Just finished The Ruins by Scott Smith and thoroughly enjoyed it. In between Strange Weather stories I'm trying to read a different book so next one I'm starting is The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
Just finished The Ruins by Scott Smith and thoroughly enjoyed it. In between Strange Weather stories I'm trying to read a different book so next one I'm starting is The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
Looking for Suntup Brother ARC and Suntup Seed ARC
I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!Originally Posted by Aremag
HELP ME FIND
Insomnia #459
ANY S/L #459
I almost rented the movie while I was reading the book but decided I wanted to finish the book first.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
Looking for Suntup Brother ARC and Suntup Seed ARC
yes that is what I did.... I waited till book was done.I almost rented the movie while I was reading the book but decided I wanted to finish the book first.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
HELP ME FIND
Insomnia #459
ANY S/L #459
Just finished A Simple Plan by Scott Smith - recommended to me and gifted by a friend. What a gripping book, but oh so brutal. Have either of you read it? Contemplating reading The Ruins, but I might need to wait a while if it's anything like A Simple Plan.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
Haven't read it but will put it on my list. I found The Ruins gripping, almost claustrophobic, and scary in a different way than any of the few novels that scared me. I wouldn't say it was brutal but maybe a tad disturbing from time to time.Just finished A Simple Plan by Scott Smith - recommended to me and gifted by a friend. What a gripping book, but oh so brutal. Have either of you read it? Contemplating reading The Ruins, but I might need to wait a while if it's anything like A Simple Plan.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
Looking for Suntup Brother ARC and Suntup Seed ARC
Loved that one to!!!! I liked the Ruins better though I think!!!Just finished A Simple Plan by Scott Smith - recommended to me and gifted by a friend. What a gripping book, but oh so brutal. Have either of you read it? Contemplating reading The Ruins, but I might need to wait a while if it's anything like A Simple Plan.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
HELP ME FIND
Insomnia #459
ANY S/L #459
Around a week ago, I finished I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith (author of The Hundred And One Dalmations).
As I said before, it is the first person journal of a 17-year-old girl whose family resides in an old castle; she tries to make sense of her family's situation (her writer father that won't, or can't, write anymore, a younger brother, an older sister) as events and visitors bring hope and change to them. Lighthearted and interesting, this was pleasant, not my usual thing, but I enjoyed it.
Eastasia has always taught college students to feel pride or shame according to their race.
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
by Edith Hamilton
I'm also reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to my daughter. I've been reading them to her in order. We are nearly done with #4 and then on to #5
ISO DT I-IV #101, rage,Suntup Press Horns, Rosemary's Baby and The Road w/designation #239
I recently read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. From 1911, it is considered a classic, and has been adapted, for film and stage, numerous times, including one that is about to be released.
A pretty basic read, mainly for children but not at all unfriendly to adult eyes, telling the story of a spoiled daughter of English parents living in India as part of the ruling class. When events return her to the care of an uncle in the English countryside, many things change.
This was a very good story (I hope the upcoming Colin Firth film does it justice), and uplifting, which, for me, is not always a good thing; I don't much enjoy feeling I'm being force-fed a spoonful of sugar, but TSG left me feeling that many things are possible, that one really can get from where one doesn't want to be to where one does want to be, and that that which seems hopelessly and prohibitively complex might in the end be quite simple after all - I left this one feeling as if I were walking on clouds, and strongly recommend it to anyone who might like to peruse an old classic or something to push the emotional cobwebs aside, if only for a week.
Eastasia has always taught college students to feel pride or shame according to their race.
I recently began my third read of The Damnation Game by Clive Barker, am about halfway through.
Eastasia has always taught college students to feel pride or shame according to their race.
