June 2021 Reading Discussion

[Universal_Blonde]

Weird book I only dimly recall reading. I think liking it depends on your sense of humor. I had the sense of Jeter having a good time playing with recurring themes and motifs in the work of H.P. Lovecraft, among others.

Ah, okay. I'll continue reading with that in mind. Thanks!

 

[Danny McG]

For short story amusement, I'm also dipping in and out of this:

Really showing my age here, I remember the original TV series in the 1960s - The Vital Spark

 

[Danny McG]

Tonight I'm having a try at Colony by Benjamin Cross

Colony

Harmsworth. A remote, mist-shrouded island in the Russian Arctic. Archaeology Professor Callum Ross makes the discovery of a lifetime: a prehistoric ice mummy p

blackwells.co.uk

 

[Randy M.]

Fluke: or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore

Take about a gallon of Frank Capra and mix it liberally with the class clown who somehow learned how to write, add a pound or so of barnacles scrapped off Moby Dick, sprinkle in Joseph Conrad and Jules Verne to taste, and then add a whole lotta Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep as watched a dozen times, or maybe thirty, and then discussed and re-imagined by Mel and Max Brooks and you have, roughly, Fluke. Oh, and add some empathy for marine biology and research into whale behavior and the behavior of researchers, much of which is added to the story, but never allowed to get in its way.

Nate and Clay are researching humpback whales, trying to understand why the humpbacks' sing. On the day Nate things he sees a humpback with strange markings on his tale -- strange markings the read "Bite me" -- strange things begin happening to the compound they work in and to their equipment, and Nate starts to wonder if someone is threatened by their research, not that he thinks they're at all close to an answer. In the meantime, the reader is introduced to Kona, the New Jersey surfer kid who thinks he's a Rastafarian or at least tries to be one; Amy, the research assistant Nate is attracted to and whose vocabulary includes calling guys she doesn't like mooks, jamokes, and maroons, among other dated epithets; and Elizabeth Robinson, who finances the research, whom they affectionately call the Old Broad, and who talks to a whale. On the phone.

Somehow this all works to create a cohesive, if episodic and absurd story, that is frequently funny -- laugh out loud funny, at least for me -- and sometimes a little touching.

 

[tobl]

so, Governor by david weber and richard fox... maybe he gave the idea but personally i pass on the book. if you want to read anything try boundless by jack campbell. now for some light novels: the beginning after the end really disappointed me. i0m hoping omniscient reader's viewpoint and second life ranker are better.

 

[DrStrangelove]

Necroscope by Brian Lumley, one of the books that waited on my reading list for years. I do not know if I will read through the whole series, but the first one looks promising.

Next in queue is Julian the Apostate by Felix Dahn.

 

[tobl]

so, second life ranker... great manga, bad novel. well, at least it didn't caught my interest

 

[dask]

Now reading this:

 

[Garfunkel]

I've been reading Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky, which has been very enjoyable. While I've heard excellent things about Children of Time, this is my first Tchaikovsky novel, although it certainly won't be my last. I'm hoping to finish it before The Nameless Ones, John Connolly's latest, comes out, but that's looking unlikely.

 

[nixie]

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[Dave Vicks]

On deck THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Harold Pinter.

 

[Parson]

Just finished Quant: A Colony Story by Richard F. Weyand. This is fairly interesting "hardish*" S.F. The parts that I found really interesting were the hard thinking about what it would really take to start an interstellar colony, and a sentient computer. I also appreciated the more hopeful view of the future. I've had it to here with dystopian stories. --- As the book drew to a close it became more about the people who were going to become colonists (which to be fair was somewhat interesting) but I felt his view of human nature was a bit too "cut and dried" than what is really the case.

Overall, I give it a solid 4 out of 5 and am planning on reading the sequel, but since it begins on the colony, I'm worried about where it might go given my hesitations about his view of human nature.


*Hardish means all of the science EXCEPT the interstellar "drive" seemed quite reasonable.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm having a go at Ten Low by Stark Holborn. A SF book set in a universe that reminds me of firefly.

The premise seems ok but I'm struggling with how it's written, too many dream/hallucination sequences. This will probs end up as DNF if the plot doesn't pick up soon

 

[Danny McG]

I didn't continue with the book mentioned above. Now doing this one (with the second book awaiting)

 

[Randy M.]

I seem to see a theme in my current entertainment. Just watched Puppet Master for the first time in about 30 years: A group of four psychics at a closed grand hotel to look into the death of another psychic they were psychically attached to.

Just started reading Kill Creek by Scott Thomas in which for a publicity stunt four horror writers spend Halloween in a supposedly haunted house.

Who knows, maybe next I'll reread And Then There Were None.

 

[dask]

Just started reading Kill Creek by Scott Thomas in which for a publicity stunt four horror writers spend Halloween in a supposedly haunted house.

Be interested in knowing what you think when you’re done.

 

[AE35Unit]

Next up, Reprisal by F. Paul Wilson (1992)

 

[Danny McG]

I've got a second book on the go now.
My sf book (deep space boogie) is on my bedside cupboard - enjoyable mil sf.

Downstairs I'm reading the latest Jack Reacher by Lee Child .... The Sentinel

 

[tobl]

Downstairs I'm reading the latest Jack Reacher by Lee Child .... The Sentinel

i never got into those books. i read some and they are not bad, i've read worst. maybe is kind the lack of continuity? each book it's his own....

 

[HareBrain]

Apart from the odd bit of beta-ing, I've had no appetite for reading fiction for the last several months. Today I finally felt like reading a novel, and not a reread, and after half an hour of increasingly demoralising searching in Waterstone's I came away with A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson, largely because at least didn't look like it would be a big old downer. It seems to be the narrator's experiences on the Greek island of Hydra in the 1960s, and Leonard Cohen looks likely to play a substantial role. A couple of chapters in, I judge my choice a good one.