roidhun
Wanderer
Ironic, self-deprecating nerd and geek extraordinnaire.
Posts: 78
Favourite Gamebook Series: The Legends of Skyfall (Yes, really!)
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Post by roidhun on Nov 30, 2023 20:19:58 GMT
I didn't really know the character well at all - never actually read Agatha Christie before and never seen any Marple adaptations. I like watching the ITV Poirot adaptations so I thought rather than reading Poirot, I'd read Marple for something a bit different. I expected it to be like Poirot with Marple being very much to the foreground. I think generally Christie fans feel that the ITV Poirot adaptations are of a good standard even if they prefer other versions. If you watch the ITV Marple adaptations those are more of a mixed bag. The early ones with Geraldine McEwan are a bit quirkier, emphasising the comedy and maybe a bit further from the books. From what I've seen, the later ones with Julia McKenzie tend to be a bit more serious and not just because of the way the actress performs it (although the last one, Endless Night, is pretty bad partly because it crowbars Miss Marple into a story which just has no space for her).
When I was growing up, the Miss Marple adaptations available were the Joan Hickson ones. She was apparently the actress favoured by Christie herself. I seem to remember they were good (and Hickson received BAFTA nominations) though I haven't watched any in 30 years. It's partly a matter of taste. Hickson's Marple never, ever makes jokes, unlike McEwan's mischievous, twinkly-eyed version.
Incidentally in general I'd steer of the recent BBC/Sarah Phelps adaptations of any Christie. Why someone would be motivated to sling bucketloads of money at productions in which the adapating scriptwriter shows such offhand disrespect for the source material is beyond me. [Not that I've read a lot of Christie: a handful of Poirots, one Marple and And Then There Were None under its original, no longer ever used, title.]
Every screen version of Miss Marple since the ones starring Joan Hickson has been absolutely worthless, IMHO.
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Post by pip on Nov 30, 2023 20:36:05 GMT
I enjoyed "From Hell" a lot. I was never interested in how accurate it was when it came to history. It is a work of fiction, and I found it a great read in that regard.
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Post by CharlesX on Dec 4, 2023 14:23:10 GMT
Still reading Dune, but at the same time a few other gamebooks. I downloaded Cave Of Time for Kindle but was very disappointed, there are no working link buttons to other references or reference numbers, nor are there any illustrations other than the cover art. It's a real shame because the book itself is well-written as Edward Packard's work often can be. I also ordered second-hand Abominable Snowman by R. A. Montgomery, who is variable, again I'm ordering as much for things like nostalgia and the historical interest of being an early CYOA as its quality. I don't think any educated person would say CYOA were masterpieces but they can be amazing entertainment.
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Post by a moderator on Dec 4, 2023 15:02:08 GMT
I don't think any educated person would say CYOA were masterpieces but they can be amazing entertainment. The more metafictional aspects of Packard's Hyperspace might qualify it for such a ranking.
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Post by hallucination on Dec 20, 2023 7:24:22 GMT
Big Beacon: A Lighthouse Rebuilt, A Broadcaster Reborn. Alan Partridge
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Post by CharlesX on Dec 24, 2023 11:30:51 GMT
Big Beacon: A Lighthouse Rebuilt, A Broadcaster Reborn. Alan Partridge Is that good? I read - or tried to read - Philomenia Cunk's book and most of the humour from the telly didn't transfer (that is, it wasn't funny unlike the great show), maybe the humour depends on being quick-witted and interplay etc. These days most people would prefer an Alan Partridge podcast.
