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  • #1114405
    notasheep
    Member

    let us know how it goes!

    #1114406
    notasheep
    Member

    where did everyone go?

    #1114407
    gavra_at_work
    Participant

    where did everyone go?

    Crivens! Bigjobs!

    #1114408
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    writersoul: Have you ever read anything by Neil Gaiman?

    Itchesrulik: Welcome back! ^_^

    notasheep: here I am 🙂

    #1114409
    just my hapence
    Participant

    notasheep – Was a bit busy finishing a TMA due for tomorrow noon. But I’m back now! Well til Thursday when I’m not sure if I’ll have internet til after Pesach, but hey…

    OOM – So we have another Neil Gaiman fan… Whod’ve thunk it…

    #1114410
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: I read The Graveyard Book, but by then I think I was already too old for it. It was good, but pretty simplistic and the ending was just strange.

    Do you have any recommendations of some to try? I need reading material for over Pesach (though AP Bio is going to make up a big part of it… 🙁 ).

    #1114411
    Yserbius123
    Participant

    I started reading Gaiman after reading Good Omens. Interesting author, my favorite book so far is American Gods.

    #1114412
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    just my hapence: lol, I feel like the Adams, Pratchett and Gaiman fandoms all sort of bleed into each other. 😛

    writersoul: lol, I find that I never outgrow good writing. I actually was reading Homer Price the other day. 😛 I’d recommend Neverwhere.

    Yserbius: My favorite too. (Though I haven’t read it in like six years. :P)

    #1114413
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: Don’t misunderstand me- I thought the writing was great. I just wasn’t obsessed with the story. I’ll check those out! (I get this feeling that I started American Gods once- I don’t know what happened.)

    #1114414
    notasheep
    Member

    how about coraline? now that is creepy…

    #1114415
    Yserbius123
    Participant

    Agreed. Coraline was super creepy. His comics are even creepier, but they are very “adult” so not exactly appropriate.

    My other favorite Gaiman work, though, is probably his first short story collection (called Candles and Shadows or something like that) that has quite a few non-horror non-fantasy stories which were hilarious and touching.

    #1114416
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    Coraline was my first Gaiman book, so it has a special place in my heart… 😛

    Yserbius: I think you are speaking of Smoke and Mirrors? I liked that one, especially “Troll Bridge.” I liked Fragile Things better, though–especially that faceless slaves one lol.

    Can’t wait for his next Who episode… 😀

    #1114417
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: He’s writing a Who episode?!?!

    Sounds cool! Did he write any others?

    Is American Gods the one that starts with a guy getting released from prison? I’m 99% sure I started it…

    #1114418
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    “The Doctor’s Wife” GSCKJRSDFCZS AMAZING

    and yeah, that’s the one.

    #1114419
    just my hapence
    Participant

    OOM – Smoke and Mirrors was good, but if I remember rightly there were one or two stories that should be skipped. Fragile Things was much better, but I’ll have to disagree with you and say my favourite was either the zombies in New Orleans or the club where they eat endangered species.

    writersoul – I’m also going to recommend getting into Gaiman via Neverwhere, though Stardust is also a good bet for new Gaimanites. Or, as notasheep recommended, Coraline – witty and creepy and not too complicated plot-wise (unlike some of the others…)

    Right, so we’ve covered Pratchett, Adams and Gaiman so who else here reads Tom Holt?

    #1114420
    notasheep
    Member

    ummmmmm…. you? I have only read You Don’t Have to be Evil to Work Here But it Helps

    #1114421
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    jmh: lol, don’t remember–read it when about 6 years ago. 😛

    I suggested Neverwhere because I think it is his cleanest adult work…Stardust would be next, but I think it is less so.

    And I hadn’t heard of Tom Holt–just wikipedia’d him and he sounds interesting. I’ll see if I can get my hands on one of his books before Pesach. Any recommendations?

    #1114422
    MRS PLONY
    Participant

    I used to like Pratchett, but it annoyed me that he always seemed to have to do everything different, like reinvent all of the myths and do it his own way, like he knew better than everybody else, and only he was right. I figured it was only a matter of time before he took on the Jews, so I dropped him. He came awfully close in Small gods, with his parody of the monotheists, don’t you think?

    #1114423
    writersoul
    Participant

    Yes, I thought so a bit at one point, but a) he’s reasonably egalitarian in whom he mocks, and actually, monotheism seems to be very low on his list of subjects for satire, and b) he seems to be more of a skeptic than an atheist, like he wouldn’t commit to totally making fun and he did have some respect. The one thing that I think he thoroughly made ridiculous was polytheism, but he’s made fun of practically EVERYTHING. Including, if I remember rightly, some form of atheism, but yeah.

