Post by zombie reagan on Feb 13, 2007 22:43:44 GMT -5
Tolkien had it a lot easier though, a lot of the things he made reference to most people have heard of in some or another. Dune on the other hand is having to come up with new things entirely to bring up the suspension of disbelief. The past has happened therefore the technology is known. The future hasn't happened yet, the lack of glossary i agree is tad unwise but at the same time you'd spend all day (in an already brick sized novel) explaining everything just the same. A lot of sci-fi writers don't actually explain everything so much as they put its purpose into the context and assume your quick enough to pick up on it (or go back and reread it a little to figure it out) rather than holding your hand and walking you through the technological advances they invented (and may not have feasible explanations for XD). I do sympathize with not caring for dune though, its a very thick (and i dont' mean page wise) story.
King I would reccomend in a lot of ways and not just for horror. The guy gets typecast, yeah he does write a good deal of horror but he tells a lot of neat stories that you wouldn't find elsewhere shining examples being two of his prison stories that were made into great films (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) and then his signature series The Dark Tower Series are a nice mashup of scifi, old school spaghetti western and a bit of fantasy all in a mesquite blend. Yes he does horror and some it is very unconventional, Christine, From a Buick 9, The Stand to name a few.
As for the Novel of A Clockwork Orange the glossary isn't so much for stuff you don't understand, it's for the language. The story uses a made up language called Nadsat which consists of Russian and English thrown together, it's meant to imply the child like nature of the characters who speak in a sort of code to each other. It more or less builds the characters but also undermines them entirely in the story telling. (Which i thought was clever, though i would in no way call it life changing. Better than the film the last chapter is the most important and the film leaves it out changing the story entirely.)
King I would reccomend in a lot of ways and not just for horror. The guy gets typecast, yeah he does write a good deal of horror but he tells a lot of neat stories that you wouldn't find elsewhere shining examples being two of his prison stories that were made into great films (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile) and then his signature series The Dark Tower Series are a nice mashup of scifi, old school spaghetti western and a bit of fantasy all in a mesquite blend. Yes he does horror and some it is very unconventional, Christine, From a Buick 9, The Stand to name a few.
As for the Novel of A Clockwork Orange the glossary isn't so much for stuff you don't understand, it's for the language. The story uses a made up language called Nadsat which consists of Russian and English thrown together, it's meant to imply the child like nature of the characters who speak in a sort of code to each other. It more or less builds the characters but also undermines them entirely in the story telling. (Which i thought was clever, though i would in no way call it life changing. Better than the film the last chapter is the most important and the film leaves it out changing the story entirely.)