December Reading Thread

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I have started A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic (2014) by Peter Turchi. As the subtitle suggests, it compares writing to things like crossword puzzles, logic problems, magic squares, etc. Lots of puzzles contained in the book as well.
 
I'm getting Come Fygures, Come Shadowes by Richard Matheson for Christmas and am excited to read it. I'm a fan of his, having read many of his short stories, along with the novels The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend. This will be the first recent book of his I've read.
 
I shall read this seasonal novella next
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Just finished Across a Billion Years by Robert Heinlein. In my opinion this book belongs amongst the Heinlein Juveniles. The plot is promising but the story doesn't really address interesting questions or develop any of the characters. The main one, Tom, is a young adult still learning about himself, how to relate to his peers and how to interact with people of authority and experience. The storytelling device consists of a diary he is recording for a distant (imaginary?) sibling, and there is very little real-time action. The story comes to an unexpected conclusion that left me feeling rather sad, so I must have become involved. :oops:

And I've just started The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell. You may be shocked by this choice; I certainly was! I began the (audio)book with a view to eventually reading Boswell's famous biography The Life of Samuel Johnson. But we shall see. That certainly is (to quote the late Duke of Gloucester) "[A] damn'd thick, square book".
 
Halfway through Politics From the Edge by Rory Stewart, about which I can say little here except I like it a lot. Also re-reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, after watching a random YouTube video that claimed Ron was done dirty by the films. I think that's right -- he's a much better character in this, so far. Everyone is, except perhaps some of the professors. In fact the book overall is much better and funnier than the movie. I might read the first three in the series and then stop before the exhausting Goblet of Fire.
 
Well, I finished L.A. Confidential. It's something of a sprawling mess, and the abbreviated style .of writing doesn't make it easy to follow at all, but it's strangely riveting and I went though it pretty quickly. I've read five Ellroy novels, and they tend to read like stories told like a maniac in a hurry (an idea that Ellroy himself would probably really like), which is definitely a mixed blessing (one of the five was basically unreadable). Overall, the film of L.A. Confidential is a better film than the book is a book, but it's still a good read.

These days, I tend to find crime more appealing than SFF. I tend to find older SFF too dry and lacking in characterisation, and newer stuff too concerned with YA-type issues and characters. I suppose William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy was about the right balance - but then, those are effectively crime novels in an SF setting.
 
Toby Frost said:
Well, I finished L.A. Confidential. ... Overall, the film of L.A. Confidential is a better film than the book is a book, but it's still a good read.
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A bit off-topic possibly but is this the film where a -possibly undercover- police officer (or investigator) accidentally gropes a woman as she lies in bed? I have never seen anything more artfully or comically done. It was pants-wettingly funny. I've been looking for this film for years.
 
I finished Fear No Truth by Lyndee Walker. This is a book in the crime mystery genre. It's main character is Faith McClellan who is a rookie Texas Ranger. But she is no rookie policewoman, she has spend some years as in the county sheriff's office. What I liked about this book was that it is not simple. The perpetrator of the murder (and there's some question whether it was a suicide) is not at all plain and there are several viable suspects. Also there seems to be a tie to at least one murder in the past. I also liked that the main character Faith McClellan was not the prototypical wise cracking, butt kicking, hard charging, take no prisoners kind of character that seems too ubiquitous in the crime mystery genre. I liked that it took some grunt police work to narrow the circle of suspects, and then sometimes the narrowing proves to be premature. Finally, the big reveal at the end of the book is in no way anti-climatic.

What I didn't like about this story was that there was a very important backstory which largely stays unexplained. At one point I went to look if this was indeed book 1 of the Faith McClellan series, or if maybe there was a prior series. But at least as far as I could tell (I'm still not convinced!) this is indeed book 1. Second, there's a thing (I'm intentionally not naming it) which becomes very important that I'm not sure if I buy as possible.

On the whole an enjoyable book. I've queued up book 2 but I've not begun it.

Avoid --- Not Recommended --- Flawed --- Okay --- Good --- Recommended --- Shouldn’t be Missed

*** I am starting The Defense of the Commonwealth by John J. Spearman (Perseverance Andrews Book 1)
 
Parson said:
I would agree with this about the movie, but I find the book to be one of the very best SF ever. I remember being enthralled by it from the moment I started reading it. It has always been my recommendation to people who want to read their first SF book, and they've always loved it.
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I've a particular fondness for the 1991 reissue of Ender's Game, because of the long introduction by Card where he gives a lot of detail about the journey from a short story to a full novel.

Where and why he wrote the original, the reception it received and the further reception upon the novel's eventual release, including some examples of praise and loathing he got in letters.

Also there's some interesting info on his deliberate avoidance of approved writer's methods back in the day.
 
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