tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post3422149475985383596..comments2023-09-29T05:32:04.308-07:00Comments on StrangePegs: In Short Supply (a book review post)Andrew Leonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13964775673414653644noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-22983963310834409502014-10-27T21:01:24.841-07:002014-10-27T21:01:24.841-07:00Jeanne: Well, we'll see in two chapters.
Jo: ...Jeanne: Well, we'll see in two chapters.<br /><br />Jo: I'm not disenjoying it. Not yet.<br /><br />TAS: No, not horrible. The writing is snappy, so it's easy to get through it; it just hangs me up on the details.<br /><br />Briane: I have an actual television set, we just don't get any stations. We don't have cable or anything. Anything that we watch is on disc and, as far as I know, they haven't started releasing seasons of the local news station on DVD.<br /><br />Those things you're talking about are things looking ahead to what is going to happen in the future. In the book, it's stuff that is happening or has already happened, like a third of the population being dead.Andrew Leonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13964775673414653644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-23809434109802538112014-10-27T19:52:24.803-07:002014-10-27T19:52:24.803-07:00I... I... you don't have a TV? Did I know that...I... I... you don't have a TV? Did I know that? I feel like I didn't know that. I'm surprised. I guess I shouldn't be, but it seems like you've mentioned things that I assumed meant you had a TV? I probably shouldn't just be going on and on about this.<br /><br />One thing I really admire about your writing is the way in "House" you made all your characters so different and the POV parts really seemed like different characters. That's especially hard with kids. I tend to notice that when it's done well. I'm reading "Tigerman" by Nick Harkaway and it's told (third person limited) from a Sergeant's POV and it really FEELS right. I'm also listening to "The Shining Girls," which switches from the POV of a killer to a little girl to a drug dealer, etc., and each is different, with different vocabulary, and the like.<br /><br />Doing that requires A LOT of work. I am not surprised a book like this messed it up. <br /><br />As for the Internet/conspiracy/nobody knows, consider this: this article:<br /><br />http://www.economicpredictions.org/who-predicted-the-financial-crisis.htm<br /><br /><br />Lists people who in 2005 and 2006 were predicting more or less the exact economic collapse that then happened; many of the experts later interviewed said the signs were all there but people were misinterpreting them.<br /><br />The Wikipedia entry on the SARS pandemic notes that the WHO picked up on the Chinese outbreak of SARS through monitoring Chinese internet traffic. By the time they got information spread to some governments a few months later 500 more people had died. It wasn't until 4 months after the outbreak in China was detected, and after cases had spread to Vietnam, that a global alert was given. <br /><br />So I don't know the timeline of this novel, but it's plausible that for some period of time there could be an outbreak or even a global crisis brewing that nobody bothers paying attention to. People dying is easier to notice than people getting robbed by banks, but it's possible. You just have to explain it the right way. Which this guy didn't, it seems.Brianehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01616494058636881575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-40623652750583592952014-10-27T18:20:23.613-07:002014-10-27T18:20:23.613-07:00Can't be too horrible if you're already in...Can't be too horrible if you're already in for two more volumes.The Armchair Squidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10739833215220853127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-60730501400346543122014-10-27T15:02:55.267-07:002014-10-27T15:02:55.267-07:00I could never read a book I didn't enjoy.I could never read a book I didn't enjoy.Johttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14087140585742801854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-80833526675082309282014-10-27T14:53:30.219-07:002014-10-27T14:53:30.219-07:00Anyone with internet has access to the same inform...Anyone with internet has access to the same information they do, but NO ONE else put it together? Yeah, that sounds like a pretty big plot hole. I have doubts that the rest of the book will make it worth tolerating.J E Oneilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09780097298061829471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-84478096010215830672014-10-27T14:23:29.860-07:002014-10-27T14:23:29.860-07:00Alex: There's just no conceivable way that the...Alex: There's just no conceivable way that the government or anyone could suppress news on the Internet without people knowing about it. You think people in China don't know the government censors what's available?<br />And, well, with as much as people talk about their health online...<br /><br />ABftS: I'm waiting to see if she gets to a plausible explanation. At least, I'm giving her to chapter four to present one.Andrew Leonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13964775673414653644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-90778514795760170032014-10-27T09:25:10.085-07:002014-10-27T09:25:10.085-07:00You're more forgiving than I, because this is ...You're more forgiving than I, because this is the kind of stuff that would make me abandon a book. I hate when every character is written the same way. That just screams that the author needs more experience with characters before they write a novel. And the researching on the Internet thing is funny, because like you, I get all my news from the Internet. And trust me, if you've ever seen a forum like reddit where millions of people speak their mind/their findings/the truth, you'd see just how hard it would be to hide things like this from people on the Internet.A Beer for the Showerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17029139745335325356noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7658526372996117205.post-46462437627969455072014-10-27T03:35:12.278-07:002014-10-27T03:35:12.278-07:00Yeah, right now if anyone so much as coughs, it...Yeah, right now if anyone so much as coughs, it's reported, especially online.Alex J. Cavanaughhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09770065693345181702noreply@blogger.com