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I would like to point out that I had every intention of being responsible this week.
Alas, intentions and I never get along.
B gave me a book on sunday (who doesn't see where this is going?). So yeah, I stayed up till 2:30 am reading even though said book wasn't that good. I always forget exactly why I love reading fiction even when I don't love what I'm reading -- unless it's horribly written, the words fill my mind and block everything else out so completely. It's like the idiot's shortcut to meditation. Now, if a book is good, this can actually get counterproductive because the emotions the author takes me through actually make me feel wrung out instead of zen at the end. Anyway, thoughts etc w/ possible spoilers
So yeah, I liked the plot and the idea of the plot. The problem then you ask? Omg, the exposition bat that kept beating me over the fucking head. I kid you not, I got to skim through probably no less than 50 pages because it was repeating the same fucking exposition to explain the world as had already been presented to you. Every single major character POV had to explain the whole premise to you once again. Which, if this had been a series of short stories, I understand. But it should have been sliced out when you made it into a novel. But I don't think this was a series of short stories so there was no excuse for telling me umpteen times that the Tabula has been killing all the Travelers in their effort to make a big brother world w/ them in charge. Really, the first ten times, I got it. *bangs head*
Second problem, all the characters sounded the same to me with the exception of the one good Traveler. The rest, all the same dren. No nuance, no personality, nothing. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it happened. With one or two, I know it was deliberate because they were supposed to be raised to be flat and chameleon like, but the rest? Yeah, shouldn't have happened. Fortunately, overuse of tagging during speech kept you from being confused (and further aided my ability to read a 480 pg book in just under 6 hours. Huh, I think that might be a personal best).
Worse, this ends by telling you that it was book one of a series. I get so sick of reading books that are poorly executed but never the less a part of a series. I really think this one could (and should) have been tightened up a hell of a lot if it's the start of series -- say pulling it to 300 or under. There's a lot of dead weight there.
And easily visible in the dead weight is the lack of consistency. The grid is all seeing and is what the good characters are constantly trying to avoid. Yet, there were several places where it's just "convenient" for the grid to not see. Like w/ the church group that provides so much help --- wouldn't the Grid have tagged every vehicle of every past and former member as a potential dissenter? Wouldn't they automatically keep watch over their lands etc? Towards the end of the book, Hawks just ignores this because the characters need to rest. It's a cop out and only adds to the mediocrity of the novel.
But I did like Gabriel even if he starts out acting like a adrenaline junky with the iq of 50. The rest, well, I was a bit disappointed that more people didn't die.
So yeah, I don't recommend. But it did cause me to sleep like a frigging rock last night. And probably dulled my ability to get angry yesterday when I found out that my experiment from this weekend was fragged for no identifiable reason. *screams* Same problem as last time. So now I sit around while I wait to see if V has the same issue or not since she remade all her buffers and crap. How come no one had any suggestions for sacrifices that i need to do to appease the science gods? Oh crap, just realized, the mouse god might be getting revenge since I've been helping B. Who knew, he was right, small animal karma does hurt you.
Everyone in the lab also drove me absolutely nuts yesterday. Being there on weekends with no high pitched voices around (other than my own I suppose, but it doesn't sound high to me fortunately or I'd have cut my tongue out long ago) cut down on my tolerance totally. Then the secretary was in the reading room that I'd retreated to when the techs had gotten to annoying for me to focus on my data. There's something about that woman that just, even out of the side of my eye, drives me insane and makes me want to....hit her. I now know exactly how annoying it was for everyone else when I couldn't sit still as kid/teen. Add to that that she has all these little tics that seem calculcated to draw attention to her and omg, she almost wins the prize of most hideous female thing on the floor and welll...yes, I know, I"m evil and deserve every bad thing that comes to me. But dude, she's she's....bad enough on the eyes. Then she opens her mouth w/ this hideous jersey accent that is furthermore made worse by her bad education, bad elocution, and just plain potty mouth and then she starts to do crap like pretend to barf in the middle of perfectly normal stories that only makes my stomach churn because it makes her worse to look at. I honestly have no clue what my boss uses as a basis to hire folks. Looks ain't one of them. (secretary's idea of "dress" attire leaves much to be desired as well. She's secretary to the chief of the department for god sakes and she wears stupid ass cotton stretch tank tops, crappy skirts, and flip flops to work during the main work week (bad enough on a friday, but on a monday)).
