I liked Way Station, but haven’t readCity yet so can’t compare. Also want to say I really enjoyed post-apocalyptic novel you recommended, Far North, by Marcel Theroux.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 15 December 2017 23:34 (six years ago) link
Theroux's 'Bodies' is also very good, but hard to describe without spoiling
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 16 December 2017 10:54 (six years ago) link
Yeah, just got a copy of that. I know of at least one reviewer, well it was M. John Harrison, who liked Bodies a lot more than Far North.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 16 December 2017 12:30 (six years ago) link
Wait isn’t it called Strange Bodies?
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 16 December 2017 12:56 (six years ago) link
Ooh, good to hear! I enjoyed Strange Bodies a ton too.
Thank you for reminding me about him, because apparently he has a brand new one called The Secret Books. But apparently it's only out in the UK?
― change display name (Jordan), Saturday, 16 December 2017 16:01 (six years ago) link
Just noticed that. Also curious to read his book about Sherlock Holmes’ brother. My library used to have a copy.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 16 December 2017 22:37 (six years ago) link
Sorry, yes, Strange Bodies.
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Saturday, 16 December 2017 22:56 (six years ago) link
https://78.media.tumblr.com/15b1c91a9ffdd6d470975510a9970b01/tumblr_p10pytIeUZ1qabkwjo1_400.jpg
Wonderful Japanese cover for 900 Grandmothers, stolen from https://50watts.tumblr.com/
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, 18 December 2017 01:22 (six years ago) link
"Are any of his other novels/collections as good?"
yes, totally! he was so awesome. always entertaining.
― scott seward, Monday, 18 December 2017 01:47 (six years ago) link
C’mon skot, what kind of critical approach is that? Some of his stuff is bland and boring.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 December 2017 02:09 (six years ago) link
Which stuff?
― dow, Monday, 18 December 2017 02:39 (six years ago) link
Some of the stuff he wrote after Way Station. Although you called my bluff because I only started a couple of these and didn't make much headway and I can't remember which ones they were so maybe they are not bland and boring after all.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 December 2017 03:06 (six years ago) link
I used to say the same thing about Barrington Bayley and Bob Shaw before I saw the error of my ways.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 December 2017 03:10 (six years ago) link
i'm not critical i guess. i like almost everything i've read by him. i can't think of many people who wrote such cool stuff from the 30s to the 80s.
― scott seward, Monday, 18 December 2017 03:24 (six years ago) link
For example if somebody asked me which P.G. Wodehouse to read, I would tell them to steer clear of The Cat-Nappers aka Aunts Aren’t Gentleman. Which I actually read twice, once under each title.
― Burru Men Meet Burryman ina Wicker Man (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 18 December 2017 04:03 (six years ago) link
i think i read that one, though as with all of the jeeves books, i don't know how i could confirm that
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Monday, 18 December 2017 06:01 (six years ago) link
is it the one where the plot revolves around the theft of a cow-creamer, i once asked, to be told, well, that's actually more than one of them
― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Monday, 18 December 2017 06:02 (six years ago) link
"This is the one with the amusing misunderstanding.""Oh, i've read that one then."
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, 18 December 2017 08:56 (six years ago) link
dow asked me to post the syllabus for the Fantasy lit course that I will be assisting with in the Winter term here, so here it is.
This isn't a genre I'm all that familiar with ('cept Harry Potter, really), so I'll likely be hanging out and posting here for the next few months.
― iCloudius (cryptosicko), Friday, 22 December 2017 03:13 (six years ago) link
kudos for doing lion, witch *before* magician's nephew
― mookieproof, Friday, 22 December 2017 04:55 (six years ago) link
Just finished Pamela Sargent's first Women of Wonder anthology, after it was mentioned on this thread a little while ago. It includes an early (and pretty good) story by Marion Zimmer Bradley, 'The Wind People', which contains a strong incest theme - very uncomfortable reading in the light of subsequent revelations. Good stories too from Ursula K Le Guin, Joanna Russ and Vonda N McIntyre, while the nicely ironic/acerbic 'The Food Farm' by Kit Reed was the story I enjoyed most by an author who was new to me. I see from Wiki that Reed died earlier this year - would like to read more by her.
― Akdov Telmig (Ward Fowler), Friday, 22 December 2017 09:30 (six years ago) link
I asked you about that on What Did You Read In 2017, should have come here first as I usually do. Thanks for the syllabus, cryptosicko---the only one I've read (all in one volume, as originally intended, and apparently with a lot of typos corrected) is the Rings trilogy, and that is great, or really really good (the Villain is too murky up "close," but by his works ye shall know him, incl. his corrupted stooges).
― dow, Saturday, 23 December 2017 16:02 (six years ago) link
This is the one with the amusing misunderstanding.""Oh, i've read that one then."― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, December 18, 2017 3:56 AM (five days ago)
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, December 18, 2017 3:56 AM (five days ago)
― Steely Rodin (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 23 December 2017 16:57 (six years ago) link
Adding a friend in Street Fighter V
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Tuesday, 2 January 2018 09:32 (six years ago) link
Frightfully lazy of me, but does anyone have any reccs for best new stuff read in 2017? Been kind of out of the loop this year
― Number None, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 13:06 (six years ago) link
We certainly don't tend to hop on flavor-of-the-nanosecond around here, but in 2017 I read and raved about Kelly Link's fuckin'-finally second collection, Get In Trouble (2015), Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 (guest edited by Karen Joy Fowler), and maybe that was when I grokked Naomi Novik's grabber Uprooted. Too lazy to c and p, but my takes are upthread.
