July's Jubilant Joust At New Books

[woodsman]

Wilbur Smith - Elephant Song

 

[Ursa major]

I have just finished reading The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds. The novel is set before the events of Revelation Space (although later than some of that book’s back story). What can I say? Only that this is the best novel by Reynolds that I’ve read so far. The style is assured; the story is up and running from the first page. There is plenty of room for “shiny things” – the story is set in 10,000 habitats of the Glitter Band (places where experiments in living have, in some cases, gone to extremes) before the arrival of the melding plague – but Reynolds wisely goes into detail only where the story requires it.

The prefect of the title is a policeman; one of his tasks is to ensure that the neural voting that lies at the heart of Demarchist democracy is not subverted. One storyline looks at the attempts to repair the voting process when a flaw is found. A second thread concerns the destruction of a habitat, possibly by Ultras (the self-altering space-faring variety of future humanity); a third concerns what happened to the prefect’s wife, and to his boss, when in the past they came into conflict with a being known as the Clockmaker.

Reynolds weaves the three main threads together in a masterly fashion. The pace rarely drops and yet there is no feeling of rushing past interesting concepts. There were only one or two very minor problems as the book raced towards its finale. (I’m willing to believe I’m being picky, but Reynolds has set himself a very high standard, one he meets time and time again in this book.)

All in all, another excellent read.

 

[Pyan]

Berry and Co - Dornford Yates

 

[Orion]

Started Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett a couple days ago. Funny as hell so far.

 

[The Procrastinator]

Finished LOTR (how I love the end of that book) and onto The Physician, by Noah Gordon. Not entirely convincing historically speaking (its meant to be set just before the Norman Conquest but the protagonist is named Rob J. Cole, for one thing) but its still a good story, good characters, very readable. Certainly worth it.

 

[Lioness]

Just finished Of Mice and Men (finally!). It wasn't a very bad book, but it wasn't a very good one either. The last sentence I have to say completely ruined what little respect for it I had.

Started reading A Clash of Kings now, it's really good so far. (Which is about 3 chapters)

 

[Talysia]

I'm now moving on to Feist's A Darkness at Sethanon.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

You're really churning through those Feists Talysia! I'm reading A Darkness at Sethanon as well, it's really quite incredible in scope.

 

[D_Davis]

Elsewhere - William Peter Blatty

Finished up Elsewhere. It is great. Not particularly original, it is a pretty standard haunted house story, one that echoes a number of others, but it is written very well, and the entire thing is executed with great skill. It's short, sweet, and scary - it actually creeped me out a bit towards the end. It also has a subtle and sinister ending.

Why hasn't this guy written more? I've come to the conclusion that he is my favorite writer of dialog. The dialog he writes is massively entertaining, and it has a wonderful rhythm. It is not "realistic," but it always feels natural for the characters, the situations, and the story being told. It's like old fashion movie dialog, written in a way that makes it clear the writer and the actors enjoy delivering the lines. It is easy to imagine Blatty's characters as actors and actresses in a movie, verbally sparring with one another.

He is simply a superb writer. I hope he gets a chance to make Elsewhere into a film. I know he expressed interest in it, but seeing as how The Ninth Configuration and Legion (Exorcists III) were treated, I can't imagine he is in any hurry to go back to Hollywood.

 

[j d worthington]

D_Davis: You may also be interested in looking up a book titled William Peter Blatty on The Exorcist: From Novel to Screen, which relates what inspired him to write the book, the process of bringing it from the page to the screen, and also includes the original screenplay (not the shooting script, as there are several notable differences). It's an often witty and insightful book, and certainly of interest to anyone who notes that Blatty's writing has more depth than is usually accounted for....

 

[D_Davis]

D_Davis: You may also be interested in looking up a book titled William Peter Blatty on The Exorcist: From Novel to Screen, which relates what inspired him to write the book, the process of bringing it from the page to the screen, and also includes the original screenplay (not the shooting script, as there are several notable differences). It's an often witty and insightful book, and certainly of interest to anyone who notes that Blatty's writing has more depth than is usually accounted for....

