IT IS OKAY. I ALSO SPENT A YEAR READING PIERS ANTHONY LIKE CANDY. And now whenever I see things about his books I'm just all "OH PIERS ANTHONY NO." At least John Ringo owns up to his "NO"ness and is generally good-natured about the whole thing.
Except Imbri. Imbri was pretty cool.
Hmm. WTFs. The latest Jane Austen mystery is sending me in a tizzy. I love those books so much, I love them like candy, and then suddenly it is like Stephanie Barron is parodying herself. I AM SAD. *woeface*
OH AND THE END OF CRYOBURN. But that was a good WTF. And adequately foreshadowed. Even if it made me gnash my teeth and wail at the heavens. Likewise the end of Changes.
SO MUCH NO. I still think one of the worst things I ever did was get my little brother's social circle hooked on Piers Anthony. WHY DID I DO THAT. I MAY HAVE BEEN DOOMED MYSELF, BUT DIDN'T I KNOW BETTER THAN TO CORRUPT THE YOUTH. ;___;
I am like fourteenth in the waitlist for Cryoburn at the library! That's okay though because I still have to reread Diplomatic Immunity before I get to it, which I have been putting off.
Diplomatic Immunity is good! It's typical madcap Miles, which I appreciated. Also had a moment where a character says she's going shopping and Miles is all "Don't bring back any severed heads!.... uh, not really... family joke, guys... STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT."
Cryoburn is also good! However you may want to make a dental appointment because of aforementioned tooth-gnashing. THERE WILL BE MUCH GNASHING.
Gnashing is a fun word.
Oh! Kim! Kim was also cool. She was in like one book (and there was a lot of "OH PIERS ANTHONY NO" in that book) but she was surprisingly cool for all that. And also she told Dug where he could stick his chauvanistic, lady-ogling bullshit. I have to respect a lady who can do that.
In retrospect, my first boyfriend's undying love of Piers Anthony should've been a clue as to how and why that relationship would eventually implode.
I've read Diplomatic Immunity before, but I think I read it too fast after Civil Campaign, which is so very much my favorite that anything after it was going to feel like a disappointment!
. . . I am forewarned. *laughing*
I do vaguely remember some okay Piers Anthony characters, but in my head they have mostly been blotted out by the GIANT LOOMING CLOUDS OF WTF.
If you wanted to split it up into my 'reactions of unmitigated and probably unholy glee!' and 'reactions of KILL EVERYTHING WITH FIRE!' I can safely say that as far as I'm concerned, That Movie falls into the latter category and Legend of Koizumi falls into the former.
(No one can get me drunk enough to watch That Movie. The prospect of lulz are not strong enough to get back the two hours of my life I will waste in watching it.)
Aren't we glad that flurry of plume moths descended upon the director as soon as he had the first terrible idea, and thus saved us from That Movie ever existing?
As you know I am with you on the Kage Baker alternate #5, although in the volume in my head, besides Lewis and Princess Tiara Parakeet there is also a scene where Victor organizes a dinner party!
Piers Anthony is just too easy for a list like this. We're talking about a man who *started* the Xanth series with a female character who is either beautiful, sweet and incredibly stupid or intelligent, ugly and nasty *depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle*. This moment is *not* Anthony's all-time low in objectification of women.
Let's see. For gratuitous Mary Sues in print, you can't beat the one in Mercedes Lackey's Alberich duology, where Herald-Chronicler Misty (!), despite her enormous glasses and inability to fight, ends up having lots of sex with the hot Karsite weaponsmaster.
Honorable mention on authorial self-insert is GGK's Crispin in the Byzantine I mean Sarantine books. He ends up in a relationship with (SPOILER), which, given the circumstances, is even more hubristic than Misty/Alberich.
Oh that is true, how could I forget Victor's dinner party! WITH OBLIGATORY DISCWORLD REFERENCE. Also immortal cyborg William Randolph Hearst can stay. Because, I mean, he is immortal cyborg William Randolph Hearst.
That's why Piers Anthony is only an honorable mention! The really terrifying part is that none of this particularly hit me as WTF when I was thirteen. WHERE WAS MY BRAIN AND WHY WAS IT NOT IN MY HEAD.
People keep trying to talk me into reading the Alberich books! I may have to do it just to experience Herald Misty for myself. The Sarantine books are also I think the only GGK I have not read . . . people tell me they're good though???
They're very good, but it helps to read the Wikipedia pages on Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius and Procopius first so you can recognize the moment where everything goes massively AU. Also Yeats on Byzantium.
