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Its about teh recovery of US service lost in battle with a primary emphasis on Vietnam and Laos.
Man, they never found one body and relates to the search in painful detail - steer clear.
One mildly amusing passage - they were looking for a downed Huey pilot and found a US issue helmet with a bullet hole right through it, convinced they were on the right tracks, as no one would have survived that, they combed the area for a week.
Once back in the states (after spending a fortune) they spoke to the door gunner about the events of that day - He said 'dang I had to leave behind a lucky helmet it had a bullet hole right through it.'
A true waste of paper.
"There were some homes that took in Madness as a tenant. It was on one wet and eldritch eve that Rebecca Swift, Sardus' young but abstracted wife, heard a knocking in her head - too loud this time to ignore - and with trembling heart and tiny, trembling hands, drew back the big, black bolt a crack, and let the tenant in..."
Here's a bit from the first page:
It was his brother who tore the caul on that, the morning of their birth, as if that sole act of assertion was to set an inverted precedent for inertia in his life to come, Euchrid, then unnamed, clutched ahold of his brother's heels and slopped into the world with all the glory of an uninvited guest.
It has a rhythm that's intriguing, and it must be from his background as a musician. But the writing reads like song lyrics. It reads like an exagerrated mock-Edgar Allen Poe. It just didn't feel right. I couldn't take it seriously.
Must have been phrases like "wet and eldritch eve" and names like "Euchrid" that made me gag, literally gag.
But what do I know? Maybe a hundred years from now it will be regarded as a masterpiece.
Proust is better in the original French, but I have never managed to get past more than a couple of chapters.
Tale of Two Cities
Romeo and Juiliet (I like Shakespear but this has to be his worst and I also think it is terrible for 9th graders to read.)
The story doesn't begin until you get a bit past page 25. ;) The problem I had with the Da Vinci Code is that Langdon goes on about the 'apple', and being a Harvard symbologist, he should've known that the Bible doesn't mention an 'apple', but a forbidden fruit.
Normal Mailer's Ancient Evenings is another novel that comes to mind since we're discussing bad novels...
I used to not give up on a book, but the queue has become so long I don't have that problem anymore.
You have to remember not to let the truth get in the way of a good story. Having said that, my curiosity led me to do some googling into the organisations mentioned in the Da Vinci Code and I reckon that their responses to the book's claims are less than convincing. While this is a work of fiction it clearly touched a nerve and it did include many facts. I have yet to hear of Dan Brown being being taken to court over anything he said. That tells it's own story.
Da Vinci Code. I recommend Mr Brown's 'inspiration sources' - Holy Blood & the Holy Grail, and The Templar Revelation.
Syzygy
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There's no accounting for taste. I just came back from holiday and when I was away I read five books. The Da Vinci code was one of them and I thought it was highly entertaining.You have to remember not to let the truth get in the way of a good story. Having said that, my curiosity led me to do some googling into the organisations mentioned in the Da Vinci Code and I reckon that their responses to the book's claims are less than convincing. While this is a work of fiction it clearly touched a nerve and it did include many facts. I have yet to hear of Dan Brown being being taken to court over anything he said. That tells it's own story.
I watched a show "unlocking the devenci code" i think is what it was called. and talked aboult were truth and fiction converged in the book. I don't think the author ever realy ment for it to be taken as truth. I love clive cusler books and he offten blends real facts to make his fiction seem more real. After all that's what authors do. Even a lot of the scifi has something to it that makes it seem buyable. Plusible imposibilities.
A tiny mistake doesn't kill an entire novel. I enjoyed Robinson Crusoe even though Crusoe swims naked to a shipwreck, then stuffs biscuits into his pockets.
I was researching the wine industry and this came highly recommended. Uh, no. Great promise. He was in his mid-50s when he started his business. But, no real insights here, except that he dumped his wife who stood by him during all of the bad times when he finally became successful. Jerk.
Odd thing is I thought it was a good and would recommend it but couldnt bring myself to read the whole of it.
Very strange.
I bailed on that one myself. In fact, when I saw the title of this thread, that book lept to my mind. :) Glad I'm not the only one.
This was an absolute load of drivel. How it ever got to be a best seller I'll never know. After reading about 35 pages I thought this has got to improve so I leafed forward a bit and read another couple of pages up front ... still drivel, so I gave up.
American Psycho by Brett Ellis
My problem with that book was that it was skewed to the unrealistic side. Some of the murders that he committed would not have resulted in a blah sort of reaction depicted in the book (the police murder for example). Then again, my friend and I had a long debate about whether he actually committed the murders or just made them up in his head.
Why it was a best seller? Simple. Sex, Blood and Violence.
Please, per Foo Charter, no commentary on anyone's religion or their scriptures.
All previous rebukes have been via sticky mail. I'm posting this in public hoping it will be more effective.
lawman
