Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Or "don't live in a place which has both moose and bears."

No such place!

At least, not that's inhabitable.

We have very skinny bears.  There isn't a whole lot more dangerous than a skinny bear.

A fat bear, well, he already ate.  The skinny fucker isn't feeling picky.


But we don't have moose, which is kind of awesome, because moose are fucking homicidal bastards who will kill you and then not even eat you.

And I see no point in trying to argue the inhabitable part, because you're clearly correct.

[Cain]

I read Mirage Men based on a recommendation from Enki.

It's a great complement/followup to Poject Beta by Greg Bishop, which I mentioned a while back.  As you may recall, Project Beta dealt with the Air Force essentially feeding the delusions of Paul Bennewitz, a scientist and military contractor to the US military who came to believe that there existed a conspiracy which involved aliens and the US government carrying out genetic experiments in a secret base below Dulce (this later formed the core story of the Dulce Base conspiracy theory, which informed future successors such as The X Files).

The book details how elements of US intelligence have not only been involved in the UFO story since the start but, if anything, have been helping to propagate and disseminate the idea that UFOs exist, that the US government has knowledge of alien life and that the US is somehow in partnership with these lifeforms.

Why is a good question.  The authors suspect, with good evidence, that there are elements of multiple psychological warfare and deception programs being undertaken by the US military and, for whatever reason, the "UFO story" is one of their go-to covers for whatever they really hope to achieve.  Although the religious angle is not dealt with in the book directly, it is also hinted at that UFO contactee cults were promoted in order to understand the dynamics of New Age religious movements (an area that the CIA psywar division in particular had a lot of interest in).

Richard Doty, who was the AFOSI officer who played such a large role in Project Beta also makes more than just a brief appearance.

[Bu🤠ns]

Just finished Christopher Moore's "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"  Quite silly actually.  Will read more.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Just finished "Edible" and started on "The Psychopath Whisperer".

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

OH HEY THAT REMINDS ME!

<off to shipping-land>

[Salty]

Just finished Christopher Moore's "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"  Quite silly actually.  Will read more.

Love that guy.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun and Bloodsucking Fiends, the latter featuring Emperor Norton and his dogs, are probably my favorites. The sequals to the latter were pop garbage, IMO, but hey, gotta make that money.

[Bu🤠ns]

Just finished Christopher Moore's "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove"  Quite silly actually.  Will read more.

Love that guy.

Island of the Sequined Love Nun and Bloodsucking Fiends, the latter featuring Emperor Norton and his dogs, are probably my favorites. The sequals to the latter were pop garbage, IMO, but hey, gotta make that money.

HAAH i just started Island... OOOhhh i'll check out Bloodsucking Fiends next.  I'm kinda hooked on Christopher Moore at the moment.  There's a weird kind of 'innocence in the face of the absurdity of life' quality about his characters that I can really relate to.  It seems really....smooth...if that makes any sense.

[Salty]

Yes it does.

I read once that he doesn't really do drafts or preplan his novels. He just sits and types out a few paragraphs, gets up and thinks a bit, sits back down and repeats until the thing is done. No rewrites, really.

I also read an interview when his book The Stupidest Angel came out. It's a Christmas themed book set in the same town as Lustlizard. Definitely worth a read.

His dad was a State Trooper and he said a bad day of work included pulling multiple bodies out of wrecks, so the man had a fairly dark sense of humor. One christmas eve, Moore was 7 or so, he had stayed up waiting for Santa. His dad came home at midnight, saw him peaking though the window, pulled his gun and fired several rounds in the general direction of their roof.

His dad came inside and said, "Santa is dead now. Go to bed."




I really disliked..uh the whale book...Fluke. The ending was very meh. Thought the whale penis attack was pretty choice.

I dunno if he still does it, but he used to respond to every single fan email he got. I sent him one and he replied very, very snarkily and with little patience. But he did reply.

[minuspace]

I read Mirage Men based on a recommendation from Enki.

It's a great complement/followup to Poject Beta by Greg Bishop, which I mentioned a while back.  As you may recall, Project Beta dealt with the Air Force essentially feeding the delusions of Paul Bennewitz, a scientist and military contractor to the US military who came to believe that there existed a conspiracy which involved aliens and the US government carrying out genetic experiments in a secret base below Dulce (this later formed the core story of the Dulce Base conspiracy theory, which informed future successors such as The X Files).

