September's Indulgences...

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Well, I just finished David Michell's Cloud Atlas. A very good read, and I need a little time to mull it over before saying more. Currently reading: The Year of Our War by Steph Swainston and Harvest of Stars by Poul Anderson.

 

[polymorphikos]

Tarnsman of Gor is really rather dull. I am sixty pages in, but determined to finish it to see if it gets better, and to write a nasty review if it doesn't.

 

[Silk]

I’ve nearly finished Robin Hobbs, The Ship of Destiny and next on my shelf is the latest from Juliet E. McKenna.



I really loved her first series, The Tales of Einarinn, but found her next series a little hard to get into at first; but now I’m hooked again and can’t wait to get stuck into Northern Storm

 

[Princess Ivy]

Finaly
My copy of The Scar has arrived!
Was reading till four this morning!!!
I am a fanatical reader and once started, must finish as quickly as possible so that I can start again!!!
Luckily I'm off tonight

 

[-apocalypsis-]

Just finished Dune by Frank Herbert and loved it.

Reading The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent.

 

[Rane Longfox]

Ivy - The Scar is a very good book. If you've read PSS, its like that, slightly better, and not quite so claustrophobic



Just finished reading "Incompetence" by Rob Grant, which was very good, and starting "Gridlinked" by Neal Asher, who's writing I am a great fan of.

Hoping to soon buy Iain M. Banks' "The Algebraist", Mieville's "Iron Council" and R. Scott Bakker's sequel to "The Darkness that comes before", though I can't honestly remember what it's called...

 

[Devillishgirl]

I've just read three books in the last day and a half.....the names don't come to mind so they obviously weren't worth getting excited over but some good fluff reading which is exactly what I was in the mood for. Right now I'm on the last book of The Last Rune series by Mark Anthony, "The Last Stone". So far, so good.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Re: Holy Blood, Holy Grail: a very entertaining read, but the pinch of salt is mandatory. The 'Priory of Sion' that the authors make much of was in fact started by Pierre Plantard and a friend initially as a lark. Plantard himself is a dodgier character than the book suggests: a known hard-Righter and anti-Semite among other things. There are other errors and misattributions, but still an interesting book.

I'm nost sure why, but I've derailed my ongoing reading for some relatively trad fantasy fare: Carol Berg's sequel to Transformation, Revelation, and JV Jones' The Baker's Boy. Good fun.

 

[littlemissattitude]

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail" is a fun book. Not to be taken any more seriously than "The Da Vinci Code", IMO. Oh, wait...much of "Da Vinci" was lifted straight from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". Anyway, that was the impression I got when I read "Da Vinci".

However, I do have to admit to having read "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" twice. It's fun to try to figure out where fact ends and speculation or fabulation begins. Sort of like reading a mystery, I guess.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

True. I think one of the first things I mentioned on this forum was my love for crank or fringe literature - something I went off for a while, but am rediscovering. Have you read Charles Fort's The Book of The Damned? Fort was the god of cranks, the metacrank, so knowingly cranky he actually makes sense. Actually, he was something of a campaigner against rigidity in modern science, and offered his far out specualtions (in the midst of exhaustive catalogues of anomalous incidents) purely as jolts to the mind.

 

[littlemissattitude]

Never have read "The Book of the Damned", but I've read some about Fort, and I've seen a few copies of "The Fortean Times". This sort of stuff is fun for me, too. It's great, because if you're feeling open to things, you can just let your imagination run wild. But if you're feeling skeptical, you've got lots of things to play with, too.

I actually cut my teeth on this sort of fringe stuff with books on UFOs starting when I was about ten years old; moved on to von Daniken and his alien astronauts in junior high, and I've been enjoying this sort of thing ever since.

And I do think that there is a value to fringe literature. It hones critical thinking skills, but it also carries a message that it's best not to be completely skeptical all the time. Because you never know. And because modern science can be a bit too rigid for its own good at times.

