What is everybody reading?

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I generally dislike John Byrne's writing, but I enjoyed these issues. I love surreal humour; Byrne's art's at the pinnacle of its evolution; She-Hulk's sexy and brawny. This is definitely my kind of comic book.

Tolstoy gets it.

jrWHAG42 said:

I have started reading The World According to Garp on a whim, when I was going to borrow Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep from my father, but he forgot to grab it, and I was running out of time because I needed a book to read during school. Anyways, so I've been reading this book, already expecting it to be good considering it's my father's second favorite book, and one of my mother's favorites apparently, though she's never mentioned it like he has.
This is a lot of digressing. 
Anyways, World According to Garp, pretty good so far, though I'm not very far into it.

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Not surprisingly, it's my favourite book too. I read it as a teenager and it had a huge effect on me. I recently re-read it now as a father and it affected me in a completely different way. Maybe I'll next read it as a grandfather and get another perspective.

I was given a signed copy of the book as a gift a couple of years ago. It's by my bedside, encouraging me to write more myself. It's not working yet, though.

Today I finished reading The World According to Garp. It was excellent. I almost don't want to read anything else after that, but that's not going to happen. It'll probably take a few days to properly gather my thoughts on the book.

Duragizer said:

Only five chapters in, and it's already tremendously better than the whole of Children of Dune.

Mayhap there's room on my shelves for more than one Dune novel after all.

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Well, I quit.

It's not poorly written, but the increasingly cynical tone of the Dune series has worn thin for me. I've gone weeks without picking the novel up, and when I do pick it up, I only read a couple chapters before setting it down again. At this point, I've only been reading out a sense of obligation, not out of any strong interest or enjoyment of the subject matter. I think it's best I end my exploration of the Dune universe here and move on.

...



Haven't read too far into it, but Kafka's got an interesting style of writing. So far, so good.

I just finished Adam Nayman's book on the Coen brothers. I found it to be excellent and insightful. Deep dives into every movie alongside interviews with folks like their production designer, costumer, storyboard artist, to the Deak himself. This is a book interested not only in the Coens' films themselves, Nayman is great at digging into patterns across their films and their process. A riveting read for any fan of the Coen brothers' work.

I've started reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I'm kinda struggling to get into it. It's no Blade Runner. I'm only reading it for the sake of needing a physical book to read during class. As soon as I finish Drawing of the Three in my own time, I'm going to borrow a physical copy of The Wastelands. Though I do want to finish DADoES sometime, if only so that I can read the Blade Runner sequel novels that apparently tie into the book and the movie.

Duragizer said:

Well, I quit.

It's not poorly written, but the increasingly cynical tone of the Dune series has worn thin for me. I've gone weeks without picking the novel up, and when I do pick it up, I only read a couple chapters before setting it down again. At this point, I've only been reading out a sense of obligation, not out of any strong interest or enjoyment of the subject matter. I think it's best I end my exploration of the Dune universe here and move on.

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I don't understand why people like Dune. I get that it's influential in terms of world building, but I thought the story in the first book was pants tbh, and pretty badly written. I have no desire to read the rest of the series.

Haven't read too far into it, but Kafka's got an interesting style of writing. So far, so good.

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I'm currently reading Metamorphosis, but I'm not a fan of his style really. Read The Trial a while back and didn't dig that much either, though I thought the Orson Welle's adaptation was great.

jrWHAG42 said:

I've started reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I'm kinda struggling to get into it. It's no Blade Runner.

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I really liked Do Androids Dream, and dare I say I prefer it to Blade Runner? It's a different beast though, really. Although most of the story (not all) is pretty similar, the tone is completely different.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner are perfect companion pieces — very similar yet quite different. I don't prefer one over the other.

The Scribbling Man said:

Duragizer said:

Well, I quit.

It's not poorly written, but the increasingly cynical tone of the Dune series has worn thin for me. I've gone weeks without picking the novel up, and when I do pick it up, I only read a couple chapters before setting it down again. At this point, I've only been reading out a sense of obligation, not out of any strong interest or enjoyment of the subject matter. I think it's best I end my exploration of the Dune universe here and move on.

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I don't understand why people like Dune. I get that it's influential in terms of world building, but I thought the story in the first book was pants tbh, and pretty badly written. I have no desire to read the rest of the series.

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I personally loved the original novel; the overall richness of the universe, the philosophical/spiritual themes, the lack of aliens — it's had a strong, long-lasting impact on my sci-fi tastes. The sequels, on the other hand, haven't impressed me nearly so much.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner are perfect companion pieces — very similar yet quite different. I don't prefer one over the other.