Sam Raimi Directed a film version. Really well done.Just finished A Simple Plan by Scott Smith - recommended to me and gifted by a friend. What a gripping book, but oh so brutal. Have either of you read it? Contemplating reading The Ruins, but I might need to wait a while if it's anything like A Simple Plan.I really liked the Ruins a lot to. Surprised at how much I did. I rented the movie after and that wasn't to bad either!
seeking: anything DT related #246
ANYTHING DT Related #246
Dead Zone First Edition F/F or NF/NF
American Gods
seeking: anything DT related #246
ANYTHING DT Related #246
Dead Zone First Edition F/F or NF/NF
Enjoy! One of my all time favorite novels.
It has been on my list for a long time and FINALLY into it. What are your thoughts on the tv show?Enjoy! One of my all time favorite novels.
seeking: anything DT related #246
ANYTHING DT Related #246
Dead Zone First Edition F/F or NF/NF
The first season is brilliant. I haven't seen the second, but unfortunately it lost its principal showrunner(s) so I'm going to walk in with lowered expectations. I'm sure its still going to be a fun watch though, how can't it be with such a rich cast of characters.It has been on my list for a long time and FINALLY into it. What are your thoughts on the tv show?Enjoy! One of my all time favorite novels.
seeking: anything DT related #246
So glad to hear that. Looking forward to follow up with the show.The first season is brilliant. I haven't seen the second, but unfortunately it lost its principal showrunner(s) so I'm going to walk in with lowered expectations. I'm sure its still going to be a fun watch though, how can't it be with such a rich cast of characters.It has been on my list for a long time and FINALLY into it. What are your thoughts on the tv show?Enjoy! One of my all time favorite novels.
seeking: anything DT related #246
seeking: anything DT related #246
ANYTHING DT Related #246
Dead Zone First Edition F/F or NF/NF
Full throttle, By Joe Hill.
Some quality stories here. I’m about 2/3 of the way through, and there hasn’t been a dud yet.
“If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Looking for SubPress Lettered::
Angel's Game and Prisoner of Heaven (Zafon)
Ilium (Simmons)
Over half way in Lisey’s Story. The pain... Please end...
Wish List:
Any of the following flatsigned or inscribed-
It, Shining, Salem’s Lot, Mr. Mercedes, The Stand
Brother ARC, Seed ARC
This phenomenon continues to confound me.
Eastasia has always taught college students to feel pride or shame according to their race.
It's the smucking bad gunky!!!
Wish List:
Any of the following flatsigned or inscribed-
It, Shining, Salem’s Lot, Mr. Mercedes, The Stand
Brother ARC, Seed ARC
Yesterday I finished The Damnation Game by Clive Barker.
[NOTE: this is one of my rambles, so either grab a snack or drink and settle in, or skip on out - no one would blame you (other than me, and I hold a grudge like a dog with a bone).]
This is my third read of TDG: I read it shortly after buying it (likely in the late 80s) and again in 2014.
About my initial read: I remember generally enjoying it and thinking "wow, there are other ways [other than King's] to tell a story after all," but I don't recall how much I liked it or what I thought of the story.
About my 2014 read: I remember this better (and have the notes to fill in the blanks), but before getting to that, I have to cover my entire history of reading:
From my childhood to my early 20s, I read what I wanted when I wanted: basically, loads of King, some Lovecraft and Carl Sagan, a few random horror things, Lord Of The Rings (but not much other fantasy), and maybe a touch of science fiction. All in all, I approached reading the way you might approach sports on TV: you check out a game when you have time, and you enjoy the movement and action.
In my mid-20s, I got a family, started working a shitload of hours, and started going to school at night. I stopped reading fiction, other than reading when given a book as a gift (I first encountered Harry Potter and caught up on, and finished, the Dark Tower series this way).
Eventually, work hours shrank, night school wrapped up, my commuting time (30 or 40 minutes each way on weekdays) was freed up, and I tried to jump back in to regular book reading. The thing was, and I'm not sure how best to explain this, I was used to getting a certain charge out of reading whatever I read, almost like I only wanted the reading equivalent of candy or rollercoasters or a catchy 4-minute song. Maybe what I'm getting at is that I'd never read anything that required me to settle down and sink into the subtlety of it. I know this sounds like I'm saying King is mindless junk, but I don't feel that way; this has nothing to do with the quality of what I read but with how I processed it.
