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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2497 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 16, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Been reading a lot lately.

I finished House of Leaves. It was... ok I guess. It's typesetting gimmick was sporadically fun. It's excessive footnoting constantly disrupted the flow state I enjoy from reading a good book. It's story within a story within a story, unreliable narrators the whole way down made the entire endeavor feel pointless. I'm told it's format of being a pretentious academic paper is a joke... but then when I attempted to google almost anything about it I found myself with pages of results of actual academic papers about the book. Which makes me think of all the times people would tell me they say "git 'r dun" ironically, and I would yell back "I don't care of it's ironic, I still have to hear it!" Apparently people read this book repeatedly, using various headcanons to try to tease apart it's secrets. I was barely motivated to finish it once. I'm not reading it 3 more times from 3 different perspectives to get the "full" experience. Very, very meh about this one.

I re-read Vossoff & Nimmitz: Just a Couple of Idiots Reupholstering Space and Time. Funny story behind this one. It's actually a compilation of a bunch of my favorite stories from a defunct magazine called Science Fiction Age. I read them in the 90's, forgot all details about them like title or author, and just vaguely remembered the character names. Around 2007 I had a fondness for those old stories and went hunting, and through a series of convoluted clues eventually found this book. Bought a used library copy off Amazon for $14. It's a touch more expensive now. Doubt it'll ever sell at that price though. So far as the content, it was about as good as I remember it. I think reading them in the magazine, spaced many months apart helped some of the repetitive jokes land a bit better. Distance makes the heart grow fonder after all. But it still gave me a good smirk from page to page. You could do worse for an evenings entertainment.

I also started reading The Cimmerian comics. I believe they are a French adaptation of Conan, but had to be called The Cimmerian for copyright reasons? Anyways, the first volume at least was pretty badass. They also include the print of the original short stories, as if to dare you to find fault with their adaptation. In a world where IP's are routinely hollowed out and worn as a skin suit by people who have every appearance of hating the source material, it's refreshing. It also has lots of unabashed sexy ladies, which is nice. Feels like that gets rarer and rarer. My male gaze has been starved lately.

You mean the Jean-David Morvan version rather than the Dark Horse one? They look so much prettier than the awful 00s-photoshop paint-fill colouring of the american version. Wish it was easier to find french comics online.

I think I do? Looks like different artist worked on each adapted story though.

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