New Testingstan

it happened to my whole state once

As if you guys don't get fucked enough.

I think the worst thats happened here was when the actual satellite for our TVs fell out of the sky.

god this book is excellence level VILE

absolutely

terrifying

yeah if i saw a guy dressed like that

I WOULD GO

THE OTHER DIRECTION

WITH SPEED


for reals though this book is superfucking hilarious

so, so, so, so, so awful

you should post more

unfortunately most of it requires a lot of context, like the absolutely characterization

you go through the whole book baffled because no one is making any sense, like if this book were about aliens, this author would have won an award for having written characters so artfully devoid of human behavioral norms

oh and also at one point a scene was just honest to god misplaced about three scenes too early, a major "wtf, hello editing?" moment

because my store is too fucking cheap to hire anybody i have to come in four hours early because another guy got sick

this place really would fall apart without me


-posted from an active register because i don't fucking care

Do I take the stupid required English course this semester to get it out of the way and done with, thereby sacrificing essential sleep in the process because I can only take the morning class, or do I wait until next semester? Decisions.

Get it out of the way. Because English courses suck. Stupid writing long word thingies.

mang that is so advanced

sometimes you wonder why the future never happened but then something like this makes you say 'well damn maybe there's no flying cars but the future sure snuck in there someplaces'

Alfoil protocol complit!!!1111

well the registers are a bunch of dells with money drawers and flat screens

they only run 2k

sometimes i check the webz from one when it's not busy

I posted here from a Pizza Hut once. As a customer. They left a computer on the counter with their 'order online' page open. Services abuse ho!

is this that "Wild Animus" book? I think I still have that sitting in my room somewhere.

no actually i am doing a runthrough of books in the sci-fi and fantasy genres which feature characters with "unusual" sexualities (male / female / other ) to try to get a firm understanding of not only how they are treated now but sort of the history of it. also i am trying to find a range of quality. it is v. interesting

so stuff like Iron Council (<--- this book is amazing China Mieville is amazing), The Merro Tree, Swordspoint, The Steel Remains (<-- UGH SO HORRIBLE), Luck in the Shadows, The Fall of Kings, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Female Man, some of Octavia Butler's short stories, Orlando, blahblahblah

some are great, some are soooo shit

The Steel Remains fills me with rage, although it might not technically have been the worst. But oh my god, I LOATHED that book.

I loved Iron Council too. bit of a downer toward the end, but I love Mieville's writing style and the way he tells the stories of political radicals and revolutionaries.

have you found anything else really good yet? Octavia Butler sounds promising, although I haven't read any of her work myself

JESUS CHRIST AT THE END OF IRON COUNCIL I BASICALLY WANTED TO DIE MOST DEPRESSING BOOK EVER

(and I don't mean just because of , I mean for real, mang, )

uh anyway

I should probably do a big ol' review roundup, or at least discussion of what I think I've learned.

Do you like people yammering at each other forever and fantasy that requires no magic, wars, or elves? In a sort of old-fashioned style? Try Swordspoint. It's good, but definitely not... swashbuckling-y. It's more like people sitting around trying to out- one another while obeying strict laws and rules of decorum. Sort of feels like it's set in that never-really-happened age of duchies and stuff, but it's a fun read and it keeps you thinking. It's got two sequels too, but they're not really necessary. As for the gender politics, seems like homosexuality is sort of a no-big-deal kind of thing. The main characters also START in a relationship, so you don't have to worry about that "does he wike me? " bullshit. The romance is kind of second-rate, but I prefer the secondary stuff be second-rate as opposed to the primary material (political finagling). A solidly good book. Great book? Probably not. But definitely, definitely good. Oh, also the guys aren't fashionplates! Liek, ohmahgaw!

