January 2019 Reading Thread

[anno]

On an evening I'm reading Revendez-Vous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, which feels too short and badly dated, not least because of the extremely objective POV. It's interesting enough to continue, but I'm glad it's not a longer book.

As I more or less started my SF reading with Clarke I find it frustrating personally that any rereading potential is displaced by the inability to wade through his prose, it seems very dry and dated. Rama is rightfully included as a genre classic though!

 

[Vertigo]

I'm assuming that this is another series than the "In Her Name" series which seems pretty straight forward in terms of which book is which.

I've finished In Her Name: First Contact by Michael Hicks. This book's ending was not as solid as the rest of the book. The ending made sense (in terms of the world view taken in this universe) but once again I felt that there were too many? incredible saves of one of the major characters. I may read book 2, but it is being sold for $4.99 so between my hesitation on the ending and the price I'm going to pass for a time and look for something which suits me better. ---- And yes if it would have been on Kindle Unlimited I would have continued onto book 2.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm assuming that this is another series than the "In Her Name" series which seems pretty straight forward in terms of which book is which.

I've finished In Her Name: First Contact by Michael Hicks. This book's ending was not as solid as the rest of the book. The ending made sense (in terms of the world view taken in this universe) but once again I felt that there were too many? incredible saves of one of the major characters. I may read book 2, but it is being sold for $4.99 so between my hesitation on the ending and the price I'm going to pass for a time and look for something which suits me better. ---- And yes if it would have been on Kindle Unlimited I would have continued onto book 2.

I read this one and initially liked it as a good hokum adventure pulp but, like you, by the end of it there had been too many implausible, convenient escapes and solutions for me to accept.

I have not continued.

Incidentally the different series are called In Her Name: The Last War and In Her Name: Redemption etc. This being what I would describe as milking an idea for all it's worth.

 

[drmatteri]

Currently reading Cherlie Priest's steampunk zombie adventure Boneshaker and Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice.

 

[Bick]

I finished Wodehouse’s Pigs Have Wings, and have continued the humourous theme by starting the next up in Pratchett’s Discworld series: Pyramids. This is the 7th in the series - I’ll comment on it specifically in the Pratchett thread I started, in due course, I’m sure.

 

[williamjm]

I've started reading an anthology of some of Ursula Le Guin's Hainish novels. I've just finished the first novel, Rocannon's World. It doesn't have as much depth to it as her more famous later works, but I did enjoy the story. In some ways it is a bit reminiscent of The Left Hand of Darkness, in that both feature a lone representative of a space-faring civilisation forced to go on a long and dangerous journey on a comparatively primitive planet accompanied by a small number of locals. The world does have an almost mythical feel to it - in her notes Le Guin says she was heavily influenced by Norse mythology - and at times it feel more like fantasy than science fiction. It's also a fairly typical fantasy quest narrative, even if the object of Rocannon's quest is an interstellar communications device. The world they travel through on the quest is interesting, particularly the various sentient species that are native to the planet, and Le Guin is able to pack what feels like a lot of detail in a small number of words. I thought Rocannon was a likeable protagonist (more likeable than Genli in The Left Hand of Darkness), although the other characters sometimes feel more like archetypes than fully-developed characters. Overall, I'd say it's a good debut novel, even if it is overshadowed by Le Guin's later stories.

Next up is the second Hainish novel, Planet of Exile.

 

[Hugh]

Norman Lewis: "An Empire of the East, Travels in Indonesia". Given Lewis was born in 1908 and was the author of the remarkable autobiographical "Naples 44", I'd foolishly assumed this would be a gentle journey around Indonesia in the early 1960s. Far from it, here he is in 1991, age 82, travelling around some of the more inaccessible areas of Indonesia (Northern Sumatra, East Timor, the Highlands of Irian Jaya) with an entertaining eye for detail while commenting on the effects of Javanese colonialism. There is relatively little reference to the nationwide massacres of 1965/6 (?one million dead), but the section on Timor, and the atrocities committed there, makes for grim reading indeed.

 

[Danny McG]

Father Christmas got me the first three books in the Slough House series by Mick Herron and I'm now well into the second book.
Jackson Lamb and his team of disgraced spies... Good stuff

I'll deffo be buying more of these.

 

[saulfan]

Father Christmas got me the first three books in the Slough House series by Mick Herron and I'm now well into the second book.
Jackson Lamb and his team of disgraced spies... Good stuff

I'll deffo be buying more of these.

I'm just about a third of the way through the first one, having started it this morning and am enjoying it so far.

