September 2022 Reading Thread.

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HareBrain said:
I have friends who rave about Zafon, but though I find him readable enough, that's about it. If you're not that taken with the first, I don't think you'll find the others very different.
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I'm actually thinking about buying the first book now. I have never heard of this guy before but he does seem to have an interesting style of writing.
 
I'm in the odd circumstance of reading 2 long series together. I finished Milk Run by Nathan Lowell. It is book 1 in A Smuggler's Tale: From the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper. Pretty solid book about two young women who have just finished Flight training and find themselves enmeshed in stellar politics as they try to run a quasi legal freight business. For this book the business has to wait, while they are played like pawns in the politics side. I found the story pretty believable, the characters interesting, and the setting interesting. I have book 2 Suicide Run loaded and will read soon. (solid 4 stars)

Added to this I am reading The Pike Chronicles by G. P. Hudson. This is pretty serious Mil. S.F. Humanity has been separated by war into three different groups. Only 2 are in contact with each other. Aliens are controlling the first 2 and the hope of humanity comes in bringing all 3 groups together. Pike finds himself leading the effort to do this. I've read Sol Shall Rise and Prevail and now have loaded Ronin. The thing that most typifies this series is it's non-stop action. It's like a Raider's of the Lost Arc vibe. Every pause is only that a pause and everyone is back in the fire again. (average 4 stars)
 
I’m in the process of taking my A levels, rather belatedly, and so most of my reading has been dictated by my English Lit course lately, as well as History.

This month I finished ‘The Major of Casterbridge’ by Thomas Hardy, and I’m also reading a biography on the man himself by Michael Millgate. ‘Casterbridge’ was a great read if you enjoy a more classic literary style, but also a nicely paced plot, I felt. Powerful, solemn, but not without sections of that delightful pastoral prose I relished in ‘Tess’. The biography is fascinating, although I have to be very switched on to absorb more academic works. I’m building the stamina for it though.

I’m now re-reading ‘Women’ by Bukowski, which I’ve chosen to compare and contrast with the Hardy novel for my coursework. Racey and very explicitly pornographic, not to mention misogynistic, it’s an exciting example Bukowski’s relentless, conversational style, but of course raises lots of issues, probably today even more than when published.

With regard to SF and fantasy I’m reading a little Michael Moorcock, finishing the Elric stories I’d neglected from the Orion Stormbringer omnibus. Not sure there’s much less misogyny here than the Bukowski… but vampiric swords and a magical decaying landscapes bring some escapist respite after the more heavy literature!

On the subject of misogyny, it can be part and parcel of pulp fiction unfortunately... Some might say Bukowski isn’t far from this category in fact. I wonder, how do you guys feel about those older pulp fantasy and SF books where female characters tend to be included largely for the sake of their anatomical description…?
 
As a teenager I had this vague, nebulous hypothesis that Elric's demon sword is also Turin's Blacksword found after the sinking of Beleriand.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Simbelmynë said:
On the subject of misogyny, it can be part and parcel of pulp fiction unfortunately... Some might say Bukowski isn’t far from this category in fact. I wonder, how do you guys feel about those older pulp fantasy and SF books where female characters tend to be included largely for the sake of their anatomical description…?
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I used to make allowances for it and live with it but now it annoys me to the point where there's a good chance I'll DNF if it's particularly bad. Which is a shame as it is really just a sign of the times and doesn't really change the quality of the narrative, plotting etc. But it gets so that I keep getting snatched out of the story by comments/situations that my modern self finds intolerable.

It's also unnecessary even given the mores of the times. For example I'm currently working my way through all of Patrick O'Brian's books set around the Royal Navy of Napoleonic times. These were started around 1970 which certainly isn't a period renowned for it's lack of misogyny never mind the times being written about. Now there's not much O'Brian can do about the culture of that era, it was what it was, but even in the early books he manages to write strong female characters who genuinely have a role to play. So I find myself becoming less and less tolerant of that type of writing no matter when it was written.

By the way you might lose a mark or two in your A levels if you refer to the Major of Casterbridge! ;) :ROFLMAO:
 
Finished Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers. Interesting concept, bland execution. The second half was better than the first half - it had less maudlin and insipid reminiscing by the main character, less technobabble info-dumps and more of the actual AI. This would probably have worked better as a short story.
 
Elentarri said:
Finished Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers. Interesting concept, bland execution. The second half was better than the first half - it had less maudlin and insipid reminiscing by the main character, less technobabble info-dumps and more of the actual AI. This would probably have worked better as a short story.
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That looks quite interesting, despite your feeling it was a bit bland I might have a look a it sometime!
 
Vertigo said:
That looks quite interesting, despite your feeling it was a bit bland I might have a look a it sometime!
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Good luck! The novel does have redeeming qualities. It might just be that I have problems with "Galatea" retellings. This is the second one of 2 I've read that did nothing for me.
 
