Be Excellent To Each Other

If you've never heard of Battle Royale, I neither want to read your book not watch your film.

Well that were good. Ta for the recommendation Dimrill. Gomna do Call of Cthulhu next seeing as it's nice and short.

You want to read Herbert West: Reanimator too.

On it!

See also: The Colour Out Of Space and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. You can get some dead cheap collections, like.

Yeah, someone should mention that.

Quite easily, I'd wager. I'd not exactly mainstream.

yeah, yeah... And J K Rowling had never heard if The Worst Witch...

Jill Murphy attended the same school as Mummy Afterthought. Ursuline convent School in Wimbledon. She was a couple of years above Mummy Afterthought. This came to light after attending a talk JM was giving, and her telling of how she based the characters on teachers from her school. "Hmm" thought Mummy Afterthought, "this sounds awfully familiar".

I find his writing about things like that excruicatingly painful. Especially the "...and then they had lesbian sex" bits. it seems to exist purely to attract teenage boys to the series. I find it quite unnecessary. It seems he feels the need to stick sex of some kind in it every so often just to keep them reading.

EDIT: For instance, tehre's a whole chapter in one of the books about some bloke being on a boat and the various sexual stuff he has done to the captaibn's daughter. It didn't really advance any plot, in any way at all, and was, to boot, shitly written.

EDIT 2: This isn't me banging my "Martin can't write books for shit" drum, it's a common problem I have with books. iain M Banks is also guilty of this.

Yup. Keep going!

Have you ever read Eddings? Not in the same league explitness wise due to the main audience of his books, but he has literally no ability to write any scene that involves a woman. At 12yrs old, I even noticed it, it is that bad.

No, I haven't. I think one of the reasons I dislike it so much; is that you're being drawn into the writer's sexual fantasies. Which is creepy, when it's a late middle aged man with a beard sat at a typewriter, his fingers going tap tap tap rhytmically on the keys, pecking out a pulsing beat to which see, you get the idea, don't you?

Goodness me, that's why Stieg Larrsssson is so unreadable to me. Every single woman from the ages 17-70 turns up at fantasy Larrrrrssssson's door saying 'let's f**k!'

Just ruins the book, and is one reason the film is actually superior to his dross.

<reconsiders sending Mimi the draft of his autobiography>

Valid point, but the thing that realy put me off Eddings was his need to stereotype everyone in his books



He does it to a lesser degree in his Sparhawk series also and i gave up entirely on the new books which his wife has helpped make even worse.

Eddings is my go-to author for mindless brain massages. At least for the Mallorean and Belgariad. The rest of his stuff is unreadable boredom.

Well, Slaughterhouse-Five was excellent. So excellent that I powered through it in two days. Might be time for Game of Thrones finally!

Episode 1, series 2 airs 1st April.

lol jk

Amazon are having an ebook spring sale, and Book 1 of the Farseer Trilogy is in it.

At that price, why not!

When I was 12-13 I loved them, but I tried to go back to them a few years back, and just couldn't. Every woman is the most beautiful woman in the world, every soldier is the best fighter in the world etc...

I do get where you are coming from though, they are very easy to read and engrossing if you can get past all that. Unfortunately I can't these days.

exactly what i was trying to say (badly) above

Tell you what, this Game of Thrones deal is a bit bloody good isn't it? Chuffed that I'm only on the first book. Even more chuffed that I've successfully managed to avoid finding out anything about the plot despite its popularity.

I'm reading Debt: The First 5000 Years, a look at the history of debtors and creditors by an anthropologist (as opposed to an economic hisotrian). So far, it's fascinating. In the first chapter alone, it thoroughly debunks the widely held belief that money evolved to replace the inefficiencies of preceding barter systems, and that debt evolved after money didn't.

I'm reading The Stig's autobiography, which I was given for Christmas. It's not the sort of thing I'd buy myself (I'm not into autobiographies unless I'm really interested in the writer) but it's surprisingly good.

Colour me interested!

If early coins were gold and silver, as they appear to have been, then I guess they'd have been useless for everyday commerce, as they'd have been far too valuable to buy chickens and loaves with. Your average Lydian goat herder probably never saw a gold coin.

The ships around here still trade in cowrie shells.

They are great, however, I am refusing to read them all until he has finished writing them all - if you see what I mean.

I'm gonna space them out with other books, so maybe he'll have finished the next one by the time I get to it... Who am I kidding?

BUGGER, now need to clean my keyboard, it now has added coffee from me laughing at you bizarre futile hope

"The Book Club" on Sky Arts is generally worth a watch. There was (according to mrsA, as she's sick and tired of discussing it with people) one of the best descriptions as to why eBooks aren't all 50p done by a man.

Loved the first three, but then the massive wait (was it 8 years or something mental?) for the 4th meant I didn't read it as I couldn't remember what was going on.

Grisham's "The Broker" is quite entertaining, albeit silly. Quite the steal at £1.50 from the charity shop.

Finished now, very enjoyable and just the right length stories for a lunch hour read. Onto my M.R. James collection now.

What are you doing wasting your lunchtimes reading books? You should be off buying more plastic model aeroplanes or paints for your fairies or something, like a normal person.

Snap! I've been revisiting an M.R. James collection myself. "Oh, Whistle" in particular is quite splendid.

If I read them at night time I shit the bed.

Now going through Charles Stross's Laundry Books (Harry Palmer meets Delta Green on the set of Yes Minister sort of thingy)...excellent. On now to the Jennifer Morgue, why have I never heard of this before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Necropolis_Railway

Yeah, it was looking for an M.R. James collection that put me onto the other Wordsworth Press collections I bought* but I've saved this till last.

*Tales of Unease - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Gothic Short Stories (with the awesome Yellow Wallpaper).

Wow.


Wow.

Is that a return?

That's amazing. Brilliant and amazing.

Nearly done with AGOT now. I'll be damned if this isn't the best fantasy novel I've ever read.

Tried the first of the Newbury & Hobbes books by George Mann. Gave up around a third of the way through. Utterly tedious steampunk by the numbers with awful unrealistic dialogue. I may have spoiled it by re-reading From Hell before hand.

Loving this M.R. James collection so far. He's rather good at the spooky spooky.

Really enjoyed 'Pickman's Model' - H.P. Lovecraft, last night. Loved the arty farty aspects to the tale, have to dig out some of the less familiar works he makes reference to.

Edit: Well Sidney Sime is excellent, new to me, has similarities with Aubrey Beardsley and Theodor Kittelsen.

WOoOowOowoOoowoOoOooOo Tales from the Public Domain WOoOowOowoOoowoOoOooOo