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Your Next-Door Neighbor Is a Dragon
by
Zack Parsons (Goodreads Author)
Based on popular articles from Parsons' Web site, this work presents an irreverent travelogue of the subcultures and twisted alternate realities existing within the information superhighway.
Mass Market Paperbound, 272 pages
Published
August 1st 2009
by Citadel Press
(first published 2009)
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Community Reviews
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You know, I’m not going to be ashamed to say that I spent quite a bit of time on the internet. The internet is interesting . There’s a whole world of knowledge and videos and interaction that could not have existed before the advent on the web. Miss a TV show? No worries, it’s on the internet! Need to do some heavy-duty research for a paper? Holy crap, here’s JSTOR! Need to look some up some quick information to settle a bet? Bam, Wikipedia! It’s a glorious thing and I’m thankful that I spent m...more
Fun book about internet weirdos.
I can somehow relate to half of the weirdo groups described there (Ron Paul supporters, healthy eaters, self-diagnosed Aspergers), but oh well.
"...you can insulate yourself among like-minded freaks until you're convinced that you're normal and everyone else is just unfairly persecuting you, denying your God-given right to identify as an anime Nazi dragon."
" "Are you a part of the plot?" he asked. "...more
I can somehow relate to half of the weirdo groups described there (Ron Paul supporters, healthy eaters, self-diagnosed Aspergers), but oh well.
"...you can insulate yourself among like-minded freaks until you're convinced that you're normal and everyone else is just unfairly persecuting you, denying your God-given right to identify as an anime Nazi dragon."
" "Are you a part of the plot?" he asked. "...more
This reminds me of the Something Awful that existed before 2005 (i.e still funny). It's not only hilarious, but also surprisingly well written. It does at times flip back and forth between an obviously fictional story about the author and then to his actual interviews, but I don't think this means that the author was confused about what he did and didn't want this book to be about. In short, it's just ridiculous. It isn't supposed to be interpreted as something deeper than it actually is. This i...more
This book is 100% entertaining and does a pretty good job of exploring some of the wackier internet subcultures. The basic structure of the book starts with a (clearly) fictional story about the process of writing the book, then actual interviews with weird internet people, then back to the wacky pretend story about writing the book again. Both the real interviews and the fake story are amusing, but the mish-mashing of real life with fiction made it hard, sometimes, to know what was real and wha...more
To be honest, I was a little disappointed, but only because my standards were raised so high by Zack's incredible work at Something Awful. He's one of my favorite writers there, so I expected to be laughing non-stop, but that's really impossible in a book. Still, it was very funny, if the story itself got a little old by the end.
Considering the Author's reputation being linked with Something Awful, I expected something a bit more. At times it seemed like he couldn't decide if the book was a humorous "informational" book or his own little story about himself (either true or not). For instance, the chapter about some weird female friend he had has nothing to do with internet freaks that I could think of. Maybe if he went one way or the other (humorous factoid book OR freakishly autobiographical), this book could...more
It was funny, but I would have preferred a more thorough exploration of weird internet subcultures than just a bunch of wacky/fake adventures with tiny interviews interspersed. Props to the book for stringing me along for at least a third of its length before I realised the narrative was fictional.
I was pretty disappointed with this book. While I enjoyed the author´s previous work, this one seemed a little self-indulgent. Far more fantasy than actual content.
Skip it.
Skip it.
Fun, simple book - an afternoon's breeze-read, this book "explores" some of the more interesting internet subcultures in a *very* informal, quasi-fictional way.
Jason Rizos
marked it as to-read
Wacky, pop-culture laden, humor. Looks good so far.
I'm thanked in this book by the author. Hooray!
I finished this book in about four hours, it's definitely a quick read. It sort of spirals off into a semi-biographical storyline near the end that doesn't have much to do with the original idea, but it was hilarious regardless. However, I was a lot more interested in the interviews with the real-life weirdos that are around us.
I'm trying to remember why I bought this book.
I didn't get the humor in it at all; I ended up feeling disgusted, repulsed, and rolling my eyes most of the time.
It was a very, very, very tedious read.
I was expecting actual content rather than this weird story.
I didn't get the humor in it at all; I ended up feeling disgusted, repulsed, and rolling my eyes most of the time.
It was a very, very, very tedious read.
I was expecting actual content rather than this weird story.
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This book should be mandatory reading for kids before they're issued their internet licenses. If just one child can be frightened away from dressing as a cuttlefish and going to a convention, then Zack has done his part.
Neitherman
marked it as to-read
Chris Garland
marked it as to-read
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Zack Parsons is a Chicago area writer known for his acerbic commentary and bleakly humorous science fiction. He has authored two non-fiction books, MY TANK IS FIGHT! and YOUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR IS A DRAGON. His works, including That Insidious Beast and CONEX: Convict Connections, have appeared online and in various published anthologies including A COMMONPLACE BOOK OF THE WEIRD: THE UNTOLD STORIES...more
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