Despite all that, I was actually in a good mood. I suspect my hormones have recovered from my two in one month fiasco. But I didn't get to work till 2pm yesterday because of my reading late at night and then I had to go and take all my pda stuff (including cradle) to b's lab so I could get the pics off his camera phone onto his computer (neither of us have internet added to our phone plans so I had to get something w/ blue tooth to get them off and both our computers are a little older than that). Of course, once I had blue tooth on my pda enabled, I discovered that the other student in the lab had a blue tooth computer. *bangs head* B's all like, "but he doesn't know how to use it". Dude, I never did the whole phone to pda thing either, but I figured it out finally. It's not that freaking hard. I honestly don't know why I'm the "tech" one in this relationship other than i'm slightly less worried about breaking things. Ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
e_tsarran, I should in no way be allowed to trouble shoot anything.
But I slept like the dead last night. I did not do laundry once again (i do have clothes, but i need to finish up my colored loads if I'm going to have shirts to wear tomorrow). I did not clean like I fully intended to last night on getting home. I did not work out because when I was half way to the gym, I had flash of TWIN REGRETS in my head. Omg! You have no clue how long I debated of whether to go work out or to go home and write it. I chose to go home and write it...and sadly, ti wouldn't cooperate. I suspect it was because I tried to set up the scene first and my editor rebelled at the hideousness of it before it let me get to the talking heads. *cries* Still, maybe the idea will germinate better.
So Imeant to wake up and do laundry this morning. Didn't wake up till 8:30 courtesy of falling asleep on ouchy ouchy futon (I'm going to have to go ahead and get the air mattress because there is simply very very little padding between my bones and the wood left in what was four years ago a 13 inch cotton futon pad) and then transferring to blissful bed around 4:30. Took the four hours for all the kinks to work out. So yeah, looking like a noonish day. I'm bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.
Okay, done beating myself up now. :P LOL. Yes, I know. Weird weird mood. I have decided that despite the humidity, my nosebleeds are a result of the ragweed (that is actually giving me no other problems. Yay allegra and lack of other allergens) plus running the a/c in 65 degree temps to cut the humidity (though my apartment doesn't go beyond 70ish).
yes, yes, shutting up now. :P:P:P:P:P
B gave me a book on sunday (who doesn't see where this is going?). So yeah, I stayed up till 2:30 am reading even though said book wasn't that good. I always forget exactly why I love reading fiction even when I don't love what I'm reading -- unless it's horribly written, the words fill my mind and block everything else out so completely. It's like the idiot's shortcut to meditation. Now, if a book is good, this can actually get counterproductive because the emotions the author takes me through actually make me feel wrung out instead of zen at the end. Anyway, thoughts etc w/ possible spoilers
So yeah, I liked the plot and the idea of the plot. The problem then you ask? Omg, the exposition bat that kept beating me over the fucking head. I kid you not, I got to skim through probably no less than 50 pages because it was repeating the same fucking exposition to explain the world as had already been presented to you. Every single major character POV had to explain the whole premise to you once again. Which, if this had been a series of short stories, I understand. But it should have been sliced out when you made it into a novel. But I don't think this was a series of short stories so there was no excuse for telling me umpteen times that the Tabula has been killing all the Travelers in their effort to make a big brother world w/ them in charge. Really, the first ten times, I got it. *bangs head*
Second problem, all the characters sounded the same to me with the exception of the one good Traveler. The rest, all the same dren. No nuance, no personality, nothing. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but it happened. With one or two, I know it was deliberate because they were supposed to be raised to be flat and chameleon like, but the rest? Yeah, shouldn't have happened. Fortunately, overuse of tagging during speech kept you from being confused (and further aided my ability to read a 480 pg book in just under 6 hours. Huh, I think that might be a personal best).
Worse, this ends by telling you that it was book one of a series. I get so sick of reading books that are poorly executed but never the less a part of a series. I really think this one could (and should) have been tightened up a hell of a lot if it's the start of series -- say pulling it to 300 or under. There's a lot of dead weight there.
And easily visible in the dead weight is the lack of consistency. The grid is all seeing and is what the good characters are constantly trying to avoid. Yet, there were several places where it's just "convenient" for the grid to not see. Like w/ the church group that provides so much help --- wouldn't the Grid have tagged every vehicle of every past and former member as a potential dissenter? Wouldn't they automatically keep watch over their lands etc? Towards the end of the book, Hawks just ignores this because the characters need to rest. It's a cop out and only adds to the mediocrity of the novel.
