Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Please pardon this brief rant:

Is there a robot, cymek, thinking machine, space ship, or menacing pile of dog shit that isn't bristled or bristling with weapons or sensors or peanuts?

I'm in the second half of The Battle of Corrin and have found just cause for surgically removing the words from my vernacular FOREVER.

If someone has access to ebooks for the legends series, can you quickly search "bristl" (to cover bristle, bristled, bristling) to get an official count of how many times this shit is repeated over and over and over plz?

There are other lame and overused nouns / adjectives in the series, but my brain is currently recovering from some kind of white-noise quasi-coma. Maybe that's what's wrong with Wandra (Abulurds mom / Quentin's wife).

Thanks for a space to vent...

Upon recovery, I'll say fewer words on how much I hate myself for seeing this trainwreck to its conclusion. Most likely due to the fact that I am apparently masochistic and have some subconscous urge to commit intellectual suicide.

aethereon wrote:....

Upon recovery, I'll say fewer words on how much I hate myself for seeing this trainwreck to its conclusion. Most likely due to the fact that I am apparently masochistic and have some subconscous urge to commit intellectual suicide.

I'm sorry but that just struck me as funny kindof. Thanks for a nice laugh to start off my day well. After you finish your self imposed punishment try to revive your intellect and re-read Dune.

Grepped with "(bristle|bristled|bristling) with" and got 20 hits for 9 books. "bristling" is also used attributively ("bristling warships"). And there's the "bristleback boar" which is spelled "bristle back" in one book, so that adds to the total, too.

Not as bad, all in all, as "independent robot", which occurs 95 times in 5 books and 1 short story, 29 of them in BoC.

When you consider the sheer amount of verbiage involved, these offending words and phrases aren't that large a percentage of the total, but it's the hamfisted way they're used that makes them stick in your mind.

Note that the repetition of set epithets ("rosy-fingered Dawn", "many-wiled Odysseus") is one characteristic of oral narratives. It served as a mnemonic tool, like metered verse, for (real) ancient storytellers. For modern hacks, it's just another way of padding out them long outlines into a full book.

aethereon wrote:Please pardon this brief rant:

Is there a robot, cymek, thinking machine, space ship, or menacing pile of dog shit that isn't bristled or bristling with weapons or sensors or peanuts?

I'm in the second half of The Battle of Corrin and have found just cause for surgically removing the words from my vernacular FOREVER.

If someone has access to ebooks for the legends series, can you quickly search "bristl" (to cover bristle, bristled, bristling) to get an official count of how many times this shit is repeated over and over and over plz?

There are other lame and overused nouns / adjectives in the series, but my brain is currently recovering from some kind of white-noise quasi-coma. Maybe that's what's wrong with Wandra (Abulurds mom / Quentin's wife).

Thanks for a space to vent...

Upon recovery, I'll say fewer words on how much I hate myself for seeing this trainwreck to its conclusion. Most likely due to the fact that I am apparently masochistic and have some subconscous urge to commit intellectual suicide.

Six times: bristling = 4 and bristled = 2 in Battle of Corrin

His instruments picked up a blockade of orbiters in place, primarily to stop ships from escaping. They bristled with weapons, threatening but silent.

Its several limbs bristled with weapons, swiveling to get a good shot at the pair of humans.

Even after months of facing off against the imposing robotic war fleet that maintained its bristling defensive posture, Abulurd did not feel the tedium in the way that some of the younger soldiers did.

But as the dead robotic hulks piled up in space, more and more of the bristling Omnius ships pressed forward into the logjam.

The mechanical warrior was ominous, bristling with weapons and spined armor.

Most of the bristling machine fleet remained locked just inside the scrambler perimeter, while some of the vessels descended to take on large loads of unwilling passengers.

I think it's just the cliched nature of the phrase that got your hackles up ...

you're reading the book as a hostile witness, so the dumbness rubs you a little rawer;
if you were a slobbering fanboy, you'd be mouth-breathing too hard to really notice ....

I always enjoy providing smiles.

*** adds "hackles" to the shitlist.

Thanks guys.

oh ohhh... coma recovery immanent... still white noise....

