CP LITERATURE DRAFT - (Rapid Fire Free For All Round)

[Jagger]

Yeah, getting AKed in this draft is not really a huge deal as there is such a plethora of books out there. I'd vote for 12 hours too to speed it up and keep the interest level up too. Up to troutman though and shouldn't be done until the next round in any case.

[Jagger]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Confession: I don't know what AK'd means, and I'm scared of it.

Any time-limit is fine with me. I'm clearly a hypernerd and on this site way too much. If we only had an hour to pick I'd probably still make it.

AK = Ass Kicked

Had to laugh as an hour time limit I could manage.... in the week. A weekend is another matter.

[RatherDashing]

With the 14th overall pick in the draft, RatherDashings "24 CC's of Heart" select in the American Lit Category, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.





The Road tells the story of a father and his young son in post-apocalyptic America. McCarthy uses a very simplistic writing style consisting of basic language and a bare minimum of punctuation to paint an extremely vivid, yet bleak and depressing image of the world in which they live. Through his basic writing style, McCarthy manages to create a world that is incredibly intense and engaging.

The plot is also very minimalist, with the story never leaving the two protagonists, and very few outside characters being introduced. Additionally, the author provides very little information about the location or time in which the story takes place, or about the event which preceded the story, providing a great deal of ambiguity to the book. Despite the apparent lack of content, the author does an outstanding job of portraying and developing the two main characters.

I really enjoyed this book. I found it extremely engaging, and incredibly vivid. The simple plot line and interesting characters really sucked me into the story. Both times that I've read this book it has left me shaken due to the intense nature of the read.


Anyways, sorry I took so long with this pick, but I haven't been able to get at a computer all day. Also my image is kind of crappy, but it was the best that I could find on amazon or chapters. Can somebody point me to a better site for this?

[driveway]

Good pick! So far there hasn't been anything that I thought really didn't belong in the first round.

Possibly the Dragonlance books, but they are pretty epic.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

Anyways, sorry I took so long with this pick, but I haven't been able to get at a computer all day. Also my image is kind of crappy, but it was the best that I could find on amazon or chapters. Can somebody point me to a better site for this?

No worries, the picture is fine and the write up is very good.
And as for the time to make your pick, I doubt anyone expects you are going to sit on CP and wait for your turn. If you know your turn is coming up, check in more often, but I think we are just considering more ways so each person can pick more often than once a week.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

Anyways, sorry I took so long with this pick, but I haven't been able to get at a computer all day. Also my image is kind of crappy, but it was the best that I could find on amazon or chapters. Can somebody point me to a better site for this?

I second Bobblehead's point--and I'll add that I advocate a 12 hour rule knowing full well that I'll get burned by it if, say, my turn starts at Midnight on a Sunday night, when I'll be way too busy until around 4:00 P.M. Monday afternoon to even visit CP, let alone make a pick. I just think it'll be more fun if we can keep the draft moving, and an AK really isn't so bad given the range of choices that are out there.

As for images, librarything.com has all kinds of cover images. I found this one for The Road:


Not sure if it's any better--still pretty tiny. But the nice thing is they'll have covers for all the editions that are in print, if you like to pick and choose.

[octothorp]

Here's a higher-res version.

[JerzeeGirl]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Here's a higher-res version.

Great joke cover........lol!

[Bobblehead]

*page 2 bump*

[Ronald Pagan]

*still stewing over Crime and Punishment being taken*

[troutman]

With my first pick in the draft (in the Fantasy category, acquired from Mean Mr. Mustard), I select not one book, but TEN - THE MALAZAN BOOK OF THE FALLEN by Canadian author Steven Erikson:

STEVEN ERIKSON is an archaeologist and anthropologist and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His previous novels in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series--Gardens of the Moon, Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, and Midnight Tides--have met with widespread international acclaim and established him as a major voice in the world of fantasy fiction. He lives in Canada.


http://us.macmillan.com/deadhousegates



http://www.sfsite.com/09a/dg88.htm

Book snobs tend to look down on fantasy literature, but this series stacks up just fine vs. any literature you care to name. I have mentioned this series many times in these forums - it is excellent - complex, dark, funny. Grand themes, vast military campaigns, layers of history. It does require a certain amount of concentration from the reader, but it is pure pleasure for me to read these books. In theory, a person could start with any volume, but it is best read in order. The second book, Deadhouse Gates is stunning - you will never forget the Chain of Dogs.

