So was The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul. But it was cleverer. I haven't read Creatures of Light and Darkness but I have heard of it so I guess I count as one of the three, maybe. I will now read it, however. I like to read. I will also find The 13 Clocks. (EDIT: is this it in its entirety? Looks to be.) ...shows what I know because when I saw you were going to be talking about American Gods I figured my reading list would be safe because I've already read American Gods.No, shut up. CL&D is, at base level, a tale about deities so old they cease to be deities who end up on opposing sides when one of them gets uppity which leads to war and ruminations on the nature of divinity and mortality. So's American Gods. Beat for goddamn beat.
Don't read that. You need the illustrations. 13 clocks is an illustrated novel and the illustrations are fucking sublime. Hit the library if need be. I've given out 13 clocks as a christmas gift a few times. It was a major part of my childhood, and is, in my opinion, the standard against which all 'once upon a time' stories are to be judged. I'm a Douglas Adams fan, but the Dirk Gently stuff, as with most of his stuff, was comedy first, metaphor second. He was certainly clever. He was not, however, a starer-into-the-Abyss, more of a smug glancer if you will. American Gods assumes the cloak of allegory; Teatime was kind of more of a political cartoon. (CL&D is one of those crazy fever dreams you get when you've both drunk too much and smoked too much pot all at once, except that it lingers with you and won't go away once you've sobered up)
Okay, thanks. Will do. Yes, although his glances should be given a lot more credit than they are. The first Dirk Gently had the most moving passages on extinction I've ever read, because of their context in a comedy.Don't read that. You need the illustrations. 13 clocks is an illustrated novel and the illustrations are fucking sublime. Hit the library if need be. I've given out 13 clocks as a christmas gift a few times. It was a major part of my childhood, and is, in my opinion, the standard against which all 'once upon a time' stories are to be judged.
I'm a Douglas Adams fan, but the Dirk Gently stuff, as with most of his stuff, was comedy first, metaphor second. He was certainly clever. He was not, however, a starer-into-the-Abyss, more of a smug glancer if you will. American Gods assumes the cloak of allegory; Teatime was kind of more of a political cartoon.
Agreed. I think the problem with Douglas Adams is he just didn't know how to frame things in a way that didn't get dismissed as trite. Jonathan Swift had the same problem; nobody got the comedy in "A Modest Proposal" so they sure as shit didn't get the political message.
Maybe he didn't live long enough to make the transition from pure comedy to writing something else. In a lot of his essays and letters he showed a sublime, tragic understanding of the world which reminded me of some of the greatest novelists of the late 19th/early 20th century. Last Chance To See was a start.
Bump it up if you can. It's heartbreaking, and it doesn't feel anything like Adam's books. Honestly, it feels like a conversation with the man himself - it's witty in an offhand, unstructured way. It's sad and beautiful and doesn't have the "pat" feel that gets some much of the rest written off as juvenile.
Not only have I read them, I was approached by a studio to adapt them back in 2008. Turns out they not only didn't have the rights, they hadn't even tried to get them. So i did, using the family angle. Turns out things are complex; Roger and his wife divorced not long before he died and I didn't get far. For a while I had an animator who was interested in doing For a Breath I tarry as CG, but then his dad died and he got drafted. The first five books are great. It kinda goes downhill from there. Edit: As it turns out, you weren't talking to me. NVM!
As long as I'm correct and we're talking within the context of the Amber books (look, it's early, my eyes are blurry, if I'm wrong just tell me), I would read at least until Book 5. After that, comme ci, comme ca. You might get mildly frustrated with them? But it would be a mild frustration, I think, nothing more, and I don't think they (the latter 5) would negate your enjoyment of the first five.
What I mean is, since my default is obviously to read them, will they negate my enjoyment of the first five in some way. I read fast so I don't care if they don't add a single iota of enjoyment to the series as long as they don't ruin it too.
I was curious anyway but figured you probably had. I was given an omnibus edition by a manboy who also gave me the entirety of Game of Thrones (that had been written at that point) and also a book called The Lies of Locke Lamorra. I agree with your assessment about Amber, although because I was given the anthology it took me a while to realize they actually were separate book-books. I think Amber is the only Zelazny's I've read unless I've happened across short stories in odd places. Edit: it's super cool you knew/know the Zelazny clan.
If you dig American Gods, you'll either dig the shit out of Zelazny's other stuff or you'll hate the fuck out of it. Go give For A breath I Tarry a shot. If that works for you, try Isle of the Dead. Then try Creatures of Light and Darkness. The book that should have been made into a movie was Damnation Alley. It's fuckin' Road Warrior. It's about a biker named Hell Tanner who is the only guy in Los Angeles who has successfully crossed post-nuclear Armageddon America to Boston, so he gets a reprieve from jail in order to lead an expedition trying to get plague vaccine there. Planes don't work because nuclear war fucked up the atmosphere so much that the sky is full of hurricane-force winds that constantly drop shit on the plains. That's a young adult novel written in 1967. Hollywood turned it into this:
I'm curious as to the relevance of your description of the manboy. I guess you were talking to me as well -- I haven't read the Chronicles of Amber. I have read Song of Ice and Fire, and I think I read Locke Lamora at some point. I started reading fantasy very, very young, so by the age of ten I had mostly jetted through the famous stuff, which is both good and bad.
The word was originally lover but I didn't like that. While running the risk of sounding something - not quite sure what, romantic? Young? Once-idealistic? - he and I were many things to each other over a long period of time, but most of those things were never labelled. I was going to say "defined," but then - rhyme.
I haven't the slightest clue what the word lover means. I remember getting a Valentine's Day card from a sort-of girlfriend once -- I was like 15, we didn't do much more than make out, surely -- where she had found a 'friendship' card, crossed out 'friend' and written 'lover' instead. I was like, we are? Are we? What's that mean? Was confused and worried for ten seconds and then went back to video games or whatever 15 year olds do. Anyway. Manboy was a fun choice.