The Gaming Den

So poking around, I found this...

http://www.gadling.com/2008/06/04/croat ... 1200411289

This site makes me laugh and cry:
http://www.tgdmb.com/index.php

Maxus wrote:So poking around, I found this...

http://www.gadling.com/2008/06/04/croat ... 1200411289

Hehe...
I know here I'd like to hide the salami.

Jerry wrote:This site makes me laugh and cry:
http://www.tgdmb.com/index.php

Dude, that site rocks the socks off the box under locks on the docks.

Time for a classic:

http://www.churchofthegrey.com/atst/kam ... image2.htm

Someone familiar with my sense of humor and appreciation of a funny turn of phrase pointed me to this website. According to them, it's a site where a couple of self-admitted "smart bitches" both critique and mock the romance genre. Whatever floats their boat, I guess. But what I really like is the legths to which they go to make fun of the covers on the books. I don't laugh that much, but I cracked up repeatedly reading their cover-snarking.

http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ ... g_edition/

That is a fantastic site.

TVTropes is one of the best sites I've ever been to. I've worked through their archives and it gave me a lot of good ideas.

I have wasted too many hours by far on TVTropes. I'm not clicking that link, because I know I'll just waste more time there.

Okay, scrolling past my favorite's list, I found the Book of the Gear.

Which deserves some explanation...

A net-based artist, Ursula Vernon, has a setting she occasionally puts her really weird, inscrutable paintings. The Gearworld is a labyrinth filled with weird objects and creatures. And it's intriguing enough that she ended up doing a Livejournal from the point of view of an explorer who was investigating it.

My own view on Gearworld...well, it's like if Mechanus and Limbo got in a fight, and Limbo won, at the price of having to dress itself in gears and concrete and could only generate weird, inscrutable shit when you're not looking.

http://gearworld.livejournal.com/?skip=60

That's the last page. Being a livejournal, of course, they're in reverse order. So you have to read them from bottom to top, and move back a page to go to later entries.

Edit: I suppose I'd better put up her website, too...

http://www.metalandmagic.com/index.php

Personally, when I'm looking at a new painting, I scroll down and read the often-narrative description first, and then scroll up to look at the painting.

If you'd like to see Eragon and Eldest (plus a few other books) picked apart like a log of string cheese by a bored adolescent, check this out:

http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/

It helped me understand a lot of what I didn't like about that benighted series.

Also, here's my favorite "bad movie review" website, the immortal Agony Booth. Who are the Overlords of the UFO?

http://www.agonybooth.com/

Talisman wrote:If you'd like to see Eragon and Eldest (plus a few other books) picked apart like a log of string cheese by a bored adolescent, check this out:

http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/

It helped me understand a lot of what I didn't like about that benighted series.

Hah. So Sloan the butcher is Evil because he doesn't like Eragon? Given what I know of Paolini's dietary habits (I've heard he was a vegetarian who found himself in a quandary because Eragon likes his red meat), he's probably on Evil's side because he's, you know, a butcher.

Thanks to Maxus, I found Koumei's role model and this.

Koumei wrote:I have wasted too many hours by far on TVTropes. I'm not clicking that link, because I know I'll just waste more time there.

Same here. One must wonder, though, is it valid enough to make one a better writer? Or lead one astray into the realm of Saturday morning cartoon plots?

Maxus wrote:

Talisman wrote:If you'd like to see Eragon and Eldest (plus a few other books) picked apart like a log of string cheese by a bored adolescent, check this out:

http://eragon-sporkings.wikispaces.com/

It helped me understand a lot of what I didn't like about that benighted series.

Hah. So Sloan the butcher is Evil because he doesn't like Eragon? Given what I know of Paolini's dietary habits (I've heard he was a vegetarian who found himself in a quandary because Eragon likes his red meat), he's probably on Evil's side because he's, you know, a butcher.

Paolini is a vegetarian...an idiot vegetarian. Therefore, his heroes must be veggies, and his villains must eat the flesh of beasts!

We're not all like that, I swear. I'm a vegetarian, and I have many carnivorous friends. I don't hate them for it.
...much.

Well, I do believe that the elf chick told Eragon he'd be a vegetarian by the time he got through with his elven training. And when he challenged her, she said he just would be.

Okay, so I read through the Eragon sporkings.

It strikes me that the analyst had much more justification to what was said with the first book. The sporking of Eldest really had more moments where the sporker was just picking at things with comments that amounted "I've never seen this figure of speech before so I have no idea what it means so I don't like it" (I believe this was about 'hammer and tongs', something I have indeed seen before and know to mean something like 'putting great effort into it').

Of course, a lot of the sporker's points are valid--that Eragon is a Mary Sue character who's too special, and having him pass out and wake up an incredibly beautiful, intellect-boosted, superhumanly talented fusion of elf and human with his 'disfigurement' miraculously gone was a really cheesy move.

Also, the tearful conversion to vegetarianism is just too expected. Oh, and I really liked how, "The elves don't believe in gods, so there are no gods."

Well it was the Godly Elf Healing Magic, see. Elf magic is better than any other kind because they are elves.

