Author Topic: What have you last read? (Read 18120 times)

B E C K · « **Reply #30 on:** Jun 22, 2007, 02:15:43 PM »

Yeah, that was easy.

Faye Valentine · « **Reply #31 on:** Aug 01, 2007, 09:15:23 PM »

The last thing I read: "By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept". Amazing.
I was also reading Darwin's Origin of Species but then I got "Tristan et Iseult" in old french and that deviated my attention towards the latter.

Rama · « **Reply #32 on:** Aug 01, 2007, 10:58:33 PM »

I finally finished Eargon, and just started Tarzan and Eldest.

B E C K · « **Reply #33 on:** Aug 01, 2007, 11:52:55 PM »

So that's where George's ear went.

Bernie AKA · « **Reply #34 on:** Aug 02, 2007, 08:48:46 AM »

Currently on "The Time Traveler's Wife".

ChelseySuzie · « **Reply #35 on:** Aug 02, 2007, 11:46:08 AM »

Bernie: I'm totally listening to the song that you took your signature from.

I've been picking at "Men and Cartoons" by Jonathon Lethem. It's an anthology of these weird short stories he's written. There are stories about the future and how everyone is stuck in an endless traffic jam, an ex-superhero named Super GoatMan, and a guy who talks to a sheep. Lethem has an incredible writing style, I've read "You Don't Love me Yet" and "The Disappointment Artist" though the latter was hard to understand.

Rama · « **Reply #36 on:** Aug 02, 2007, 05:41:03 PM »

Quote from: B E C K on Aug 01, 2007, 11:52:55 PM

So that's where George's ear went.

The book didn't deserve to be spelt right. In fact, I can't believe I'm reading Eldest. If it wasn't for my OCD to finish a series, I wouldn't be doing it.

B E C K · « **Reply #37 on:** Aug 02, 2007, 05:54:20 PM »

You need intervention, stat.

Rama · « **Reply #38 on:** Aug 02, 2007, 10:55:46 PM »

At least the third book isn't out yet.

Bernie AKA · « **Reply #39 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 12:27:31 PM »

Quote

Bernie: I'm totally listening to the song that you took your signature from.

My favorite track. I love the disc, but it ain't for the easily depressed. Soul Meets Body and Summer Skin are the only fairly upbeat ones on there.

ChelseySuzie · « **Reply #40 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 12:53:02 PM »

They sure don't make you feel warm and fuzzy inside like The Postal Service.

Merla · « **Reply #41 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 12:54:59 PM »

For the second time around,

Gentleman & Players ~ Joanne Harris

B E C K · « **Reply #42 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 08:36:03 PM »

I'm still not reading anything. Not counting my own stuff and the newspaper of course. I need to go read something.

Rama · « **Reply #43 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 10:46:40 PM »

Best advice I ever read about being a good writer was that if you want to be one, a good writer that is, you have to write four hours a day and read four hours a day. I'm holding up my reading end of that.

B E C K · « **Reply #44 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 11:11:15 PM »

Will you become a mediocre writer if you write two hours a day and read two hours a day?

Rama · « **Reply #45 on:** Aug 03, 2007, 11:24:25 PM »

No idea.

The D · « **Reply #46 on:** Aug 06, 2007, 08:25:22 PM »

I just got Al Franken's book "Lies and the Lying Liers who tell them" for a dollar. At the dollar store.

Poor Al.

Well, anyone who hates that bitch Ann Coulter is a friend of mine.

B E C K · « **Reply #47 on:** Aug 07, 2007, 05:31:32 PM »

Quote from: Rama on Aug 03, 2007, 11:24:25 PM

No idea.

Find out and get back to me.

Rama · « **Reply #48 on:** Aug 07, 2007, 11:20:48 PM »

I'll get right on that.

B E C K · « **Reply #49 on:** Aug 08, 2007, 12:48:51 AM »

Bitchin'.

Rama · « **Reply #50 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 01:14:05 AM »

I finsihed Eldest...and big fucking shock. Morzan....the guy that betrayed the Riders and helped the Empire hunt down and kill them was Eragon's FATHER! *GASP!* He found this out after he abandoned his training, which was being conducted by Oromis (A rider that not only was once, the now dead, Brom's master, but has been in hiding since the fall of his order so that he could train the next Rider when he appeared ) to go help his friends the Varden after being half trained. THE LAME!

