Forum menu
The Patient Assassin, by Anita Anand - really enjoying the Empire podcast she does with William Dalrymple so thought I'd try a book. Not sure what I expected but it's way more engaging than I thought it would be, and eye-opening in terms of painting a picture of just how godawful the Raj was.
Holiday reads so far:- Roald Dahl - Going Solo - interesting reading about his life in the RAF during WW2. Herman Hesse - Gertrude - bit like wading through treacle but I guess a lot is lost in translation. Mark Radcliffe - autobiography - of its time, but quite amusing antidotes of his experiences. Tim Winton - Shepherds Hut - if cousin love & survival in the bush is your thing. Just picked up Bill Bryson - At Home.
I’m reading The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s the last in a trilogy. Only started it last night but looking forward to it as I enjoyed the last two.
War Doctor by David Nott.
A remarkable man who picked up and used a commercial pilots licence in his spare time whilst working full time in the NHS as a surgeon (across 3 hospitals) and spending his holidays operating and teaching in war zones.
Picked up the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft and the selected writings of Dylan Thomas for starters.
I always think that Lovecraft's actual writing is a bit heavy-handed for me, but a lot of the writers who he inspired use that background much better.
I live about a mile from where Dylan Thomas was born and may well be in one of his favourite pubs later. Mind you every pub around here claims to have been frequented by him. Away from the drinking, he was a beautiful writer.
Storm command by Sir Peter de la Billiaire
It's ok and described clearly how the Iraqi army really didn't stand a chance
Picked up the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft and the selected writings of Dylan Thomas for starters.
I always think that Lovecraft’s actual writing is a bit heavy-handed for me, but a lot of the writers who he inspired use that background much better.
I know what you mean. The Cats of Ulthar was well received though. "The cats was naughty!"
On audio I've just listened to Soul Music, read by Tony Robinson. Fortunately audiobooks are included in my Spotify subscription, he can't do Death's voice.
Just finished The Last Continent, good to revisit Terry Pratchett.
Just started One Man and His Bike.
Am near Wigtown for a few days, where the books are.
Shaun Bythell’s diary of a bookseller books are really funny, worth popping in his shop if you’re there.
Just finished The Book Of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. My second time reading it, found a totally new perspective in this time round, completely different to how I remembered it!
Just finished The Book Of Strange New Things by Michael Faber. My second time reading it, found a totally new perspective in this time round, completely different to how I remembered it!
have you read Under the Skin? Weird but really good and better than the film.
[url= https://i.postimg.cc/zBn7yFcM/7-CC662-A7-F6-F3-4-E73-BD59-3-F5-D37-B812-F2.jp g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/zBn7yFcM/7-CC662-A7-F6-F3-4-E73-BD59-3-F5-D37-B812-F2.jp g"/> [/img][/url]
this arrived today, which seems topical given current events. Where did I put those iodine tablets….
I always think that Lovecraft’s actual writing is a bit heavy-handed for me, but a lot of the writers who he inspired use that background much better.
Actually, who are you thinking of, other than Gaiman?
Am near Wigtown for a few days, where the books are.
Shaun Bythell’s diary of a bookseller books are really funny, worth popping in his shop if you’re there.
Our first port of call 🙂
November 1942 - Robert Englund.
A view of a very pivotal month in the war told through the personal experiences and diary entries of the people that experienced it. Not just soldiers, sailors or airmen, but journalists, writers, folks at home, POW etc etc (Albert Camus complaining about a review of L'Estrager by Jean Paul Sartre is one highlight) He adds nothing to their words really, just footnotes and the odd explainer here and there, but leaves it to the stories and experiences that he's found. Pretty impressive amount of research if nothing else, but it's extraordinarily affecting to hear this sort of history stripped of the normal 'adventure story' narrative of lots of these sorts of books
Also having another go at some more of the Laundry Files as some-one else has also suggested them to me (as well as @Alex on here) admittedly they do get better, but I still think the main character's a prick though
On audio I’ve just listened to Soul Music, read by Tony Robinson. Fortunately audiobooks are included in my Spotify subscription, he can’t do Death’s voice.
I'm reading the Thief of time currently.
I cleared out a lot of my Pratchetts (mostly hardback) a few years back. Now wish I hadn't, really, especially since I now have more bookcase space!