    Honestly, though, I feel sometimes like his satires are so satirical they cease to be satirical and then kind of sprout lives of their own, kind of as separated from the real religious beliefs. I’m personally quite ready to believe that the Discworld just has some really weirdo gods swooping up there, but that’s because after a while, when you think of it as a satirized Earth, the satire gets so heavy that you realize- there’s a total disconnect from the real thing.

    But most of all, these are Pratchett’s books and the entire point of sci-fi and fantasy is that the author can invent his/her own world. If you want to read, it, do, and if not, don’t. Remember, this is HIS world- YOU are an intruder :).

    #1114424
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    MRS PLONY: You are misunderstanding an essential quality that writers like Pratchett possess–one that I think is best expressed by Chekhov:

    That the world swarms with male and female scum is perfectly true. Human nature is imperfect. But to think that the task of literature is to gather the pure grain from the mulch heap is to reject literature itself. Artistic literature is called so because it depicts life as it really is. Its aim is truth unconditional and honest. A writer is not a confectioner, not a dealer in cosmetics, not an entertainer; he is a man bound under compulsion, by the realization of his duty and by his conscience. To a chemist, nothing on earth is unclean. A writer must be as objective as a chemist.

    It seems to me that the writer should not try to solve such questions as those of God, pessimism, etc. His business is but to describe those who have been speaking or thinking about God and pessimism, how and under what circumstances. The artist should be not the judge of his characters and their conversations, but only an unbiased observer.

    You are right in demanding that an artist should take an intelligent attitude to his work, but you confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for the artist.

    You abuse me for objectivity, calling it indifference to good and evil, lack of ideas and ideals, and so on. You would have me, when I describe horse thieves, say: Stealing horses is an evil. But that has been known for ages without my saying so. Let the jury judge them; its my job simply to show what sort of people they are. I writ: you are dealing with horse thieves, so let me tell you that they are not beggars but well-fed people, that they are people of a special cult, and that horse stealing is not simply theft but passion. Of course it would be pleasant to combine art with a sermon, but for me personally it is impossible owing to the conditions of technique. You see, to depict horse thieves in 700 lines I must all the time speak and think in their tone and feel in their spirit. Otherwise, the story will not be as compact as all short stories ought to be. When I write, I reckon entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story.

    (Emphasis added.)

    #1114425
    ItcheSrulik
    Member

    Gaiman wrote The Doctor’s Wife?

    Explains a lot.

    #1114426
    notasheep
    Member

    Mrs Plony – We satirise ourselves as well. The main point to realise is that it’s done simply for satire’s sake. He is not in any way anti-semitic or anti-religion (though I don’t think he is religious either). He just finds a concept and finds something humorous about it.

    #1114427
    Torah613Torah
    Participant

    OOM: Interesting. Do you agree with the idea of art for arts’ sake? Does this imply that art should not be influenced by moral values?

    To my understanding, that would be the opposite of ??? ?????? ???? ?????? ????? ??.

    #1114428
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    ItcheSrulik: In a good way or a bad way? 😛

    torah613: I don’t know “art for arts’ sake” means. Also, I don’t know what your understanding of “??? ?????? ???? ?????? ????? ??” is.

    #1114429
    Torah613Torah
    Participant

    OOM, from your quote: “His business is but to describe those who have been speaking or thinking about God and pessimism, how and under what circumstances. The artist should be not the judge of his characters and their conversations, but only an unbiased observer.”

    This is a focus on aesthetics that is associated with ???. I am referring to the concept that we don’t believe that art should be objective, it should be sanctified for kedusha.

    #1114430
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    One of today’s asks from Gaiman’s tumblr:

    Q: Something that occurred to me while watching Hitchhiker’s Guide today – was “Richardrichardmayhewdick” at all an homage to “Dentarthurdent” (as adressed by Slartibartfast), or just a nice coincidence?

    Gaiman: Absolute homage & a tip of the hat to Douglas, who was still alive when I wrote it and it was first broadcast.

    *glee*

    #1114431
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: Just took Neverwhere out of the library for Pesach and looked at the flap, so I actually know what you’re talking about! Cool! That furthers my and my friend’s idea that there’s a whole fraternity of sci-fi-fantasy authors who meet in a smoke-filled room and plan Doctor Who episodes :).

    #1114432
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    ^_^

    #1114433
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    And also BBC just aired a radio dramatization of Neverwhere. With Christopher Lee and Benedict Cumberbatch. 😀

    #1114434
    ItcheSrulik
    Member

    OOM: Both.

    I’m currently reading I shall wear midnight

    #1114435
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    hmm, do I detect Moffat hate?

