Comments on: What I'm Reading (Library Version)

By: 0o0o

0o0o — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 17:39:58 +0000

m00!

By: Alex Groce

Alex Groce — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 00:29:17 +0000

> I admire Alan Moore’s work, but it always leaves
> me feeling like a more sordid person than I was
> before I read it.

I don’t get this. WATCHMEN and FROM HELL are a lot of things, but sordidifying I can’t see (WATCHMEN, IMO, ends on notes of (1) God’s-eye-view “transcendence” and (2) iron cold moral clarity in defeat). The lighter stuff like LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, I can’t imagine having that effect, either. Have I been reading the wrong Moore?

By: peterb

peterb — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 21:44:22 +0000

I finished the latest Fforde book, and am…digesting it. I want to give it a good, detailed review, and not just a paragraph. I’ll see if I can get it done tonight or tomorrow.

By: Nerak

Nerak — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 20:53:08 +0000

Where’s that review of Fforde’s new book?

Also, have you tried the “Keys to the Kingdom” series by Garth Nix? Out so far are: _Mister Monday_ and _Grim Tuesday_.

By: Shelby

Shelby — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:24:49 +0000

I certainly agree with you about the Lemony Snicket books. I tried to read one a few months ago and was just utterly uninspired.
Though you may have inspired me to go through and reread my Books of Magic. I followed the series until the last incarnation, when I moved away from Phantom of the Attic being walking distance from my place of employ.

By: Christina Schulman

Christina Schulman — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 14:53:14 +0000

> I’ve managed to avoid reading Pratchett for all
> of these years because I think the Discworld
> premise is stupid.

How do you feel about Niven? If you can find them, Pratchett’s early non-Discworld books “Strata” and “The Dark Side of the Sun” are terrific Niven pastiches; “Strata” is the more serious of the two. I liked them very much when I read them, but didn’t get a lot of the funny until I read Ringworld, The Integral Trees, Mote, etc. a few years later.

Discworld, to me, is microwave popcorn. It’s easy, and you know exactly what you’re going to get, and sometimes it’s exactly what you want. And it makes the whole office smell of popcorn. No, wait, the metaphor got away from me there.

The thing I like best about Jasper Fforde is that he’s the first humorous fantasy author in a long time who doesn’t try to emulate Pratchett.

> The Books of Magic, by John Ney Reiber, various volumes.

There were some terrific stories in Reiber’s run; I bailed on the book after he left. I wonder what Reiber’s been doing lately?

I admire Alan Moore’s work, but it always leaves me feeling like a more sordid person than I was before I read it.

By: Alex Groce

Alex Groce — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 02:16:23 +0000

WATCHMEN is, to me, one of those “genre culminating” works. “This caps off the whole notion of masked superheroes stories. Thanks. It’s been great! This will be our last show, now that it’s all been done, thanks for coming, you’ve been a great audience.” Moore’s meta-ness works brilliantly in WATCHMEN: you can’t culminate a genre without being one with it, down to the stupid tights.

On the other hand, once you culminate a genre, it’s probably time for you to stop telling stories in that part of the artistic landscape.

The comics are probably a decent way to slide up to Proust–the novel (it’s one novel, really) takes forever to read, and having an “architectural” notion of what’s going on beforehand can only help. But really, read the real thing. If I were a better man, I’d learn French and read the original.