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San Francisco, 6:57 PM
Sat Nov 28
9 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/14/09
Really, this read like a book without much of a heart or soul. I liked the creepy characters, I liked the way they were described in appearance and in action, but never felt like I should really care about any of them. Gabriel is rootless, as are most of the people he comes across. So it's a bunch of rootless people, an evil government, and demonic forces with very little motivation other than "I'm evil, just because that's how I roll."
I know I won't reread this. If you like shadowy political suspense or demonic-style occult stuff, then this might be your thing. If you prefer more intrapersonal stories, then... maybe pick one of the other io9-reviewed books. #johnshirley
10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
Let it go, people. Old. #johnshirley
10/27/09
10/28/09
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10/27/09
Nobody's making you buy anything, silly. #johnshirley
10/27/09
Damnit! :( #johnshirley
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10/27/09
I keep debating about getting one because I actually like having a real book in my hands. On the other hand, it would make it easier to take books with me. To Kindle or not to Kindle. #johnshirley
10/27/09
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10/27/09
I think as far as the e-reader craze goes, it's a matter of content being the bottleneck, not the readers themselves. For whatever reason, publishers are still vehemently resisting e-books, and seem to only grudgingly create digital copies of a small percentage of what they publish conventionally. Again, annoying.
Come into the 21st century, publishers! #johnshirley
10/27/09
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10/27/09
William Gibson cites him!!!!
wow {0_0}
(goes away to read more)
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09/18/09
09/19/09
09/18/09
Then there's Glen Cook's long running series, which I believe began around the same time. So like most new trends, this one has roots that go back a long way, roots that some of the authors whose work is included in your discussion probably aren't even aware of.
Noir isn't a genre so much as it is a feeling, a philosophy, contained within a story with melodramatic elements. The movie Odd Man Out has an IRA sponsored bank robbery in it, but it's really about a dying man trying to find a place to die in an unsympathetic world. You can't get bleaker or more noirish than that.
09/18/09
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09/18/09
Which I think makes some of these works a bit decadent, because, e.g., the protagonists and author of The Steel Remains suffer from a surfeit of certainties, and bait and bully secondary characters and the reader, respectively, with them recurrently.
09/18/09
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