October Reading Thread

[Vertigo]

But no matter what gripes I might have about them, they were head and shoulders above The Rowan, a 1990 SF fantasy by Anne McCaffrey. A child is the only survivor when a mud-slide destroys a mining settlement, and she’s brought up to be a telekinetic stevedore, throwing cargoes into space around the various Earth colonies at eg Callisto and Deneb. Despite poor writing, worse characterisation and terrible info-dumping, the first half of the book dealing with the girl's childhood and training was just about OK, but the second half was terrible with the introduction of another telepath who is allegedly charming and for whom she falls heavily despite the fact he’s a brash, arrogant, sexist loud mouth who mentally rapes her for her own good, and she dwindles in importance as he and his equally loud family take up all the metaphorical oxygen in the novel. I skim-read the last third of the book and that was more than it deserved.

We certainly agree on this one. I did finish it but have almost no memory of the latter half of the book. I do recall being horrified that McCaffrey could write a strong female lead who degenerated into jelly as soon as the male lead appeared. I was genuinely shocked! My thoughts for some reason don't seem to be on Chrons but are here: Mike Franklin's review of The Rowan (The Tower and the Hive, #1)

I'll just add that the impression I seem to have been left with is far worse than my review which now feels rather generous to me.

 

[Parson]

Finished the first of the Resistance trilogy Rift by our own @ratsy -- Nathan Hystad. Pretty solid stuff but was most certainly book 1 of the trilogy. Upthread I said that I believed that I might have read it before and now I'm certain I read Rift. I have yet to start Revenge but a quick glance makes me believe book 2 was never read.

I decided to take a break and read Legends Awake by Alex Stiles our own @Plucky Novice. This is a Fantasy and I am not much of a Fantasy reader, but so far it's keeping my interest. Will say more later.

 

[Bick]

Read A Scanner Darkly. Very trippy, very gripping.

Funnily enough, I found it ungripping (is that a word) and a bit of a slog. I don't rate it as highly as other PKD books, but that's just me, I can be hard to please.

 

[The Big Peat]

Funnily enough, I found it ungripping (is that a word) and a bit of a slog. I don't rate it as highly as other PKD books, but that's just me, I can be hard to please.

I can see why you found it ungripping - prose wise, it's dense and I found myself struggling with it at times. But I really wanted to know what happened with the plot, so I simply speed read the hell out of it. Not sure how it'll go if I revisit.

 

[Bick]

so I simply speed read the hell out of it.

That's the best way to read some books. I wouldn't have made it through Jack Dann's The Man Who Melted if I hadn't dashed through it either.

 

[kythe]

I just finished Nova by Samuel R Delany. It had been a while since I have read a classic.

I found this book unpredictable, because I didn't truly understand what kind of story it was until the end. At first it reminded me of Treasure Island, a fast-paced but light "pirate" adventure. But much of the book was more reminiscent of Moby Dick. With this in mind, I thought I could see the ending a mile off. But it was actually a Holy Grail quest, and the captain is a different person than I thought he was. I found myself pleasantly surprised at how events wrapped up.

Nova seems like an adventure story on the surface, but it gets remarkably philosophical about human civilization.

 

[Foxbat]

I’m still ploughing my way through For Whom The Bell Tolls. To be honest, I’m finding it heavy going (I’m only about halfway through). It’s well written but I also think it is a bit overwritten. There’s much that could have been cut out that doesn’t particularly relate to the plot. It may well be that it was just the style back then....or perhaps Hemingway was paid by the word.....

 

[AE35Unit]

Yesterday I read Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, the story with which he created the detective fiction genre, and the first literary detective-C. Auguste Dupin
It was interesting but man it was hard work!

 

[Randy M.]

I’m still ploughing my way through For Whom The Bell Tolls. To be honest, I’m finding it heavy going (I’m only about halfway through). It’s well written but I also think it is a bit overwritten. There’s much that could have been cut out that doesn’t particularly relate to the plot. It may well be that it was just the style back then....or perhaps Hemingway was paid by the word.....

