A man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything.

Wash ,'The Message'


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."

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Dana - Dec 09, 2024 2:11:40 pm PST #28085 of 28094
"I'm useless alone." // "We're all useless alone. It's a good thing you're not alone."

This has gone around BlueSky in a specific circle, but if you've read Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman books and would like to enable her to finish the last two books, she now has a Patreon. Details here:

[link]


amyparker - Dec 13, 2024 11:47:33 am PST #28086 of 28094
You've got friends to have good times with. When you need to share the trauma of a badly-written book with someone, that's when you go to family.

If you missed the John Scalzi Humble Bundle last time 'round, it's being offered again for the next three days.

There are still two days to pick up the Le Guin bundle, too.


Consuela - Dec 20, 2024 9:35:50 pm PST #28087 of 28094
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

I'm so frustrated by Scalzi. He seems an enormously decent human being, and his fiction just leaves me cold.

As in, I just bought and read Starter Villain, and the premise deserved to be either a short story or a much denser novel. It was meh.

In other news, I read The Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins for book club, and it was great, although felt rather unfinished (she had a stroke 3/4 of the way through writing it and her daughter worked with her on the ending but it's a big shaky).

Currently loaded on the kindle is Countess by Suzan Palumbo. No, I have no idea why I borrowed it from the library. Presumably I saw a rec for it, put it on hold, and now it has shown up on my Kindle. Hope it's good!


-t - Dec 21, 2024 6:35:46 am PST #28088 of 28094
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Oh, that’s too bad. Starter Villain was the first Scalzi that really won me over! I’m still a bit iffy on his oeuvre in general, but that one I just thoroughly enjoyed in an uncomplicated way. I still don’t think I’m going to read Old Man’s War, though.


Calli - Dec 21, 2024 6:52:36 am PST #28089 of 28094
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs

I liked his Kaiju Preservation Society. Old Man’s War failed to hold me.


Jessica - Dec 21, 2024 11:52:34 am PST #28090 of 28094
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

He seems an enormously decent human being, and his fiction just leaves me cold.

Yep, same. His blog/Twitter/Bluesky is delightful, his books are...mostly pretty boring, I find. I'm glad he's successful, because I do genuinely think he's a good person, but his writing does not grab me.


Consuela - Dec 21, 2024 2:12:01 pm PST #28091 of 28094
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix

his writing does not grab me.

There's no density to it, no full sensory experience, no layers. It means his work can be easily adapted to the screen, I suspect. But it's just 2D to me.

IMO! Other people may be getting more out of it than I do.


-t - Dec 21, 2024 2:37:32 pm PST #28092 of 28094
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

That does sound right. I’m gonna file that away to think about next time I do read something of his. I get in moods where thinking about why I don’t really like what I’m reading seems way more important than just reading something I like…and if I do like the next thing of his, considering it under this lens should also be illuminating.

I’m currently reading Days of Shattered Faith and I have zero complaints so far. Other than with my memory, since I can remember just enough from the first two books to be sure that I’m missing a lot of references/resonances (like “oh, this character is actually that character from the first book! What was his deal? Nope, don’t remember” only it takes a lot longer for me to work through that

I have Something Extraordinary up next and that whole series has been such a mixed bag of stuff I wanted to like conceptually mixed with stuff I actually like rather a lot but peppered with stuff I just don’t care for at all. I don’t know whether I hope I like it or look forward to hating it at this point


Dana - Dec 21, 2024 4:07:09 pm PST #28093 of 28094
"I'm useless alone." // "We're all useless alone. It's a good thing you're not alone."

I really liked Redshirts. Starter Villain was fine.


Pix - Dec 21, 2024 9:59:54 pm PST #28094 of 28094
We're all getting played with, babe. -Weird Barbie

Huh. I loved the Old Man's War series and pretty much everything else he's written.


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