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Grand unified books thread

Started by Syt, March 16, 2009, 01:52:42 AM

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jimmy olsen

Quote from: Slargos on June 17, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
One objection, though.

If Wizards make "technology" malfunction by their very presence, how is it that he can drive around in a car with no mention of it ever going haywire?
Is it an older car? Before, say 1995 there weren't electronics in cars.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Razgovory

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 18, 2011, 12:30:21 AM
Quote from: Slargos on June 17, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
One objection, though.

If Wizards make "technology" malfunction by their very presence, how is it that he can drive around in a car with no mention of it ever going haywire?
Is it an older car? Before, say 1995 there weren't electronics in cars.

Really?  I've driven cars older then that.  They had electric ignitions, power steering, and radio.  Headlights even! I think I might classify an internal combustion engine as a form of technology.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

Slargos

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 18, 2011, 12:30:21 AM
Quote from: Slargos on June 17, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
One objection, though.

If Wizards make "technology" malfunction by their very presence, how is it that he can drive around in a car with no mention of it ever going haywire?
Is it an older car? Before, say 1995 there weren't electronics in cars.

I understand what you're saying, even if Raz's objection holds true in that there's plenty of electronics in a car from 1920 as well. However, the author does note that even simple tech like a revolver is prone to fouling up even if not as regularly. He doesn't ever mention the car going haywire, however, and Dresden doesn't shy away from taking a Taxi and I doubt he can find many 1950s Taxis still running.

The series reads like it's written for uncritical teenagers sometimes.

But minor quibbles aside, it looks like it's got some promise.

The Brain

Quote from: Slargos on June 18, 2011, 06:19:11 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 18, 2011, 12:30:21 AM
Quote from: Slargos on June 17, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
One objection, though.

If Wizards make "technology" malfunction by their very presence, how is it that he can drive around in a car with no mention of it ever going haywire?
Is it an older car? Before, say 1995 there weren't electronics in cars.

I understand what you're saying, even if Raz's objection holds true in that there's plenty of electronics in a car from 1920 as well. However, the author does note that even simple tech like a revolver is prone to fouling up even if not as regularly. He doesn't ever mention the car going haywire, however, and Dresden doesn't shy away from taking a Taxi and I doubt he can find many 1950s Taxis still running.

The series reads like it's written for uncritical teenagers sometimes.

But minor quibbles aside, it looks like it's got some promise.

Inconsistencies like that are the author's way to tell you that it's all just a dream.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

garbon

Quote from: The Brain on June 18, 2011, 07:02:27 AM
Inconsistencies like that are the author's way to tell you that it's all just a dream.

You're a dream to me.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

BuddhaRhubarb

Started Eric Idle's novel "Road To Mars". which is the "Borscht Belt" of 25th century stand up Comedy. Witty stuff that reads very Python. Very. I could easily see the troupe in their heyday making a funny SF Python movie. There isn't anyone of of that calibre in modern comedy that could do this kind of thing justice.
:p

11B4V

QuoteBLOOD, STEEL, MYTH: The II.SS-Panzer-Korps and the Road to Prochorowka [Hardcover]
George Nipe Jr. (Author)
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Are you fucking kidding me?? This hasnt even come out yet. :lmfao:
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

CountDeMoney

Taking a slight respite from my recently bout of chronic Rushdie-worship, I quickly devoured The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano.  A lovely little novel, very touching and the author, a mathematician with a PhD in particle physics, writes like one: elegantly sparse, base, allowing you to see the complexity in its own simple intimacy.

Unfortunately, it also strikes me as the kind of novel that could launch a loosely-based independent film that would destroy its center.

Now, it's off to Titus Andronicus and the 2011 Pushcart Prize anthology.

Gups

CdM,

Have you read any of Rushie's latest and if so has he returned to form? Used to be my favourite modern writer but I kind of gave up after Ground Beneath Her Feet and Shalamar the Clown

CountDeMoney

He's taken a change in tack with works like Haroun and Luka as fairy tales for adults, and while there's a noticable drop in the expository, I think it lends to a more focused, tighter style.  It fits him, despite its lack of sprawl.  He still does his wonders with the English language, though.

You didn't like Shalimar? I thought it was wonderful.

Octavian

Currently reading a book about the history of the sword and the first volume of Masters of the Sea series which takes place during the first Punic war on a trireme. I thus continue my Roman themed historical novels reading habit after the completion of the Emperor series books.

All of the above are read on my Kindle.



If you let someone handcuff you, and put a rope around your neck, don't act all surprised if they hang you!

- Eyal Yanilov.

Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely - lay your life before him.

- Bruce Lee

Syt

I've started reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series. More than halfway through book 1. Good stuff so far.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

The Brain

Finished Platoon Leader: A Memoir Of Command In Combat by McDonough. Very nice little book. :)
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Admiral Yi

Quote from: The Brain on July 02, 2011, 05:44:19 AM
Finished Platoon Leader: A Memoir Of Command In Combat by McDonough. Very nice little book. :)

Which war?

The Brain

Quote from: Admiral Yi on July 02, 2011, 07:33:47 AM
Quote from: The Brain on July 02, 2011, 05:44:19 AM
Finished Platoon Leader: A Memoir Of Command In Combat by McDonough. Very nice little book. :)

Which war?

Vietnam, 1970. A platoon protecting a strategic hamlet.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.