No Pictures: If You Ain't Smokey, Then This Ain't Your Message

The Pregnant Widow
By Martin Amis, 2010

Martin Amis gets more shit than he probably deserves, but I wouldn't attempt to mount a defense for the man's work--it would be impossible, as the only thing I remember about Night Train and Yellow Dog (the only books I've read of his besides this one) is that I didn't like them. This one came highly recommended though, by somebody who often strikes me as a singularly perfect human being made flesh by the Hebrew God of old, and after diving into it, I have to say: this is excellent.

Franzen's new book sure is getting a lot of high praise, right? That's got to be in part because its For Adults with capital letters, that it concerns itself less with meeting the nostalgia and kitsch audiences on their level--I could, of course, be totally wrong, as I'm only guessing at it, having not cracked it myself. And yet, I have to wonder if it's going to go so far as something like what Amis does here, something that's so immediately concerned with the shaping of what makes memory into something falsely reliable (if you're looking for truth) and still so important (if you want to know why we do the things we do, the way we wished we'd live then, as the memory of it determines how we do it now). Because this is a book about sex, fucking, women, men, boys, hate, and even more so, again, sex. It's about fucking each other for too long, and then fucking somebody else on the side, it's about the way sex has become ad copy, but when it actually occurs--with the sweat, and the bodies, and the eye contact, and the furtive, sneaking lies that lust creates through lack of love--it thoroughly annihilates the way we talk about it.

This isn't making a lot of sense to me, I'm not even sure how to say what I'm trying to say--but that's The Pregnant Widow itself, a book that probably deserves every single negative thing one might level about its structure and style. It's not going to kick its way into the stacks of "confusing" books, nobody should go that far, but it's still brilliantly manipulating and maddeningly obnoxious at times. You find yourself forced to count occasional streams of dialog into couplets to determine who is saying what, re-reading paragraphs of convoluted monologues just to figure out which parts are the lies, and at the end--when the entirety of its preceding structure of obsessively detailed chronology is rejected so that decades of time can be presented in greatest hits of fucking--you can't help but question whether the book should've been 500 pages longer, or 300 pages shorter.

Of course, that's probably the joke. Sex wants perfect, but it also wants unique. And when you hit the engine room, all the planning ends up in the floor with the mess our bodies leave behind. 

Shop Class as Soulcraft
By Matthew Crawford, 2009

Praised as a testament to human excellence, derided as a manifesto of middle class macho posturing, Crawford's semi-auto-biographical study in the glories of knowing what you own struck me as a bit of both and ultimately neither. This is a book about the way one spends one time and what one spends it on: if it makes you want to learn about the engines and mechanical nature of the objects that rest amongst even the most luddite of lives, it's only achieved the smallest of its goals. See, what it's about is more like this, wrapped up in an inoffensive play on self-help jargon: what are you doing with your time, and why?

Crawford's story is pretty simple to blurb: he's a college educated ex-corporate think tanker who rejected the "life of the mind" and turned his lifelong hobby (repairing motorcycles) into a career. His book was spurred the desire to condemn a mythological glorification of blue collar efforts (and in doing so, lambast the popularity of faked "authenticity") while acknowledging the satisfactions of those efforts. Opening by pointing out that the vastly popular myth of "our digital employed future" has yet to produce the widespread financial or intellectual rewards its ever-distancing horizon continually promises, he then punchily dismisses the wholesale rejection of outsourcing fears with the simple truth that overseas wage-slaves can't build your deck any more than they can plumb your toilet.

While Shop Class doesn't allow enough of an alternate perspective for it to be the philosophical argument that the book is most popularly marketed as, it would be dishonest to pretend that its goals aren't more in line with the library of personal manifestos. It's not a book designed to create mechanics, just a book about one man who took that path. The questions he came up with on the way--why we care so much about college educations when employers view it primarily as a box to check, why intellectual work is valued so poorly financial while the men and women who fix our things are valued so poorly as intellectuals--are designed to work within the reader, not as a mob's battle cry. Is it macho, and does the posture irritate at times? Of course it does. But to expect that it would be otherwise is to layer an obligation that has more to say about the reader than it does, as it were, the work. 

Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture
By David Hajdu, 2009

Here's the problem with this collection: the music articles are, for the most part, well written and informative. When Hajdu goes vicious--mostly when he goes after the lazy, the self-promotional, or the trend-followers--he's usually pretty funny, even when he's painting himself into the corner of the know-it-all-white-rich-guy playing at Authentic Real Man Upbringings. His stuff on blogging and Myspace is all ridiculous as all of that stuff always sounds, but that's more a symptom of the inherent difficulty that everybody has when they're trying to issue blanket criticisms (or praise, although Hadju doesn't have much of that) for something as amorphous and schizophrenic as blogs. There's good writing here, even if he's clearly overly used to a writing format that seems stuck in college (opening anecdote, brief rundown of thesis, followed by a biographical portion that almost always starts with "John Smith was born in 1963, in Cheseapeake, Wyoming...").

But the comics stuff ruins the whole thing. I'm not Dan Nadel, Jeet Heer, Gary Groth, Donald Phelps; I don't have the historical background to take apart everything Hajdu writes here, and yet, even with the tiny bit of comics history I've got running through my brain (most of which comes from reading guys like Nadel, McCulloch and Spurgeon), I can tell you that this statement "it has become commonplace for comics artists to generate complete stories, leaving empty word balloons in the panels; only when the art is finished does the 'writer' come in, filling in the blanks with dialogue to accommodate the imagery" is complete bullshit, I can tell you that Will Eisner's time spent on PS Magazine wasn't "wasted", and if I know that shit, then David Hajdu should really, really know that shit. I'm a guy interested primarily in documenting my own interests on a temporal basis for my own personal entertainment both now and at a later date, someone who knows just enough about comics to know that I know absolutely fucking dick about comic books, and guys like Hajdu--someone who doesn't make comics, and has no apparent ambition to make comics--should be somebody that people like me can look up to, because he seems to be actively working towards dealing with this stuff outside of the normal, jerk-each-other-off channels. But his reasoning in his comics pieces, whether they're about Persopelis, the Spirit, Joe Sacco, or Ghost World is completely crap, his research is unreliable in a way that makes my head hurt, and the fact that he gets away with it--and despite the various places where people go after this dude for reasons just like these, he gets away with it all the time--is fucking disgusting. I'm a huge, huge fan of reading people I disagree with about comics, as long as they aren't sycophantic promote-the-industry-and-my-friends-in-the-face-of-all-reason apologists, but Hajdu isn't one of those people. Instead, he's a guy that simply doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, and yet he has a forum where far more people are going to engage with him--and believe his skillfully written essays--than just about any of the people that you might name if you were to write up your favorite comics critics.

Barbarians At The Gate
By Bryan Burrough & John Helyar, 1990

Barbarians At The Gate may or may not be one of the most influential business books of all time, but it's certainly an influence on the last twenty years of business books. While lacking in the charismatic corporate sociopath characters that populate the far more entertaining books of Steve Coll or Michael Lewis, it follows their format exactly, leading one to wonder who exactly pioneered this style of writing. Whoever did deserves a prize, because the style alone--a to-the-minute dead run through closed door billion dollar negotiations--is enough to propel interest all the way to the final chapter, which is always the one where the writer (or in this case, writers) throws out the laundry list of Where These People Are Now. Age hasn't served this book well, and you're probably better off with Coll's work if your tolerance for these kinds of books is limited, but this is still a far, far better way to spend one's time than the horrible movie they made out of it.

The Bay of Noon
By Shirley Hazzard, 1970

It takes a good quarter of the book to get used to Hazzard's faux-declarative style, but when it clicks into place, the story opens up into something that's quite pretty. The story of an Englishwoman who accepts assignment in Naples in a considered effort to escape one-sided emotionally incestuous feelings for her brother, Bay of Noon never seems concerned that the reader won't stay on board through the cold, unbending ending. And considering the brevity of the book, its rapid pacing and relatively compelling supporting cast of emotion-addicted loons, Hazzard probably isn't far off base. Still, this ended up being one of those stories that's more about what-happened-at-the-end and who-fucked-who, and she doesn't seem that interested in dealing out those pleasures in anything more than perfunctory fashion.