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Post by hallucination on Dec 26, 2023 21:32:08 GMT
Pretty good. Had plenty of laugh out loud moments! If you’re a fan of classic Alan you’ll enjoy the book. I liked "I, Partridge" too. Didn’t really get into "Nomad", though
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 22, 2024 19:10:29 GMT
Finished Dune a few weeks ago and it's really good, even better than many of its film and miniseries adaptations (most are amazing, just not David Lynch's one which is imo a failure aside from some good acting). So, I'm 100 pages through reading Neverending Story, which I wanted to read partly because I heard the movie is a different beast to the book - and I was right, it is. It isn't just the film leaves aside big plot points, characters and events, it does, but the film tells a different story, presumably not just because it would be more audience-friendly and workable but more profitable. So I can see why Michael Ende felt angry with the makers of this film. I still think the world of the film, but it's like comparing apples and oranges, and both have beautiful writing. More, Neverending Story film only covers the first half of Neverending Story (the sequels having rubbish writing and the series being obscure). Neverending Story sort of reminds me of some of the classic medieval folk tales where the film, as Michael Ende says, is a bit like an extremely good Disney film, or what might be a Pixar one today. So, Michael Ende suing Neverending Story might be comparable to suing Disney over what they did with The Little Mermaid, say.
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 23, 2024 17:43:29 GMT
Have you seen the most recent Dune movie?
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 23, 2024 18:33:59 GMT
Have you seen the most recent Dune movie? I believe you mean the 2021 one? I've heard really good things about it but I haven't seen it myself, I mean to at some point. I saw the Dune miniseries by Sci-fi channel, which was brilliant (haven't seen the Children of Dune sequel). There's a general point that even really good adaptations don't tend to be as good as their original (Lord Of The Rings, which I've only seen the big film of*, being an example which has typically divided audiences), but OTOH like Star Wars a lot about the TV medium lends itself to sci-fi in ways it doesn't to fantasy.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Jan 23, 2024 18:46:40 GMT
just not David Lynch's one which is imo a failure aside from some good acting). I think it tried to do too much - there was simply too much to cover in a single film. It's still an enjoyable film though.
Just finished reading Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance and enjoyed it a great deal. There's so much to like about it - Vance's use of the English Language, the humour, the world setting, Vance's imagination. Cugel is a rogue, yes, but I was rooting for him throughout and wondering 'How is he going to get out of this predicament?' I found myself laughing at loud quite often, which is rare for me with a book. Recommended. And also recently finished Michael Moorcock's latest Elric book - The Citadel of Forgotten Myths. The first two (short) stories were quite good, but the third (and by far the longest) is an absolute mess. I speak as a fan of MM but I couldn't believe what I was reading. There was a core, a kernel of a good story but the whole thing was rambling, repetitive, and seemed totally unedited. I began to wonder if Moorcock had actually written this himself or or sent it away to another writer or ChatGPT to do. I nearly gave up on it. Shocking.
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Post by CharlesX on Jan 23, 2024 18:55:57 GMT
just not David Lynch's one which is imo a failure aside from some good acting). I think it tried to do too much - there was simply too much to cover in a single film. It's still an enjoyable film though. It would have been distinctly better if it weren't so bloody dark half of the film!
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 25, 2024 17:29:17 GMT
I believe you mean the 2021 one? I've heard really good things about it but I haven't seen it myself, I mean to at some point. I saw the Dune miniseries by Sci-fi channel, which was brilliant (haven't seen the Children of Dune sequel). There's a general point that even really good adaptations don't tend to be as good as their original (Lord Of The Rings, which I've only seen the big film of*, being an example which has typically divided audiences), but OTOH like Star Wars a lot about the TV medium lends itself to sci-fi in ways it doesn't to fantasy. That's the one I meant. I won't say to much about it, but it is really good in my opinion.
While the LotR cartoon isn't really good, it's theme song is an eternal earworm for me - get it into my head at least once a month
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 25, 2024 17:45:23 GMT
While the LotR cartoon isn't really good, it's theme song is an eternal earworm for me - get it into my head at least once a month Also gotta love the orc war song at Helm's Deep.
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Post by schlendrian on Jan 25, 2024 18:08:32 GMT
Also gotta love the orc war song at Helm's Deep. Nightmare stuff, but really great!
