September 2017: reading thread

[Danny McG]

Just finished a classic short story. Richard Connell's 'The Most Dangerous Game'.
Once again this proved to be a story I thought I'd already read but it appears I actually only watched the film.
The expressions used are definitely "of their time" as are the casual hunting discussions that would nowadays annoy many animal groups.
However a gripping yarn with what was, for almost a century ago, a very disturbing concept.
Recommended

 

[Paul_C]

I rested Adam Robots briefly to read Distances - a novella by Vandana Singh, which I liked a lot, enough to look around for some more of her work.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have just started Non-Stop AKA Starship (1958), the first novel by Brian Aldiss. It's a variation on the generation ship theme. So far quite well-written and convincing.

 

[Caliban]

I have just started Non-Stop AKA Starship (1958), the first novel by Brian Aldiss. It's a variation on the generation ship theme. So far quite well-written and convincing.

I love this one I read it a while ago. I think Hothouse and Greybeard are even better though.

 

[dask]

Started this, the first of my Halloween reads. The title story seems vaguely familiar. Not sure but I may have read it a long time ago. Very creepy, very Victorian, very cool.

 

[ratsy]

Still reading Dark Space Origin by Jasper T Scott. I got in the mood for a thriller and had The Night is Deep by Joe Hart on my kindle so I read it. It's the second Liam Dempsey thriller, and I really love his style. Quick thriller books, with an edge of horror to them. Great read.

I also have been seeing a lot about these books, with friends being in their universe anthologies, so I started Cartwright's Caveliers by Mark Wandrey. This book is quite great so far, surprisingly so. I expected more of the same, which I like too, but it's fresh and appealing.

 

[Caliban]

Skullcrack City - by Jeremy Robert Johnson
At the same time as dipping into his short fiction collection Entropy in Bloom

 

[Perpetual Man]

Another 25 Comics bite the dust, and the random selection process has delivered unto me a graphic novel (the only one in 40 books), which effectively means I'll be reading 58 Comics in a row! It'll be a relatively quick read, so it will mean sudden positive depletion of the long standing comic reserve.

Anyway Captain America Road to Reborn is next

 

[Bick]

Another 25 Comics bite the dust, and the random selection process has delivered unto me a graphic novel (the only one in 40 books), which effectively means I'll be reading 58 Comics in a row! It'll be a relatively quick read, so it will mean sudden positive depletion of the long standing comic reserve.

Anyway Captain America Road to Reborn is next

You knock off 25 comics with astonishing regularity perp - how many were in the pile to start with?

 

[Extollager]

Just finished a classic short story. Richard Connell's 'The Most Dangerous Game'.

I sued to teach this as a perfect example of literary escapism. It keeps the reader entertained. People always enjoy it. But it can only be read casually. And sometimes that is what we want!

If we read it attentively, however, it runs aground right away. Rainsford is treated to a gourmet meal by Zaroff. Who cooked it? These two and the brutish Ivan are the people on the island aside from captives to be hunted.

Prospects for Zaroff to hunt are supplied by shipwreck victims. Nobody notices that these people are missing, and investigates?

The shipwrecks happen when passing ships are deceived by misleading beacons. No one has investigated why shipwrecks have been occurring lately?

Who built the beacons? Obviously they would be more than a weekend project for Zaroff and Ivan. All right, Zaroff hired engineers, working crew, etc. Wouldn't they have questions about placement of beacons where ships would be sure to run aground?

All right, Zaroff and Ivan killed the construction crew after they built the beacons. What -- no one noticed that the workers didn't come home? No wives, friends, etc. investigated?

And so on. The point is that, when you're reading the story, you read inattentively and you don't stop to ask such questions.

On the other hand, I used to point out that many stories that offer lots more than escape require attentive reading. If you read, say, a Hawthorne story inattentively, it will seem almost unbearably suffocated in words, "slow-moving," yadda yadda. But if you read it attentively, you're liable to find it has a great deal to offer.

