Thursday Next

Having finished A Song of Ice and Fire (as far as is possible) and purchased a Kindle (would that I had done this the other way around...) I am reading far more now than I have recently. So I'm looking to broaden my reading horizons. I've long been a fan of Jasper Fforde (obviously), and thoroughly enjoyed GRRM's stuff. I've just started Larsson's Millennium Trilogy but I'm not sure where to go from there, so what I would like from all the wonderfully well read people here is for you to talk about any book you've read and enjoyed that was first published in the last 10 years (or so). I value the opinions of my peers more than Amazon ratings and what not. No restriction on genre, or anything like that, just recent books that you enjoyed (or didn't if you want to warn people off an author, but let's keep it mostly positive eh?). Why the last 10 years? Well, we all know what the classics are, I can google for "100 books to read before you die", but newer authors are sometimes harder to pick up on and I'm loathe to restrict myself to reading books that have been high profile enough to be turned into films. Have at it, and thanks for your contributions. EDIT: Note that by "of the decade" I don't mean greatest of the decade, just want to pin everyone to the last 10 years.

Finally finished Heart of Darkness. That was a hell of a slog. Starting on Girl With the Dragon Tattoo today. Heard good things.

Oh. Well, there you go. Thursday's law is like Thursday's love. Hard and fast.

Which?

Check out this hilaribad anti-Piracy piece of propaganda. http://www.viacom.com/news/Pages/anti-piracy.html They really lay it on thick. "No more Spongebob." Yeah. I'd be the first to admit that piracy won't be stopped by DRM. It also will not be stopped by highly paid VP's of this or that bleating about how sad piracy makes them. Especially not when Viacom's CEO got a $50million RAISE this year.

It's still a breach of the owner's copyright. If you speak to the publisher, explain the situation and they say "go for it" then it's fine. Otherwise, you have to live with the delay. Like I've said elsewhere. It's black and white for me. Sure you're not really doing any harm, but it's still not in accordance with the content owner's wishes.

That reaction shot. Epic.

Best BF evah!

Ooooh a blueberry foam. The most retarded stuck-up foody idea to date. I love that it looks like you fastened the blue jelly to my plate by first spitting on it. Delicious!

It's possible that there are other infractions not related to the forum, a lot of people are coming to EA's attention for stat padding etc. In BF3. It could be that there were a couple of infractions in game and the forum post was the final straw. Like I say, we've not got the whole story.

My biggest pet peeve at the moment is one that I see on blog comments and in this very forum: "[Developer] would have made [game] much better if it hadn't been for [publisher]." It pisses me off. No, BF3 would not have been multiplayer only if it weren't for EA. The absolute ruler (one step shy of JR) of EA's "Games" (i.e. not EA Sports or The Sims) is Patrick Soderlund, the former CEO of DICE. He's the one who calls the shots, he's the one who says whether or not we need to go after CoD or we need singleplayer, or going Origin exclusive is ok. So, if EA did not own DICE, he would still be in charge and all those things (barring Origin) would still have happened. Further, EA exec level staff do not sit with the devs saying "Hey, you know what would be great? Drop the inventory from Mass Effect!" they may say that they want the next ME to be more accessible, but it's up to the devs to implement that. I understand why people say this. I know you love DICE and Bioware and so on, and that you want them to be infallible. Because of that it's easy to say oh they would never have done this were it not for their evil overlords and point your fingers at EA, but that's not how it is. Sometimes DICE make shitty decisions not because they are forced into them, but because they think it is a good idea at the time. So please, no more "BF3 single player sucks because EA forced DICE to do it." or "Bioware added in multi-player to ME because EA demanded it.". These companies are all extinct. They are studios of EA, EA can no more force them to make a shit game than you can "force" your hands to draw a shit picture. If your picture is shit your hands are as to blame as your head.

You can also add in Tywin's behaviour toward Tyrion. Even after everything that happened, with Cersei, with Jaime, with Tyrion proving himself in battle and in Kings Landing. After all that Tywin still will not give Casterly Rock to Tyrion. A possible explanation could be that he knows Tyrion is not his son and so will not suffer him to hold Casterly Rock. It's been speculated that Tyrion was the result of Aerys raping Joanna, that when Tywin found out he tried to have the child aborted with moon tea, but because of the hardiness of Targs, Tyrion survived, alas Joanna did not. As a result Tywin blames himself as much as Tyrion for the death of his love and couldn't bring himself to murder Tyrion as he is the last piece of Joanna he has left.

They're citing repeated infractions of the ToS. EA don't do themselves any favours by not commenting, but you do only have one side of the story there.

Heart of Darkness. Jeeeeeebus, it is a tough read. The prose is like wading through treacle. The fact that it is written from the point of view of a guy listening to another guy tell a story doesn't help matters. 90% of the book is in quotation marks to the point where you wonder why the author didn't just say "fuck it" and write it all first person. I'm over half-way through now, so gonna slog on to the end, but man, I think I'm going to have to reward myself with some Stieg Larsson or something after this. Has anyone read the millenium trilogy? Would they recommend it?

Yeah, I quite like this place too.

What tradition would that be?

I don't have ADwD to hand, but at one point near the end Tyrion muses as to whether his immunity from the greyscale means he is a Targ. There's also the comment "All dwarves are bastards." And Tywin saying "I wish I could prove you are not my son." (rather than "I wish you were not my son"). He's also described as having "white-blonde" hair, possibly alluding to the white hair of Targaryens. Oh, and he dreams of Dragons, and the way the Direwolves react to him is odd.

But, a lot happened on Tyrion's journey. Meeting Young Griff, finding out he is Aegon. The meeting with the greyscale fellas which raises suspicions of Tyirion being a Targaryen bastard, getting apprehended by Mormont, his character development while with Penny, and then coming to Mereen as a slave. That's a lot to fit in that would be missed if he just appeared in Mereen.

It is indeed my first and I am quite satisfied thus far. Was looking for an e-reader not a tablet so the Kindle Fire isn't really of interest to me. Given the nature of the content available on the Kindle (i.e. tiny files that take days to consume) I don't see the need for an expansion slot on the reader.

Forcey Fun Time. Bwahahahahaha.

I don't get it. Asplain please?

Such as..?

Oh, so when he used the inflammatory term "Is it still veritable spyware?" he actually meant: "Do the game and the Origin client still collect totally anonymous, unidentifiable, telemetry data for the sole purpose of identifying the causes of errors in the software with certain hardware configurations so that EA can provide fixes for those errors ensuring a better user experience for all?" In which case, yes, it does still do that. Also, technically speaking, Origin doesn't "scan your computer". Windows does and reports out to Origin.

It's not spyware.

"He also noted that the average revenue per paying Origin user is currently between $45-50." That would be a copy of BF3 then.