September 2018: Reading Thread

[TWErvin2]

Next I'm reading my first book by one of the members. Monsters, Maces and Magic: Outpost by @TWErvin2. I read The Sleeping Dragon when it came out in the 80s, which seems to have started this genre. I remember that I enjoyed it at the time.

Thanks for giving Outpost a try, Anthoney. I hope you enjoy it.

 

[Anthoney]

So after Outpost I decided to give another book in that genre. The Beginning (Dark Paladin book 1) by Vasily Mahanenko. It was originally written in Russian then translated.

 

[Toby Frost]

I've been re-reading The Road to Wigan Pier. It really is a fascinating read if you're interested in social history. In the first half, George Orwell travels around northern England and describes the grim conditions there. In the second half, he insults his readers. Seriously.

His argument is that the left contains too many cranks and not enough genuine workers. "Cranks", for Orwell, includes vegetarians, people who don't drink beer and, it seems, men who wear shorts. It is pretty absurd. But once you get away from the physical descriptions, his attack starts to look increasingly accurate. It's a strange book, at once very telling and seriously dated: all the details are wrong, but the broad thrust still feels relevant. And it's very well-written, too.

 

[Extollager]

That passage about cranks, sandal-wearers etc sticks in my memory as one of the best bits -- hilarious.

I also remember his account of the grimy boarding house where he stayed -- the tripe-sellers. Gruesomely funny: watching the progress of recognized crumbs across the table cover from meal to meal.

 

[Extollager]

I read Alan Garner's Red Shift for the second time about a week ago (on the Saturday), and then for a third time Friday-Sunday just now (this is Monday). It seems to me as if Garner got a bit carried away with the experiment of writing a novel as much as possible through terse dialogue. The deliberate anachronism of having the remnants of the Ninth Spanish Legion speak like US soldiers in Vietnam doesn't hold up. Various other details may be criticized, but, more basically, I am in doubts about how genuinely the three time-lines relate to one another and whether there is indeed significant real value added, by having the axe head in each of them, etc. I'm particularly doubtful about the 17th-century element, which feels tome like it might have been included largely to make up the full weight of a novel that's somehow about the passage of time in the same area. The man with epilepsy seems "needed" for the novel a little too obviously, so that we can have a severely-stressed male character in each time-line (the berserker soldier in the Roman-period one, and the unhappy lower-class teenager in the modern one). I've liked the cyclical time thing in Owl Service, the preceding novel, more, which ends redemptively, where as this one ends with the teenage boy probably killing himself &c. I wonder if Garner "had to" write one or two works of a type that end optimistically before (Weirdstone, Moon) and then in a dire fashion (Elidor*); and here (Owl Service vs Red Shift).

*In an interview, he said that if there'd been one more sentence in Elidor, it would have been about the boy going insane -- the character he ends with (Roland? I forget the name).

 

[Hugh]

I’ve now finished the LOTR. I hadn’t read it for at least fifteen years, and haven’t read an edition with appendices for around fifty. I’m amazed. Stunned. Much to my surprise I’ve been moved to tears on a number of occasions, particularly in books five and six. Must be part of the ageing process (age 66): I don’t remember ever being moved before. It may have helped that I’ve done a lot of reading around Tolkien recently for the first time.
Many thanks to @Brian G Turner for his thread on re-reading the LOTR which stirred my interest enough to struggle through the Silmarillion for the first time, which then led to much further reading, culminating in the LOTR. Many thanks also to the number of people who've made suggestions along the way. This whole process has felt remarkably rich.

 

[soulsinging]

I’ve now finished the LOTR. I hadn’t read it for at least fifteen years, and haven’t read an edition with appendices for around fifty. I’m amazed. Stunned. Much to my surprise I’ve been moved to tears on a number of occasions, particularly in books five and six. Must be part of the ageing process (age 66): I don’t remember ever being moved before. It may have helped that I’ve done a lot of reading around Tolkien recently for the first time.
Many thanks to @Brian G Turner for his thread on re-reading the LOTR which stirred my interest enough to struggle through the Silmarillion for the first time, which then led to much further reading, culminating in the LOTR. Many thanks also to the number of people who've made suggestions along the way. This whole process has felt remarkably rich.

Now I want to break out my LOTR trilogy and the Silmarillion...

I'm now reading Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. It's got strong reviews and is pretty engaging so far. The Blue Sword was only so-so, I guess McKinley hasn't aged well for me when the nostalgia of Robin Hood isn't keeping me going.

 

[hitmouse]

Halfway through Letters to a Young Contrarian by Christopher Hitchens. Absolutely splendid.

 

[Danny McG]

Thanks for giving Outpost a try, Anthoney. I hope you enjoy it.

Wow! Until I saw this I didn't even realise Terry Ervin ii was on this site.

