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

[Lobolover]

Believable or horizon widening, I think it's easy to pick from these two .

J.D. : anything I could be interested it as well ?

 

[Michael01]

Gollum: I had Daughter of Regals and Other Stories but never read it. I think it's still around here somewhere...

(Starts rummaging through the closets...)

Quokka: It does sound interesting, but with Covenant there's a kind of redemption and he at least becomes likable (while very human and very fallible) as the story goes on. At first I hated him, but I thought that was really cool.

There's a possibility I could still get into the Gap series, even if I end up not always liking the characters. We shall see...

 

[j d worthington]

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.

Believable or horizon widening, I think it's easy to pick from these two .

I think Lobo put it very well there; his work tends to be one of the two, or a combination of both. For example, though he did do a story with a vampire ("The Shunned House") and with a ghost or two ("The Unnamable", "In the Vault"), in no case does he use the traditional version of these things, but creates something rather different, yet rooted in genuine traditional beliefs and folklore. In the same way, as George Wetzel noted, he combined Persian and Celtic folklore to produce the ghoul-changeling theme, something which appears in one form or another in different works, and may have been evolving as far back as "The Picture in the House". (That last may be doubtful, but it's an interesting and, I think, a valid possible reading.)

It is also very difficult, at times, to tell which is genuine folklore and/or tradition (or, for that matter, history), and which created for the tale, and often what one would swear was one turns out to be the other.

The thing about Lovecraft is that, if you read much of his material at one go, you find him creating an entirely new view of reality; recognizably our own, but very much as if the veneer we call reality has been stripped back, and all the illusions of safety, security, and knowledge of how the whole universe works are no longer valid. Joshi has called it "ontological horror", and I think that's as good a name for it as any.

J.D. : anything I could be interested it as well ?

I think so, yes. I'll put together a list once I'm through with the book, and you can see if any of those strikes your fancy....

 

[Lobolover]

Thanks . Though I originaly meant it as having the traditional ,mostly unbelieavable (meant literaly here, you cannot bring yourself to believe in it as hard as you try) "shuder" horror at which no one shudders on one side and Lovecraft's viewpoint altering view on the other, to note that the second if superior . I guess it can go that way to .

Oh and I am reading Cecilia de Nöel by Lanoe Falconer, almost finished in fact, and I will hopefully have alot to say about it, in a review which you will be the first to recieve .

 

[Fried Egg]

Quokka: It does sound interesting, but with Covenant there's a kind of redemption and he at least becomes likable (while very human and very fallible) as the story goes on. At first I hated him, but I thought that was really cool.

There's a possibility I could still get into the Gap series, even if I end up not always liking the characters. We shall see...

But it's the same thing. Donaldson likes to begin a story by making you hate the main character and then try to turn it around, to redeem them in the reader's eyes. And he does exactly the same thing in the "Gap".

When you read "The Real Story", you will not beleive you could imagine a more despicable, unlikeable character in all the world. Angus Thermapyle gets his comeuppance at the end of that book but that is only the beginning as far as his redemption is concerned. I won't say any more not to spoil it for you but by the end, believe me, you'll be rooting for Angus.

 

[Nikitta]

You know this is probably my least favourite of Neil's books. Of course it's still good but falls short IMO from American Gods, Graveyard Book, Coraline, Stardust, Neverwhere or even his lesser known works like Interworld and Angels and Visitations.

It will be of interest to see what your opinion is on this one...

I'm now on page 100 of Anansi Boys and I really, really hope that Fat Charlie grows a spine soon. I seriously want to hit him.

So far, I think that American Gods was better, but it might change yet.

 

[GOLLUM]

We shall see...

You'll definitely want to read Fragile Things (collection), Graveyard Book and Coraline plus of course the par excellence Sandman graphic novel series.

 

[Michael01]

But it's the same thing. Donaldson likes to begin a story by making you hate the main character and then try to turn it around, to redeem them in the reader's eyes. And he does exactly the same thing in the "Gap".

When you read "The Real Story", you will not beleive you could imagine a more despicable, unlikeable character in all the world. Angus Thermapyle gets his comeuppance at the end of that book but that is only the beginning as far as his redemption is concerned. I won't say any more not to spoil it for you but by the end, believe me, you'll be rooting for Angus.