Best Wishes,
David

 

[hitmouse]

Norman Lewis: "An Empire of the East, Travels in Indonesia". Given Lewis was born in 1908 and was the author of the remarkable autobiographical "Naples 44", I'd foolishly assumed this would be a gentle journey around Indonesia in the early 1960s. Far from it, here he is in 1991, age 82, travelling around some of the more inaccessible areas of Indonesia (Northern Sumatra, East Timor, the Highlands of Irian Jaya) with an entertaining eye for detail while commenting on the effects of Javanese colonialism. There is relatively little reference to the nationwide massacres of 1965/6 (?one million dead), but the section on Timor, and the atrocities committed there, makes for grim reading indeed.

I haven't read that one. Lewis really does not like colonialism in any of his books.

 

[Hugh]

I haven't read that one. Lewis really does not like colonialism in any of his books.

Are there any Lewis you'd recommend?
I've only read three: this one, "Naples 44", and "The Honoured Society"?

 

[hitmouse]

Voices of the Old Sea, and Jackdaw Cake are both excellent.
A Dragon Apparent is very good. Goddess in the Stones is also worth reading.
Naples 44 is his masterpiece.

There is also a good biography by Julian Evans: Semi Invisible Man.

 

[Hugh]

Voices of the Old Sea, and Jackdaw Cake are both excellent.
A Dragon Apparent is very good. Goddess in the Stones is also worth reading.
Naples 44 is his masterpiece.

There is also a good biography by Julian Evans: Semi Invisible Man.

Many thanks. I've made a note. I've read one a year now for three years, so it may take a while, but I know I'll read them in due course. It's always pleasant to have books to look forward to.

I came across the first one I read, "Naples 44", on one of those very rare occasions (these days) browsing in a bookshop to kill some time before catching a train. Years ago my reading was almost entirely guided by such random browsing, and probably the richer for it.

 

[Paul_C]

I'm afraid I got really annoyed with The Quantum Magician last night, too many skimmed over bits plus a couple of things that didn't make sense but yet helped the story.

So I put it aside and started Finch by Jeff Vandermeer instead.

Finch completed, I liked it a lot, though the kindle version seems to have been created using a technique which left out a number of letters - off was always written of, and there were a number of others that needed context to decide what word they were supposed to be, which spoiled the flow a little.

So to avoid irritation I've picked up a proper book for my next read - Gateway by Frederik Pohl.

 

[Extollager]

Voices of the Old Sea, and Jackdaw Cake are both excellent.
A Dragon Apparent is very good. Goddess in the Stones is also worth reading.
Naples 44 is his masterpiece.

There is also a good biography by Julian Evans: Semi Invisible Man.

Just a plea that, if there's going to be a discussion of this outstanding travel writer, it not be buried here in a general discussion, but carried on in the Travel Books thread.

Penguin Travel Library and other literary travel books

 

[Bick]

I completed reading Pyramids by Terry Pratchett (comments in my Pratchett thread). I’ve now started Edmund Cooper’s first novel, The Uncertain Midnight, published in 1957. I very much enjoyed his later novel Transit, so this will hopefully be fun. Cooper seems to be one of the more forgotten authors in SF, and when I was a lad he was rather dismissed as second rate compared to say, Clarke, for instance. I’ve a sneaking feeling this was a misjudgement, as what I’ve read is rather good.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

SOG The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam by John L. Plaster

 

[dask]

I’ve now started Edmund Cooper’s first novel, The Uncertain Midnight, published in 1957. I very much enjoyed his later novel Transit, so this will hopefully be fun. Cooper seems to be one of the more forgotten authors in SF, and when I was a lad he was rather dismissed as second rate compared to say, Clarke, for instance. I’ve a sneaking feeling this was a misjudgement, as what I’ve read is rather good.

I had high hopes for Cooper's A Far Sunset when I read it back in the 70s but didn't care for it at all. Never tried anything else by him since. Probably should I guess. Not good to dismiss an author based on one work.

 

[Rodders]

Oh, I really enjoyed Edmund Cooper and read most of his stuff as a teenager in the 80's. A Far Sunset was a favourite of mine for a long time.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Three books that are more for looking at than reading:

The Little Book of Goat Yoga (2018) by Lainey Morse. Some yoga positions are described in detail, but it's mostly for cute goat pictures.

70s Dinner Party (2016) by Anna Pallai. Pictures of vile-looking dishes from that time period, with snarky captions.

Star Trek: Fifty Years of Star Trek (2016) edited by Christopher Cooper. The redundant title comes from the fact that this is a collection of articles from Star Trek magazine, with lots of photos.