Dune
By Frank Herbert, 1965

I can count, on one hand, the number of science fiction books I've actually read. It's a pure kind of disinterest, one that isn't tied into any specific ill will or critical sarcasm--I've just never had an interest in the shelves that contain these books. The copy of Dune that I read has been sitting, gathering actual dust (which I cleaned off with a paper towel), ever since I purchased it, which was right after I read what I remember being a pretty fascinating article in the Believer regarding the series' political philosophy. The book came up in conversation a few months ago with a comic book artist, and it was mentioned again to me by yet another comic book artist about two weeks ago, and it seemed like it might fit the bill as a plane trip book. And so, over the course of a couple of back and forth jaunts in a coach seat between my sleeping wife and an elderly man who smelled like decaying flowers, I finally read Dune.

It's pretty fucking good! It's interesting to see that Herbert has a flat zero of interest in describing the appearances of almost all of his characters--he barely gets into what the worms look like, obsessing mostly over mentioning their length and diameter--and you'll go the entire book without finding out what almost every character looks like, except for when they have a scar that he likes to mention. God bless him for doing more than the role-playing-game style structure that dominates so many comics of this particular genre--Dune never reads like a book created to display All This Great Shit I Made Up; instead, it's a story, a pretty engrossing one about the birth of tyrants and the cruelty of guerilla warfare, the building of a cult from the inside out. Dune starts like a million other revenge epics, but by the end of the book, when the downtrodden unleash a blitzkrieg of scorched earth violence, its gone somewhere much different. I hear these don't stay good for long, and that's fine: for now, I'm good right here, with the Guild receding in junkie withdrawal on the outskirts of Arrakis, praying that the Kwisatz Haderach doesn't decide to eviscerate them as well.

-Tucker Stone, 2010

Comments

[John Pontoon]

It is genuinely galling that Hadjou's science is shitty enough to think the Marvel Method is how ANYBODY makes comics now, let alone everybody. It started in, what, 1963? Dominated the market in 1968, mostly dead by 1973 - the birth year of Seth MacFarlane, Oscar de la Hoya, and Neve Campbell. Poo on him, man. Poo.

If you want charismatic sociopaths in your John Helyar books, "Lords of the Realm" is the book for you. It's a thorough history of the labor relations between the owners of Major League Baseball and its players. MLB's owners have been narrow-minded, venal, arrogant, short-sighted bastards pretty much the entire history of baseball as a professional sport. I'm assuming most of you couldn't give two shits about baseball, but a good book is a good book. Hey, "Moneyball" - Michael Lewis's biggest hit - is his most enjoyable book (I haven't read "The New New Thing," but I've read all the others.) It's kind of strange that baseball has such an enormous wealth of excellent literature, both fiction and non-, easily three or five or maybe even ten times the number of great books as every other sport put together. God damn, I'm boring. I should buy a donut.

When I was a kid, "Dune" was always ranked number one on the list of best Sci-Fi books ever. I read it when I was young, didn't see what the big deal was. It was certainly no "Lathe of Heaven" or "Valis" or "Foundation" or "Cat's Cradle" or "The Demolished Man." BUT, Tucker, I think you have acceptable taste, so maybe I was just too callow to dig "Dune"'s flavors. I found it dry, you know?

[Tucker Stone]

I liked Moneyball, that was a pretty interesting book. I wouldn't say I don't give a shit about baseball, but i've probably watched 1000 football games for every one baseball game i've ever seen.

Dune-i do question how much of my enjoyment of it might stem from never having read books in this particular genre before, excluding comics. It was dry, at times ridiculous, but i just can't deny that it was one of the more addictive plane books ever. If i'd doled it out over a few weeks, it's totally possible i would've gotten bogged down and irritated by the droning. But stuck inside it for long periods of time--it just worked.

I should also buy a donut, but in all honesty, the donut places in my neighborhood are complete shit. Krispy Kreme's refusal to enter the Brooklyn market it one of the great tragedies of our time.

[George F.X. Monroe]

Speaking of writing, that is one fine sentence and example of logic you display to begin your screed about David Hajdu. Wow. It only got worse from there.

[Tucker Stone]

Well, here you go then: http://www.monkeysvsrobots.com/mvsrpm/features-articles_comments.php?id=320_0_22_0_C

Follow that link, and you can read Michael Chabon (he's a pretty good writer, although I've only read a couple of his books) going after the exact essay that I'm referring to.

[TimCallahan]

Now I'm wondering about how Chabon thinks 300 is a good counter-argument.