Very cool. That's exactly what I'd hoped to find in Gap. Now I'm even more inclined to check it out. Thanks, Fried Egg!

 

[ratsy]

I actually am putting down Lord Fouls Bane since I just got American Gods - by Gaiman... I have never read one of his books and am about 80 pages in so far. Good author, not really sure where he is going with the book but I am intrigued.

 

[Rosemary]

I'm still re-reading, until the next book of the Malazan series arrives.

At the moment, I am going through my 'Pern' books.

 

[purple_kathryn]

Next up

Jumper by Steven Gould - I got this not longer after seeing the film so I'm about a year and a half behind in my book reading

 

[dask]

AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS by H.P. Lovecraft (Ballantine, 1974). I'm only 37 pages into this 110 page spectacle of horror and all ready I want my mommy! As if it isn't frightening enough the title story takes place in "a haunted, accursed realm where life and death, space and time, have made black and blasphemous alliances in the unknown epochs since matter first writhed and swam on the planet's scarced-cooled crust" now there's talk of an "ultimate, nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness." I have a feeling there ain't gonna bo no happy ending.

 

[Adventurous_Wench]

Just finished reading Stan Nicholls' Orcs.

Currently re-reading Robert McCammon's Bethany's Sin. [Thanks to my hubby for tracking that one down for me].

 

[nj1]

After finishing DUST of DREAMS (and being blown away again) I'm now onto reading LYONESE by Jack Vance, it's my first forray into Vance's work so fingers crossed.

 

[Nikitta]

We shall see...

You'll definitely want to read Fragile Things (collection), Graveyard Book and Coraline plus of course the par excellence Sandman graphic novel series.

It turned out that Anansi Boys did get better along the way and Charlie did eventually grow a spine, but I still much preferred American Gods. I have Neverwhere (the book) and Stardust (which I bought when I meant to pick up Smoke and Mirrors, because I got them mixed up) so they will go first and then we'll see what else I'll buy. Either way, I'm glad that I discovered Gaiman. Kind of late, but better late than never and all that.

I think I'll try The Way of the Shadows by Brent Weeks next.

 

[Connavar]

Soul Circus by George Pelecanos.

I have been watching The Wire alot so i couldnt help myself from reading more Pelecanos

He is similar but not as depressive as the bleak stories of The Wire with cops whose personal life is even more tragic than their impossible police work against the Urban crime.

 

[dask]

Whoops!

 

[UltraCulture]

Orphans of the Sky - Heinlein.

Was Non Stop by Aldiss meant as a tribute or "I can do better"?

 

[j d worthington]

Whoops!

Errr... Huh?

Orphans of the Sky - Heinlein.

Was Non Stop by Aldiss meant as a tribute or "I can do better"?

Given various comments on Heinlein by Aldiss, I'd say the latter.

And I've finished S. T. Joshi's Classics and Contemporaries... an interesting collection of his reviews over the years; some good food for thought, and some of his acerbic wit and jaundiced views that make for interesting reading (if sometimes wince-evoking when he goes after a piece or writer the reader likes)... but ultimately a disappointment when it comes to books by STJ, whose work I normally find absorbing, thought-provoking, and something I can revisit with a fair degree of frequency.

Am now moving on to a collection of tales by Erckmann-Chatrian, The Man-Wolf and Other Tales, a facsimile reprint of the 1876 Ward, Lock printing, including the title piece, "Myrtle", "Uncle Christian's Inheritance", "The Bear-Baiting", "The Scapegoat", and "A Night in the Woods"....

For those inclined to check out classics in the weird fiction genre, here's a link to an online version of the text:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man-Wolf, by Emile Erckmann And Alexandre Chatrian.

 

[dask]

Errr... Huh?

Well, I was wondering about an earlier post about a book called DUST OF DREAMS and the following statement the member's next book was Jack Vance's LYONESSE which said member mentioned was his first foray into Vancian realms. I was going to ask if DUST OF DREAMS might not be either DUST OF FAR SUNS or THE BOOK OF DREAMS but since LYONESSE was the "first foray" there probably was a book called DUST OF DREAMS and I had just never heard of it. And since I can't delete posts, rather than try to explain myself (read the above and you'll see what I mean) I decided to whoops! the whole thing. There! Now that's all cleared up.