But I did like Gabriel even if he starts out acting like a adrenaline junky with the iq of 50. The rest, well, I was a bit disappointed that more people didn't die.
So yeah, I don't recommend. But it did cause me to sleep like a frigging rock last night. And probably dulled my ability to get angry yesterday when I found out that my experiment from this weekend was fragged for no identifiable reason. *screams* Same problem as last time. So now I sit around while I wait to see if V has the same issue or not since she remade all her buffers and crap. How come no one had any suggestions for sacrifices that i need to do to appease the science gods? Oh crap, just realized, the mouse god might be getting revenge since I've been helping B. Who knew, he was right, small animal karma does hurt you.
Everyone in the lab also drove me absolutely nuts yesterday. Being there on weekends with no high pitched voices around (other than my own I suppose, but it doesn't sound high to me fortunately or I'd have cut my tongue out long ago) cut down on my tolerance totally. Then the secretary was in the reading room that I'd retreated to when the techs had gotten to annoying for me to focus on my data. There's something about that woman that just, even out of the side of my eye, drives me insane and makes me want to....hit her. I now know exactly how annoying it was for everyone else when I couldn't sit still as kid/teen. Add to that that she has all these little tics that seem calculcated to draw attention to her and omg, she almost wins the prize of most hideous female thing on the floor and welll...yes, I know, I"m evil and deserve every bad thing that comes to me. But dude, she's she's....bad enough on the eyes. Then she opens her mouth w/ this hideous jersey accent that is furthermore made worse by her bad education, bad elocution, and just plain potty mouth and then she starts to do crap like pretend to barf in the middle of perfectly normal stories that only makes my stomach churn because it makes her worse to look at. I honestly have no clue what my boss uses as a basis to hire folks. Looks ain't one of them. (secretary's idea of "dress" attire leaves much to be desired as well. She's secretary to the chief of the department for god sakes and she wears stupid ass cotton stretch tank tops, crappy skirts, and flip flops to work during the main work week (bad enough on a friday, but on a monday)).
Despite all that, I was actually in a good mood. I suspect my hormones have recovered from my two in one month fiasco. But I didn't get to work till 2pm yesterday because of my reading late at night and then I had to go and take all my pda stuff (including cradle) to b's lab so I could get the pics off his camera phone onto his computer (neither of us have internet added to our phone plans so I had to get something w/ blue tooth to get them off and both our computers are a little older than that). Of course, once I had blue tooth on my pda enabled, I discovered that the other student in the lab had a blue tooth computer. *bangs head* B's all like, "but he doesn't know how to use it". Dude, I never did the whole phone to pda thing either, but I figured it out finally. It's not that freaking hard. I honestly don't know why I'm the "tech" one in this relationship other than i'm slightly less worried about breaking things. Ask
e_tsarran, I should in no way be allowed to trouble shoot anything. But I slept like the dead last night. I did not do laundry once again (i do have clothes, but i need to finish up my colored loads if I'm going to have shirts to wear tomorrow). I did not clean like I fully intended to last night on getting home. I did not work out because when I was half way to the gym, I had flash of TWIN REGRETS in my head. Omg! You have no clue how long I debated of whether to go work out or to go home and write it. I chose to go home and write it...and sadly, ti wouldn't cooperate. I suspect it was because I tried to set up the scene first and my editor rebelled at the hideousness of it before it let me get to the talking heads. *cries* Still, maybe the idea will germinate better.
So Imeant to wake up and do laundry this morning. Didn't wake up till 8:30 courtesy of falling asleep on ouchy ouchy futon (I'm going to have to go ahead and get the air mattress because there is simply very very little padding between my bones and the wood left in what was four years ago a 13 inch cotton futon pad) and then transferring to blissful bed around 4:30. Took the four hours for all the kinks to work out. So yeah, looking like a noonish day. I'm bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad.
Okay, done beating myself up now. :P LOL. Yes, I know. Weird weird mood. I have decided that despite the humidity, my nosebleeds are a result of the ragweed (that is actually giving me no other problems. Yay allegra and lack of other allergens) plus running the a/c in 65 degree temps to cut the humidity (though my apartment doesn't go beyond 70ish).
yes, yes, shutting up now. :P:P:P:P:P