Anyway, I looked to my bookcase for choices on what to read: King books I'd bought but hadn't yet read, King books due for a re-read, a handful of non-King things I'd bought because they seemed like a good idea (prime example: a long-neglected BOMC set of Henry David Thoreau including A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers, Civil Disobedience, Walden, and The Maine Woods) - and from this I would choose something, hoping and expecting an immediate jolt of entertainment - and it almost never worked out (although I have to say, re-reads of John Christopher's Tripod Trilogy, Harry Potter, and Shadowland - obviously Shadowland - worked out just fine during this time).
I tried to force things to work by doing things in a way that, in retrospect, pretty much guaranteed that I wasn't going to enjoy much at all, such as spacing the three Lord Of The Rings books out (reading one other book between Fellowship and Two Towers, and 10 books between Two Towers and Return Of The King - my head was fully and well lodged in my ass at this point). I read Asimov's Foundation series (5 books, not 3, thank you) around this time, reading the first 2 between Two Towers and TROTK, and the last 3 shortly after finishing TROTK; that the contrast between those two series, which are quite different indeed, made me feel bad about both rather than make me appreciate what each one did so well is a measure of just how badly I was doing the reading thing (was I too used to textbooks at this point? had I forgotten how to enjoy? damned if I know).
Eventually, I managed to turn things around by consciously doing the opposite of seeking the next piece of candy: I resigned myself to selecting something that looked to be mind-numbingly dull, and to go with it, to allow it to be what it was, to anticipate and outright savor the dull - that's right, I went with the aforementioned Thoreau set, reading all of it without moving on to anything else. [I would describe Thoreau's writing as like going on a very long walk through the woods with an eccentric uncle that talks the entire time about life, philosophy, government, etc., and from whom you can learn much if you have an attention span. It was as dull, or exciting, as the reader might find such a walk. For me, it was a very quiet thing, during which the part of me that initially waited for it to end so I could begin anything that had a damn pulse slowly died as I realized it was okay with me if it went on forever.]
The main thing with Thoreau was that I understood it wasn't going to succeed by the measure of anything other that what it was, and that expectations are the enemy of absolutely everything - I believe that by beginning with something so different, and so minimal, the ability to allow whatever I was reading to be what it was clicked firmly into place for me and would remain going forward - the old St. Troy was back, and better than ever. [I own about 4 bookcases worth of books, but only 1 bookcase; the Thoreau set earned its place there, a reminder of what reading is, and should be, for me.]
...the point of all of which is that my second read of The Damnation Game occurred about a month before I began that re-read of LOTR - prime "head up my ass" territory. Let's see what Moron Troy had to say about TDG at the time:
Return to present day:...It has Barker’s usual horrors of what people do to each other when they stop being human.
The first section is like a film’s establishing shot; lots of telling rather than showing. Not that that’s bad, but when I feel a bit of this coming on I instinctively try to avoid it, and I probably shouldn’t, given that it works well (when done well).
Smart writing...
Very very wordy, almost, but not quite, as wordy as Salman Rushdie.
Barker told an interesting story with unpredictable plot progress and logical conclusion, and while he came up with some pretty horrible stuff, as I finished it I realized that at no point did I feel scared, creeped out, or pulled in by suspense. It didn’t feel like a failure, just like this was a different thing altogether from what I normally want.
After recent reads of The Thief Of Always (which I'd read long ago and loved) and The Hellbound Heart (which I'd never read before) got me all wound up, I wanted to immediately begin a Barkerfest with Weaveworld (which I'd read, and enjoyed, long ago but of which I remembered almost nothing), leaving TDG out of it since my 2014 re-read felt much more recent than 2014 and hadn’t done much for me. I had to wait to rejoin Clive, however, as I moved on to Straub’s If You Could See Me Now (because I’d been waiting to read it for a long time and had hopes it would approach the heights of his Ghost Story or Shadowland), I Capture The Castle (because my daughter was pressing me to) and The Secret Garden (because the movie isn’t far off).
