Who's reading what? September's selection...

[Connavar]

I'm reading King Solomon's Mines by H.Rider Haggard.

So far well written adventure story with engaging characters.

 

[Ursa major]

I have finally got round to reading Black Man by Richard Morgan.

I was very impressed: the book is exciting and thought-provoking, with plenty of red herrings (and ones that turn out not to be red after all). And when you look back at it afterwards, you realise that all the clues are there (if only you'd spotted them at the time), so there's no sense of the tying up of the threads being slapdash, hurried and implausible.

This book is excellent hard SF which could also be read and enjoyed by those not particularly into SF (in that the technology is not far-fetched** and the action carries the reader forward with a lot of momentum).

Very much recommended.

** - I have no expertise in some of the science, but it's made to sound reasonable.

 

[Michael01]

I thought it was better than the Runes Of The Earth.

Next year will see book 3 delivered and then only 1 more Covenant novel remaining....

I know ... and it's kind of sad, but since I thought the same thing about White Gold Wielder, I'm really ecstatic to be reading The Last Chronicles.

 

[GOLLUM]

I know ... and it's kind of sad, but since I thought the same thing about White Gold Wielder, I'm really ecstatic to be reading The Last Chronicles.

Well Yes that's true. I've also got the audio book of Runes of the Earth. Quite good actually.

Please check out his duology, A Man Rides Through .....not as good as Covenant but still magical.

 

[Moonbat]

I am slowly finishing 'The Ackermanthology' 65 short Sci Fi shorts. I've done about 61 of them, and am scared of finishing too quickly. I also bought and started Pynchon's gravity's rainbow, quite a read I am told.
Also I have a few stories left to finish in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2000.

 

[GOLLUM]

I am slowly finishing 'The Ackermanthology' 65 short Sci Fi shorts. I've done about 61 of them, and am scared of finishing too quickly. I also bought and started Pynchon's gravity's rainbow, quite a read I am told.
Also I have a few stories left to finish in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2000.

I presume you are going to track down the more recent editions? I've got Showcase 2009, which I'm meaning to read soon.

I've got Gravity's Rainbow, it's supposed to be a GREAT novel. Let us know what you think.

 

[Moonbat]

I presume you are going to track down the more recent editions? I've got Showcase 2009, which I'm meaning to read soon.

Ummm, I might do. I got them very cheaply on Amazon, I was scouring it for some short sci fi story collections. Wasn't sure if they were even short stories, but i was blown away by the first one in the 2001 (which I recieved and read first) nebula showcase. It was about aliens landing and the woman that led the translation. She learnt thier language so well that it changed her causality based outlook on life. I was mightily impressed.

I started Gravity's rainbow but it is fairly heavy going, and I haven't read much recently, I can't concentrate on anything but 'her'. Anyone else find it hard to read when you're falling in love?

 

[Michael01]

Well Yes that's true. I've also got the audio book of Runes of the Earth. Quite good actually.

Please check out his duology, A Man Rides Through .....not as good as Covenant but still magical.

Oh ... cool, I think I will! I was thinking about his Gap series, too. While it's science fiction, it looks like it might still have some of that "even heroes can be bad" thing going on...

 

[Pyan]

Re-reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files...

 

[GOLLUM]

Oh ... cool, I think I will! I was thinking about his Gap series, too. While it's science fiction, it looks like it might still have some of that "even heroes can be bad" thing going on...

I think it does but it's the one work not liked by all Donaldson fans. Man Rides Through is highly enjoyable but more a straight fantasy tale and less of that hard-edge you get from the Thomas Covenant character.

I've also got his story collections Daughter of Regals and Other Stories and Reave the Just. Donaldson also wrote a novella or really short story called Gilden Fire which fits into the Covenant sequence. I have that too....

