Published on 12, July, 2020
What "autistic" things do you find yourselves doing? I do a lot of different things which I know a neurotypical wouldn't think twice about.
One of them is making sure everything in my house is straight, so the chairs, my books and DVDs on the shelf, pictures hanging on the wall and plenty more than that.
Recently I was doing up an MG Maestro and had noticed the offside headlight wasn't seated properly and was facing a little to the side. This bothered me so much, playing at the back of my mind until finally I went out and straightened it because I couldn't cope with it not being right.
I feel like I was actually approaching a meltdown, that's how much this sort of thing bothers me.
Am I alone in being this way?
I am like as you describe with books. If there is a breach in continuity or a character or there a grammar blooper I get thrown right out of the world of the story. Add to that the need to finish a book (whole of a space opera world's opuses) once started, even if it's horrid. although L Ron Hubbard's work was SOOO bad I burned it so's not to have to finish it.
I loved the Song of Ice and Fire books. I got really into them as a special interest (before the Game of Thrones TV show). Though I do concede all the foreshadowing and subtext went totally over my head, so I had to read multiple times.
There is one particular grammar mistake, and to be fair it's a very long series of books. But I really struggled to move past it. Eventually I managed to reconcile it in my mind with the idea that the person who was speaking at the time was stupid, and so the mistake was his, rather than the author's. But it still doesn't sit right with me, since it would be pronounced the same. And don't they have proofreaders and editors? And it's been published for decades and not corrected?
I'm the same with completing though, I feel like I have to complete a book, no matter how bad. There has only been one book I ever gave up on.
what was the book?
That was a nice way to get past the glitch. "Hodor!"
I loved GOT as well and lamented his not finishing. I also read a history of Westeros, his literary autobiography and the stories with the hedge knight.
I have actually amended a text on the page to move on once or twice. Once I was reading a library book and saw someone else had done the same thing.... say, was that you?..
Once I saw a continuity flaw in an Agatha Christie mystery, that was hard to take, at the reveal at the end I was outraged!
I read the series of which "Ender's Game" is a part of by Orson Scott Card and those were also really bad except for that one book. It was then that I knew myself to be a hopeless completest! slogging through to the dismal end.
which of his are most memorable for you. For me it would be the Mongoliad, the baroque cycel coming in a close second. He is so informative, exciting, expert pacing and character development.. Reamde was lots of fun too..
No, I never got round to reading Benford although I was aware of him. I have read most of Stephenson’s work though.
read 'em all, friend! He is a singular unique voice.
Have you ever read the Gregory Benford's "Galactic Center Saga"? It through this series I came to Iaian M Banks. and then later Neil Stephenson, Alastair Reynolds..