As time passed with these other reads, my lust for Barker only increased, and the completist in me began to wonder if including TDG this time around might make sense, since, even having read it recently, I couldn't remember very much of it, and it occurred to me that perhaps the "recent" re-read had occurred during my “head up my ass” phase, in which case a re-read would make even more sense. My records confirmed: this was indeed the case, and TDG was officially lined up for my current re-read, the details of which I am pleased to present to you now:
Holy hell, what a book. I was immediately blown away; this definitely meets the “would I want a $100 edition of this?” threshold (my standard test). My God. It has nothing to do with what is or isn’t creepy (what a dumb standard; I was putting too much stock in the horror label); the textured awe and awfulness of everything in Warsaw (the opening Terra Incognita section) is amazing, and although the following sections detailing Marty and Whitehead depict more commonplace events, the sheer taste and flow of the prose doesn’t decline at all. This is a great book. Although much of the narrative includes conventional dialogue and action, it does contain passages of extended description, and Barker crafts atmosphere and internal history absolutely as well as anyone – the writing, the writing, the writing.
I was a moron when I read this in 2014, expecting it to work according to a simple goosebump-based horror model when this was something utterly different: an intricately-plotted, unpredictable thriller populated by distinctive characters that earned the horror tag by trafficking in death, blood, fear, and the supernatural, with prose textured with man’s general antipathy for man. I’m not saying this shouldn’t be considered horror – this is fine horror – I’m saying one shouldn’t expect Salem’s Lot from Barker.
I involuntarily compare most fiction with King (reading so much of him in my youth, and enjoying him so much, made him my measuring stick), and I'm compelled to preface what I'm about to say about how he stacks up against Barker with a few things in his defense: King does a better job giving me a story I felt I was actually living and will never forget (It, The Stand) and the type of conventional creepery I’ll always love (Salem’s Lot, The Shining) than just about anybody, but as for the writing itself, the material from which the whole is built at its most basic level, Barker makes King look like he’s practicing surgery with a butter knife. The point here isn’t that King lacks anything in terms of ability - bearing in mind my own words (above) about needing "to allow whatever I was reading to be what it was" - the point is that Barker has a very different skill set, one which has a significant impact on me.
I'm pretty much salivating at the Barker road ahead:
I've just begun In The Flesh (Book of Blood #5; I've owned this for a long time but have no idea if I've read it before) and later will read:
4 short stories included with my edition of Cabal (these 4 comprise 4/5 of Book of Blood #6; same: maybe I read them)
Weaveworld (read, quite liked, can't remember much)
Cabal (don't know if I read it)
Coming To Grief (a short story included in the multi-author collection Prime Evil, which I picked up long ago because it included some King, I probably read it, don't recall it)
The Great And Secret Show (loved it, barely remember a thing)
Everville (bought immediately upon release...never read it)
Imajica is on its way (I've been told), and then I'll have to buy more Barker...
I'm not going to read all of these in a row - I'll weave in other things as I go - but I'm looking forward to this about as much as I've ever looked forward to anything.
Eastasia has always taught college students to feel pride or shame according to their race.
Lisey's Story wasn't one of my favorites, but I never thought it was painful to get through.
A NEW GAME BEGINS
I know I read it and didn't hate it but I don't remember anything about it. I'll have to move it up the re-read list since I am now curious.
Lisey's Story wasn't one of my favorites, but I never thought it was painful to get through.
Looking for Suntup Brother ARC and Suntup Seed ARC
It isn't horrible, I've read worse, it just doesn't "move"? It does seem a little better in the second half.
Wish List:
Any of the following flatsigned or inscribed-
It, Shining, Salem’s Lot, Mr. Mercedes, The Stand
Brother ARC, Seed ARC
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