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Post by CharlesX on Feb 1, 2024 20:41:58 GMT
I rented In Order To Live by Yeonmi Park. This is a memoir of a North Korean defector. I've long had an interest in foreign culture, coming from an immigrant family and sympathising with leftist campaigners. It'd very hard to know who to believe. My understanding is Yeonmi Park was comparatively privileged in North Korea, which is still below western working classes who don't live in fear of starving and (generally in the twenty-first century) have access to high-quality healthcare. Some of what Yeonmi Park's written has been debunked as 'lying\fiction' but that doesn't mean everything is, and I certainly don't believe 100% of the regime's propaganda against her. Truthfully I don't know all sorts of things about these regimes, I'm pretty sure many of their people are starving, which doesn't make the US superior; I don't know their record on women's rights, dyslexics and Pride and more. For example I once read left-handed people in Russia were cruelly knowingly forced to write with their right hands because the regime was evil and senseless, whether that is true or false I don't know. So, I approached the book with some dislike for the author because from what I can tell she has 'sold out' having both these discrepancies in her account, some cheap and technical and others outrageous such as claiming trains had to be pushed when electricity went out, and later claiming the US is woke and so actually worse than North Korea . I may not even read the later part of the book but I've got as far as the end of her time being in North Korea. I do feel sorry for anyone who has to live in a country that is both iron fist and desperately poor. The inhabitants have to make a nightmare choice all the time between going on the black market to make money, where they may get caught and get sent to a terrifying work camp, or living on wages close to or at starvation. Only a tiny proportion of the country do not have to worry where their next meal will come from. That's why I get angry when people defend North Korea where I believe what this woman is writing is a mixture of truth and untruth. They say North Koreans can eat ice cream but that's only in parts of Pyongyang. They say North Koreans can go online but except for the party elite, that's only on dial-up on pro government sites. And I believe their healthcare system is that bad except for the really rich. Being a memoir whatever I say would be a spoiler but their family were struggling like anyone's under the regime, understandably went on the black market, unsurprisingly got caught, got sent to work camps, and then fled the country. I think they became richer than some from going on black market but not above criticism as the regime's supporters might have you believe.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Feb 1, 2024 22:31:42 GMT
It'd very hard to know who to believe. I think that's the real problem with North Korea. On one side, the media often just completely fabricates stories about the country (remember when Kim Jong Un had been deposed by his uncle?) and because the whole country is so secretive, generally these stories have long gone cold by the time they're falsified. But then on the other hand, N Korea pumps out its own propaganda that people understandably sympathetic given Korea's division following WW2, the Korean War and the US blockade are perhaps too ready to believe. The truth is doubtless somewhere in between, but where exactly is hard to know. Having said that, I think Yeonmi Park's take can be safely discounted. She's basically paid by the likes of Fox News to come up with increasingly bizarre stories and even fellow defectors and critics of the regime have debunked many of her stories.
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Post by CharlesX on Feb 6, 2024 17:36:29 GMT
I read J. K. Rowling's The Tales Of Beedle The Bard. Perhaps I was expecting something as brilliant as The Storyteller series by Jim Henson or The Neverending Story I'm halfway through reading - but I was disappointed. The stories are thin and short, and about half of each story is taken up by notes from Dumbledore which shed little light and are not a patch on the stories themselves (again, they aren't exactly Shaw's prefaces). There's no rhyme or reason - other than genius-level talent, which few possess - why some writers become successful and others don't, and Rowling's writing can be derivative and pandering, without enough of a sense of wonder, or moral either, because her work is steeped in 'magic' and neither characterisation nor depth of plot are her strong points. OTOH I could tell Rowling was a natural storyteller and there were definitely times I was wanting to read more, the last three stories being more my favourites.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Feb 6, 2024 18:37:49 GMT
I do feel sorry for anyone who has to live in a country that is both iron fist and desperately poor. A Film Exposing Western Capitalistic Death Throes for Make Benefit People's Democratic Republic of Korea.
