24 February 2003 | In Passing...

24 February 2003

Submitted by eve on Tue, 02/25/2003 - 9:58am. Tragic

"I have to get him something nice. He's my brother. I'd saved up a thousand dollars to give to my sister when she got married, and then she didn't even go through with it! And I wound up spending lots of money just trying to make her feel better...
Of course, he would have gotten a better present if he hadn't moved the date up a year. I was counting on being gainfully employed in time to get him a wedding present. But he's actually getting married, so he deserves more than the $350 I gave my sister."
--A girl talking on a cell phone at Safeway.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sat, 03/15/2003 - 3:45pm.

Archived comment by daen:
Creativity is good.
*g*

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 03/14/2003 - 8:07pm.

Archived comment by Jon:
There's the always-appropriate "Hey, you, over there, from that place."

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 03/14/2003 - 4:03pm.

Archived comment by ParU:
Or WoManitoban. Or just Canuckian?

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 03/14/2003 - 4:00pm.

Archived comment by marinerd:
Why not Manitobite? Or Manitobarian. The possibilities are endless.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 03/14/2003 - 3:57pm.

Archived comment by Apple:
Ah, the pedantic, purple world of IP.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 03/14/2003 - 3:49pm.

Archived comment by daen:
Not... going... not going to....

Ah, forget it.

I vowed I would never again comment on anything but the content of someone's post, but ParU-- it's Manitoban. Save yourself the effort of typing that extra i, why don't you?
*g*

Okay. Vow takes effect again.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 3:41pm.

Archived comment by ParU:
daen - dinna go! Who'll correct me on my overabundant usage of quotes? Whatever shall we do without our Manitobian (sp?) corrections?

"It's a thankless job, but I'm thanking you."

1 cool pt.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 2:52pm.

Archived comment by daen:
reels back

Ouch!

That's it. I'm resigning from the MG association.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 9:55am.

Archived comment by ParU:
And a cool pt to Joe - clever analogy, of which I had not thought.

(Take that you Militant Grammarians!)

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 9:49am.

Archived comment by Cebu:
My ex had an aunt that apparently collected cheesy romance novels. She had a room where they took up almost a whole side of the room. Shelves lined with that crap. Wouldn't it get old eventually?

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 9:32am.

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:

Sounds like the tech industry.

*Grin*

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/13/2003 - 8:06am.

Archived comment by ParU:
Actually I've never read one. But I've read the male versions of them, (cheap 'adventure' novels) where the hero kills all the bad guys, suffers unspeakable tortures, is betrayed by his superiors and then prevails in the end. Predictable genre, and really kind of boring.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Wed, 03/12/2003 - 8:52pm.

Archived comment by Matt:
Second that ew, steff, with a great big "Gack!" thrown in for good measure.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 10:08pm.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Lol Steff.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 9:22pm.

Archived comment by steff:
ew. actually, i'm allerigic to romance novels. just... ew.

did i mention ew?

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 2:55pm.

Archived comment by daen:
Romance novels are pure fantasy, and the authors know it. The problem is all the young impressionables who don't realize that, and think that this is the way life is... although you'd think that the perfect & perfectly handsome man on the cover would clue them in.

169!

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 2:35pm.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Nah Jon, rommance novels are a gateway to Steff's fantasies *grin*

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 11:51am.

Archived comment by Jon:
Are romance novels a 'gateway genre' to fantasy? If so, I must have sidestepped it, because I've never been a fan of romance novels.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 10:57am.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Steff, Mia's trying to get me to read romance novels...I suppose, I'll be reading those fantasies soon enough.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 10:17am.

Archived comment by steff:
bryan, you read what monk and paul post, right? there ya go! =P

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 10:14am.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Well, Jon, unlike most in IP, I don't read fantasy very nuch *grin*

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 10:06am.

Archived comment by Jon:
Seems like the publishers that keep reissuing Zelazny collections, for example, are wasting their own money on an obscure author, then. ;p

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 8:52am.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Yeah sure Jon, they're so obscure that they're gathering dust on the B & N shelves. *grin*

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/11/2003 - 7:56am.

Archived comment by Jon:
Bah, those aren't obscure authors.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/10/2003 - 7:54pm.

Archived comment by Bryan:
Holy Cow! *flees the list of obscure authors.*

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/10/2003 - 7:37pm.

Archived comment by Mia:
Those titles make me think of Charles Williams' "War In Heaven". Good book.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 03/06/2003 - 6:35am.

Archived comment by Jon:
You should read Zelazny's other works. Lord Demon is great, even though it was partially completed by another author after his passing.

Did Steven Brust get added to the list yet? 'Cause I'm reading To Reign In Hell right now, and there's a wonderful foreword by Zelazny. Brust's Dragaera books are definite favorites of mine. I chose my Hotmail screen-name from one of the characters in that series, and I occasionally use that as a character name for online RPG's (though not lately).

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Wed, 03/05/2003 - 2:48pm.

Archived comment by marinerd:
I guess I should clarify (though it's funnier if I don't). A member of the SFBC in Hazel's link.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Wed, 03/05/2003 - 2:47pm.

Archived comment by marinerd:
I'm a member, have been for years!

Yes, I know how that sounds. Ha!

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Wed, 03/05/2003 - 2:31pm.

Archived comment by Hazel:
Namelink...thought it fitting.

