UK Roleplayers Book of the Month - March

[queenortart]

lacks for two things: bosoms and swords.

And Hair Daggers

I'm just getting started and I want hair daggers!

[queenortart]

Reading this on the Kindle is almost but not quite awesome. The dictionary lets you look things up, but so far all but one word that I wanted to check the meaning on has not been in the dictionary.

[Pete]

The Musketeers are coming across as a trio of boorish tits this time round. The villains in TTM are so much more sympathetic than the Musketeers, who exhibit a staggering sense of entitlement that doesn't seem at all deserved.

Milady for teh winzors. She's cruel, but understandably so. It also helps that she is just so darn hot.

[Evilgaz]

Does the read get any easier? His verbose cheese-eating surrender monkey style is like wading through treacle. If it doesn't get more pleasurable to read soon, I'm off to more thrilling novels, or some cold, hard factual stuff like Homicide: Year on the Killing Streets or Sahib: The British Soldier in India.

[dpmcalister]

I'm finding it tortuous wading through the text as well which is a shame as I really wanted to enjoy reading this.

[w00hoo]

I'm finding it tortuous wading through the text as well which is a shame as I really wanted to enjoy reading this.

Indeed, it retains the same level of treacle all the way through, I re-iterate was he paid by the word like Dickens?

I'm glad to hear you are reading it though, as I was cursing the concept that you might not be. What with it being you that suggested it and everything!

I've just passed Chapter 47 and the breakfast on the bastion was good, but largely all it's doing is reminding me of the film with the good bits and reminding me why I rarely read any of the classics with the rest.

In the next book club round I will be including a page count, and possible a couple of quotes (the back of the book description?) to give people a better idea of what they are voting for

Oh, and for QoT, 47 chapters in and no hair daggers so far. I know she was worried that she would get to the hair daggers early as it's all that's keeping her reading it!

[Pete]

I'm enjoying The Three Musketeers. I've read it a couple of times before, and the language doesn't feel flowery at all... in fact, it fair cracks along.

Dumas sometimes writes in the style of an RPer who says "I hit it with my axe". His bon mots are slight but fun when they pop up, and he often neglects to colour in enough of the scene surroundings when he is cracking on with the action and talking. I do like it though, even if The Count of Monte Cristo is an altogether better offering.

I think that TTM was written for a magazine, so the medium requires a fair pace. Mmm, here's what Wikipedia has to say on the matter, but it doesn't go into any detail about the format of the serial. Perhaps one chapter a day?

The Three Musketeers was first published in serial form in the newspaper Le Siècle between March and July 1844.

Perhaps it is an acquired taste. In any case, if anyone is finding it tough going, bung the book.

I'd like to think that the UKRP Book Club is an activity of this community to introduce texts to each other that we wouldn't otherwise have sought out. So long as folk read at least a little, and form enough of an opinion to be able to say what they did or didn't like, that's plenty enough cool beans. I certainly wouldn't carry on reading something that I wasn't digging.

Forex, I cannot abide the pablum that is modern fantasy. I've tried - George Martin, China Mieville, Jim Butcher, Charles Stross - but the books are invariably juvenile dross that I toss after the first few chapters. I loved fantasy as a kid, but I can't stand the stuff now. Given the genre-leanings of this community, it's highly likely that a forthcoming suggestion for the Book Club will be a fantasy novel of some sort. I will certainly give the suggested book a go, and hey, I might like it so I'll carry on and thank y'all for suggesting a gem. More likely I'll bin it, but giving things a fair whack and being part of the community is an important aspect of the Book Club for me.

Hehe, I hope I haven't poisoned the well against fantasy book suggestions. Please, suggest away, I'm all ears

Cheers
Pete

[Pete]

Oh, I'll be done and dusted with our dear Gascon and his boorish mates by the end of the week.

When do suggestions for the next round start?

[w00hoo]

Oh, I'll be done and dusted with our dear Gascon and his boorish mates by the end of the week.

When do suggestions for the next round start?

I'd considered suggesting that we alternate with the film club you're organising...

Do a book every other month and vote in the intervening period.

Read in March
Talk about it in April, watch a film, vote on May.
Read in May
Talk about it in June, watch a film, vote on July

rinse and repeat.

I too will most likely be finished with it tonight as I have an hour or so sat around while the boy does his guitar lesson, being the designated taxi driver...

[w00hoo]

OK, finished, I can read other stuff now (I'd avoided having two books on the go in case I never came back to it...)

Having now read the introduction, I didn't want to read it first in case it coloured things and then the first paragraph says 'read the book first, then come back to the introduction' so that proved sensible , I do know that he was paid by the word.

Oh, and for those that care

Spoiler: show

There are no hair daggers.

[Kaiserjez]

I have to be utterly honest, I didn't read it. I read Girl, Interrupted instead.

You may mock if you wish.

So you didn't read a book that you don't have to read anyway because there's already a film version of it, to read a book that you don't have to read anyway because there's a film version of it.

I don't know why you reading types are bothering with half of these books!

[w00hoo]

So you didn't read a book that you don't have to read anyway because there's already a film version of it, to read a book that you don't have to read anyway because there's a film version of it.

I don't know why you reading types are bothering with half of these books!

Well, nobody said you couldn't suggest a comic for the next one...

[queenortart]

OK, finished, I can read other stuff now (I'd avoided having two books on the go in case I never came back to it...)

Having now read the introduction, I didn't want to read it first in case it coloured things and then the first paragraph says 'read the book first, then come back to the introduction' so that proved sensible , I do know that he was paid by the word.

Oh, and for those that care

Spoiler: show

There are no hair daggers.

I am so bored with this and if the spoiler is true (And I have no reason to think it isn't) then my raison d'etre has spontaneously combusted. I am at Chapter 14, and have read about 8 other books whilst in South Africa because I couldn't bring myself to open this again. I did drag myself through 3 chapters last night

[Pete]

Yo sisters!

I am so bored with this and if the spoiler is true (And I have no reason to think it isn't) then my raison d'etre has spontaneously combusted.

I can confirm that w00hoo was spot on with the spoiler. No hair daggers for you

It sounds like the folk that are going to read The Three Musketeers (TTM) - either to completion, or enough to know that they ain't of a mind to finish - are done, so let's call an end to this first round of the book club. (Unless someone that ain't chimed in to this thread is beavering away with the adventures of the furious Gascon and his boorish mates.)

Pete's One Liner Thought: I liked TTM; it's a quality, fast-paced read if you're in the mood for lighter fare. 3 out of 5 pistoles.

What's up next? Currently I am reading Eunoia, a book of poetry that I picked up quite by chance while haunting a boho bookshop in Oxford. I ain't recommending it... perhaps some genre fare would go down better with the tastes of the majority of this board? That said, I guess one of the many thrusts of a book club is to at least try stuff that you wouldn't try usually, and only a few folk stepped up for TTM.

Cheers
Pete

[Kaiserjez]

That said, I guess one of the many thrusts of a book club is to at least try stuff that you wouldn't try usually, and only a few folk stepped up for TTM.

I did watch the film (the old one with Oliver Reed in it) when that was on TV and found it remarkably dull. If they couldn't even translate any excitement to the silver screen then I reckon the book wasn't going to hold any for me either.