Grand unified books thread

[Eddie Teach]

Wouldn't have expected the country kitchen place mat.

[11B4V]

Wouldn't have expected the country kitchen place mat.

Well, we're not savages here, you know.

[dps]

Wouldn't have expected the country kitchen place mat.

No one expects the country kitchen place mat.

[Savonarola]

I finally finished reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo.  It was even better than the sandwich.   



I had read the story (in translation) when I was a young teenager; then I liked all the daring swashbuckling.  This time through I was struck by the moral complexity of the novel.  The question is raised on a couple occasions if Dante's revenge is at all just; and Dante himself seems to doubt it (briefly) after de Villefort is driven mad through Dante's machinations.

[Admiral Yi]

Have you read Les Trois Mousquetaires (sp?)?  I managed to follow along pretty well.

[Razgovory]

I thought about getting that Kursk book but then I rememered Kursk is boring.

Well judging from the photo, all the text inside is in gibberish.

[Savonarola]

Have you read Les Trois Mousquetaires (sp?)?  I managed to follow along pretty well.

Yes, Les Trois Mousquetaires is a good place to start for the French student since the prose isn't difficult and (for Dumas) it's short.  Jules Verne is similar.

[Syt]

Drew Karpyshyn. Senior writer for Knights of the Old Republic and the first two Mass Effect games. He's worked on Baldur's Gate II and Jade Empire.

Pretty decent credentials.

Why, then, are his novels so aweful? I got the Mass Effect books when I was mildly obsessed with the first game and waited for the second. I couldn't make it through the first 100 pages, because the characters were one dimensional, acted stupid, and I can't stand his style. He uses a lot of constructions of the type, "The character did this, doing some else besides." His characters rarely just say something, they joke, admit, accuse, wheeze, mutter, counter, growl, or explain. When they actually DO say something, they do it thoughtfully, with a grim tone, with trembling voice, but in extreme cases they will be exclaiming angrily.

So, yeah, I tossed those books into a corner. I guess I would blame the editor who didn't stop this nonsense more than the writer himself.

Then I saw that he's written Star Wars Old Republic books. And I thought, "Well, maybe he's gotten better." Spoiler: he hasn't.

Star Wars: Revan. It starts with: "Revan's eyes snapped open, the primal fury of his nightmare wrenching him awake for the third night in a row." I sighed, hoping that this would be a one off.

Third paragraph, same page still: "A sense of calm settled over him, washing away the irrational terror of his dream."

And so it continues, shoddily. Before the five page chapter is out, Bastila and Revan will have suggested, echoed, insisted, whispered, cut off, assured each other. The book then goes on to introduce Lord Scourge, a Sith who can become a companion for the Jedi Knight in SWTOR. We're told he's a skilled warrior, was top of his class in the academy, and is quickly rising in the Sith ranks. He's been asked to Dromund Kaas to investigate attacks on Darth Nyriss, a member of the Dark Council.

A servant picks him up at the space port. He sees the servant talk to some shady mercenaries. Later, at the estate of the Council member, these mercenaries ambush him, while Dath Nyriss's guards have disappeared. When the last merc is about to say who they were hired by, he's killed by the guard who has returned. Lord Scourge wonders if the jealous guard hired the mercs to get rid of him, and is completely and utterly surprised to learn that Darth Nyriss hired them to test his strength. The idea hadn't even entered his mind:

"You were right about the mercenaries, but I already know who hired them to try to kill you."
"Who?"
"Me."
"You?" Scourge exclaimed. Her admission had caught him off guard.
"After the second assassination attempt, Murtog and Sechel found a lead. I hired those mercenaries to follow up on it. But before they could, the Emperor decided to interfere, forcing me to bring you in. Your arrival left me with an excess of outside agents, so I told Sechel to instruct the mercenaries to try to take you out of the picture. Consider it a test."
"Of course," Scourge muttered, silently cursing himself for being so shortsighted.

And he continues to blunder around like that.

I made it about 25% into the book before I couldn't stand it anymore.

Yes, it's genre literature, and I adjust my expectations to that. But excuse me for expecting something that's of better quality than amateur fan fiction (no offense towards fan writers, some of whom I presume are quite good and better than this.)

[Admiral Yi]

Just bought the new Niall Ferguson book on Kissinger.  Also bought the first two volumes of Caro's LBJ for my mom, which I plan to read when she's done with them.

[Valmy]

I made the same mistake you did Syt.

I thought 'well I love the dialog Gaider and Karpyshyn write. I bet I would enjoy their books as well.'

As it turns out being a great video game writer and being an author do not map 1:1.

[11B4V]

Reading Glantz's;

Red Storm over the Balkans. Spring of 1944.

or aka

Exposing the Cover-up of the Soviet failed offensive into Romania Spring of 1944.

[Admiral Yi]

Just bought the new Niall Ferguson book on Kissinger.

Soon after Heinz submitted his senior thesis, Harvard instituted a rule that no senior thesis could exceed 140 pages.  Kissinger's was 388.

[11B4V]

Reading Daglish's Goodwood, Epsom, and Bluecoat books.

Very well written and flows nicely.

[Malthus]

Read a book entitled The Woman Who Would Be King, a bio of Egyptian "King" Hatshepsut, and "his" glorious, cross-dressing, incestuous career as a female "king".  In ancient Egypt, there was no word for "queen" - only "king's wife". So when Hatshepsut took the throne herself, on the death of her brother-husband, she used the male title - and gradually assumed the male gender, in her depictions at least. 

One interesting part was how she very gradually changed her iconography - from fully female, through a woman wearing a man's crown, to a woman wearing an entirely male outfit, to a woman wearing a male outfit and sporting a beard (but still having boobs), to a completely male image - outfit, beard, no boobs and all.

Allegedly, the colours chosen to paint her image went through the same metamorphosis--in ancient Egypt, women were painted yellow, men were painted red: she went from yellow, though a unique orange, to red.

Despite becoming, in iconography, a "man", she retained the feminine name and grammar in inscriptions about her, oddly enough.

Another oddity: she ended up "marrying" her own daughter, at least for ritual purposes (the daughter also took on the role of "God's wife of Amun" that Hatshepsut had held prior to becoming King. Oddly, the rituals associated with that role involved - getting naked, playing a rattle while dancing, and masturbating a statue of the God Amun (his orgasm is supposed to re-create the universe). You won't see that one in Church these days. 

[Valmy]

Masturbating with your mom? Ewwwww.

I would skip church that day.