April’s Audacious Attempts at Assailing Avenues of Literary Adventure.

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I've never been able to get into Martin's style, but I like several of King's novels, so go figure. Twain was a better writer than both, however.

Just finished Hangman's Holiday, a collection of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers that I've been dipping into over the past month or so. Clever little stories, very imaginative and witty, but marred by factual problems in at least two instances.
 
Fried Egg said:
I haven't read Mark Twain but comparisons to Stephen King don't inspire me... :(
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With Twain... you don't know what you're missing. And, again, he wrote such a variety of things (there are worlds of difference between, say, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Mysterious Stranger) that it really would help to pick up a sampling of different sorts of things he wrote. Damn' fine writer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens....

As you've probably noticed, I'm not particularly a fan of King (though, to give the devil his due, when he's actually on form, he can be quite good... it is just that this is so bloody rare!), so I won't use his name to endorse Fevre Dream -- though, again, I think GOLLUM's use in that line is a very apt sort of shorthand when giving a precis description to most readers -- but I would highly recommend reading that novel. I'm not overly fond of GRRM (or what I've encountered) as a whole, either... but that one is definitely worth a read.

Well, with the past couple of weeks having been nearly a wash as far as reading is concerned, I am finally having a chance to finish off that reread of Lord of a Visible World. For those curious about the letters of HPL... a topic which has been bandied about a lot around here by some of us... but who are unable or unwilling to invest in some of the more expensive sets, or who would probably find some of the discussions in his Letters to Rheinhart Kleiner and Letters to Alfred Galpin a bit too limited in scope (though even those volumes cover a wide array of topics and styles), Lord of a Visible World is probably the best single-volume selection of passages from his letters available; and it is still easy to get hold of for quite reasonable prices. A book which gives you a wonderful insight into the man behind the tales with fascinating digressions into all the different fields in which he held an interest, from travels to astronomy to physics to antiquarianism to literature and art. It also shows something one who is only aware of his fiction almost never sees... his sparkling wit and humor of a very warm human being....
 
Well, if I ever manage to get back to Portland, I'll start the novels TE had so graciously allowed me to have. I'm rather looking forward to it.

But as it stands, there's about as much chance of that happening as there is for the sun to turn to ice, so.....

I'm currently just rereading old favorites. Piers Anthony, mostly.
 
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy said:
I've never been able to get into Martin's style, but I like several of King's novels, so go figure. Twain was a better writer than both, however.
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Agreed.....although I maintain that Martin is a far more versatile and skilled writer than King.

Interesting that J.D. too isn't a big fan of Martin,. I really like his work and consider him to be amongst the best of contemporary writers in Speculative fiction. Go figure....:rolleyes:;)

As per your comment J.D. that was just a handy little one liner I use to describe the novel to folk who aren't really into Speculative fiction in a major way...and wouldn't know any better anyway....;)
 
GOLLUM said:
It is the short story collection The Keeper Of The Ruins by the Sicilian master Gesualdo Bufalino. This is a Harvill Classics edn. You may know Bufalino from his masterpiece Night Lies? Bufalino was taken under the wing of Sicily's greatest known writer Leonardo Sciasci . Perhaps you've heard of him? NYRB have several of his mystery/detective novels that centre around the Mafia and in fact Sciasci is credited as being the father of metaphysical detective fiction. The early 1990s film Open Doors was also based on one of his books. Anyway, Bufalino's collection is wide ranging and often filled with elements of the fantastic and the bizarre, hence my interest in this writer.

To finish, I note with a certain degree of intrigue or should that be trepidation? that you yourself have just bought a collection of Pessoa's poetry, so I have to conclude from this that you must be in a particularly robust state of mind at the moment or else the opposite is in fact true.....:rolleyes:
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Re: Bufalino. I have the same book you do, but I didn't get very far with it. It was very intriguing, but the style seemed very dense and the pace a bit sluggish, I wasn't able to come to grips with it the first time around. However, I've held on to my copy intending to give it another shot.

Re: Pessoa. I feel fairly stable just now; let's see if that lasts!

Have you heard of Alvaro Cinqueiro? A leading Galician writer, he is not widely translated, but I have one book of his, 'MERLIN AND COMPANY' which is right up your alley (and available in an Everyman paperback edition). Here's what I wrote about it when I first read it:

It tells of Merlin and Guinevere's later years, after the death of Arthur, when they settle in the Spanish region of Galicia. Apparently Cunqueiro was a great fan of Lord Dunsany, and some of his influence can be seen in this book, which also seems to have some of the wry humour of James Branch Cabell, though not employed in a satirical vein, as far as I can see. A very slim book and full of wonders and entertainment in the same way as a lot of older fantastic literature in English, before the Brooks explosion, was.

I liked it quite a lot - it is told in the form of Merlin's former page boy's digressive, nostalgic remniscences as an old man of his younger days in Merlin's household. A variety of people come to Merlin for aid in arcane matters, a passing peddler tells them his latest stories, and so on. It is very episodic, set in a sort of vaguely 18th or 19th century era with many archaic holdovers, and quite beguiling. There seems very little else, or nothing at all by Cunqueiro in English translation, pity.
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I've just finished reading the excellent LAUGHTER IN THE DARK by Vladimir Nabokov. You need to read this one if only to know what happens when a synesthete writes about blindness.
 
