The Goblins Fan Forum

Why are we clubbing them?

mnem
*Random-mode*

Most books are innocuous enough, Mnem, but some of them contain... ideas.

Very dangerous things, those.

Perhaps because too many books in the same place are able to bend time and space? So we want to keep them seperate to prevent this forum from crashing into oblivion?

BOOKS = KNOWLEDGE = POWER = (FORCE X DISTANCE^2) ├À TIME.

someone wrote:Perhaps because too many books in the same place are able to bend time and space? So we want to keep them seperate to prevent this forum from crashing into oblivion?

BOOKS = KNOWLEDGE = POWER = (FORCE X DISTANCE^2) ├À TIME.

Sorry someone, I gave up my ability to do arithmetic for a bonus feat.

someone wrote:So we want to keep them separate to prevent this forum from crashing into oblivion?

Oh my god I just realized what happened to the old forum!
So books, books, books...

Myself, I'm just about to finish up Terry Goodkind's Stone of Tears. Loving it and already have Blood of the Fold ready and waiting to read next. I must admit I laugh every time something bad happens to Richard.

SccrD25 wrote:

someone wrote:So we want to keep them separate to prevent this forum from crashing into oblivion?

Oh my god I just realized what happened to the old forum!

► Show Spoiler

Wait, what old forum?

SccrD25 wrote:

someone wrote:So we want to keep them separate to prevent this forum from crashing into oblivion?

Oh my god I just realized what happened to the old forum!

► Show Spoiler

So books, books, books...

Myself, I'm just about to finish up Terry Goodkind's Stone of Tears. Loving it and already have Blood of the Fold ready and waiting to read next. I must admit I laugh every time something bad happens to Richard.

I love those books. I'm actually rereading the first one now. It's great.

SamWiser wrote: I love those books. I'm actually rereading the first one now. It's great.

Excellent! This is my first time through. They came highly recommended. Actually when I tried to put off the second for a bit I was directly threatened. Now that's a sign of good friends lol. She of course was right.

As I go along I've also been torturing myself by watching Legend of the Seeker in pace with my progress. I really enjoy yelling at the TV. Legend of the Seekers incites a LOT of yelling. My god how could they miss the mark so badly?

I've recently finished reading Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times. Best of Rincewind so far, I am left with The Last Continent, which I'll be reading as soon as I'm finished with the Earthsea Quartet. The Wizard of Earthsea was interesting and definitely had some nice wisdom-filled quotes here and there but overall it didn't appeal to me that much. Liked it but something was not quite right. Maybe it's because of switching from humorous to high fantasy, I'll see if Tombs of Atuan are better. And after that the time will come to finally see what the fuss is about with the Game of Thrones books. I've recently bought a set box of all 5 books (6 to be precise, I have the UK edition with the 3rd one split in half) and am anxious to read them.

As for others - I highly recommend to anyone who is familiar with Polish language reading the Witcher Saga. Sadly, the translation is somewhat sloppy (or so I've heard) so being fluent in Polish is the only way. Real shame, because it is the best the Polish fantasy has to offer. You haven't read a good dialogue if you haven't read the Witcher Saga.

SccrD25 wrote:

SamWiser wrote: I love those books. I'm actually rereading the first one now. It's great.

Excellent! This is my first time through. They came highly recommended. Actually when I tried to put off the second for a bit I was directly threatened. Now that's a sign of good friends lol. She of course was right.

As I go along I've also been torturing myself by watching Legend of the Seeker in pace with my progress. I really enjoy yelling at the TV. Legend of the Seekers incites a LOT of yelling. My god how could they miss the mark so badly?

I watched part of the first episode, and I was with them until I saw Zedd, and that was it. I turned it on a year later, and I saw another Confessor, and that was the last I ever watched it. One horrible casting choice (in my opinion) and a major plot change like that? I'll stick with the books.

Is there any interest for folks to actually pick books to read (reread) with a group of folks? I've never booked clubbed before, but I think it could be fun.

There are a few books that I reread every year. I think it would be interesting to do a monthly Category read. Not necessarily the same book, but in the same general area. Like we could do a "childhood favorite" and I would read Watership Down, etc.

WastesTime wrote:As for others - I highly recommend to anyone who is familiar with Polish language reading the Witcher Saga. Sadly, the translation is somewhat sloppy (or so I've heard) so being fluent in Polish is the only way. Real shame, because it is the best the Polish fantasy has to offer. You haven't read a good dialogue if you haven't read the Witcher Saga.

I would like to add that sloppiness of translation is due to extensive usage of diffrent dialects, anachronisms and, well, complexity of polish language.
Well, there is a precious little gem of Anna Brzezińska "Wody głębokie jak niebo" and "Pan Lodowego Ogrodu" by Jarosław Grzędowicz. I'm unsure if they are translated, though (I highly reccomend first one, I heard only praises about second but never read it myself). There is Dukaj as well, but I never read anything by him as well, so I can't really recommend it.

From the s-f genre there is always Stanis┼éaw Lem. His works are old, but not outdated. And most were translated to english . Tales of Pirx the Pilot (Opowie┼øci o pilocie Pirxie) and Mortal Engines (Bajki Robot├│w), and The Cold (Katar) come to my mind (mostly because these are the ones I read)

No i jest jeszcze Pilipiuk. Ale chyba lepiej, ┼╝eby obcokrajowcy nie poznawali Polski przez pryzmat jego prac Mogliby doj┼ø─ç do niepokoj─àcych wniosk├│w

Alavar wrote:

WastesTime wrote:As for others - I highly recommend to anyone who is familiar with Polish language reading the Witcher Saga. Sadly, the translation is somewhat sloppy (or so I've heard) so being fluent in Polish is the only way. Real shame, because it is the best the Polish fantasy has to offer. You haven't read a good dialogue if you haven't read the Witcher Saga.

