Book Nerd’s Comments (group member since Dec 20, 2018)

Book Nerd’s comments from the Never too Late to Read Classics group.

The Puppeteers are some really interesting, unique aliens.

I haven't seen it but they probably stuck in some stuff from Mysterious Island.

Me too.

About all I can think to add is The Art of War.

I read this a while ago. Didn't really care for it.
Minimalism doesn't appeal to me. It just seems like another way to feel superior.

It's been a long time since I read this but I really liked it. Niven's sci-fi is definitely unique and I love megastructures.
It definitely helps to read Protector too before or after Ringworld.

VERY strange! I'm looking forward to somebody telling me what it was about.

Trisha wrote: "Mark & Book Nerd - are you talking about a different story? I read it yesterday, it was set in Antarctica. No elder beings & no apes - unless I misunderstood it completely! There was a lot of ice &..."

At the Mountains of Madness spoilers:
(view spoiler)[Elder beings are what the creatures with the star shaped heads are called. Not sure if it's explicitly mentioned in the story.
By apes I meant humans. Just being funny. We're extremely primitive lifeforms to them. (hide spoiler)]

Anyway, way off topic.

Mark wrote: "Book Nerd wrote: "Mark wrote: "I thought Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” was plenty scary."
Honestly I just felt bad for the elder beings. They woke up to find their civilization fallen a..."
It's been a long time since I read it too. I just tend to identify with aliens.

Mark wrote: "I thought Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” was plenty scary."
Honestly I just felt bad for the elder beings. They woke up to find their civilization fallen and their city overrun by a bunch of apes.

Lovecraft doesn't scare me. Trying to think of something I've read that really scared me...I guess it has to be visual to scare me. When I'm reading I feel more in control.

Tony wrote: "Book Nerd wrote: "What was the point of the "most beautiful woman in the world" thing?"

My take on this was that [spoilers removed]"
Yeah, that makes sense.

Audrey wrote: "I think it goes back to carnivals showing off “the fattest man in the world” or “the tallest man in the world” and so on. But the beauty is a deception here."
It just seemed to have nothing to do with anything. (view spoiler)[She was apparently frozen in a block of ice then thawed and had nothing else to do with the story. (hide spoiler)]

Overall I thought the poeticness of it distracted from a pretty simple story.

Reading is difficult these days but I finally finished.

Two things that seemed really unlikely to me:
(view spoiler)[The "island" didn't spin for so long as it drifted along.
And especially that the house didn't collapse under tons of ice. (hide spoiler)]
But anyway I really liked this one.

None of Lovecraft really scares me. He hints at things that are obvious and not that horrifying. His monsters are just supposed to be incredibly alien. But I do love his stories because of the atmosphere and the huge cosmic entities always somehow tied to inbred hicks in tiny towns.

I know, it just took me a while.


(view spoiler)[ It's kind of crazy that they're on a floating iceberg and didn't even know it! (hide spoiler)]

It took me a long time to realize that "esquimaux" means "eskimo" lol.

Where's this month's Verne book?

If you've read A Song of Ice and Fire you can see what an influence this was.

Here's a map of the Dreamlands I like.
Dreamlands

What was the point of the "most beautiful woman in the world" thing?