November's Novelistic Nurturings of Natural Numquids

[Stephen Palmer]

Bedlam: London & Its Mad, Catherine Arnold.


very good

 

[Hari Seldon]

Just finished The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett and starting a re-read of Gemmell's A Sword in the Storm. I read this a few years ago and just recently acquired the rest of the series.

 

[Grunkins]

I finished Rachel Bach's Fortune's Pawn. Light, fun, and fast. The pages turn very quickly in this book. Lots of elements were set up in this first book in the trilogy to make for a very lively story. Lots of shooting xeno-varmint, cool mech, lots of secrety stuff, and a love story. In general love romances, even in space, bore me - and this one wasn't all too different, but there was plenty enough else going on to keep me interested and happily reading. The secrets hinted at and revealed in the book were worth the early mystery (often the payoff is not worth the build up with secrety stuff), and there are still plenty of secrets left for us to discover in the later books. The ending was a bit frustrating, not due to poor execution on Bach's part but the circumstances of the story. I'll definitely be reading the next two as they come out (which won't be long - both are slated for release in 2014).

Not sure what I'll be reading next. I've been slacking on my reading for a couple weeks now as Netflix has gotten its hooks dug in to my soul all over again. I hope to rectify that.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley (1960)

This short novel (or long novella) jumps right into the midst of things as a guy with artificially induced amnesia finds out he's been shipped off to the prison planet Omega, where the other amnesiac prisoners have created a society where the official religion worships Evil, and one's status is determined by how many people you've killed in culturally sanctioned murders. Our hero is capable enough to survive various attempts on his life, and eventually contacts the local rebels, who want to ship him back to the Earth they barely remember. The first two-thirds reads like a lightning-paced action/adventure yarn, with just a touch of satire in the ways that Omegan society resembles our own, reflected in a funhouse mirror. The last third, although still full of action, slows down a bit to allow Sheckley to portray a future Earth where conformity is the highest good. Not one of the author's major works, but worth reading.

 

[J-Sun]

The Status Civilization by Robert Sheckley (1960)...Not one of the author's major works, but worth reading.

Are you very familiar with Sheckley generally? I read The Status Civilization and Mindswap back to back many years ago and pretty much forgot them - they must not have struck me as particularly good or bad. But I came across a big NESFA hardcover of The Masque of Manana for five bucks and couldn't resist. If I like it, do you have any recommendations for a novel follow-up? Or a collection full of great stories Masque might not adequately represent?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Are you very familiar with Sheckley generally? I read The Status Civilization and Mindswap back to back many years ago and pretty much forgot them - they must not have struck me as particularly good or bad. But I came across a big NESFA hardcover of The Masque of Manana for five bucks and couldn't resist. If I like it, do you have any recommendations for a novel follow-up? Or a collection full of great stories Masque might not adequately represent?

I don't know the exact contents of that book, but it's hard to go wrong with NESFA's excellent collections. And it's hard to go wrong with any collection of Sheckley's short works.

I would suggest Journey Beyond Tomorrow (AKA The Journey of Joenes) and Dimension of Miracles as the author's finest achievements in satire. They belong on the same bookshelf as Candide and Gulliver's Travels.

Options and Crompton Divided are later, more post-modern works, in which the narrative breaks down into self-referential parody, so they have a different flavor, but they are still fine satires.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Gideon Smith & The Mechanical Girl, David Barrett.

 

[J-Sun]

I don't know the exact contents of that book, but it's hard to go wrong with NESFA's excellent collections. And it's hard to go wrong with any collection of Sheckley's short works.

I would suggest Journey Beyond Tomorrow (AKA The Journey of Joenes) and Dimension of Miracles as the author's finest achievements in satire. They belong on the same bookshelf as Candide and Gulliver's Travels.

Options and Crompton Divided are later, more post-modern works, in which the narrative breaks down into self-referential parody, so they have a different flavor, but they are still fine satires.

Thanks for that.

 

[TheShadowsandSilence]

Just finished The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson which was superb, very epic and lyrical. I enjoyed it so much I'm now reading Three Hearts and Three Lions by the same author.

 

[Extollager]

Finished today Victorian scholar David Masson's biography of John Milton and history of his times. It is six thick volumes. I skipped some pages here and there. I took 77 leaves of notes and learned a lot from this well-written book, whose component parts (including a seventh volume -- the index) I bought from various used book dealers. The whole set came to about $155 US. Somewhere I saw the 17th century referred to as the "century of crisis." In England it was, of course, the century of the regicide, the Great Fire, the Plague, etc.: matters dealt with also in Peter Ackroyd's London, which, with Eric Newby's The Great Red Train Ride (across Siberia, 1970s), is bedtime reading of late.

 

[David Selig]

Finished Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice last night. Fantastic book. Best debut I've read in a long time, and probably the best 2013 release I've read. The fact that a dippy, poorly written novel like Redshirts can win the Hugo when a gem like Ancillary Justice is in the running irks me to no end.

Leckie's writing is both subtle and supple. The first person voice of Breq is pitch perfect, and perfectly consistent. Throughout the book I found myself thinking of Iain M Banks because of both the subject matter and the execution. This was a very well written book; a joy to read.

