April 2018 reading thread

[Danny McG]

I read these a few years ago. Light fare, as are all of Dietz's books, and not really that satisfying in the end.

I've read a few of his stories and they tend to set off good but then fade away as the tale progresses

 

[Randy M.]

Recently finished The Galton Case by Ross Macdonald. I have a vague sense of having read this years ago, but since I didn't recall how it wrapped up, I enjoyed it. Macdonald is the somewhat less celebrated member of the Dashiell Hammett-Raymond Chandler-Ross Macdonald mystery/detective story trinity. Hammett established the hard-boiled mystery as having literary possibilities, Chandler gave it a jazzy style, and Macdonald added heart and compassion. This one focuses on a lost heir, a headless skeleton, a possible pretender to the fortune of a wealthy woman. Macdonald's P.I., Lew Archer, is as tough as Chandler's but as the series progressed was less often tough and more often a sort of father-confessor, digging into the pasts of families to find the rot and expose their secrets so some kind of healing can start. His novels are short, direct books and if you hate coincidence in fiction you'll be annoyed; coincidence works for Macdonald like off-screen forensics works for current cop shows and movies, offering short-cuts around diversions from the plot. This is one of the earlier novels moving toward the kind of work Macdonald produced in the 1960s into the 1970s before Alzheimer's took him; I wouldn't say it was as good as The Underground Man, for instance, but it is good.

I've also begun the anthology In Sunshine or in Shadow ed. Lawrence Block, stories inspired by and celebrating the art of Edward Hopper. Hopper was a major influence on film noir and his most famous work, Nighthawks, has been imitated dozens if not hundreds of times. The book provides the bonus of a print of the painting inspiring each story.

Also started Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky, first of the V.I Warshawski novels.


Randy M.

 

[Vince W]

Treating myself with Rumpole's Last Case by John Mortimer. If you're only familiar with the telly series with Leo McKern you should do yourself a favour and read the stories. Wonderfully well written and humorous.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

About to start Alice in Jungleland (1927) by Mary Hastings Bradley, a true account of the author's adventures in Africa with her husband and young daughter Alice, with drawings by Alice. Besides being an inherently interesting topic, it's also notable that Alice grew up to be "James Tiptree, Jr."

And now to the 1929 sequel, Alice in Elephantland. The copy we managed to get is not only signed by the author, but came with a newspaper clipping about her, two postcards from the author, and a typewritten letter from the author.

 

[dask]

Finished this:

and started this:

If this weren't already on the shelf next to the original I may not have sought it out. World was good but I'd be lying if I said I completely understood all that went on, especially Null-A itself. In fact it wasn't until close to the end that it's true nature revealed itself to be more than keeping your brain healthy and thinking good thoughts. Or is it brains? The guy after all had two. I think. Not sure if that was for real or just verbal flamboyance. Maybe a good dose of Null-A would have helped "integrate" my one brain to figure that out along with whether all the little plot twists, not excluding the plot itself, were justified. I'll never know as plans to reread it have not and probably never will be drawn up. Still, as an adventure story that can't figure out how to stop it was a pretty fun ride. Remember back in high school when one of your buddies got his driver's license and the keys to his parents' car? Wow! It didn't matter where you were going, it was the ride that counted. All you had to do was sit back (unbuckled, of course, no one had seat belts back then) and enjoy the verdant scenery as it zipped past while the complexities of botanical evolution were carelessly tossed in the back seat.

 

[Overread]

Another Gemmel down! Just finished King beyond the Gate

Spoiler

I really liked that Gemmel went somewhere different with this story; this wasn't another long siege story. In fact whilst one sort of happens near the end its not really a siege. Instead he's doing a DnD style adventure story which I think fits his character styles and presentation very well. There are a few niggles though; time is one as it seems that whilst his other books happened fairly fast with time clipping along at a steady rate; in this one there are a lot of scenes (often including magic) which tend to push the story forward a lot faster. I suspect this is so that his end mechanic can work whilst keeping the story within a few hundred pages; although near the end there are a few very convenient events and a big time jump that do feel that he'd written himself into a page limit problem and thus tricked his way past a bit. Refreshing to see him doing something new with this one.

 

[biodroid]

Summer of Night - Dan Simmons, hope it's good

 

[Rodders]

I just finished Toby Frost's Space Captain Smith: A Game Of Battleships.

Very funny and well worth a read if you need a bit of cheering up.

Now on to Chimera by T. C. McCarthy. I have ready the other two books in the trilogy and they were very good, so i'm looking forward to it.

