November's Noble Neutralising of Literary Nadirs

[GOLLUM]

The dawning of a new month hopefully heralds discovery of some real reading gems.

Please feel free to post your official findings here whether they be good, bad or indifferent...

 

[Fried Egg]

Just finished Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" and now on to Lindsay's "Voyage to Arcturus".

 

[Extollager]

Masson's 6-volume biography of John Milton; Pride and Prejudice; Keats poems. The taste for sf and/or fantasy will probably come tearing back one of these days. Probably will read another novel by the great Madison Jones this month.

 

[Lord Soth]

Finished The Hydrogen Sonata by Ian M. Banks's, which was a little disappointing. Was really slow, it was only towards the end when things sped up and then it was too little too late. Its a shame, for me he peaked in his earlier Culture novels. One of my bugbears with the Culture series is that the technology is just too far advanced to be fun any more.

Am now reading a nice doorstop by the name of Great North Road by PFH, engaging straight from the off and am ploughing through happily. There are some similarities to his other books but this is the level of tech that I like on my sci-fi books (see above) - I can relate to it and there's still plenty of scope for surprises to happen.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I just finished reading The Bone Bed, by Patricia Cornwell. Not a bad book, but I dislike first person, present tense writing, and so I got impatient with it at times. Still wanted to know whodunnit badly enough that I stuck it out until the last page.

Before that, I read UnderTheir Thumb: How a Nice Boy From Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with The Rolling Stones (And Lived to Tell About It), by Bill German. Interesting memoir from the man who wrote and edited a Stones newsletter for years, starting when he was sixteen years old, and who got close to the band, particularly to Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood. Good book.

Now I'm trying to get into Hide Me Among the Graves, by Tim Powers. But, even though Powers is one of my favorite writers, I'm having a bit of trouble warming up to this book.

I'm also re-reading The Republican War on Science, by Chris Mooney. Like there's not already enough politics going on in my country right now.

 

[Mouse]

Finally, finally, finished I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan. Gotta say, I didn't really get the ending. I understood it. I just didn't get it.

Now I'm reading nothing, though I'm going to pick up Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin as allmywires was lovely enough to send me a copy.

 

[hitmouse]

Finishinig up A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor, which I originally bought for the Sumer holidays. When he was 18, in about 1934, Leigh Fermor decided to walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. This book is the first part of the journey. Really well written, fascinating between-the-wars account of middle Europe.
Bit of a sucker for good travel writing, me.

 

[Grunkins]

I started Peter F Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction last night. I meant get back into fantasy with an eye to start Malazan Book of the Fallen, but it just didn't happen.

 

[gully_foyle]

I just started Hydrogen Sonata by M Banks. Wish I hadn't just seen Lord Soth's post above. Glad to see our own Pyan gets a gig in this one. The stalking paid off!

 

[kshRox]

The dawning of a new month hopefully heralds discovery of some real reading gems.

Please feel free to post your official findings here whether they be good, bad or indifferent...

Novembers Noble Neutralizing of Literary Nadirs?
What?

Come on, just a little pretentious?

 

[Juliana]

Just finished George R R Martin's Fevre Dream, loved it! Luckily the sproglets were away at cub camp so I could indulge and blast through it over the weekend.

 

[Rodders]

A Far Sunset by Edmund Cooper. This was the first book I ever read of his and it remains a favourite to his day.

 

[Hober Mallow]

I just finished reading John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up. That was very depressing, a bit prognostic for its time, and very confusing with all the characters and side-stories.

 

[j d worthington]

I just finished reading John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up. That was very depressing, a bit prognostic for its time, and very confusing with all the characters and side-stories.

If you think the technique here is confusing, I wonder what you would think of Stand on Zanzibar, the first in this "ecological dystopia" trilogy (the second being The Jagged Orbit)....

Actually, for all the grimness of most of the book, the final bit does provide a bit of light. The Sheep Look Up has also been chosen (by John Skipp) as one of the entries in Horror: 100 Best Books (ed. by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman)....

Am currently going through a re-read of Darrell Schweitzer's (ed.) Discovering Lovecraft, a revised version of his long OP Essays Lovecraftian. Some of those represented here include Fritz Leiber, Dirk W. Mosig, George T. Wetzel, S. T. Joshi, Lin Carter (an old essay in a new edition annotated by Robert M. Price and Joshi), Richard L. Tierney (author of the Simon of Gitta stories), and Robert Bloch, among others.