I ordered it yesterday.

I ordered every book of Blatty's I could find on the Amazon market place.

 

[rol7805]

Just started Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep - I like it so far.
I also have a pile of non-fiction waiting to be read.

Great book! Love the concepts he puts in there. He comes up with some unique concepts for aliens.

I've been tearing throw the Dresden Files. It's candy, but hey, I like candy! I'm finally switching to Varley's Titan for a change of pace.

 

[Durandal]

I've been reading Niven's Ringworld novels. I had read the first one as a kid, but never read any of the sequels before now.

I've finished a re-read of the original Ringworld and the first sequel, The Ringworld Engineers, both of which were great, and am about to move on into The Ringworld Throne, which I'm led to believe is crap.

 

[gully_foyle]

Suspended reading Ken Macleod's Stone Canal, boring.

Currently reading Asimov's The Naked Sun.

 

[Grimward]

You're really churning through those Feists Talysia! I'm reading A Darkness at Sethanon as well, it's really quite incredible in scope.

I thought so too, HJ, and found it to be a great rebound from Silverthorn, which was merely good.

I am finishing up re-reads of Wurts' Grand Conspiracy and The Hobbit, although the latter is to my children at bedtime, so will likely finish Wurts first. Finally, I am into my second trip thru The Letters of JRR Tolkien, because you have to be on your toes to hang with Pyan and Marky in the Tolkien Trivia game!

Looming on the horizon are Donaldson's Fatal Revenant and Terry Brooks' The Elves of Cintra

 

[j d worthington]

Behind here, too, it would seem. I finished Wuthering Heights last week, though with all that's going on, it took me several days more than it would normally, which made the novel a bit attenuated; this is one that should be read pretty much at at most a couple of goes.... Nonetheless, I'm still mightily impressed, and given that this was her first and only novel.....

Have also read Hive, by Tim Curran. Mixed feelings on this one. Curran shows he can create a genuine atmosphere of eerieness, dread, and cosmic abnormality, and has the potential to handle Lovecraftian themes exceptionally well... and yet a great deal of this book turns into more of an adventure story pitting the protagonist(s) against Lovecraft's Old Ones (who are by no means the same as they were in the Old Gent's novel... at least, that would be my take on it) and, despite a pretty constant barrage of lip-service to the minute insignificance of humanity in the cosmos and even in the view of the Old Ones... somehow humanity ends up smack-dab in the most important role in the whole damn' thing.

I also get more than a little tired of the overuse of profanity, vulgarisms, sexual references, etc.; I'm not at all averse to them being used within reason, or in proper proportion, but here they simply are too thick, and become annoying as a dull, nagging toothache. They don't really add to character development past a certain point, and simply become repetitive and... well, boring. Which is a pity, as there are also some absolutely wonderful passages of writing throughout the novel, as well.

Overall, an entertaining little read, especially if you're looking for more of a horror-suspense with adventure; but as true Lovecraftian cosmic horror, I'm afraid this one never realizes the genuine potential with which it begins....

Have now begun reading (or rereading) Timo Airaksinen's The Philosophy of H. P. Lovecraft: The Route to Horror. I have strong reservations about some aspects of this book, but there are also some very good things about it, as well; and it is indeed a challenging book in many ways....

 

[Pyan]

Blind Corner - Dornford Yates...

 

[Tansy]

Read Butcher's Fool Moon and Grave Peril last night, eal entertaining reads, back to Last Dragon now as I need to know what it is all about

 

[Hypnos164]

Finished Karl Schroeder's Permenance - It was OKish - neither of the viewpoint characters had much depth but the setting and some of the ideas were interesting.

Reviews seem to indicate that this, his 2nd book, is well short of his regular standard ... anyone read enough of his stuff to have an opinion?

I could see liking his style with more interesting characters and a "tighter" plot.

 

[Marky Lazer]

I've plunged into the next HP on the list: the order of the phoenix.