by Ice Cream Jonsey » Thu Oct 16, 2003 12:32 pm
Vitriola wrote:BTW, Robb couldn't get through Cryptonomicon, either :)
"Couldn't?" What's this "couldn't" shit? And for you to put a smiley there afterwards when you mean exactly the opposite ought to be a hanging crime should you ever enter the nation-state of Emoticonia.
"Couldn't." I was just happy I could
lift it, first off, much less begin reading it. Anyway,
Cryptonomicon is the classic book written by a guy who needed a goddamn editor to tell him to trim shit down, but didn't get one because nobody was going to mess with him because he was selling so well.
To be honest, I didn't like the book because the title was so good and had -- at least 3/4th of the way through -- nothing to really do with the story. Er, "stories," I guess, would be a better term. Obviously, its title comes off as a play against the Necronomicon, so I thought it would be a book about the undead and puzzles.
This is not what I got!
(Truth to tell, I just wasn't that interested in the characters and was saving it for when I was flying next, which turned out to be a long time. The best character was Turing, and he wasn't even someone Stephenson had to go and make up. The comfort girl redhead there in the tower was pretty intriguing as well, but that's this whole other thread.)
Plus, all of Stephenson's other endings were shitty, I would be surprised if ole Crippy there didn't have one, too. So in a real way, getting 75% finished with it is sort of like finishing it, only without having to trudge through the (presumably) bad ending. I don't like to live my life counting the wins and losses, but by not finishing it there, I just TOTALLY WON.
To everyone else: currently reading
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, with the late as in the late Douglas Adams'
A Salmon of Doubt to be queued up next. AGoT is solid, though I get the impression that sometimes the author strains a little bit to set the perfect medieval scene just as he would like it. I don't really get the impression that Martin was from the 1300s or whatever, and it's nice to at least get a hint of that. (Plus, at least early on, there is a character named "Robb" who fucks shit up nicely. I have never read a book or seen a movie or played a game where there was a guy named "Robb" in it, so this must be what it is like for the rest of you to experience media. Hmm! Interesting!!)
[quote="Vitriola"]BTW, Robb couldn't get through [i]Cryptonomicon[/i], either :)[/quote]
"Couldn't?" What's this "couldn't" shit? And for you to put a smiley there afterwards when you mean exactly the opposite ought to be a hanging crime should you ever enter the nation-state of Emoticonia.
[i]"Couldn't."[/i] I was just happy I could [i]lift[/i] it, first off, much less begin reading it. Anyway, [i]Cryptonomicon[/i] is the classic book written by a guy who needed a goddamn editor to tell him to trim shit down, but didn't get one because nobody was going to mess with him because he was selling so well.
To be honest, I didn't like the book because the title was so good and had -- at least 3/4th of the way through -- nothing to really do with the story. Er, "stories," I guess, would be a better term. Obviously, its title comes off as a play against the Necronomicon, so I thought it would be a book about the undead and puzzles. [i]This is not what I got![/i]
(Truth to tell, I just wasn't that interested in the characters and was saving it for when I was flying next, which turned out to be a long time. The best character was Turing, and he wasn't even someone Stephenson had to go and make up. The comfort girl redhead there in the tower was pretty intriguing as well, but that's this whole other thread.)
Plus, all of Stephenson's other endings were shitty, I would be surprised if ole Crippy there didn't have one, too. So in a real way, getting 75% finished with it is sort of like finishing it, only without having to trudge through the (presumably) bad ending. I don't like to live my life counting the wins and losses, but by not finishing it there, I just TOTALLY WON.
To everyone else: currently reading [i]A Game of Thrones[/i] by George R.R. Martin, with the late as in the late Douglas Adams' [i]A Salmon of Doubt[/i] to be queued up next. AGoT is solid, though I get the impression that sometimes the author strains a little bit to set the perfect medieval scene just as he would like it. I don't really get the impression that Martin was from the 1300s or whatever, and it's nice to at least get a hint of that. (Plus, at least early on, there is a character named "Robb" who fucks shit up nicely. I have never read a book or seen a movie or played a game where there was a guy named "Robb" in it, so this must be what it is like for the rest of you to experience media. Hmm! Interesting!!)