 

[Quokka]

It certainly has that 'even heroes can be bad' thing going on, to the point that I didn't always like all the characters but I don't think we're meant to. Still to someone reared on heroes in SF and Fantasy it was an interesting enough idea.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Just finished The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I thought was absolutely magnificent - three stupendous books in a row!!! (So thanks to everyone who kept pushing me to read it!)

And in the words of Monty Python, now for something completely different:
The Year of Living Biblically by A J Jacobs

 

[Fried Egg]

I think it does but it's the one work not liked by all Donaldson fans.

I loved the "Gap" series but don't like much of anything else I've read by Donaldson so I guess that makes me not a Donaldson fan.

 

[GOLLUM]

I loved the "Gap" series but don't like much of anything else I've read by Donaldson so I guess that makes me not a Donaldson fan.

Not at all. There are many who like Gap the most of ALL his work. It's good, no doubt about it but for me and especially the time it was written in the late '70s Thomas Covenant has always stayed with me as one of the great SFF series.The Covenant character in particular tends to generate a love-hate realtionship amongst fans on this and other forums, quite the polarising figure.

Hopefully you'll like H.G. Wells....

 

[AE35Unit]

Now for my first encounter with Lovecraft, I'm going to read Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Already read the first story, Dagon. Very short and not nearly as scary as I was expecting!

 

[Fried Egg]

Now for my first encounter with Lovecraft, I'm going to read Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Already read the first story, Dagon. Very short and not nearly as scary as I was expecting!

A lot of his stories weren't that scary, particularly the shorter ones from earlier in his career (that predominate in the collection you have). I would say that the scariest story in your collection is "Herbert West: Reanimator", which is also the most humourous too!

 

[purple_kathryn]

Death in Winter - ST: TNG novel set I think just before and after the last (TNG) film

 

[Taltos]

Its a novel in 6 parts rather than a series of self contained books ... the next one ends in a cliffhanger at least as annoying ^^

At least the second book felt more readable as a separate book - it didn't feel as it was a filler. The third book feels like that for me.

Thanks for the info - in this case I'll wait untill the fifth part comes out in paperback.

 

[j d worthington]

Now for my first encounter with Lovecraft, I'm going to read Dagon and Other Macabre Tales.
Already read the first story, Dagon. Very short and not nearly as scary as I was expecting!

I suppose that depends on what you mean by the term. Lovecraft wasn't one who went for the "scare" in the sense of a gripping, startling "sting", in most cases. His approach was more subtle and atmospheric, more in the sense of a nightmarish extension of reality hinting at things existing alongside us always, but which we don't know until some hapless individual runs afoul of them. As has been noted, part of his horror is to make us aware of such things and, to paraphrase, to acknowledge the monsters is to exist with them always....

Or, as Neil Gaiman put it, where most horror works similar to a ghost train, where you go through the ride but emerge safely in the end, with Lovecraft, he doesn't give you that reassurance. You never leave the ghost train. Or, to use Fritz Leiber's statement to sum that up, Lovecraft turned the entire universe into one big "haunted house"....

Still going through Joshi's Classics and Contemporaries. Some new things I'm going to have to look up now....

 

[AE35Unit]

I suppose that depends on what you mean by the term. Lovecraft wasn't one who went for the "scare" in the sense of a gripping, startling "sting", in most cases. His approach was more subtle and atmospheric, more in the sense of a nightmarish extension of reality hinting at things existing alongside us always, but which we don't know until some hapless individual runs afoul of them. As has been noted, part of his horror is to make us aware of such things and, to paraphrase, to acknowledge the monsters is to exist with them always....

Or, as Neil Gaiman put it, where most horror works similar to a ghost train, where you go through the ride but emerge safely in the end, with Lovecraft, he doesn't give you that reassurance. You never leave the ghost train. Or, to use Fritz Leiber's statement to sum that up, Lovecraft turned the entire universe into one big "haunted house"....

Kind of a sense of unease, a shiver up the spine kind of horror? Thats what I'm looking for. You hear a noise and your hackles go up. I want horror that does that, believeable scary stuff.