[EmperorMagus]

Andorion, on 10 April 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

Oh I see. Yeah, we have lots of rules here as well but I read poetry differently. I never focus on the verse structure, but rather on the language, imagery and emotion the poet is trying to convey

Well, verse structure is a very important part of the linguistic value of a poem, if it isn't correct, the poem is just a piece of text.
I do care about the imagery and emotion as well, but unless the linguistic content is there, I don't enjoy those parts at all.
However, this is my opinion and it isn't meant to reflect on English poetry in a negative way at all.

[Andorion]

EmperorMagus, on 11 April 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

Andorion, on 10 April 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

Oh I see. Yeah, we have lots of rules here as well but I read poetry differently. I never focus on the verse structure, but rather on the language, imagery and emotion the poet is trying to convey

Well, verse structure is a very important part of the linguistic value of a poem, if it isn't correct, the poem is just a piece of text.
I do care about the imagery and emotion as well, but unless the linguistic content is there, I don't enjoy those parts at all.
However, this is my opinion and it isn't meant to reflect on English poetry in a negative way at all.

Hey its cool. Taste in these things is quite subjective. I think my own aversion to structured verse may come from being forced to read rigid and stylised Bengali poetry in school. The language can be very irritating if you find most of the literature boring and I did.

Farsi of course has a far larger canon right? My SO was learning Persian last year and she mentioned how tough it was as meanings of words were very context specific

[EmperorMagus]

Andorion, on 11 April 2016 - 02:44 AM, said:

Hey its cool. Taste in these things is quite subjective. I think my own aversion to structured verse may come from being forced to read rigid and stylised Bengali poetry in school. The language can be very irritating if you find most of the literature boring and I did.

Farsi of course has a far larger canon right? My SO was learning Persian last year and she mentioned how tough it was as meanings of words were very context specific

Yep, there a ridiculous number of good Farsi speaking poets, which I think has made me a little bit spoiled.

In highschool (which was the last time I studied Farsi literature) we learned 4 different kinds of metaphor that can be used in a text. Each metaphor can give the same word a different meaning ...

[Salt-Man Z]

So I finished The Library at Mount Char last night. Um. Wow. It started to get maybe a little too weird for a spell, and then wham! Hawkins totally nails the ending. Fantastic.

[Andorion]

Salt-Man Z, on 11 April 2016 - 03:06 PM, said:

So I finished The Library at Mount Char last night. Um. Wow. It started to get maybe a little too weird for a spell, and then wham! Hawkins totally nails the ending. Fantastic.

Do you think there is room for a sequel?

[Abyss]

Finally finished Belcher's BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL.


Totally fun urban fantasy book, manages to skip most of the usual tropes and beasties. The story wavers from simplistic to amazingly complex, and the setting Belcher has created here is one i very very much want to read about again.
The nutshell version is that America's highways are magnets for supernatural beasties, serial killers, cultists, serial killer cultists, supernatural serial killer cultists, and so on... and there is a secret group of truckers, MCs, cops, cabbies and others who try to protect travellers along the way.

It's delightfully original, nicely handled, dark and interesting and fun in a way most urban fantasy can't touch. The baddies are urban legends and ugly and evil, the heroes are well written and very human. Five main characters may have been a bit much but Belcher manages to keep all the plotlines moving and interweaving. It works. It isn't Malazan level complex or Dresden level action, but it works.

And the hints and references to bigger and other things are just great. I want to know more. A lot more.

Worth the dollars and eyeballs.

[Salt-Man Z]

Andorion, on 11 April 2016 - 04:03 PM, said:

Do you think there is room for a sequel?

I mean, maybe, I guess? It would be a totally different book though. I do love that kind of not-really-a-cliffhanger open-ended ending. (One of my fave short stories, Gene Wolfe's "Golden City Far" does the same thing.)

Abyss, you'd dig this one, I think.

[QuickTidal]

I tested out the first scattering of pages from LIBRARY and got completely lost. I doubt it's for me. It felt like stream of consciousness in parts.

[Salt-Man Z]

QuickTidal, on 11 April 2016 - 05:01 PM, said:

I tested out the first scattering of pages from LIBRARY and got completely lost. I doubt it's for me. It felt like stream of consciousness in parts.

