[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Trouble;348533 said:

Where did you get it from?! I've been looking everywhere with no luck!

You can get BBQ at about any grocery store if you're willing to cook it yourself.

[cauthon]

Matter by In M. Banks. Culture stuff. Excellent too :-)

[Matriarch]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;348536 said:

You can get BBQ at about any grocery store if you're willing to cook it yourself.

Ha ha. Nice witty retort. I tried to rep you for making me laugh, but I too much a NOOB.

[caladanbrood]

Trouble;348533 said:

Where did you get it from?! I've been looking everywhere with no luck!

Heheh, Cult had a spare copy when he won pat's competition

[Dr Trouble]

Damn you Cult!!! I thought I barely knew you existed but expected the best from you!!!

[Skywalker]

caladanbrood;348438 said:

Return of the Crimson Guard :D

Not gonna finish it by the BBQ though

I should change my name to Illubyss....

So much hatred... and a craving for brainzz.

[Slum]

Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates - Tom Robbins

It's flippin' brilliant!

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Tom Robbins rocks! That's probably my favorite book by him. HAve you read his others? Brilliant stuff.

[Slum]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;349794 said:

Tom Robbins rocks! That's probably my favorite book by him. HAve you read his others? Brilliant stuff.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it so far. I read Still Life With Woodpecker and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues years ago and loved them. For some reason, he just fell off my radar. A friend of mine mentioned she was reading him the other day (cuing fond memories), so I went to the library and got Fierce Invalids... and Skinny Legs and All. I'm glad I did.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Skinny Legs is great. My rankings of Robbins' novels:

1. Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates
2. Skinny Legs and All
3. Another Roadside Attraction
4. Jitterbug Perfume
5. Still Life With Woodpecker
6. Villa Incognito
7. Even Cowgirls get the Blues
8. Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

The top three switch places sometimes depending on which I've read most recently. Villla Incognito was written very well and would be much higher on the list, but it feels like half of a book where he got tired of writing and just cut it off. Had the potential to be one of the best otherwise. Half asleep was good, but being written in the second person really bugged me.

Even the worst of Robbins is genius.

[Slum]

Cool! Thanks for the rundown, RLY. It looks like I picked two good ones.

I think I'll skip Half Asleep in Frog's Pajamas...I can't imagine reading a whole novel in the second person.

Oh, and you will have rep when I am able.

[Astra]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;349859 said:

Skinny Legs is great.
3. Another Roadside Attraction

Even the worst of Robbins is genius.

What is his style?

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Astra;349875 said:

What is his style?

That's a difficult question to answer. Vonnegut+Joseph Heller+Neal Stephenson+Hunter S Thompson+mysticism+drugs+sex+the meaning of life and the universe+occasional aliens+weirdness+cosmic deep thoughts+funny+anti authority+sticking it to the man+figuring out what it all means. That almost begins to describe it.

One reviewer described him as "a heady broth rich with Vonnegut, Brautigan and Whittimore digested in the belly of a camel obsessed with magic realism."

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Here's some Robbins quotes to give a small idea of what he's about.

# A better world has gotta start somewhere. Why not with you and me? (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised. (Jitterbug Perfume)
# According to my mother, some sort of phantom stole into the room where I lay in my cradle and struck me on the head with a silver hammer. (In response to "To what do you attribute that marvelous imagination of yours...")
# Birth and death were easy. It was life that was hard. (Jitterbug Perfume)
# Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
# Don't believe everything about me you read on the 'Net.
# Green is my favorite color, except for flesh.
# Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature. (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# I started before I was old enough to know better. My muse was a cradle-robber, a child-molester. She seduced an innocent, blue-eyed, tow-headed, pre-literate tot and turned him into a paragraph junkie. (In reply to how he got started as a novelist)
# I write with a raven quill dipped in lizard blood. Or, rather, I used to. Now that chameleons have become an endangered species, I'm making my ink from berries. (In response to "When you're writing a book, how many pens/pencils/pencil crayons/markers do you go through?")
# If God had a bumper sticker, it would probably read: SHINE, DON'T WHINE.
# If you exclude certain bodily appendages, the only instrument I've ever been able to play at all well is the typewriter.
# It's never too late to have a happy childhood. (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# Of the seven dwarves, only Dopey had a shaven face. This should tell us something about the custom of shaving. (Skinny Legs and All)
# Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.
# Punctuality is one of my few virtues. Actually, punctuality may be my ONLY virtue.
# Recently, I've been working on a yoga technique that when perfected will allow me to blow in my own ear.
# Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.
# Society had a crime problem. It hired cops to attack crime. Now society has a cop problem. (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and none worth killing for.
# There are two kinds of people in this world : those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better. (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# There is a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like a part of the act. (Still Life with Woodpecker)
# To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. (Jitterbug Perfume)
# Using words to describe magic is like using a screwdriver to cut roast beef.
# You don't have to be a genius to recognize one. If you did, Einstein would never have gotten invited to the White House. (Jitterbug Perfume)

[Werthead]

Just finished Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal by Vern. Awesome stuff.

Just started The Edge of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass.

[Deornoth]

Just finished reading 'The Age of the Conglomerates' by Thomas Nevins, a speculative look at a future America post-economic/social collapse. It's got some interesting ideas about things like genetic research and the treatment of the elderly but these are completely let down by info-dumping and poor execution of the plot itself. Too much information (that we're told, not shown) means the story is stifled and confusing... A full review is over Here.
I'm still reading Peter Brett's 'The Painted Man' but Jeffery Thomas' 'Deadstock' is my next 'commute book'.

[Binder of Demons]

I'm half way through "Shadow of The Wind" by CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON. And it's brilliant so far. I haven't been this engrossed in a story for ages.
A real mystery story, and i don't think i have a clue where it's gonna end up.

Pat gave this a glowing review on his blog and i can see why. Couldn't believe that i found it in my local library.

[Dr Trouble]

I'm reading worryingly fast through Toll The Hounds.

But oh my, it is good. Although I bit slow in pace. I begin to get annoyed at the constant switch of narrative that has been present through all his books.

[stone monkey]

Saturn's Children by Charles Stross - fun so far, but not as much fun as some of his other stuff. It kinda makes me wish he'd write some more Bob Howard stuff or maybe finish off the story from Iron Sunrise

[Terez]

Reading Toll the Hounds!