That's a new name for me. Cheers!
That's a new name for me. Cheers!
My games-related Twitter: VexingVision
Currently playing: Gothic 2; Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition; Waking Mars; Anno Online
Rereading Rubicon by Tom Holland coupled with dipping into The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco (which is another reread).
Why yes you're right I'm deliciously evil
Tradition is the tyranny of dead men
Steam:Kadayi Origin: Kadayi GFWL: Kadayi
Probable Replicant
*blush* I'm flattered by the attention boys, but please let's not make the thread about liddle old me
Originally Posted by Finicky
Currently reading Blindsight by Peter Watts to get my sci-fi fix while occasionally disturbing myself with a story from Thomas Ligotti's Teatro Grottesco.
If anyone is looking for something a bit different that can be picked up and put down at any point I'd recommend Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Its a book of 100 or so wierd stories from around the 1600s that are all pretty short, some of them are only a couple of paragraphs long.
Rubicon was good, although I did prefer Persian Fire.
Just finished Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis, which is very good. WWII ends a lot faster when British warlocks and Nazi X-Men are involved. Next is The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemison, which seems good so far.
Just finished the first book in The Gap Into Conflict by Stephen R. Donaldson. Fun read but what is with Stephen and his negativity? Completely turned me off in Lord Foul's Bane when I was younger and almost made me not want to pick up this book. I'm glad I stuck to it and can't wait till I get the next one. I think I might even give The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant another try. There is one thing I'd like to know first though (no spoilers!), Thomas Covenant, does he continue to be so completely self centered and negative or does it turn around at some point?
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
It's been quite a while since I last read the chronicles but I remember things continuing to be quite negative until near the end of the second chronicles although Covenant is less self-centred. I haven't read the final chronicles so maybe things have improved but someone else would need to comment.
The Gap series is bleak, but I thought the payoff was worth it.
John Grisham : The Brethren.
I'm currently reading Andrew Keen's polemic against social media, The Cult of the Amateur.
I certainly agree with him in terms of the distressing consequences of new media, but while he's quick to blame my generation for what he describes as "digital narcissism," I see my generation effectively tuning out - turning to "social media" (or more accurately para-social media) and video games as a way of escaping what increasingly appears to be a world in which we're not allowed to participate. The unemployment rate of recent college grads in the US is close to 20%, most New York companies keep legions of unpaid interns instead of the more traditional stepping stones of starter positions, and we're overall quite worryingly being locked out of benefits and security. Hell, I'm still in my twenties and I've been laid off twice.
As such, I see us opiating ourselves because reality is just that bleak. Welcome to the Brave New World.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of most social media, most of the old guard's complaints about it seem fairly empty and self serving to me. It's not like print media was the bastion of honesty, ethics, accuracy and worthiness they always make it out to be. Doesn't matter what medium you're in, the drive for money, advertising revenue and the overall consumerist agenda will undermine it. The newspapers aren't all that much better than the TV networks in this regard. They are/were no better and often were worse, more proponents of what Nick Davies calls 'flat earth news' than of reliable information.
I expect Andrew Keen's book is slightly more involved than this throwaway observation, but I hardly see social media as the cause of endemic narcissism among youth and certainly can't be blamed for people being less engaged with contemporary society and its problems. If anything it does far more to get people actively, rather than passively, involved with problems beyond what an editor (and therefore a shareholder and an advertiser) views as relevant.
Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are not social interaction, unless your idea of social interaction is to yell at everybody in a deli how much you like your sandwich before immediately leaving.
Yes, newspapers are driven by money. But bloggers are not reporters, and they're certainly not editors or factcheckers. And if you can't see that you're losing something in the bargain when the Times have to remove foreign desks then you weren't paying attention in the first place.
It seems these days that newspapers aren't exactly putting that much effort into making sure their reporting is that much better than the average blogger, but thats just my jaded view on things what with all the scandals involving the british press recently.
Just started Crime & Punishment
Let's hope I finish it
Started book 1 of the Malazan series last night, it's kind of hard going, but the author's preface warned as much. The idea of a complete ten book series, where I don't have to wait 3-5 years for the next installment appeals to me a lot.
Also picked up Crime & Punishment, War & Peace and The Great Gatsby, because I noticed they were £0.59 on Amazon, which is a bit of a bargain. The Complete works of James Joyce was on for 1.79 or so as well, but think I've got enough to be getting on with for a while!
Reading the 'Steel and Snow' part of ASOIAF book 3. Enjoying thus far.
Just had a couple of cracking chapters, (spoilers, obv.) one with Sam after the Watch are brutalised and he ends up killing an Other, Robb dealing with Karstark and just had Brienne and Jamie's sword fight.
I sort of had this with Wheel of Time. Not complete, obviously, but enough to power through them often back-to-back. Then of course I read the ninth or tenth book or whichever it was and initially had a 2/3 year wait and then he popped his clogs.
Also had it with The Dark Tower, where I finished book 6 on the day book 7 came out over here, which pleased me greatly.
A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.
@Ian Yea, I know the feeling. After watching the Game of Thrones tv series, I decided to read the books and by the time I was finished with the fourth book, the fifth, A Dance with Dragons, was a week away from release. Of course, it turned out to be a massive piece of shit and a colossal disappointment.
Complete except for the other books in the universe written by a different guy (Ian Cameron Esslemont) that continue some of the stories set up in the main books at various points in the timeline. And now Erikson is writing a new trilogy that tell a story about part of the world long before the main set of books. There are also a few short books about a couple of side characters too.
I did enjoy the sense of world building from the books. Something like A Song of Ice and Fire feels much more focused on the characters and what they do whereas the Malazan books feel like the focus is on the world they created more than the characters. They have plenty of characters of course, but they don't close their stories off neatly and they hint at a lot more than they tell in the books. Occasionally they meander and some parts were hard reading, but at the end I was ready for more.
I've just started The Scar by China Mieville after finishing Perdido Street Station. The last fantasy stuff I read was the latest Malazan book as it happens and it was a nice change to read something so focused. Again, I love the world he's created and I'm actually more interested in finding out about that than what the main characters happen to be doing. Admittedly I'm only a couple of chapters in so that will probably change over time, but Bag-Lag is the main attraction right now.
Last edited by Goateh; 01-06-2012 at 01:06 PM.
Oh right. Was it me who called them social media? I didn't realise I'd coined the term - I should really get some kind of return on that. Obviously I can see the loss but it's massively exaggerated and the culprit isn't the 'cult of the amateur' so much as the failure of the institutionalised to either adapt to the times or adhere to their own principles.
Actually looking at what you wrote, I don't really see much relevance to what I said. Just seems like you jumped at another chance to show what a sneering arse you can be?
Well I just finished Abhorsen. I started with Sabriel around the turn of the millennium. Clearly, the digital age has yet to kill patience.
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