I remember reading somewhere about ANOTHER, DIFFERENT sequel to Phantom of the Opera--don't know if it has any relation to yours. But I know it was like a BDSM erotica book where Christine ends up with the phantom.
Also, that one time you're reading an over-four-hundred-year-old book that has canon mpreg it. I'm not joking. A bunch of dudes drink from a spring of pregnation, and then have to go on a quest to get the water from a spring of abortion. Journey to the West is GLORIOUS, I tell you.
The Outcast of Redwall gave me some serious wtf at the end, but that's more ragey than anything.
There was also hearing some stuff Astro Boy comics, which, uh... okay I admit I haven't read it, so I don't know true all of this it, but--the robots in this world have to drink oil and stuff to keep functioning. Except, the one designed like an eight-year-old boy has to have it stuck up his butt. And apparently Osamu Tezua wrote the book in response to losing a son or something? Yeah. Uh. Mindscarring.
I suspect you are talking about Susan Kay's Phantom, which is the book I am pretty sure has influenced 90% of the Phantom of the Opera fanfiction out there. THE PHANTOM IS SO TRAGIC AND MISUNDERSTOOD.
. . . which doesn't even shock me, because, again, of course people have been woobifying the Phantom since time immemorial. Of course. The really hilarious part is when it's set on Coney Island, and comes to Broadway!
ahahaha I knew I had to read Journey to the West! (From what I know from the medieval scholars around here, The Mabinogian has some similarly cracktastic plot twists. Because if these guys acted like jerks, clearly the best way to punish them is to turn them into animals and force them into incestuous bestiality mpreg!)
I've only read the bits of Astro Boy that were the direct inspiration of Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, but I feel like I should call in the Tezuka scholar on my flist . . . *laughing*
I confess I was way more interested in the Phantom than Raoul when I was younger (and still could stand that musical/book). I blame it on the fact that he got all the coolest songs.
Journey to the West is BRILLIANT and I highly recommend it! Different translations can have different effects though--I liked Anthony C. Yu's the most, since it didn't try and force the poems to rhyme, and he left them with their original Chinese names.
Haha, I am sadly not as familiar with Tezuka as I should be--I've seen some of Black Jack, which I do like, if only because how hysterical I find it that the hero is such a complete, massive jerk--yet it never makes an excuse for him.
I will fully admit I still love Phantom of the Opera in all its ridiculousness over-the-topness - creepy stalkers! falling chandeliers! everyone singing all the time! - and, let's face it, Raoul is not that interesting. The Phantom is more interesting! Just . . . also a creeper. (My favorite character was always Philippe-who-got-cut-out-of-the-musical. POOR LONG-SUFFERING BROTHER.)
I've been wanting to read it since, uh, Laurence Yep. >.> THANKS, MONKEY. Someday soon!
I am not really familiar with Tezuka either, but I think I will probably be reading Princess Knight one of these days in my quest to collect ALL the genderbending manga.
Ahahahaha Mohinderfly. BEST PART OF THE SEASON, OBV. Not that that would be difficult. As for my own choices--there is a Second Doctor episode called The Mind Robber where the characters save the day by 1) a 14-year-old girl summoning her favorite comic book hero and 2) writing RPF. So yeah. Can't beat the classics, guys. Honorable mention goes to that episode of Monster where everyone just went around saying 'Domo' all the time. I'm still not sure if that might have been Urasawa trolling everybody in a fit of work-induced madness.
If it had all been as wildly out of nowhere as the Mohinderfly, it might even have been worth watching for the crack value! It is a shame that it went on to be terrible in more boring ways. :(
Also: HAHAHAHA AWESOME. I am always so pleased by stories where characters write their own internal fanfiction, especially if they save the day thereby; it fills me with hilarity every time.
. . . really? The TV version had a full episode of that? I mean, I remember that in the manga, but it went by pretty fast . . . so my guess is that someone on the animation staff was really easily entertained.
I don't remember if it was a full episode or a half-episode--apparently most of the episodes covered two chapters each--but yes, the domo was there, and it was glorious. THE DOMO IS EVERYWHERE. IT IS ETERNAL. (my friends still have this picture on their dorm window.)
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Except Imbri. Imbri was pretty cool.
Hmm. WTFs. The latest Jane Austen mystery is sending me in a tizzy. I love those books so much, I love them like candy, and then suddenly it is like Stephanie Barron is parodying herself. I AM SAD. *woeface*
OH AND THE END OF CRYOBURN. But that was a good WTF. And adequately foreshadowed. Even if it made me gnash my teeth and wail at the heavens. Likewise the end of Changes.
