[October] What are you reading?

Stouthart · Oct 10, 2012

Nellisir said:
Finished Ready Player One last night; read Marsbound today.

I'll be blunt: I thought RP1 was a decent freshman effort, but lacked character depth, any really interesting plot twists, and the shoehorning in of current popular geek culture topics and personalities was annoying (Cory Doctorow and Wil Wheaton as official elected leaders of the Internet? Really?). The token black female lesbian was so token as to possibly be intentional. And the setting was...thin.

That sounds fairly harsh, but it wasn't terrible, just...average. A solid C+ or B-, maybe. Definitely not Neuromancer, Snow Crash, or When Gravity Fails, despite obvious similarities to the first two.

Marsbound was better.

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it. I found it to be thoroughly entertaining- it was funny, fresh, exciting and a quick read. It's no literary masterpiece, I'll give you that, but I still think its the highest level of brain-candy/popcorn fiction.

Nellisir · Oct 10, 2012

Stouthart said:
Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it. I found it to be thoroughly entertaining- it was funny, fresh, exciting and a quick read. It's no literary masterpiece, I'll give you that, but I still think its the highest level of brain-candy/popcorn fiction.

Different strokes for different folk n' all that. I think I was expecting more out of it, having heard of it from several sources.

Nellisir · Oct 10, 2012

Razjah - re: your family, screw with their mind and read Bridget Jones' Diary after The Prince. It's really good, and their heads will blow off try to make sense of it.

Razjah · Oct 10, 2012

Nellisir-It is either that or Twilight. And I needed the laugh from your comment, thanks.

Zaukrie · Oct 10, 2012

Into thin air....I have had it for years, but just started last night.

Nellisir · Oct 11, 2012

Razjah said:
Nellisir-It is either that or Twilight. And I needed the laugh from your comment, thanks.

I've got to say, the idea that someone's family would make fun of them for reading, let alone for reading Machiavelli's The Prince, sort of blows my mind. My family would look at the book, think a moment, and then give you a related-reading list.

Razjah · Oct 11, 2012

Nellisir said:
I've got to say, the idea that someone's family would make fun of them for reading, let alone for reading Machiavelli's The Prince, sort of blows my mind. My family would look at the book, think a moment, and then give you a related-reading list.

The short version is that when I read things like The Prince or The Art of War or the type of books read in literature classes they view it as being arrogant, or being an ass. This has been building up for a couple year and since graduating in May, it has gotten worse.

Nellisir · Oct 15, 2012

Started Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword.

Stumblewyk · Oct 15, 2012

Almost done with Dies the Fire, and then I'm on to one of a couple of Phillip K. Dick stories that I got on Amazon for my Kindle Fire last week. Amazon was selling a number of PKD's books at $1.99 a piece, so I snagged up The Simulacra, The Man in the High Castle, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Not sure which I'll dive into first.

Jhaelen · Oct 17, 2012

Razjah said:
The short version is that when I read things like The Prince or The Art of War or the type of books read in literature classes they view it as being arrogant, or being an ass. This has been building up for a couple year and since graduating in May, it has gotten worse.

Oh, dear

Why is it that these days for the general populace every sign of intelligence, education, or even just inventiveness or interest in anything beyond food, sports & sex is regarded as nothing but arrogance and elitism? This is a worrisome trend. Although sometimes I think it's starting to get better because 'geekness' is on its way to be considered cool by some.

Anyway, having read both books you mention, I can definitely warmly recommend 'The Prince'. It is very readable and modern in both language and content. It even got me interested in reading more from Machiavelli.

'The Art of War', however, didn't really do much for me. Maybe I wasn't in the right state of mind to grasp the greatness of it, but most of it didn't strike me as overly profound. At least it didn't take much time to read ^^.