 

[Hober Mallow]

If you think the technique here is confusing, I wonder what you would think of Stand on Zanzibar

I've heard it follows a similar format but is over 800 pages long. I don't have the time right now for a book of that length. Maybe I'll be able to read it on a vacation. I've decided to read The Difference Engine for my next book.

 

[Lord Soth]

I just started Hydrogen Sonata by M Banks. Wish I hadn't just seen Lord Soth's post above. Glad to see our own Pyan gets a gig in this one. The stalking paid off!

Apologies about this! I tried not to put any definitive spoilers in my post, and of course its very subjective! I must admit in the past reviews from other people have slightly prejudiced me against a book before I have read it, but sometimes they turn out to be real gems.

I actually didn't enjoy Matter when I first read it, but thought it was much better on the re-read, so this may end up being the same.

It will be interesting to hear what you think about the book once you have finished it Gully.

Anyway...

Still reading Great North Road at the moment, some of the shine has worn off now (about a quarter was through) as I have hit a slow patch but expect this to be only temporary. In other news (lol) I'm listening through the whole Harry Potter series on audiobooks (read excellent by Stephen Fry). Having only ever seen the films, its interesting to see how much more depth the characters have now. Harry himself comes across as a whining, ungrateful and sometimes stupid teenager, much more accurate to a real teenager I suppose!

 

[GOLLUM]

Novembers Noble Neutralizing of Literary Nadirs?
What?

Come on, just a little pretentious?

Not intentionally so.

Just my quirky way with words although I admit there was an element of mischievous disingenuity with tongue planted at least partially in cheek with this month's choice of title.

 

[Randy M.]

[...] In other news (lol) I'm listening through the whole Harry Potter series on audiobooks (read excellent by Stephen Fry). Having only ever seen the films, its interesting to see how much more depth the characters have now. Harry himself comes across as a whining, ungrateful and sometimes stupid teenager, much more accurate to a real teenager I suppose!

That was one of the things I liked about the series. Somewhere around book 5 or 6, Harry started sounding like the teenager he was supposed to be becoming. No noble, heroic kid, even though he could be when needed, just a kid trying to figure out what everything was about and, when overwhelmed, whiny.

Currently still poking through the Stephen Jones edited, A Book of Horrors. In the middle of a Reggie Oliver story -- quite good so far -- with only 3 more stories to go after that. It's a solid anthology so far.


Randy M.

 

[Grunkins]

Not intentionally so.

Just my quirky way with words although I admit there was an element of mischievous disingenuity with tongue planted at least partially in cheek with this month's choice of title.

If this were a site about maritime books you could have added "Nautical."

 

[j d worthington]

I've heard it follows a similar format but is over 800 pages long. I don't have the time right now for a book of that length.

Hmmm... my old Ace pb copy comes out to 650 pp, and quite a bit of that is short pages (lots of white space, much less text), making the actual length (were it done in "normal" textual format) considerably less. At any rate, it's quite a good novel, and the format works well (once one becomes accustomed to it) at being an almost clinical examination of a series of cross-sections of a society, seen through the eyes of representatives of the differing strata of that society.,,,

I will admit, though, that I love much of the unconventional aspect of the sf of the period, when a lot of "experimental" techniques were being used to expand the writer's medium. It didn't always work (and sometimes came a real cropper) but when it did... WOW!

With the current reading I mentioned earlier, I am now (re)reading Lin Carter's "H. P. Lovecraft: The Books", which is an examination of the various "mystical" tomes mentioned in Mythos tales (at least up to the period the essay was originally written, the mid-1950s or so). In this, Carter includes the "quotes" from such tomes which were given in the stories... making the entry for the Necronomicon quite extensive. Unfortunately, in this case in particular, it really shows in glaring fashion the difference between the writing of Lovecraft or Smith (or even Long) with someone like Derleth when it came to attempting such. Lovecraft and Smith were genuinely able to weave an atmosphere of eeriness and dread with their citations from the frightful volume by keeping what they wrote allusive and in the nature of hints and adumbration; but when Derleth took over, what came out ended up sounding very much like a technical manual on how to assemble a genealogy of the Mythos beings. No poetry, no magic... just about as dull and prosaic as the majority of "real" occult writings it has been my misfortune to stumble across in my lifetime....