"like"

something "like a..." looked "like a..."

what about "as a..." or "the form of..." or "appeared influenced by..."

Everything is "like" something. I can say with PERFECT clarity of memory that "like" is the rule with these books.

Now THAT gets you the mother lode; "(like a|like the)" gets 2,016 notes in 15 files.

aethereon wrote:oh ohhh... coma recovery immanent... still white noise....

"like"

something "like a..." looked "like a..."

what about "as a..." or "the form of..." or "appeared influenced by..."

Everything is "like" something. I can say with PERFECT clarity of memory that "like" is the rule with these books.

That's like so true
Overused and comes across as very amateurish.
That particular nasty little habit should have been dropped by the time they graduated from school.
(Paraphrasing but one of the more memorable "likens" went something like..."the needle point hull sliced through space like...")

Comes across as very teenage girlish... not always a bad thing... but it is in this case.

I'm all, like, OMG!

Is this the passage?

Some asshat in a book called The Machine Crusade wrote: The combat robots swiveled and marched off with thudding footsteps toward razor-sharp craft that could slice through space at high speed. The automated military vessels roared away, spilling smoke into the crimson-stained sky. Their geometric silhouettes crossed the swollen orb of the red giant, like birds of prey as they shot into space.

Gawd that's bad.

SandChigger wrote:Is this the passage?

Some asshat in a book called The Machine Crusade wrote: The combat robots swiveled and marched off with thudding footsteps toward razor-sharp craft that could slice through space at high speed. The automated military vessels roared away, spilling smoke into the crimson-stained sky. Their geometric silhouettes crossed the swollen orb of the red giant, like birds of prey as they shot into space.

Gawd that's bad.

Yes, the "razor-sharp craft" that "slices" through "space."
Star challenged indeed!

They still haven't posted anything about the Star Challengers website or anything new about the books being available.

And the people at the Challenger Center haven't responded to my last email. I figure they're "good friends" with the woman behind it all.

SandChigger wrote:Is this the passage?

Some asshat in a book called The Machine Crusade wrote: The combat robots swiveled and marched off with thudding footsteps toward razor-sharp craft that could slice through space at high speed. The automated military vessels roared away, spilling smoke into the crimson-stained sky. Their geometric silhouettes crossed the swollen orb of the red giant, like birds of prey as they shot into space.

Gawd that's bad.

Awful.

Pencil-Dick wrote:His instruments picked up a blockade of orbiters in place, primarily to stop ships from escaping.

Well, yes ... that would be what a blockade does. By definition.

Worst. Writer. Ever. I mean that quite literally.

the isolating, closing off, or surrounding of a place, as a port, harbor, or city, by hostile ships or troops to prevent entrance or exit.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blockade" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I realize that this is gnit-picky - but "gods below" or "vermillion hells" (how many time is that shit repeated over and over in KJA's books?) "gods below" must be used no lest than 50 times in "winds" and "vermillion hells" nye shy of twenty *- a purseless wager.

Where I come from, repetetition is a necessary device in only the most explicit plot-worthy circumstances. No brain-washing required - just no forgetting.

*

*

*


*edit* removed incorrect character/book refs, and pointless statements.

TheDukester wrote:

Pencil-Dick wrote:His instruments picked up a blockade of orbiters in place, primarily to stop ships from escaping.

Well, yes ... that would be what a blockade does. By definition.

Worst. Writer. Ever. I mean that quite literally.

Or, is he the best author ever for a dumbshit audience with a 2nd grade reading level?

There's no way in hell that people like Conway and arnoldo know that's what a blockade is.

yes they do it's that thing that stops the blood flow to their brain every now and then!

Blockade? Ain't that some kind of summer drink?

"Vermilion Hells" comes up only 22 times. Adding another L gets you another 12.

"Gods below" gets 14. (FH used it 22 times in his six books.)

aethereon wrote:Please pardon this brief rant:

Is there a robot, cymek, thinking machine, space ship, or menacing pile of dog shit that isn't bristled or bristling with weapons or sensors or peanuts?

