false10183160true5776206read1true4926187currently-reading22true4926166to-read11false5454387graphic-novel10false5454391non-fiction9false4934746top-shelf
<![CDATA[new comment from Doug]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/240203-new-dark-tower-novel
Doug made a comment in the Dark Tower group:
Just posting an FYI,
at a book signing for Under the Dome, he was asked about a new DT book and said that there was one more book he wanted to write, to take place between Wizard and Glass and Wolves of the Calla.
The link is of a Q&A he did prior to the signing in Maryland that has the good news.
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Under the Dome: A Novel']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77537661
Under the Dome: A Novel (Hardcover)
byStephen King bookshelves: to-read
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Cheating, Death']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76914770
Cheating, Death (Paperback)
byTeel McClanahan bookshelves: to-read
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Zombocalypse Now']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/76588910
Zombocalypse Now (Paperback)
byMatt Youngmark bookshelves: to-read
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Grundish and Askew']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73085313
Grundish and Askew (Paperback)
byLance Carbuncle
Having just finished the novel last night, I'm still in the process of forming an opinion of the book as a whole (hence the lack of review stars). There are elements that I can comment on quite readily, but when attempting to answer the question of "What do you think of the book?", I feel like I don't have an answer yet.
The craft of the good Reverend Carbuncle is on display in this book. The writing is tight, and the dialoge is natural. His characters are realized and rounded to a degree (and by that I mean that they are rounded to a degree that doesn't lift them above the savage, over-the-top motif that dominates the book from cover to cover).
I would call this a meta-book. The author is speaking directly to the reader with this novel, through the use of footnotes (a peevish device that I don't readily accept in fiction) and several instances in the main narrative where the "fourth wall" (to use a film and television term) is not only acknowledged, but obliterated often.
So it should follow that if the novel, the characters of Grundish, Askew, Turleen, Dora and Idjit Galoot, are mouthpieces for Carbuncle, then the author has something important to communicate to the reader. Maybe that's true and maybe it isn't. If it is, I haven't figured out what he was trying to tell me yet.
The novel is a rocket propelled grenade of caricatures and escalatingly violent and base events, with bodily fluids, appendages, and verbal assaults flying seemingly on every page. The main characters are irredeemable and spectacularly misguided simpletons who wake up one day on the wrong side of sanity, then spend the rest of the book going back and forth across the division, as one horribly ill-concieved attempt to find freedom and peace after another self destructs, often with horrific results to the people around the titular characters. The addition of prophetic dreams with talking dogs just pushes the whole experience to as close to an LSD high as I have ever been.
Yet the book, for all its attempts to shock and disgust, and despite the slight self depracation that the author heaps on himself in the instances when he breaks out of the narrative to chat with the reader, is a thoughtful look at what it means to love someone, even a raging hurricane of violence and stupidity like Askew, and what kind of person would choose to stand by that love no matter what it costs them. For what it's worth, despite his hygene difficulties, I would love a friend like Grundish.
So I still haven't developed a short answer to that question I posed above, "What do you think of the book?" I don't know what I think of it. But I do know that I'll be thinking about it for a while, and maybe that's as good an answer as any.
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug
is on page 103 of Grundish and Askew
]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/73085313
Doug
is on page 103 of 316 of
Grundish and Askew
The idea behind this book was superb, but the execution was severly lacking. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Dark Arts: Personal Effects I'll give it to you in a nutshell. You are given a short mystery / horror novel which also comes with props in the form of documents and photos that were featured in the book. Additionally, the websites and prominent phone numbers, when searched or called, turn up actual (though manufactured) websites and voicemails. The idea is to create an "experience" of sharing the investigation with the protagonist, Zachary Taylor.
If that's all I knew I would be beside myself with glee. I love puzzles like this, where I am given all the information I need to solve the crime, and all I have to do is fit the pieces together the right way and in the right sequence to find the truth.
However, the props and websites and phone numbers do little to help illuminate anything. The fact that they are all just dumped onto your lap at once means that anyone even mildly competent can piece together a "twist" that doesn't present itself until you're almost 1/3 of the way the story. The clues you are given don't make a lot of sense out of the context of the story, but once you arrive at the point when a particular prop is featured, the characters are already making the connection, robbing you of that opportunity.
The extra information presented on websites is fun for a little while, but as I may have said before, it doesn't help you get ahead of the characters.
I also have a big problem with what appear to be continuity errors and typographical errors throughout the book. Characters referencing things long before they are revealed to the protagonist. (If you are paying attention, you know some things before Zachary does, and this was one of them...but how would any of the other characters know?) It's possible that if you mapped out the typos you might get a hidden message, but frankly, the multiple shortcomings in the execution make it very, very unlikely that I'll go through that just to find the name of the author's girlfriend spelled out in the book.)
Now that I've talked about the gimmick, I'll devote some time talking about the book itself. The writing was competent, but I could almost feel the author stretching to make the references and characters as "cutting edge current" as possible. Frequent pop-culture references distract, and tragically and effortlessly hip and capable characters aren't all that interesting. For example, Zachary's girlfriend is a tattood master gamer chick who has her own website, does fact checking for a major publication and is an unsurpassed internet detective. Zach's brother is a super hip freerunner who's individuality is expressed in making up needless nicknames and catchphrases that no one else gets. I get the picture, Mr. Hutchins. New Yorkers are just better than the rest of us. You can stop drilling it into our heads at every opportunity.
Zach is an appropriately flawed character, but his flaws seem to be just contrivances of a plot that makes "gifted" leaps in logic occasionally. What begins as a reasonable mystery with a chance of supernaturality devolves into a parallel investigation of Zach's own past while he looks into the main plot, and of course, his own past is connected to the current case, and if that wasn't trite enough, the bad guy is exactly who you expected from the beginning, and yes, there is a supernatural bend to the whole thing that is ultimately kinda silly.
If it sounds like I'm being hard on this book, then you're right. I am being hard on this book, because it held so much promise. I hated to see such a great idea ruined by such sloppy execution.
I won't say don't read it. I will say that trying to follow along with all of the props and figuring out the end before the protagonist is a supreme waste of your energy. I broke this puppy apart like I was a homicide detective, I had relationship charts, timelines, each piece of information was chronicled meticulously, where it came from, whoe found it and when, and how it came to be imnportant to the plot. I stretched out the reading of the book to analyze and pick apart the websites and the information they contained, and it was all for nothing. The clues are nice little props to make the reading of the book more immersive. Depsite the advertiser's claims that you can learn more than the characters, which is a half truth at best, nothing you learn makes the book any better.
::sigh::
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Rose Madder']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72115521
to: Rose Madder (Hardcover)byStephen King
]]>
<![CDATA[Doug added 'Audrey's Door']]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/72335064
Audrey's Door (Mass Market Paperback)
bySarah Langan bookshelves: to-read
]]>