Previously: “The 25 most popular icebreaker questions based on four years of data”
Currently: The Only List of Icebreaker Questions You’ll Ever Need (Not all of which will be used, since some are either/or questions, which are boring.)
Your mission: answer the question in the comments with a good story.
If you don’t have a good story, you are encouraged to make one up.
What book/movie have you read/seen recently that you would recommend?
Well, I’ve been reading a lot of Victor Hugo recently, and the man writes some magnificently spectacular passages that can convey the fullness of a given situation in a way that makes you feel it to your toes. No one writes like him.
Which is a good thing, because the parts that aren’t magnificent are an agonizing slog through a fetid swamp of 18th century French pop-culture and political references that are so obscure that even Google can’t shed light on them.
On balance, it’s worth it, if you can learn how to skim.
Also, Frank’s “Sidequest: In Realms Ungoogled“. I’m about 1/4 the way through so far, and I love the way it portrays an ordinary person’s reaction to the supernatural. Makes me think of Stephen King, if King were a humorist, instead of a ghoul.
Victor Hugo — “No one writes like him.”
Granted, but perhaps Dickens writes better.
Context and current cultural references are moot. Dickens writes about human beings who are recognizable in any culture, any year, any social stratum, any situation, any clique. Context don’t matter. Love him.
Because I’m ‘umble.
Dickens writes well, but his plots and characters are dismissal and depressing.
Hugo usually throws in some sunshine, even if his endings are bleak
No!
Redeemed Scrooge is depressing?
Only the “set-ups” are depressing. To add realism. To shock the bourgeouisie.
Fagin is bad, to show Oliver is good.
Even damn Bleak House turns out to be, physically, a house of gaity and of redemption.
It’s impossible to name one of his books where good doesn’t triumph and evil isn’t vanquished. That’s not depressing.
And Oliver wins.
Oliver didn’t win soon enough. I deeply regret reading that book. Too much suffering to wallow through for too little happiness.
Also, didn’t Great Expectations end on a downer?
Have you tried Jules Verne?
I’ve been watching the newish TV show “Salvation” since its debut last summer. It’s a summer filler; it’s hard(ish) science-fiction; it’s an action thriller with some romance. Grad student finds out that an asteroid is going to hit the Earth in 186 days; it’s a big asteroid; we’re all going to die—unless something can be done. He also falls in love with a cute, smart blond writer, and he gets hired by an eccentric billionaire inventor.
The President is poisoned by someone working for the Vice President. There is an international hacker conspiracy. The Russians are up to something. Plus more romantic entanglements. The first plan to divert the asteroid doesn’t work because it’s denser than originally assumed.
That’s the highlights from last season.
Hang onto your hats, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
I’m almost done with SideQuest.
I’m reading “Uncharted” by Sarah A. Hoyt and Kevin J. Anderson. The subtitle is Lewis and Clark in arcane America.
I’m also reading one by Janet Evanovich, “Dangerous Minds.” It’s a fun mystery, an easy read, and no f-bombs so far (unlike Plum stuff).
Oops; bit of crude humor even if she doesn’t cross the f-bomb line.