I'm in the second half of The Battle of Corrin and have found just cause for surgically removing the words from my vernacular FOREVER.

If someone has access to ebooks for the legends series, can you quickly search "bristl" (to cover bristle, bristled, bristling) to get an official count of how many times this shit is repeated over and over and over plz?

There are other lame and overused nouns / adjectives in the series, but my brain is currently recovering from some kind of white-noise quasi-coma. Maybe that's what's wrong with Wandra (Abulurds mom / Quentin's wife).

Thanks for a space to vent...

Upon recovery, I'll say fewer words on how much I hate myself for seeing this trainwreck to its conclusion. Most likely due to the fact that I am apparently masochistic and have some subconscous urge to commit intellectual suicide.

What? You expect KJA to read a Thesaurus while dictahiking his "flawless" prose? KJA don't need no steeenkin' Thesaurus!!!

"Vermilion Hells" comes up only 22 times. Adding another L gets you another 12.

that's the funniest thing I've ever read on this forum ...

I'm not kidding .... Post of the Year doesn't seem honor enough ....

SandRider wrote:

"Vermilion Hells" comes up only 22 times. Adding another L gets you another 12.

that's the funniest thing I've ever read on this forum ...

I'm not kidding .... Post of the Year doesn't seem honor enough ....

That would be a great post over at DN or something to tweet and re-tweet a number of times.

SandChigger wrote:Note that the repetition of set epithets ("rosy-fingered Dawn", "many-wiled Odysseus") is one characteristic of oral narratives. It served as a mnemonic tool, like metered verse, for (real) ancient storytellers. For modern hacks, it's just another way of padding out them long outlines into a full book.

Careful, KJA might consider it flattering that he was mentioned in one paragraph with (and implicitly compared to, albeit not positively) Homer (no, not Simpson). After all, his style of writing could be called "oral storytelling"...

SandChigger wrote:Is this the passage?

Some asshat in a book called The Machine Crusade wrote: The combat robots swiveled and marched off with thudding footsteps toward razor-sharp craft that could slice through space at high speed. The automated military vessels roared away, spilling smoke into the crimson-stained sky. Their geometric silhouettes crossed the swollen orb of the red giant, like birds of prey as they shot into space.

Gawd that's bad.

Ouch! It's like he's trying to cram as many adjectives and generally epithets ("the swollen orb of the red giant", eew! ) into each sentence as possible. Ugly stuff.

TheDukester wrote:

Pencil-Dick wrote:His instruments picked up a blockade of orbiters in place, primarily to stop ships from escaping.

Well, yes ... that would be what a blockade does. By definition.

Worst. Writer. Ever. I mean that quite literally.

Reminded me of this character from The Good Soldier Švejk:

Wikipedia wrote:Colonel Friedrich Kraus von Zillergut
An idiotic Austrian officer with a penchant for giving his colleagues long-winded, moronic explanations of everyday objects (such as thermometers and postage stamps) and situations; run over by a cart while attempting to demonstrate what a pavement is.

MrFlibble wrote:Careful, KJA might consider it flattering that he was mentioned in one paragraph with (and implicitly compared to, albeit not positively) Homer (no, not Simpson). After all, his style of writing could be called "oral storytelling"...

Actually, my good Flibble, I think I'm just repeating a comparison that KJA himself has made. Several times. I'm pretty sure he has specifically mentioned Homer in connection with his own "writing" method, as part of his justification for styling himself a "storyteller". I'll look for some quotes later...

Also, while I imagine that Pesty and whichever other amorphous bloated fanboy was mentioned above would have recognized "blockade", I have no doubts that that explanation was provided for the real YA readers of the things, who might not have known the word.

Reminded me of this character from The Good Soldier Švejk:

Wikipedia wrote:Colonel Friedrich Kraus von Zillergut
An idiotic Austrian officer with a penchant for giving his colleagues long-winded, moronic explanations of everyday objects (such as thermometers and postage stamps) and situations; run over by a cart while attempting to demonstrate what a pavement is.

NICE!

Keep praying for that bear-shaped meteor!