July's Reading List

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Jucifer: 'Not that bad for a sell out.' has to be the best remark on the Anderson/Herbert Dune books I've heard.

lma: Yes, in fact it was a browse through the 'literature' (the fiction that isn'tsf, fantasy, horror, mystery or thriller, apparently?) section in a local bookshop that made me realise there is a lot of non sff stuff I want to catch up on. I shall of course hold forth on the same here, as usual.

 

[Devillishgirl]

I'm currently reading Minions: Vampire Huntress Legends by L.A. Banks. So far, it's pretty good but I just started it so I don't have a full impression yet

 

[ravenus]

Reading a collection of old-school ghost/macabre stories (Hugh Walpole, Arthur Machen, Oliver Onions etc.) Most of the stories so far have been pleasant, some annoying/pedestrian enough to skip, none very brilliant thus far.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

This weekend, I also found time to read Jack Finney's 1954 novel, The Body Snatchers, spurred on by ravenus' review of the movie. It was a crisply-written, well-paced book that reminded me a lot of works by Richard Matheson and John Wyndham. It has Wyndham's sense of a familiar community being overrrun by horrific events, what Brian Aldiss called the 'cozy catastrophe', and the element of a larger comment being made about an aspect of the human condition within a pulp-sf format that I associate with Matheson's 'I Am Legend' and 'The Shrinking Man'. In this case, the novel can be seen on some level as a depiction of the increasing alienation of modern life, and a dramatisation of the horror of it all. Unlike the more recent movie version, however, the story ends on a positive note, with the ominous pod-people proving to be no match for simple human ingenuity.

Leaving all that aside, it's simply a good yarn, well told. The style is restrained and lucid, and the plot is largely tight and well-knit, apart from a couple of glitches here and there.

 

[Hypes]

I am now readin Jim Butcher's Storm Front (Dresden Files I), and am enjoying it greatly. Good tale, if a bit novice writing (debut book, however). Ordered the sequels (all five of the) from Amazon and they should arrive in a few days. Along with the first two of the much coveted Masters of Rome series.

Recently finished, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (mind twisting, but ultimately an immensely satisfying read), Patrick O'Brien's Master & Commander (though it inspired no thought, it was quite the suspenseful journey through 19th century naval warfare), Welles's War of the Worlds and The Invisible Man (though clairvoyant, quite unsatisfying - the latter an exception at points), and Conn Iggulden's Emperor: Gates of Rome (not a bad book - another debut novel, which shows).

All in all, not a bad two weeks worth of reading. Eco and O'Brien salvaged the wrecked expectations Welles left me with and the empty feeling of Emperor.

 

[littlemissattitude]

"Focault's Pendulum" is a wonderful book. I had lots of fun reading it; must do it again sometime.

Right now I'm almost finished reading a good mystery, "Shadows of Sin" by Rochelle Krich. Very much reminds me of Faye Kellerman's writing; appropriate, as it was recommended to me on the basis of my enthusiasm for Kellerman's books. So now I'm going to have to track down more of Krich's work.

Still trying to get into Moorcock's "The Skrayling Tree", but no success so far; not that it isn't starting out interestingly, but more that I'm just not in the mood for fantasy right now.

Then again, shouldn't this now be "August's Reading List"? Have to do something about that, I suppose.