wednesday reading, finally
Well, I finally finished Reamde a couple weeks ago and I felt kind of annoyed about the whole thing. I don't know why I didn't quit it early on, since I was annoyed most of the way through. Okay, so a lot of stuff happens and there's a lot of information and a lot of cool bits. What there is also, however is a lot of transparent manipulation to set up just the right situation so the white middle-aged businessman can assemble the rainbow force to defeat the jihadists. And, by the way, make sure that every white guy in the coalition except the avuncular leader ends up with an exotic bride (The Hungarian ends up with the African, the Russian and the American ones end up with more-or-less Chinese women). It was actually boring a lot of the time, specifically when there was a lot of action.
So, honestly, this is how I've been feeling about almost everything I've read this year.
Then I read Escapement by Jay Lake. It was a fun ride, but again, as I went along, I started getting a kind of sour feeling about it. I get that the girl is an actual personification of the destructive power of -- probably nuclear power, but it doesn't matter -- and there were again, a lot of cool bits. And of course it's nice that one of the protagonists is an old lady and another has an Arabic name. But. I was kind of shocked, actually, having read a lot of Jay Lake's personal writings, at the way the Chinese are portrayed -- and yes, I get that I'm supposed to be seeing them through the eyes of unsophisticated foreigners who are seeing them for the first time, but, but, but, something didn't read right for me.
I've lost track of the number of books I've picked up and putdown because they bothered me. I'm just in a bad mood for reading these days, I guess.
I just started Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World because my brother made me. It appears to be early-ish, before he became a political nightmare.
for some reason youtube is refusing to play this playlist I'm listening to as a playlist and I have to poke it after every song. That's okay, I guess, I'm not liking the playlist that much either.
So, honestly, this is how I've been feeling about almost everything I've read this year.
Then I read Escapement by Jay Lake. It was a fun ride, but again, as I went along, I started getting a kind of sour feeling about it. I get that the girl is an actual personification of the destructive power of -- probably nuclear power, but it doesn't matter -- and there were again, a lot of cool bits. And of course it's nice that one of the protagonists is an old lady and another has an Arabic name. But. I was kind of shocked, actually, having read a lot of Jay Lake's personal writings, at the way the Chinese are portrayed -- and yes, I get that I'm supposed to be seeing them through the eyes of unsophisticated foreigners who are seeing them for the first time, but, but, but, something didn't read right for me.
I've lost track of the number of books I've picked up and putdown because they bothered me. I'm just in a bad mood for reading these days, I guess.
I just started Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World because my brother made me. It appears to be early-ish, before he became a political nightmare.
for some reason youtube is refusing to play this playlist I'm listening to as a playlist and I have to poke it after every song. That's okay, I guess, I'm not liking the playlist that much either.