GeekNights Thursday - Watership Down

MrPeriod

Tonight on GeekNights, we finally talk about Watership Down now that Scott has read it (it only took him eight months)! It's a fine book worthy of the wide praise it continues to receive. In the news, Nebraska begins a possible turn of the tide as it becomes the first conservative US state since the early 70s to ban the death penalty, and FIFA is beginning to get what it deserves. If you're thinking of seeing Manhattanhenge in person: don't. Just look at these photos instead.

• Anaheim's Shame
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Rym

Well, despite us talking about how they're only going after FIFA but not congress, it looks like we just went after congress too.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/05/28/feds-indict-former-speaker-house-dennis-hastert-on-bank-related-charges/

Banta

I think the chances of Monte Cristo, or a similar novel, being chosen next has gone up by 100%.

Rym

Banta said:

I think the chances of Monte Cristo, or a similar novel, being chosen next has gone up by 100%.

Daikun

MrPeriod said:

Anaheim's Shame

My dad actually took me to that game.

I feel bad for Disney. The Mighty Ducks were a great fictional movie team, but oh boy, their real life counterparts SUCKED.

Banta

On the death penalty thing, unfortunately some states might follow Utah's example and bring back the firing squad. I expect Texas might be one of them.

I hope they don't, and if they do that it gets killed by referendum, but I'm not that optimistic.

Rym

I'd be happier with the firing squad than any other method of execution used by the United States.

Ursidae

Just gotta say - I enjoy the bike anecdotes. I was quite happy with all the podcasts that start with "So I was biking."

I feel like this will be a hard challenge for Rym to endure.

Rym

Ursidae said:

Just gotta say - I enjoy the bike anecdotes. I was quite happy with all the podcasts that start with "So I was biking."

I feel like this will be a hard challenge for Rym to endure.

Today...

I might have to make a separate show just for this.

Rym's Rants? Youtube show?

Ursidae

I'd listen to it!

Ikatono

Rym said:

Ursidae said:

Just gotta say - I enjoy the bike anecdotes. I was quite happy with all the podcasts that start with "So I was biking."

I feel like this will be a hard challenge for Rym to endure.

Today...

I might have to make a separate show just for this.

Rym's Rants? Youtube show?

I spend so much time listening to podcasts everyday that if you recording yourself reading the phone book I actually might listen.

Dazzle369

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Idiot-UK-Drivers-Exposed/143233165824638?fref=nf

BasheerGhouse

If I remember correctly, the FIFA investigation began shortly after the US lost our bid for the 2022 to pretty blatant Qatari bribes. It's not confirmed, but me and my friends have been joking about Bill Clinton being super pissed about it and starting the investigation as a result.

In all likelyhood someone got pissed about US banks being used for money laundering.

EDIT: Oh god you picked the WOT you dumb bastards.

DOUBLE EDIT: OK, I'm going to finish listening to the podcast before editing this again but man this is going to be pretty much exactly as miserable as you think it is.

Ikatono

I remember John Hodgman talked about the WoT series on an episode of JJHO. I don't remember exactly what his opinion was but I think it was overall positive.

ThatGent

My best memory of it was several chunks of pages dedicated to people complaining about the weather.

ninjarabbi

If I had any confidence in our justice system, I might be for the death penalty. Not in a "fuck 'em, they deserve it" sort of way I suspect some people from those states feel. Prison and the death penalty aren't supposed to be, or at least shouldn't be punishments. They're supposed to be for the safety of the people. Someone does bad thing, lock them up so they can't do the bad thing. Hopefully they are rehabilitated and no longer do the bad thing when they leave. If that was how It actually worked, I could see the death penalty being necessary for the extreme cases where rehabilitation isn't possible, and we're just spending thousands of dollars to keep someone who eats babies alive. Except it costs way more house a death row inmate, often for many years, so we just end up having spent even more money. And there's always the possibility that they didn't do it.

AaronC

I do enjoy listening to your book review a lot more than listening to you announcing what book is up next for 8 months.

UncleUlty

It's me. I'm the big WoT fan. I know there are haters, and they gonna hate; I've heard it all.

I suspect you guys will enjoy it as long as you go into it with the expectation that it isn't going to be another Prince of Nothing. While it may be long, it moves quickly. It's a fun adventure fantasy with a large cast of characters, and he wrote the first book to purposely have the same kind of feel as the Fellowship of the Ring.

Unfortunately the early books don't have as much of the high-level politics and scheming that I suspect Rym is hoping for, but also a lot of the criticisms that people have about the books don't really become prominent until later on in the series either. The series really doesn't find it's unique voice until the 2nd and 3rd books, so it's hard to pass judgement on the series as a whole based just on the first one. But obviously I'm not suggesting that you read more than one 700 page book for a book club.

