February's Feast of Fantastical Fiction and Fact...

Status
Not open for further replies.
Im gonna spend most of my weekend with Washington Irving in my new The Complete Tales of Washington Irving.
 
Finished Lord Valentine's Castle yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a great, fun read. Just what I was looking for at this particular time!! I will definately be continuing on in the series. (Thanks again Gollum for posting up the other books in the series. :))
 
Finally finished Gardens of the Moon. Very good! I can't help but feel I missed a lot though. So now I'm going to read about it on the net!
 
Fried Egg said:
I am currently reading R.E.Howard's novella, "Skull Face". My initial thoughts is that Howard seemed to have confused smoking opium with hashish. It makes me wonder if he had every smoked hashish himself?
Click to expand...

Not to my knowledge. Drinking, he apparently did a fair amount of, but I don't believe he ever tried anything more "exotic" than that. And "Skull-Face", of course, is deeply indebted to Sax Rohmer's famed Dr. Fu Manchu....

As for my own reading: I have finally had a chance to finish off some books I'd begun a few weeks ago: Studies in Pessimism (a selection from the works of Arthur Schopenhauer -- actually quite enjoyable, though the section titled "On Women" would likely have him burnt at the stake these days:rolleyes:); the second volume in Julian Hawthorne's Lock and Key Library -- entertaining and interesting... not quite what I was looking for, but I did enjoy the variety of tales; and Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book -- which I found utterly charming (it's been far too long since I sat down and read a good collection of fairy tales!)

I am currently doing a reread of Moorcock's The Dragon in the Sword, as well.....
 
Oboy.....to make maters short, ive read the complete "More ghost stories of an antiquary" (expect a review of that, right after I do the review on "The lost stradivarius" which I promised last week), "Lazarus" by Leonid Andrejev/Andreyev (expect a reviw of his "The red laugh" soon to), which by the way if you didnt read, I advise you to run out and do THIS INSTANT, along with "The red laugh", and then I read Bernard Capes' short "The thing in the forrest", which was quite good, as Capes mostly is. Also, ive started J.Sheridan Le Fanu's "Green Tea", because I was able to (garp!) find a local, translated version of "In a glass darkly" in BOOK FORM (HALLELUJAH!) .Though why did they publish it in a children's books series and why do they advise "readers from twelve up" to read it is beyond moi.How am I suposed to get eleven other people to read a book with me?
 
Yes, I picked up on that too...very clever Loblover...:)

Yeh!..DHG rocks but wait 'til you read MOI......AWESOME!
 
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

Good enough story,magic system to keep reading.
 
I'm still slugging my way through Erikson's Malazan series. This weekend I finished Memories of Ice which was excellent of course, and at the moment I'm a two hundred pages into House of Chains. The enormous scale of the story continues to amaze me. It must take a heck of a lot of work to keep all the characters and their connections within the storyline in sync.
 
Rothgar said:
I'm still slugging my way through Erikson's Malazan series. This weekend I finished Memories of Ice which was excellent of course, and at the moment I'm a two hundred pages into House of Chains. The enormous scale of the story continues to amaze me. It must take a heck of a lot of work to keep all the characters and their connections within the storyline in sync.
Click to expand...
Yep, he reportedly had his entire work/study room full of charts, maps, diagrams etc...on Malazan stuck to all the walls during this process. I beleive he's also got/had a truckload of other notes in his garage etc...Second only to Tolkien in the depth of World Building that I've come across anyhow...
 
Currently reading 2 books...don't ask me why, seemed like a good idea at the time perhaps?....

Heralded as the seminal Spanish novel of the 21st Century and Roberto Bolano's apparent masterpiece (near-completed on his deathbed in '04 and only now translated into English) based on the actual still unsolved disappearance of hundreds of women near a border town in Mexico including a cast of quirky characters called 2666. Anyway, we shall see....

AND

Argentinian author Julio Cortazar's Final Exam 1950 novel about a strange fog that envelopes a surreal kafkaresque Beunos Aries on a night spent wandering by 2 students and their friends and enemies?....instead of perparing for an all important Final Exam. It was written during the reign of Peron and his famuos/infamous? wife Evita and includes a commentary subtext on the social texture of those days and apparent visionary symbolic portending of the death of Evita in '52. Fasdcinating struff so far. For those who may not know Cortazar, he is best known for his brilliant book Hopscotch which can be read in a linear fashion or read in out-of-sequence chapters much like a game of Hopscotch is played w.r.t numbering. His other well known book is Blow Up and Other Stories.

So, do yourself a favour and check out some of these Sourth American authors of the '40s to present day, they're often quite brilliant, especially those in the magic realist stable IMO.

Cheers...:)
 
Last edited:
Finished with Carl Sagan's Dragons of Eden, his speculations on the origin of human intelligence and how the brain works. Pretty interesting, mainly in his descriptions of the various experiments carried out to study the nature of compartmentalization of the brain's functions (Left side = analytical, verbal; right side = intuitive, tactile etc.).

The last 100 pages of this short book, however, are a load of rubbish generalization and Sagan's agenda for "Science is the savior of humanity and love your fellowman and don't kill your fetuses yada"
 
Well, I started and finished Deluge by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. I have to say it was pretty terrible. I quite enjoyed the original Petaybee trilogy, but the Twins of Petaybee trilogy is not as good. I did enjoy the first two books in the Twins stories, but this one just seemed like they put no effort whatsoever into it.

I have now started on a book I have been wanting to read but have been unable to find, The Fall of Atlantis by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
 
Armor by John Steakley. I loved part one. Part two has been a struggle. I feel deceived.
 
murphy said:
How have you been deceived? It's been so long since I read that and have been waiting for more. He is working on Armor 2.
Click to expand...

To find that it suddenly switches stories less than 100 pages in. They do have some connection, but it took another hundred to figure that out. I'm still liking it. I'm planning on finishing it tonight.

Thanks for the info. Apparently he's had some health problems, but is back at a convention in Dallas this weekend.
 
Spade said:
To find that it suddenly switches stories less than 100 pages in. They do have some connection, but it took another hundred to figure that out. I'm still liking it. I'm planning on finishing it tonight.

Thanks for the info. Apparently he's had some health problems, but is back at a convention in Dallas this weekend.
Click to expand...

The ending is a real cliff hanger. That's the reason I've been waiting for more.
 
A Christian Turn'd Turk by Robert Daborne and, for a bit of fun reading (because I'm that cool) some essays about my favourite character, Iago.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
GOLLUM February's Fastidious Foraging For Fabulous Fiction Book Discussion 67
GOLLUM February's Febrile Focus For Finding Fulfilling Fiction Book Discussion 215
GOLLUM February's Fabulous Feast Of Fully Formidable Fiction Book Discussion 197
GOLLUM February's Fortuitous Following Of Fabulous Fiction Book Discussion 189
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy February's Fantastic Folios and Fascinating Fables Book Discussion 325

Similar threads


Back
Top