Friday fives!

[elfs]

1. How much time do you spend online each day?

What does that mean? I'm online 24 hours a day. I'm paying attention maybe one or two on weekends, three or four on weekdays, but, y'know, on weekdays that's my job.

2. What is your browser homepage set to?

myportal: It's a special setting in the Mozilla-derived galeon which renders your bookmarks as a nifty and easy-to-navigate website.

3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?

I use GAIM very rarely.

4. Where was your first webpage located?

ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/elf. That was in September of 1990.

It doesn't exist anymore. Oh, it was ugly.

5. How long have you had your current website?

Over ten years. Since May 1st, 1993.

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The Friday Five of Ancient Days:

1. What was the last book you read? Did you enjoy it?

Actually, I read a classic: Call of Cthulu, by H.P. Lovecraft. It wasn't as bad as many people have made it out to be. I did enjoy it, especially the ending.

2. What's your favorite book of all time?

Gosh, that's tough. I think I'd have to vote on Illuminatus!, by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. It changed my life in a lot of ways.

3. What's the worst book you've ever read?

Another hard one. I've read so many. I would have to say that it terms of sheer stupidity, Sharon Green's The Hidden Realms rides very high on my list. Utterly cardboard characters, as-you-know exposition in the opening paragraph, incomprehensible plot, and superhero characters who wade through trouble with getting their hair mussed. I know some people love her, but that woman couldn't have a deep dialogue with a potted plant.

4. What book that you've read would you most like to see adapted into a movie?

The visuals in both Ian Banks's Consider Phlebas and John Clute's Appleseed are amazing, although neither one would make for gripping cinema. Too much going on in the characters' minds.

5. How do you plan to spend your weekend?

Well, I had plans on Saturday to work in the graden, and on Sunday to go to the Kent Canterbury Faire with the kids, but if Kouryou-chan's cold continues we may have to throw much of those plans overboard.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

hey if you like reading stuff similar to your own with a tinge of lovecraft try peirs anthony

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't touch Piers with a ten-foot pole. The man is a menace to all learning authors.

Sharon Green

[(Anonymous)]

Ha! I've read most of her stuff (aside from the older stuff, the Warrior and Mida series). I'm not sure why, though.

She lacks any concept of characterization, her dialogue is _terrible_, and her plots are largely formulaic.

And every time I goto a fetish flea, I find her books, just because she does some stuff with alternative relationships. You would think they'd show a little taste :-)


I'd have to say that the least bad of her books was The Far Side of Forever. It, at least, was a decent romance/fantasy novel. Although she still had the problem of too much expository dialogue. The sequel was awful, though.

As for the Blending series: Don't pick it up. It is the worst-written set of books I've seen in quite a while.

-Malthus

Illuminatus. . .

[sarabande7.livejournal.com]

That seems to have been an important trilogy for so many of a small set of humans. I did get through it, and I enjoyed it very much, but neither Robert nor Robert must be particularly talented writers. Which is sad. Because if the execution had been up to the level of the storytelling, those books could have been so much more.

I hear the same said of Lovecraft, whom I've never actually read. Do you say it too?