December's Delirious Descent into Dittological Dissections of Documents

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GOLLUM

GOLLUM

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*bit of a stretch but the term dittology relates to double interpretations of text which is normally related to biblical studies but can be extended to secular works. The adjectival form was 'guessed' by me....:rolleyes:

Hi all,

Just ticking into December 1 here, so please feel free to still post in the November thread for the next day or so if you so wish.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone is reading leading up to Christmas and the New Year.

Cheers.
 
Just finished Christopher Priest's "Fugue of a Darkening Island" and am now going to conclude the Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" series by reading "Rhialto the Marvellous".
 
I just read Wake, by Amanda Hocking.

OK, I wouldn't pay 2 mill for it and 3 others but I'm not St. Martin's Press either. It's certainly not badly written and not a sparkly vampire or Burberry coated sadist in sight.

It has a heroine who's apparently never seen Jaws, and is set in a resort town on the Atlantic Coast of the Delmarva peninsula where I kept expecting to see German subs watching from offshore because certainly nothing like it has existed there since WWII.

OK, sorry, I'm being bitchy, minor difficulties and well within poetic license, not at all a bad book really
 
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Horror anthology of the first water. Every story's a jem with Eric Williams The Garden Of Paris the most dazzling of all.
 
I've made the plunge and begun Malazan Book of the Fallen. Started Gardens of the Moon last night. I have lots of reading in front of me.
 
Re-starting my attempt to read a large selection of the shorter works of Henry James -- an attempt I began very early in the year, but which got aborted when I ended up with that long research project for the essay on Lovecraft and the Augustan writers.

Anyhoo, I've just begun it, and the first story will be "A Landscape-Painter", which was only the third story James wrote (or at least published)....
 
Still ploughing through Hamilton's latest Great North Road, for me its his poorest book. Very very slow in places, I usually like his rather extensive background information but it needs to be paired up with action, which is sadly lacking through the middle section of this book at least.

Here's hoping that it will speed up...

Has anyone else read this? Any other opinions?

PS: Love the Mark Chitty references though!
 
That's a little worrying LS, I too love the depth he puts into his work and I'd really not like him to go too far with it (some would say he already has, of course).

Just finished Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Which, once I'd figured out it was really okay to skip his interminable list of latin names of the local flora and fauna, was a really good read. Definitely slower and more serious than Journey to the Centre of the Earth but still enjoyable.

One of the things I really like is that these were very popular books in their day and, indeed, made Jules Verne a very rich man. However, he does not spare his readers the full details of all the science, and for them to have been as popular as they were must be a pretty good indication of how in those days (1870) science was immensely popular and scientists and engineers probably had rockstar status.

Another thing I enjoy about these books is how, despite being science fiction and the science typically going somewhat further than was actually already known, it does give a pretty good idea of the broader scientific view of the times. Like continents being formed by coral (over rather long periods of time) or the persistent belief in extraordinary sized sea 'monsters'; variations on those species already known.
 
Vertigo said:
That's a little worrying LS, I too love the depth he puts into his work and I'd really not like him to go too far with it (some would say he already has, of course).

Just finished Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Which, once I'd figured out it was really okay to skip his interminable list of latin names of the local flora and fauna, was a really good read. Definitely slower and more serious than Journey to the Centre of the Earth but still enjoyable.

One of the things I really like is that these were very popular books in their day and, indeed, made Jules Verne a very rich man. However, he does not spare his readers the full details of all the science, and for them to have been as popular as they were must be a pretty good indication of how in those days (1870) science was immensely popular and scientists and engineers probably had rockstar status.

Another thing I enjoy about these books is how, despite being science fiction and the science typically going somewhat further than was actually already known, it does give a pretty good idea of the broader scientific view of the times. Like continents being formed by coral (over rather long periods of time) or the persistent belief in extraordinary sized sea 'monsters'; variations on those species already known.
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Vertigo, you should read "Captain Nemo" by Kevin J Anderson. It was a great fictional story about Jules Verne and his childhood friend Nemo who lived numerous adventures all of which Verne wrote about and made him famous. Parts of it had a YA feel to it but I really enjoyed it.
 
ratsy said:
Vertigo, you should read "Captain Nemo" by Kevin J Anderson. It was a great fictional story about Jules Verne and his childhood friend Nemo who lived numerous adventures all of which Verne wrote about and made him famous. Parts of it had a YA feel to it but I really enjoyed it.
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I might have to look out for that. Though I will probably read the couple of 'sequels' to 20,000 Leagues first. So it might be a while.

AE35Unit said:
I loved the parts of 20,000 Leagues under the sea where hes describing the Latin names of the fauna, brought out the geek in me
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I sort of enjoyed them for a while, but it palled rather eventually.

Reading Tony Ballantyne's Recursion at the moment. It's my first book from Ballantyne and I've only just started it, but it's looking promising.
 
I finished Red Country by Joe Abercrombie last night. I loved it.

Now I am giving David Duncan a try with A Gilded Chain. Only a few pages in but it seems promising.
 
Vertigo said:
I might have to look out for that. Though I will probably read the couple of 'sequels' to 20,000 Leagues first. So it might be a while.



I sort of enjoyed them for a while, but it palled rather eventually.

Reading Tony Ballantyne's Recursion at the moment. It's my first book from Ballantyne and I've only just started it, but it's looking promising.
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I read MYSTERIOUS ISLAND a few years ago, & though I might not call it scifi, it is a great sequel to 20K LEAGUES!

Being a fan of Vincent Price, I also read the two books that inspired the film MASTER OF THE WORLD, that title & ROBUR THE CONQUEROR. Wonderful adventures.

But, to the current topic, I am stalled in my FREDERIK BROWN anthology, as clumps of pages have fallen out, & I much prefer reading on my PC. ALL THE GOOD BEMS features a species with 5 sexes, all needed for reproduction.

I am also reading ARSENE LUPIN, check the index for the link to my thread.
 
Just finished The Hydrogen Sonata and started Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula Le Guin, which I found last week in a charity shop for £2.99, perfect.

No surprises in The Hydrogen Sonata, I really enjoyed it, though they're starting to feel like comfortable reads, every new culture book.

Only 30 pages into the Earthsea book, the contrast between the two authors writing style is just what I needed, sucked me straight in and loving it.

Le Guin doesn't seem to date, or so I think.

What do you reckon?
 
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