Oktoberbookfest

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Jayaprakash Satyamurthy

Knivesout no more
Joined
Nov 11, 2003
Messages
4,043
Location
Bangalore, India
What are you reading this October?

I wound up poring through a couple of Horror anthologies over the weekend: The Taste of Fear (ed: Hugh Lamb) and The Far Reaches of Fear (ed: Ramsey Campbell).

While The Taste of Fear had some excellent classic weird tales and ghost stories by the likes of William Hope Hodgson, Frederic Cowles and AC Benson, the real stand-out was Roger Parkes' clinical, chilling Interim Report. Disturbed twins who talk in their sleep, reiterating the filth and violence they watch on tv, a distraught mother, superstition, failed excorcism and a suitably gruesome end.

The other stories were pretty strong too, but as a large number of them seemed to be ghost stories (although my favourite sort of ghost stories - you know, those tidy, brooding late-Victorian sort of tales, usually written by headmasters at Eton and suchlike) this one stood out by contrast - even though ghostly posession is hinted at, it's never confirmed and the real horror in the story remains gloriously mixed.

The Campbell anthology was very strong' kicking off with Brian Lumley's harrowing and ultimately traumatic The Viaduct, and ending with Fritz Leiber's sensual, chilling Dark Wings. Standouts along the way include the magnificicently creepy Wood by Robert Aickman, David Drake's The Hunting Ground and Manly Wade Wellman's The Petey Car.

And after that I plunged right into Tim Powers' Last Call. An urban fantasy, it throws Las Vegas, gambling, the tarot deck, Bugsy Siegel and the legend of the Fisher king into a heady mix.

Also reading A Game of Thrones and a couple of other things.
 
the only thing on my list for sure is the book club book. appart from that, i'm gonna wing it
 
Well when I get home tonight hopefully my latest Amazon order will have arrived and I can work out new and diverse ways of deciding which I should read first, the choices are A Game of Thrones; Talon of the Silver Hawk; The Forging of the Sword and the King Beyond the Gate.

Although ultimately its really only a choice between Marks book and the Book Club book.

Also I can’t read any of them too fast as I’ve had to promise my boyfriend I wouldn't buy anymore books until after Christmas which is very unfair!!:confused:
 
thats mean, like when my kids hide my books away, so that i have to watch the Simpsons with them
 
It's odd how unpredictable the course of my reading can be. Last week, I;d started on Martin's Game of Thrones, and fully intended to concentrate on that, along with David Brin's Sundiver. Instead, I find myself completely caught up in Tim Powers' Last Call, and dipping into favourite passages from Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance in between.

Anyway, I should finish Last Call tonight, so I expect to return to Martin and Brin by the weekend.
 
I'm reading Riding The Unicorn by Paul Kearney. Not read any of his books before and so far find it pretty good, gritty and realistic :)
 
Ah, I finished Last Call. I've already posted about it on my blog, so I shall take the liberty of quoting myself:

Who'd think you could mix up Bugsy Siegel, Las Vegas, gambling, the Tarot deck, the Fisher King, Elliot's The Wasteland and Jungian archetypes and create a coherent story out of all this? Tim Powers evidently did, and the fantasy genre is richer for the notion.

Last Call has it all - engaging characters, a rich cast and well described setting, an exciting plot that builds up to a satisfying climax and most of all lots and lots of very cool conceits. You almost feel that Powers could have crammed in twice as many neat ideas if he'd wanted to - right in the Epilogue, a member of the Amino Acids, a failed contending party for the post of the new King, quickly explains the meaning and purpose of his own group - the name derives from Amon, and the 20-member all-male group, equating with the 20 amino acids sought to embody the DNA of the psychic pool as represented by the Major Arcana (20 cards, if you discard the Moon and the Lovers) and create an immaculately conceived Fisher King. That would have been a great hook for a story in itself, but is just one of the many side-stories we encounter in Last Call.

This book doesn't have the gnarled, weighty gravitas of some of the new fantasy revisionists. It's tautly written, with flashes of poetry, but essentially presents itself as a great yarn, a satisfying adventure story with mythic overtones.
 
Ah, JP, you have a wonderful way with words. I already have Tim Powers on my 'to read' list but I may have to begin with Last Call as it sounds fun.

