August 2021 Reading Discussion

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hitmouse said:
I haven’t heard of Colin Kapp. Interested in Vance-flavoured SF and I really like Panthers. He seems to have been quite prolific. Worth checking out?
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Well, I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I'll remember much of it. Vance-influenced SF rather than Vance fantasy. And Panthers? Sadly, I fear, extinct in their paperback manifestation.

Colin Kapp (3).jpeg
 
I've opted out of my re-read of the Weiss and Hickman Death Gate Cycle....I was struggling by book 3, I seem to recall it being a lot better!

So it's a re-read of another series instead. One that some liked (Marmite) and others loathed.
The Gap series by Stephen R Donaldson.
 
This month of August, one book im reading at the moment is Wheel of Time Fires of Heaven along with these books

Children of Dune
Mistborn Sequel Trilogy starting with Alloy of Law
 
Hal Clement "Cycle of Fire" (1957)

Not entirely sure about this one. Overall and with hindsight I enjoyed it, but it did seem to drift at times.
 
I read N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became. I liked the book but I did have some reservations about it and I think it's not as good as some of her previous work. It was an interesting premise for an urban fantasy novel, that once cities get to a certain stage of development and their identity becomes so strong that they manifest that identity as an avatar who is then responsible for protecting the city from supernatural threats that want to stop this from happening. In the case of New York City this becomes more complicated since there ends up also being one person acting as an avatar of each of the five boroughs and they don't necessarily like or get on with each other even though they are going to have to work together to prevent a cataclysm.

Usually I would complain if I felt the protagonists in a novel felt like stereotypes, but here it is part of the point because they are meant to be stereotypes of their different boroughs. However, it did mean some of the characters felt like they lacked depth, Bronca and Brooklyn probably get the most development but some of the others felt a bit flat. There were also times when I felt some characters didn't react to some of the events in ways I found believable, people sometimes seemed far too accepting of some of the bizarre stuff that was happening.

As the premise would suggest the book does spend a lot of time talking about New York City. Having never been to New York there are probably lots of references I missed and it is a bit uneven in terms of how much it covers various parts of the city but it was interesting to spend a lot of the book in parts of the city that maybe get a bit overlooked in many stories like The Bronx or Staten Island. Another aspect of the book where I probably missed out on some of the references was that there's a lot of influence by and commentary on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. There do seem to be a lot of revisionist Lovercraft stories in recent years and since I've never read Lovecraft nor been particularly tempted to read him I don't find that trend particularly interesting.

I thought the plot had some interesting twists along the way, along with some late developments which I didn't anticipate but made sense in retrospect. Although there's clearly a set-up for the rest of the trilogy I thought it did manage to resolve most of the story threads in this volume.
 
Just finished Hayduke Lives! (1990) by Edward Abbey. This is a sequel to The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975). MWG is a terrific piece of subversive fiction about a disparate group of environmental activists/saboteurs, with appealing characters and a slightly mythical feel.

The sequel is moderately entertaining but not nearly as good. It is dated with late 1980s wish-fulfillment, rather bloated
prose, some dodgy attitudes and the resurrected characters lose their charm. A bit of a disappointment.
 
I’m currently reading a kind of hybrid book of one of my heroes, Django Reinhardt: know the man, play the music

It‘s a biography combined with sheet music and tips on Reinhardt’s very special techniques. I’ve read it many times before but the man is such an inspiration as a musician that I never get tired of reading about him. As for the music, I know I’m no Django but I can dream:)
 
Foxbat said:
I’m currently reading a kind of hybrid book of one of my heroes, Django Reinhardt: know the man, play the music

It‘s a biography combined with sheet music and tips on Reinhardt’s very special techniques. I’ve read it many times before but the man is such an inspiration as a musician that I never get tired of reading about him. As for the music, I know I’m no Django but I can dream:)
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His speedy runs are incredible not only for their speed but taste as well. I may have to look into this book.
 
I got hold of "The Dollmaker" by Nina Allan at the weekend, and read it in less than 24 hours. It has a very "literary" feel, which may or not be your bag. I was really in the mood for it that day. Kind of lyrical postmodernism, full of nested stories that echo each other. Reminds me a bit of "Cloud Atlas," and also a touch of Kazuo Ishigiro in the way the story spirals around. The protagonist of the main narrative is a dwarf who has a business making high-quality traditional dolls- there's lots of nice details about doll craftmanship and collector culture. There are also letters and in-universe short stories, so there are three strands going on. Cleverly assembled, but also very moving. I'd previously read "The Race" and some of Nina Allan's short stories in Interzone.
 
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I'm continuing the Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin with The Tombs of Atuan. Over the years I had read A Wizard of Earthsea twice, yet never the rest of the books.

It occurred to me that this is my first reading since I've had access to the internet. It changes things because I can easily look up other people's ideas on the story. I haven't decided if this is good or bad. It makes the reading experience feel more "complete" since sometimes others bring different perspectives on the themes. But it takes away from my own first impressions of the story.
 
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