[David Hajdu]

It's nice to be read and to be read closely. Thanks for that. I disagree with most of what you wrote about me, and I find some of it harsh, unfair; and, at points, cruel. Still, I appreciate that you've taken my work seriously enough to criticize, and I'm glad that it incited passions.
Keep up the fiery work. We need more of what you do.
All best,
David Hajdu

[John Pontoon]

Mr. Stone: One wouldn't expect this, but 7-11 is currently serving fantastic Boston Creme analogs, moist and delicious and bereft of the tinge of failure that one tastes in the dough-nuts of Mr. Dunkin - a product, I'd guess, of D__'s pre-preparation of cremes and mixes prior to their shipment to the store for on-site deep-fat-frying. Also, they (Mr. 11 and cohorts) are less miserly with their allotment of the titular creme itself, making for a superior donut in every wise. Since the Boston Creme is the clear king of all donuts, this ends the discussion.

Mr. Hajdu: It is unfortunate that today's writers have saved up a surplus of bile and outrage, likely due - says I - to the moral failure of all American media to respond with sufficient hatred to the outrages of the recent Bush administration. HOWEVER. if this is actually a direct quote from your work: "it has become commonplace for comics artists to generate complete stories, leaving empty word balloons in the panels; only when the art is finished does the 'writer' come in, filling in the blanks with dialogue to accommodate the imagery"; then you are legitimately guilty of at least one misstatement of fact which is so egregious that it betrays, all by its lonesome, a serious deficiency of research, familiarity, and affinity for the subject you're covering. A skim through the Wikipedia entry on the "Marvel Method" lets you know that this system existed almost entirely because Stan Lee was very nearly the only writer for Marvel's flock of illustrators in the early-to-mid sixties. Well, okay, I have some facts in there that aren't in the Wiki entry, but I know these things because I actually care about the subject and believe comics to be an art form whose apotheosis in the late 80's paved the way to a current golden age, and also somehow compelled me to write overlong sentences with too many fifteen-dollar words. My point - Mr. Stone's point - is that anyone who said, "Typically, a director of these 'motion pictures' is autocratic and abusive, unwilling to communicate with actors, likely resentful of being second fiddle to the Producer, who is the prime artistic driver of the film," would be immediately recognized by any cinema fan (and most non-fans) as not knowing what he's talking about. And, so, that guy shouldn't be writing about movies.

Mr. Callahan: You are confused. The appropriate response in your case is to post a comment under Mr. Chabon's article telling him that he sucks. Wait, I should be saying this over at GeniusboyFiremelon. Shit!

[Jacob Snowden]

This site of criticism is just plain amateurish. The only serious comment seems to be: "I'm not even sure how to say what I'm trying to say."
Some generalizations -- like the writing format of Hajdu -- are clearly false. Perhaps there is some resentment in knowing that even if you ever eventually write a really good piece of criticism it won't even begin to approximate the quality of something like the Wynton Marsalis article in Hajdu's book.

[Ian L. McCarthey]

“comics, like rock… give fluent voice to their audience’s basest and most cynical impulses”

Don't see why Chabon is getting his peevish knickers in twist about that. That's why we love them both, by God!

[jess sein]

read ten cent plague --d.hajdu book on comics history--one word:great

[John Pontoon]

Whatever happened to the Snowdens of old? I betcha that David Hajdu linked to here from his website. Admit it - he Hajdu at hello!

[j. snowden]

Originally saw Marsalis piece in "Best Am. Magazine Writing" before getting book. (Also read The New Republic.) Wonderful piece. Cannot comment on the criticism of comics. Know zilch about them.
J.S. [email protected]

[Tucker Stone]

I'll stand by the generalization of the profiles--that "blank blank was born" format comes up consistently--but I don't have a problem admitting that I liked the Marsalis piece too, nor do I really see any reason to deny the accuracy of your "amateur" swipe. After all, I think i'm pretty upfront that my disappointment with the work is mixed up in the sense that I just can't rely on the research for one thing (the music) when it's so shoddy on the other (comics). Comics articles in non-comics publications (like the New Republic) are predominantly written by the same core group of people, and that's why Hajdu--who isn't part of that group--is someone I was really hoping to both enjoy and learn from. I didn't go into his book hoping to dislike it, or find fault with it, and I wasn't aware of the specific criticisms leveled against these pieces before I opened it. I went in feeling the exact opposite: excitement that somebody had written a book full of things that I care about (like jazz, comics, shitty avantgarde music), and they were coming from a completely untouched-by-the-comics-journal place while speaking to an audience that, like you, doesn't know a thing about the stuff. I wanted to like this book, this writer, and these essays. But the Sacco/Clowes article poisoned the well, and then the Eisner piece took a dump on what was left.