Finished What We Harvest by Ann Fraistat.
The beautiful cover is the best part of this novel. What We Harvest was marketed as a YA horror novel. It comes across more as a tame middle-grade novel. I did not find it scary or terrifying at all. Nor did I care for the first-person narrator, who had a particularly bland personality and did some ridiculously stupid things. The zombie dog is more sensible (and lovable and has a personality)! I liked the world building around the farm and town with it's "special" farm produce, but the characters were underwhelming and fairly simple. The plot was somewhat erratic and took too long to get to the juicy bits. The blight was interesting, but I felt it was not explored enough. I thought the ending was particularly dreadful, not making much sense in terms of motivation and oh! so convenient. In short, the concept was interesting, but the execution did not live up to expectations or the lovely cover.​
 
Elentarri said:
Good luck! The novel does have redeeming qualities. It might just be that I have problems with "Galatea" retellings. This is the second one of 2 I've read that did nothing for me.
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Your comment made me go off and have a look for Galatea retellings; I hadn't realised just how many there are...or how racy some of them seem to be! :ROFLMAO:
 
The Descent by Jeff Long.

The first chapter of this novel terrified the stuffing out of me several years ago, and I never got further than that. I'm so glad I picked it up again and finished the story. The Descent has a bit of everything - rich characters, horror, action, ancient and lost civilizations, ruins, underground journeys, a mystery to solve, strange creatures, anthropology and a bit of theology.

The novel starts slowly, building up the discovery of an labyrinthine subterranean world. Then the pace picks up as various groups have their own ideas of what to do with that knowledge. If you ignore the subterranean monsters that snatch and eviscerate oblivious "tourists", the middle section almost feels like a Jules Verne adventure to the Centre of the Earth, with a collection of scientists blundering along underground, rhapsodizing over fossils and fungus (accompanied by less than enthusiastic mercenaries). Superficially, this is an adventure novel to the bowls of hell and a fight for survival against the creatures there (and to find Satan). But dispersed throughout are unsettling concepts about human evolution and development - physiologically, culturally and theologically. Also, what if something like this is possible?

This is not a perfect book: the author playing a bit lose with the science (as we know it) and a few other events received raised eyebrows; but this is a speculative fiction novel. The two most important characters (a mountaineer and a nun) are interesting and unusual. The writing is compelling, atmospheric, and enthralling. This book was an entertaining reading experience.
 
Finished Suicide Run by Nathan Lowell book 2 of Smuggler's Tale. This is another interesting addition to what seems to be only a trilogy.

On the positive side. This was a pretty interesting mystery. Like usual, I did not have a clue who was responsible until the reveal. That's a good thing in my view. Secondly, although this is certainly Science Fantasy, a large part of the story is about ship building and the author had clearly thought about this in pretty significant detail. The two main characters, Natalya and Zola are interesting and you pretty much have to root for them in the stories. One of the surprising things about these books is that Nathan Lowell is someone I read years ago (10?) with the books Quarter Share, and Half Share (two of six books) about the crew of a trading vessel. I felt these were notably poor, if I were reading them today with my increasingly hard to please view of literature, I wouldn't have finished the first one. And if I had realized at the beginning that these were written by the same author I would never have started Smuggler's Tales.

On the negative side Natalya and Zola come off as half again as smart as almost anyone they encounter. They almost always immediately see the errors of others, and when they point out errors in the ship that is being built it seems as if the people want it to fail (they do) but also that the people pulling off the scam are terminally stupid or have a terrifically over-inflated view of themselves and as equally over-inflated view of how dumb everyone else has to be. -- I also have a beef with the series name. If there is any actual smuggling in the stories, I can't remember it. A more appropriate series name, although admittedly less interesting, would be something like Consultant's Tales or maybe Interstellar Corporate Detectives Tales

But on the whole, I liked it more than well enough to order book 3 Home Run.

Solid 4 stars
 
Parson said:
my increasingly hard to please view of literature
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I've got one of those too :)

Anyways I'm trying one now, Aftermath by LeVar Burton (TNG)
It was written in 1997 and is about the ending of a race war that begins in a 'future' America around 2018
 
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge From a Wordsworth Edition of his works . Ive long heard of this poem but have never previous read it. I don't normally read poetry. But was curious about this particular one . It was well worth the read.. At some point I'll read more of his poems

Alexander Pope Selected Works Edited ,with an introductions by Louis Kronenberger . Pastorals, Spring , Sumer , Autumn and Winter. Ive heard his name mentioned many times but knew nothing about him. Of the man himself, the intro give you sketch of his life. Alexander Pope , had lots admirers and very few close friends, because was not a pleasant human being. I read Pastorals, Spring , Sumer , Winder , Autumn . Well worth the read and some point I will read more.
 
Glad to see you read Coleridge’s Rime, Baylor. Now please read his unfinished poem Christabel and let us know what you think. Does it remind you of any 20th-century writers?
 
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