On a busy European street, the killer serpentined through a crowd. He was a powerful man. Dark and potent. Deceptively agile. His muscles still felt hard from the thrill of his meeting.
Langdon did a double take. He remembered the CERN driver saying something about a huge machine buried in the earth. But--
"It is over eight kilometers in diameter... and twenty-seven kilometers long."
Langdon's head whipped around. "Twenty-seven kilometers?" He stared at the director and then turned and looked into the darkened tunnel before him. "This tunnel is twenty-seven kilometers long? That's... that's over sixteen miles!"
I just read through that whole thread (thanks for the link!), trying to think of books I'm embarrassed to have liked. I happy to say I never fell for Ayn Rand, I always hated Piers Anthony, I enjoyed Anne McCaffrey (but always knew it was smutty trash for the preteen dragon-loving set), and I refuse to feel bad about Heinlein (although in my defense, I have no slavish devotion to him, either.)
I think I'm left with Tolkien (not that it's bad, it's just not as mind-blowing as I thought when I was 9) and, of course... Douglas Adams.
I'm surprised no one mentioned him on that thread. It's particularly embarrassing because I didn't just enjoy them as harmless parody - I really admired him on a philosophical level! Mea culpa.
I was going to say early Robert Ludlum, but even though he's released 4 books since he died, they're more polished than the sample.
I'm gonna say Dan Brown. I'm certain the second sample is Dan Brown, but only because about 3 thrillers have ever set themselves at CERN. And there was one set at the Superconducting SuperCollider, but that was more SF. And it had a hivemind in it.
The first quotation made me cringe a bit, but this one made me think the author is Dan Brown. I haven't touched his books, but I read a parargraph of of The Da Vinci Code over someone's shoulder. I am having trouble describing how amateurish and forced just that little snippet was.
Hm, I'm still not embarrassed to like Tolkien or Adams.
In fact, Douglas Adams bears partial responsibility for my current outlook on life (and in particular, my skeptical approach to just about everything), and I don't think that's necessarily bad. There are a lot of worse things I could've read when I was 12.
However, I used to like Marion Zimmer Bradley more than I really care to admit. I still think that The Mists of Avalon is a good book, but, to borrow your expression, not as mind-blowing as I thought when I was 16.
these guys... they spin an interesting yarn, but MAN, their writing STINKS. i want to torch someone who says "Dan Brown is my favorite writer" because... well, he is a TERRIBLE writer! I'd take "i enjoy his books," but nothing lauding his actual writing skills. guess i'm just a big snob.
He blinked and boggled in disbelief. He read the sentence again and again, confirming his worst fears. It was a palindrome, the symbol of the Ancient Discordian Cult. One-word palindromes like "wow" and "radar" could be found throughout history, showing how pervasive the secret society's influence was. Discordian writings about how to bring about the end of the world made references to the idea of writing a palindrome longer than one word, but scientists had long dismissed such a thing as impossible. But here, etched in horrible crimson, for the eighth time today, was exactly that frightening, unimaginable thing. His heart raced. He felt even more certain that this all had to be connected with the mysterious theft of three tons of weapons-grade buckminsterfullerine. He also knew he had to get to Panama, and fast.
I was talking about this to manfire. I think that it means that he's agile but looks like he isn't, or something. manfire conjectured that it meant 'fat'.
In support of manfire's suggestion, I note that the killer is described as a 'powerful man', which if it appeared in a Craigslist ad might indeed ... well, whatever.
Hey, I'm glad you responded, because I wanted to bring this passage to your attention:
Although accounts of the Illuminati emblem were legendary in modern symbology, no academic had ever actually seen it. Ancient documents described the symbol as an ambigram—ambi meaning "both"—signifying it was legible both ways. And although ambigrams were common in symbology—swastikas, yin yang, Jewish stars, simple crosses—the idea that a word could be crafted into an ambigram seemed utterly impossible. Modern symbologists had tried for years to forge the word "Illuminati" into a perfectly symmetrical style, but they had failed miserably. Most academics had now decided the symbol’s existence was a myth.
This is the graphic used in the book (designed by John Langdon):
"The field of particle physics," Kohler said, "has made some shocking discoveries lately—discoveries quite spiritual in implication. Leonardo was responsible for many of them."
Langdon studied CERN’s director, still trying to process the bizarre surroundings. "Spirituality and physics?" Langdon had spent his career studying religious history, and if there was one recurring theme, it was that science and religion had been oil and water since day one… archenemies… unmixable.
Yeah. I enjoy John Langdon's work, and have a first edition copy of Wordplay right next to my battered old copy of Scott Kim's Inversions on my shelf. Not that I'm complaining about these $50 checks, but why couldn't he have had the same last name as a character created by an equally popular but competent writer?
Just to illuminate how wacky Brown's mythos is: If no one had ever crafted a word into an ambigram, the word "ambigram" wouldn't exist, because in real life it was coined as a term for exactly that. People certainly wouldn't be using it to describe any simple symmetrical shape like circles and crosses.
Oh, I have, and yes, it is. However, that's pretty much what I thought about it at the time—I just happened to read it at a point in my life where I was starting to think skeptically about things, and it was a great comfort in that respect.
Hey, I'm not claiming that Mists is great literature or nuthin'. It's still a fun story, though, even if Gwenhwyfar IS a whiny bitch.