I agree about the relative quality of these two novels, but they weren't published in the same year so they weren't competing for the same awards. Of course Redshirts beat quite a few excellent 2012 novels which was a shame.

 

[Ivanya]

This month, I finished Master and God by Lindsey Davis, Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner and The Assassin's Prayer by Ariana Franklin.

The first is historical, set in Rome, and though it's not my usual kind of tale, I felt like I'd been given a Hell of an education on the period, and I thoroughly approve of the two leads. Their relationship is a very satisfying one and developed in a frustrating (but very natural!) way.

The second is a classic fantasy I first tried to read some ten years ago and couldn't get on with. I gave it another try and found myself absorbed in Kushner's beautiful prose. Not an all-time favourite, but I'm glad I returned to it.

Franklin's book is apparently the fourth in a series, but I found it refreshingly easy to delve into despite having never read the others. A strong heroine, absorbing story. Might pick up the earlier ones.

 

[Allegra]

This was his book I perhaps enjoyed the most - wonderful. I'm looking forward to reading his latest book One Summer too.

Me too, it sounds going to be fun. Back to the Thunderbolt Kid book, besides the laughable childhood silliness there are also terribly serious stuff about the absurdity around that time in the US, such as the reckless hydrogen bomb tests, the radical anti-communism etc., quite astonishing to read. Makes you think after all the mankind has progressed a bit since the 50s.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Just finished Midnight Falcon liked it better than A Sword in the Storm now starting Greybeard by Aldiss.

 

[Connavar]

Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

Its good to know the wait for the last book in this series is so far worth it. The story this time, Jorg himself is more mature, calm and more complex than the first two that needed more action driven story. Clever by Mr. Lawrence to have the different timelines, flashbacks, present time story.

This type of fantasy is usually too simple action, goal driven story for my taste but this series im enjoying for the change, growth of Jorg from horrible teen to him as an adult.

 

[Rodders]

B5 at 20

Definitely a nice book for the collection.

 

[HareBrain]

Nothing novelistic about this, but worth a mention I think -- Diableries, by (among others) Brian May (yes, him, of Queen). A lavish reproduction in book form of a set of stereoscopic viewing cards made in France in the 19th century, depicting life in Hell. Mucho Bizarro.

Also reading Hill of Dreams by Arthur Machen, in which a bookish youth expresses his love for the local farmer's daughter by lying down naked on gorse branches. Quality weirdness.

 

[Vertigo]

Figures of Earth by James Branch Cabell. A bit of a departure from my normal reading, I'm not sure what made me look it out and read it (free from Gutenberg) but I found it entertaining. More here.

Titan by John Varley. I had quite high expectations of this but was slightly disappointed. Good but not as good as I'd been expecting. More here.

Snow in the Desert by Neal Asher. A very good short story but, annoyingly, an unexpected re-read. I picked this up as a cheap ‘short read’ from Amazon without realising I had already read it in the collection The Gabble and OtherStories. Still it is a good read and classic (if short) Polity fare. And it has inspired me to move onto reading his collection The Engineer Reconditioned which I am enjoying.

 

[Hex]

I've had a fun month so far. I got a couple of books free at WFC:

Banished by Liz de Jager, which isn't out properly until next year. This was an uncorrected proof, which was educational to see, and was lots of fun and certainly something to look forward to.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman. I don't like dragons much (I believe I've said so) but this was great. I loved the world and the characters but what made it was the writing.

I also finally started working through my Goodreads "Want To Read" list, with the help of Abe books, and have been thoroughly enjoying myself.

I just read Unwind by Neil Shusterman, which was completely absorbing and not a little horrifying (I immediately ordered the next two), and then -- to recover -- I read Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins, which was lots of fun (I'd like to read the next two but I feel like I should put them on my Christmas list).

All this time I have been vaguely failing to finish Shadows by Robin Mckinley. Not sure why, exactly, since it was clever and interesting and I should have been involved, but for some reason it didn't grab me and shake me like some of the others (especially Seraphina and Unwind) have. A bit confused and disappointed -- she's one of my favourite authors.

Now I'm starting The Thread that Binds the Bones by Nina Hoffman, and (though I don't think it's sff) Marian Keyes' The Mystery of Mercy Close and by the time I finish them it won't be November any more.

All these are YA, incidentally, except the Marian Keyes.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

I just finished a mind-boggling book, Dave Eggers' The Circle. I can't remember where I heard of it, but at the time I saved it in my Amazon wishlist so I'd remember it later, and last weekend I got to the library just in time for someone to be checking it back in, so I checked it right back out.

It's about an insidious company called, you guessed it, The Circle, a slightly future progression following Facebook, Twitter, etc., and it is astoundingly scary in its possibilities. This company basically takes over the world, eliminating all privacy in the name of creating utopia. Very Orwellian in scope, it even includes the obligatory three basic tenets, in this case SECRETS ARE LIES, SHARING IS CARING, and PRIVACY IS THEFT.

As the lady checking it back in said, it could definitely have been a shorter book and not lost anything, but it is a fast read nevertheless, and gives one a lot to think about.