Have not really had time to read anything at the moment due to a ton of work. Finished Roadside Picnic, which was great, though, it felt like the translation was disjointed? Sort of reading Children of Men, and sort of reading Australian Science Fiction (still).
 
AE35Unit said:
Just started Planet of Exile by Ursula K Le Guin, a new author for me and a delightfully short book!
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ER...true but this forms part of a 7 book cycle featuring the Hainish in various capacities in addition to some related short stories. I have the main series and it's something I planned to read this year. I recall that I posted something about this in the past but I don't think it maters if you read just one novel as they're generally only loosely connected. The most famous book in the series is probably still Left Hand Of Darkness. I shall await your comments with interest...:)
 
Jayaprakash Satyamurthy said:
Re: Bufalino. I have the same book you do, but I didn't get very far with it. It was very intriguing, but the style seemed very dense and the pace a bit sluggish, I wasn't able to come to grips with it the first time around. However, I've held on to my copy intending to give it another shot.

Re: Pessoa. I feel fairly stable just now; let's see if that lasts!

Have you heard of Alvaro Cinqueiro? A leading Galician writer, he is not widely translated, but I have one book of his, 'MERLIN AND COMPANY' which is right up your alley (and available in an Everyman paperback edition). Here's what I wrote about it when I first read it:

I've just finished reading the excellent LAUGHTER IN THE DARK by Vladimir Nabokov. You need to read this one if only to know what happens when a synesthete writes about blindness.
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Well I'm guessing you haven't read Bufalino's masterpiece Night Lies then? If you return to this collection and find that you enjoy it enough then you will want to read that novel.

I wish you luck with Pessoa then.

I have never heard of Alvaro Cinqueiro, although I feel as if I should! That book in itself sounds interesting and anyone drawing on the spirits of Dunsany and Cabell automatically captures my attention.

I'm assuming you are not familiar with Leonardo Sciasci then? Given your interest in Detective fiction, you may want to purchase one of his books featured in the NYRB range.

I had to look up the definition of synesthete. That condition in itself fascinates and I never realised that about Nabokov, so coupled with the premise of the novel and the fact it's Nabokov performing the writing, I'm certainly intrigued.
 
GOLLUM said:
ER...true but this forms part of a 7 book cycle featuring the Hainish in various capacities in addition to some related short stories. I have the main series and it's something I planned to read this year. I recall that I posted something about this in the past but I don't think it maters if you read just one novel as they're generally only loosely connected. The most famous book in the series is probably still Left Hand Of Darkness. I shall await your comments with interest...:)
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To call this a series is somewhat an exageration. At most, I would call these a collection of thematically linked stand alone stories.
 
Fried Egg said:
To call this a series is somewhat an exageration. At most, I would call these a collection of thematically linked stand alone stories.
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Yes that's probably a fairer way to asses it, especially I suspect your comment regarding themes but please do not shoot the messenger on this one. It's only that it's often referred to as the "Hainish Cycle" that I used that terminology and because from what I've read about it that the Hains are often only loosely or vaguely referenced in these books but referenced all the same. I haven't read many to date in that "collection" of books, so if you have then I'll defer to your specific judgement. The books included are: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City Of Illusions, Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, The Word For World Is Forest and The Telling.

I have also the collected short fiction of this so-called cycle or loosely based collection in Birthday of the World and The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

Once I've read all of this I'll have a clearer picture. It is good to have it confirmed though that they are all stand alones....:)
 
Well, I must admit that I've only read "Planet of Exlie", "City of illusions", "Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" but that is the impression I've had so far.

That reminds me, I really need to get around to reading some more of those soon...
 
Fried Egg said:
Well, I must admit that I've only read "Planet of Exlie", "City of illusions", "Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed" but that is the impression I've had so far.

That reminds me, I really need to get around to reading some more of those soon...
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Well, that's probably a decent enough sampling to have a handle on the so-called Cycle I would have thought.

Sightly Off-topic: What has your general impression of these books been so far? I mean in terms of whether you liked them or not and would recommended them to other members here? I myself enjoyed Dispossessed and The Left Hand Of Darkness.

Night...
 
GOLLUM said:
Sightly Off-topic: What has your general impression of these books been so far? I mean in terms of whether you liked them or not and would recommended them to other members here? I myself enjoyed Dispossessed and The Left Hand Of Darkness.
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I enjoyed all four that I've read although "The Dispossessed" and "The Left hand of Darkness" were the best of the four. "Planet of Exile" was probably my least favourite but still good. It doesn't have the intelligent exploration of deeper issues nor the elegance of "The Left hand of Darkness".

I don't know, my memories of them are getting a little dim since I read them all so long ago now.
 
Just started Perdido Street Station by China Mieville and loving his writing so far

and just finished Changes by Jim butcher
 
Only Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap form a true series.

Some of Reynolds's other novels (Chasm City, The Prefect), novellas (Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days) and short stories (those collected in Galactic North) are set in the same universe, but do not really form a series.


I will concede that one or two characters appear in more than one work, and that the timeframe within which most of the stories are set is quite narrow compared to the Culture.
 
Rereading Second Foundation (after zipping through Foundation and Empire), because I've just acquired a copy of Foundation's Edge, which I've somehow missed before.
 
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