I think I'm probably giving you a more-serious answer than is necessary, as the "resentment I'll never be as good" comment clearly makes an assumption about my personal goals that speaks more about you as a reader than it does about me as a blogger. But if you want to start a torch-fire about my failings as a writer....well, I won't join you, but I can't promise that I'll mount a big defense.

I don't even know how to address the comment left by Hajdu, am not sure I even believe it's real, and think I'll just ignore it.

John, your "hajdu at hello" line had made this whole thing worthwhile, either way.

[mateo]

WARNING! WHAT FOLLOWS IS TRULY BORING! BAD BORING, NOT SEX-METAPHOR BORING! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Amis- I own Einstein's Monsters and Dead Babies, neither of which I could get through more than a third before losing interest. I am sure that is unfair to the novel, but Monsters is a collection, and I found what I read to be pretty dull. Hard-hitting analysis, no?

Baseball inspires the best sports books by far. I have heard that the reason is that baseball tends to be the sport that sportswriters like best, and so they concentrate more often on it as a result. I read way too many sports books (shouldn't be wasting my rare free time on sports when there are comics I haven't read...) and baseball for sure has the best. I also think that there are gradients available to a baseball writer that other sports don't offer. The basic rules of baseball are pretty simple, as is the strategy. As you go down the stat-geek rabbithole, vistas appear which different writers use as they see fit, but you can still discuss fairly intricate strategy without going too far mathwise.

Football is such a complicated game, and I always find that the writers just don't give the readers enough credit. Maybe it would take too many diagrams to really get down to the bone of football strategy, but you rarely see anything but basic bio stuff.

One of my absolute favorite sportswriters is now a senior writer for Sports Illustrated named Joe Posnanski. He is primarily a baseball guy, of course. At his simply awesome blog, he recently asked his commenters to submit their lists of the best sports books, which he is planning on responding to shortly. I read through the almost 500 comments, and the lists were all over the place, but the best-regarded books were primarily baseball. His site deals with baseball more than any other sport, but he touches 'em all, and the commenters are pretty savvy. (For my entry, because I am a show-off loser, I listed comics, including the Golem's Mighty Swing, Slam-Dunk, and just because I could, Abhay's Left Field, complete with link to where they could download the book for free. I would be kinda suprised if anybody took the time, but I thought it would be cool to show the spectrum that's out there, and I am pretty sure that Left Field is the only book on any of the lists which has an author making it available for free. Anyway.)

Chabon- Man, I read Cavalier and Clay, and at the time, I was at least pretty stoked to see comics being at the heart of a "major" novel. Still, there are some pretty cringy moments in that book. It's funny, I feel like I am exactly that book's target audience (middle-brow, same dirty comic habit, willing to read a book just bc it wins a Pulitzer...yadda yadda) yet it decidedly wasn't for me. I would have thought that if you strike out with your directly intended audience, you would be in trouble, but Chabon has done just fine without me. So good for him.

Two fine people whom I respect very much gave me his book on fatherhood after the birth of my son, so I read the thing. Now that book I didn't relate to at ALL. His entire outlook on fatherhood is based on fear and failure. When and how often he is forced to lie to them and how muchand to what degree that will scar them for life. Most of it was intended to be funny, and mostly it succeeds in that aim, but the funny is set up as a vehicle to deliver the moral. These morals are depressing and sad. The flagellation he gives himself for circumsizing his kid is brutal. Brutal.

Hadju- When the 10 Cent Plague came out, I hadn't discovered the internet yet (true story) and was reading just about any books about comics I could find. It's how I discovered Douglas Wolk and then Savage Critics and then FO... I saw Plague just about everywhere when it came out, but was just never interested. No fault if the book itself I guess, bc I obviously never read it, but I just felt I had seen the subject covered so many times before. I just wasn't interested in toiling through a whole book just to get the same stuff repeated to me, by which I mean that so much has already been said, what's left, ya know? It just seemed.. is dated what I'm looking for here? A weird time to roll out another Fredric Wertham book.

And I bet that is Hadju above in the comments. Rings true, and his last name is unique enough that I bet whatever clip service Google has nowadays would pick this right up.

I know this is already boring and longlonglong, but still, one more thing.

