September 2022 Reading Thread.

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Currently Play RHINOCEROS By Eugene Ionesco.
Picked up an Audible.com book ,of Joe Hill stories. MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE.
 
hitmouse said:
Elric does not really fit in with the other pulps you mention. It is more recent, mainly being written in the 60s& 70s, and it has a tendency to subvert the old cliches. Moorcock is a very knowing writer.
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Thanks for your feedback! Absolutely, I agree, one hundred percent; Moorcock is exceptional and consciously subverted many of the classic tropes; his hermaphrodite as Final Solution/Next Stage (of evolution) in the first Jerry Cornelius adventure was brilliant and I believe is still a pretty 'radical' idea. However, I would argue (just to play devil's advocate) that in general women remain secondary to the male heroes in his stories, and tend to serve a decorative function as 'object of desire' and repeatedly find themselves in distress, in need of rescue. There are certainly stories in which his female characters enjoy causality and subjectivity; the End of Times stories come to mind, but these are more his Harlequinade cycle and not exactly in the 'heroic' vein I am talking about. All of the avatars of the Eternal Champion I can think of are men, as are the majority of their 'sidekicks'. Granted, it has been many years since Ive read Moorcock, and most of the works I am referring to are mostly from the 60s and 70s. There is the Una Person and Catherine Cornelius stories, in which the protagonist is female, the sporadic lesbianism of the characters feels like it serves a more titillating function than serving the narrative; these stories could just as well be Jerry Cornelius adventures, without the girl-on-girl scenes. Don't get me wrong, Moorcock is one of my all time favorite fiction writers, and he has always been a major inspiration to write, and particularly to write in this particular genre. I'm curious about the tropes of the genre themselves. Are they being perpetuated in contemporary pulp fiction? I haven't been keeping up on my contemporaries as much as I should, so I dont know so much about print. Based on what I see in the storytelling in film and on television, I can probably make some assumptions. Can these tropes be sufficiently subverted simply by role reversal? Or do the tropes themselves need to be reinvented? Not deep enough into Jirel yet to see if she answers some of my questions.
 
Giving Le Guin's Tehanu a second reading after 30 years. So far it's not convincing me this time, either, that Le Guin really should have gone back to Earthsea.
 
Rosewater by Tade Thompson.

I bought this after listening to the Chronicles Podcast with Tade about the Watchmen graphic novels.
 
Lewis Carroll "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There"
A follow-on from having read Alice in Wonderland last month. Also underwhelming, but more so. Much of it is clever word play, but maybe that was fun for wealthy Victorian children (and adults) back in 1871. The redeeming features for me are again the nonsense poetry, including of course Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter.
The end of August guillotine did not allow me to respond to your comments @Victoria Silverwolf , but I agree with you completely when you posted:
"As far as the potentially unsavory aspects of Charles Dodgson go, well, I am certainly no expert, but my feeling (without any real evidence one way or the other) is that he saw his photography of nude children as completely innocent. It's a matter of controversy, anyway".
It's just it feels weird in today's cultural climate. I also hadn't realised that he spent much of his childhood making up stories for his numerous younger sisters. Ellen Terry (full name Alice Ellen Terry), the actress of those times, first met him in 1864, aged seventeen, and later wrote that he remained "as fond of me as he could be of anyone over the age of ten".
Thank you also for your comments on Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. I hadn't heard of this, though I doubt I'll read it.
 
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Almost finished with Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Not my usual type of book. Atmospheric writing. Not bad at all.
 
I ended up going with Eversion instead after Turquoise Days, to get a bit of a pallet cleanser.
I can immediately see why some people might find it tedious, but I love having something slow to read while on break at work. So it might take a week to finish.
 
I found Turquoise Days a bit slow in my first read through, but flew through it on the second. A great story IMO.
 
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I finished Into A Blood Red Sky by @Jo Zebedee and I must say the book was excellent. In my opinion it was the best book she's ever written (I have not read her Fantasy stuff.) For me the story was accessible, unlike some stories, I didn't have any trouble understanding who the characters were or what they were attempting. I found the story to be worrying in that the very near future of the supposed apocalypse without adding anything to our historical position was scary. One of my least favorite things about apocalyptic stories is that I can usually see no reason for whatever hope the book presents. Jo's ending is interesting, compelling, and satisfying, all while being true to the center narrative and setting of the story.

I left a review on Amazon and gave it one of my rare 5 star ratings. I am really impressed.

Here's the review:

This story is both as good and as dark as apocalyptic literature gets. Jo has been listed as one of the 10 greatest SF writers in Irish history. This book just cements that view.

The world has descended rapidly into a climate apocalypse. Only territory as far north as Ireland is truly habitable. People are flocking north looking for a place to survive, and those who already live there are doing all they can to protect their place.

This story looks at the worst of human nature, but also at the spark of decency that has sustained humanity through many horrid situations before.

You will love the main characters and remember the story for a long, long time.

Highly recommended.
 
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Parson said:
I finished Into A Blood Red Sky by @Jo Zebedee and I must say the book was excellent. In my opinion it was the best book she's ever written (I have not read her Fantasy stuff.) For me the story was accessible, unlike some stories, I didn't have any trouble understanding who the characters were or what they were attempting. I found the story to be worrying in that the very near future of the supposed apocalypse without adding anything to our historical position was scary. One of my least favorite things about apocalyptic stories is that I can usually see no reason for whatever hope the book presents. Jo's ending is interesting, compelling, and satisfying, all while being true to the center narrative and setting of the story.

I left a review on Amazon and gave it one of my rare 5 star ratings. I am really impressed.

Here's the review:

This story is both as good and as dark as apocalyptic literature gets. Jo has been listed as one of the 10 greatest SF writers in Irish history. This book just cements that view.

The world has descended rapidly into a climate apocalypse. Only territory as far north as Ireland is truly habitable. People are flocking north looking for a place to survive, and those who already live there are doing all they can to protect their place.

This story looks at the worst of human nature, but also at the spark of decency that has sustained humanity through many horrid situations before.

You will love the main characters and remember the story for a long, long time.

Highly recommended.
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Thank you so much, that means so much to me from you x
 
Finished the book on El Cid. Now starting James Falkner’s The War Of The Spanish Succession 1701-1714
 
Finished The Man Who Was Poe by Avi. Young Adult but needn't have been. Hard drinking Edgar Allan Poe solves a murder/kidnapping embezzlement scheme and reveals himself for an extremely ugly personality that caught me off guard. Recommended. Still undecided what to start next but have an idea.
 
In keeping with the fast approaching season of Poe I will be starting this next:
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