Month: September 2023

WWW Wednesday – September 27, 2023

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www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing at the moment, I am between books.

Recently Finished

I Wear the Black HatI’ve had a rather productive couple of weeks. Though I didn’t feel I had read enough to warrant a post last week, I have finished reading I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman, which I ended up liking a little more than I was feeling when I last posted about it, as some of the essays started to cover subjects I was a little more familiar with. I especially liked the essay “This Zeitgeist is Making Me Thirsty”, which is an examination of the worldview of the sitcom Seinfeld, something that Klosterman lays out as a lot more bleak than I ever realized. I knew the characters and tone could be rather mean-spirited, but I hadn’t considered the depths of it before.

Man, Fuck This HouseOn Monday, I managed to read the entirety of the horror novella Man, Fuck This House by Brian Asman, a story about a family that moves into a house that is already inhabited by an inhuman presence. I’m really happy I was successfully able to read this in a sitting to kick of the spooky season, and I’m hoping it bodes well for getting some other books done during the Halloween season too. Though this book captured my attention thanks in large part to its title, I didn’t think it was very good. Even as something deliberately pulpy and without pretensions, I couldn’t help finding a lot of it pretty stupid. It was still fun, but the horror, such as it was, didn’t really work for me, so it mostly amounted to something audacious and silly with one character getting on my nerves on top of it all.

Reading Next

Alien 3 First-DraftWith horror books being my primary concern now, I think I’m going to start Alien³: The Unproduced First-Draft Screenplay by William Gibson by Pat Cadigan, as I’ve been really curious about this book since I first learned about it and have been sitting on a copy for a little while now. Though I have no experience with Gibson or Cadigan, I’m really intrigued with the story behind this novel. Though I do have some love for Alien³ despite it faltering compared to its predecessor films, I love the idea that a celebrated author in the cyberpunk genre had an idea for what that film should be. I really want to know his vision, especially as it is being realized by another celebrated cyberpunk author.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

Book Review – Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

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Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett is the 23rd novel in the author’s Discworld series and the 6th book in the “Witches” subseries. It’s a time for celebration in the kingdom of Lancre, as King Verence II and Queen Magrat are celebrating the birth and naming of their first child. Everybody and their mother is invited, from far and wide, though it seems a certain Granny’s invitation has gotten lost in the mail. More’s the pity, as the guest list includes a family of vampires from nearby Uberwald, invited in the name of good diplomacy. Only a fool would invite a vampire into his home, no matter how modern their sensibilities; an invitation from a king into a kingdom puts nearly everybody at the mercy of their influence, meaning the witches of Lancre may have finally met their match.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – September 13, 2023

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www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I Wear the Black HatThis past week I managed to read a lot of I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman; I was hoping I’d be able to finish it, but I didn’t quite make that much progress. At the moment, I’m only a little over halfway. I’m sure I’ve felt this way before, but reading through a lot of an essay book in one sitting was a bit of a slog for me. This wasn’t helped by the fact that this isn’t quite hitting my interests in the ways that I was hoping. Don’t get me wrong, Klosterman has some great writing in this book, such as exploring why some people are remembered heroically despite a lot of bad behaviour and the ways that certain people cultivate villainous personas, but this has been a lot more about musicians and athletes than I was expecting, which are spheres that don’t appeal to me very much.

Recently Finished

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess 8Over the weekend I read through the eighth volume of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Akira Himekawa. After some training from the Hero of Time, the story picked up a lot of momentum here, rocketing Link through two of the game’s dungeons after spending a couple of volumes going off script. Through I feel like these moments have been few and far between, for the most part, I can’t help but notice weakness in the dialogue from time to time. Most notably in this volume was when Midna realizes that the Hero’s Shade is the Hero of Time, which is something she ought to have learned alongside Link in the previous volume. Most often I’m really wondering if the translation job is weak here, but I’ll likely never know for sure. Regardless, with three volumes left I’m excited to see this series through.

Reading Next

Still no new plans are on the table for what I’m reading next. I’m still working on my Carpe Jugulum review, which I lament falling behind on posting, but hopefully I will have it done soon.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – September 6, 2023

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I Wear the Black HatI managed to start reading I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman since last week, though I’ve only managed the preface and the first essay. Still, it has made for interesting reading so far, with the preface asking a lot of questions about the nature of goodness and how good or bad everyday people may or may not be, turned on the self as well. By the end of the preface, he makes a point about young male fans of Star Wars, as they get older, gravitating away from Luke Skywalker toward Han Solo and then eventually Darth Vader as characters that capture their interest the most. Though the thought is left at the surface level for the most part, it’s an interesting thing to note, as there’s a truth to the observation that’s easy to recognize in my experience that raises questions about why we feel the ways that we do about villains.

Recently Finished

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess 7Over the weekend, I managed to read through the seventh volume of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Akira Himekawa, which saw Link recovering from his near-fatal encounter with Dark Link and Zant. This volume was quite an interesting departure from the narrative of the game, as none of this happens there at all. Most captivating about it were the further connections made with the game Ocarina of Time, which I wish the Twilight Princess game had put more effort into. The Hero of Time takes up the mantle as a mentor much more firmly in this book, explaining who he is and his past more explicitly, and we see dialogue between Zelda and Ganondorf that explains the connections between the two eras more clearly.

Reading Next

At the moment, I have no new plans on what to read next, other than a tenuous commitment to reading The Lost World by Michael Crichton, if I can do so before October starts.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.