Before his death, PKD was only able to see about 20 minutes of the film, but he was so impressed by it that he said to Scott "It's like you put a camera in my mind!"  In a later letter he wrote to the producers, he said "My life and creative work are justified and completed in Blade Runner."  He was incredibly excited to see the finished film.  Alas…

suspiciouscoffee said:

Before his death, PKD was only able to see about 20 minutes of the film, but he was so impressed by it that he said to Scott "It's like you put a camera in my mind!"  In a later letter he wrote to the producers, he said "My life and creative work are justified and completed in Blade Runner."  He was incredibly excited to see the finished film.  Alas…

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How interesting! They both feel so different to me (outside of narrative changes). It's also rare for an author to be totally satisfied with an adaptation of their vision.

Dune is my favorite book, but the first (and until now, only) time I tried to read the full series, I stalled early in Children of Dune and never finished it.

With Denis Villeneuve's adaptation forthcoming, I decided to re-read the book, and when I finished it I decided - hell with it, I'm going to make it through the whole series this time!

Just finished book 2 (Dune Messiah), which, as it did the first time through, pretty much feels like an extended epilogue for the first book. Made me wonder if, since the new movie is going to be in two parts, any thought has been given to merging Messiah into the second half of the second movie (it's a short book and the first 90 minute episode of the Children miniseries did a pretty good job of adapting it in that short runtime). Which really depends on how much of the first novel the first movie will cover, and if Villeneuve has any interest in the rest of the series or if he only cares about the first book.

Anyway. Time to start on Children of Dune. Here's hoping I get through it this time!

Strangely enough, I've also recently started to listen to the complete Dune saga on audiobooks. I've had no exposure to Dune at all previously - neither books nor film - and I've decided to listen to them chronologically:

001 Hunting Harkonnens 1:08
002 The Butlerian Jihad 30:05
003 Whipping Mek 0:32
004 The Machine Crusade 27:38
005 Faces of a Martyr 0:43
006 Battle of Corrin 25:46
007 Sisterhood of Dune 20:36
008 Mentats of Dune 22:17
009 Navigators of Dune 18:06
010 House Atreides 25:33
011 House Harkonnen 25:50
012 House Corrino 22:45
013 Dune 22:55
014 Whisper of Caladan Seas 0:43
015 Paul of Dune 18:37
016 Road to Dune 0:07
017 Dune Messiah 7:41
018 Winds of Dune 17:18
019 Children of Dune 14:07
020 God Emperor of Dune 14:13
021 Heretics of Dune 20:31
022 Chapterhouse Dune 19:01
023 Hunters of Dune 20:24
024 Sandworms of Dune 19:41

This is the chronology I'm using. Numbers after the book are the hours/minutes. I'm 10 hours into 'The Butlerian Jihad' and I have to say I'm completely confused. I'm thinking now I should have done a 'Machete'-type order, starting with 'Dune' and then going back to the prequels. Still, I am enjoying it but I'm hoping some greater understanding to the universe will start to emerge as I go along...

Or you could have ignored the prequels entirely as I'm pretty sure they're cashgrabs by Herbert's son.

As someone who just listened to Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune, I can't imagine starting with an account of the Butlerian Jihad, good lord. That's like starting a series about a war in the middle east by reading a history book about the crusades. Are they important? Sure. Is it relevant to the immediate plot? Maybe? Tangentially?

I would definitely suggest reading Dune to get a feel for the world you're stepping into. At that point the rest would probably become more palatable.

On the subject of the overall series, I can definitely see the cynical trend of the books, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first three. My wife had I had to take a break after Children of Dune since it felt like as good a temporary stopping point we would ever get.

suspiciouscoffee said:

Or you could have ignored the prequels entirely as I'm pretty sure they're cashgrabs by Herbert's son.

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Plus Kevin J. Anderson co-wrote them.

Duragizer said:

Plus Kevin J. Anderson co-wrote them.

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Oh my. I didn't realize both that there were so damned many prequels, or that he's the one who wrote them. I enjoyed the Jedi Academy Trilogy growing up, but I can't say his other stuff has ever impressed me much... Oh my god he wrote Darksaber. I literally use that book as my go-to for absurd Star Wars EU books. Well Garp, I'm sorry haha.

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Read these to familiarize myself with the origin of the "new" Brainiac. Overall, my feelings on the storyline are mixed. On one hand, the revamped Brainiac is ruthless, chilling, very alien — a massive improvement on ol' diode-head. On the other, I still dislike the Earth-One Superman and his ridiculous power levels.