Finished Solitary by Albert Woodfox. Just started Revenger by Alastair Reynolds, which I guess I must've bought at some point.
It's not bad, but obviously Reynolds trying to write more accessible sci-fi, for teens or whoever. So it's easier going than usual, a little light but enjoyable anyway
I always think that Lovecraft’s actual writing is a bit heavy-handed for me, but a lot of the writers who he inspired use that background much better.
Actually, who are you thinking of, other than Gaiman?
That's a great question and I can't answer it. 😀 I had a book of Cthulhu stories by other authors and I've no idea where it is now - probably in the Oxfam shop several years ago. Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Robert E Howard's Conan stories, which although not Cthulhu, share the same sort of feel, with extra fantasy of course. I may be mistaken but I think they were friends or acquaintances?
Anyway, I'm currently reading The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. Dreadful, but thankfully it is very short. He seems to have been inspired to write a Godzilla story channelled through The Big Bang Theory.
Just finished Mike Carter's 'All Together Now'. Excellent book IMHO
I had a book of Cthulhu stories by other authors
Maybe Ramsey Campbell? many years ago I was in a band with a bloke who’s dad was an author in the same area - Brian Lumley. Used to recommend authors and Campbell was one.
Anyway, I’m still going on the big fat Can (ahem, Can the band 😂) book, but also got The Revenant (Michael Punke) going for the fiction fix.
I have been working my way thru the lensman series again. Very much of their time but great space opera. Before that it was "Attack surface" by Cory Doctorow which I really enjoyed
I was in a band with a bloke who’s dad was an author in the same area – Brian Lumley.
I've read some of his stuff. Can't remember how good it is though! (I read too much and have the brain of a goldfish!)
I have been working my way thru the lensman series again. Very much of their time but great space opera.
I've got one of the Lensman compilations on my Kindle but haven't got around to it, but keep thinking 'Lensman, what a great name!'
Currently half way through Prophet Song by Paul Lynch - a grim (so far, and I don't think its going to get any brighter) tale of a family's experience in a dystopian Ireland. Its written without speech punctuation which is a bit irritating, but I'm finding it compelling and unsettling.
I've got that on my shelf, ready to read when I feel in the right mood. Seems it's been a fairly popular book round these parts (S Dublin) - 'popular' in that a lot of them have read it, rather than that they actually liked it...
‘popular’ in that a lot of them have read it, rather than that they actually liked it…
Aye....in a few days I'll report back on which category I can fit it in.......
Lee Cragie - Other Ways to Win
and
Andrew O Hagen - Caledonian Road
@creakingdoor ... Going to give the Shardlake series on Disney+ a spin tonight.
Sean Bean as Cromwell 🙂
I've just had to 'postpone' reading Behave by Robert Sapolsky as its genuinely too hard for me - I was kind of expecting an intellectually challenging romp through neuroscience and psychology for the layman, not degree level stuff! So thats on hold.
And from the sublime to the ridiculous I'm now halfway through Life by Keith Richards - absolutely hilarious plus loads of easter eggs if you are a blues guitar nerd. Can't belive I never read it before.
I always think that Lovecraft’s actual writing is a bit heavy-handed for me, but a lot of the writers who he inspired use that background much better
Lovecraft had views that aren’t so acceptable these days, and his style of writing is a bit stiff, but as someone once said, the past is a different country, they do things different there. I haven’t read any of his works for years, but I was a bit disappointed when Guillermo del Toro decided to put production of ‘At The Mountains Of Madness’ on the back burner.
I’m also reading an Adrian Tchaikovsky, Doors of Eden. About parallel evolution and crossovers between different Earths where life evolved differently. Very good.
Currently reading one of his ‘Children of Time’, I’m about halfway through. Two following books, ‘Children of Ruin’, and ‘Children of Memory’.
Drawing an awful lot from David Brin’s Uplift books, who gets properly name-checked as well. The Uplifting, using a nanovirus, was supposed to rapidly ‘uplift’ animals to sentience, in this case primates on an embargoed Earth-adjacent planet, to save them from human interference while human civilisation goes to shit and the remaining humans head for other star systems.
