yeah this is my assumption, hence why I’m reading through this book, because I feel like adopting wrongthink will be more helpful than trying to fight against it
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May as well also suggest you visualize an imaginary progress bar. A game designer might be the very last person able to bring themselves to buy into that
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Feels cool that I’ve read The Hobbit and the whole LotR trilogy in a single year. There was definitely a point in the past where I looked at those books and thought “it would take me my whole life to read books these long and intricate” but, look, it was actually quite easy. And I had a great time. I think my favorites were either The Hobbit or The Fellowship of the Ring. They both have this summery adventure feel to them that gets lost in the scramble of war during the last two books in the trilogy. The second half of The Two Towers was so delightful, a great, harrowing adventure with two dear pals. You get a bit more of that in the parts set in Mordor during Return of the King and between Marry and Pippin when they finally meet and have to depart in that same book. Return of the King is very patchy, and less consistently one way or the other like the first two. There are very boring (to me) sections of battle and summary travel but so many substantial moments that take place before and after the final battles of the war of the ring - just never really during. Of course talking about the trilogy as books is just convenient but not really meaningful.
Still, to say nothing of The Scouring of the Shire (which was so fun, such a D&D quest!), the ending is really just… incredible… so fucking perfect. Holy crap. All those pages are worth it just for the way that last chapter brings everything to farewell. Amazing!
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Cormac McCarthy released a new pair of novels and I had to find out about it from some twitter rando? Shameful
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I tweeted about it a couple days ago. hmph
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this isn’t even the ending in the book, it’s so sombre!
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Oh yeah rereading LOTR is really rewarding when you finally get what Tolkien was going for with that big, long hike with the hobbits in the first book. Just a nice hike with your pals! Contrasts well with the death march to Mt. Doom with Sam & Frodo in ROTK.
Here’s a funny (?) story: When I first read ROTK I came down with the flu during those death march chapters. I was so delirious I actually thought I caught the flu from the book, like it was some disease that was in the water that Frodo and Sam were drinking?? Crazy shit.
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used to read LotR when off school before a migraine with a fistful of ergotamine and a gently growing aura slowly making it impossible to read
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The Lord of the Rings is still one of my favorite books because despite all the copycats, movies, and games the original book can have all this stuff that’s just totally bald-faced Elves and Dwarves and wizards and evil wizards and then at the end…it just all hits you and somehow you’re just completely disarmed by it all.
I cried the last time I read the book because damn, the third age ended and magic was receding from the world. And I really felt it.
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LOTR confession: I have never read the appendix.
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I don’t see much reason to do that, unless you are a nerd.
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There is an entire romance sub plot in there that is only vaguely alluded to a few times in the book, but also I haven’t ever done more than skimmed it.
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Anyone here read John Langan’s book The Fisherman? Feeling like something short and creepy after my LotR treck.
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I read 50 pages of that book and wasn’t hooked by its atmosphere and its premise still hadn’t completely unfolded, and the narration was super annoying, like a cliche southern drunkard you’ve read/heard on screen four hundred times, which was made worse because the author couldn’t turn this colloquial “I’m talkin right at ya, giving my wisdoms to you direct” speech into well constructed prose.
Instead of The Fisherman I might read The Vegetarian instead.
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need to get back to it but the opening of the first one read like a nerdcore freestyle, ill omen
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read Red Mars on some flights today because I noticed someone had it at the meetup and I’d meant to get to it for a while. Nice take on community leadership
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