Regarding the misogyny comment, Jordan uses the various cultures in the world to explore the different kinds of relationships that men and women have with each other, and without getting too deep into it, the role of women in this series is much different than in most other genre fiction out there. A lot of words have been written about this on the internet. But again, much of it doesn't come into play in the first book.

I could say a lot more on this topic, but I'll save it for the eventual discussion thread 8 months from now. But I will note that I've had a lot of friends to whom I've said, "Here, check out this book," and handed them book 1 with no expectations, and everyone I've lent it to has been invested enough to see the series through. I am slightly concerned that your preconceived notions will color your experience, but I think you'll enjoy it more than you expect.

sK0pe

I can't remember if this is the episode in which you pronounce Qatar as "cutter"? lolwat, I almost fell over laughing while hanging out the laundry.

ninjarabbi

I've always pronounced it like "kuh-tar" but a lot of places seem to say its a lot more like "cutter."

Apreche

sK0pe said:

I can't remember if this is the episode in which you pronounce Qatar as "cutter"? lolwat, I almost fell over laughing while hanging out the laundry.

I always said it "kuh-tar", but I've recently heard real news anchors and academics saying "cutter," and so now I am going to Google it.





https://www.quora.com/Arabic-language/Qatar-Is-it-kah-tarr-cutter-or-gutter

Cutter is correct.

Dubyaz

I read a few WoT books and at some point I got so out of place during the reading of them that it felt like waking from a dream. So I stopped. I decided if I ever read them again I was going to need notes... More notes than there they provide in the foot notes that are 50%+ of a page.

Skarmory

So this was the first Book Club book I actually read before listening to the podcast. You got me to read Stasiland and The Player of Games because listening to the spoilers got me interested enough to read them.

Watership Down was pretty great. The oddest praise I have to give for it is that it feels "realistic." I know talking rabbits aren't realistic, but Adams wrote them in a very scientifically accurate way that got me pretty invested. Thanks for picking this book.

I probably won't "read" Wheel of Time. But I might listen to the audiobook at double speed.

If you're looking for more books to read on a future book club, I would like to recommend my favorite book: A Short Stay in Hell. It'll take you less than three hours to read, but it's got a lot of interesting ideas to think about.

Luke Burrage

I read many of Adam's other animal books, including two about squirrels. They were all just re-hashes of Watership Down, and really not worth it.

Apreche

Luke Burrage said:

I read many of Adam's other animal books, including two about squirrels. They were all just re-hashes of Watership Down, and really not worth it.

I did not know that existed.

Rym

Luke Burrage said:

I read many of Adam's other animal books, including two about squirrels. They were all just re-hashes of Watership Down, and really not worth it.

Emily similarly warned me.

Had she not, I would have started reading them all so much did I enjoy the first.

sK0pe

Apreche said:

sK0pe said:

I can't remember if this is the episode in which you pronounce Qatar as "cutter"? lolwat, I almost fell over laughing while hanging out the laundry.

I always said it "kuh-tar", but I've recently heard real news anchors and academics saying "cutter," and so now I am going to Google it.

Cutter is correct.

I have a few Arabic friends I guess and the Hindi alphabet has closer approximations to the letters. The second (heavier) G is what I replace the "Qa" with and I replace the "Ta" with the second (heavier) TH and add a half R.

Man it's super hard to approximate languages with different base alphabets.

Anyway I just hadn't heard someone say "cutter" in an American accent to approximate the pronunciation.

The lady in the second video is pretty correction. Most of the Australian news readers mispronounce it the opposite way.

okeefe

I have an irrational love of the Wheel of Time, probably because I've been reading it for more than half my life. That said, the setting is rich and very suited for Burning Wheel play, which is kind of a dream of mine to play.

Punt Rocket

Please please please Scott, change your book club pick. I read the WoT series in high school and never bothered to finish the series out. It has just enough interesting parts where you want to keep reading, but then you realize you just read 100 pages of nothing.

Also, it's not much of a book club if you can barely review one book a year.

InvaderREN

Ursidae said:

Just gotta say - I enjoy the bike anecdotes. I was quite happy with all the podcasts that start with "So I was biking."

I feel like this will be a hard challenge for Rym to endure.

Ikatono

InvaderREN said:

Ursidae said:

Just gotta say - I enjoy the bike anecdotes. I was quite happy with all the podcasts that start with "So I was biking."

I feel like this will be a hard challenge for Rym to endure.