Hemingway often uses prose in poetic ways, working toward an effect rather than just a description or a detailing of action. It's been 30+ years since I read it, but I recall reading it at a galloping pace for me -- I'm used to Hemingway-esque prose since he was one of the strongest influences on hard-boiled fiction -- and wouldn't have cut a word.

You've made me curious what I'd think of it now.

Randy M.

 

[Danny McG]

I've finished Free Lunch by Spider Robinson, it seemed very familiar, I think I've read it a long time ago.

Now I'm having a re-read of a 1980s spy thriller.
The Parsifal Mosaic.

Looking at these books with a modern mindset makes me realise how much of the Ludlum yarns involve setting up communication.
So much simpler now with a smartphone

 

[tobl]

I've finished Free Lunch by Spider Robinson, it seemed very familiar, I think I've read it a long time ago.

Now I'm having a re-read of a 1980s spy thriller.
The Parsifal Mosaic.

Looking at these books with a modern mindset makes me realise how much of the Ludlum yarns involve setting up communication.
So much simpler now with a smartphone

oh came on the guy is a genius. i love most of his books and that one is a gem

 

[tobl]

Yesterday I read Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, the story with which he created the detective fiction genre, and the first literary detective-C. Auguste Dupin
It was interesting but man it was hard work!

reading? ou writing it?

 

[Danny McG]

oh came on the guy is a genius. i love most of his books and that one is a gem

Oh I know that, I've always enjoyed his brutal and complex spy stories.
My comment was about changes in technology since he wrote them

 

[soulsinging]

I've moved on to Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler. Very excited about this given how much I liked the first book in this duology, and right out of the gate it's almost frightening in how on point it is to the moment, right down to a presidential candidate who is "a throwback to some earlier, 'simpler' time... [who] condemns the burnings, but does so in such mild language that his people are free to hear what they want... [and says] become one of us. Help us to make America great again." Creepy!

Also, finishing out my 2020 kindle Tolkien re-read, I'm 2 chapters into Fellowship/LOTR. The early chapters provide a nice slice of Shire life, recalling the whimsy of The Hobbit with more depth.

 

[Bick]

I’m still ploughing my way through For Whom The Bell Tolls. To be honest, I’m finding it heavy going (I’m only about halfway through). It’s well written but I also think it is a bit overwritten. There’s much that could have been cut out that doesn’t particularly relate to the plot. It may well be that it was just the style back then....or perhaps Hemingway was paid by the word.....

It’s his least accessible book I think. I found it dense and relatively slow also; in direct contrast to most of his other books.

 

[Bick]

Also, finishing out my 2020 kindle Tolkien re-read, I'm 2 chapters into Fellowship/LOTR. The early chapters provide a nice slice of Shire life, recalling the whimsy of The Hobbit with more depth.

In my re-read of Fellowship a year or so ago, I was struck by how different in tone the early parts of book 1 were from the subsequent books. It doesn’t read like it was all written according to a well worked out advance plan (unlike The Hobbit and The Silmarillion).

 

[Extollager]

Yep, Bick! The final form of LotR shows how it was begun as a sequel to The Hobbit, i.e. Tolkien thought of himself as starting to write another book for children, as his publisher urged. One might have thought, given what LotR became, that Tolkien's early authorial wrestlings would have had to do with working out the connections of his newly-begun book with the world of his Legendarium. But as I recall from the relevant volume of The History of Middle-earth, a great deal of his time, early on, was actually occupied by fussing about hobbit genealogies.

 

[tobl]

Oh I know that, I've always enjoyed his brutal and complex spy stories.
My comment was about changes in technology since he wrote them

there are some books like that. Try reading arsene lupin books or leslie charteris the saint series

 

[OHB]

Yesterday I read Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, the story with which he created the detective fiction genre, and the first literary detective-C. Auguste Dupin
It was interesting but man it was hard work!

I think that's one of his better stories. He wrote two sequels to it as well, "The Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter." I thought the former was a little too explain-y. The latter was actually pretty funny.

 

[Paul_C]

Just finished Aliette De Bodard's Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight which I really enjoyed.

Next up is the second Prefect book , Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds