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So my girlfriend bought me the Southern Reach trilogy after I read great reviews of it on BoingBoing, well, lemme tell you: It's pretty boring.

TraceItalian wrote:So my girlfriend bought me the Southern Reach trilogy after I read great reviews of it on BoingBoing, well, lemme tell you: It's pretty boring.

Really? I absolutely loved that book (and the movie)

you should be aware that LaVey is more of a performance artist than a proper Satanist.

D.o.S. wrote:

BitchPudding wrote:Been reading Ozzy Osborne's biography "I Am Ozzy" at work. Shit is both hilarious and kind sad at parts. I have Tony Iommi's bio ready to read next.

I also impulse bought an Anton LaVey book called "Satan Speaks!", which has been a fascinating read. I've been really curious about the occult and Satanism in general. Now that I'm living on my own and am away from my religious parents, I can finally explore that shit as much as I want.

If anyone has any recommendations for interesting stuff about the occult to read, I'm all ears. Probably gonna get The Satanic Bible next.

The occult is a pretty wide ranging subject with lots of interesting history around the subject itself as well as the history of the history of the subject.
I think the last really good books I picked up on the subject were these (although I definitely didn't pay 76 pounds for the first one ffs)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Britis ... 0955523702

Or this one:
https://www.timeless-shop.com/prod/the- ... 2,101.html


Unfortunately most of the really fun stuff is either hard to find or expensive or both (bit like pedals really).

Good reading recs a little later into this thread. Maybe bump it?
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=38978

bamped. Yea dont mean to sound like a fucking normie or whatever, just no clue where to start/look so that helps. I'll keep the price thing in mind too. Makes sense that shit would be expensive.

dubkitty wrote:you should be aware that LaVey is more of a performance artist than a proper Satanist.

I felt like thats obvious. I mean, the dude definitely looked the part of "Satan on Earth". I mostly find what he wrote just fascinating. Can't say I agree with everything the dude has to say. But its still a good read and something I could have never gotten away with back in the day. Not unless I wanted to get kicked out of my house.

Finished Ozzy's book today. Was a good read. Wild, but good. Tony Iommi's bio is next. From there I wanna branch out into some science fiction and fantasy stuff. My singer is gonna let me borrow Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep tomorrow, so I've got that to look forward to (also gives me an excuse to FINALLY check out blade runner ofc). As usual, any recommendations would be tight.

MrNovember wrote:

TraceItalian wrote:So my girlfriend bought me the Southern Reach trilogy after I read great reviews of it on BoingBoing, well, lemme tell you: It's pretty boring.

Really? I absolutely loved that book (and the movie)

I've only read the first book but thought it was pretty great, albeit definitely slow at times and more than a bit vague/esoteric. But that's what I liked about it, tbh.

I thought the movie was pretty cool, but was pretty insulted on behalf of Van Der Meer that Alex Garland roughly stole the premise of his book, discarded the rest, and totally rewrote everything. Apparently he only read it once and didn't even use it as reference when writing the script. Which, ok, fine—VDM got paid and credited obviously, so it's not like he got screwed—I just don't understand what was wrong with the book. It would've made a perfectly great movie, and really a better one if you ask me. I wanted to see the Crawler.

Oh and that bizarro Natalie Portman dubstep monster in the end was so fucking dumb.

popvulture wrote:

MrNovember wrote:

TraceItalian wrote:So my girlfriend bought me the Southern Reach trilogy after I read great reviews of it on BoingBoing, well, lemme tell you: It's pretty boring.

Really? I absolutely loved that book (and the movie)

I've only read the first book but thought it was pretty great, albeit definitely slow at times and more than a bit vague/esoteric. But that's what I liked about it, tbh.

I thought the movie was pretty cool, but was pretty insulted on behalf of Van Der Meer that Alex Garland roughly stole the premise of his book, discarded the rest, and totally rewrote everything. Apparently he only read it once and didn't even use it as reference when writing the script. Which, ok, fine—VDM got paid and credited obviously, so it's not like he got screwed—I just don't understand what was wrong with the book. It would've made a perfectly great movie, and really a better one if you ask me. I wanted to see the Crawler.

I honestly didn't even know there was a movie. I usually read stuff like Harry Crews, Jim Harrison, and Julia Leigh, so thats probably at least part of it. Stylistical, it reminds me of "By the Time We Leave Here, We'll All Be Friends", which I also wasn't a fan of, but I'm toughing out the 3rd book. I already got a Robert Sheckly collection for after.

In terms of just general literary quality, I feel like sci fi's usually pretty lacking, so I'd definitely agree that the Southern Reach trilogy probably wouldn't hold up too strongly in the company you've mentioned. That said, I usually find that most of the heart of sci fi is much more in the whole storytelling / world-building sides of things, and in that sense I thought Annihilation stood out.

popvulture wrote:That said, I usually find that most of the heart of sci fi is much more in the whole storytelling / world-building sides of things, and in that sense I thought Annihilation stood out.

This is definitely what I liked about the book. The world building was amazing and definitely stood out.

And I actually really liked the fact that he didn't really use the book when writing the movie. It made it feel completely different and kind of fit in with the mutations theme. That said, I would have loved to see the Crawler and the Tower in the movie.

I'm gonna push through the third one, the main thing is, it feels so drifty(?) that each book I've never felt I reached a satisfatory ending, or even really gotten into any character development to keep me coming back. It seemss like some description is lacking, some characters are flat, I'm just having a hard time getting into them. Different strokes though, I loved my friends dad's book (I reviewed it as if Charles Bukowski wrote the plot and John Irving wrote it), but my friends all found it too dark

MrNovember wrote:

popvulture wrote:That said, I usually find that most of the heart of sci fi is much more in the whole storytelling / world-building sides of things, and in that sense I thought Annihilation stood out.

This is definitely what I liked about the book. The world building was amazing and definitely stood out.

And I actually really liked the fact that he didn't really use the book when writing the movie. It made it feel completely different and kind of fit in with the mutations theme. That said, I would have loved to see the Crawler and the Tower in the movie.

You ever read Harrison? He was specifically mentioned in Elmore Leonard's rules of writing for his ability at description

popvulture wrote:In terms of just general literary quality, I feel like sci fi's usually pretty lacking.

Someone isn't on the China Mieville train yet.

i'm gonna be that old guy and point out that Asimov, Clarke, and McGuin in particular were excellent on a literary level. i kind of wandered off from sci-fi when it went off into five-volume series that really weren't much different to fantasy.

D.o.S. wrote:

popvulture wrote:In terms of just general literary quality, I feel like sci fi's usually pretty lacking.

Someone isn't on the China Mieville train yet.

Really blurring the between literary fiction > magical realism and traditional sci-fi/fantasy.

But yeah, this statement is spot on.

I've read most of his books, and love em. He's one of the rare few that really delivers on story and quality writing—remember the whole City and the City failed book club thread?

Edited to add: not sure what my fave of his would be... either CatC or Perdido Street Station. Probably the latter, due to the whole massive New Crobuzon world invention, and the fact that it's a bit sentimental to me. Need to reread!