Trouble is, the planet only had invertebrates, no primates. Spiders and ants, Portia spiders, particularly, tiny jumping spiders, which are a lot smarter than they have any right to be…
Very engaging book, the spiders are particularly well drawn as characters. And I love jumping spiders!
I haven’t read any of his works for years, but I was a bit disappointed when Guillermo del Toro decided to put production of ‘At The Mountains Of Madness’ on the back burner.
The Colo(u)r Out of Space film is actually pretty good - Nicolas Cage, schlocky B movie stuff.
Currently reading one of his ‘Children of Time’, I’m about halfway through.
Someone bought this for me, and given the heft I expected 'hard' scifi - and it is kinda 'hard' I guess? But as you say, really engaging despite the robustness of the ideas (and the reliance on huge spiders), incredibly readable. Reminds me to add the sequels to my Amazon watchlist. Will also check out Doors of Eden.
Really goes to show that sci-fi is doing really well at the moment. I love the older 60s/70s scifi - Larry Niven, Heinlein, Arthur C Clarke, Frederik Pohl, your man with the leprosy in the fantasy world (Thomas Covenant?), and absolutely devoured them all when I was younger. Going back to them now though a lot of them really are more about the ideas than the writing; some of Heinlein's stuff is unreadable tedium for about 300 pages, Niven was only ever any good with co-authors (rereading the original Ringworld I was struck by how boring it is - it takes 3/4 of the book before they hit the Ringworld!), and so on. They were such good ideas, but the writing often didn't do them justice. I remember reading a "meteor is hitting the Earth" book (possibly Rendezvous with Rama, although I remember it being more Niven-y) about 30 years ago that talked about using gene editing to develop a corn variant that produced biodegradable plastic rather than edible food - and now we're actually approaching a point where these ideas are coming to fruition.
Whereas today's sci fi has really gripping ideas (Mielville, Tchaikovsky, Reynolds, all the rest) AND the writing to really keep you engaged and deliver the narrative that the ideas deserve.
I really loved "Children of Time", thought the second one was ok, but far from fantastic like the first. I need to re-read the first two to know the characters for the third, fine if you can read them back to back but not after a year. So rarely hear anyone talk about the uplift novels, I didn't realise he name checked Brin (ahh the ship name).
Just read his City of Last Chances, and though I enjoyed it, I didn't engage with the characters like I would with Abercrombie or Miéville book.
Currently struggling to find anything interesting, so am re-reading some of my older audible stuff (Scalzi and more Tchaikovsky)
I'm reading Saevrus Corax Deals With The Dead by KJ Parker, pretty much by mistake, it was cheap on amazon. I'd forgotten that I read KJ Parker's 16 Ways To Defend A Walled City and found it pretty annoying. And this one's annoying too. But good fun, loads of stuff gets called Pratchettey but actually this comes close at time, usually people fixate on the throwaway jokes but not so much on the wider wordplay and Parker definitely nails a lot of that.
But at the same time it's annoying, everywhere the main character goes in the world they bump into an old friend or relative or archnemesis, sometimes the same one several times, as if there's only about 20 people in this entire fantasy world, everyone else barely exists. And it's just constant "we are doomed... unless the exact right thing happens at the exact right time" which of course it does every time. But still, quite enjoying it and glad I picked it up by mistake. it's definitely a Romp or possibly a Caper and not a Serious Fantasy Novel but that's OK.
CountZero
Full MemberLovecraft had views that aren’t so acceptable these days
They weren't very acceptable at the time, either, even fellow antisemites thought him tasteless and extreme. But it's also got to be seen in perspective, he was completely out of his mind. He wasn't just terrified of jews and black people and especially "interbreeding", but also cracked windows, fish, brick walls with curves in, the cold, fat people, deserts but ALSO swamps and oceans and lakes, anything that's normally sensibly sized but has become really big (such as large buildings), jelly, New England, drums (whether being played or not- but not the sound of drums, the drum itself), the colours grey and green (he had the exact same colourblindness as me, and found it absolutely disturbing that he couldn't see some greens as other people saw them, his eyes lying to him!), dying old, dying young, not dying, acute angles, and any passage of time longer than about 20 years. (he loved anything he saw as reliable, respectable ancient history but couldn't stand forgotten or ambiguous history) And even the racist thing was steeped in irrationality- he didn't just have a problem with white people and black people "breeding", he had a problem with any sort of mixing of colours, he couldn't drink tea if he'd seen the milk being mixed in for instance. And he ended up marrying a jew of course.
