Blue Plague is a real thing… it’s an autoimmune syndrome and the transmission vector is automobile or pedestrian travel. There appears to be a genetic resistance among those with European ancestry. Unfortunately, many cases are fatal, while all cases leave the victims with financial damage of varying degrees. Our government appears to be doing no work whatsoever towards curing or treating this disease.
No offense but I consider your book recommendations the Mirror Mirror version of a recommendation by Cory.
If he recommends a book, I at least look at it and think about reading it.
When you do, I pretty much decide I don’t want to read it. (This isn’t to say you aren’t a fine fellow but your taste in novels seems to run to the cheap and horrid self-published things for Amazon kindles.)
No, I love to review the “cheap and horrid” self-published books for Amazon Kindle. I do not seem to. I have clearly and openly said this is what I prefer to read, intend to read and will continue to review.
I enjoy their work and we are helping those authors become mainstream ones. I don’t look for what Cory reads, much of the time, and I do not suspect he looks for what I do. That allows us to have an excellent spread of coverage and offer more variety to the reader.
Everyone can find a book to read on boing boing, even you.
After reading the Amazon reviews, I think I’ll give this a pass.
Ha! All right then!
Watching movies with terrible dialog/acting/sets/plots/etc. can be entertaining in and of itself–they’re easy to turn into a drinking game, or simply a good example of how not to make a movie.
Reading, on the other hand, is a lot like buying gasoline for my motorcycle. It’s a high performance engine that makes proper use of high octane fuel. A poorly written book is easily discernible and feels like an utter and complete waste of my time. Of course, I say this knowing full well that some of my closest friends like to read stuff that I find nearly radioactive, so there’s that.
I’m curious that @jlw might want to help self-described (or description adopted) “cheap and horrid” book authors to become mainstream–isn’t that kind of dragging down authorship as a whole by propping up the worst of the bunch?
The quotes in my statement refer back to albill, so “self-described” would not be correct. Again, I love these authors and I love their work. They are passionate and have a story to tell. Some of those stories have become runaway hits. Some of those authors now support themselves with their writing. Some are pretty hard to read, and I warn you about that, but I find notable anyways.
These people are doing something I have constantly failed to do with my writing – they are finishing their passion projects and publishing them. They are authors. I enjoy reading their work. They deserve to have them reviewed and shared. They have my respect, and the support of boing boing – value that as you will.
I get this genre I’ve fallen into isn’t one people may love. I find this prepper wet-dream shit hilarious. I know the authors aren’t writing it for me, but hell if an unintended audience can help them sell books it means their writing is even more powerful than they anticipated 
As to dragging down authorship as a whole… don’t worry, I’ll be back to classic russian sci-fi or books on magic soon.
You don’t happen to subscribe to BookBub, do you?
Because you really seem to echo my inbox…
There’s a lot of free mystery and spy-thrillers in there that I view even more dubiously than the self-published zombie and whatsit-novels.
If you don’t watch it, pretty soon writing will become popular. WHERE WILL WE BE THEN, HUNH, MR. REVIEWER? Ever think of that?!?!?
Nope, it has been highly recommended (even by my MOM!) but I’ve had no time as I’m still behind on what I’ve been grabbing from Kindle Unlimited. I haven’t even really looked at it, but I hear its a great book recommendation engine.
You will note my paren “…or description adopted…”, but yeah, I got your thought on that.
As a librarian, my internal code of ethics means that I have to be respectful of any author whether I value their work or not. The adage that cream floats to the top is still, I hope, true, as is the adage that your mileage will certainly vary from mine.
Went to the amazon page to check it out, and one of the 4-star reviews had this to say:
I want to say that I did not find that the main characters penis was a chapter worth but it is mentioned and actually in a joking manner because people were picking with him about it like men do. It is bawdy humor but realistic humor that I have heard a thousand times.Well alrighty then. Ridiculous and brutal, like you said.
The Amazon Kindle version of this book has DRM. A DRM-free epub version can be purchased at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/543771 .
You realize you can remove DRM from Amazon books in approximately two seconds, right? I do it for every Amazon book I purchase and then I archive my DRM-free copy in Calibre.
I dunno, I have stated many times here that I am a total sucker for Doc Savage. They are definitely not all good and very formulaic (but then if the guy writing them is doing one to two a month well that is gonna happen) but it makes me happy when I read them. That does not mean I don’t read other things.
I doubt @jlw reads this kind of stuff exclusively but he does enjoy it and I like that he shares it with us showing that not every bit of fiction has to be great writing to have a good time reading it.
A while ago Ursula Vernon wrote something (which I can’t find now) saying how she didn’t mind the wild success the 50 Shades books received because the huge piles of money that Random House made on the deal allowed them to purchase and publish more books from other authors, including her.
The Prepper Fantasy that one day the world might become alot more exciting for me that the boring slog that it is, and when that happens I will be ready and awesome.
The fantasy of being a baddass.
Like the Fantasy that I have a shotgun loaded and ready in my closet, and when that druggie breaks into my house one night, I’ll show him whose boss. I’ll blow that mutherfucker away, and be a hero goddamnit.
How about what Cory writes?
I feel ya. Glen Cook’s fantasy PI novels (the name of which escapes me) are my guilty pleasure. I know they’re objectively terrible Chandler/Spillane pastiches, but what’s wrong with a cheerfully unrepentant gumshoe pastiche? nothing, that’s what.
First, I read a shitload of Clive Cussler novels, and they’re formulaic as well, in plot, character, dialog, etc. I can definitely appreciate that sort of writing in much the same way some people might watch (ugh, gross) the Kardashian Kulture Show. Guilty pleasures and all that jazz.
And I framed my comment poorly in suggesting “authorship” as a whole is lowered by the suggestion of reading “Blue plague”. I was thinking more in terms of a librarian promoting a set of books, as opposed to a private blog…promoting a set of books. I’m writing myself into a corner, I think…
Bottom line, I guess I’m saying that of all the great stuff floating around out there, new and old, I was a little surprised to see something promoted that was also described as “ridiculous and brutal”, and essentially schlocky nonsensical fun. Old, outstanding stuff like:
And newer stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/Elect-Mr-Robinson-Better-World/dp/0312662106/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1438779785&sr=1-4&keywords=donald+antrim
Apologies for the link dump! My basic thought, poorly constructed–what’s the great stuff BB people are reading, whether old or new?