It's definitely not stream of consciousness; you just don't have the background for that particular POV character's, well...background. I just skimmed the first 10 or so pages on Amazon again and it read like it did when I first cracked it open: This is weird, obviously something's up with these people, and I bet it won't be long before it starts making more sense. Page 25, by the way, sees the narrative switch to a "normal" person's POV.

It does always surprise me to see a Malazfan go "I don't understand everything right away, I don't think I'll like this."

This post has been edited by Salt-Man Z: 11 April 2016 - 05:50 PM

[QuickTidal]

Salt-Man Z, on 11 April 2016 - 05:50 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 11 April 2016 - 05:01 PM, said:

I tested out the first scattering of pages from LIBRARY and got completely lost. I doubt it's for me. It felt like stream of consciousness in parts.

It's definitely not stream of consciousness; you just don't have the background for that particular POV character's, well...background. I just skimmed the first 10 or so pages on Amazon again and it read like it did when I first cracked it open: This is weird, obviously something's up with these people, and I bet it won't be long before it starts making more sense. Page 25, by the way, sees the narrative switch to a "normal" person's POV.

It does always surprise me to see a Malazfan go "I don't understand everything right away, I don't think I'll like this."

That's fair, but perhaps something else rubbed me wrong in my perusal? I won't dismiss it, but maybe it's a library read for me.

[Tiste Simeon]

Have joined in with the "rereading FoD before FoL" gang.

[polishgenius]

I so wanna read Library at Mount Char. Gonna have to wait till the ebook isn't fucking hardback price though. Jokes.



Currently reading the latest Alex Verus book, Burned. It hasn't quite kicked on to where I'd hoped it'd be as the series progressed, somehow - things are just too simplistic in the world for me to get really engaged in it the way I do in some, and everything seems to pass by rather fast- but it's still worth a read for those looking for more UF kicks.
What I am finding interesting is that despite it not reading that way at first glance, and him wanting to be just a nice, aimable guy, Verus is a far dirtier, more brutal character when it comes down to brass tacks than even those in much more showily 'gritty' UF like Kadrey's Sandman Slim or the like. Just because he lacks direct power in a world where almost anyone could kill him and lots of them want to. It's a different take in a series that's otherwise probably a bit too indebted to Dresden.

This post has been edited by polishgenius: 11 April 2016 - 06:05 PM

[Salt-Man Z]

QuickTidal, on 11 April 2016 - 05:55 PM, said:

That's fair, but perhaps something else rubbed me wrong in my perusal? I won't dismiss it, but maybe it's a library read for me.

Oh sure, sure. It's definitely not for everyone; it is incredibly Weird with a capital W. But the Weirdness comes from the worldbuilding and the scope of the plot, not from the storytelling itself, which is (now that I think about it) pretty genre-traditional stuff.

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

Have joined in with the "rereading FoD before FoL" gang.

I've gotta finish off Heart of Darkness, and then I'll be there too.

[stone monkey]

Andorion, on 11 April 2016 - 02:44 AM, said:

EmperorMagus, on 11 April 2016 - 02:26 AM, said:

Andorion, on 10 April 2016 - 01:50 PM, said:

Oh I see. Yeah, we have lots of rules here as well but I read poetry differently. I never focus on the verse structure, but rather on the language, imagery and emotion the poet is trying to convey

Well, verse structure is a very important part of the linguistic value of a poem, if it isn't correct, the poem is just a piece of text.
I do care about the imagery and emotion as well, but unless the linguistic content is there, I don't enjoy those parts at all.
However, this is my opinion and it isn't meant to reflect on English poetry in a negative way at all.

Hey its cool. Taste in these things is quite subjective. I think my own aversion to structured verse may come from being forced to read rigid and stylised Bengali poetry in school. The language can be very irritating if you find most of the literature boring and I did.

Farsi of course has a far larger canon right? My SO was learning Persian last year and she mentioned how tough it was as meanings of words were very context specific

I'm guessing what you're referring to here is meter and it can be extremely important when talking about poetry(or not at all, depending on both poem and poet); Robert Graves, famous "Fire and Ice" relies for much of its effect on its meter imo, as does (in an entirely different way) Ted Hughes, "Thrushes".

The words are obviously important, but how you deploy them - their rhythm as well as their rhyme - is equally so, I would say.

And that's not even getting into the use of techniques like alliteration or assonance.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 11 April 2016 - 09:01 PM

[Andorion]

Salt-Man Z, on 11 April 2016 - 07:15 PM, said:

QuickTidal, on 11 April 2016 - 05:55 PM, said:

That's fair, but perhaps something else rubbed me wrong in my perusal? I won't dismiss it, but maybe it's a library read for me.