The book details how elements of US intelligence have not only been involved in the UFO story since the start but, if anything, have been helping to propagate and disseminate the idea that UFOs exist, that the US government has knowledge of alien life and that the US is somehow in partnership with these lifeforms.

Why is a good question.  The authors suspect, with good evidence, that there are elements of multiple psychological warfare and deception programs being undertaken by the US military and, for whatever reason, the "UFO story" is one of their go-to covers for whatever they really hope to achieve.  Although the religious angle is not dealt with in the book directly, it is also hinted at that UFO contactee cults were promoted in order to understand the dynamics of New Age religious movements (an area that the CIA psywar division in particular had a lot of interest in).
...

I suspect it has something to do with the leading reference to Project Beta and the compelling power of delusions in the theatre of thought control.

[Bu🤠ns]

Yes it does.

I read once that he doesn't really do drafts or preplan his novels. He just sits and types out a few paragraphs, gets up and thinks a bit, sits back down and repeats until the thing is done. No rewrites, really.

I also read an interview when his book The Stupidest Angel came out. It's a Christmas themed book set in the same town as Lustlizard. Definitely worth a read.

His dad was a State Trooper and he said a bad day of work included pulling multiple bodies out of wrecks, so the man had a fairly dark sense of humor. One christmas eve, Moore was 7 or so, he had stayed up waiting for Santa. His dad came home at midnight, saw him peaking though the window, pulled his gun and fired several rounds in the general direction of their roof.

His dad came inside and said, "Santa is dead now. Go to bed."




I really disliked..uh the whale book...Fluke. The ending was very meh. Thought the whale penis attack was pretty choice.

I dunno if he still does it, but he used to respond to every single fan email he got. I sent him one and he replied very, very snarkily and with little patience. But he did reply.

That's very cool!  I'll check out the Xmas themed story closer to the holidays I think.  I like those lustlizard people.  Thanks for the tip

[Sita]

Just started reading Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly
I've only got to where she's arrived on the island, but it's amazing how easy it was for women to just be thrown to the asylums at that time. And a few (perhaps quite a number) perfectly sane but those around them didn't want to put up with them anymore.

[LMNO]

Because of "True Detective", I finally started reading "The King in Yellow". It's got that old-horror-obviousness-and-kinda-boring-but-some-cool-narrative-ideas thing going on.

[Eater of Clowns]

I'm slowly working my way through 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It was a gift. Giving someone a 1000+ page book by a Japanese author seemed strange to me, but the story is, if not exciting, then at least interesting enough to continue reading.

While at home, I have the Collected Works of Shirley Jackson, specifically reading We Have Always Lived in the Castle. The girl who sent it to me has a tattoo based on the story and she's told me that the few pieces of my own that she's read remind her of Shirley Jackson (Little Lucy Goes to Build-a-Bear, Trivia Notes). From what I've read so far, that is an enormous compliment.

[LMNO]

Because of "True Detective", I finally started reading "The King in Yellow". It's got that old-horror-obviousness-and-kinda-boring-but-some-cool-narrative-ideas thing going on.

As with Lovecraft, Poe and other pioneers of the early 'romantic' and later macabre movement what you have to understand is that their intent was different than the modern horror author's intent. They were also some of the early practitioners of the short story as a medium.

In some ways, modern viewers fail to appreciate the artistry involved as even the project of writing itself was such a rare and difficult task at that time what with no electricity, things were still done by oil lighting or maybe, MAYBE by gas light.

So please, have some consideration for the Genre ^_^

As someone who wrote 30 short-form horror stories in 30 days in the spirit of Poe and Lovecraft, you can go shit in your hat.

Did you know you come off preachy and elitist when you post an opinion? Because you do, in case you weren't aware.

[Scilon Agent]

Did you know you come off preachy and elitist when you post an opinion? Because you do, in case you weren't aware.[/quote]

So what I hear you saying is I sound preachy and elitist in my last post addressing you. And it probably makes you feel talked down to and disrespected. Is that how you felt? I can remember a time when I felt the same way, I was trying to make a poster for work and a co-worker kept chiming in with unwanted advice.

In the future I'll be more careful of how I approach you. Would that be okay?