January 2021 Reading Thread.

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Current reading includes a real page-turner by Anthony Trollope, John Caldigate; a rereading of David Williams's "Amish postapocalyptic" When the English Fall; another youngsters' book by John Bellairs, etc. I've never thought of Trollope as one of my Favorite Authors, way up there and all, but it's getting to be quite a few of his novels that I've read and enjoyed. I guess he qualifies.
 
Finished "Archenemies," book 2 of the Renegades series by Marissa Meyer yesterday. The first book in the series felt like an X-men carbon. While the X-men influence is still there, the second in the series was much better and I'm looking forward to completing the series.
 
Hammered away and finished off a few unmemorable books, I've decided I don't really like having more than one on the go, too confusing.

(At one time I always had at least three being read, one downstairs, one by my bed and one on my phone.)

I've just began a crime thriller by Duncan Brockwell - Mr Invisible
 
I enjoyed the Harlan Ellison collection, Ellison Wonderland. It is an early collection (1962), gathering mainly stories from the late 50’s. For this reason, I’ve seen some reviews damn it with feint praise, saying most of the stories lack the bite and shock of some of Ellison’s later work. But the appropriate comparison is perhaps with other late 50’s short fiction, and on that basis, it’s pretty bloomin’ good. Ellison clearly developed his craft through the 60’s and 70’s but these are still enjoyable and successful stories, in the main. Several are excellent.
I especially liked:
Commuter’s Problem,
Do-it-Yourself,
All the Sounds of Fear,
The Sky is Burning, &
Nothing For My Noon Meal
 
Now starting Wheels Within Wheels, by F. Paul Wilson, which occurs in the same LaNague Federation universe as perhaps his most famous SF work, Healer.

(All the books I’m reading on camp this week were picked up in used book stores, incidentally, except for the ADF collection, which I ordered new. I imagine most would be hard to get hold of these days otherwise).
 
John Garth "The Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Places that inspired Middle Earth"
Lovely book. Really enjoyed it. Beautifully produced hardback. Excellent value. As the title says, it's about the "places" not the myths, people or life events that influenced him, though these do make some appearances in the text. John Garth is the author of "Tolkien and the Great War" so is well informed on all matters Tolkien and this knowledge is abundantly evident in the text without ever becoming pedantic. I'm not well-informed on the full Tolkien legendarium, and am pretty sketchy on the Silmarillion, but I found it a read to savour.

One minor point that caught my eye: in an early chapter Garth looks at links between Tolkien's maps and how they connect to the British Isles. In so doing he connects the Grey Havens to Clevedon in Somerset: "If you superimpose (the rivers) Lhun and Severn, you will find the Grey Havens around Clevedon, where Tolkien and his own Luthien, Edith, took their honeymoon. He cannot have expected readers to realize this kind of thing. But I suspect that he found private pleasure in it."
Who knows the truth of this, but the sweetness of it made me smile, the more so as I lived a few minutes from Clevedon in the early 70s before the M5 motorway was built: I remember it as truly rundown with a ruined pier no longer connected to the shore - who'd have thought that it was the Grey Havens! (I know it's changed and is probably very different today).
 
I liked The Green Man's Heir - Juliet E. McKenna, which ended up being one and a bit more stories rather than one, but none the worse for that.

Next up was The Case of the Somewhat Mythic Sword by Garth Nix, a short fantasy story about Sherlock Holmes' cousin, Sir Magnus Holmes, who deals with some of the more exotic inhabitants of London.

After that I picked up Clay's Ark - Octavia E Butler, which was a short but nevertheless passable read, and I'm now enjoying The City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer.
 
Not sff, unfortunately, but I just read Stone Cold by Robert Swindells. Powerful contemporary YA about the vulnerability of young homeless people. Really grim. Son1 is reading it for school, which is how I happened upon it. I liked it a lot more than he does.
 
Currently halfway through John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There. It’s been many years since my last reading of this and even many more years than that since it was written but it stands the test of time well. Gripping Science Fiction at its best.
 
Foxbat said:
Currently halfway through John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There. It’s been many years since my last reading of this and even many more years than that since it was written but it stands the test of time well. Gripping Science Fiction at its best.
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Ah the story that formed the basis of The Thing
 
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