March's Marvellous Meanderings In Melodious Manuscripts.

[Teresa Edgerton]

Sounds and Furies: Seven Faces of Darkness, a collection of short stories and one novella by Tanith Lee.

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

The Nameless by Ramsey Campbell. Campbell's novels tend to disappoint me; not this one. It's subtle and character-driven but revolves around a really creepy concept that in turn leads to a truly weird, even cosmic sense of horror.

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. Terse, bleak and brilliant.

 

[Hypnos164]

Finished Blackout by Rob Thurman

Now reading Transition by Iain Banks and dipping into The Continental Op by Dashiell Hammett

 

[Diggler]

Who is this Edmund Cooper fellow? Would he interest me perhaps?

Of course he would!

 

[Vertigo]

Finished Brass Man by Neal Asher. Thoroughly enjoyed it, though it seemed a little overly complex. I found its multiple story lines bit confusing at times, particularly at the start of the book. That said it gave the whole story enormous scope, which does seem something of an Asher trait.

Not sure what to move on to next, probably more sf though.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've now moved on to another Tanith Lee short fiction collection Hunting the Shadows. Not as dark as the one I was reading a couple of days ago, but some of the stories are fairly grim, and "The Eye in the Heart" is absolutely chilling.

 

[Vertigo]

I've now moved on to another Tanith Lee short fiction collection Hunting the Shadows. Not as dark as the one I was reading a couple of days ago, but some of the stories are fairly grim, and "The Eye in the Heart" is absolutely chilling.

Teresa, I tried a Tanith Lee a few years ago (sorry I have no memory of the title) but I stuggled desperately with the style of writing. I can't remember exactly what got to me but I seem to recall feeling that it just didn't flow. It was one of only three books in probably the last 5 years or so that I have failed to finish; I don't give up lightly! Maybe I was unlucky and tried a bad one first.... I know a lot of people seem to rate her work so is there anything you would recommend for me to give here a second go?

I'm not a great short story lover by the way, thinking of your current reading.

 

[Zorn]

Ok here is my first post for what I am reading. No not anything by KJA, (see KJA thread). Currently two books
1. The Santuary : Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templer.
2. Secret of the Runesword: History of the Runesword Bk. 4 by Micheal Moorcock.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I stuggled desperately with the style of writing. I can't remember exactly what got to me but I seem to recall feeling that it just didn't flow.

I don't know what to recommend if you didn't like her style and don't know which book it was. If you didn't like a particular story I could recommend a different one, but the style of her prose is pretty consistent, except for her early books and her YA. Those who love Lee's work think her prose is one of her strong points, but if the rhythms of it just sound wrong in your mental ear, reading another book is unlikely to help.

If you hadn't mentioned that you thought the style didn't flow, I might think that it was a certain episodic quality to the plot that struck you wrong (many of her books have this), since you say that you don't care much for short fiction.

 

[gully_foyle]

I'm not getting out to bookshops much at the moment. They all seem to be disappearing or just plain selling cheap rubbish. The co-op at work stopped having a dedicated SFF section and I don't have the patience to look through all their books to find something interesting. But I did find The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and have read the first chapter and thought "joy!".

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks for that Teresa, I'm not too worried at the moment as there are more than enough books out there on my TBR list to keep me going for years. I shall probably come back to give her another try sometime in the future.

 

[murphy]

Teresa, I tried a Tanith Lee a few years ago (sorry I have no memory of the title) but I stuggled desperately with the style of writing. I can't remember exactly what got to me but I seem to recall feeling that it just didn't flow. It was one of only three books in probably the last 5 years or so that I have failed to finish; I don't give up lightly! Maybe I was unlucky and tried a bad one first.... I know a lot of people seem to rate her work so is there anything you would recommend for me to give here a second go?

I'm not a great short story lover by the way, thinking of your current reading.

The book of hers that I liked the most was The Heroine of the World:

Amazon.com: A Heroine of the World (9780886773625): Tanith Lee: Books

It was more epic fantasy than not.

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks for that Murphy, I'll maybe tag that as one to try when I get around to it.

 

[Zorn]

Finished The Secret of the Runestaff by Moorcock. Started an author I have not read before David Gemmell.
Started :Against the Horde: Legends Trilogy book 1.

 

[AE35Unit]

Finished Ballard's Wind from Nowhere, hmm, it was so so. Next going to read a couple of shorts by Algys Budrys ( what a name!)
Starting with The Citadel

 

[Hypnos164]

Finished Iain Bank's Transition pretty disapointed with it all told - started with an interesting idea but felt far, far too long in the middle with a rushed ending. There were also too many ham-fisted little lectures on various topics (Greed, the Limited Company, Torture).

Now starting the new Nightshade Books edition of A Matter of Time by Glen Cook

 

[ratsy]

I put down The Briar King so I could read Wise Mans's Fear. Great read so far, engaging and page turning for sure. I am looking forward to going back to The Brian King too which after 100pages is turning out to be an interesting start to a series

 

[Hober Mallow]

I just finished reading The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and Kornbluth. This is an excellent sci-fi novel with some leftist leanings. The central theme is a highly consumerist society run entirely by large corporations with almost no government. I thought the humor and writing style is similar to that of Philip K. Dick. Afterwards, I went to Wikipedia and found this novel introduced a few terms to the cultural mainstream, including "Muzak", "soyaburger" and "sucker-trap".

 

[AE35Unit]

I just finished reading The Space Merchants by Frederick Pohl and Kornbluth. This is an excellent sci-fi novel with some leftist leanings. The central theme is a hyper-consumerist society run entirely by large corporations with almost no government. I thought the humor and writing style is similar to that of Philip K. Dick. Afterwards, I went to Wikipedia and found this novel introduced a few terms to the cultural mainstream, including "Muzak", "soyaburger" and "sucker-trap".

Hmm sounds good! Those two should make for a strong writing team!
I read Algis Budrys's short The Citadel earlier-interesting with an odd ending.

 

[jojajihisc]

Speaking of PKD I started Galactic Pot-Healer yesterday.