Crazy Guy on the Veldt

This is one book I have hunted for in bargain bins for almost 6 years

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. I 1st heard of this book from a short story ( The Day Before the Revolution) by Le Guin, it was about Odo during the days before the Great Strike which would eventually lead to the Revolution, sort of a prelude to the novel. I always wanted to know what happened to Laia Asieo Odo and her ideas.

Marvelous book. The point of view is totaly alien not because of some fundamental difference such as divergent chemistry or biology. The people of Annares are pretty much human. The "alien" feeling comes from their ideology. Which is ultimately depressing when you get to analysing it. Even now, having had time to think about it, I find it hard to actually grasp what Odonianism is although I know it's a form of anarcho-syndicalism, my capitalist grounded mindset refuses to accept even the possibility of such a society existing. People working for the common good of all, without any possession (even in their language any possessive case is absent or discouraged), no laws, no religion .... I'm stopping here before I burst into song.

How would you measure a man's worth and where would my place be in such a society?

Contrast also how Shevek felt and his feelings when he was among the Urrasti. He was the outsider looking in. And what he was looking into is a society obviously patterned on the West / U.S. i.e. our society (or what our society aspires to be) And here is where the ultimately depressing part comes in. His opinion on Urrastian ( our) society makes so much sense. I defy anyone to claim that they don't see the evils and injustices that Shevek describes in our very real world today.

This is one of the things I hate most.... missing to post for a goodly length of time. Now I have to recall the things I've read from then to now....

Nebula Winners Fourteen edited by Frederick Pohl
~Good bits: Nebula winners
~Bad bits: fourteen...I don't have one to thirteen

A Fearful Symmetry by James Luceno
~Good bits: if you've ever wondered what would it be like if America's president where a new-age hippie zen practitioner
~Bad bits: the world is almost destroyed by a bunch of octogenarian psychic Nazis.

Martin the Warrior, The Bellmaker, and The Long Patrol by Brian Jacques

Playgrounds of the Mind by Larry Niven
~Good bits: Mr Niven gives us insight into his works, his collaborations with Pournelle, sci fi fandom and conventions
~Bad bits: most of the stories are excerpts from his books....and reading a small tidbit, I can't help myself...I have to read the whole book.

And just now...

Taggerung by Brian Jacques.
~Good bits: Like all other Redwall book, food! I know it's completely fantastical but Mr. Jacques has a talent to make the food and the feasting seem so real.
If you can imagine the characters in "The Wind in the Willows" going at it and battling it out Braveheart style then this is for you.

~Bad bits: the mysterious riddle from the past gets a bit old (harhar) by the 3rd book and some of the riddles are a bit strained
Villains never get a break in Redwall books, vermin are there to be hacked up by goodbeasts or other vermin. As such they become predictable.

I loved this book, and if that makes me sound less than the mature adult I am, then HOORAY for immaturity.

I remember having watched a cartoon of The BFG when I was young. I can't recall the story but I do remember the BFG.

Inspiring and lifting, if you're looking for inspiration and lifting up. Just plain funny if you're looking for fun. This has sparked my curiosity, I'm now hunting for more of Roald Dahl's work.

Good bits:
~ whenever you're lost for an adjective just thumb through this book for some creative ideas.
~ the illustrations reminded me of some of the Educator Classic Library books that I read and loved when I was growing up.

Bad bits:
~ this isn't required reading in our elementary schools.

These gals are just amazing.

I should be on my way right now to take an entrance test to MENSA but I thought..."fuck it, I'll listen to their songs instead"

Garfunkel and Oates are Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci. I hope they make an album soon.

Sample their songs and vids here

And a couple of videos from YouTube not included above:

"I Would Never" which should carry a warning: CAUTION ! DO NOT DRINK (anything) AND WATCH

"Dear Deer" a cute video starring Kate only. If you've already had your RDA of cute for the day this will cause you to OD.

Ahh the absolutely perfect image for this book. It's lucky that this is the 2nd Knights Templar book I've read, forsooth if I didst read this swill ere I did, never would I continue to purvey the works of master Jecks.
(*groan* your pardons, I've not slept 20 hours)

My major gripe is the inconsistent viewpoint used throughout the book. This is supposed to be a murder mystery, actually 3 sets of murders done by 3 different perpetrators. Some of the times we are provided insight on what the characters are thinking and at other times, sometimes suddenly, we get to watch the scene unfold as impersonal spectators. This makes the whole reading experience, for me a bit.... blurry (hah!)

The start and development of Simon and Baldwin's friendship is perhaps one of my favorite parts of the book. Indeed, the character dynamics between the two saves the book from being a very predictable and boring read.


Good bits:
~The scene of Jacques de Molay's execution during the Prologue.
~Seeing Simon's relationship with his wife and daughter.
~And the very lenghty recap of Baldwin's life story at the end.
~well researched examples of medieval life and property laws.

Bad bits
~The whole chase across the moors.
~The way that the first mystery is dangled in front and then the characters being sidetracked by another murder, and then another. Brewer's murder could have been dealt with by the 9th chapter but instead we had to wait near the end to finally see who (as if we couldn't take a wild guess already) did it.
~The description of the countryside and the landscape was a bit excessive no? It almost became Jack Londonish. I have nothing against scenery but do I have to be reminded what the bloody place looked like every paragraph?
~some of the main characters go through an angst-y routine that is a bit too artificial and ... well angst-y for my taste.

A collection of short stories about precisely what the cover says...Men Hunting Things.

Nice collection.

I was a bit put off by the cover, though. What is that thing?

Now, after reading the book I found no creature in any of the stories that vaguely looks like it....except one.

The puudly.

Now notice that Mr. Simak never did elaborate on what the puudly looks like, he just mentions that it buds to reproduce. Could this thing on the cover be the puudly budding?
Then why the difference in the heads?
As you can see one is distinctly feline the other reptilian.

Normally, I don't care that much about a book's cover. But the puudly has a especial significance for me. I first read "Good Night, Mr. James" when I was 8 or so. To my young mind I always imagined it to be vaguely anthropoid with wicked talons growing directly from it's hands...kind like a sloth's claws. The budding part had me thinking about plants, and thus my puudly must be green... actually my puudly looks like an anthropoidal arrangement of....err.... cucumbers. Don't laugh, I was 8.

My puudly is way cooler than that picture. It just is.

Anyway, great collection.

Finally finished with this tome. Somebody told me it was a good read and she was absotutely correct. I would have happily kept on reading... except it ended.

Have any of you ever tried reading while constantly trying to sneak a peak at the next few sentences just to know what's going to happen next?

And then seeing a word that suddenly makes the sentence you're currently reading make perfect sense only to get to that word then seeing another word right at the periphery of your vision about 3 or 5 sentences away that has absolutely no connection to and blows the current makes-sense-of-the-whole-paragraph-word seem suddenly irrelevant?

No?

Then read this book... but be prepared for some major eye strain. By the end, my eyes and my brain were locked in a pretty fierce race trying to out read each other.

Humor? ... let's just say that I've personally discovered that reading something in public that looks like a bible while emitting a sound that sounds suspiciously like constant chuckling (or a chicken being slowly strangled) is evidently frowned upon in some places. The public (especially mother types with children and granny types) also does not appreciate when you close said bible-looking-book to savour a choice line while grinning for apparently (to them) no reason.

Memorable quotes and phrases....fogedaboudit. There's too darned many of them.

The perfect companion: as I've said before; Monty Python. Just don't make the same mistake I did and tried reading this while going on a Monty Python marathon...It'll wrong your brain in so many ways.

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MARVIN LIVES!