The All-New Singing and Dancing October Reading Thread!

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Every night in Ethiopia i have been reading away the slow,cold nights. Since im staying in a slum like place to visit my relatives its thought smart to go home before 22.00, its dangerous otherwise. Funny enough im using the internet for the first time here because their so called fall,winter is too hot to run around for long.

So i have read these:

The King of Elfland's Daugther by Lord Dunsany
Not the most original story but the writing,the wit,the beauty of the story is so great that fills you with awe.
I still think Lord Dunsany is even stronger in short story form,he does other forms of story in his short stories like no other i have ever read.
I hope stories wise his other books are different than the beautiful story of this novel.


The First Chronicles of Druss the Legend by David Gemmell
It was an epic saga in the vien of the Greek Tragedy stories. It was a great heroic story thats not surprsing but it was so large in scope of Druss life,growth,struggles and in took only 300 odd pages. Thats a rare talent for this type of fantasy. The many great supporting characters was nice touch too.
One of the best Gemmell book easily. Only Legend and Wolf in Shadow can compete with it.


I have next left to rationize in the 9-10 days lefts in this country The Damnation Game by Clive Barker,The Gods of War by Conn Iggulden,Let the Right one In by John Ajvide Lindqvist.
 
I finished Shadow's Edge by Brent Weeks this past weekend. He knows how to keep you wanting to read and the ending made me want to go right on to the next one...but I just got Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenger and am well into it. So far not wowwing me but I am sure it will pick up or do something...maybe it was hard to follow Time Travellers Wife since that book was such a huge success.
 
I did finally have a chance to finish Meyrink's The Golem, as well as The Dybbuk of "S. Ansky" (S. Z. Rappoport). Both quite impressive, though the Meyrink meanders a bit for most modern tastes, I would think.... I would have to agree that it is a wonderfully understated use of the figure, yet its presence haunts the entire novel. The Dybbuk is both amazingly simple in its handling (reminding me of Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl or Fouque's Undine in that way) yet very powerful. Much of the eeriness is so lightly sketched in, yet intensely effective; something a lot of modern writers could learn from. I'd love to see a production of the play sometime....
 
Reading one of the DAW Year's Best Horror anthlogies (#2, to be exact), along with Brian Lumley's first Necroscope (a reread of a book which I've not read in quite some time). Just a little bit of my celebrating the season, as each of these has strong sentimental associations with the upcoming holiday....
 
gully_foyle said:
Finished Transition by Iain Banks. I keep meaning to add a review of it, but haven't had the time. Let's say it's good, but not awesome like his hard SF. It's not an M book either, as it is more urban fantasy than SF. Similar themes and characterisations to his Culture books though.
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Just finished this, too. It's an entertaining enough read, but not one of his best. Oh, and I know he's always been a fairly overtly political writer, but I do wish he'd tone some of it down these days - or at least make it a bit more subtle. It's really starting to get in the way of his storytelling. (And I agree with most of it, for heaven's sake...:p)

Just started on a re-read of Neverwhere. Haven't done much Gaiman recently, and - 50-odd pages in - I'm really starting to wonder why.
 
Finished Starship Troopers I can see how Heinlein has been such an influence in sci-fi and writing circles in general. The amount of detail that was put into the novel in respects to military tactics was astounding to say the least.

I've now moved onto Earthworks by Brian Aldiss and have to say this is quite an odd book and far different to the other Aldiss novel that I've read (Greybeard)
 
I'm reading Gulliver's Travels this month (nearly finished), and I may try Alice In Wonderland. I wouldn't mind having a read of The Time Traveler's Wife, too. I quite like the sound of that one.

A couple of people here reading Neverwhere. I've got the original T.V shows on DVD :) Not nearly as good as the book :( (still good, though. And Door is gorgeous.)

Also, I'd like to recommend Mobius Dick as an interesting, down to earth(ish), take on quantum mechanics.
 
Started Neuropath by (R) Scott Bakker
So far it seems to be a SF/thriller exploring some of the concepts of "The darkness that comes before" in greater detail. Heavy on the "lectures" but very fascinating subject matter (if the science of consciousness interests you at all ... and really how could it not?)
 
Diggler said:
I've now moved onto Earthworks by Brian Aldiss and have to say this is quite an odd book and far different to the other Aldiss novel that I've read (Greybeard)
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His style is quite variable. "Earthworks" is ok but not one of my favourites.
 
Just read Herbert West-Reanimator by HP Lovecraft which is more like a novella than a short story! Now this is my cup of tea,just found the endless recapping of West's details at the start of each chapter annoying but I can forgive it that-good stuff!
Next up Hypnos
 
The "recap" at the beginning of each section was the result of this actually being a serial published in six parts, spread over some months; hence needing something to bring new readers up to date on the tale so far. Even so, HPL managed to alter the telling quite a bit with each one in some... interesting ways....
 
J.D. I had quite a fondness for that one, even if Lovecraft disliked it in the end .
AE Hypnos you say :)
 
The Gods of War by Conn Iggulden, it is so vivid,captured the days of Rome that i read half the book at once. Forgot sleep last night.

I had almost forgetten how unbeatle Conn is as Historical fiction writer today. Cornwell and co dont have a chance imho. Hope he writes about ancient world again soon.
 
I got to the end of Crossroads of Twilight and thought "that was a book in which not very much happened"

Next up is Fearful Symmetry which is a Star Trek DS9 book
 
Have just finished "The Sandwin Compact" by Derleth - I have to say it was the second best tale in the book so far, behind "The Return of Hastur" (which was marred by certain problems throughout, but I will specify if I will do a proper review) .
 
Finished James P Blaylock The Elfin Ship - a little bit strange story, with really strange characters. I'd read the other books in tilogy as well, only it seems they were last time published in 1990 :eek: Even the russian translation published in 2003 seems to be sold out. Well, maybe I'll find these books at some point.
Now for some easy reading Feist and Shards of a Broken Crowd - it's been in the TBR stack for too long.
 
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