November 2021 Reading Thread

[The Judge]

I agree. Personally, I didn't rate Mythago Wood very highly, but to call it fairy-anything seems really odd.

By way of counterpoint to all the praise the novel's garnered so far, for what they're worth here are my comments from when I read it back in 2013 (after HB recommended it, even if he didn't attempt to badger me!):

I really wanted to like this book – I love myth, I love legends, I love reading of the wildwood – but I was left, if not utterly cold by it, then certainly tepid. With one exception I found the characters, even the first-person narrator, somewhat distant and unengaging and I wasn't interested in their fate, not helped by the fact the main female character is quite literally male wish-fulfilment, and, naturally, an object of jealous rivalry and therefore the cause of widespread, though largely off-screen, death and destruction. For me, the plot was too slow, not to say plodding, and the quest not worth the journey, and while not badly written, it was never spell-binding in its use of language or imagery which might otherwise have won me over.​

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It may just be that I don't "get" Holdstock, though, as I thought even less of his Celtika when I read it a couple of years ago --I found it unwieldy, episodic and confusing, and though there was some lyrical writing (more than I remembered from MW) it wasn't sufficient to hold my interest and I struggled to finish it. Though to be scrupulously fair, the number of typos and sheer bad editing didn't help in that respect.

 

[HareBrain]

I liked Mythago Wood more when I read it than I would now, I think. Its brilliant central idea isn't matched by the rest of it. But sometimes a book is worth reading just for its central idea.

 

[The Big Peat]

I am inclined to agree with The Judge about the distance from the narrator, and with HB about it being about the central idea more than anything.

Also now I think about it/The Judge mentions it, Holdstock could have done something incredibly interesting with a female character who's literally male wish-fulfilment and the object of jealousy, but alas doesn't.

 

[Danny McG]

Now reading Far from the light of Heaven by Tade Thompson.

Online blurb:-

The colony ship Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake.

Answering Campion’s distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths. Soon a sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, one that will have repercussions for the entire system—from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed to Earth itself.

 

[AE35Unit]

Read the reviews on goodread. Sounds good @Danny McG .

 

[Danny McG]

Read the reviews on goodread. Sounds good @Danny McG .

So far it's very enjoyable, btw the guy called Rasheed Fin initially worked on the planet Bloodrot as a 'repatriator'.
His job was to track down aliens who impersonate humans and basically kill them....very reminiscent of Blade Runner

 

[tobl]

So far it's very enjoyable, btw the guy called Rasheed Fin initially worked on the planet Bloodrot as a 'repatriator'.
His job was to track down aliens who impersonate humans and basically kill them....very reminiscent of Blade Runner

i wonder if there's any vacancy opening... i've doubts about a few people i know...

 

[Parson]

Finished The Never Hero by T. Ellery Hodges, book one in the Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs. This book is hard to quantify. In the end it was better than I thought in the middle. There actually is something going on rather than an occasional random alien landing on earth that Jonathan has to kill. And, there's quite a lot of consideration of what it means to be a "hero" and the cost of it in terms of personal life, etc. So it sounds like the kind of book I'd really like, but too much of the book seemed like a story from the Marvel World for me to really like it.

low 4 stars, and without the redeeming aspects would have been low 3 stars.

I found last night that I couldn't start a new book, although I had the time. Nothing in my TBR pile pulled at me. We'll let things marinate and see where I come out in a day or two.

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

Finally read "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi. Slightly mixed feelings- it's very entertaining and it's thought-provoking in places, but oddly unsatisfying. Maybe because the later parts of the book turn into exactly the kind of gung-ho Thrilling War Adventure that the earlier parts were mocking? The only other Scalzi book I've read is "Lock In," which definitely feels more artistically mature.

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

I found last night that I couldn't start a new book, although I had the time. Nothing in my TBR pile pulled at me. We'll let things marinate and see where I come out in a day or two.

My TBR pile has been a lost cause this last couple of years. If it doesn't get read right away, it doesn't get read. I get out half-a-dozen books from the library in the hopes that just one of them will stick. The Plague Era does weird things to the ability to concentrate.

 

[Danny McG]

Now reading Far from the light of Heaven by Tade Thompson

I'm maybe two thirds through this now and I'm still gripped by the story.
Update: it's getting a bit dreamtime now, not so good!

 

[dask]

Finally finished, or almost finished, The Circus Of Dr. Lao by Charles G. Finney. Well written but mildly interesting novel about a circus coming to a small town with actual mythological creatures. For whatever reason I felt I was pushing myself to get through this. A long time ago George Scithers rejected a story I had written on the grounds it fell into the "revelation of wonders" catagory. That's how this struck me. Well crafted but not really going anywhere that I was interested in. There was some cast of characters material at the end that the author suggested should be read but after a couple of pages I put it to rest.

Now reading this:

All signs more hopeful.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Listened to some HP LOVECRAFT STORIES.

 

[tobl]

Listened to some HP LOVECRAFT STORIES.

do you need a sleeping pill now?

 

[Danny McG]

I only read it earlier this year but I'm doing a re-read of The Last Watch by J.S. Dewes.
That's because I've just got book 2 The Exiled Fleet and I want to keep the continuity going - there's been a lot of books read in the interim.

 

[Hugh]

"Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis" Catrine Clay (2016)

Good attempt at biography of Emma Jung, focusing mainly on the relationship with her husband.

 

[Rodders]

I finished the second book in the Bobiverse and enjoyed it, so I am continuing the story immediately and reading All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm currently reading Haruka Murakami's Kafka on the Shore (which is brilliant so far) and I came across these lines that made me chuckle out loud, especially finding them in a Japanese book, and felt I should share. Couldn't think where else to put them so figured this was as good a place as any:

"A shabby, miserable sort of building. The kind where shabby people spent one shabby day after another doing their shabby work. The kind of fallen-from-grace sort of building you find in any city, the kind which Charles Dickens could spend ten pages describing."

I should add that the book is anything but gloomy as this quote might have suggested!

 

[Dave Vicks]

Listened to stories by Poe,Lovecraft, Campbell jr.,Ballard ,Dick,and Gene Wolfe.

Ne

 

[Dave Vicks]

Next up Asimovs NIGHTFALL.