Oh sure, sure. It's definitely not for everyone; it is incredibly Weird with a capital W. But the Weirdness comes from the worldbuilding and the scope of the plot, not from the storytelling itself, which is (now that I think about it) pretty genre-traditional stuff.

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 05:59 PM, said:

Have joined in with the "rereading FoD before FoL" gang.

I've gotta finish off Heart of Darkness, and then I'll be there too.

The mode of narration threw me to begin with as well, but its a case of hanging on for 40 or so pages, and then things slowly start to make sense. Kind of.

[Mentalist]

Finished Legends from the End of Time . Most of the book, as well as the last 3rd of Dancers at the End of Time - the novel "The end of All Songs" will be reviewed in the Moorcock thread as "End of Time- Part 2".

Suffice to say, I really enjoyed the crossover pieces. Not sure if the 3rd Legend, "Ancient Shadows" is a nod to one of the early sci-fi works or not. The last short story, "Sumptuous Dress" is actually the end of the "Second Ether" sequence. So, I may have spoilered myself. But, given I understood about 15-20% of what was going on, I don't think it's a significant loss. Next in commute read- I think I'll pause on Moorcock before reading "Gloriana". I'll try "The Shadow Throne". Django Wexler's second Shadow Campaigns book.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 12 April 2016 - 12:54 AM

[amphibian]

polishgenius, on 11 April 2016 - 06:04 PM, said:

I so wanna read Library at Mount Char. Gonna have to wait till the ebook isn't fucking hardback price though. Jokes.



Currently reading the latest Alex Verus book, Burned. It hasn't quite kicked on to where I'd hoped it'd be as the series progressed, somehow - things are just too simplistic in the world for me to get really engaged in it the way I do in some, and everything seems to pass by rather fast- but it's still worth a read for those looking for more UF kicks.
What I am finding interesting is that despite it not reading that way at first glance, and him wanting to be just a nice, aimable guy, Verus is a far dirtier, more brutal character when it comes down to brass tacks than even those in much more showily 'gritty' UF like Kadrey's Sandman Slim or the like. Just because he lacks direct power in a world where almost anyone could kill him and lots of them want to. It's a different take in a series that's otherwise probably a bit too indebted to Dresden.

Veiled and Burned feel like the same story stretched into two books. It leaves Verus & Co. in a very interesting place though. I like what Jacka did, but wish he'd passed up some stuff in Veiled to give us the content of Burned within that one.

[Baco Xtath]

Abyss, on 11 April 2016 - 04:45 PM, said:

Finally finished Belcher's BROTHERHOOD OF THE WHEEL.


Totally fun urban fantasy book, manages to skip most of the usual tropes and beasties. The story wavers from simplistic to amazingly complex, and the setting Belcher has created here is one i very very much want to read about again.
The nutshell version is that America's highways are magnets for supernatural beasties, serial killers, cultists, serial killer cultists, supernatural serial killer cultists, and so on... and there is a secret group of truckers, MCs, cops, cabbies and others who try to protect travellers along the way.

It's delightfully original, nicely handled, dark and interesting and fun in a way most urban fantasy can't touch. The baddies are urban legends and ugly and evil, the heroes are well written and very human. Five main characters may have been a bit much but Belcher manages to keep all the plotlines moving and interweaving. It works. It isn't Malazan level complex or Dresden level action, but it works.

And the hints and references to bigger and other things are just great. I want to know more. A lot more.

Worth the dollars and eyeballs.

Have you read Belcher's Nightwise? It's similarly original and just as good.

Just finished Scalzi's Agent to the Stars. Didn't care much for it; way too silly.

Also finished Sean Platt's Invasion - it's about Aliens being spotted five days before arrival and the country going to shit, an in detail survivalist story or what would happen if everyone freaks out. Not bad. Bought the second one and will be starting it soon.

[Abyss]

NIGHTWISE is probably the only Blecher not already in the TRPFH, but as SIX GUN TAROT just moved way up, I'll no doubt get it eventually. WHEEL was way too fun not t read more of this author.

[Serenity]

Got about 100 pages left of a re-read of C J Cherryh's Downbelow Station. I first read it back in the mid-80s and found it a real struggle. This time I'm racing through it and think it might be one of my favourite SF books. Funny how tastes change