'Beneath You'
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."
I love that book!
I'm with Strega (or even more so) -- I found the narrator so profoundly unlikeable by the end, and the entire sensibility of the book so... cold, I think, that I won't be reading any more Carroll. It's not that it's badly written, it's just rather alien to me, and discomforting. Which is not to say I didn't find it interesting -- but I also thought the ending kind of fell apart, as well.
It's not a book I regret reading, but I have no desire to read any more of that type.
So, anyone read The Rule of Four? Amazon's been recommending it to me, and it sounds like something I'd like, but it's only got 2.5 stars out of 1023 reviews.
From my initial skim of the reviews, it appears that the negatives are along the lines of "not as fluffy as The Da Vinci Code, and the author uses big words."
I read and enjoyed it, Raq. Thought it was far more fun and far less annoying than The Davinci Code. One or two things that kept throwing me out of the story (the weather, which frequently matters to the plot, was absolutely and completely wrong for NJ for that time of year), but other than that, fun and interesting read.
I second the fun read on The Rule of Four. Not a masterpiece, but at least as good as anything Dan Brown has written.
...and it's ordered. Thanks you two! Having read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and Foucault's Pendulum lo these many years ago, I wasn't at all impressed with Mr. Brown.
The fact that most of the negative reviews had really bad grammar and spelling spoke volumes, I think.
I also thought that the MacGuffin used in Rule of Four was far more interesting than the one in The DaVinci Code, and I found myself wishing that it could be true. I don't think I'd ever seen that particular idea used before.
I will say, although I can intellectually recognize that The Nothing Man is a fairly lame tabloid-y novel, and the least of Jim Thompson's many works, I also hold it dear to my heart for its OTT ranting about serving hot dogs in mayonnaise to a man who's had his dick shot off.
Wouldn't ketchup be worse?
Journalists like to think of themselves as presenting as accurate a picture as they can of the real world.
The American Association of Petroleum Geologists takes a broader view. It is presenting its annual journalism award this year to Michael Crichton, the science fiction writer whose latest book, "State of Fear," dismisses global warming as a largely imaginary threat embraced by malignant scientists for their own ends.
"It is fiction," conceded Larry Nation, communications director for the association. "But it has the absolute ring of truth."
say what?
The Absolute Ring of Truth!
Long have we, the brothers of the AAPG, sought it. With this simple band, forged in fiction, we shall bring our message to the entire world!