Because Eragon is so much different from LOTR.

I'm an elf fan (mostly because of Magic cards and the hundreds of elf combos one can whip out) but Eragon sorely disappointed me. I saw the movie and have no interest in reading the book, no matter how critically acclaimed an "original new tale by a young author" may be.

Jeremy Irons is awesome, though.

The book is bett...be...be...the book is different from the movie. It's longer, for one thing, and has more stuff in it.

There are elements that make slightly more sense in the book than the movie. F'rinstance, in the book we're told that Arya is an elf; in the movie, I don't think that was even implied. In the book. Saphira grows to adulthood in a few months, rather than a split second...still ridiculous, but a little less so.

But, yeah, the book is pretty much Generic Fantasy Plots #2, 6, 12, 76 an 153 all melded together, along with a healthy dose of incoherence and smugness.

Can't wait to see what Brisingr is like. Yes, the third book is called "fire." Which, as far as Eragon knows, is a freakin' swear word.

I read Eragon when I was a junior in highschool. It wasn't bad. then. I don't know how it holds up now... Eragon learns early on that Brsingr is the word that summons fire, and that magic is used by saying various ancient words. I don't think he thinks it's a swear word... though think of the use... summon pisses you off, you shout "Brsingr!" and suddenly their head's on fire... but, meh, haven't read Eldest or Brsingr, so... I don't know how the series went after the first book. I did however write up a spellpoint system after reading Eragon that allows any character to use any spell, just with more difficulty and a higher cost if the spell isn't on their list.

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

Right now, my bookshelf has...

-Salvatore galore, amassed since 8th grade. Pretty much all of the Drizzt books (save the most recent one). The Cleric Quintet. And the Demon Wars. And the reason I haven't bought the Orc King was I realized that Drizzt just isn't that fun these days, and Jarlaxle and Entreri are much more entertaining.

-The majority of the works of David Eddings. Seriously, for a couple of years, people kept finding copies of the Garion books in yard sales, and passed them on to me. For a while, I had redundant copies of all the books. I've since managed to par them down to a reasonable level. I've also got the Elenium and the Tamuli.

-Although I currently have some loaned out and need to reshelve them, I've got pretty much the whole of the Discworld series. And a couple of the illustrated books. Oh, and Good Omens.

-I used to have a good chunk of the core Dragonlance books, but have since sold them off for a decent chunk of change.

-We've got all the Harry Potter books, between all of of us in the house. Some of them are several years old and have been read so many times, we're about due for replacement copies.

-Miscellaneous Star Wars extended universe novels and a couple of the Wheel of Time books I picked up for small change at the library discard racks. Oh, and my copy of Beowulf.

There's more I like to read, but I can usually find it at the library.

I'm pretty dull... Most of my books are nonfiction, and those fiction books I do own are largely historical fiction. While I love thinking about fantastic places, I've always had a hard time getting into fantasy and sci-fi novels.

I also depend heavily on the library for reading material because I cannot afford to buy the number of books I read. Most of those books are likewise, nonfiction.

Prak_Anima wrote:Eragon learns early on that Brsingr is the word that summons fire, and that magic is used by saying various ancient words. I don't think he thinks it's a swear word...

Eragon, p. 125 wrote:Brom knelt by the brush and looked at it critically. he rearranged a couple of branches, then struck the tunderbox, sending a cascade of sparks onto the plants. There was smoke, but nothing else. Brom scowled and tried again, but had no better luck than Eragons. Brisingr!" he swore angrily, striking the flint again. Flames suddenly appeared and she stepped back with a pleased expression. "There we go. It must have been smoldering inside."

Eragon, p. 133 wrote: [Eragon] stood tall and straight, all fear gone. he raised his bow smoothly. The Urgals laughed and lifted their shields. Eragon sighted down the shaft, as he had done hundreds of times, and aligned the arrow with his target. the energy inside him burned at an unbearable level. He had to release it or it would consume him. A word suddenly leaped unbidden to his lips. He shot, yelling "Brisngr!"

Eragon, p. 139-140 wrote:"More questions!" cried Brom. "For a moment I had hoped you were empty of them. But you are quite right in asking, When you shot the Urgals, didn't you say something?"
"Yes, brisingr." The fire flared, and a shiver ran through Eragon. Something about that word made him feel incredibly alive.
"I thought so. Brisingr is from an ancient language (...) For example, fire is called brisingr

At the time of the arrow-fireball trick, Eragon had no clue that "brisingr" was anything other than a curse word. I can understand screaming the equivalent of "Damn!" at the enmy as they're about to kill you, but in context this makes no sense. In times of stress, you may cuss with words you know; you don't use curses in another language that you've only ever heard once.

Well in comparison to the only other story I've seen wherein the protagonist screams profanity to cause supernatural effect, Eragon is pretty tame compared to Bastard.

The last thing I read was the first five Necroscope books. Cold war spies, vampires ESP necromancy all in a world with an interesting take on the afterlife. Very good stuff.

Also Harry Turtledove's Into the Darkness series, the first two. I should read the rest because its also good but I've gotten lazy about reading. Haven't read any fiction for years.