February Reading Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm into the last 100 pages of Steven King's Duma Key now. It's challenging The Stand for its word count! It concerns a building contractor who has a life-changing work accident, and who retires to the Florida Keys to paint and recover. I'm not finding the, now more thoroughly supernatural, storyline as compelling as the earlier parts of the book, which seemed to be a more modern, and more extended, version of The Picture of Dorian Gray, with ESP elements. However, once the very aged Elizabeth has died, it shifts gear and goes full-on into vengeful ghosts and wraiths and haunted houses. And even the burning of these paintings won't stop the horror...
 
From Sixteen Short Novels:

"Old Man" by William Faulkner (1939)

The odyssey of a convict assigned to help out during a gigantic flood of the Mississippi in 1927. (A real event, said to be the most destructive flood in American history.) He winds up in a boat with a pregnant woman. Together they wander all over the place for several days, enduring all sorts of situations. That sounds like an adventure story (and the bare bones of the plot certainly contain many melodramatic events) but since it's Faulkner, you've got incredibly long sentences, often interrupted by parenthetical digressions.

Apparently this story and "Wild Palms" (set years ten later, with an unrelated plot) made up the "novel" If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem by alternating chapters of the two works.
 
Finished the Corax trilogy by K J Parker (Tom Holt) - recommended.

Reading Starter Villain, by John Scalzi.
"Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think." Oh yes.
 
From Sixteen Short Novels:

"Youth" by Joseph Conrad (1898)

The narrator relates the events of a voyage carrying coal from England to Thailand, his first experience as second mate. Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, but he looks back on it as the finest time in his life. Vivid seafaring stuff, of course, and the point made that young folks often dare everything.

"The Lesson of the Master" by Henry James (1888)

A young writer meets an older writer that he admires. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a young woman. The older writer confesses that, having married and had children, he had to give up pure devotion to art in order to make money. He advises the young writer to do otherwise, giving up everything for his work. Two years later, the young writer returns to find an unexpected situation. More readable than some James.
 
Jenny Trapdoor by Neal Asher - a novella set in the Polity universe .

An AI designed to hunt Prador goes a bit Penny Royal rogue after being abandoned on an old battle planet.
 
Last edited:
Two plays by William Shakespeare:
~ Timon of Athens: so-so. Interesting collection of insults. A lesson for anyone who suddenly acquires "friends" when they have oodles of money.
~ Titus Andronicus: good grief! Very bloody, brutal and violent revenge play set in Ancient Rome. The only redeeming quality is that everyone dies. Not to my liking.
 
The Scar by China Miéville
I liked this one more than Perdido Street Station (though I liked the characters in Perdido Street Station more). Very interesting and novel world (ship-state?) building and new species (the mosquito women were terrifying!). I found the end a bit disappointing though. All that effort and no satisfactory result at the end.
 
Elentarri said:
The Scar by China Miéville
I liked this one more than Perdido Street Station (though I liked the characters in Perdido Street Station more). Very interesting and novel world (ship-state?) building and new species (the mosquito women were terrifying!). I found the end a bit disappointing though. All that effort and no satisfactory result at the end.
Click to expand...
I read Perdido St Station years ago and was wowed by some of the concepts - the clan of librarians with the chests of books for example but felt the whole chase scenes through the city were a bit run of the mill. As in the second half of the book didn't deliver on the promise of the first half. Not tried The Scar

I just read Dancing Jack by Laurie Marks. The opening was far too full of dramatic description for my taste, especially of the weather (spears of ice as a simile etc) however as I'd had a strong recommendation I kept going and it was worth it. Swaps between the viewpoints of several characters; my favourite was the Guild master of the River Pilot's Guild - she is splendid. Set in a world that is post failed peasants revolt, and post really bad plague, with farming, trade and cities continuing, but at a tiny level compared to before. One character, Ash, currently farming her ancestral land sets off to find out what happened to her nieces and nephews. In the half ruined city where they lived, she runs into Macy (another POV character) a former clock maker who now makes children's toys including the dancing jack puppets. I especially like the women having to deal with several rather entitled aristocratic and Royal men who have not yet grasped the world has changed - reminds me of dealing with certain middle managers at work and their lack of grasp of practical details. @Teresa Edgerton - you might like this if you haven't already read it.

@Elentarri Thanks for the tip on the next Cinder Spires. Have just read Warriorborn which is great - give me a cat tribe any day and I've always liked Benedict. Am waiting to get book 2 as paperback.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
The Judge February Reading Thread Book Discussion 129
The Judge February 2022 Reading Thread Book Discussion 219
D February 2021 Reading Thread. Book Discussion 179
The Judge February 2020 Reading Thread Book Discussion 245
nixie February 2019: Reading thread Book Discussion 170

Similar threads


Back
Top