100% sure why ive suddenly waxed philosophical...?

Originally Posted by Wachy

that book looks absolutely awful.

well. ... ok, I confess I couldnt finish it. its just that these people who actually buy into the illuminati stuff are starting to really annoy me. one guy, a friends father, ranted and raved to me on the subject, and when i finally humored him and managed to get him to reveal his sources, he turned out to be an utter quack. i actually feel sorry for him, and if he keeps at it, im going to classify him as a raving lunatic.

then there's good old dad. oh yes. old dad somewhat buys into the conspiracy theory as well. granted, i havent really put my mind to it, or researched the question in any real way, but what little i have run across fills me with skepticism. enter this fictional science fiction book. i read it instead of real material because, at base, im intellectually lazy, unless passionately angry or genuinely interested in the subject matter. so this just goes to show - clearly im not overly interested in the illuminati, because if i were, i wouldve done more than read a few webpages and a science fiction (emphasis on fiction) book.

im not going to completely bash the book, though, because i think it is meant as odd read and colossal joke - as if the author had a really fun time writing it (that or he was stoned at the time). other than that, it is quite a laborious read, and shifts from 1st to 3rd person so swiftly as to leave your head spinning. to top that, the principal actor often changes mid-page, and occasionally mid-paragraph, so that reading the book actually feels like you are exploring the authors mind - "thinking" his story with him, as it were. its slightly surreal. i honestly thought "is he on drugs?"

i planned to keep at it from a purely "writing style" interest, because i had never seen writing that cluttered before, and i wanted to see if i could pick out an underlying theme or strand to it (that never happened, by the by). instead, i found myself racked with insurmountable incredulity after the (immediate) principal actor (1) got a randomly placed blow-job from a randomly placed girls, and (2) got onto a nautilus off the southern coast. it wasnt the random blow job that pushed (nay, broke) the (already fragile) envelope; it was the nautilus.

for me, it was like Louis Farrakahn saying that he went up in a spaceship; or like the Mormons believing that Heaven (or ultimate final reincarnation) really only means you get to go up into space and get your own planet. in a phrase, it was beyond belief. plus, it was time to return it to the library, so yeah - no renewal for that book.

all in all, it was what I assume being on drugs must feel like. one day i might attack it again out of sheer curiosity just to see if I can, but no current plans so far.

[SF_not_Sci-Fi]

Originally Posted by Wachesaw

Judging by the cover and title, that book looks absolutely awful.

Oh it is! It is! I read the whole trilogy. Don't bother unless you like poop. Mildly entertaining poop from the 1970's. It's meant to be awful, but it is godawful nonetheless.

[mack]

Black and White - Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge (2009 Bantam) - 5/10
More of a fun summer read - somewhat like reading a comic book without the pictures - not quite as juvenile, but definitely not deep either. Its a one-nighter.