"Steven Erikson afflicts me with awe. Vast in scope, almost frighteningly fecund in imagination, and rich in sympathy, his work does something that only the rarest of books can manage: it alters the reader's perceptions of reality."--Stephen R. Donaldson on Deadhouse Gates

"I stand slack-jawed in awe of The Malazan Book of the Fallen. This masterwork of imagination may be the high water mark of epic fantasy. This marathon of ambition has a depth and breadth and sense of vast reaches of inimical time unlike anything else available today. The Black Company, Zelazny's Amber, Vance's Dying Earth, and other mighty drumbeats are but foreshadowings of this dark dragon's hoard."--Glen Cook on The Malazan Book of the Fallen

“Truly epic in scope, Erikson has no peer when it comes to action and imagination, and joins the ranks of Tolkien and Donaldson in his mythic vision and perhaps then goes one better.”--SF Site


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malazan_Book_of_the_Fallen

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is an epic fantasy series written by Canadian author Steven Erikson, published in ten volumes starting with Gardens of the Moon. Eight books are available as of July 2008 and two are forthcoming. It is wide in scope and encompassing the stories of a very large cast of characters. Each book tells a different chapter in the ongoing saga of the world upon which the Malazan Empire is located. For the first five books, each volume is relatively self-contained, in that the primary conflict of each novel is resolved within that novel. However, many underlying characters and events are interwoven throughout the works of the series, binding it together. The second half of the series is much more traditionally structured with events in one novel leading into the next.

http://www.malazanempire.com/IPBforum/

[Ro]

I loved The Road! Awesome pick!

[jammies]

For my first pick, under the category of Children's Literature, jammies' Fahrenheit 451 would like to pick the duology Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.



Using absurdity and a delightful kind of logic which exactly mirrors that of children, the books skilfully exploit many of the conventions now claimed by modern fantasy, and read as well today as they did when published over 140 years ago. The heroine, Alice, undergoes a series of experiences featuring iconic characters such as the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Red Queen, and the White Rabbit, as well as my personal favorite, the Jabberwock ("the jaws that bite, the claws that catch!").

The most marvelous thing about the books is Alice herself; no matter what ridiculous situation she is put into, she copes, and copes well, accepting her madcap companions on their own terms but expressing her own opinions in a forthright yet polite way when she feels there is a need. She perfectly expresses an ideal Child: intelligent, curious, resourceful, imaginative, and sensible. She is also portrayed a person in her own right, which is a very modern concept that had little precedent at the time (Oliver Twist (1838) was the first novel in English to feature a child protaganist).

The two books have never gone out of print, and deserve the clichéd adjective "timeless" far more than many similarly designated works of adult literature. Best of all, they are also freely available on the web, being from a time before it was felt necessary to have copyrights for the convenience of corporations rather than readers.

[jammies]

Some great picks so far, btw, especially The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Crime and Punishment, and The Road. So far the only one I haven't read is The Watchmen, although in the tradition of one's high-school book reports, soon I'll be able to cheat and watch the movie...

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by jammies

Some great picks so far, btw, especially The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Crime and Punishment, and The Road. So far the only one I haven't read is The Watchmen, although in the tradition of one's high-school book reports, soon I'll be able to cheat and watch the movie...

I'd read it first. The book has so much supplemental material, so much text, such a huge collection of digressions nd oddities, there's just no way they can account for that in a movie. It would be a complete postmodern mess.

Great pick on Lewis Carroll: I won't lie--I was hoping that one would be available a little later.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I'd read it first. The book has so much supplemental material, so much text, such a huge collection of digressions nd oddities, there's just no way they can account for that in a movie. It would be a complete postmodern mess.

Well, I might, as a friend of mine is a total comics freak and would lend it to me (as long as I handled it with gloves on and used tweezers to turn the pages), but I honestly just can't get into graphic novels. I read the text and pretty well ignore the pictures, which rather defeats the purpose.

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Great pick on Lewis Carroll: I won't lie--I was hoping that one would be available a little later.

I actually have a spreadsheet with all my potential picks in it, and I saw right away that the Children's category was my weakest - just two entries - and I think the best strategy will be to keep my strengths till late so I won't be scrambling for choices in a weak category. Of course, having a spreadsheet for a "fun" draft exposes how truly nerdy I am, but at least I ain't the kind of nerd who is reading comic books!

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by jammies

Well, I might, as a friend of mine is a total comics freak and would lend it to me (as long as I handled it with gloves on and used tweezers to turn the pages), but I honestly just can't get into graphic novels. I read the text and pretty well ignore the pictures, which rather defeats the purpose.

Ha! Your friend would be horrified to see my copy--it's dog-eared, the spine is bent, the pages are creased and a few of them have been written on. It's also got more flags sticking out of it than a stack of mortgage documents.

[JerzeeGirl]

Will post my pick later this evening - just on my way out for now tho.

[Antithesis]

This may seem a bit self-serving, but I'm also wondering - if we're speeding up the pace of the picks, if we might want to look at having the people who are the next three picks able to go. That might help as well - obviously someone might 'take' someone else's pick, but like we've all said, with such a large pool of literature to choose from ...

[JerzeeGirl]

For my first pick, Team Writer's Block is thrilled to select The Wheel of Time series written by Robert Jordan in the Fantasy category. I'm thrilled that these books were still available to be chosen - I've been reading the series since it began being published in 1991. There are 11 books already published with the 12th & final due out sometime in Fall 2009 that is being written by another author based on notes, plot summaries and tapes provided by Jordan before his passing.

Jordan wrote a series that is full and complex in scope - similar in many ways to the Lord of the Rings. There is a wide cast of characters, many different plotlines and a very real world full of dark & light where evil always seems to be a step ahead of the good guys yet despite that, good always seems to pull out the unlikely triumph.

I recommend checking them out - if you like a nice long series and have some time to spend. (On the plus side, you won't have to wait for the finale like the rest of us have....)