August 2018 Reading thread

[Extollager]

I've started a thread, in the Tolkien section, on

Tolkien's "Most Treasured Volume"

 

[Danny McG]

Having flew through my Jack Vance re-reads I'm now in the first couple of chapters of American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennet.
So far it reminds me of Ray Bradbury writing about Green Town.

 

[Parson]

About to begin Discovery book 5 in the First Colony Series by Ken Lozito.

 

[Randy M.]

Having flew through my Jack Vance re-reads I'm now in the first couple of chapters of American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennet.
So far it reminds me of Ray Bradbury writing about Green Town.

Interesting. I just read The Shadow Year which also has a Bradbury and Green Town feel to it.

Extollager: Thanks for the heads up on the Nordic crime fiction encyclopedia. That sounds interesting, as does your friend. I have some friends who seem infinitely curious about the surrounding world and I'm always amazed by their reserves of energy for exploring it, and just how much of their investigations they retain memory of.


Randy M.

 

[williamjm]

I just finished Andy Weir's Artemis. I really enjoyed The Martian when I read it a few years ago, despite some occasionally clunky writing, but I found Artemis a bit disappointing in comparison.

On the plus side, I found it reasonably entertaining to read and it moved at a decent pace. In terms of the descriptions of the technology of the first lunar city I thought it seemed fine, but it was a bit distracting that despite being nominally a Kenyan colony and populated by an international workforce everyone seems to talk like they're in an American TV show and despite being decades in the future it was filled with contemporary pop culture references. It's slightly unfair to compare it to Ian McDonald's Luna series since that's about a much more established Lunar culture, but I felt McDonald put in a lot of effort designing his lunar society whereas Weir doesn't seem to have put in any effort at all. I also wasn't impressed with the writing of the protagonist, Jazz Bashara may be a Saudi woman in her mid 20s but her internal narration sounds more like an American teenage boy.

I mostly thought the plot was OK, but I think it fell apart at the end, in particular there were two points I struggled with where it felt like it went a bit too far to give the book a happy ending.

Spoiler

I'm not claiming to have any particular knowledge here, but it feels to me that if an average human would die after an hours exposure to chloroform (as the book states) then children or the elderly or infirm would be likely to die significantly sooner, so the lack of any casualties didn't seem believable.

Also the way that Jazz walks away without any consequences beyond losing most of her money seemed unbelievable. I also don't find it convincing that people are apparently only mildly annoyed about someone deliberately destroying their oxygen supply and then accidentally poisoning them. That feels like the sort of thing that would get someone summarily pushed out an airlock without an EVA suit.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am about to start Penguin Island (1908) by Anatole France. There isn't any translator credited in my Dover thrift edition, but since it's a reprint of a 1909 edition, I assume it's the 1908 translation (from French) by A. W. Evans. It appears to be a satiric tale of penguins miraculously transformed into people, and how their history parallels humanity's follies.

 

[Bick]

I’ve just started a re-read of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Only a couple of chapters in - I’d forgotten quite how well written and atmospheric it is. I’m quite sure I’m going to really enjoy re-reading this.

Did you finish Chapter House, Brian or did you give up on it in the end? I may read through Children of Dune, we’ll see it it goes...

 

[Vince W]

I’ve just started a re-read of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Only a couple of chapters in - I’d forgotten quite how well written and atmospheric it is. I’m quite sure I’m going to really enjoy re-reading this.

Did you finish Chapter House, Brian or did you give up on it in the end? I may read through Children of Dune, we’ll see it it goes...

I've been re-reading God Emperor of Dune in bits and pieces, but it's hard not to just read Dune again.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I’ve just started a re-read of Frank Herbert’s Dune. Only a couple of chapters in - I’d forgotten quite how well written and atmospheric it is. I’m quite sure I’m going to really enjoy re-reading this.

Did you finish Chapter House, Brian or did you give up on it in the end? I may read through Children of Dune, we’ll see it it goes...

I finished the series - Dune is a fantastic book, but the sequels are poor echoes and Chapter House I found to be the poorest of all.

 

[HareBrain]

I’ve just started a re-read of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

And I've just started my first read of it, as my big fat on-holiday book.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Finished A Brief History of Roman Britain. Got a literal pile of books to read, so not sure what I'll go for next.

I'll review it properly fairly soon, but the short version would be that I liked it, though it could've done with a bit of a tighter fisking. Few too many errors (generally not too annoyed by typos, but confusing Julian and Julius is a bit iffy). Level of detail was impressive, though.

 

[Hugh]

More Tolkien…

“Smith of Wootton Major”: I loved this story. It’s been a while since I last read it, and perhaps I appreciate it much more now having read around Tolkien extensively in the last few weeks. There’s a very sweet fan letter from the nineteen year old Terry Pratchett (22.12.67) praising this book in the catalogue to the current Tolkien exhibition (“I read it and re-read it with awe”).
It seems that Tolkien wrote this story as a reaction to trying to write an introduction to an edition of George MacDonald’s “Golden Key”. Clyde Kilby was one of the first to discuss the manuscript with Tolkien and says that Tolkien at that time (1966) was very critical of MacDonald, to the extent that Kilby came to believe that the untalented Master Cook in the story is in fact MacDonald.

“The Adventures of Tom Bombadil”: I can enjoy this to some extent these days. When it first came out in 1962, I was given this for Xmas. I was eleven at that time and very excited to see a book all about Tom Bombadil, only to be very disappointed when I opened it and found a series of poems, most of which had nothing to do with Mr Bombadil at all.
I see that Tolkien compiled this to please his much loved Aunt Jane before her death: this seems to be about the only time he met a publication deadline - if only there had been more elderly relatives to please, perhaps the Silmarillion might have been completed in a readable version by the early 1960s.

