July's Jaw-dropping, occasionally Jargonistic and often Jubilant Stories

[GOLLUM]

I can't believe how quickly the first half of this year has gone...

Anyway, you know the drill, please post what you have been reading in the month of July.

I intend to (finally) continue with Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke before posting a review this month.

I have also started to write a couple of pieces on the German Anthology I read a couple of months back, so that should be posted sooner rather than later.

 

[tangaloomababe]

The year is just flying by Gollum.

Just finished reading The Storyteller by Jodie Picot. A good book in parts and a great book in other parts.


Just started The Map of the Sky which is a sort of follow on from The Map of Time by Felix. J Palma. For anyone who has not read The Map of Time I thoroughly recommend it. It's a great read and this new book is shaping up to be pretty darn good also.

 

[Mangara]

Currently on Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster. So far its an enjoyable enough piece of pulp fantasy, nothing too exciting but entertaining enough for me to keep going.

 

[Bick]

Currently, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America. Excellent (I'm still waiting for Eric Newby to arrive). I also have a hankering to read several SF books (Incl. Banks) and some P.G. Wodehouse this month. I'll see how I get on with that plan (I'm rubbish at sticking to the plan)

 

[Extollager]

Current reading includes Gavin Young's travel book In Search of Conrad (Southeast Asia); Tolkien's Notion Club Papers again; Toby Lester's The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name, which is covering some of the same ground as David Abulafia's excellent The Discovery of Mankind, etc. I just reread Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow Out of Time" and Alan Garner's The Owl Service. I'm writing something on parallels between the Tolkien, Lovecraft, and Garner stories for Mythprint, the quarterly of the Mythopoeic Society.

And finally, I've been rereading letters I saved from my correspondence back in the Seventies with an old school friend who's since become a fairly Big Name Fan, and am impressed by his amazing patience with me. (We co-edited a fanzine. He did most of the work. notably including printing, collating, etc.) I suppose people who have used email, text-phone messaging, etc. all their lives won't have the experience of looking at files of old letters. It used to make my day to get a meaty letter full of chat about comics, Star Trek, music, etc.

 

[gully_foyle]

Finished Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut. It was okay, but felt like it was lacking his usual acidic wit. Now reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. He needs to publish more novels.

 

[Grunkins]

Finished James SA Corey's Abaddon's Gate a few nights ago. Very good book. It reignited my interest in the series after the second book was a bit of a disappointment for me.

Last night I finished Jim Butcher's Small Favor. This was maybe the best Dresden book yet. It was, start to finish, a bucketload of awesome. Can't wait for the next one.

I finally started Matthew Stover's Heroes Die. I've heard a lot about this one, and have high hopes for it. What little I read last night has me optimistic.

 

[sassy1]

Finished Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton, good book but seemed to take ages to read, so don't think I'll ever re-read it.

Now started rereading Use Of Weapons by Iain M Banks, after reading a thread on these forums. I enjoy looking at it with other peoples interpretations and ideas, and I usually enjoy books more the second time round, as I have more of a grip on who's who and whatnot. My memory is so terrible it takes me aaaages to learn names, and in some books they just seem to throw loads of characters at you and I just get all muddled up =(

 

[ratsy]

Still on Magician's End by Feist. Almost done....I think.

 

[elvet]

Just finished The Last Stormlord. I liked the premise, but the story was too formulaic. I think I'll pass on the rest of the series.
I started Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. It's very good so far. Somewhat parallels Under The Dome which I haven't read but am watching on TV.

 

[sooC]

I'm halfway through Wilson by David Mamet. It's very funny, with the best footnotes since The Third Policeman.

 

[Randy M.]

A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson

It's been awhile since I saw the movie, but as I recall it the plot diverges from the novel somewhat. Here we are in the typical 1950s fictional suburb, the houses painted and neat, the lawns green, the residents chipper and prosperous and happy on the outside, and a seething mass of repressed desires and frustrated needs on the inside. This was what Matheson brought to the horror novel: Mundane, late 20th century life shot through with unspoken personal agendas while underneath lurked a world of supernatural or paranormal experience that occasionally revealed itself to one or a few of the characters. Without Matheson, I'm not sure there would have been a Stephen King.

In this novel, Thomas Wallace experiences an awaking of psychic powers after being hypnotized, shortly after which he sees what might be a ghost. If this doesn't have quite the level of novelty of I am Legend or The [Incredible] Shrinking Man, or the ruthless Gothicism of Hell House, Matheson still does a masterful job of gradually of depicting the neighborhood the Wallaces live in, unveiling the extent of Wallace's awakening, of the effect on the man and his wife, of the gradual solving of the mystery. All in 211 paperback pages. One thing King didn't learn from Matheson was brevity.

This is a solid ghost story and a good read. I recommend it, especially if you've already read Matheson's better known sf/fantasy/horror novels and would like something else by him.


Next up: more from Matheson-land, I think; I'll reread Hell House.


Randy M.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I've just started the much-praised, best-seller Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It appears to be part historical fiction, part contemporary fiction, and part SF. We'll see how the author handles the futuristic part.

 

[hitmouse]

Just finished Diary of a Sapper - World War One Reflections of Sapper Henry W Dadswell

Henry Dadswell was an Australian bushman who worked laying phone lines on the Western Front. I met him in the 1970s when he was a very old man and I was a young boy, and I recently found this book, which is an edited collection of his diaries and some photographs, from the time he enlisted until demob. He was extraordinarily lucky to get through the War in one piece.

 

[Lady of Winterfell]

I'm currently reading The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. I was quite looking forward to this one, but I have to say I'm disappointed so far. It is bordering on boring for me.

 

[Tim_Eagon]

I finished reading World War Z and began reading Sterling E. Lanier's Hiero's Journey

 

[MPorter]

I just finished 'Ocean at the End of the Lane' by Neil Gaiman.

I'm about halfway through '1491' by Charles C. Mann. It's not science fiction or fantasy but it is extremely cool -a non-fiction book about culture and life in North America before the arrival of Columbus.

I'm about to start the graphic novel 'Stuffed' by Glenn Eichler and Nick Bertozzi. It has a quote from Stephen Colbert on the cover so it must be good.

~Mike

 

[biodroid]

The Passage by Justin Cronin. only about 40 pages in but it's really good so far. Characterisation is top notch and the story is building up nicely.

 

[Grunkins]

The Passage by Justin Cronin. only about 40 pages in but it's really good so far. Characterisation is top notch and the story is building up nicely.

This has been in my TBR for a long time. Interested to hear your thoughts on it.

 

[Moonbat]

I'm about half way through 'I am Legend' at the moment, pretty good stuff.