December's Diabolical Deviations (what are you currently reading?)

[ravenus]

Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers = Badass book. I found it a lot more entertaining than The Anubis Gates. Now nearly through with The Cinema of Satyajit Ray by Chidananda Das Gupta, which is good on the whole, especially in terms of the patterns he infers across films. A decent supplement to the magnum opus that is The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson.

@ Connavar:
I haven't read On Stranger Tides. Thanks for the heads-up, I'll look for it.

 

[clovis-man]

The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian. Sorry I'm getting to the latter stages of O'Brian's 20 and a half volume naval saga. Each one is wonderful reading.

 

[dask]

This month: Thrills, Crimes & Mysteries - short story anthology from the 1930s, with tales by Arthur Machen, MP Shiel, Frederick Carter and many others.

This sounds almost as good as that Wonder Stories you found a little while ago. Another great find.

 

[Talysia]

I'm now moving on to Robin Hobb's Royal Assassin.

 

[blacknorth]

This sounds almost as good as that Wonder Stories you found a little while ago. Another great find.

Twas a good find, though I missed the prize that day - a lovely book called A Century of Creepy Tales with decorative cloth boards featuring a skeleton directing a bony finger to exhort me open the book.

But Thrills... is nice too:



Read your anecdote about the library book sale. Alas we don't have them over here anymore due to dealers turning up and buying first editions by the truckload...

 

[dask]

That kind of stuff annoys me. Wreaks it for genuine book hunter maniac. We're pretty lucky here as our library has a booksale every couple months. Next one's in March and another comes up in May around blossom time. They last four days. Unless otherwise marked they cost one dollar for hardbacks and fifty cents for paperbacks. First day is double price day; the next is regular price; Friday is half price day and Saturday is twenty-five cents a book or three dollars for a large bag. Yesterday I had nine books in my bag and should have cost $2.25 but they charged me $3.00 anyway. No big deal; it's for a good cause.

 

[jojajihisc]

The Third Bear - Jeff VanderMeer

 

[GOLLUM]

The Third Bear - Jeff VanderMeer

OH good. I have this one, I've most of Vandermeer's work, so reading your comments will be of great interest to me. It may help me decide where in the TBR pile to place it....

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Finnally someone who likes Drawing of the Dark more The Anubis Gates in this forum.

Actually that's three of us, although I like the stuff he's writing right now best of all.

Just finished reading The Book Of Skulls by Robert Silverberg. Wow.

 

[clovis-man]

Re The Drawing of the Dark & The Anubis Gates:

Actually that's three of us, although I like the stuff he's writing right now best of all.

I know that Connavar actively proselytizes for The Drawing (so is that three or four?) over Anubis. But I have to disagree. The Anubis Gates was the first Powers book I read and it made a strong impression on me due to its marvelous inventiveness.

 

[bluespider100]

Just finished reading MANIFOLD: TIME, and it was one hell of a ride!
now on to The Electric Church.

 

[Morpheus42]

Just started Up and Down in the Dales by Gervase Phinn. The fourth in 'the Dales' series.
The first three were quite amusing.

 

[ravenus]

Thud!
I started reading this years back and when I was some 50 pages from the end the book got stolen from a friend's car. I went back to it (new copy, of course) from scratch and finished it today. Worth the effort and one of the best books Terry Pratchett wrote.

 

[nomadman]

Currently reading James Blish's Black Easter, or Faust Aleph Null. It's apparently part three of a series (the others being A Case of Conscience, Doctor Mirabilis and The Day After Judgment), though I'm informed they can be read in any order. Thus far it's a gripping little novel of black magic, demonology and the Church set slap bang in the middle of the twentieth century, tightly written and lacking the ponderousness of many novels that deal with the occult. Wish Blish had written more in this vein as his science fiction is pretty dry.

Have also been dipping into two collections of ghost stories: Russell Kirk's Ancestral Shadows and Terry Lamsley's Conferences With the Dead. Kirk's rapidly becoming one of my favorite ghost story writers; his work is incredibly creepy and well-wrought with an often strong moral message that doesn't feel the least bit didactic. Lamsley's decent as well, though thus far a notch below. Screens and Blade and Bone, however, are first rate short stories.

 

[Connavar]

Actually that's three of us, although I like the stuff he's writing right now best of all.

Just finished reading The Book Of Skulls by Robert Silverberg. Wow.

You mean his post 2000 works ? My newest novel of his is Declare. Anubis Gates slowed me down, the main character is million years from Brian Duffy of DotD.


I admire his type of fantasy,characters,writing to forget to read his newer works. I hope to enjoy his newer works as much Drawing of the Dark,On Stranger Tides.

 

[clovis-man]

Conn, I don't remember if I asked you before: Have you read Dinner at Deviant's Palace? You might find it closer to the other Powers books you like.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

Currently reading James Blish's Black Easter, or Faust Aleph Null. It's apparently part three of a series (the others being A Case of Conscience, Doctor Mirabilis and The Day After Judgment), though I'm informed they can be read in any order. Thus far it's a gripping little novel of black magic, demonology and the Church set slap bang in the middle of the twentieth century, tightly written and lacking the ponderousness of many novels that deal with the occult. Wish Blish had written more in this vein as his science fiction is pretty dry.

Have also been dipping into two collections of ghost stories: Russell Kirk's Ancestral Shadows and Terry Lamsley's Conferences With the Dead. Kirk's rapidly becoming one of my favorite ghost story writers; his work is incredibly creepy and well-wrought with an often strong moral message that doesn't feel the least bit didactic. Lamsley's decent as well, though thus far a notch below. Screens and Blade and Bone, however, are first rate short stories.

I'm planning to read Black Easter soon too, I have this whole sequence in an omnibus edition, although I've already read A Case Of Conscience separately.

That Kirk collection is excellent stuff, quite a range of delightful and truly unsettling tales there.

I'm now reading Timescape by Gregory Benford, my first hard SF read in a while. I like it quite a bit, so far.

 

[Connavar]

Conn, I don't remember if I asked you before: Have you read Dinner at Deviant's Palace? You might find it closer to the other Powers books you like.

I tried to get that book a month or so ago through inter loan library system since its an out of print book.

Im looking for it cheap second hand. It did sound interesting to me, not like he wrote many SF like that.

 

[AE35Unit]

Well i quite enjoyed Simak's Cemetery World second time around- a good read!
Hmm what next...

 

[Fried Egg]

I couldn't resist, even though I already have two collections on the go at the moment, "Cold Hand in Mine" by Robert Aickman arrived and I just have to try out one or two of the stories. I just hope that he will live up to the exceedingly high expectations I have...