― dow, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 20:08 (six years ago) link
Apr. 8-10: Eliezer Yudkowsky (Less Wrong), Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (Chapters 1-10)
Ha, that's an interesting assigned reading.
― jmm, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 20:17 (six years ago) link
(from cryptosicko's syllabus)
I haven't read it myself but I remember my Potter fan siblings talking about that story. Didn't know it was the Roko's Basilisk guy.
― jmm, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 20:20 (six years ago) link
wtf this was the wrong thread xxxxp
― Einstein, Bazinga, Sitar (abanana), Wednesday, 3 January 2018 01:34 (six years ago) link
reading The Martian - some chat about it upthread (2015, me seeing it in tescos, wondering). i realise it has turned into a big deal in the meantime. it's quite compelling. written as a journal, lots of problem solving. reminds me of a.c.clarke - rama or moondust or something, the science leading the story.
just finished The Affirmation, which is one of those SF Masterworks but reads more like iain (no-M) banks - writer writes a fictionalised account of his life. or does he?
― koogs, Sunday, 7 January 2018 20:21 (six years ago) link
any good? sounds intriguing but "the inverted world" wasn't quite good enough to make me rush out for more.
― Here comes the phantom menace (ledge), Sunday, 7 January 2018 20:29 (six years ago) link
Not really.
― koogs, Monday, 8 January 2018 08:08 (six years ago) link
If you not like inverted world, not sure i can cope
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Monday, 8 January 2018 08:39 (six years ago) link
thought that might raise some hackles. i didn't think it was *bad*, it just didn't ever rise above its own high concept.
― Here comes the phantom menace (ledge), Monday, 8 January 2018 09:14 (six years ago) link
finished The Martian. all through the book he's been throwing worst case scenarios at the poor guy so i settled down this morning to read the last 25 pages fearing the worst. but 16 of those pages were 'read an excerpt from author's new book' (i do hate that) so it all got wrapped up pretty quickly in comparison. was fun in an xkcd / 'if a man needs 1400 calories a day and so much space to grow potatoes, how long until he starves?' maths problem kind of way.
next up, Ready player One.
― koogs, Thursday, 11 January 2018 13:13 (six years ago) link
(Cyrus' favourite book, i see.
the ebook has a generic cover with just the name on the front. does nobody check these things?)
― koogs, Thursday, 11 January 2018 13:15 (six years ago) link
Dear god, koogs, Andy Weir has given you Stockholm syndrome, don't go on with the Cline!
― Mince Pramthwart (James Morrison), Thursday, 11 January 2018 23:16 (six years ago) link
Ha! Was wondering when someone was going to make a comment along those lines and how they would word it. Full marks
― Before Hollywood Swing (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 11 January 2018 23:44 (six years ago) link
40 pages in and i see what you mean. i'm hoping when the plot gets going the writing won't bother me as much as it currently does.
'Rebecca Serle of The Huffington Post described the book as "the grown-up's Harry Potter"'
maybe i'll wait for the film...
― koogs, Friday, 12 January 2018 08:03 (six years ago) link
Ready Player One is a deeply satisfying hateread.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 13 January 2018 08:22 (six years ago) link
It's the 80s reference that get me, the clumsy way they are name-dropped in, often 5 at a time. And the little, unnecessary, explanatory comments after each one. Reminds me of Moby Dick in a way, half novel, half Wikipedia.
Don't know about "grown up's Harry Potter", is more like Neuromancer but, y'know, for kids.
― koogs, Saturday, 13 January 2018 10:36 (six years ago) link
"grown up's Harry Potter" = "i have read 5 genre novels"
― adam the (abanana), Saturday, 13 January 2018 13:41 (six years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ2d00D7Gzg
― Before Hollywood Swing (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 13 January 2018 15:29 (six years ago) link
Temple To Ancient Roman Cult Resurrected Beneath London
groovy pictures too:
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/europe/london-temple-of-mithras/index.html
― dow, Saturday, 20 January 2018 02:05 (six years ago) link
iirc there was some mithraism in mary stewart's arthur/merlin series
― mookieproof, Saturday, 20 January 2018 02:09 (six years ago) link
Fredric Jameson on Aldiss's Non-Stop, https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/2/jameson2art.htm, in which he compares it to Heinlein's Orphan's of the Sky and Aldiss's own Hothouse.
― Eloi's Comin' (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 00:34 (six years ago) link
Aarfh, Orphans not *Orphan’s*
― Eloi's Comin' (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 00:36 (six years ago) link
Aargh, aargh not aarfh
― Eloi's Comin' (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 23 January 2018 00:37 (six years ago) link
LOVE YOU FOREVER, URSULA! one of a kind. so great. so wise.
https://s.hdnux.com/photos/70/75/13/14930636/3/1024x1024.jpg
― scott seward, Wednesday, 24 January 2018 01:24 (six years ago) link
Oh no! RIP. The best. (Almost wrote 'in her field' but nah, no need.)
― lana del boy (ledge), Wednesday, 24 January 2018 09:07 (six years ago) link