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Post by CharlesX on Feb 8, 2024 8:27:36 GMT
I do feel sorry for anyone who has to live in a country that is both iron fist and desperately poor. A Film Exposing Western Capitalistic Death Throes for Make Benefit People's Democratic Republic of Korea. tbf this film is 10+ years old so little like posting UK vid about 'Chameleon Dave'.
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Post by CharlesX on Apr 12, 2024 15:40:36 GMT
The Dune prequels. I am really enjoying them. Frank Herbert was a master at creating a believable culture. Even better, he weaved it into the story rather than explaining things as "asides". It is easy to picture the people going about their lives in a world where water is the most valuable commodity. Of course it would become the currency, the standard against which a person's value is measured. I had forgotten how much influence the original book had on me when I first read it. Some of the concepts have stayed with me. Playing football or going on bush walks, I always drink as much as I need and never worry about "saving some for later", like the Fremen who insist that it does you no good while it's sitting in your stillsuit (or water bottle). Highly recommended. I bought Dune Messiah a few months ago and I plan on reading it. I like the Dune films but there's no question they diverge from the books. I've ordered Shakespeare vs. Cthulhu but in the meantime I'm a few chapters in Momo by Michael Ende, author of Neverending Story. Having read Neverending Story my opinion is it's a must-read, very vibrant and amazing. It's very early to say my view of Momo, but so far it seems really good, filled with the same depth and imagination that Neverending Story has, only not quite as good, which is only like saying Princess Mononoke isn't as good as Spirited Away.
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Post by schlendrian on Apr 15, 2024 17:35:57 GMT
Personally I prefer Momo to Neverending Story, but that's probably more a nostalgia thing (big book of my childhood).
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Post by CharlesX on May 4, 2024 17:04:35 GMT
After seeing the harrowing Doing Money film, based on a true story of someone who was trafficked into being a sex slave, I read the original book it was based on, Slave. My apologies, but this is very dark and disturbing.
The author was literally physically kidnapped from some guys in a car and made to work as a whore, before miraculously escaping - it's unclear for how long, maybe more than a year. So, that was a surprise to me, because you'd half-expect people to be groomed, but she wasn't. Everything there was rougher than you might think, from the trivial of guys giving her presents (presumably either being binned or kept by pimps) or wanting to sh*t on her, or guys much more often effectively raping her and her fellows. Before long she had big bruises everywhere on her body (from everyone mistreating her). So, I could go on but you get the picture, this is a nightmare story of the "you hope it doesn't happen to you" variety. I relate with the woman coming from a migrant family (Pole) as she does, the writing is just above-average but most importantly it is all true (I imagine there might be cosmetic\emotional embellishments).
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 8, 2024 18:10:48 GMT
i try to alternate a bit between fiction and non-fiction. Just finished a book called 'The Last Secret' by Nicholas Bethel about the forcible repatriation of large numbers of Eastern Europeans to Stalin's USSR after WW2. Other than that it's been James Herbert horror fiction including 'The Rats' series and other stories.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on May 8, 2024 20:11:35 GMT
Other than that it's been James Herbert horror fiction including 'The Rats' series and other stories. I enjoyed The Rats and its first sequel (haven't got round to reading the third book yet). It really freaked me out the way even those who fight them off are generally doomed anyway. It adds to the really pervasive hopeless atmosphere. Only other Herbert I've read is The Secret of Crickley Hall. Felt a bit tame by comparison.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 9, 2024 17:55:20 GMT
Other than that it's been James Herbert horror fiction including 'The Rats' series and other stories. I enjoyed The Rats and its first sequel (haven't got round to reading the third book yet). It really freaked me out the way even those who fight them off are generally doomed anyway. It adds to the really pervasive hopeless atmosphere. Only other Herbert I've read is The Secret of Crickley Hall. Felt a bit tame by comparison. Yes, sometimes you think to yourself that the character we've just been introduced to is going to make it, is going to survive... but no, there go the rats gnawing into his stomach... I've only read a few of his so far, all three of The Rats books; The Fog I read years ago. Plus The Dark plus some others. The stories I have read so far are gory, and packed with action and/or suspense. They crack on at a good pace. I also think he has an eye for the locations - i have noticed a number of times that his stories are set in real world locations that he has clearly visited. Epping Forest just north east of London for Lair, and Guernsey for his book Haunted. All this appeals to me.
