/lit/ - Literature

Psycho.

The book was mediocre and forgettable
The film was a classic.

Hey /lit/, I'm about halfway done with The Forever War, and I really love it.

Recommend me some other great military science fiction books.

I've already read Starship Troopers. Armor and Old Man's war area already in my queue.

Software engineer.

Most of it is pretty pulpy. It's decent if you're looking for something fun, but keep in mind, his endings are HORRIBLE, but they're often funny enough.

Fear: Decent enough horror novel. Troll ending. The guy realizes he killed his wife and neighbor because he thought they were cheating on him and everything that happened in the book was in his imagination

Typewriter in the Sky: Pretty lame book. A writer makes his friend a character in his novel and the person, in real life, disappears into the novel's world. Troll ending. He realizes that his friend is god or something

Death's Deputy: A short, pretty fun book. Someone figures out he can't die, but everyone around him ends up dying. Troll ending guy decides to kill himself to save his wife, but then finds out that his wife was immune to his curse or some shit

It's been awhile since I read these, and I'm pretty sure I read another that I'm forgetting about, but yeah, decent pulp fiction, hilariously shitty endings.

>>2202572
>Anon doesn't understand irony

Now? Yes.

Relevant: >>>>2202565

What happened to you, /lit/?

I come here after a few years and what do I see?
Neckbeard faggot fantasy.
Terrible poetry threads.
Pop fiction.

Where are the Pynchon threads?
Where is the Dostoevsky?
Where is the David Foster Wallace?
Where is the Steinback?

/lit/ used to be about serious literature.

What happened?

>>2062419
I'm pretty sure postmodernism rejected originality in that it embraced influence.

Did that make any sense?

I've only read A Scanner Darkly and loved every bit of it.

His big three seem to be A Scanner Darkly, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and The Man in the High Castle. All of them seem to be highly praised.

>>1993144
Ethan Frome was boring as all hell.

>>1991153
>>1991153
You clearly haven't spent very much time on /lit/.

>>1991113
You didn't have any trouble with the first few pages? I had no idea what was going on and quit out of frustration. I enjoyed the words, though (if that makes any kind of sense).

>>1991107
Why is that exactly? I think I remember hearing that you could clearly tell they were his early stories because they came off as amateurish. I may not be remembering right, though.

>>1991090
Yeah, I noticed.

>>1991033
It is still fantasy. I'm not trying to discredit him because he writes fantasy, I have the utmost respect for speculative fiction. One of my favorite short stories is Grail by Harlan Ellison. It is about a man who, with the help of a demon, searches for the physical manifestation of true love. It is a story of the human condition and has very few traits of fantasy. Guess what? It is still fantasy (magical realism if you want to get all specific).


>>1991103
I honestly misconstrued this as a troll thread.

Let me ask you something, OP: what are some of your favorite authors/books/stories?

>>1991084
I have Slow Learner and plan to use that as my introduction to Pynchon.

>>1991043
Apparently not. The beginning was just too convoluted for me. I guess I need to get my feet wet with Pynchon first.

> take /lit/'s advice and read Gravity's Rainbow
> no idea what is going on
> can't even make out a coherent scene
> finish it having only gained the realization that rocket ships look a lot like penises

Ok, I gave up after page five ;_;

The television show wasn't too bad if you wanted decent, generic, well produced fantasy. I haven't read the books, but consensus is that they are shitty.

Also, the author is so fucking full of himself.
http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20030805003/tscript.htm
>First of all, I don't write fantasy.

No, you write fantasy.

Fuck, the guy didn't start writing professionally until he was like 45 years old. How can anyone take this guy seriously?

inb4 op tries to discredit me by calling me a tripfag and pointing out how horrible Brian Herbert is

>>1990918
Meh, they were quick, fun reads. If they were longer, I'd probably be annoyed by the endings. Instead they just made me laugh.

I own both To the Stars and Final Blackout. I'll have to give them a read one of these days.

I don't think I'll ever bother with Battlefield Earth, though.

Fear was about a man who was experiencing very strange, supernatural events. At the end of the book it is revealed that he imagined, literally, 90% of the book. It is also revealed that he killed his wife and best friend (the two other main characters in the book).

Death's Deputy was about a man who could never die, but everyone AROUND him died. Because of this, he abandoned his lover. In the end, he gives up his "power" to be with his love and immediately finds out that his lover wasn't vulnerable to die around him. He died immediately after.

Typewriter in the Sky was about a man who got sucked into his friend's story. His friend was a writer who used him as the basis of a character. In the end, he escapes back to the "real world" and comes to the revelation that his friend is actually God (to be honest, this last part is a bit unclear. the ending was kinda ambiguous IIRC)

I read them so you don't have to!

I've read three books by L Ron Hubbard: Fear, Death's Deputy, and Typewriter in the Sky.

Fear was a solid psychological horror novel.
Death's Deputy was good, pulpy fun.
Typewriter in the Sky was mediocre at best. I thought it dragged on, which is surprising considering its length (it is 197 pages, but the font was pretty big and was like double spaced).

The endings were all troll endings, though (I'll post plot summaries in the next post).

>>1983005

"If it has to be done, a man - a real man - shoots his own dog himself; he doesn't hire a proxy who may bungle it."

from Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

"...do you know what love is?
Sure I know.
A boy loves his dog."

from A Boy and His Dog by Harlan Ellison

I was the same way, OP. Now I have ~150 books I haven't read. I've made a deal with myself: until I read all my books, I am not allowed to buy new books.

There are exceptions: I'll allow myself to buy new releases if I plan to read them within two weeks of purchasing and I allow myself to buy books to complete a series I'm reading.

Good luck, OP. I'm the one responsible for the Infinite Jest reading group that ended up failing. I accept most of the blame, but honestly I'm not too confident that it would have ended up working out even if I did everything right. By the time the time the fourth discussion was posted everyone seemed to have lost interest.

Hey OP, if you're interested, I can host a forum/chat room for you for free.

I'd consider participating, but this Fall will be insanely busy for me.