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  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Jumped straight into Starship Troopers. It's really good. Really good.

    about 25% in. Deep parallels with Full Metal Jacket (obviously).

    edit: Heinlein was not at all subtle in this book.
    Last edited by dxmnkd316; 07-13-2023, 07:05 PM.

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  • bronconick
    replied
    I bailed on the 3rd or 4th? Dune book way back when. Just got too damn weird.

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  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Originally posted by Kepler View Post
    First half of Dune is brilliant. Second half feels like it was written on a deadline.
    Yes! Exactly! It was so very rushed. Like a film missing frames left on the editing block.

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  • Kepler
    replied
    First half of Dune is brilliant. Second half feels like it was written on a deadline. The writing quality has already sunk -- I guess whoever wrote the first half for him had other projects.



    This is true of a lot of epics. The first half of War & Peace is perfect and believe it or not is terse. The second half feels like Tolstoy was getting paid by the word.



    Last edited by Kepler; 07-13-2023, 03:23 PM.

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  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Originally posted by ScoobyDoo View Post

    I noticed the same thing. A lot of big events in the end were written like a history textbook instead of a novel.

    I am on the 4th book right now. It's been an interesting weird ride.
    That's a great way of describing it. Very very focused. Which, maybe was inevitable to actually wrap up the story. It just felt like the half-dozen storylines collapsed violently to one in the second half.

    The two or three-year gap in the middle of part 2 almost deserved a couple hundred pages on its own. I thought I had a stroke and missed something. I went back and reread the last dozen or so pages to make sure I hadn't.

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  • ScoobyDoo
    replied
    Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post
    Finished Dune. The last third of that book was traveling at warp speed. I'm not sure I liked the structure and pacing to be honest. Great story. Writing was good. But like, we went from meeting Stilgar to the last scene in what felt like 100 pages of a 900-page novel.

    and the amount of detail and chess pieces felt so immersive in the first half only to have the second half feel like it was written by someone else. The difference between an open world game to a platformer
    I noticed the same thing. A lot of big events in the end were written like a history textbook instead of a novel.

    I am on the 4th book right now. It's been an interesting weird ride.

    Leave a comment:


  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Finished Dune. The last third of that book was traveling at warp speed. I'm not sure I liked the structure and pacing to be honest. Great story. Writing was good. But like, we went from meeting Stilgar to the last scene in what felt like 100 pages of a 900-page novel.

    and the amount of detail and chess pieces moving around felt so immersive in the first half only to have the second half feel like it was written by someone else. The difference between an open world game to a platformer

    edit: that said. I enjoyed it overall. I think it certainly needs to be read a second time.
    Last edited by dxmnkd316; 07-13-2023, 03:15 PM.

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  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Originally posted by St. Clown View Post

    The American movie of the first book was much more true to that book than the Swedish movies that covered all three books. I think the Swedish movies were afraid of the content being on the screen and people missing the point that Larrson intended. Although, the original Swedish title for the first book translates to “Men Who Hate Women,” so it would’ve been harder to miss, but I think the Swedish movies used the English titles as Larssen had died by then.
    Yeah, I just didn't feel like the Swedish movie captured that. The changed story was such a bad pivot.

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  • St. Clown
    replied
    Originally posted by dxmnkd316 View Post

    Ugh. The movies all completely rewrite the book or are terrible. I'm still upset about them.
    The American movie of the first book was much more true to that book than the Swedish movies that covered all three books. I think the Swedish movies were afraid of the content being on the screen and people missing the point that Larrson intended. Although, the original Swedish title for the first book translates to “Men Who Hate Women,” so it would’ve been harder to miss, but I think the Swedish movies used the English titles as Larssen had died by then.

    Leave a comment:


  • dxmnkd316
    replied
    Originally posted by wolverineTrumpet View Post
    Finally read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

    Listened to a bit more than half of it on audiobook in my car, then when I got home from work Friday, I didn't want to wait for my commute to listen again. Knowing I had a paperback of it, I found it and read the last 250 pages.

    Now my husband wants to watch the movie with me, and I just know it won't be as good. So much had to have been cut. How do you take a 16 hour audiobook and make a 2.5 hour movie? I liked the slow build in the book where it felt like 2 very different stories and I was waiting to see how they would intertwine.
    Ugh. The movies all completely rewrite the book or are terrible. I'm still upset about them.

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  • Kepler
    replied
    Originally posted by burd View Post

    As I said, it's been quite a long time. I know I enjoyed Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and Waterworks. I'll have to reread them, something I often do when time has passed. I recall thinking Saul Bellow and Thomas Wolfe were discovered treasure when I started to read both of them out of school as a young man who had left home (read some before that, but I was, and still am, a hayseed). They're not as easy for me to read now. The stuff that really lights your fire (Kant, Schopenhauer, et al.) I struggled with even in college. Too casual a reader and scholar to ever reach that fitness level.

    I have a very short and shallow attention span, and a very long and deep rumination span. With Schopenhauer a long passage is 10 pages, with Kant it's 3. With Hegel it's a paragraph. And then I have enough to think about for hours. I love diving but I hate swimming.

    So there's almost no fiction I can read at length. Mysteries and SF are the exception, because they are constantly giving off intellectual sparks. But a drama -- guh -- it's a hard slog. Theater is different for some reason, but novels are torture and verse I'd rather play three games against the Braves with the season on the line.

    From everything I have read about Doctorow I would love him. I guess Ragtime is where I will start again for the fifth time. It took me at least a half dozen tries to finally be old enough to read The Name of the Rose.


    Last edited by Kepler; 07-10-2023, 01:35 PM.

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  • burd
    replied
    Originally posted by Kepler View Post

    I've tried to get into him in the past but was not patient enough. What is your favorite book by him?
    As I said, it's been quite a long time. I know I enjoyed Ragtime, Billy Bathgate, and Waterworks. I'll have to reread them, something I often do when time has passed. I recall thinking Saul Bellow and Thomas Wolfe were discovered treasure when I started to read both of them out of school as a young man who had left home (read some before that, but I was, and still am, a hayseed). They're not as easy for me to read now. The stuff that really lights your fire (Kant, Schopenhauer, et al.) I struggled with even in college. Too casual a reader and scholar to ever reach that fitness level.

    Leave a comment:


  • wolverineTrumpet
    replied
    Finally read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

    Listened to a bit more than half of it on audiobook in my car, then when I got home from work Friday, I didn't want to wait for my commute to listen again. Knowing I had a paperback of it, I found it and read the last 250 pages.

    Now my husband wants to watch the movie with me, and I just know it won't be as good. So much had to have been cut. How do you take a 16 hour audiobook and make a 2.5 hour movie? I liked the slow build in the book where it felt like 2 very different stories and I was waiting to see how they would intertwine.

    Leave a comment:


  • Kepler
    replied
    Originally posted by burd View Post
    Reading Doctorow’s “The March,” a fictional account of Sherman’s campaign to Savannah and northward. It’s been a long time since I’ve read him, and I forgot how gifted a writer he is. There so much music, art, literature, and other means of expression out there to make our lives a little less dreadful.
    I've tried to get into him in the past but was not patient enough. What is your favorite book by him?

    Leave a comment:


  • burd
    replied
    Reading Doctorow’s “The March,” a fictional account of Sherman’s campaign to Savannah and northward. It’s been a long time since I’ve read him, and I forgot how gifted a writer he is. There so much music, art, literature, and other means of expression out there to make our lives a little less dreadful.

    Leave a comment:

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