Jordan’s Comments (group member since Jan 18, 2015)

Jordan’s comments from the Return of the Rogue Readers group.

Did the bird survive?

Sarah, that trailer is fantastic.

Sarah, your turn!

I will have to look for that movie. It sounds delightful.

Good news everyone! I just heard from a forest critter that Shia Lebeef will be starring in William Henry Harrisodgsons Boats of the Glen Carrig in a live action video audiobook!

Sarah, about those trees from the start of the story. I'm I got the vibe that the trees were consuming the people inside them. What do you think?

I agree, Garret. That was a nice change of pace. It really adds to the believability to me. I feel like we ran into this guy at Yogurts and he told us his story in whispered tones over a strawberry and banana smoothy.

Sorry for my late arrival. You guys got this discussion off to a great start. To begin I will reply to what has already been said. Fantastic gif, Sarah. I enjoy it and I will probably get the entire series of single frames tattooed on my left ankle.

Since I listen to the audiobook I never got to to see the actual spelling of the character known as "bosun," but I had to look it up while reading and discovered that its "boatswain" in our modern dialect. This apparently means "An experienced member of the crew." Seems most fitting for our guy.

Garret, I agree that this definitely felt like we were being told the story in person. The audiobook I listened to was a Librivox recording, which is a collection of audiobooks that are free due to being in the public domain. The narrator was (what my untrained American ears believe was) Scottish and he sounded young. It really helped add to the story-teller vibe. It was a positive experience.

I will disagree with you both in terms of detail and my overall score. I thought this book gave me exactly enough detail to keep me interested and excited without boring me. I want more and I would gladly read a second book with these same characters returning to those same locations. I want more and in my opinion that it among the highest praise that can be given a book. Not that "Jordan wants more!" but that anyone wants more. I love that there are more books set in this fantastical land, but I wish they were related.

Hodgeskin found a blend of old-timey charm, creative settings and creatures, engaging characters, and brevity that really glazed my donuts.

I am about 90% through the book and will have it finished by this evening. So far I am really enjoying it.

By popular vote: The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig' by William Hope Hodgson. It's 136 pages, so how about Sunday August 9th for the discussion? What does everything thing about that?

We are skipping #9 in honor of Windows 10 being released today. They skipped 9 and we can too, damnit!

The new book thread will be up shortly. :)

Garret, this was mostly that talking head experience you mentioned. There was a great deal of ambient noise and sound effects to help you piece together what was happening. Things like street sounds, footsteps, etc. It did get confusing at times and I found myself rewinding to relisten to parts of it a time or two.

For some reason I was not notified that this topic exists and it did not appear on the Goodreads app when I checked for replies on Dirk Gently.

I agree about the ending. When it ended I had to check to see if there were missing files.

The three books are available as that radio play, so that might be an option for some of you to try.

An interesting bit of trivia. Hitchhiker's Guide was the first "audio story experience" I ever had. It was an old copy, probably recorded from cassette, and the title track was by The Eagles.

The Goodreads app is awful. This is the third time I have tried to post this.

Sarah, was your audiobook an audiobook? Mine was the radio play. I couldn't find anything else through the usual channels. The play was neat, but likely much shorter. Billy Boyd, who played Pippin in Jackson's LotR, voiced Richard. I recognized that voice immediately. The guy who voiced the Electric Monk does (among other things) Penultimo, the assistant guy from Tropico.

This was my first radio play and initially all the sound effects and background noise threw me off, but I adjusted and came to appreciate it as a change of pace.

Sarah, will you be reading the next one?

I listened to the BBC Radio play of this book. I couldn't find a proper audiobook in my price range. I'm curious to hear the difference in our experiences.

Overall, the story was amusing, but nothing I would get really excited over.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams is "a wildly inventive novel...of ghosts, time travel, and one detective’s mission to save humanity from extinction."

It's about 275 pages, so how does July 12th sound?

*silence*

It's kinda spooky in here all alone.

Seems like everyone is ready to move along. Tye, you are up.

My favorite character was Jonas. I feel he was a very accurately written cat and I enjoyed reading about him.

My least favorite character was the one townsman who harassed Merricat in the coffee shop and later was responsible for throwing the first stone. I forget his name and the internet has failed me.

Speaking of the townsfolk, I think they left the food there out of some misguided superstition or a feeling that it would work towards exempting them from the wrath of the crazy people who lived there. It was strictly selfish and not done out of any sort of remorse.

While trying to find the name of that character I mentioned above I read a few summaries on various websites and one of them referred to this book as "A haunted house origin story." I think that perfectly sums up what we read here. If you have lived in a town long enough you have heard about the crazy old lady who lives in the big house in the woods and is probably a witch. Our local legend was Old Lady Loftess and depending on who you asked she had either murdered her husband and his paramour or she was involved in some kind of satanic gobbledygook.

Over time her story grew and eventually her house became the place for local kids to prove their toughness or to bring a date in hopes that the scare factor might result in her getting a little closer to you than she would elsewhere. I've been there. Garret and (probably?) Tye have with me. This book has given me an interesting new perspective on that.