Books you've been reading/listening to

[TheBlackBard]

Meant to say "without Henry". I've been following the whole thing and his push for a Warhammer show which I'm a bit torn about. An Eisenhorn TV show would be great but a near impossible task to portray the characters and setting accurately.

That's why it's a good thing Cavill is helming it. Will some stuff deviate? Sure. But I'm sure it won't be close to the disaster that Rings of Power is.

 

[nightflameauto]

That's why it's a good thing Cavill is helming it. Will some stuff deviate? Sure. But I'm sure it won't be close to the disaster that Rings of Power is.

Thing I don't get with shows like Rings of Power? They obviously don't give a shit about the source material. Tweak a few things, change a few names, and they could have had an interesting original concept and just done whatever the fuck they wanted, and probably garnered praise for having an interesting new fantasy. Instead, these dumbasses insist on taking a known and loved property, then bastardizing it to the point where it's obvious most of the creative staff either haven't touched the source, or thought they could create something far "better" (by their dumbass standards) so deviate so far that it's barely recognizable.

WTF?

And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Rings of Power once I made the disconnect in my brain to the source material. Aside from a few character quirks, these are not the people I've read about, so why consider it part of the same lore? I just think it would have been better, if they're throwing all this time and money at this type of thing, to just go their own route, or have *some* form of connection beyond the utterly superficial naming conventions. It's so weird how insistence TV and movie production is on using known properties, then fucking with them until they're completely different.

 

[TheBlackBard]

Thing I don't get with shows like Rings of Power? They obviously don't give a shit about the source material. Tweak a few things, change a few names, and they could have had an interesting original concept and just done whatever the fuck they wanted, and probably garnered praise for having an interesting new fantasy. Instead, these dumbasses insist on taking a known and loved property, then bastardizing it to the point where it's obvious most of the creative staff either haven't touched the source, or thought they could create something far "better" (by their dumbass standards) so deviate so far that it's barely recognizable.

WTF?

And don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Rings of Power once I made the disconnect in my brain to the source material. Aside from a few character quirks, these are not the people I've read about, so why consider it part of the same lore? I just think it would have been better, if they're throwing all this time and money at this type of thing, to just go their own route, or have *some* form of connection beyond the utterly superficial naming conventions. It's so weird how insistence TV and movie production is on using known properties, then fucking with them until they're completely different.

My thing is, I think this was the plan all along. I think they already had a rather shitty story they wanted to adapt, but knew it would never sell unless it had a big name to go on with it. They HAD Tolkien scholars who were employed to make sure it stayed true to what they were adapting. When Chris Tolkien died, all that went out the window. They decided to spend a billion or so or whatever it was so they could get the rights to put a Tolkien skin on what they are doing. They always kept saying leading up to the release, "if we had doubts, we went back to the book." Okay, which one? Because I don't remember a lot of this shit being in the books.

 

[lurè]

You're placing the blame in the wrong area there, bud. It was Henry Cavill who left the show BECAUSE it wasn't following the books enough.

Some say he left because of the direction of the show being totally different from the bokk, others say he's a moron impossible to work with.

Anyway season 2 was already completely random and has nothing to do with the books despite some episodes. The entire season revolves around Yennefer trying to get back her power....like wtf???

 

[TheBlackBard]

Some say he left because of the direction of the show being totally different from the bokk, others say he's a moron impossible to work with.

Anyway season 2 was already completely random and has nothing to do with the books despite some episodes. The entire season revolves around Yennefer trying to get back her power....like wtf???

That article about him being a moron impossible to work with sounds like it's bullshit, honestly. It sounded to me like they were trying to make him out to be a misogynist rather than someone who disagreed with the showrunners who just happen to be female. I'm not denying he may have said something that deserves a wag of the finger, but I'd be willing to bet that there wouldn't have been a problem had Netflix actually tried to do what they could to respect what they were adapting rather than injecting whatever they think is good, which these days? Ain't shit. I can't blame him for being pissed off if it did go down that way. Funnily enough, though, the split seems like it was perfectly amicable on his side given his statement where it seems like Netflix was simply trying to run a smear campaign.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

That's why it's a good thing Cavill is helming it. Will some stuff deviate? Sure. But I'm sure it won't be close to the disaster that Rings of Power is.

I do have faith that Henry will stick true to what Warhammer is about but the number one person to bring Warhammer to life is Syama Pedersen. Dude has more ability than multi-million studios with hundreds of artists working for them. I hope he's involved and willing to work on Warhammer again because this with well written and delivered dialogue would be incredible.

 

[Louis Cypher]

2/3rds the way through Harley Quinn and The Joker: Sound Mind. Really great take on her and the Jokers origin, the whole voice cast is excellent especially Christina Ricci as Harley

 

[Lorcan Ward]

I just finished Time of Contempt, the 4th witcher book. It's easily one of my favourite fantasy books. The world building was't great in the first few books but Andrzej's writing style is hugely improved in this one. I haven't come across an author who writes dialogue as engaging and realistic as he does.

 

[col]

Started Man in the High Castle. Seemed to go nowhere, so got bored and switched to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Much improvement.

 

[T_Gobbs]

Picking my way through this one...

 

[Furtive Glance]

The Untouchables. 25 pages in and already depressing.

 

[NexusMT]

I'm almost finishing the Zakk Wylde book, because i'm a big ZW fan and i thought the book might be fun to read due to his Rockstar stories.

i can easy say it's probably the worse book i ever read, including some of the boring school books i had to read in the high school.

It has like 2-3 really fun stories, the rest of the book is just a mess. I was hoping he would describe in detail how he got his Job with Ozzy or something about guitar playing but no it's just nonsense after nonsense.

I remain a big fan of ZW just not from his writing

 

[Furtive Glance]

Finished Superfandom yesterday and started The Snow Leopard today. Written in '73 but it might as well have been written yesterday.

 

[Xaios]

Finally bought an e-reader and definitely glad I did, as the best time and place for me to read is before I go to sleep. This way I can do it without blasting my retinas. Read the first couple of Discworld novels to christen it.

 

[SalsaWood]

Just finished Drawn and Quartered, started reading Industrial Society and Its Future again for new context. Forgot how nice it is to read authors who aren't stepping on eggshells or blathering pageantry all the time.

 

[Furtive Glance]

Just finished Justice for Animals and am now about halfway through Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. Next up is The Premonition by Michael Lewis, and since everything he writes is good, I’m looking forward to it.

 

[syzygy]

Read Picnic in the Ruins by Todd Petersen a few weeks back. Nothing super deep, but it was a fun read! If you like the Coen brothers/Tarantino style of many plot threads coming together to form a full, coherent story, or if you have a huge interest in the very south of Utah (for some reason), this might be a good book to check out!

 

[Furtive Glance]

Just finished Uncanny Valley, a memoir about Silicon Valley.

Currently about halfway through After the Fall.

This world is depressing.