November 2021 Reading Thread

[Serendipity]

I just finished reading the anthology, Welcome to the Greenhouse, edited by Gardner Dozois and published in 2011. You can find review at https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/welcom...ge-edited-by-gordon-van-gelder-book-review-2/

 

[Vertigo]

I've read quite a few of Murakami's books, this was one of my favourites. I'd like to reread it at some point because I feel like I'm a bit better at picking up on symbolism and other literary devices now, and I remember thinking there might have been more levels to appreciate the novel on than I was capable of on my first reading. I need to read IQ84 too. I really enjoyed the first few chapters, which I read when I had a flatmate who owned it, and which I often think back to, something about it really intrigued me.

Those are the only two I've read and I've loved them both. I prefer Kafka with it's almost whimsical nature, 1Q84 is much darker. But I'll certainly be reading more of his - quite probably all of them eventually.

 

[tobl]

Are they standalones? Most fiction these days are all parts of huge series

yes and no.sure you can read almost all without having read the others but there's sometimes some reference to things that happened in other books.

 

[AE35Unit]

Has anyone read the early Ray Bradbury story The Piper? I just read it and though its set on Mars it made me think the makers of The Walking Dead could have taken inspiration from it, how the walkers are drawn by sound...

 

[Danny McG]

I'm starting a 'near future' tech thriller by Brian Nelson...The Last Swordmaker.

 

[Foxbat]

I’ve just finished Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness In The Sky and I really enjoyed it. I think what was really well done was the anthropomorphism used where the spiders were concerned. I know that’s probably not strictly the right term because they’re not simple animals but it’s the best I can manage.

To take a creature like a spider (something many of us are afraid of through sheer instinct) and to fill this reader with empathy for their plight (I’m at an advantage, I love spiders), I think, takes great skill as a writer. In contrast, for much of the time I was left raging at the betrayal about to be dropped on the spiders from the Emergents.

I’d happily read more spider adventures but, as for the humans from The Emergency, they can go hang themselves.

Four out of five for this one

Now starting this

 

[Extollager]

Now you need to invent the definition.

On the analogy of cornucopia, horn of plenty, logocopia would mean plenty of words, I (no Latinist) thought.

 

[tachyon]

I’d happily read more spider adventures but, as for the humans from The Emergency, they can go hang themselves.

I don't know if there are more spider books from Vinge, but Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky has a planet of spiders you may like.

A lot of spiders & other insects in his various books actually, though more in the fantasy side.

 

[HareBrain]

I love spiders

You'd have liked the park bench I sat on with a friend a couple of days ago -- after fifteen minutes we each had about twenty tiny ones crawling all over us! I guess it must be hatching season.

 

[AE35Unit]

I’d happily read more spider adventures but, as for the humans from The Emergency, they can go hang themselves.

Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama features mech-like octo spiders

 

[Rodders]

Colin Wilson's Spiderworld was a great read. You don't see it mentioned, but worth checking out.

 

[AE35Unit]

Colin Wilson's Spiderworld was a great read. You don't see it mentioned, but worth checking out.

I had that in hardback years ago but never got round to reading it. It became a victim of the big cull

 

[Rodders]

Don't you mean "Bug" cull.

Yeah, i owe you all an apology for that one.

I remember enjoying the series and it's a shame people don't mention it any more. Another series of covers from Chris Foss.

 

[Bick]

Those are the only two I've read and I've loved them both. I prefer Kafka with it's almost whimsical nature, 1Q84 is much darker. But I'll certainly be reading more of his - quite probably all of them eventually.

Wild Sheep Chase and Dance, Dance, Dance are both great.

 

[HareBrain]

Colin Wilson's Spiderworld was a great read. You don't see it mentioned, but worth checking out.

I've read at least the first two, and probably the third. Maybe the fourth? I remember that in the last one I read, the plot became weaker and it became more a vehicle for Wilson's philosophy.

They seem to have now split the first two novels into two volumes each, which seems odd as they weren't that long.

 

[The Big Peat]

I finished Finch. Great story, but the tension/prose dichotomy means I spoiled it for myself.

Leafing through Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great as I decide what to read next.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Young Men in Spats, by P. G. Wodehouse.
A collection of eleven stories.

 

[williamjm]

I read Lois McMaster Bujold's latest Penric and Desdemona novella, Knot of Shadows. I really enjoy the series and this is no exception, although it's a comparatively low-key story. It does have an interesting mystery at its heart, although most of the key events have occurred before the start of the story so it's largely about Penric trying to work out the details of what had happened and what can actually be done at this late stage. It's definitely got a melancholy feel to it, I saw a review comparing it to The Mountains of Mourning which Bujold wrote 30-odd years ago and I think that's a good comparison.

I'm now about to start Josiah Bancroft's The Fall of Babel, the fourth and final book in the series.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I read Lois McMaster Bujold's latest Penric and Desdemona novella, Knot of Shadows. I really enjoy the series and this is no exception, although it's a comparatively low-key story.

I read it a few weeks ago, when it first came out. It was far from my favorite entry in the series, but it did have its moments and I did enjoy it overall.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am almost done with The Americans (1979) by Alistair Cooke, a collection of some of his regular radio broadcasts, which lasted from 1946 to 2004. This book contains essays from 1969 to 1979. He is quite an engaging writer.