The Merrow Tree was a sci-fi, probably my favorite after Iron Council insofar as the books I've read on my little adventure. It's a lot about ART though, so you have to be interested in ART. No wars in this book, either. The main guy is bisexual and has a relationship with... well, it's certainly unusual on more than one count. This one was the debut novel for the author. It's sweet and nice and funny, and I liked it quite a lot, though it feels like an older book than it is at parts (just in terms of style, kind of reminded me of Asimov's method of exposition and less like Tiptree's or something.) [Oh shit and if you haven't read Tiptree's Love is the Plan the Plan is Death read it right now, online, for free. Her real name was Alice Sheldon and she was fucking BOSS.] It starts off a bit cliche but it gets much better within like fifty pages. The main character is not human. There is a character who is human, but he shows up later, and saying anything about him would be spoilery but the way he was used was damned fascinating. (He's not in any relationships though, so he's not the bonin' companion in this tale.) Again, the romance isn't top-tier (or maybe it is; I've never really found a book where I thought the love angle was awesome except Iron Council but that was pretty masochistic stuff all around) but the rest of it is fascinating. It sort of talks about the role of the art and the artist and culture and who has a right to appropriate what and when from different people, what art means to a people, and the role of censorship. The book, for the most part, is about censorship and its influence on artistic expression. Ramble, ramble, goes Pick. WHATEVER. I liked this book even if it is fruity at parts and mostly about people dancing around .

Bloodchild was an Octavia Butler story that's more cross-species than anything, and it's excellent. Saying anything about it would be a mistake since it's so short almost everything's a spoiler, but I think it does a good job making women uncomfortable and men feel physically ill. I thought it was sweet though, because I'm a fucking creeper, apparently.

To be fair, I'm not through ALL my books yet. I'm only like 100 pages into Luck in the Shadows, which so far is good but we'll have to see. I have read most of them though. I flat-out hated Orlando, but holy fucking flying shitsperg hollerpalooza, I fucking REVILED The Steel Remains.

woo, thanks! All of those sound pretty intriguing, especially The Merro Tree. I'm a little wary of navel-gazing stuff written by Artists about the importance of Art, but if the story can stand on its own merits, I don't mind. I'll have to look for it next time I'm at Borders.

(incidentally I looked up The Merro Tree on Amazon and had an irrational hatred for the reviewer who started a completely unexceptional review by saying, "I guess I come at whatever I read from a different angle, because I'm an English major.")

I'm pretty sure The Merrow Tree is out of print, so you might have to get it on Amazon.

I also hate basically all Amazon reviewers . (I need to write my review there but haven't yet.)

I wouldn't say the novel is navel-gazey at all, actually. The action keeps up and a lot of it is... hmm... the experiences of someone trying to learn art from everywhere and bring it to where it's needed. (He's a "performance master," which means he can do many different kinds of art and goes around the galaxy sharing what he knows and taking on more.) The curious part is at what point he oversteps his borders, since the situation is remarkably morally complicated, I think.

this honestly fascinates me

because every nerd and his dog loves the author

This book came highly recommended! I thought it was going to be one of the GOOD ones! Not, you know, destined for the Lackey pile of .

Although, I didn't feel at it. It was more like a feeling of OVERWHELMING IMPOTENT RAGE at how shitty it was. The only reason I haven't burned my copy is guilt over increasing my carbon footprint. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate this book.

that you guys are surprised a popular 'recommended' author is shit really staggers me

i mean where have you been

haven't you learnt which people you know have taste yet?

Well, I wasn't anticipating major aptitude, but I rather expected it to be mediocre, which is like "good" in sci-fi/fantasy. I have to confess, I was utterly blindsided. The Steel Remains fucking punched so many of my angry buttons I could scarcely see straight. I don't think I've ever despised a main character so much. Incompetent shit revolving around a figure I detest. Just... unspeakable.

The book I'm reading now was from my shit pile, and it is indeed shit, but, like... funny shit. Someone was trying to tell a story and just didn't really have enough brain cells to rub together. You can see the little ghosts of passable ideas fluttering between scenes. I never laughed reading The Steel Remains. The only good thing about it was that it proved I wasn't secretly She-Hulk.