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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Sept 22, 2022 18:14:58 GMT
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Post by politicidal on Sept 22, 2022 19:51:40 GMT
Lately, some spy-caper stuff by Christopher Reich.
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luffy
New Member
@luffy
Posts: 20
Likes: 15
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Post by luffy on Sept 23, 2022 11:21:04 GMT
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Post by Zos on Sept 24, 2022 11:17:34 GMT
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Post by theravenking on Sept 24, 2022 16:14:53 GMT
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Post by Raimo47 on Sept 24, 2022 18:42:51 GMT
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Post by moviebuffbrad on Sept 27, 2022 2:10:20 GMT
Clash of Kings by George RR Martin.
Also Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon.
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Post by Nalkarj on Oct 7, 2022 14:47:15 GMT
Reread: The Scarlet Letters (1953), by “Ellery Queen” (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee). I remembered this underrated Ellery Queen as one of the best in the series. And, despite a few nitpicks, I still think it is. I’ve written here before that I want to love Ellery Queen but just can’t. The books simply have too many flaws, viz., yes, Greek Coffin Mystery’s solution is brilliant as a piece of reasoning, but the writing is painful; yes, Calamity Town is well written and characterized, and even moving, but it has an irritatingly obvious mystery plot; yes, The Finishing Stroke has a great setup and moves well, but the solution is so unrelated to everything else that you’ll want to throw the book across the room. Those are just three books at random; I could apply the same criticisms to more. But The Scarlet Letters is nicely written and plotted, for the most part—despite (or because of?) being restrained and small-scale by Queen’s standards. The mystery for much of the book is why a nice husband suddenly believes that his wife is having an affair—and if the wife is actually having an affair. But Queen’s pacing is good: Ellery the character keeps learning new things, unexpected twists and turns. The New York City atmosphere, one of my favorite elements in Queen’s (and earlier mystery writer S.S. Van Dine’s) books, is fun. And the solution—well, it’s not breathtakingly surprising, not Agatha Christie’s Roger Ackroyd or John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, but it feels inevitable, that the book is building up to this and only this. That alone makes it superior to the solutions of The Finishing Stroke and The Origin of Evil. The solution has strong similarities to that in Double, Double (1950), but this one’s better, though I suspect most readers will vaguely guess where Queen’s going. (I’m beginning to suspect that the Queen cousins, for all their technical expertise at puzzle plotting, weren’t that gifted at misdirection.) Nitpick time: The villain’s scheme depends on something—let’s call it a legal point—that Queen takes for granted readers will believe, or even agree with. I could say that this is “1950s morality” and chalk it off as that, but I’m unsure that this something would fly in 1953 (or, for that matter, 1943 or 1933). Problem is, without that something the whole scheme falls apart. Now, to be sure, this is not as damaging as some things in other books that Queen expects readers to believe, but still. And this is a real nitpick, but… Ellery’s explanations drive me crazy. He’s always lecturing (from the earliest books on) to judges, police commissioners, doctors, etc.—who hang on his every word like it’s from the mouth of God. I don’t know why the Queen cousins felt the need to do that, to make other characters dumbstruck by Ellery’s genius, but it always irritates me in these books. Still, Scarlet Letters is one of the best Queens. It’s just a fun, good, short mystery. But my favorite Ellery Queens will probably always remain the short stories, where the authors keep their worst traits in check. Even if I still’m chomping at the bit to adapt Ten Days’ Wonder as a movie.
