It can't be July, already? Can it? Oh well, let's hear what you're reading!

[Cayleb]

In a totally different vein to most of the contributors to this thread I have just finished three books with a common theme in the historical field:

'The Prisoner of Zenda' and 'Rupert of Hentzau' by Anthony Hope, and then, to find out what really happened in Ruritania that year, 'Royal Flash' by the late G. M. Fraser. Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable drop of escapism.

 

[The Judge]

'The Prisoner of Zenda' and 'Rupert of Hentzau' by Anthony Hope, and then, to find out what really happened in Ruritania that year, 'Royal Flash' by the late G. M. Fraser. Altogether a thoroughly enjoyable drop of escapism.

I love The Prisoner of Zenda. I've never read Rupert of Hentzau (and is any villain as suave and dashing as Rupert?!) but you've made me determined to rectify that omission, and soon.

 

[Rodders]

Just finished Mr. Abnett's "His last command". Superb as ever. Now onto "Armour of Contempt".

 

[Cayleb]

You are quite right Judge, there is really no villain as suave and dashing as Rupert of Hentzau and to make my journey through Ruritania complete I would love for one of the TV companies transmit the 1952 film of 'The Prisoner of Zenda' in which James Mason as Rupert is probably the most admirable villain of all time.

I don't know if 'Rupert of Hentzau is available as a paper book, but I downloaded it from The Gutenberg Project in electronic form.

 

[murphy]

You are quite right Judge, there is really no villain as suave and dashing as Rupert of Hentzau and to make my journey through Ruritania complete I would love for one of the TV companies transmit the 1952 film of 'The Prisoner of Zenda' in which James Mason as Rupert is probably the most admirable villain of all time.

I don't know if 'Rupert of Hentzau is available as a paper book, but I downloaded it from The Gutenberg Project in electronic form.

If you're like me and prefer the paper version, check here for an omnibus of both books:

Ruritania (Ruritania) by Anthony Hope

 

[Urien]

Just finished Velocity by Dean Koontz; psycho torments innocent man in snappy page turner. Pretty good idea, could have slowed down a little. Read a little like a film script. Worth it.

I think there is a clone army of Dean Koontz; no one could produce so many decent to very good novels on his own. He must have the work ethic of an entire ant nation. Unfortunately this means I get confused as to what I have and haven't read, frequently leading to double buys. Perhaps that's his evil clone army plan... I must ponder on this.

Vertigo,

I enjoyed Magician a million years ago when the stars were strange; it feels a little old fashioned compared to more modern "gritty" fantasy novels. But good fun nevertheless.

 

[Nikitta]

Finally having some time for pleasure reading again, I have recently read:

The adventure of Sherlock Holmes - This was a pleasant surprised as I expected it to be fairly shallow and I picked it up mostly due to curiousity, but it had a lot more complexety and debth than I had expected. It was very good, actually.

The Gateway - Thank you to those suggesting that I give Pohl a second try after getting disappointed with Jem. This was leagues better. I liked the way it switched between the psychiatist sessions and what had happened at the Gateway. Very well written and also exciting. Some good characters, which I could care about.

The Invisible Man - my least favourite of HG Wells so far, but still good. I wish it had been written more from the invisible man's perspective and had given more of an insight to how invisibility had turned him from a rational scientist to being an irrational maniac, though I like that it was written so I had sympathy for him at first and only slowly realised that how he was. It did, however, bother me that with all of the people searching for him and sometimes almost having him - no one even thought of throwing paint at him. Of course, it would've ruined the story if they had and I know that the plot idea was new, but I still couldn't help it getting a little on my nerves.

Doctor Zivago - Very different and a little confusing to read, due to all of these people being reffered to by different names, all of their relationships with each other and the sudden jumps forward in time. This was, however, not a bad thing in this book, since it served to show the confusion and the tumultuous atmosphere at the time of the Russian revolution. I like some of the notions and thoughts that the doctor makes during the book. This, I am almost done reading - I just have the poems at the end left. I am glad that I decided to go through reading it. Very engaging and some good characters.

So: a mix of various classics both in and out of SF. I'm not sure what I'll read next, yet. We'll see.

 

[Mouse]

I'm on The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde. It's a bit... meh. Short story though so it'll be over soon. I can't really appreciate Oscar Wilde at the mo. Too knackered!

Still reading JV Jones, and the Jane Slayre/Eyre book too when I have time.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's been a long time since I read it, but I seem to remember not enjoying Rupert of Hentzau as much as I did The Prisoner of Zenda.

I've just finished reading Song of the Beast, by Carol Berg.

