Beginning was funny. End was really funny. But that whole middle section with the fairies was overly long and terrifully dull. Like it was a riff on tBeginning was funny. End was really funny. But that whole middle section with the fairies was overly long and terrifully dull. Like it was a riff on the the deus ex machina thing in Greek theater but it was heavy-handed as hell. Decent enough but not as fun or as engaging as I remember Hamlet...more
Middle was waaaayy too long. End was waaaayy too short. And the pov changed so abruptly it'd give you whiplash. But it's still a pretty entertaini3.75
Middle was waaaayy too long. End was waaaayy too short. And the pov changed so abruptly it'd give you whiplash. But it's still a pretty entertaining story...more
Not nearly as engaging, or even as interesting as I remember.
Also remember reading Thompson referred to as the 'dimestore Dostoevsky.' HaviMaybe 3.5.
Not nearly as engaging, or even as interesting as I remember.
Also remember reading Thompson referred to as the 'dimestore Dostoevsky.' Having read some Dostoevsky in the intervening years, Thompson is no Doestevksy.
At one point, maybe two thirds of the way through, Thompson cites the primary problem with this own novel. He has Lou, the narrator, go off on a tangent about literary writers letting their high brow language get away from them, making the crescendo of the story clear as mud. This is exactly what happens in Killer. I get the impression Thompson thought he was bein high minded himself. But he fell ass backwards into his own criticism ...more
At first this one didn't hit me the same as past Brautigans. And then it did. At first this one didn't hit me the same as past Brautigans. And then it did. ...more
Ages & ages ago I joined the DarkFuse book club. Life happened and I never got round to reading anything they sent. Most of them bad pretty kick ass jAges & ages ago I joined the DarkFuse book club. Life happened and I never got round to reading anything they sent. Most of them bad pretty kick ass jacket art, the kind that begs to be read and Fry's Emergence was one of the most intriguing. Now, six, seven years after its release, I'd have been better served pondering what the story would be like rather than reading it. Cookie cutter characters and an almost non-existent plot. Reading this on the Kindle O was about 50-55% in before anything remotely peculiar happened. What did occur was so vaguely touched upon, and the characters so lifeless, that there was little reason to care. Bout the only positive was the length, which was mercifully short...more
You don't read Valis, you experience it. Can't say I understood everything Dick presented, but he made me want to dig deeper. Do some research. At thiYou don't read Valis, you experience it. Can't say I understood everything Dick presented, but he made me want to dig deeper. Do some research. At this moment in time, to inspire someone is relatively hard. From beyond the grave, Dick managed just that. Maybe he's ...more
Not really a fan of superhero comics but something about Batman has always drawn me in. Maybe it was the Read A Long book and 7 inch my folks got me aNot really a fan of superhero comics but something about Batman has always drawn me in. Maybe it was the Read A Long book and 7 inch my folks got me as a kid. Maybe it was the corny TV show reruns. But most likely it was Tim Burton's dark yet comical depiction from the late 80s. And that's what this one shot attempts to recreate: the key moments from that, to me, Iconic movie. From what I understand, a lot of people really dig the Nolan movies. I'm not a fan. Can't get over that horrendous delivery from Christian Bale, who I normally love. But this one shot is way too rushed. By the end of the Burton film I felt like I really understood where Bruce Wayne was coming from. If I was not already familiar with his past, this comic would not have made me feel anything. There was a moment near the end where it seemed to have some revelation, but after a moments thought I realized it was only because I was projecting the same moment from the film onto the page. This appears on several best of Batman lists. Not really sure why that is. Nice pictures, though, if a bit too digital...more
Recommended to me by The Gentleman From Providence himself, HP Lovecraft, this is, like many of Lovecraft's, one of those Was The Author Mad st3.5 / 5
Recommended to me by The Gentleman From Providence himself, HP Lovecraft, this is, like many of Lovecraft's, one of those Was The Author Mad stories. It happened that just as I began this, a smoke detector in my building, in an apartment I have no access to, began chirping loudly day and night, begging to have its battery changed. I've reported it countless times over the past week but have yet to see any resolution. The chirping is rhythmic and over very little time could serve to drive someone out of their blessed mind. So it was that I found myself it just the right frame of mind to partake in what may well be another man's loss of sanity.
At times the writing was a morass of can't see the forest for the trees. There would be pages of detail, yet the overall idea or scene still seemed to confound because the density of the description really didn't serve to enlighten the reader about what was being conveyed. Musings of a troubled mind? Okay, that could be, but for the sake of the story it could have been fleshed out a bit, especially since there already so many words to convey so little.