I got one of yours, Relic Tech, a cracking good story (and I only recently learned it's got a sequel that I intend to buy)

*waves at TW Ervin2*

 

[Parson]

I've read the second of Jaques Antoine "Emily Kane Adventures" and was disappointed. Here is my Amazon review of this story: (@dannymcg might be interested)

Girl Punches Out is the second of Jaques Antoine "Emily Kane Adventures." It is a disappointing sequel to one of the finest opening book series I've read. But while "Girl Fights Back" was deeply atmospheric and mysterious, "Girl Punches Out" loses much of that atmospheric sense and the mystery surrounding Emily/Michico is considerably lessened. the latter was to be expected. the former while not surprising is disappointing as well.

This story picks up and runs with all of the weaker features of the opening book. In my review of the book "Girl Fights Back" I said that the one thing that I didn't especially care for in the book was how "Emily" who now sees herself as "Michiko Tenno" bordered on being a Super Hero, rather than a normal human being. I said then that I was sure that Jaques Antoine "must not have intended that."

I now believe I was dead wrong with that assessment. This book sets up a possible "Spider Man" scenario for Michiko which does not appeal to me at all. Added to that frustration is the fact that this book now has all of the ear marks of devolving into a "Fantasy" rather than a Science Fiction series. To explain this would be to give too much of the plot away for the next readers. Let me say that I could only recommend this book to those who are looking for a modern Fantasy setting with inanimate objects having souls and with battles being fought both physically and on a different plane of existence. I do not expect to read the third book in this series. But I will leave room to change my mind.

 

[Galactic Journey]

In addition to Margaret St. Clair's "Sign of the Labrys" (which is quite good so far), I'm also plowing through the usual line-up of Galaxy, F&SF, and Analog. The Galaxy contained a short novel by William Tenn and a fine short story by Cordwainer Smith.

 

[Anthoney]

Today I started the first in a time travel series (Matt Miller in the Colonies) called Journeyman by Mark Rose. I'm listening to the audible version. It's read by the author which is unusual (Stephen King has done it).

 

[TWErvin2]

Wow! Until I saw this I didn't even realise Terry Ervin ii was on this site.

I got one of yours, Relic Tech, a cracking good story (and I only recently learned it's got a sequel that I intend to buy)

*waves at TW Ervin2*

Waves back I spend a little time in a lot of places.

Glad you enjoyed Relic Tech! I have the third novel in the series in process, but it'll be a little while before it's finished.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm on the last few pages of The Old Vengeful, the 12th in the David Audley series by Anthony Price (this made reference to HMS Agincourt at the battle of Jutland and I was duly distracted for a day or two looking up that noble dreadnought!).

I'm starting a new book in the next hour, Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, number 4 in the Cormoran Strike series.
Observation: He writes in a very similar style to her who wrote the Harry Potter books

 

[Hugh]

“Emphyrio” by Jack Vance (1969). Classic Vance in the SF Masterworks series.
Very readable, but as can happen with Vance, the richness of the tapestry tends to divert attention from questions that form in the mind (well, my mind) of the reader, for example the main character grows up alone with his father, yet there is nary a mention/thought of the mother.
The last few pages resolve the storyline so quickly as to be frustrating: it’s almost as if Vance realised he had fulfilled his contract in getting beyond two hundred pages so he might as well tie the ends up and move on to another earner.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

The Cold Commands by Richard Morgan

I'm two thirds the way through and enjoying it but it isn't gripping me in the same way The Steel Remains did. There are passages in the book that I seem to drift through and think what was the purpose of that? Then the story picks up again and it's gripping! Strangely, it's made me really look forward to the final part of the trilogy The Dark Defiles.

 

[nixie]

The Legion of Flame Anthony Ryan.

 

[hitmouse]

“Emphyrio” by Jack Vance (1969). Classic Vance in the SF Masterworks series.
Very readable, but as can happen with Vance, the richness of the tapestry tends to divert attention from questions that form in the mind (well, my mind) of the reader, for example the main character grows up alone with his father, yet there is nary a mention/thought of the mother.
The last few pages resolve the storyline so quickly as to be frustrating: it’s almost as if Vance realised he had fulfilled his contract in getting beyond two hundred pages so he might as well tie the ends up and move on to another earner.

Uncharacteristic for Vance in the lack of humour. There is I think an interesting comparison with Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy, which has a very similar plot but quite different execution. I think the Vance is better.

 

[tobl]

I'm starting a new book in the next hour, Lethal White by Robert Galbraith, number 4 in the Cormoran Strike series.
Observation: He writes in a very similar style to her who wrote the Harry Potter books

That was sarcasm wright'? i mean you do know that is j.k. writing those books right?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am about to start It Only Hurts When I Laugh (1988), a memoir by the satirist Stan Freberg.