 

[Extollager]

Hugh, do you dearly love Pauline Baynes's illustrations for those two books, as I do? They made deep impressions on me at a young age, and how good that they should do so.

George MacDonald truly is one of the great fantasists, and it was appropriate that the fondly-remembered Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series reprinted his two book-length romances for adults, Phantastes and Lilith, and great tales such as "The Golden Key" in Evenor (all-MacDonald) and New Worlds for Old (where MacDonald shares space with many other authors).

My guess is that Tolkien's feelings included (1) real appreciation for MacDonald's art of fantasy at its best, (2) uneasiness about his own indebtedness to MacDonald in The Hobbit, whose goblins are right out of MacDonald, and (3) dislike of the moralizing that hurts MacDonald's "The Wise Woman" aka "The Lost Princess." There are moralizing touches elsewhere, but in this one, the reader feels that the preaching intention is firmly in the saddle. Years ago I wrote a long criticism of this story in the form of an "open letter" to C. S. Lewis.

 

[Hugh]

Pauline Baynes is wonderful. Farmer Giles too.

I intend to read some George MacDonald, particularly "Phantastes", some time after the LOTR (which I'll start fairly soon). I haven't read much of his stuff, but, given that both Tolkien and Lewis were so keen on him at one time, he looks well worth a try.
I did read the "Princess and the Goblin" when young, staying in an unfamiliar house, and it scared me silly regarding goblin creatures that come out at night. Years later I came across it as an adult and I could appreciate both why I was so scared and how good it is.

 

[Extollager]

Yes -- The Princess and the Goblin is wonderful. I love the castle corridors, and Irene's ascent to the unsuspected room of the wise old woman.

If you can find W. H. Auden's essay on George MacDonald (it is reprinted in Auden's Forewords and Afterwords, it's well worth reading and can, I think, head off some problems of interpretation.

There are a couple of annotated editions of Phantastes. I haven't seen the one from Winged Lion Press, but I bet it is very good. Pennington and McGillis are well-regarded. However, I'm not sure that MacDonald should be read, the first time or two, with expository notes. It's nice if you have an edition with Arthur Hughes's illustrations, though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935688154/?tag=id2100-20

Personally, I have preferred Lilith to Phantastes, but probably should reread the latter. Someone kindly put up my old study notes for Lilith here (I've included MacDonald's late romance in several courses):

Lilith Study Guide

Looking ahead -- if you get really interested in reading about MacDonald, the book to read, I'd say, is Rolland Hein's The Harmony Within, but Robert Lee Wolff's study, The Golden Key, is not recommended because of old-fashioned reductive psychoanalytical Freudianizing.

There's a place on Chrons Forums for discussing MacDonald:

George MacDonald, Victorian Faerie Author, Pre-Dracula Vampire Classic, etc.

 

[Extollager]

Some of Hughes's illustrations for Phantastes:

 

[Hugh]

Yes -- The Princess and the Goblin is wonderful. I love the castle corridors, and Irene's ascent to the unsuspected room of the wise old woman.

If you can find W. H. Auden's essay on George MacDonald (it is reprinted in Auden's Forewords and Afterwords, it's well worth reading and can, I think, head off some problems of interpretation.

There are a couple of annotated editions of Phantastes. I haven't seen the one from Winged Lion Press, but I bet it is very good. Pennington and McGillis are well-regarded. However, I'm not sure that MacDonald should be read, the first time or two, with expository notes. It's nice if you have an edition with Arthur Hughes's illustrations, though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1935688154/?tag=id2100-20

Personally, I have preferred Lilith to Phantastes, but probably should reread the latter. Someone kindly put up my old study notes for Lilith here (I've included MacDonald's late romance in several courses):

Lilith Study Guide

Looking ahead -- if you get really interested in reading about MacDonald, the book to read, I'd say, is Rolland Hein's The Harmony Within, but Robert Lee Wolff's study, The Golden Key, is not recommended because of old-fashioned reductive psychoanalytical Freudianizing.

There's a place on Chrons Forums for discussing MacDonald:

George MacDonald, Victorian Faerie Author, Pre-Dracula Vampire Classic, etc.

Many thanks for these references. I'll be looking at them with interest.

At present I'm only thinking of one or two MacDonalds - I don't like to plan too far ahead. I'll bear Lilith in mind as an alternative to Phantastes.

I remember the wise old woman in The Princess and Curdie as truly magical.

 

[Hugh]

Personally, I have preferred Lilith to Phantastes, but probably should reread the latter. Someone kindly put up my old study notes for Lilith here (I've included MacDonald's late romance in several courses):

Lilith Study Guide

It seems that the professor may be retired but his study notes live on.

 

[dask]

Some of Hughes's illustrations for Phantastes:

Are these illustrations accurate depictions of what's really happening in the story? Or put another way, is the story as good as the illustrations seem to suggest?

 

[Extollager]

Are these illustrations accurate depictions of what's really happening in the story? Or put another way, is the story as good as the illustrations seem to suggest?

I think so, but I admit that my last reading of Phantastes was 13 years ago. Incidentally, I believe Arthur Hughes was married to one of MacDonald's daughters.

The 2008 Paternoster Press paperback and the 1994 Johannesen hardcover editions both have the Hughes illustrations. I think the paperback prints the drawings slightly better, but on the other hand the Johannesen edition is a really nice full-cloth, sewn-signatures presentation. I don't know yet if the Winged Lion Press annotated edition does -- but I'm thinking of getting it as well as those two editions.