When I finally got internet access a couple years ago and started finding all these comic sites, I never saw the point in commenting. I figured, it was the writer's site, nobody went there for my opinion. But then I saw Jog post once about going to a convention and how much it meant to him when someone approached him and told him how much they liked his site. I started to comment basically as a way to thank people for spending their time writing stuff I enjoyed reading. As I have gotten more involved, I now do stupid boring shit like what you are hopefully ignoring right now.

Anyway, I try to stay away from the internet spats, sometimes unsuccessfully (Noah and I went at it a little bit on HU. Friends now, though, so maybe for the best).

Point being, for some reason, the comments here have really taken a turn for the worse. (Look at me, I am scolding commenters on a comic book blog. Life= awesome). All of a sudden, folks keep showing up mad. Blogs seem like such an easy thing to ignore if you don't like the content, you know? It's not like celebrity gossip or news on the oil spill, where you can't get away from it no matter what you do. You just stop visiting the site and boom, no more worries. No more unwanted snark, or whatever. But yeah, FO has some haters these days, and I don't get it.

Tuck- I think your site is the tits. Thanks for your time and effort.

Alright, I have to go rescue my son from the traffic he has undoubtedly wandered into during the forever it took me to write all this bullshit. I hope you ignored every word.

[John K(UK)]

I think this site is the Jaffa Cakes (I like Jaffa Cakes).

Oh, I was going to say how totally divine I find the work of Martin Amis. I get that little fizzy feeling inside whenever one of his books are due out. Which is far too infrequently now. I am going to be cremated with my ex-library battered copy of Money. I really like Martin Amis' books. Did everyone get that bit? But having said that I am (spoiler!)English and I honestly have no idea how his work must read if you are American. Sometimes I have to strain to find a way through his syntax myself. It's a satisying strain though.

Anyway, all sympathies to Mateo and I'm sorry that didn't work out for him. What? You thought I was going to challenge him to a fight with knives because I disagreed? This isn't the internet, oh wait...

So yeah, good site, nice work. End.

[John Pontoon]

Mateo - hilarious post, sir. I wish you would have shared your ideas about donuts.

T.S. - thank you for the lovely compliment. I'm sad that nobody seems to recognize the "Catch-22" reference.

[Abhay]

For baseball books, I liked that Bissinger book, 3 Nights in August. It's a 3-game series, Cubs and Cardinals-- heavy on the little details and the decisionmaking. Bissinger's a huge, huge ass, but I really enjoyed that one most. (I'm also partial to Klosterman's essay on football, which... I thought that might have been the best piece in his new book, and I can't say I'd self-identify as a huge football fan, especially, though I like the game...)

Martin Amis-- his book reviews are aces, but the only book I read of his was the Rachel Papers which ... did not go down well. The later books sound like they'd have been better choices for me-- it was his first novel after all, but the bad aftertaste of the Rachel Papers has lingered, however unfairly...

[Matthew J. Brady]

Way to late for anybody to bother reading this, probably, but I figured I could chime in, since the whole Hajdu thing intrigues me. Mainly, I'm suddenly curious about The 10 Cent Plague, which I thought was really good, but now am wondering how much he got wrong. The cool thing about that one was actually separate from all the Wertham stuff, when he was going over the history of the comics industry and the various players early on, which I find fascinating (yes, I also loved Kavalier & Clay, sorry if that calls my taste into question. Actually, no, I'm not sorry, I fucking loved that book. Maybe I should read it again to make sure I remember it right). There were some really nice bits about people like Nick Cardy or Matt Baker (although I bet they fit right into the template Tucker describes), lots of cool details about the way things worked early on. The censorship stuff was interesting too, but it just kind of ends at the point when the Comics Code was established, and then jumps forward to the present day for an interview with R. Crumb for some reason. So, yeah, the first half, good stuff, hopefully not wrong, and the second half is decent if not great. Recommendation!

Other topics: I don't think I especially liked Dune when I read it, but I was a teenager, so I was probably wrong. This has made me consider reconsidering it, but I doubt I'll get around to reading it again. But since Tucker said he hasn't read much science fiction, I'll recommend some Philip K. Dick, who is pretty goddamn amazing. A Scanner Darkly, that shit is awesome. And you know I like me my Neal Stephenson, so there's that. Yup, some half-assed recommendations, that's what I do.

[chupamela]

esto ai q mejorarlo mecatran