But, as I read the thing that excited me most was how stark a blueprint this short text was to be, admittedly or not, on stories by Lovecraft, Stephen King (at times this was like The Lonesome Death of Geordie White, which itself had to have also been influenced by Lovecraft's Colour Out Of Space), and most beguiling, House of Leaves. I've yet to finish Leaves but the editorial comments and the overwhelming mood within the proverbial house where much of the story takes place served to bring scenes of Leaves flaring back to me at lightning speed.
Maybe I've been affected by reading conditions, but for its faults, grammatically or narratively, this is still one I would readily recommend to anyone who digs weird fiction, both old and new...more
This is the story that made me purchase Gogol's collected stories. After trying The Nose and The Overcoat in a library sampler, I happened on a still This is the story that made me purchase Gogol's collected stories. After trying The Nose and The Overcoat in a library sampler, I happened on a still from a silent era movie adaptation of Night Before Christmas, and the still freaked me the eff out. Presented in all its b/w glory was the grizzly visage of a grinning devil. How could this not be an awesome read? For whatever reason it's taken me ten years to finally settle down and read. And after finishing, I think I know why it did. Afraid it wouldn't live up to what my imagination has conjured following years of delay. And...it didn't. It was *too* haphazard. Usually, the crazier something gets, the more I enjoy it. Gogol's own The Nose was batshit from beginning to smirking end, and I loved it. Granted, it's been a decade, so maybe my tastes have changed. Since finding Gogol, and afterwards, Kharms, I've dug deeper into Russian folktales and Night Before Christmas carries all the hallmarks. Maybe it's because Christmas is at least double or triple the length of a typical Russian folktale? Maybe it's because Gogol seemed to be on the verge of setting up an internal logic that never reached fruition? Maybe I was looking for something that wasn't there? In the end it couldn't live up to my self imposed hype. But maybe we'll give it another go next Christmas, devil take it...more
This is a masterclass in how to take a really promising series, fill it to the brim with side-characters you can't help but love, then destroy that moThis is a masterclass in how to take a really promising series, fill it to the brim with side-characters you can't help but love, then destroy that momentum by choosing to focus almost all your attention on what have to be the two most irritating, nay, downright nauseating main characters I've ever come across. If not for reading this with my buddy Miranda, I don't know that I would have stuck with this particular book, which is really a shame because, cherry-picking as I did, I met a couple of characters I'd all but consider friends. I just wish I could have spent more time with them.
The problem with the two main characters is kinda difficult to describe without running the risk of spoilers. If I were to nutshell it, I'd have you picture someone you may know who has a one track mind. Sure, we can all have one at one time or another. But you take that person with their one track mind and you focus in on a particular day when, say, all they can talk about is how good the chocolate cake they had was last night. Now, you like chocolate cake as much as the next person, so you get it. Sure, you think. Chocolate cake is good. Now, let's say you were trapped in a 12x12 room with them for, let's say, thirty days straight and during that thirty days the only topic of conversation this one-track minded person you know, and may even (have) love(d), is that very chocolate cake you heard about 5 minutes ago, and the five minutes before that, and the five minutes before that, and and and and. And on it goes for thirty days. Possibly more. This is what the two main characters are like. They're apart, they gotta get together. Can we please get together. For the love of my sanity, dammit, please let them get together so they'll shut the hell up about it!!
And then, while you've been getting flogged by these two about how they want so badly to get together and meanwhile the entire world/universe/multiverse is crashing down around them, us, everybody, we're thrown a character who we've never heard mention of, but, when you get right down to it is very much a stand-in for a character we've already met but who, for reasons unknown, cannot fulfill the role in this constantly-out-of-nowhere story. She becomes a kind of thirdirary main character, but her being there honestly makes no sense, no matter how awkwardly and hamfistedly the author tries to make it so.
So you've got these three taking up the majority of your reading time while a chorus of characters you've grown to love since book one get a meager mention here, a meager mention there, and even with those meager mentions you can tell how amazing they are and it only serves to stoke the flames of discontent that you have to wade through paragraphs of blarrrgh to get to them again.
I honestly don't see how an author could do something so amazing and so downright unnerving all within the space of a single book.
So, one star (maybe no stars if that's a thing) for the primary characters in the book. But nearly all the secondary? A fully perplexing five ...more
With the travel and the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life, this took some time to finish. To be fair, there were some parts in the center that didn't beg tWith the travel and the what-am-I-doing-with-my-life, this took some time to finish. To be fair, there were some parts in the center that didn't beg to be read, and for some strange reason the word "folk" began to appear in every other sentence, which was both a distraction and, the longer it went on, a unexpected bit of comedy. But if I had known what await in Starlight's final quarter, nothing save the apocalypse could have stopped me from speeding to the end. And even that would have been questionable. ...more
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