And obviously all that madness went straight into the books, exaggerated to make his irrational phobias more reasonable, hence... "The nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh...was built in measureless eons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults." It's all there, covered in the green jelly his mum made him eat. Which is what makes them memorable of course, most people have to invent the crazy stuff.
I'm making my way through the Penny Royal trilogy from Neal Asher. I'm on War Factory right now. They're alright. I preferred the Cormac books. This trilogy makes the characters feel a little flat; I'm not really attached to any of them. Banks did a much better job giving the AIs and drones personality.
Just started reading 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie'. First thoughts are that it's f*****g brutal!
Lovecraft had views that aren’t so acceptable these days
I was going to write a one-liner, but erm, @Northwind seems to have beaten me to it...
Cooper and Szreter 'After the Virus', she's an economist and he's a history professor at Cambridge. Just started it and it is extremely well written and it comes with an endorsement from David King.
But it’s also got to be seen in perspective, he was completely out of his mind. He wasn’t just terrified of jews and black people and especially “interbreeding”, but also cracked windows, fish
Thanks for that - fascinating stuff that I knew nothing about. I'll google more when I have time later.
I quite like him but find a little Bill Bryson goes a long way. I must say though, I do enjoy a @simondbarnes beer shot.
This week I finished Unbeaten, by Mike Stanton - a decent biography of Rocky Marciano.
Finished the Warrior Prophet, middle book of Scott Bakker's prince of nothing trilogy.
Gets compared to Malazan a lot and it measures up thus far, imho - brings the epic. A little on the edgey side so wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.
I’m making my way through the Penny Royal trilogy from Neal Asher. I’m on War Factory right now. They’re alright. I preferred the Cormac books.
I'm currently making my way through the Ian Cormac books by Neal Asher 🙂 Just about to finish no.2, then next up is either no.3 or Paper Cuts by Ted Kessler.
Read a couple of Thursday Murder Club books - quite good fun. Now on to Red Mars. The first of the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson.
My Dad bought me the third book in the 90s and I never got around to reading the first two.
Yesterday I started Ready Player One. Read three chapters in the bath. Today I'm throwing it in the charity shop bag. If you're absolutely in love with gatekeeping '80s pop culture you'll probably love it. There were the bones of a story in there, possibly, but I don't know who for. It's too YA to be for actual adults, while actual YAs have literally no connection with a decade that started thirty-odd years before they were born.
Yesterday I started Ready Player One. Read three chapters in the bath. Today I’m throwing it in the charity shop bag.
+1. I tried reading it a few years ago and found it very dated. Lots of YA gaming books seem to be similar or at least have a very generic plot that I find unengaging.
Finished the Warrior Prophet, middle book of Scott Bakker’s prince of nothing trilogy.
Gets compared to Malazan a lot and it measures up thus far, imho – brings the epic
Interesting. I've heard of Bakker but don't know his work. I read Gardens of the Moon 20 years ago and found it utterly bonkers. Attempted Deadhouse Gates several times but couldn't get on with it as it follows a different set of characters/plots and was bending my mind. Revisted it a month ago on Audible and again gave up. I get why people dig Malazan, but it can take a lot of effort to follow everything.
Recently finished Kennedy 35 by Charles Cumming and The Secret Hours by Mick Herron - both espionage novels, but in very different styles. Both great though - Kennedy 35 is the third in a trilogy inclding Box 88 and Judas 62. I picked up Box 88 at random in the charity shop and one sleepless night I started reading and found I couldn't put it down. I finished it and went to the bookshop later the same day to get the sequel it was so good. His earlier books are worth checking out too, though as always you can really see the evolution of his style.
The Secret Hours is set in the same canon / universe as Mick Herron's Slough House / Slow Horses books, and readers may recognise some characters, but is unrelated and can easily be read as a stand-alone novel. Very much worrth checking out.
Currently reading "All The Light We Cannot See" which was bought for me as a present - probably not a book I would have bought for myself, but one I'm really enjoying.