How Chris Paolini has avoided being sued back into the stoneage by the all knowing and powerful Flaneled one is beyond me.

I can already tell you what will happen in the 3rd book. Eragon will face off with Galbatorix, while trying to turn his brother (which he didn't know about till now cause they were seperated and hidden.) Murtagh, now also a Rider, back to the goodside. While the Varden try to blow up the Death Star with the help of the help of the Ewoks.

Merla · « **Reply #51 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 10:56:11 AM »

Dude, that so needed a spoiler tag!

Rama · « **Reply #52 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 01:16:24 PM »

Eh...I figured I was the only person here that was going to waste their time on them. Besides...if you've seen the St*r WarzzZZ Trilogy you know what happens.

B E C K · « **Reply #53 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 03:20:32 PM »

Quote from: Rama on Aug 09, 2007, 01:14:05 AM

While the Varden try to blow up the Death Star with the help of the help of the Ewoks.

!!!!

The D · « **Reply #54 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 06:19:00 PM »

Dear god. Can't that author think of anything original?

B E C K · « **Reply #55 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 08:46:39 PM »

Why should he have to? He attained a moderate measure of success without resorting to it.

Rama · « **Reply #56 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 11:05:07 PM »

Yeah I'd rip off Lucas so fast that it'd turn your head if I knew it meant I'd get two number 1 best sellers, and movie deal and the massive pile of money that came with it.

Besides Lucas isn't blameless himself. The iconic opening scrawl that we all know and love was ripped off directly from a 1940 Flash Gordon Serial, but at least he wasn't so blantant about it. He at least tried to capture just the feeling and story elements and didn't directly rip it off. I mean the thing reads like he went through the script of Retard Wars and scratched out names and replaced them with new ones.

There are even some instances where there are lines that are even mirrored. And in something that left me scratching my head...This line actually appears in the book:

"Barges?" Said the cobbler. "Barges? We don't want no stinking Barges!"

Which is a refrence to the famous line from Blazing Saddles "Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!" It seemed totally out of place in the novel.

B E C K · « **Reply #57 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 11:42:31 PM »

One of the first stories I wrote, when I was about seven or so, was a complete rip-off of a movie I'd've seen. He should've taken more time with his books instead of vomiting whatever he'd seen on a movie screen onto the page. Of course he wouldn't have his big pile o' money and a movie deal, but that movie bombed and his books look to suck. Being a closet idealist, I'm thinking of what's best for the story.

Everything is a derivative of something else in some respect, yeah, but shit, Google "Eragon" and "Star Wars" and you come across page after page of all these comparisions, accusations, and ppl fingering it as a poor man's rip-off Retard Wars. I think comparisons and homages can be pretty darn cool sometimes but people shouldn't be able to line up characters and plots point for point.

B E C K · « **Reply #58 on:** Aug 09, 2007, 11:45:21 PM »

Hmmm... "St*r WarzzZZ"!

I forgot about the filter on that.

The D · « **Reply #59 on:** Aug 10, 2007, 05:50:08 PM »

And here I thought that was just Rama.

Comparisons I've seen online with Eragon and Retard Wars:

Brom - Obi-wan mentor who dies halfway through the first film.
Eragon - Farmboy
Eragon's Uncle - Killed by evil Empire
The dragon riders - Almost all wiped out, except for Brom, just like the Jedi
Eragon - looks almost like Skywalker, down to the haircut!
Varden - Rebel Alliance, down to secret base that gets attacked at the end
Arya - Is imprisoned by the empire, and brave Luke.. i mean Eragon goes to rescue her (think Leia on Deathstar).
Brom - Schools Eragon on the ways of the Force... er the Elvish magic
The emo dude - Han solo?
Durza - Kinda like Darth Vader in a way
Galbatorix - The Emperor!
Arya - is chased by the empire carrying something important they want that she stole from them... and is captured by the Emperor's second in command, no less
Eragon's sword - A sword that once belonged to his father.. wow, go figure!

Did I miss anything?

Paolini's a damn plagerist. Instead of reading that shit, read Dragonriders of Pern or the first 5 books of the Green Ambler Chronicles instead. Both are a LOT better fantasy than that.

The only good character in the movie was the dragon.

Why does Amb3r keep on getting converted to Green Ambler?