The Gaming Den

Eragon sucks. There are very few books that I have put down after starting them. Eragon is one of the few (of about 4). It is just BAD. Poorly written, generic (but not amusingly so), predictable, and rehashed. You can rehash a book or plotline well and do it by making is humorous**, or just not terrible*, but the movie did neither of those things and the book was actually worse (the parts that I read ~40%).

As for some reading: anything by the following authors is a good go-to move:
- Oroson Scott Card (solid sci-fi, without the last 2 books in a series)
- Michael Crichton (awesome reading, but not the one on Global Warming)
- Terry Pratchett (fantasy humor)
- RA Salvatore (well rehashed fantasy, you want to finish that afternoon)
- Ben Bova (interesting ideas, high sci-fi)
- Larry Niven (especially The Magic Goes Away series for the Gaming Denizens)
- Alan Dean Foster (he writes sci-fi and fantasy, his plots are universally original, and he is made of awesome)

Seriously, read some Alan Dean Foster. Carnivores of Light and Darkness is one of the best fantasy/adventure stories that I have ever read. It comes complete with killer plants, worlds that float about in bubbles of water, legendary swords made from space-metal, prophecies, wizards/witches, and a talking lion-cheetah (to name a few for a hook).


* see: Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, any movie with a superhero, any TV show with more than 5 episodes

** see: Terry Pratchett, Austin Powers, any episode of Family Guy

The first Alan Dean Foster I read was Dinotopia Lost.

I really liked it, actually.

The library doesn't have enough of his stuff for my taste. I enjoyed Kingdoms of Light, though I had to wonder a bit at why a bunch of animals-transformed-into-humans had such impressive and educated vocabularies.

I just remembered this.

Here's one for you, Koumei.

http://panexa.com/

That's awesome. Although the company name keeps reminding me of the French word for "shit". That's just about the only French word I know, incidentally. I think it sums their country up nicely.

But Panexa is a real wonder drug, the thalidomide of the future!

Maxus wrote:Come to think of it, what's the choice of reading material around here?

Fiction:

• Michael Swanwick (Iron Dragon's Daughter, Stations of the Tide, The Stick Said "Hi", Vacuum Flowers, etc)
• Iain Banks (The Use of Weapons, The Algebraist, The Wasp Factory, etc)
• Stanislaw Lem (Mortal Engines, The Cyberiad, etc)
• James Clemens (Wit'ch War trilogy--suffers from apostrophillia)
• Robert Anton Wilson
• Neil Stephenson (Diamond Age, Baroque Cycle, etc)
• Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore, the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, etc)
• Richard Morgan (Takeshi Kovacs series)
• Christopher Moore (Fluke, Practical Demonkeeping, You Suck, etc)

That's all I can see from here. I won't go into nonfiction, as it's a lot less likely to hold general interest.

I didn't see anyone give shout outs to Saberhagen (the Swords books are must reads), Cherryh (everyone should read Cyteen and probably Rusalka as well), Bujold (pretty much anything), or Brust (likewise).

That should be rectified.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:I didn't see anyone give shout outs to Saberhagen (the Swords books are must reads)

-Username17

I can't find the damn things! I've heard of them, and what I've heard has been pretty encouraging, but I can't find any of them.

Starting at age 7 I began to read Isaac Aasimov. To this day I believe the choice has sculpted the way I write and how I think.

Ray Bradbury, OTOH, seemed more of a fairy tale author that dealt with mysticism rather than science. Still, his fantasy that ghosts live on Mars (and other Martian stories) was rather unique, even given the "golden age of scifi" at the time.

I've been pretty deep in Howard and Lieber for a while now. Just got my hands on Glen Cook's Black Company stuff, which is awesome.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:That's all I can see from here. I won't go into nonfiction, as it's a lot less likely to hold general interest.

I don't see why.

FrankTrollman wrote: Cherryh

I remember liking the tree of swords and jewels a lot.

Bigode wrote:

CatharzGodfoot wrote:That's all I can see from here. I won't go into nonfiction, as it's a lot less likely to hold general interest.

I don't see why.

Seeing as this is a fantasy roleplaying message board, it would make sense that most everyone here has an interest in that genre. Interest in Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind or Ted Kaptchuk's The Web That Has No Weaver seems much less likely.

I started reading Saberhagen's Swords series, and I tried to like it, but it just couldn't hold my interest. Not sure why.

Anyway, here're some that I like:
~Tolkien.
~Simon R. Green (Deathstalker, Nightside, Hawk & Fisher)
~Ann Logston (Shadow, the elven thief every gamer wants to be)
~Tom Deitz (Windmaster's Bane, etc)
~Micky Zucker Reichert (Legend of Nightfall, Last of the Renshai)
~George R. R. Martin (Song of Ice and Fire)
~Jan Siegel (Prospero's Children, The Dragon Charmer, The Witch Queen)
~Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn)
~Kristen Britain (Green Rider, First Rider's Call)
~David Weber (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own, Windrider's Oath - of I can't get into his Honor Harrington work, but his fantasy work rocks)
~Lovecraft (If you don't know, get thee to a library!)