 

[Vertigo]

I sued to teach this as a perfect example of literary escapism. It keeps the reader entertained. People always enjoy it. But it can only be read casually. And sometimes that is what we want!

If we read it attentively, however, it runs aground right away. Rainsford is treated to a gourmet meal by Zaroff. Who cooked it? These two and the brutish Ivan are the people on the island aside from captives to be hunted.

Prospects for Zaroff to hunt are supplied by shipwreck victims. Nobody notices that these people are missing, and investigates?

The shipwrecks happen when passing ships are deceived by misleading beacons. No one has investigated why shipwrecks have been occurring lately?

Who built the beacons? Obviously they would be more than a weekend project for Zaroff and Ivan. All right, Zaroff hired engineers, working crew, etc. Wouldn't they have questions about placement of beacons where ships would be sure to run aground?

All right, Zaroff and Ivan killed the construction crew after they built the beacons. What -- no one noticed that the workers didn't come home? No wives, friends, etc. investigated?

And so on. The point is that, when you're reading the story, you read inattentively and you don't stop to ask such questions.

On the other hand, I used to point out that many stories that offer lots more than escape require attentive reading. If you read, say, a Hawthorne story inattentively, it will seem almost unbearably suffocated in words, "slow-moving," yadda yadda. But if you read it attentively, you're liable to find it has a great deal to offer.

Is your second word there a Freudian slip possibly....

 

[dask]

I actually it was some sort of a written proposal to the school board or something requesting permission to teach a specific class. Just another tedious task of tenure.

 

[Randy M.]

Attentive vs. inattentive reading makes sense to me, though you could also use that as instruction on the difference between old pulp stories and ... er ... new pulp stories. That is to say, as indication of the growth and maturing of (at least some) genre fiction: More recent genre writers have become much more sophisticated.


Randy M.

 

[Perpetual Man]

You knock off 25 comics with astonishing regularity perp - how many were in the pile to start with?

Ahem... Far too many, I hardly read any for about two years, so the pile just grew and grew. And although I am making head way it is a slow process as more are added each month...

Possibly just shy of 500, there are under 100 now

Of course, I now have to report that I have finished Captain America: Road to Reborn - Review here

And will uhhh, be reading another 25 comics. (I had hoped to catch up by now)

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Finished Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss and am moving on to his novel Greybeard (1964.) Future where a nuclear accident has caused children to stop being born. Very nicely written.

 

[Paul_C]

Adam Robots finished and enjoyed, last night I made a start on The Atrocity Exhibition - JG Ballard.

 

[Caliban]

Finished Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss and am moving on to his novel Greybeard (1964.) Future where a nuclear accident has caused children to stop being born. Very nicely written.

Imo Greybeard is a lot better than Non-Stop. I remember really enjoying it.

I finished Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson. Perhaps a little too far out there for me. Very interesting and worthwhile though. I'm also reading his short fiction and the tone is very varied. From graphic body horror to quiet and subdued.

 

[Danny McG]

Still working my way through the entire Quiller series.
A sci fi book and then a Quiller and then a sci fi etc etc.
Interspersed now and again with a sci fi short or an adventure novelette.
Currently reading Quiller in 'The Sinkiang Executive' but I'm also trying once again to read through the Gripping Hand (sequel to mote in god's eye).
I've tried this a couple of times before but always get bogged down in the politics of the Motie trading clans and give up.

Tbh this sequel is yawnorama but one day I'll finish it

 

[Allegra]

Reading Musicophilia - Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks - the neurologist who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakening (the movie was based on it). What a fascinating book!

 

[The Big Peat]

Been dabbling in this and that due to a mix of things. Read Carpe Jugulum again and will post a review here the moment I finish writing what's turning into an essay. Half-read Interesting Times - need to finish it! Half read Fritz Leiber's Swords & Ice Magic (never before realised how pederastic it gets at points). Read the Black Alchemist - that was really good. Read one of the Robert Jordan Conan anthologies... was okay. Something else too. Dabble dabble.

Take care of yourself. Those kinds of things can get very bad if ignored.

Well they did Mainly because I didn't. But thank you for the kind words.