Nick LeBlanc > Recent Status Updates

Serious Clive Barker vibes. So far loved ATLAS and MAW.

Plot: Conan escorts a powerful witch and her sexy apprentice to see their coke dealer in the desert.

I do not log DNFs. But I just wanted to note that I've given this one the college try and will most likely be putting this down when I reach page 100. I picked it up because CK has a genuinely great history of writing. Too bad this is a mostly a tepid impersonation of literary southern gothic. I would not have picked it up if his name hadn't been on it. I am not disgusted, this is not horrible. I just cant care.

A pervading vagueness which feels less like atmosphere building than non-commitment. Not sure about this one, guys...I'll see it through.

Section III of Chapter Two contains maybe the best and most poetic description of the scientific explanation for a hurricane that I have ever read.

I don't know, something about the weather and the, oh I don't know, current sociopolitical environment or something made me crave a pulpy story abut Nazis getting blasted into smithereens by Communists. This delivers in spades.

Finished Book 2. Without doing any additional research, I’m wondering how much GRRM pulled from this for his Targaeryans (sic). It almost reads like an imagined ancient history of those peoples.

Just finished Book 1 of 3. Moorcock isn't the greatest writer, but the story and characters are compelling. I had no idea how much GRRM curbed from this for the story of the Targaryens.

Just finished Book 1. This is a pretty nasty little book. Never read Koontz before. I picked this up as a fan of Tobe Hooper. Really an interesting artifact and a wild example of the relationship between screenplays/films/novellas.

So far it seems to be a nonfiction book about the horrors of growing up in post industrial New England.

Pretty compulsively readable. I don’t really care about or have patience for the Patti Smiths or the other scene politic clinger-ons but the first hand stories from Television, Stooges, Ramones, etc are all pretty fantastic.

I had no idea how much JK Rowling tonally cribbed from this, it's honesty shocking.

Book 4 was bad too, and annoying. Seems we’re sliding into a wet fart of an ending. Maybe it’s genetic. Also, my theory about a fix-up novel was almost certainly correct. I would wager on it.

First book was pretty good, sets an interesting plot in motion, solid character development. Second book goes on far too long but edited down it would have been a fun pulp novel. Third book was kind of bad, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. It’s kind of a pity because the plot is cool but generally the dialogue is extremely fucking bad and corny. Though sunken cost fallacy has me seeing this one through.

So far, this book is feeling like a stitch-up novel. A big, unwieldy doorstop of a stitch-up.

The limited first person POV results in a lot more telling than showing which can be a bit annoying to get through sometimes. BUT, the world building and the structure of the narrative are exceedingly well done.

This type of fantasy works best when you have long uninterrupted stretches in which you can dive into a book and read. Unfortunately, I have not been granted this luxury recently, though I am still working my way through the book--slower than I'd like.

Book 2 is BAD. Like, makes me want to throw the paperback in the trash type bad.

Just finished Chapters 41-50. This section has taught me that this ten chapter chunk approach was the wrong way to do this. 354 fucking pages for 10 chapters and some of the worst writing and most nothing plotting yet. I look forward to writing my reflection on this section and taking a large steaming dump on it. Do you believe that happy crappy?

Posting schedule for my marathon of The Stand is a little behind my progress, but the next section goes live on 10/1. Check it out here: https://open.substack.com/pub/nickdle...

The next part of my read-along series just dropped: https://nickdleblanc.substack.com/p/a...

Parts two and three in this ongoing series will be coming out in the next week: https://nickdleblanc.substack.com/p/a...

My impression of the first ten chapters available to read here: https://nickdleblanc.substack.com/p/a...

Finished first ten chapters. Going to post first impressions on my substack in a couple of days!

Updated ranking:
Herbert
Lumley
Kneale
Cave
Budrys
Morrell
Davidson
Vance
Chetwynd-Hanes

Halfway through the stories--eight down (including preface), eight to go--but a third of the way through the book. Ranked so far by author:

Herbert
Lumley
Kneale
Cave
Morrell
Davidson
Vance

Mostly done with this one, been taking a break for a while to get some space and re-engage. The last essay was starting to feel a little samey to me.

Just finished Technomythology. Was my least favorite of LD’s work in the pamphlet version. Still remains so here. While there are some great analogies made and some interesting points drawn from the work of others, I am generally not interested in the grander question as to whether or not this is a “simulation.” I could go on about why, but I’ll spare you the diatribe.

Time & Timelessness is a fantastic essay, extremely well-written and thought provoking. It takes some big brained concepts and breaks them down into digestible bits in an interesting and deceptively complex way. I do wish that the concept of light was addressed a bit though, I always find discussions of time tend to ignore that factor--for some reason.