Buffistas.org
Mal: He calls back, you keep them occupied. Wash: What do I do, shadow puppets?

'The Message'

Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

Discussion Threads

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."

First Previous Next Last Recent
Strix - Jan 25, 2010 1:09:14 pm PST #10806 of 28365
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

I can't recall if anyone else has read Octavia Butler, but I know ita has... So.

I read "Parable of the Talents" last night.

Is it just me, or is the ending one hot, tasked-on mess? It's like, two books of detail and world-building and character-building, and then 3 pages of "...and in the next 40 years, all the shit that I've been building up to happened. Then she died. Kthxbye!"

It was...an incredible letdown. She does all this thought different POV, enough that towards the last 20 pages,I thought "Oh, there must be a third book to deal with all of the stuff that's been building up in this book, with the daughter and Olamina and the uncle."

And then, 3 pages of...non-resolution.

TACKED. ON.

I was very disappointed.

Kat - Jan 25, 2010 7:11:59 pm PST #10807 of 28365
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo

Erin, I think she had originally intended to do a third, Parable of the Trickster. She's mentioned it in some interviews even. Not that it makes the letdown any less jarring.

§ ita § - Jan 25, 2010 7:18:17 pm PST #10808 of 28365
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I don't remember a letdown like that. I should reread it anyway.

Strix - Jan 25, 2010 7:21:14 pm PST #10809 of 28365
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger

please do, cause I was confuzzled by it.

DavidS - Jan 25, 2010 7:46:14 pm PST #10810 of 28365
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Thanks to IO9's pointing it out and Jessica's enthusiastic endorsement I am now reading Charles Stoss' Glasshouse.

I'm just getting started but it's (a) fascinating; (b) has a lot of resonance with Dollhouse (so far).

Thanks, Jess!

erin_obscure - Jan 25, 2010 7:56:51 pm PST #10811 of 28365
Occasionally I’m callous and strange

Dang, i just searched my library catalogue for _Soulless_ and there is but one title hit, which is about Anne Coulter. Ouch. Do not want.

Erin, i felt the same way about the ending of that book. She really should have written the third book.

meara - Jan 26, 2010 7:26:39 am PST #10812 of 28365

I read Glasshouse also, thanks to io9 and the library. I was all "science fiction and genderfuck, how could I not love it?" and parts of it I did, but other parts I more just wanted to smack the characters for being dumbasses.

Katerina Bee - Jan 26, 2010 3:42:16 pm PST #10813 of 28365
Herding cats for fun

I just lent my copy of "Parable of the Sower" to a junior college student next door. I eagerly await his thoughts about it all, because... I really cannot remember anything about the plot. Isn't that sad? All my other OEB books, yes: little bits of memory cling to their covers and remind me what I found between them. I so look forward to talking with anyone who's read some Butler.

I thought her last book would have been better if she'd lived long enough to do one last polishing of her prose, but the publisher released what she'd written anyway.

DebetEsse - Jan 26, 2010 4:11:11 pm PST #10814 of 28365
Woe to the fucking wicked.

By chance, is anyone reading Shades of Grey, the new Jasper Fforde?

erin_obscure - Jan 26, 2010 8:50:08 pm PST #10815 of 28365
Occasionally I’m callous and strange

Want! (but no, have not yet read it.)

First Previous Next Last Recent