 

[Cayleb]

It's been a long time since I read it, but I seem to remember not enjoying Rupert of Hentzau as much as I did The Prisoner of Zenda. QUOTE]

I felt the same Teresa, in fact I got the impression that the author didn't really know why he was writing the second book but had been told he ought to. None of the characters seemed to me to be as fresh and alive as they had in the original (not even Rupert himself), almost as if they were just going through the script because it was expected of them but they didn't really expect it to be to any purpose. All the same, Ruritania was a nice place to visit and I would still like to see the 1952 film again.

 

[Talysia]

Just picked up Mark Chadbourn's Age of Misrule.

 

[AE35Unit]

Finally having some time for pleasure reading again, I have recently read:

The adventure of Sherlock Holmes - This was a pleasant surprised as I expected it to be fairly shallow and I picked it up mostly due to curiousity, but it had a lot more complexety and debth than I had expected. It was very good, actually.

yea Conan Doyle was quite a writer!!

 

[Vertigo]

Just finished Hobbs' Royal Assassin I enjoyed it but not as much as the hype had led me to expect. I found the plot somewhat predictable and as has been said before Fitz was often more than a little annoying.

Had to change my reading plans as the library just got in a book I ordered over a year ago! So will read that next; Russell Kirkpatrick Beyond the wall of time last in the Broken Man trilogy. Never seen any comment on him here but I enjoyed the other two - a fresh somewhat different approach to fantasy from a Kiwi author. May try and look at his earlier series Fire of Heaven sometime.

 

[Vertigo]

Just picked up Mark Chadbourn's Age of Misrule.

Apologies for the double post - just wanted to say I would be interested in what you think of The Age of Misrule I read the blurb on the books and thought it seemed like an interesting and different take on fantasy but haven't read any of MC's stuff and seen little comment on here about him.

 

[GOLLUM]

Had to change my reading plans as the library just got in a book I ordered over a year ago! So will read that next; Russell Kirkpatrick Beyond the wall of time last in the Broken Man trilogy. Never seen any comment on him here but I enjoyed the other two - a fresh somewhat different approach to fantasy from a Kiwi author. May try and look at his earlier series Fire of Heaven sometime.

Weel...I did a review on the Fire of Heaven series when it first came out way back when. I thought it was certainly quite a well written and interesting trilogy for a debut effort, although it never really reached what I would call great heights. Kirkpatrick being a cartographer by profession certainly took advantage of his knowledge of maps and terrain to good effect in the original trilogy. I'm assuming maps play a role in the current series as well?

Rosemary. a regular member here, is also a keen reader of Kirkpatrick's books....

 

[Vertigo]

Kirkpatrick being a cartographer by profession certainly took advantage of his knowledge of maps and terrain to good effect in the original trilogy. I'm assuming maps play a role in the current series as well?

Yes they do, with some interesting and novel map "projections" that took a bit of getting my head around. In his bio it says "The idea that he could marry stoytelling and mapmaking (his other passion) into one project grabbed him and wouldn't let go". So he is pretty up front about it! Actually a bit of an issue with the book I have at the moment as it seems to be a smaller format edition to the earlier books I read and the maps are almost impossible to read. I shall have to go look see if I can find them online to download.

 

[GOLLUM]

Now reading Willam Lindsay Gresham's American underground classic Nightmare Alley. The novel, which underwent the censor's knife early on, centres on one Stan Carlisle and his spectacular rise from the the dark, shadowy world of a second rate carnival filled with hustlers, scheming grifters and Machiavellian femme fatales, to a great Spiritualist, peddling his favour to the rich and famous. A well known film noir adaption starring Tyrone Powers was made from the novel.

For those who enjoy a little trivia, Gresham was the first husband of Joy Gresham a.k.a Joy Davidson, a US poet who went on to marry C.S. Lewis as portrayed in the marvelous film Shadowlands, starring Anthony Hopkins.

 

[Connavar]

I read Four Hundred Billion stars that was in the end very weak,too much debut novel flaws. Only PKD award book i have read that i thought was bad. Sad because it started very promising and had a female hero....

It was the only 200 pages SF i have read that i struggles with and almost seemed like it was a door stopper of 1000 pages.

At the same time i read and finished Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard. Great,really fun historical crime book. Great characters.

I need to choose more books by favs like that now that i can only read late nights at work. Hard staying awake at work with books that are boring reads

 

[Talysia]

Apologies for the double post - just wanted to say I would be interested in what you think of The Age of Misrule I read the blurb on the books and thought it seemed like an interesting and different take on fantasy but haven't read any of MC's stuff and seen little comment on here about him.

So far, so good. I've just started the second part of the book (ie, book two - Darkest Hour), and I'm really enjoying it. It's a nice mix of mythology and dark fantasy in the setting of modern Britain, and whilst it isn't the type of book I'd usually read, I'd recommend it.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh dear, sounds like another one to add to my ever growing TBR list