What are you reading? — Page 36

moviefreakedmind said:

Dek Rollins said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It’s such a short read that I’d say it’s worth it. There’s also more than just inconsistencies. There’s about thirty extra pages of material to the revised version.

I’ve never read anything by Stephen King (and I don’t really plan to), but wouldn’t the original version be what he intended to be published after originally finishing the book? Like, wouldn’t all that extra material just be essentially filler? It just seems like a Special Edition situation from the POV of someone who’s never read them.

The revised version fits much better within the seven-part story. Supposedly the original book was more of a collection of five loosely connected short stories (so he says) than it was the first entry in one epic novel.

Pretty much my point. He changed the story and made additions to make it align with the sequels, rather than letting people read the book for what it was. Not that it would be nearly as bad as the SE situation, I just thought it sounded like the same sort of jimmerjammering Lucas did.

Dek Rollins said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Dek Rollins said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It’s such a short read that I’d say it’s worth it. There’s also more than just inconsistencies. There’s about thirty extra pages of material to the revised version.

I’ve never read anything by Stephen King (and I don’t really plan to), but wouldn’t the original version be what he intended to be published after originally finishing the book? Like, wouldn’t all that extra material just be essentially filler? It just seems like a Special Edition situation from the POV of someone who’s never read them.

The revised version fits much better within the seven-part story. Supposedly the original book was more of a collection of five loosely connected short stories (so he says) than it was the first entry in one epic novel.

Pretty much my point. He changed the story and made additions to make it align with the sequels, rather than letting people read the book for what it was. Not that it would be nearly as bad as the SE situation, I just thought it sounded like the same sort of jimmerjammering Lucas did.

The difference is that King’s revision expanded the story and made it more consistent within the world that its characters inhabit. Lucas just added hideous CGI to the screen.

EDIT: And before anyone says anything, yes, the big difference between whether revisionism is obnoxious or not is whether it improves the quality of the piece. Controversial around here, I know.

Revisionism is revisionism 😉

I know, I just felt like Dek’s appraisal of the revision of The Gunslinger as being an unfair criticism of something that he hadn’t read based purely on the fact that it was a changed version of a preexisting work. It’s something I see on this site quite a bit, though not from everybody.

I wasn’t trying to say that the revision was inherently bad, I was just saying, from the point of view of someone who hasn’t read it, that it may be better for someone to read the unrevised version of something if it was a case similar to the SE films.

Also considering this post:

ChainsawAsh said:

He’s already like halfway through, though, and the revised came out right before books 5-7, so people were able to deal with the inconsistencies for decades without much trouble.

And I’m not going to be ashamed of my generally purist nature! 😉

Maybe, but it also gives him a logical reason to do what he did when he didn’t originally.

The book was so short, I think I’ll buy the revisited edition before moving on to book 2.
Seems like I may be heading into confusion otherwise.

Dek Rollins said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Dek Rollins said:

moviefreakedmind said:

It’s such a short read that I’d say it’s worth it. There’s also more than just inconsistencies. There’s about thirty extra pages of material to the revised version.

I’ve never read anything by Stephen King (and I don’t really plan to), but wouldn’t the original version be what he intended to be published after originally finishing the book? Like, wouldn’t all that extra material just be essentially filler? It just seems like a Special Edition situation from the POV of someone who’s never read them.

The revised version fits much better within the seven-part story. Supposedly the original book was more of a collection of five loosely connected short stories (so he says) than it was the first entry in one epic novel.

Pretty much my point. He changed the story and made additions to make it align with the sequels, rather than letting people read the book for what it was. Not that it would be nearly as bad as the SE situation, I just thought it sounded like the same sort of jimmerjammering Lucas did.

But The Gunslinger Book One isn’t it’s own story with the next books being it’s sequels. It’s not like Star Wars.

Yeah. A Stephen King SE equivalent example would be if he went back and made drastic changes to The Shining so that it would fit in with things in Dr. Sleep even though Dr. Sleep was written almost forty years later.

I should also say that I don’t think you’d be confused having read the original version, I think you’d just notice that King obviously changed his mind on how he wanted to portray Roland and his world once he got to the next volumes in the story.

Tried multiple times to get into Cephrael’s Hand by Melissa McPhail, but just couldn’t get drawn in to it. Still listening to War and Peace, but at the rate of a “book” between every other novel I listen to.

I’m now up to having finished book 4 of The Land/Chaos Seeds LitRPG series. The narrator for it is Nick Podehl, and I like his narration a lot. He also is the narrator for Cephrael’s Hand which makes me somewhat sad to feel I can’t get into it.

So… having looked at other books by Nick Podehl (and also books published by Podium Publishing who published the Expeditionary Force series and The Martian) I started listening to Free the Darkness, King’s Dark Tidings book 1.

Fantastic story, and I’m only on Chapter 4 so far.

I also just noticed that Star Wars: The Last Jedi has been released on audiobook. I looked at the cover art and immediately recalled someone here saying how the cover for Fire and Fury sucked:

 
So… I made my own cover. I’m fairly picky about my audiobook covers looking nice.

dahmage said:

I like the top one better actually

I don’t like the mass of white space. The poster itself is easy to replace. Often times I do actually store multiple different art for book/shows/movies on my server and I switch them out if or when I feel like it.

I’ve become adept enough from making cover art for fan edits that the hardest part in making a good cover is finding decent HD posters that crop well to a square shape. Adding text is super easy.

It looks better as a physical book, but then again, so does everything.

suspiciouscoffee said:

It looks better as a physical book, but then again, so does everything.

Yep. I’m not hard on the eyes now, but you should’a seen me back then.

chyron8472 said:

So… having looked at other books by Nick Podehl (and also books published by Podium Publishing who published the Expeditionary Force series and The Martian) I started listening to Free the Darkness, King’s Dark Tidings book 1.

I finished Free the Darkness. Can now confirm. Fantastic. I will definitely listen to the rest of the series but my wife says she will only get into it when the series concludes.

My wife feels burned by certain authors who start a series and yet take umpteen years between books such that it seems the series finale will never be written; as well as Robert Jordan in particular, who released pointless book after pointless book in the Wheel of Time series, such that the original author died before finishing the series. So my wife is inclined to wait until a book series ends before starting it.

The Last Jedi novelization starts out slow in the beginning, but it gets to be good by the end. The story does flesh out the thoughts or motivations of certain characters as well as certain events in the film. While it does answer certain questions the film raises, it also does so as the expense of proper pacing. In effect, the novelization is a good supplement to the film, but is only a decent novel in its own right.

I only recommend reading the novel if you love the film. If you only like the film or haven’t watched it, the novel will probably be “meh.”

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. I really, really need a chart of some sort to keep track of everybody in this goddamn thing.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

My favorite class-required read. I’m tempted to steal this class copy.