Ian's Updates en-US Sun, 23 Feb 2025 08:18:38 -0800 60 Ian's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7347888772 Sun, 23 Feb 2025 08:18:38 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian added 'Crime and Punishment']]> /review/show/7347888772 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky Ian gave 2 stars to Crime and Punishment (Paperback) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
More like Crime and unrelated things and maybe eventually Punishment.

I read this book because Brandon Sanderson's latest doorstopper turned me off of genre fiction entirely. It badly needed a better editor (and writer, lets be honest).

So it's ironic I stumble into this, which also desperately needs a good editing. I was fine exploring poverty in Tsarist Russia, the material circumstances behind crime, and especially the thriller aspects of trying to get away with it. But there's a good 300 pages about small-town scandals. As if he started with a good side-plot to more explore the MC's character and decided "no, this is SO GOOD I'm just gonna write about that for a while".

I'm lenient with the age and language barrier. It also has this reputation as being a Classic that makes any complaints I have seem like a flaw in me. Maybe I'm just too dumb, too uneducated, too impatient. But... lets be honest here, it's really not that good. ]]> Rating826762479 Mon, 17 Feb 2025 04:53:49 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian Davis liked a review]]> /
Ian liked Robin's review of Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5):
Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson
"If contract law and sitting in on other people’s therapy sessions gets you horny, then you’ll love this one.


"
]]> Review7248522958 Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:19:36 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian added 'Wind and Truth']]> /review/show/7248522958 Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson Ian gave 1 star to Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, #5) by Brandon Sanderson
I've never experienced a bigger change in my personal tastes. I used to adore Sanderson, but over the last few years, I feel drastically different.

Generously, it's accessible and engaging fantasy.

Honestly, it's obvious and clumsy prose stretched across video game characters explaining how to min-max their way past each boss fight. Every concept is predigested and repeated, character motivations and arcs are highlighted, and the world drawn in stark black and white.

Sanderson leaves no room for ambiguity. Characters introduce themselves by stating their motivation, core conflict, and the foreshadow of their arc. While another author might have a character think about how each grain of sand under their boots was once a proud mountain, and maybe their bones will one day be similarly dismissed irritations, Sanderson just announces that "So and So is depressed and wonders about the meaning of life". Every paragraph might as well have a fucking thesis statement, that's how blunt it is. And if it's really important, it'll be repeated, probably in the next paragraph. It's so blindingly unambiguous that the characters might as well gain status effects, like "Uncertain Identity: This character receives -5 on all charisma checks. Can only be removed by a level 2 therapy session"

For example, a core plot about a character learning to deal with the trauma of war is instead treated with them being bluntly told that they're discovering therapy and then explaining a wikipedia definition for the currently-trending Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Most interactions feel like tabletop RPG characters explaining the powers and abilities of their classes to each other and discovering the most OP combo to overcome the bad guys. Someone just hand them a rulebook already, because I'm getting really tired of them discovering some new prestige class every damn book. I could enjoy it in an X-Men kinda way if it wasn't the primary way the plot is driven.

The other core element of any Sanderson story are characters discovering The Truth about the world. Again, no ambiguity here. There's no element of mystery or uncertainty regarding events thousands of years in the past, because again, the characters might as well be reading the Campaign Setting book. Actually, they just time travel to see it happen. It is more interesting than just being told about it, but it's functionally the same, because again, Sanderson doesn't do unresolved mystery and ambiguity.

Even the charming callbacks grated on me. In the first book, a group of slaves would gather to make a meal a foreigner charmingly called Chowta. But they're all heroes with magic powers now, so even the noble commanders each Chowta, in the span of... a year? Five at the most?

And I want to give him so much credit because this book features gay romance, swear words, and premarital sex! That's HUGE for a famously Mormon author. But I've entirely lost my taste for his style of storytelling, almost overnight. I reread all of Mistborn 3 years back and didn't have the same reaction, and those are far worse books by any measure.

But I miss the potent poetry of Steven Erikson. It left space for me to explore my own struggles and fears. Sanderson's terrified that if he uses nuance and subtext, you might miss something. ]]> Review6276643456 Mon, 19 Feb 2024 10:37:01 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian added 'Cocaine Nights']]> /review/show/6276643456 Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard Ian gave 4 stars to Cocaine Nights (Paperback) by J.G. Ballard
Ballard does a neo-noir, where you forget about trying to solve the crime and instead work on justifying it. Properly unsettling. ]]> Review6249305151 Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:35:02 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian added 'High-Rise']]> /review/show/6249305151 High-Rise by J.G. Ballard Ian gave 5 stars to High-Rise (Paperback) by J.G. Ballard
Don't just tell me of humanity's capacity for violence, we learn that first day on the playground. Tell me how we justify it and build entire edifices to do violence on our behalf. That's something we spend a lot of effort to avoid knowing.

Frasier if it was a horror story, The Busy World of Richard Scary but infect with rot and fascism. Or, you know, life as usual. ]]> ReadStatus7529396789 Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:23:34 -0800 <![CDATA[Ian is currently reading 'We Are Legion (We Are Bob)']]> /review/show/6220736890 We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor Ian is currently reading We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor
]]> ReadStatus6942688955 Thu, 24 Aug 2023 05:16:10 -0700 <![CDATA[Ian has read 'Flowers for Algernon']]> /review/show/5792353578 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes Ian has read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
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