 

[Parson]

I just finished listening to The Naturalist by Andrew Mayne, who I discovered at the end of the book is at least a minor celebrity in the British Isles. It was pretty standard stuff with a very interesting main character, a biologist whose understanding of biology, computers, and first aid all contributed to the surprising ending. I will look into the next in the series, Looking Glass.

 

[Toby Frost]

Funnily enough, I glanced through A Game of Battleships last night and was rather surprised by some of the references. I'd completely forgotten the Wonderland/Hellraiser spoof, as well as the curry vending machine.

I'm now on The Crow Trap, a detective novel by Anne Cleeves. I've liked her earlier books, which work as who-done-its but don't feel too contrived. This has started strangely: a woman has found a hanged body but seems so unmoved by the experience that I'm starting to wonder if she saw it at all.

 

[elvet]

After stalling horribly for 5 months with The Red Knight by Miles Cameron (my second read through), I have finished it and moved onto the second in the series, The Fell Sword. This is also a second time around, though I am embarrassed to say I recall almost nothing of the story. It was a while back, and the good news for me is that the series is finished. These books have all that I enjoy in a fantasy read - good world building (with a North American slant), medieval setting, and military/armory detail. The author is a reenactor, and uses weapons and armour on a regular basis. The fact that I love these books, yet am taking so long to read them, is a problem with time allocation. I just have to make the time to spend with my books.

 

[Parson]

I just finished A Call to Vengeance by David Weber, Timothy Zahn, and Thomas Pope. It is in the pre-honorverse Manticore Ascendant series. It was pretty good, but not as good as I'd like to see from David Weber and Timothy Zahn, both past master of military S.F. Thomas Pope, must be a newby of sorts for I don't know him. If felt like a place holder book which sets up what's going to come next. A common practice in the last 10 years or so for David Weber. Now ---- finally ---- on to The Event by our own Nathan Hystad.

 

[nixie]

Michael Connelly, Black Ice.

 

[Overread]

Another Gemmel down! Just finished King beyond the Gate

No no I didn't! It was Quest for Lost Heroes!

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am about to start No Time for Sergeants (1954) by Mac Hyman, the famous military comedy that went on to be a TV play, stage play, movie, TV series, and comic book.

 

[Hugh]

I just finished Paul Theroux’s “Deep South”, his perceptions, ruminations, wanderings around Mississipi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas circa 2013/2014. As a UK outsider I found this very interesting.

I’ve also just re-read and been re-enchanted by Philip Pullman’s “Northern Lights”. In comparison I thought “La Belle Sauvage” workmanlike but lacking magic.

 

[Paul_C]

I finished Free Falling last night, liked it a lot.

Followed that by starting The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which I'm enjoying so far. My only issue is the use of a derogatory word which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.

Its use feels like an appropriation by a group, of an insult used by others against them - which would make some sense in the novel, but google suggests that pronounced in a different way it's not necessarily considered offensive, though even then it can be. Either the author has no issue with it, or perhaps is using it to say something about the (alternate history) world he's describing. Whichever it is, all I know is my brain mutters "bad word" every time I read it.

For many years I owned a copy of an Agatha Christie book that was old enough to be considered highly inappropriate now, which I've since shredded and replaced with a more recent version. Because of the environment I grew up in I had no idea of the pain certain words can inflict on those who are on the receiving end, so it meant very little to me for a long time, but since then I've learned a lot and reached a point where I couldn't keep it on the shelf and certainly couldn't sell it or give it away.

 

[Randy M.]

Paul, I would bet that Chabon uses the word with full awareness of how derogatory it is. His other writings indicate engagement with Jewish history. I read The Yiddish Policeman's Union just last year. It was one of my best reads of 2017.

About 2/3s through Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky. Good mystery, pretty good first novel -- couple of info-dumps. I expect she has gotten smoother since then and even then she could write.


Randy M.

 

[hitmouse]

I just finished Paul Theroux’s “Deep South”, his perceptions, ruminations, wanderings around Mississipi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas circa 2013/2014. As a UK outsider I found this very interesting.

Me too.

 

[hitmouse]

For many years I owned a copy of an Agatha Christie book that was old enough to be considered highly inappropriate now, which I've since shredded and replaced with a more recent version.

I assume you are talking about And then there were none.
That is the third title of that book, the first two having become successively unacceptable. I have a copy of the original ( from my grandmother's comprehensive Christie collection) and like a lot of my early 20th century books which are now embarrassing I have kept it. I think acknowledgement and discussion rather than denial of the past is useful here, though I understand that this can be difficult.