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I am like fourteenth in the waitlist for Cryoburn at the library! That's okay though because I still have to reread Diplomatic Immunity before I get to it, which I have been putting off.
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Cryoburn is also good! However you may want to make a dental appointment because of aforementioned tooth-gnashing. THERE WILL BE MUCH GNASHING.
Gnashing is a fun word.
Oh! Kim! Kim was also cool. She was in like one book (and there was a lot of "OH PIERS ANTHONY NO" in that book) but she was surprisingly cool for all that. And also she told Dug where he could stick his chauvanistic, lady-ogling bullshit. I have to respect a lady who can do that.
In retrospect, my first boyfriend's undying love of Piers Anthony should've been a clue as to how and why that relationship would eventually implode.
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. . . I am forewarned. *laughing*
I do vaguely remember some okay Piers Anthony characters, but in my head they have mostly been blotted out by the GIANT LOOMING CLOUDS OF WTF.
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(No one can get me drunk enough to watch That Movie. The prospect of lulz are not strong enough to get back the two hours of my life I will waste in watching it.)
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Piers Anthony is just too easy for a list like this. We're talking about a man who *started* the Xanth series with a female character who is either beautiful, sweet and incredibly stupid or intelligent, ugly and nasty *depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle*. This moment is *not* Anthony's all-time low in objectification of women.
Let's see. For gratuitous Mary Sues in print, you can't beat the one in Mercedes Lackey's Alberich duology, where Herald-Chronicler Misty (!), despite her enormous glasses and inability to fight, ends up having lots of sex with the hot Karsite weaponsmaster.
Honorable mention on authorial self-insert is GGK's Crispin in the Byzantine I mean Sarantine books. He ends up in a relationship with (SPOILER), which, given the circumstances, is even more hubristic than Misty/Alberich.
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That's why Piers Anthony is only an honorable mention! The really terrifying part is that none of this particularly hit me as WTF when I was thirteen. WHERE WAS MY BRAIN AND WHY WAS IT NOT IN MY HEAD.
People keep trying to talk me into reading the Alberich books! I may have to do it just to experience Herald Misty for myself. The Sarantine books are also I think the only GGK I have not read . . . people tell me they're good though???
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Also, that one time you're reading an over-four-hundred-year-old book that has canon mpreg it. I'm not joking. A bunch of dudes drink from a spring of pregnation, and then have to go on a quest to get the water from a spring of abortion. Journey to the West is GLORIOUS, I tell you.
The Outcast of Redwall gave me some serious wtf at the end, but that's more ragey than anything.
There was also hearing some stuff Astro Boy comics, which, uh... okay I admit I haven't read it, so I don't know true all of this it, but--the robots in this world have to drink oil and stuff to keep functioning. Except, the one designed like an eight-year-old boy has to have it stuck up his butt. And apparently Osamu Tezua wrote the book in response to losing a son or something? Yeah. Uh. Mindscarring.
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. . . which doesn't even shock me, because, again, of course people have been woobifying the Phantom since time immemorial. Of course. The really hilarious part is when it's set on Coney Island, and comes to Broadway!
ahahaha I knew I had to read Journey to the West! (From what I know from the medieval scholars around here, The Mabinogian has some similarly cracktastic plot twists. Because if these guys acted like jerks, clearly the best way to punish them is to turn them into animals and force them into incestuous bestiality mpreg!)
I've only read the bits of Astro Boy that were the direct inspiration of Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, but I feel like I should call in the Tezuka scholar on my flist . . . *laughing*
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Journey to the West is BRILLIANT and I highly recommend it! Different translations can have different effects though--I liked Anthony C. Yu's the most, since it didn't try and force the poems to rhyme, and he left them with their original Chinese names.
Haha, I am sadly not as familiar with Tezuka as I should be--I've seen some of Black Jack, which I do like, if only because how hysterical I find it that the hero is such a complete, massive jerk--yet it never makes an excuse for him.
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I've been wanting to read it since, uh, Laurence Yep. >.> THANKS, MONKEY. Someday soon!
I am not really familiar with Tezuka either, but I think I will probably be reading Princess Knight one of these days in my quest to collect ALL the genderbending manga.
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Also: HAHAHAHA AWESOME. I am always so pleased by stories where characters write their own internal fanfiction, especially if they save the day thereby; it fills me with hilarity every time.
. . . really? The TV version had a full episode of that? I mean, I remember that in the manga, but it went by pretty fast . . . so my guess is that someone on the animation staff was really easily entertained.
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