 

[polymorphikos]

The Scar is cool. Very cool. I feel chilly and damp just reading it.

 

[-apocalypsis-]

"Holy Blood, Holy Grail" is a fun book. Not to be taken any more seriously than "The Da Vinci Code", IMO. Oh, wait...much of "Da Vinci" was lifted straight from "Holy Blood, Holy Grail". Anyway, that was the impression I got when I read "Da Vinci".

Yeah, I'm reading this before I'm reading The Da Vinci Code and Da Vinci Code Decoded by Martin Lunn. Seems the order to do it...

 

[-apocalypsis-]

Finished The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent.


Reading Maigret in Society by Georges Simenon.

 

[littlemissattitude]

"The Scar" is great, but I'm finding it very slow going. My fault, I guess. I read a couple of pages, and then I find that I'm sitting there thinking about what I've read instead of reading more. I'll get through it eventually, but maybe not in time to actually discuss it intelligently before it's time for next month's book.

I did finally finish reading "Sleeping With The Devil".

 

[Maryjane]

I actually cut my teeth on this sort of fringe stuff with books on UFOs starting when I was about ten years old; moved on to von Daniken and his alien astronauts in junior high, and I've been enjoying this sort of thing ever since.

That sounds familiar.

Modern science is to ridged, yes because theories have to be proven before they become fact but Einstein himself said, imagination goes infinitly farther then knowledge and fact and imagination has also brought some of the brightest of minds to discovery and invention. Imaginnation has no bounds
Another of Einsteins sayings was the infinite potentialeties. And now they are talking about a universal theory of everything through the medium of cosmic strings. So go ahead and dream and imagine and the next time something goes bump in the dark it may be the aliens coming for you

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

One of my favourite fringe books was one that expounded the hollow earth theory. Probably the least credible of the lot, but what fun! I felt like revisiting some of this stuff, so Ipicked up The Messianic Legacy (the sequel to Holy Blood) and Graham Hancock's FIngerprints of the Gods ove the weekend at a second hand store.

Simenon's Maigret stories are always a good read. Possibly my favourite fictional detective.

I finished JV Jones' The Baker's Boy over the weekend. I've related my impressions in the appropriate thread.

 

[littlemissattitude]

One of my favourite fringe books was one that expounded the hollow earth theory. Probably the least credible of the lot, but what fun! I felt like revisiting some of this stuff, so Ipicked up The Messianic Legacy (the sequel to Holy Blood) and Graham Hancock's FIngerprints of the Gods ove the weekend at a second hand store.

I used to own a fascinating book about the hollow earth theory. Can't remember the name, and it disappeared from my collection long ago. It was quite silly. I've got "Fingerprints of the Gods", and it is also interesting. However, from what I understand, Hancock has already disavowed some of his information and conclusions in it. Don't know which ones, just heard something vague about it on a fringy radio program I listen to sometimes late at night when I can't go to sleep.

When it comes to Hancock's books, I actually liked "The Sign and The Seal", about the Ark of the Covenant a lot. Going to have to read that again, in light of recent discussions about Moses and history. I think I know where I put my copy...have to dig it out, I guess.

 

[Maryjane]

The hollow Earth theory, I first came in contact with that idea I think when I was still a kid, the original book was called Journy To the center of the Earth. Forgot who the auther was, to many years ago. They made a couple of movies of that afterwards. The movies were no where as interesting as the book.

 

[-apocalypsis-]

Simenon's Maigret stories are always a good read. Possibly my favourite fictional detective.

Yeah, Maigret is great, though my favourite detective is probably Sherlock Homes. Nostalgia and all that...

The hollow Earth theory, I first came in contact with that idea I think when I was still a kid, the original book was called Journy To the center of the Earth. Forgot who the auther was, to many years ago. They made a couple of movies of that afterwards. The movies were no where as interesting as the book.

Probably Jules Verne.