Nate > Recent Status Updates

So I open my just-bought used copy of this and some fuckin’ neurotic old shrinking violet literally crossed out EVERY curse word (of which there are many) with a blue ballpoint pen. What the FUCK, Tucson?

Straub gets points for mentioning Tucson, but gets them immediately revoked for having a character say “Tucson? No way, no fuckin’ way.”

Straub is clearly in love with cities and towns; his endless descriptions of them are either gripping and immaculately imagined or boring as fuck, depending on your mood. Luckily, I’m in a good mood and we’re descending (ascending?) into the bowels of Mill Walk in the form of a Kowloon-esque slum maze called Elysian Courts.

Man, this guy was a nasty fucker...I’m kind of confused as to why he isn’t more infamous, even with the ridiculous sobriquet of the Servant Girl Annihilator.

If these books were anything less than brilliantly written and ultimately goodhearted I’d probably feel bad for eating them
so quickly like the fat fuck I am; it’s wall-to-wall smartassery, ass beating, propulsive plot, beautiful and fascinating women and of course liberal doses of hedonistically sensuous eating and drinking.

Also, Pam Grier does all of Roulette’s sections in the audiobook so that’s pretty much a star in that.

These books have fantastic villains; there’s the uncomfortably relatable and yet utterly repulsive Roulette and Demise, and then there’s the gleefully disgustingly evil and revolting Astronomer. Then there’s Kafka, who’s literally a fucking giant walking roach.

That scene with Roulette and the Howler was fucking GROSS, man.

These books are worth the price of living. I just started Nico’s story and I’m already a wreck. The reappearance of a beloved old character also threw me off my emotional gyroscope.

I love that Li Heng is a monotheistic Burn-worshipping city-state (or whatever.) I’ve always been a Burn man myself as well as a staunch adherent to the Burn’s Sleep calendar. That Letherii Seventh closure shit is nonsense.

The random Soletaken/D’ivers are some of the scariest fuckers in these books...Ryllandaras, Gryllen, and Messremb are haunting names.

I’ve known the origins of this series forever, but it’s still mindboggling to see its origins as a simple two-player tabletop campaign.

This was a lovely gift so I’m gonna read it immediately. It’s definitely a first-hand novelization of the ultimate RPG prequel. Why do you care? Well, you don’t, except that this RPG formed the basis of one of THE titanic fantasy series.

I know I’m irrepressibly fanboying over this one but Straub obviously set out to launch a fully formed withered world-weary-but-godlike detective and he impossibly succeeds in a certain character in this one. Props go out to anyone who was so committed to detective stories they actually read a whole Wilkie Collins novel.

It’s so corny but this is one of the most powerful fan letters to the mystery genre I’ve ever read (thus far.) To say that Straub knows his shit when it comes to detective stories is a hilarious understatement. We’ve confronted and solved at least ten mysteries so far and discussed literary classics of the genre from Poe to Collins to Chandler.

Y’all ever put off finishing a book for an embarrassingly long time because you’ve become codependent on the characters?

What the living fuck is going on in this book?

This is stone cold gripping, but it’s making me super pissed too.

FUCK.

At this point I’m just overwhelmed and carried along by the narrative, characters, and prose, as corny as it is to say. This is one of those 800+ bricks where every page is weighty and indisposable.

You don’t know conflicted emotions until you’ve lived in this novel. Jake, my gods...

The Gus/Lorena plot in this is just...so sublime. Fuckin’ emotions swirling about like a multicolored tornado, guys.

Man, I fuckin’ HATE Blue Duck. Such a pitiless, sociopathically cunning cocksucker...

The Hat Creek Outfit suffers its first losses and I’m fucked up.

Sub-update: The ink in these old paperbacks smears mystifyingly easy. I put the tip of a thumbnail on a piece of font and it’s like a fuckin’ watercolor. I’m pretty sure the 80s Clavell paperbacks do this too.

The sexual politics in this book are fucking raw. It’s painfully uncomfortable and alien but made real and truly lifelike by the characters and writing.

Any scene involving dialogue with Augustus is immediately fucking hilarious. I can’t express how much I love this man. Grandmaster bullshitter with a true heart of gold colored with iron.

I’ve found an ancient mummified fly pressed in between pages 129 and 130. It’s been compressed to leaflike thinness. This can only be a good omen.

Gus is so fucking brilliantly funny and kind it’s impossible not to fall in love with him. The dynamic between him and Call (and the rest of the world) is just amazing. It’s LITERALLY impossible not to at least smile at some of his scenes.

Fuck it I’m doing it. I know the characters from the other books and the miniseries so it’s already sublime. The writing is still surprisingly brilliant. McMurtry wasn’t fucking around with this first of the quartet.