The only thing I don’t like about the fediverse is the constant stream of people blathering on about how “we” supposedly need to centralize and homogenize it and fill it up with botspam, so that easily confused morons with short attention spans will move here.
I loathe it with every fiber of my being.
I detest bot content in general, and bot reposts of Reddit content is the absolute bottom of the barrel. It’s not just tedious and unimaginative and unengaging - I honestly find it creepy, like someone stalking an ex-lover.
Huh.
I had no idea Marvel Groot was that old.
That seems to make it more likely that it’s not a coincidence though, particularly since while Marvel Groot existed, he was still very obscure. I can see Moorcock slipping the line in, and even giving the character that name so he could slip the line in, just for a bit of amusement.
Broadly, there are two different ways in which a person so inclined can set about projecting the image of an aficionado of great literature.
One is to read, understand and be able to discuss great literary works.
The other is to sneer at supposedly lesser works.
Obviously, the latter is much easier. In fact, it doesn’t actually require reading at all.
So it’s basically a seminar on how to establish a police state.
On a related note , I had no idea that watching a country collapse into a morass of corruption, violence and stupidity would be so exhausting.
Finished Prime City by Michael Robertson. It’s the second book in a cyberpunk thriller series, and it was okay. It was a bit grittier than the first one, to its advantage, but while the first one pretty much stood on its own, this one was very obviously just an installment of a series.
Started Bounty Hunter - the third in the series. It’s not the last, but I suspect it’ll be the last for me. It’s okay, and there’s nothing really wrong with Robertson’s writing - it’s just all sort of generic, and I’m getting bored. It’s about time for something more challenging.
Finished The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. The ending was a bit too contrived, but it was solid all in all.
Started and finished The Blind Spot by Michael Robertson. It’s a cyberpunk thriller set in a red-light district in a future metropolis - sort of reminiscent of George Alec Effinger’s Budayeen, but without the Middle Eastern flavor. It was a solid page-turner, but has a few shortcomings. The setting feels sort of Disneyfied - like a wholesomely superficial backdrop rather than an actual red-light district, with all that that entails, and the protagonist is an accurately rendered 16 year old, which is to say that she’s impulsive, impatient, over-confident and emotional. I can’t really fault Robertson for that - he did do a good job of writing a believable 16 year old. But that’s the problem - it was just sort of frustrating and exhausting watching her get all wound up and go rushing off too late to try to accomplish too many things in too little time.
Started Prime City by Michael Robertson - the next book in the series of which The Blind Spot was the first. Marcie is still impulsive and frustrating, and the story hasn’t yet hooked me as well, but we’ll see how it goes.
They could be universally referred to by an entirely different term starting tomorrow, and the only thing that would change would be that that term would also come to be seen as a pejorative.
The simple fact of the matter is that the negative view of them is tied to what they do and who they are - NOT to the term used to label them.
I’ve never really understood the appeal. Goodreads is a pretty good source for synopses, and IMO that’s it. The reviews are mostly shit, the ratings are useless and the recommendations are pedestrian at best.
If book sites were restaurants, Goodreads would be McDonalds.
I liked the book all in all - it just had a lot of flaws, and that made it kind of a slog.
Since this was not just a first novel but a first novel that started out as a webserial, I think it’s safe to assume that his later books are better, so I’ll undoubtedly go back to him some time.
For the rime being though, as a sort of palate cleanser, I was craving something that I could count on to be well-written if nothing else, and Murakami definitely fills that bill.
Yeah - I was sort of afraid of that. I like this place - you’ve done a good job here. But there’s no reason you should put yourself at risk. So it’d be a shame if it came to that, but it is what it is.
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve both noticed and appreciated your efforts lately.
And just what I’ve seen of it via posts and announcements has already been enough to sort of vicariously exhaust me, so I can only imagine…
Finished John Dies at the End by David Wong. It was okay all in all - imaginative, but not very well-written.
Started Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. I’ve been working my way through Murakami in publishing order for the last few years, reading one every few months, and it’s time for this one. I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far.
I doubted this, so I tried it. I haven’t used google for ages, so I first had to search “google” in DDG, then I went to the main page. When I started typing it in, it suggested the full text of the search, so I thought it was even less likely that it would work like the OP said - that even if it had been the case that it previously did that, so many people have self-evidently done that search that the results would now be correct.
But no - there it was, right at the top - “While there are 54 recognized countries in Africa, none of them begin with the letter “K”. The closest is Kenya, which starts with a “K” sound, but is actually spelled with a “K” sound.”
And with that, I’ll contentedly go back to not using google.
My namesake - Rottcodd.
Rottcodd is a minor character in Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast books. He’s the caretaker of the Hall of Bright Carvings - a gallery of statues high up in a far distant corner of the castle Gormenghast. He lives there contentedly and peacefully by himself and rarely sees anyone, but through a window at one end of the gallery, he can see the castle spread out below him, and can barely make out tiny-with-distance people scurrying around doing… whatever it is that they’re doing.
And yeah - for better or worse, I identify with him so much that I swiped his name.