Tuesday, March 3, 2009

OK, So Two Daves, a Giraffe and a Bean Burrito Walk Into a Bar...



I love my kids; they're my favorite people in the world.

Did you notice the proper semi-colon use in that last sentence? Man, I am such a great writer, it amazes me. I'm so write, it's wrong.

You'll have to pardon me - I'm operating on very little sleep. Stayed up to my usual ridiculous hour, reading the slowly-improving Bakker book, and was up early to take Chris to work. Bakker is certainly painting a vast picture. I'm about 160 pages in, and he's still introducing the characters. I barely remember the people in the earlier chapters.

I know, I know... as much as I've been reading it, I should be much farther along by now... I can't help it. Again, with all the weird names of people and places and events and as-of-yet-unexplained references, it makes for very slow reading indeed. I'm oddly fascinated by the idea of a mind that chooses to write this way. Picture the author again, in the coffee shop, with his paid cronies, the beret, round tinted glasses, the "skinny latte", etc... "My writing philosophy is, why not make it as difficult as possible for the reader to understand what the heck is going on?"

I dug around a bit online and saw a snippet of an interview where he said something like, "The typical reader will need to read my books through at least twice to get the full picture." I kid you not. Well, that's fine, if you're a great writer. To this point, I'd say he is above-average (not saying much, lol), with flashes of greatness and flashes of "suck". Reading his stuff is a work-out, yet oddly rewarding. For some reason, the analogy of constipation comes to mind... you gotta put in a lot of extra time and effort, but there's eventually a pay-off at the end...

Sorry... remember, I'm tired! My writing-related judgment is questionable right now...

I've been reading a popular Fantasy/Sci-Fi blog lately, getting the scoop on upcoming stuff, and the guy that runs the blog referenced a different guy who used to run the most popular F/SF blog in the past - and apparently this "other guy" (who is well-respected) had assembled a list of the 500 (!) F/SF books that he recommends the most. 500? Good grief! Well, this guy just this past week released an updated list, trimming it down to the 100 best F/SF books ever... lamenting the fact that it was so difficult to choose "only 100" and that so many great books had to be left off the list.

On his Top 100 list is this series by Bakker that I'm reading!

This blogger guy is a well-respected expert! And he put's The Prince of Nothing Series by Bakker on his "very best" list.

He must have read it more than once... and it must get REALLY good somehow.

I'm withholding judgment until I read more. I'll keep you posted.

Gah, as if any of my three readers cares! Who am I kidding? Well, it's my blog, so I'll write about whatever I want to! So there!

I'll even write a paragraph about a game I played today that no one here has either heard of or cares about. An action RPG called Hellgate: London. I fired it up today and created one of every type of character you can make, just so I could try them all out! I'm even going to list all 6 of them here, and what I named them, just because I can!

Guardian: Grundlesmack
Engineer: Manipulatrix
Blademaster: Tallywhacker
Evoker: Brown Fury
Summoner: Buttocks
Marksman: Gollywomper

Yes, that's what I named them! I don't know if I'll continue to play all 6 - I'm just trying out all of the classes to see what they have to offer.

Hey, we all have our hobbies, right? So don't gimme any grief!

Shifting gears, my good friend Carey is in the hospital, with a nasty bacterial infection that is making a mess out of his leg. He's gonna be in for a week, on anti-biotics. Gonna go visit him tomorrow after work. He's a little nervous, as you can imagine. Unchecked, it could have cost him his leg. But the doctors are pretty confident that they caught it in time.

Watched some more stand-up comedy tonight. When I get into something, I get into it, remember? Joe Rogan (filthy), Ruta Rudner (squeaky clean - and funny), and others... meh, what can you do. I need a laugh.

There's other stuff I could ramble about, but I'm not going to. I've tortured you enough, I'm sure. No videos today!!!

Until tomorrow, stop me if you've heard this one before...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Dave...read it twice...good stuff...can't wait for next chapter....your fan; Grundlesmack

Anonymous said...

With a name like Brown Fury I'm coming to you when I right my Fantasy series. Who else could come up with all the names?

I'm off to Hawaii. Never fear I will pay $23 a minute for internet in the hotel room just to read your blog.