August 05, 2007

The Unshelved Bookclub I have been randomly tickled this last few days by this webcomic. Went on a library reserve rampage because of it.

I just haven't been reading as much as I used to. (Lovely wife and I both bought a copy of the last Harry Potter, then donated the spare to the local library. Ever seen a librarian hug a book? A LOT?) But this webcomic review of books has, randomly, reignited my bookivourishness. Hope at least a few monkeys enjoy it too.

posted by polychrome 17 years ago
  • Very well done. I had only read a few of the books listed, so I checked them out first to see how they were represented and it gave me faith the books I don't know will get a good into too. They even got ged's skin colour right for Wizard of Earthsea, unlike half the illustrators.
  • Nice. Not to derail, but I believe even Studio Ghibli has inexcusably made Ged white and generally annoyed Ursula K. Le Guin , though to be fair I haven't actually seen the film itself.
  • World War Z was an excellent read, a terrific companion to THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE.
  • What FiftyPoints said. Movie's coming in 2008.
  • Ah, good, the zombie fad should be well and truly dead by then. ONLY TO RISE AGAIN
  • WWZ is a great book.
  • Yay - looking forward to reading it.
  • Fourthed or whatever WWZ. Only thing that pissed me off was the constant misuse of the military phonetic alphabet. Soldiers kept referring to the zombies as "Zack" like they did "Victor Charlie" for the Viet Cong. Thing is, the proper designation should be "Zulu," not "Zack," which would have taken about five seconds of research to discover. Such a small thing, but in a book that's clearly very well researched and thought out, reading that easily avoidable mistake however many dozens of times was like tonguing a raw spot on the roof of my mouth.
  • Maybe I overthink these things... but maybe "Zack" was a conscious choice. I'd probably read a touch of racism into zombies being referred to, over and over again, as "Zulus."
  • ONLY TO RISE AGAIN Lol, Nick!
  • Bone, that's an interesting point. Has anyone seen the furore about the trailer for the game 'Resident Evil 5'? The zombie virus has run wild in an African township. This means that portions of the trailer consist of our hero shooting hordes of drooling animalistic black men, running at him with machetes and the like. Taken out of context, this has offended some people.
  • I'd probably read a touch of racism into zombies being referred to, over and over again, as "Zulus." And if that's your reaction, then if I were the author I'd say hey, that's fine, perhaps you think that African tribes shouldn't be part of the military phonetic alphabet then. But your reaction is (or at least should be) to the military designation as maybe some sort of unintended racist label, not to the story as somehow crypto-racist. I as the author am merely reporting things as they are (or in this case, would be if the zombie war actually happened). IMO, the mere fact that a realistic element irks you or rubs you the wrong way isn't an argument for removing it. If anything, it's quite the contrary.
  • and, btw, it would be the singular "Zulu", not the plural, which I think does abstract it some. This is Mike Charlie Tango signing off.
  • I'm off to catch some z's
  • They did Alanna! Okay, they didn't describe it very well, but I loved that book so much when I was 10, and it seemed like no one had ever heard of it, and it was just me getting it out of the library over and over and over again. I think the author is more popular now, but I still feel such kinship when people have read it. And now I know that I really need to read Strangers in Paradise: High School. Actually, I really just need to read the rest of Strangers in Paradise in total.