quote:

Originally posted by yer.andreas:
For the last month I've been reading Palahniuk's Haunted. Just today did I pass the middle. It's like a collection of short stories so there is no real interest to finish it...There is just not a main scenario to keep me going.

thats why i haven't even bought it yet. i never even finished diary. i think there were a couple of pieces in diary that became haunted. it seems like too long since he did a proper novel, to caught up in cleaning out his drawers of random pieces of writing that he has done the rest of the time.

in the meantime. not actually started reading it, but just picked up the annual Best SF collection, volume 19 in the UK.

I wasn't big on Diary either, it just never really involved me. Haunted I enjoyed more because I liked the way he strung together the stories with a loose narrative. It amused me. Not exceptional, but decent.

quote:

Originally posted by Evilpenguin9000:
I wasn't big on Diary either, it just never really involved me. Haunted I enjoyed more because I liked the way he strung together the stories with a loose narrative. It amused me. Not exceptional, but decent.

for me it was the fugitives and refugees, diary and more of the same. i'll probably get round to haunted sooner or later, but its the feel of collection that puts me off. now its in paper back i'm more likely to get it, even though i saw some decent offers in hardback.

Gregory Benford's "Beyond Infinity". It was a great "hard" scifi book about an impossiably distant futue when sol is going red dwarf and a "original human" girl is the center of a huge galatic battle...... Then I read a little bit of fluff by Angela Hunt called "The Note", it was a quick read, 300 pages in less than 8 hours mainly because I skimmed over everything I found to be boring..

I just finished American Psyco- I'm now starting Hey! Nostradamus-

Maybe I'm desenstized to the violence in the world and the gore factor in video games and movies- But, AP didn't seem all that good- It was a amuseing watching him try to be some thing he wanted to be- But other wise I was bored-

Little Women. Cause I'm simple and sweet like that

quote:

Originally posted by Varden:
Little Women. Cause I'm simple and sweet like that

I just bet you are.

quote:

Originally posted by Noirjyre:
I just finished American Psyco- I'm now starting Hey! Nostradamus-

Maybe I'm desenstized to the violence in the world and the gore factor in video games and movies- But, AP didn't seem all that good- It was a amuseing watching him try to be some thing he wanted to be- But other wise I was bored-

I think a big part of AP is the fact that Patrick IS so boring. He has no depth at all. Prototypical psychopathic American yuppie....

trying to finish 'the unbearable lightness of being' Oddly, I'm finding it rather unbearable, too depressing for the moment I think. Everything else I brought is philosphy, so I am kind of at a reading stale mate. Hopefully things will change as the days pass.

Still in Androids Dream

Been skirting around in Burning Chrome.

Going to go back and watch NMFTT again sometime, it always gives me this weird good feeling, like the warm good feeling I get playing through Gradius or Deus Ex.

I wish there was more of them!

quote:

Originally posted by boogerhead:

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:
Ah, boog, Red Harvest certainly is the true, unadulterated signal from the Noir Deity. Have you finished it yet? I love the slow realization about the title that dawns on the first time reader.

Finished it yesterday. Am currently hunting for more...it'll be a while, though, still getting things settled from the summer.

Don't buy his novels individually. There are many collections available that have all the novels together in one book, likewise with the short stories. The mystery or lit shelves in a used bookstore are usually clogged with them, many nicely bound in leather and very, very cheap.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by yer.andreas:
For the last month I've been reading Palahniuk's Haunted. Just today did I pass the middle. It's like a collection of short stories so there is no real interest to finish it. I read a chapter/story and then I close it wanting to read something else. But it's still full of bold ideas like all his other books. There is just not a main scenario to keep me going. Well, there is, but it's not so... main.

Yeah Haunted really disappointed me. I thought it lacked his usual bold ideas, replacing them with being gross instead. After a while the gross factor levels out and becomes repetitious. Also the characters were vague to me so it was hard to get drawn into them (or what was happening to them) at all. I also lost track of which character was which because he introduces them, slaps a nick name on them and then later a story about them comes along...by which time I forgot who they were.

quote:

Originally posted by dawntreader:

quote:

Originally posted by Varden:
Little Women. Cause I'm simple and sweet like that

I just bet you are.

you know it!
Little Men now too.

Schrodinger's_Chat :

quote:

Hopefully things will change as the days pass.

Remember : save some cash for French comics when you return.

Just finished Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential.

It'll probably put me off eating out for a year.

Just finished Do Androids Dream. I'm sorry, but I found the writing rather terrible and annoying. Just... so full of holes it was simply silly (even for SF), and the characters so horribly... non-existant? It was like watching some wise-ass bi-polar philosophy prof babble on with sock puppets. The ideas of course, legendary. But I think I'm not at all critical now of people who liked the movie but not the book.

Bending, he kissed her bare shoulder.

"Thanks, Rick," she said wanly. "Remember, though: don't think about it, just do it. Don't pause and be philosophical, because from a philosophical standpoint it's dreary. For us both."

No, let's not not pause and be philosophical otherwise people might begin to suspect there's actually a novel underneath all this erratic quipping.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TwiliteMinotaur,

Well September is almost over, but I did manage to start up the DEAD GIRLS, DEAD BOYS, DEAD THINGS trio by Richard Calder. I've read the first two previously but decided to run through them again to prepare for the final volume. This is my fun book for October.

Semi-fun and semi-study is KILLER GAME PROGRAMMING IN JAVA by Andrew Davison, published by O'Reilly. This was one of the better games programming books I've seen, with lots of coded examples. Each chapter covers a new topic and there are discussions of multiple types of games instead of the usual focus on designing a library to build one simple (boring) one. For a long time I assumed Java sucked for writing games, but the language has matured and seems ideal for almost anything (with the exception of cutting edge 3D graphic engines, but I'm more interested in simple web- or phone-based stuff at the moment.)

I finally broke down and bought a Windows based machine so I am also looking forward to some C++/DirectX tinkering soon. If only I didn't have all this math homework or silly console apps to design for school....

quote:

KILLER GAME PROGRAMMING IN JAVA

"Game programming" and "java" do not belong into the same sentence.

that's pretty interesting david. i googled "GAME PROGRAMMING C++" and got back 15 million hits. then i googled "GAME PROGRAMMING JAVA" and got back 25 million hits.... clearly there is more current interest and discussion for java. maybe you should look into it....

maybe he means drinking coffee is bad when programming games.

anyone?

anyone?

*hangs head in shame*