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Post by hallucination on May 17, 2024 18:46:16 GMT
Soman Chainani‘s "beasts and beauty" — and while some of these tales are so-so, some are quite memorable and enjoyable. Illustrations are good too (especially if scholastic FF is any standard for comparison!)
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Post by CharlesX on May 24, 2024 20:26:38 GMT
Finished Momo, my impression isn't that different from when I was halfway through, it's amazing but to me not as good as Michael Ende's more well-known Neverending Story. There was quite a dark atmosphere through some of Momo which is different from The Neverending Story and even more different from the 'feelgood' Neverending Story movie. So (aside from gamebooks, such as Green's Neverland book) I'm currently reading Shakespeare vs. Cthulhu. It's reminding me of Neil Gaiman, specifically his Mirror Mask (which I've long thought is underrated to the point that is misunderstood). SVC is intellectual as horror fiction goes and I'm always having to look up some of the words. So, positive opinion so far, I might have a new opinion when I've finished it.
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Post by CharlesX on Jul 13, 2024 15:46:43 GMT
I just finished Franz Kafka's The Trial.
I read The Metamorphosis as a teen, and thought it was brilliant, easily one of the best short stories I'd read, although I can't remember much of it now, not even the ending (I remember it being strong on description). I've had a volume with Kafka's 'complete' novels (they aren't complete, more of which later) for many years, but found it beyond me in my 20s. Now in my 40s I can read it 'getting' the majority of it. I chose The Trial because it was both one of Kafka most famous and best novels and shorter than some others. Kafka's writing style always shines with deep intelligence, and clarity at the same time, so even though its heavy reading I read his work quite swiftly (I finished The Trial in three weeks). There are very memorable characters such as the protaganist, interactions, scenes and speeches can be amazing. The premise - being tried out-of-the-blue without ever knowing why - is also really good. There are good speeches and points. Kafka is a natural storyteller without being polemical or tendentious, and there is a bravery, humanity and intellect that is very rare. One of very few writers who has it would be Anne Frank's diary, there is also a tale-allegory near the end that I would compare with Jonathan Swift, in a good way.
It was unfortunate Kafka was a sensitive perfectionist who burned most of his work (we can be thankful much of his work was not burned even though he gave instructions for it to be), and that he died young. This might be why The Trial is incomplete, with the abrupt - albeit extremely well-written - last chapter appearing a little out-of-context. Kafka's novels were published with mid-chapters missing, endings finishing in mid-sentence, chapters published in an order that was only guessed.
I feel like Tolstoy criticising Shakespeare here, but I would say sometimes it feels like Franz Kafka's characters have similar-sounding ways of speaking, they all explain sensitively at length. This is fine (as is this 'criticism') artists and writers such as Shaw Asimov Dickens all have different approaches to characterisation. It is the same with Kafka's unorthodox approach to paragraphs, which he uses sparingly like someone from the 1800s - for me this isn't an issue, I could imagine it grating for some.
Despite this overwhelmingly positive impression I found The Trail heavy-going, so next time I feel like reading Franz Kafka I may read some of his short stories instead.
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Post by paperexplorer on Jul 14, 2024 11:03:06 GMT
Recently finished The Three Body Problem and I'm about 6 eps into the series.
I found the book underwhelming and am stopping at the first book of the trilogy. It might be a translation problem, but the writing was really flat for the most part, characters quite thin and structure quite strange. The plot seemed to consist of a few big ideas and a lot of flawed logic.
The netflix series is even worse. It surface level covers some of the key stuff and replaces it with crappy drama. I may not have loved the book, but taking the depth out of the book, particularly with Wenjie's motivations, plus skipping over key events really make it quite shallow.
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