Hazel

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Wed, 03/05/2003 - 2:26pm.

Archived comment by marinerd:
I knew there was someone I was forgetting: Roger Zelazny. His Amber series was great all the way through, IMHO, from the first book to the last. It was 2 series, actually, the first starring the father and the second one starring the son. But I liked them all.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Tue, 03/04/2003 - 5:38am.

Archived comment by Jon:
Joe, I'd agree with your DL determination, with a caveat: the original 3-4 books still hold up well after several years, even if they aren't up to Feist's writing level. The DL books have some intriguing characters, but one can't empathize with them in the way that Feist allows.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 9:01pm.

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:

The first step toward recovery.

-Jn-

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 7:50pm.

Archived comment by Kris the Girl:
Bacardi post!!!
I'm hooked. I admit it.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 6:02pm.

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:
Dragonlance is Fantasy...though, in my opinion, highly over-rated Fantasty. It's a perfect example of the pitfalls of trying to convert an RPG campaign into literature.

Fiest did it admirably, but most people can't write like he can...

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 4:53pm.

Archived comment by Obsidiana:
I love Laurell K. Hamilton. Heh...though I think that may be because I have a fairly visual imagination, and she has so many yummy male characters.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 4:09pm.

Archived comment by Mia:
Thanks, Saint and J, for the answer about Barker's classification. Saint, he did have another children's book released sometime last year, I think. I ran across it in the bookstore right after finding it online. A little expensive to buy, though.

Going on, John Norman's Gor series would be science fiction. Is DragonLance fantasy or sci-fi?

And, Obs: have you read anything by Laurell K. Hamilton?

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 11:24am.

Archived comment by Paul:
Argh. Sorry. I wasn't fully awake when I posted that little rant this morning. It should have read that he got all the way through without getting bitchslapped...

Oh well...

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 11:22am.

Archived comment by ParU:
Nicely put Joe - One Literary TMI pt for Paul.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 10:55am.

Archived comment by Joe Napalm:

Uh, Paul? Whether you like the series or not, telling everyone that the main character dies at the end is rather bad form...

-Jn-
Efreeti Sophist

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 5:51am.

Archived comment by Paul:
The Eileen- if it's not too late, let me dissuade you from reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant again. Spare yourself the annoyance that is the main character, an ineffectual, self-absorbed, snarling and whining little chihuahua of a man who desperately needs to have his ass kicked. When I first read them (which was as they came out) I kept hoping that maybe this time Mhoram or someone would slap him around. I was furious for days when I finished the last one and he died without being bitchslapped and told what an obnoxious little wanker he was.

I never forgave Donaldson for that.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 4:13am.

Archived comment by DancingTofu:
See the namelink. My favorite author is Janny Wurts, who a couple of you may know as the co-author with Feist on the Empire series. Her major work is The Wars of Light and Shadow, beginning with _Curse of the Mistwraith._ I guess it's SF, being not on Earth, but Fantasy, too, dealing with magic. She is an amazingly talented author, who does just about everything she writes. She paints her own covers, too.

Mark Z. Danielewski wrote _House of Leaves_ which is, a few of my friends and I agree, the creepiest book we've ever read. It's enough to make you scared of your closet, and long dark movie theatre hallways, but it's not horror. I don't know what genre it is, other than mind blowing. Go read it. Or just flip through it, and the shape of the text will make you curious enough to read it...

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Mon, 03/03/2003 - 2:05am.

Archived comment by Deb:
Does anyone else read Douglas Coupland's stuff? He's not exactly Sci-Fi, but...I get the feeling from the other books listed here that IPers would enjoy him.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sun, 03/02/2003 - 9:32pm.

Archived comment by Matt:
I've got a whole list of books I really recommend people at least look into, but none of them are even remotely SF/Fantasy. I guess that means I should just keep it to myself.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sun, 03/02/2003 - 6:24pm.

Archived comment by Obsidiana:
TheEileen--
I was just thinking "I should mention Charles de Lint..." when I came across the part of your post where you'd beaten me to it. Weird...

Of course, I did just finish Memory and Dream a few minutes ago, so that might've had something to do with why I was thinking of him.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sun, 03/02/2003 - 3:45pm.

Archived comment by Saint:
Can't recall the title, but Barker released another children's book this year. I've never been impressed with his writing; it just seems too clinical and not visceral enough--odd, what with all the skinless people and walking freak-shows in his books, I know, but there it is. He just doesn't make me feel it. Not to say his writing is bad, I just don't connect with his style.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sun, 03/02/2003 - 11:38am.

Archived comment by J:
Clive Barker only wrote one childerns book (Thief of always), which still deals with horror topics. More from a childs perspective though.

Imajica is more of a fantasy work and so is Everville. Most of his other works are all pure horror though. What makes him stand out from the rest, is the fact that he can circumvent the cliches and provide a new twist.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sat, 03/01/2003 - 4:46pm.

Archived comment by BB:
Back-up reccomendation for the Bathroom Readers.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Sat, 03/01/2003 - 9:21am.

Archived comment by Saint:
Depending on the book, Clive Barker can be fantasy or children's lit, not just horror.

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Posted by Anne Onymous on Fri, 02/28/2003 - 11:40pm.

Archived comment by Denise:
You'd think a guy with a shin that was split in half would be a little more careful with their slapstickedness.

Go ahead.

Say that 5 times, fast.

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