    #1114436
    ItcheSrulik
    Member

    Chalilah!

    #1114437
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    k then I don’t get it.

    I Shall Wear Midnight…first Discworld novel that I thought was kind of meh. Did you finish it yet?

    #1114438
    notasheep
    Member

    I haven’t read that one. I think the Tiffany Aching series is for younger readers. You can usually tell by the fact that most Discworld books don’t have chapters but those, and also The Amazing Maurice, do have chapters. Having said that, I love the Nac Mac Feegle

    #1114439
    just my hapence
    Participant

    OOM – Sorry about the late reply but had no internet over pesach… It’s difficult to know where to start with Tom Holt, maybe his latest, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages” or one of the Paul Carpenter series (though these should be read in order), the first is “The Portable Door”. Or, if you have any sort of slight kind of interest in various forms of ancient mythologies from around the world, some of the earlier ones like “Who’s afraid of Beowulf”, “Expecting Someone Taller” or “Grailblaizers”. Definitely DO NOT start with “Falling Over Sideways” or “Little People”. Apart from that, knock yourself out!

    #1114440
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: Sign me up! Is it free to find somewhere? I don’t have any money ::(…

    Just read Neverwhere and Good Omens over Pesach. Considering I’m NOT a fantasy person, Neverwhere was MUCH better than I thought it would be, and I was allowing space as I really liked Good Omens and I knew it would probably be good anyway.

    But it was, like I said, much better than however good I thought it might be.

    Tiffany Aching’s for younger readers- I stopped by like the second one. They were pretty blah (though ironically I think I was part of their intended audience at the time…). But the Nec Mac Feegle WERE very funny.

    Actually, though, one of my favorite Pratchett quotes is from there. It expresses a lot of my feelings a lot of the time VERY well:

    #1114441
    notasheep
    Member

    Any word longer than ‘beer’ is a long word for a Nac Mac Feegle

    #1114442
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    notasheep: I actually really liked the first two (the first one is one of my favorites). I feel like they are just starting to degenerate into YA boringness.

    jmh: I actually went out and bought Earth, Air, Fire and Custard (picked it off the shelf at random) for Yom Tov. Haven’t read it yet, though–too much of a backlog on the old reading list. 😛

    writersoul: They are on the BBC website for free. 😀 And lol The Wee Free Men has some of my favorite quotes too–the ooooooiiiiyyyyynnnggg one, and Miss Tick’s thing about following your star, and the swords that glow blue in the presence of lawyers, and the lawyer toad…good stuff. ^_^

    #1114443
    just my hapence
    Participant

    OOM – So I tell you they need to be read in order and you go out and buy the third one first… *sigh*

    #1114444
    writersoul
    Participant

    OOM: Ohhh, yes… follow your star. My friend has that quote hanging on her wall. It looks like one of those inspiring quote thingies until the end. I just forgot it was from The Wee Free Men :).

    Are you sure it’s available on their site? I looked and it said it was unavailable… :(.

    Actually, all for the best. Instead I’ll just do my homework. Yay.

    #1114445
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    jmh: ehehehe whoops 😛

    writersoul: Hmmm, they were working on Chol Hamoed…now they aren’t available for me either. They did say something about a cutoff, but then the actual stream had this little pop-up that said “Over a year left to listen”…so I dunno. Well, happy homeworking. 🙂

    Oh and btw you inspired me to re-read Neverwhere this Y”T. ^_^

    #1114446
    notasheep
    Member

    I read Neverwhere a while ago – that’s the one with Door, right?

    #1114447
    writersoul
    Participant

    Yep!

    It’s one of those awesome books where each time you read it you find something you missed the first time. Just re- (re- re-) read it and realized I’d completely missed so many cool details that made it even better.

    The kind of thing that really makes you feel better about an 8 hour afternoon with the same books you already read three times over Pesach… 🙂

    #1114448
    OneOfMany
    Participant

    yup

    oh and btw Neil Gaiman is going to be doing book signings in Brooklyn squeeeee

    #1114449
    just my hapence
    Participant

    notasheep – Never mind you read Neverwhere, you owned a copy of it… (Well, I yarshened it to you, but still…)

    #1114450
    notasheep
    Member

    well that doesn’t really do much for me over here does it?

    #1114451
    just my hapence
    Participant

    notasheep – BTW, do you know where my copy of Good Omens got to?

    #1114452
    notasheep
    Member

    No idea. Ask your brother, he’s been going through the TPs recently so he may have seen it…

    #1114453
    just my hapence
    Participant

    I lent it to someone a while back and thought it might have been you… Never mind…

    #1114454
    notasheep
    Member

    Nope. Wasn’t me.

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