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The Jammie Dodger Bored Board -> JDBB -> The Jammie Dodger Bored Board -> Books wot I read 2012
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ddvmor


I am the Jammie King!




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Date: Jan 19, 2012
Books wot I read 2012
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I've read two books so far this year.  Impressive, huh?  Who knew I could read?

The Scar by China Meiville.  I may have mentioned that over the last couple of years I've read everything I can lay my hands on by this guy.

Bloody brilliant, this book.  It has pirates, a giant floating city built from the carcasses of thousands of stolen ships.  A huge sea monster.  Mosquito women.  A healthy dose of swashbucking and an ill-advised quest to the furthest reaches of the world, where things get weird.

China Meiville is a genius.

 

Also, I read McMafia by Misha Glenny.

This one's a non-fiction book about the history of Eastern European organised crime and quite convincingly puts forward the claim that organised crime represents about 20% of global GDP. 

It's a damn interesting book, but as with the last book I read by this guy, I get the sense that he sort of idolises these criminals, which doesn't sit quite right with me.

 

So there you go.  I'm off to read a Spider Man comic.



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Truckman


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Date: Jan 19, 2012
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I'm a little over halfway through "Hitler's Hangman," a pretty concise account of the wasted life of Reinhard Heydrich...It rambles quite a bit, but seems accurate against other data I've read about him...wary...Ben



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sha76jam


Cpt Acorn Short of An Oaktree


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Date: Mar 17, 2012
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Onto book number 6 in 8 days (yay for time off!). All enjoyable, from gloriously trashy chick lit to the serious, informative & somewhat chilling Bookseller of Kabul.  However, I would particularly like to mention The European Job, mainly because it made me think of the JDK, partly for the sense of humour, but mainly for the use of "Buggrit".

 

 

 



 



-- Edited by sha76jam on Saturday 17th of March 2012 09:34:39 PM

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ddvmor


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Date: Mar 21, 2012
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I finished Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson a week or so ago. It's a cyberpunk story that focusses on neurolinguistic programming as a WMD. It was okay, but suffered a lot from having been written in 1992, so felt a bit dated in it's realisation of computers & online stuff. There were sword fights in it though, so that makes up for it!

Oddly, like the book I read right before it, this one also featured a floating city constructed from ships. Coincidence, I think.

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Truckman


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ddvmor wrote:

 Coincidence, I think.

 Exactly what "they" want you to think, I'm sure...wary...Ben



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ddvmor


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Date: Apr 24, 2012
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Okay, I just finished Iron COuncil by China Mieville. Although I love China, his books can sometimes be a bit hard to get into, and this was no exception. It was a good hundred pages before it stopped being a bit of struggle. It was worth it in the end though, as it always is. A splendid yarn about revolutionaries returning to liberate the city from which they escaped years before. On a train.

At Jackie's suggestion, I'm just embarking on A Game Of Thrones. I'm about 30 pages in.

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Aodan


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Date: Apr 24, 2012
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I'm about halfway through book 5 now. He better not wait another decade to publish book 6...

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ddvmor


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Date: Apr 25, 2012
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Looking at him, I'm not sure he's gonna LIVE long enough to publish book 6...

Dani's just about to be introduced to Drogo, by the way. He's totally a Klingon!

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Aodan


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Date: Apr 25, 2012
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He's totally delicious.

And yeah.. Martin better not do something stupid like die before finishing this series or I'm gonna dig him up and make him finish.

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Aodan


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Date: Jun 11, 2012
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I wish I could...

So awesome is a bit strong. I think I'm trying to find something good in all of this because my best friend loves this book so much, and I don't have the heart to tell her that I think it's garbage.

I like the idea... the whole VR world and the egg hunt and such... but he's just not very good at growing that idea into something. I was reading the reviews and people are practically losing their minds over this book and easter egg hunt that's going on now. I feel like the grumpy old man who hates everything.



-- Edited by Aodan on Monday 11th of June 2012 01:49:05 PM

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 11, 2012
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I finished the first book last week. I can't see many differences between it and the TV series. it was ace.

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Aodan


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Date: Jun 11, 2012
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It wasn't until Season 2 that they really started to stray from the books. Now I'm really curious to see how they handle the next one.

I finally finished book 5 and it left me feeling even more sure that if Martin should die before he resolves all of this, I'm going to dig him up and kill him again.

Right now I'm reading Ready Player One at the recommendation of just about everyone. The story is ok, sometimes even bordering on awesome, but the writing is so abysmal that I'm having a hard time getting through it with my eye rollers unstrained.

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 11, 2012
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Weird. That's exactly what I'm reading now. I have yet to see awesome. I'm mostly seeing a big dollop of Mary Sue with a lot of 80's name dropping. Feels very self indulgent. Also, f*ck all has happened so far and I'm six or seven chapters in. It's all been world building infodump so far, and not even a very interesting world.

I'm starting to suspect that the recommendations are mostly people saying 'I also remember Star Wars and Galaxians and John Hughes. So it must be good, right?'

Please tell me it gets better.

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 12, 2012
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Go and read some classic Cyberpunk. You'll feel better for it.

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Aodan


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Date: Jun 19, 2012
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I finally finished it. I want to punch the "author" in the face. Worst. Ending. Ever.

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 19, 2012
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Don't say that. I've persevered this far...

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 19, 2012
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What should we read next, anyway? I have a new Dark Tower book by Stephen King...

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Aodan


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Date: Jun 19, 2012
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Finish it so that we can both cry about it.

Right now I'm reading the new Sookie book because I'm lame and it'll take me to tonight to finish it.

I've got the Wolf Gift by Anne Rice and a bunch of Tolkien in my queue.

I'm not really a fan of Stephen King. I think he starts with really great ideas, but more often than not the second half of his books are just rehashings of the first half of the book and I get bored. His short stories are great, but I haven't managed to get through much that's longer than that.

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ddvmor


I am the Jammie King!




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Date: Jun 19, 2012
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Try 'The Gunslinger'. It's not too long, so if you hate it, it won't be tend of the world (except that it's set at the end of the world...). It's the first of 7 books and they're fricking awesome. Even the end.

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ddvmor


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Date: Jun 20, 2012
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Oh god. I finished it. I think it cost me several brain cells. And I didn't have many spare in the first place.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Lets see...

MARY SUE!!! Check
One dimensional characters: check
Terrible prose: check
Tell, don't show: check
Derivative nonsense: check
Worse dialogue: check
Lists of things instead of world building: check
Astounding and unrealistic deductive feats: check
Don't bother describing something - just say that it's like this other thing from the 80's. And namecheck the movie, TV show or game it was in EVERY TIME! In case someone misses how clever you think you're being: check
Fundamental lack of understanding of how computers work: check
Black lesbian character that only exists to prove that the author is not only cool with all genders, ethnicities and orientations, but is cool with all genders, ethnicities and orientations CUBED! At the same time! How cool is he? Yep. Check.
Unintentionally (presumably) sexist and racist characterisations of everyone who isn't the main character: check
Deux ex machina ending: check

It's not just that I don't like this book. It's a bad book. It's like a ten year old has read the Wikipedia entries for William Gibson, Philip K Dick and Neal Stephenson, written some bad fan fiction and then, just because, used the Wikipedia entry on the 80s to bulk it up a bit. It's all been done a hundred times before, and every single time, it was better than this drivel.

I could live with it if it wasn't, despite all the evidence to the contrary, getting rave reviews from almost everybody. Have they actually read it?

I feel dirty.



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