April's Fools and what they're reading.

[ravenus]

Just finished Don Quixote and I will rponounce it a very good read on the whole, although, I suppose because of yesteryears' authors' tendencies to write long-running serials to keep the home-fires burning, the narrative is often stretched out/padded with repetitions and insertion of boring romance episodes where the lead characters are mere bystanders.

Sancho Panza is one of the coolest and most hilarious characters of literature.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

yesteryears' authors' tendencies to write long-running serials to keep the home-fires burning

Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.

 

[Leto]

Finish Nancy Kress' Probability Space. Good book, nice teen portrait (especially when Amanda stay in the monastery), but the end is a quite rushed.

 

[ravenus]

Now reading Haruki Murakami's Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which is rather bizarre, as the title suggests The grammatical style is very odd, though nothing I can pin down, and I guess its possible that this is due to the translation from the Japanese. Makes it rather poetic though, and its a very good read so far

Odd? Never felt that when I read it. Would it perhaps be that since it tells a very fantastic tell using very casual language, you feel a it bit odd?

 

[Rane Longfox]

Like I said, I couldn't really pin down what was odd about it, but I guess what you say could well be correct.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

About three-quarters of the way through Cast a Bright Shadow, in which it is very easy to tell what is odd about that one -- seeing as it comprises practically everything.

It's easily the most fantastic of all Tanith Lee's fantasies that I've read, and she seems to be throwing in bizarre characters and incidents simply for the joy of inventing them. I'm impressed, if occasionally bewildered.

 

[Leto]

Finally finished the Skinner by Neal Asher, was quite disappointed by the repetitions in it. After the first dozen, we finally got it that Hoopers' flesh regrow and that Prador don't have healthy relationship between parent and children... get to the point ! I woud have been more interested to read more about the Hive spirit, the Guardian and the indigeneous creatures of Spatterjay (other than fishes and crustaceans).

Currently, started Last wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. It's a fantasy collection of short stories revolving around a character : the Warlock who's an appointed magical killer, specialised in monsters eradictations. So far, you meet several people of fairy tales in a twisted way as the Beauty and the Beast or Snow White. A really good one which should pleace those who like either Morcook or Jack Vance tale's.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

I'm reading 334 by Thomas M Disch, a dystopian novel set in 21st century New York. It's pretty good so far, and seems to have been eerily prescient about the tone of these times, if not the specifics. Definitely something you;'d like if you've liked John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.

Also browsing through the horrific gorgeousness of Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror.

 

[Leto]

I'll have a look at the Thomas Dish then.

 

[dwndrgn]

I'm reading Sean Russell's The Isle of Battle at the moment. Other than the uniqueness of the plotlines, there isn't much to recommend this book to anyone. It is a tad shallow.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I liked The Isle of Battle quite a bit. What I didn't like was that the very interesting (at least to me) situation set up at the very beginning of the book was not given enough attention through the rest of the book.

 

[ravenus]

Polished off the last few stories from The Giant Book of Zombies (ed. Stephen Jones)...some nice stuff by Christopher Fowler, Michael Smith, Robert Bloch among others.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I am an idiot. What I said before about The Isle of Battle, I was thinking about the first book in that series, The One Kingdom. Some days, I should not be allowed near a keyboard.

 

[dwndrgn]

I should never be allowed near a keyboard

I did find that situation very interesting - and while it is hinted at throughout the book and the next, we don't get a whole lot more information. One of the few really intriguing things about Isle of Battle is that two of the characters from that first little vignette are placed in interesting situations. I'm not finished with the book yet (about a third through) and while I did say that it was shallow, it has it's interesting points. What will happen with those two is one of the things I'm looking forward to finding out. Hopefully the author doesn't leave us hanging.

Next up for me I think will be the second Thursday Next book by Fforde. I'm way down the waiting list for both Chainfire (Goodkind) and Sanctuary (Lackey) so I'll probably be finishing Rats and Gargoyles (Gentle) after Isle of Battle. I'm stalled on that one as I'm so confused and depressed...so far it isn't terribly uplifting and I'm disappointed that the reader hasn't been given enough information regarding the Tree Priests and the Invisible College folks. I'm also terribly perplexed about the University of Crime. And what was all that about hanging a pig in the first chapter?

 

[Leto]

Started a chronological anthology of Robert Silverberg's short stories. All of them presented and commented by their author, 50 to 30 years later. Most interesting, even if I already own several of thems.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've just started reading Letters From a Lost Uncle, by Mervyn Peake -- which is to say, I've almost finished it. (It's a very short book.)

 

[ravenus]

Also browsing through the horrific gorgeousness of Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror.

That's a great book for it's pics. The writing (most of which is I believe done by Stephen Jones) is a bit of hit and miss, mainly because of Barker's eccentric choices...what was that Gravediggaz or whatever crap that was about?

Some of the articles are really good. But for a more all-round perspective there's still little to beat King's Danse Macabre.
But do look out for non-fiction written by James Ursini and Alain Silver. These guys are huge horror afficionados and I've seen some fab articles written by them for the Midnight Marquee mag.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

The writing (most of which is I believe done by Stephen Jones)

Is it? The box items in the main chapters are credited to SJ which, in connection with the fact that one chapter talks about Clive Barker's work in the 1st-person lead me to believe it was mainly written by Barker with asides of a more objective nature by Jones. I agree many of the choices are very eccentric. It must have been a cool serial though!

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Now reading The Light Ages by Ian MacLeod, a book I probably never would have heard of if not for this site (and browsing through some of the early reviews here).

So far, the concept is quite fascinating, and now the story is beginning to move as well.

 

[ravenus]

Started off on The Joke by Milan Kundera (probably off-topic for this forum). Read a couple of the episodes in it and it seems like a very well-told bittersweet story.