Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'


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

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."


Ginger - Nov 14, 2012 9:02:02 am PST #20093 of 28344
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda

Robert Heinlein was very ill in the '70s and had a series of TIAs starting in 1978. I charitably believe that that's why late Heinlein sucks and focuses on the least attractive of his vices.

I can never condemn the man overall, because his inventiveness is unparalleled and his early work changed my life. I've reread the juveniles many times, except for Podkayne of Mars, which is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.


sumi - Nov 14, 2012 9:27:41 am PST #20094 of 28344
Art Crawl!!!

Goreyesque Primer of the Song of Ice and Fire deaths - spoilery if you haven't read all the books.


sumi - Nov 15, 2012 10:58:24 am PST #20095 of 28344
Art Crawl!!!

Okay. . . Barbara Van Tuyl of the "Bonnie" series of horse books repinned one of my pins on Pinterest!!!


Volans - Nov 15, 2012 11:47:58 am PST #20096 of 28344
move out and draw fire

I am broken like a broken thing. I just finished Code Name Verity.

I didn't stay up all night to read it, but I did put off any sort of useful work today.


Consuela - Nov 15, 2012 11:50:12 am PST #20097 of 28344
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

I am broken like a broken thing. I just finished Code Name Verity.

t hugs

It's brilliant, isn't it? And heartbreaking. I need to reread it, I think.

I can't wait to see what stories get written for Yuletide.


Volans - Nov 15, 2012 11:54:25 am PST #20098 of 28344
move out and draw fire

Such a lovely and terrible book. I think I might have to give it to a couple people for Xmas.

Of course, I was sitting on the couch staring out the window after having finished it, probably looking shell-shocked with running mascara (and it's also the time of the month where I cry at car commercials), when there was a brief knock at the door and a realtor and prospective tenant let themselves in.

I feigned illness.


Volans - Nov 15, 2012 11:58:14 am PST #20099 of 28344
move out and draw fire

tea:

What a neat bday present, sumi!


DavidS - Nov 18, 2012 10:28:04 am PST #20100 of 28344
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

An intriguing essay by a horror writer and fan on The Trouble With Horror. Useful also as a reading list of great horror novels.


JZ - Nov 19, 2012 10:26:12 am PST #20101 of 28344
See? I gave everybody here an opportunity to tell me what a bad person I am and nobody did, because I fuckin' rule.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's blog is currently giving me genre literature shudderfits -- he asked the Horde for help because he was having difficulty getting into The Big Sleep, feeling that although it's very witty the plot just doesn't hang together and the mystery doesn't make sense. The Other Noir fans got there before the Chandler fans did (one of the latter muttered, "We must have all been nursing our hangovers"), and most of the advice seems to run along the lines of, "Put it down, and go read Hammett instead."

Granted, if you really, really want to like classic noir and really, really don't like Chandler, "read Hammett instead" isn't bad advice, but GOOD GOD, MAN, whatever possessed you to read Chandler for the plot? He has many virtues as a writer, but plot is exactly none of them; if you're itching for a seamlessly crafted, faultlessly balanced and logical mystery Chandler is about the last guy you should be going to. How is this not a truth universally acknowledged?


§ ita § - Nov 19, 2012 10:34:07 am PST #20102 of 28344
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

How is this not a truth universally acknowledged?

Because lots of people don't know that? I mean, why should he? Isn't it fair to pick up a book by a renowned but not all that presently trendy author and expect a plot to hang together? Or are people that expert in Chandler before they read him for the first time?