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Post by gspdude on Oct 8, 2022 12:28:33 GMT
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Post by DanaShelbyChancey on Oct 8, 2022 14:28:32 GMT
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soggy
Sophomore
@soggy
Posts: 720
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Post by soggy on Oct 8, 2022 16:49:01 GMT
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luffy
New Member
@luffy
Posts: 20
Likes: 15
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Post by luffy on Oct 9, 2022 8:32:22 GMT
Reread: The Scarlet Letters (1953), by “Ellery Queen” (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee). I remembered this underrated Ellery Queen as one of the best in the series. And, despite a few nitpicks, I still think it is. I’ve written before here that I want to love Ellery Queen but just can’t. The books simply have too many flaws, viz., yes, Greek Coffin Mystery’s solution is brilliant as a piece of reasoning, but the writing is painful; yes, Calamity Town is well written and characterized, and even moving, but it has an irritatingly obvious mystery plot; yes, The Finishing Stroke has a great setup and moves well, but the solution is so unrelated to everything else that you’ll want to throw the book across the room. Those are just three books at random; I could apply the same criticisms to more. But The Scarlet Letters is nicely written and plotted, for the most part—despite (or because of?) being restrained and small-scale by Queen’s standards. The mystery for much of the book is why a nice husband suddenly believes that his wife is having an affair—and if the wife is actually having an affair. But Queen’s pacing is good: Ellery the character keeps learning new things, unexpected twists and turns. The New York City atmosphere, one of my favorite elements in Queen’s (and earlier mystery writer S.S. Van Dine’s) books, is fun. And the solution—well, it’s not breathtakingly surprising, not Agatha Christie’s Roger Ackroyd or John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins, but it feels inevitable, that the book is building up to this and only this. That alone makes it superior to the solutions of The Finishing Stroke and The Origin of Evil. The solution has strong similarities to that in Double, Double (1950), but this one’s better, though I suspect most readers will vaguely guess where Queen’s going. (I’m beginning to suspect that the Queen cousins, for all their technical expertise at puzzle plotting, weren’t that gifted at misdirection.) Nitpick time: The villain’s scheme depends on something—let’s call it a legal point—that Queen takes for granted readers will believe, or even agree with. I could say that this is “1950s morality” and chalk it off as that, but I’m unsure that this something would fly in 1953 (or, for that matter, 1943 or 1933). Problem is, without that something the whole scheme falls apart. Now, to be sure, this is not as damaging as some things in other books that Queen expects readers to believe, but still. And this is a real nitpick, but… Ellery’s explanations drive me crazy. He’s always lecturing (from the earliest books on) to judges, police commissioners, doctors, etc.—who hang on his every word like it’s from the mouth of God. I don’t know why the Queen cousins felt the need to do that, to make other characters dumbstruck by Ellery’s genius, but it always irritates me in these books. Still, Scarlet Letters is one of the best Queens. It’s just a fun, good, short mystery. But my favorite Ellery Queens will probably always remain the short stories, where the authors keep their worst traits in check. Even if I still’m chomping at the bit to adapt Ten Days’ Wonder as a movie. Glad too see someone mention Greek Coffin Mystery. What do you think of Egyptian Cross Mystery?
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Post by ghostintheshell on Oct 10, 2022 15:11:45 GMT
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Post by Nalkarj on Oct 10, 2022 15:22:30 GMT
Reread: The Scarlet Letters (1953), by “Ellery Queen” (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee). Glad too see someone mention Greek Coffin Mystery. What do you think of Egyptian Cross Mystery? I liked Egyptian Cross more than Greek Coffin, but if I’m remembering correctly it gets too bogged down in red herrings. And the central plot gimmick seemed kinda obvious (more evidence for my theory that Dannay and Lee weren’t great at misdirection). But I remember that it was more readable than Greek Coffin. My favorites of Dannay and Lee’s Ellery Queen books are The Lamp of God (novella), Calamity Town (but not for the mystery), The Scarlet Letters, and Cat of Many Tails (which I have to reread). I loved Ten Days’ Wonder on first reading but found it too far-fetched on a reread, though—again—I oh so want to adapt it into a film. I also liked the first two of Dannay and Lee’s Barnaby Ross books, The Tragedy of X and The Tragedy of Y. The first is reminiscent of Greek Coffin in its focus on the puzzle at the expense of all else, but I found its puzzle more intriguing and the writing slightly better. Its solution is also one of those “AHA, OF COURSE!” mystery surprises that so many EQ books (including, for all its fame, Greek Coffin) lack. The Tragedy of Y I think is great. It’s got the fairy-tale atmosphere that the cousins were often going for, and while the murderer’s identity is not that hard to guess, the plot is complex, and one clue is astoundingly audacious (it worked for me, but it doesn’t for some people). The writing has also improved since Tragedy of X. The other two Barnaby Ross books have some good, even great, things— Drury Lane’s Last Case has a clue almost as audacious as that one in Tragedy of Y—but they don’t hang together, and the Patience Thumm character (“Ellery Queen in drag,” as Francis M. Nevins rightfully described her) is terrible.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
@Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2022 22:27:24 GMT
The Silmarilion By JRRR Tolkien
Sure beats watching that fan fiction on Azamon
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Post by theravenking on Oct 11, 2022 11:21:03 GMT
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Post by lostinlimbo on Oct 16, 2022 6:10:18 GMT
The Stake by Richard Laymon.
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Post by theravenking on Oct 16, 2022 12:27:21 GMT
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Oct 16, 2022 15:49:44 GMT
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Post by Zos on Oct 17, 2022 8:55:37 GMT
For the 5th or so time, one of my favourites, just got a signed first edition.
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