August Reading Thread

[Danny McG]

I'm now reading The Good Guy by Dean Koontz.
I've only got to chapter three so there's no doggie yet.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm now reading The Good Guy by Dean Koontz.
I've only got to chapter three so there's no doggie yet.

It took until chapter 29!
Now we have a black Labrador called Shy Zoey playing a big part in the story.

 

[The Big Peat]

Finishing up a wee Pratchett binge with I Shall Wear Midnight which rubbed me the wrong way on several different fronts.

 

[Dave]

I finished Steven King’s Mr Mercedes. It’s your typical Steven King book- well written, tightly plotted but maybe stretched out a little too long. However what really began to strike me from about half way through was the similarity to the Manchester Arena bombing, on 22 May 2017, following a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande, and only two years following the publication of the book.

 

[Danny McG]

This morning I'm reading Wrath by Daniel Kraus.
The blurb:-

"Wrath is the story of a lab rat instilled with human genes whose supersized intelligence helps him to engineer his escape into the world outside the lab: a world vastly ill-equipped to deal with the menace he represents.
Modified through advances that have boosted his awareness of humankind’s cruelty in the name of science, and endowed with a rat’s natural proclivity to procreate regularly, he has the potential to sire a rodent army capable of viciously overwhelming the human race."

 

[Toby Frost]

Does he have a helper called Pinky?

 

[Elentarri]

Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time by Tracy Higley

The writing is beautifully rich and evocative. The story concept is interesting, unique and delightful. The characters are three dimensional and have their own personalities. I adore the bookshop and garden settings. However, this is one of the most frustrating books I've read in a while. The main character has no idea what she is doing in the magic garden or what she is supposed to do and all her questions are met with infuriatingly vague non-answers and evasions by 99% of the secondary characters, who promptly get upset and sulk when the main character makes an inadvertent blunder. This would have been a much shorter book if all the characters actually bothered to communicate properly. The little side plot to Ancient Egypt also didn't really work for me in the end. The messaging about creativity was also rather heavy handed. The book quotes at the beginning of each chapter were nice, but I felt they interrupted the flow of the story. But, despite its faults, this is a lovely novel that I enjoyed enough to read through the night.​

 

[Toby Frost]

A couple of nights ago I couldn't sleep, so I spent several hours reading random stories from a huge JG Ballard compilation. And they're really good. I really like Ballard's overt sci-fi stories: there's something familiar about the 50s/60s idea of brave chaps exploring alien worlds, but Ballard introduces a sense of deep weirdness than at times reminds me of Lovecraft's trippier stories. Ballard also does some great "novelty" stories, doing clever things with style and form in "The Index" and "Answers to a Questionnaire". His later novels get a bit samey for me, but he was a very clever writer.

 

[AE35Unit]

Next up, See Them Die by Ed McBain. Book 13 in the 87th precinct series, which involves street gangs

 

[AE35Unit]

I remember those ads

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Witch Wood, by John Buchan.

 

[The Judge]

I'm currently reading Witch Wood, by John Buchan.

That's a coincidence -- I read it just in April. Perhaps not the easiest to get to grips with, thanks to all the Scottish dialect (my copy had a glossary at the end, but half the time the word I was looking for wasn't in it!) and it really helps to have some idea of the religious and political turmoil in Scotland in the 1640s and Montrose's role in it all, but a great read with a real indictment of narrow-minded un-christian Covenanters, with (as usual for Buchan's work) some wonderful nature writing.

 

[Dave Vicks]

ELIVISSEY by Jack Womack 1993.
SF novel.

 

[Vince W]

Bloodlines by Chris Wraight. A hard boiled crime novel set in a W40K hive world. A few chapters in and it’s surprisingly engaging.

 

[Danny McG]

This morning I'm reading Wrath by Daniel Kraus.
The blurb:-

"Wrath is the story of a lab rat instilled with human genes whose supersized intelligence helps him to engineer his escape into the world outside the lab: a world vastly ill-equipped to deal with the menace he represents.
Modified through advances that have boosted his awareness of humankind’s cruelty in the name of science, and endowed with a rat’s natural proclivity to procreate regularly, he has the potential to sire a rodent army capable of viciously overwhelming the human race."

This is mediocre and I'm categorising it as DNF

 

[Danny McG]

I'm trying The Last Dance by Mark Billingham - a crime novel featuring a new character, a Blackpool detective who is also a ballroom dancer.

 

[Dave Vicks]

WHIRLWIND, X-Files, Novel 1996.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I'm doing my annual re-read of The Weathermonger.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm doing my annual re-read of The Weathermonger.

Is that the book from the changes?

 

[dask]

I'm doing my annual re-read of The Weathermonger.

I’ve got the DAW paperback but never got around to reading it yet. Is it that good?