I would like to add that sloppiness of translation is due to extensive usage of diffrent dialects, anachronisms and, well, complexity of polish language.
Well, there is a precious little gem of Anna Brzezińska "Wody głębokie jak niebo" and "Pan Lodowego Ogrodu" by Jarosław Grzędowicz. I'm unsure if they are translated, though (I highly reccomend first one, I heard only praises about second but never read it myself). There is Dukaj as well, but I never read anything by him as well, so I can't really recommend it.

From the s-f genre there is always Stanis┼éaw Lem. His works are old, but not outdated. And most were translated to english . Tales of Pirx the Pilot (Opowie┼øci o pilocie Pirxie) and Mortal Engines (Bajki Robot├│w), and The Cold (Katar) come to my mind (mostly because these are the ones I read)

No i jest jeszcze Pilipiuk. Ale chyba lepiej, ┼╝eby obcokrajowcy nie poznawali Polski przez pryzmat jego prac Mogliby doj┼ø─ç do niepokoj─àcych wniosk├│w

I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, good sir, or I'll have to tell the Baba Yaga you took her toenail clippers.


mnem
All heads turn as The Hunt goes by...

Dagganit, Alavar... now I have to go translate that. I was just pulling your leg; as with almost all of the Polish I've ever been exposed to, when you try and say it phonetically it just plain SOUNDS dirty.


Google sez:

"And then there's Pilipiuk. But it's probably better not to foreigners learned Polish from the perspective of his work: P They could lead to disturbing conclusions."

Ahhh... yes. The Polish perspective appears generally pretty dark; much like that of the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia. The nature of living in such harsh climates means that even today they see death as an everyday acquaintance; a neighbor you might pass on the street. Not like Westerners who, for the most part, just avoid the entire concept until they're FORCED to think about it by circumstance.

However, outsiders rarely see the depth with which they live; immersing themselves in nearly every aspect of life, absorbing the small pleasures and great joys equally, while accepting the harshness that life deals them with experienced stoicism.

Tolstoy was both a great boon in that he was able to distill the experience of that culture to the written word such that it could be shared and understood by the rest of the world, and yet at the same time presented a great disservice in that even now, ALL of the culture of that region is seen by the rest of the world cast in that light which is now 100 years old. When it was new it was still primarily reflection upon a much older world, which was in upheaval even as Tolstoy wrote of it.

That view of course comes full circle, influencing writers of the region even now... adding another layer of cultural varnish to a gestalt which was old when the East India Tea Company thought they ruled the earth.


mnem
*~ Life is hard; fortunately, it is also short. ~* Cozack Proverb

We in Poland are in Central Europe, bordering Germany, and climate isn't THAT different there (Certainly Lingrem had lower temperatures than us this year )

And for Pilipiuk, I was refering mostly to authors beliefs (he is antisocialist and monarchist) and that in his books there are two kinds of people: bad and stupid (and mostly from cities, more modern) and wis... errr "common sense" using villiage folks.
And his main character (and others are ALMOST always copies of Jakub) is deranged (more and more with every book), moonshiner and poacher who don't hesitate to murder someone not from "here", have recipies how to cook a ninja, and uses viagra as a lubricant. And he fights monsters. With common sense. And it is implied as a good and respectable behaviour for any Pole. Its kind of a bad PR

But, yep, many Polish works of fiction are pretty dark (The Witcher is a good example), but for different reason than Russian books. There it's the climate, here it's history of subjugation and, later communism.

In pretense of adding something new, I will tackle the issue of "Earth Children" series - don't try to read above tome 3. it's just not worth it
....
Does "W Szczebrzeszynie chrz─àszcz brzmi w trzcinie" sound dirty?

Alavar, stop killing poor mnem with our sick tongue-twisters or you'll be served "seashells which she sells at the seashore" etc.

And as for Poland - yeah, our works of fiction and in general, our literature is pretty dark as one has to remember that we've been oppressed by the neighbors and fought our way to freedom, failing many times, since around the XVI-XVII century. We hardly had time to enjoy ourselves and be positive about things, when Cossacks, Turks, Swedes, Austrians, Germans, Prussians and Russians tried to take a big chunk of land from our country. Damn, that doesn't sound too good, does it?

*whoosh* is the sound I heard mostly in this thread.

Why? because 1. I was busy going "I LOVE BOOKS!" which was very silly of me.
and 2. I was like "GOBLINS BOOK CLUB!!!" which was also very silly of me.

I'd be down for a Goblin's Book Club... I've never actually been in any sort of abook club. I'd just need time to well, get ahold of books... because... (and this is going to shock you)

There are no bookstores where I live.

E-reader would work just as well

Or ordering from Amazon or whatevs. I can't stand reading books on a screen though. I get that TLDR feeling that books don't give.

I wouldn't mind a screen if I had a Kindle or a tablet or something. But trying to read on a desktop or a laptop is the suck.

I love my Kindle for the convenience of it, but nothing replaces the feeling of holding a book and reading it. Like when your arm goes numb and your hands cramp from holding the same position for too long

I prefer real books to my Kindle - the cost is pretty much the same.

I do order online, but it takes weeks to get here, which is why I need time if I was to be getting a book for a set read

I'd love my kindle if my wife ever let me use it . Been rereading Treasure Island. Such a classic.

Also books don't fry my little guys if I put them on my lap. Very important