I'm currently reading the sequel to 'The Thirteenth Scroll' by Rebecca Neason, called 'The Truest Power'. I've no idea why I picked this one up since I haven't read 'The Thirteenth Scroll', but so far it is quite enjoyable. It is epic fantasy on a smaller scale, with magic, prophesy, an unknown to become Queen, a power-mad bishop...many of the basics for this type of story. It has some unique elements though and I'm finding them to be the draw. With our main library closed and the other branches too far to visit frequently, I've a limited choice for reading material and I suppose I figured this one would be better than nothing, even though I hadn't read the first book. Generally, I don't like doing that as then I can't really go back and read the first because it has been spoiled for me. However, a book addict has to do what a book addict has to do :D .

I believe I'll stop by this county's library (which is extremely tiny) to see if they have anything I might have missed the last time I was there - I work in a different county from that in which I live and the branch I'm speaking of is on the way home. Maybe they'll have 'The Scar', though I doubt it. Worth a look though :) .
 
Well, I've only read Last of the Amazons (Steven Pressfield) so far in October, and I started that in September ;) Now reading Richard Morgan's "Broken Angels", and will probably read another of his next, or maybe Mieville's "Iron Council" if I get that job in Ottakar's and get a discount ;) (£18 is a ridiculous price to pay for a book, no matter how good it is)
 
Well bah! The tiny library held nothing good (that I haven't already borrowed and enjoyed). They had books two and three of A Song of Ice and Fire but not book one. No China Mieville at all. None of the authors on my to read list. I perused the shelves and ended up getting a couple of mysteries by authors I've liked before. Looks like another book club discussion I'll miss out on :mad: .

The only really interesting thing about this library is that it is in the heart of the area that has been heavily populated by Brits (there's even a billboard advertising homes especially for people who have travelled here from overseas!). Which means that they have an impressive collection of British published books (which makes the familiar ones look a little odd for me :) ). Apparently other people follow my policy of handing over books to the library for others to enjoy as well. Good stuff!
 
Caladan, I'd love to hear a bit more about the Pressfield novel. I've read Gates of Fire, his book about the battle of Thermopylae - which was brilliant, very grimy and realistic without undermining the essential heroism of that battle - and I've been wondering how this compares.
 
made good with the library today, just started a book called SALT, will let you know if its any good.
 
Salt by Adam Roberts, was totally absorbing. fantastic. Now I'm trying A cavern of Black Ice by J V Jones :)
 
Am preparing myself once more to do battle against Skylark Three. I shall first conquer Smith, then Le Guin, and then more Mieville if I can find Perdido Street Station (blasted library had it listed and then said it was'nt available for hire. The double-speaking monkey-togglers).
 
Princess Ivy - I'm glad to hear someone's reading Adam Roberts. He's something of a personal favourite, but I find a lot of people find him opaque and inaccesible, if not downright dumb. Personally, I think he's one of the cleverest sf writers around, and a great prose stylist to boot.


I finished David Brin's Sundiver over the weekend - a great sf adventure, lots of fun and lots of ideas. I also read Johnathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across The Table - a beautifully concieved and written speculative romance. Now I'm carrying on with A Game of Thrones as well as Poul Anderson's classic, Brain Wave.
 
waiting for my amazon order with the song of fire and ice books in it.
BTW, i've a bone to pick with the book club. Why did a book get chosen from an incomplete sereis *Ivy taps foot in annoyance*. If it is good, i'll have to wait till the fourth is published *taps foot some more*, i am not a patient person!
 
Princess Ivy said:
waiting for my amazon order with the song of fire and ice books in it.
BTW, i've a bone to pick with the book club. Why did a book get chosen from an incomplete sereis *Ivy taps foot in annoyance*. If it is good, i'll have to wait till the fourth is published *taps foot some more*, i am not a patient person!
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Ha! Join the not-so-patiently-waiting club. There are so many books I'm waiting for, I've gone past it. Now I just try to find new authors or other new stuff to keep me busy while I wait.
 
I just finished The First Truth by Dawn Cook last night. It was good but the ending was so abrupt and obvious that you're waiting for the sequel that it drove me nuts. Grrrrrrrrrrrr I'm not very patient. I've just started I am of Irelaunde by Juilene Osborne-McKnight and its just as good as the other book of hers that I have read. Can't wait to finish it.
 
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