At his best, Douglas Adams was a fine satirist and had a good point to make here and there. When his heart wasn't in it, he could be dreadful. And his best-known work has been dulled by popular repetition, much like the best jokes of Monty Python.
Heinlein's early-to-middle work is one masterpiece of lean, economical adventure storytelling after another, just as long as you don't take the philosophy too seriously. The late stuff is increasingly bloated, cranky and generally embarrassing. And while it isn't a popular opinion, I think you can see the rot start to set in in none other than Stranger in a Strange Land (though a few years later he was still capable of writing The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, probably his single best novel).
The humor has dated in a way that's hard to define, and I recall one critic pointing out his tendency to lean on Ultra this and Mega that when he couldn't think of a joke.
I had the mixed pleasure recently of listening to the entire radio series, as it was posted to USENET, during/following the posting of the final two phases of the radio drama. It was at times quite sluggish, with humor that seemed forced (to my ear, no doubt after hearing the same bit murdered by a hundred nerds since I read the book (and, I regret to say, probably laying a few such bits to rest myself)) with interminable periods where I just wanted the plot to move having completely lost patience for the latest interruption or digression from the Book.
*inhale*
But then the plot made me long for an amusing voyage of the mind to that planet where the plane was waiting for the rise of civilization so they could take on lemon-scented towels, or whatnot, because, here I was, listening to Arthur explain tea to the nutrimat, for the 12th time, and the frustration just grew...
The comparison of Douglas Adams to Monty Python is a good one. I have enjoyed both considerably on my own... but once you start to hear other people "nerding out" on them, throwing lines back and forth out of context, rehashing all the less subtle moments, or engaging in long debates about minor points... it starts to get a little embarrassing.
Some time ago I discovered that if you watch a Monty Python's Flying Circus episode after not having consumed any Monty Python for a period of at least ten years, it is hilarious.
I'll often take a deliberate break from favorite books, TV shows, or music for this very reason. Familiarity does breed contempt for these things (for music, anyway; I read some studies about it a couple of years ago by a couple of researchers who were trying to figure out why the popularity of hit singles tends to follow a bell curve). After awhile, even favorite stuff can get old.
A good thing, too. There'd be no incentive for creative innovation otherwise.
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After all, didn't I make a post bitching about this very thing a few days ago? Why yes, yes I did.
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I think I'm left with Tolkien (not that it's bad, it's just not as mind-blowing as I thought when I was 9) and, of course... Douglas Adams.
I'm surprised no one mentioned him on that thread. It's particularly embarrassing because I didn't just enjoy them as harmless parody - I really admired him on a philosophical level! Mea culpa.
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I'm gonna say Dan Brown. I'm certain the second sample is Dan Brown, but only because about 3 thrillers have ever set themselves at CERN. And there was one set at the Superconducting SuperCollider, but that was more SF. And it had a hivemind in it.
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In fact, Douglas Adams bears partial responsibility for my current outlook on life (and in particular, my skeptical approach to just about everything), and I don't think that's necessarily bad. There are a lot of worse things I could've read when I was 12.
However, I used to like Marion Zimmer Bradley more than I really care to admit. I still think that The Mists of Avalon is a good book, but, to borrow your expression, not as mind-blowing as I thought when I was 16.
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these guys... they spin an interesting yarn, but MAN, their writing STINKS. i want to torch someone who says "Dan Brown is my favorite writer" because... well, he is a TERRIBLE writer! I'd take "i enjoy his books," but nothing lauding his actual writing skills. guess i'm just a big snob.
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ARGH!
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what does "deceptively agile" mean? doesn't that imply he looks agile but in fact is NOT? or is it me...
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*runs screaming from the room, certain the end of the world is nigh*
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what did he say felt "hard," again?
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All I can say is, take another look at Hitchhiker's Guide, if you haven't since you were twelve. It's still funny, it's just... a little sophmoric.
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Able was I ere I saw Elba.
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If you read a Marlboro pack upside down, is says "'orrible Jew". heh.
well, sort of.
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I'm guessing: WILLIAM SHATNER.
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Just to illuminate how wacky Brown's mythos is: If no one had ever crafted a word into an ambigram, the word "ambigram" wouldn't exist, because in real life it was coined as a term for exactly that. People certainly wouldn't be using it to describe any simple symmetrical shape like circles and crosses.
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Egad a base tone denotes a bad age.
"Watch," said I.
"Beloved," I said. "Watch me scare you though."
Said she, "Able am I, son."
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Hey, I'm not claiming that Mists is great literature or nuthin'. It's still a fun story, though, even if Gwenhwyfar IS a whiny bitch.
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Heinlein's early-to-middle work is one masterpiece of lean, economical adventure storytelling after another, just as long as you don't take the philosophy too seriously. The late stuff is increasingly bloated, cranky and generally embarrassing. And while it isn't a popular opinion, I think you can see the rot start to set in in none other than Stranger in a Strange Land (though a few years later he was still capable of writing The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, probably his single best novel).
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*inhale*
But then the plot made me long for an amusing voyage of the mind to that planet where the plane was waiting for the rise of civilization so they could take on lemon-scented towels, or whatnot, because, here I was, listening to Arthur explain tea to the nutrimat, for the 12th time, and the frustration just grew...
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A good thing, too. There'd be no incentive for creative innovation otherwise.