There's more but...you get the idea.

I also like Howard, Leiber, Brust, Asimov and Bradbury.

David Weber (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own, Windrider's Oath - of I can't get into his Honor Harrington work, but his fantasy work rocks)

I've only attempted to read his Honor Harrington crap, which is crap. Interesting that you say his other stuff is worth reading.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

David Weber (Oath of Swords, The War God's Own, Windrider's Oath - of I can't get into his Honor Harrington work, but his fantasy work rocks)

I've only attempted to read his Honor Harrington crap, which is crap. Interesting that you say his other stuff is worth reading.

-Username17

I tried to read On Basilisk Station (Honor #1) but the dense military crunch turned me off 2 chapters in.

Wind Rider's Oath (3rd of the above series) is the weakest, but the first two are great.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... 1943.story

This makes me laugh, because I can just imagine the reaction a lot of, shall we say, morally conservative people will have to that.

Maxus wrote:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... 1943.story

This makes me laugh, because I can just imagine the reaction a lot of, shall we say, morally conservative people will have to that.

...I don't get it, what's so funny and/or depressing about that?

A convicted sex offender winning the lottery? And the reaction people will have to that

You'd be surprised at how many people still cling to the notion that there's a Heavenly Office of Appropriate Wordly Rewards that ensures good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people.

Nevermind that the guy might have gone straight by now. Remember my point in the Crime and Punishment thread? A lot of people believe that there is no way for 'sex offenders' to change once they've done the crime.

So, yes, I laugh with malicious glee as I take a glance over the comments and see one person declare this proves to them that there's no justice.

Maxus wrote:A convicted sex offender winning the lottery? And the reaction people will have to that

You'd be surprised at how many people still cling to the notion that there's a Heavenly Office of Appropriate Wordly Rewards that ensures good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people.

Nevermind that the guy might have gone straight by now. Remember my point in the Crime and Punishment thread? A lot of people believe that there is no way for 'sex offenders' to change once they've done the crime.

So, yes, I laugh with malicious glee as I take a glance over the comments and see one person declare this proves to them that there's no justice.

If you do something bad enough, even if you get released from jail, people (and society) won't look at you the same way again.

Say you pushed an old man in a wheelchair down the stairs, and purposefully killed him because you hated him. Even if you get released 30+ years later, how does society know you won't kill again?

How does society know you won't kill, once you've been born? It doesn't. That's why it does its best to make crime an obviously incredibly bad idea.

angelfromanotherpin wrote:How does society know you won't kill, once you've been born? It doesn't. That's why it does its best to make crime an obviously incredibly bad idea.

What I'm saying is that if you want people who get released from prison to not feel any social stigma whatsoever, you would have to change society itself. And yes, in many cases, it makes sense that they won't look at you the same way again.

But as for the lottery thing, I don't know enough information, and the news knows that sex sells, even if it has nothing to do with anything.

For example, there was once a news article that Saddam liked Cheetos or something, as though an "inhuman monster" is incapable of enjoying a tasty, high-fat snack once in a while.

Jerry wrote: For example, there was once a news article that Saddam liked Cheetos or something, as though an "inhuman monster" is incapable of enjoying a tasty, high-fat snack once in a while.

It's mind numbing, isn't it? Note: Hitler was a painter, and liked kittens and children (and no, he didn't "like children" in that sense). It's perfectly within reason that the most horrifying of humans still have regular human aspects to them, as opposed to being evil like cartoon villains.

Koumei wrote:

Jerry wrote: For example, there was once a news article that Saddam liked Cheetos or something, as though an "inhuman monster" is incapable of enjoying a tasty, high-fat snack once in a while.

It's mind numbing, isn't it? Note: Hitler was a painter, and liked kittens and children (and no, he didn't "like children" in that sense). It's perfectly within reason that the most horrifying of humans still have regular human aspects to them, as opposed to being evil like cartoon villains.

I love moments like that--where you find out that the villain is still a person who's decided to do what he's doing.

I once made a Death Knight semi-antagonist who, because he'd scored a permanent Gentle Repose before he'd completely rotted down to a Soth-style walking suit of armor, always had a bag of candy because he could still taste sweetness perfectly. So whenever the party encountered him and started talking, he'd invariably raise his visor--showing a tattered face and smouldering orange eyes and all that--and then begin working on a lollipop like he's experimenting on how many licks it takes to reach the Tootsie Roll Center. (When I tried, I counted 113, by the way).

http://notalwaysright.com/


This website is awesome.

Funnily enough, my experience with a customer-focused job was more a problem with my co-workers than with the customers.

I ended up quitting over religious differences; My boss thought he was God and I disagreed. I might have been able to ride it out, except God decided to declare this immature asshat Jesus.

I had a boss like that, once. Co-workers invented a joke (when he wasn't around):

"What's the difference between Lockie and God?"
"What?"
"God doesn't think he's Lockie."

This makes me so depressed, I actually feel a little guilty about putting it up here.

http://www.asylum.com/2008/06/23/woman- ... 1200207701