June 2022 Reading Thread

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Randy M. said:
Just starting The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix.
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I liked this one a lot, Randy. Hendrix's books are so entertaining and so easy to read/enjoy. This one is pretty bold, I think, and I really liked the story and characters. I've recently finished The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was good, but I think this one is a fair bit better. Hendrix is one of my go-to writers for reliable, entertaining horror.

He has a new book coming out next January, named: How to Sell a Haunted House. I've got it on pre-order.

edit for a few comments on a horror novel I am about to finish. I'm almost done with Echo (on Audible) by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Heuvelt's previous novel, Hex, was one of my favorite reads of 2018, I thought it was brilliant and truly original horror.
I am going to finish Echo out of respect to Hex, but this one seems very average to me. Too long (18 hours as an e-book), too boring, and with MCs I have little interest in. Also, virtually every decision the MCs make seem the absolute opposite of what a real person would decide (seriously, so many unlikely decisions that put each one of the characters time after time in the most-possible danger they could be in). And scenarios repeat and repeat and repeat. I do not think the book, for me, can be redeemed in the last 100 pages, but I will post back if my mind changes.
 
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I finished a couple of books, 1636: The Saxon Uprising, by Eric Flint (I do enjoy these books), and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. I enjoyed the latter very much. But I felt the last story (The Final Problem) - which both introduces Moriaty and ends with Holmes’ death - was strangely disappointing for two reasons: firstly it drops Moriaty into Holmes’ world with no preamble, set-up or prior mention, and secondly, it’s not a mystery, but a thriller I suppose. With no case, little plot, and no history with the evil Moriaty, it serves only as a vehicle for Doyle to kill his character off. Little surprise 20,000 people stopped their subscription to The Strand magazine as a result! All the other stories are terrific, though, so it’s well worth a read.

I’m now getting back to my full Dune series re-read, with Heretics of Dune (by, of course, Frank Herbert). I’m reading the first edition HB I acquired recently. I last read the novel in about 1985, shortly after it was first published. My memory is sketchy to say the least, so I’m looking forward to this. I seem to recall Ian Sales saying that he thought the last two books were the best written of all six in the series. We’ll see.
 
Niche reading: Liz Greene "Jung's Studies in Astrology"
Very interesting if you're up on Carl Jung.
 
Bick said:
I finished a couple of books, 1636: The Saxon Uprising, by Eric Flint (I do enjoy these books), and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. I enjoyed the latter very much. But I felt the last story (The Final Problem) - which both introduces Moriaty and ends with Holmes’ death - was strangely disappointing for two reasons: firstly it drops Moriaty into Holmes’ world with no preamble, set-up or prior mention, and secondly, it’s not a mystery, but a thriller I suppose. With no case, little plot, and no history with the evil Moriaty, it serves only as a vehicle for Doyle to kill his character off. Little surprise 20,000 people stopped their subscription to The Strand magazine as a result! All the other stories are terrific, though, so it’s well w..
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actually i think that maybe you are reading the stories out of order?just an opinion
 
Cat's Cradle said:
I liked this one a lot, Randy. Hendrix's books are so entertaining and so easy to read/enjoy. This one is pretty bold, I think, and I really liked the story and characters. I've recently finished The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was good, but I think this one is a fair bit better. Hendrix is one of my go-to writers for reliable, entertaining horror.

He has a new book coming out next January, named: How to Sell a Haunted House. I've got it on pre-order.

edit for a few comments on a horror novel I am about to finish. I'm almost done with Echo (on Audible) by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Heuvelt's previous novel, Hex, was one of my favorite reads of 2018, I thought it was brilliant and truly original horror.
I am going to finish Echo out of respect to Hex, but this one seems very average to me. Too long (18 hours as an e-book), too boring, and with MCs I have little interest in. Also, virtually every decision the MCs make seem the absolute opposite of what a real person would decide (seriously, so many unlikely decisions that put each one of the characters time after time in the most-possible danger they could be in). And scenarios repeat and repeat and repeat. I do not think the book, for me, can be redeemed in the last 100 pages, but I will post back if my mind changes.
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I'm not far, about 60 pages in, and already think he made a smart decision in choice of narrator. She's absurdly paranoid, except maybe not.
 
I'm "always" reading some novel, yet right now I'm not. One of the nonfiction books getting my attention is Loomis's Development of Arthurian Romance, which would probably be a slog if I hadn't lately read some of the works he mentions. I've never read some of the others he discusses. The sense I'm getting so far is that there are three works I haven't read that should be well worth picking up -- Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the Quest of the Holy Grail formerly attributed to Walter Map, and Geoffrey of Monmouth's Vita Merlini. I have Penguin Classic editions of the first two, and scanned the third item from an interlibrary loan collection of Merlin items. Loomis mentions a number of other works that might be suited to readers who are more "Arthurian completist" than I.
 
Randy M. said:
I'm not far, about 60 pages in, and already think he made a smart decision in choice of narrator. She's absurdly paranoid, except maybe not.
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Yes indeed, a fine choice. And it just keeps building and building, the tension, the action. Very exciting book, and I liked it from start to finish (there're some quite disturbing scenes, and situations... also all the way through). Hope you enjoy it as much as I did, CC
 
Arthur C. Clarke "The Deep Range" (1957)
Well written, as ever. Although based on an earlier short story, this looks to have been very much influenced by his 1956 move to Sri Lanka and growing fascination with diving and underwater exploration.
I had one very uneasy reservation about the plot but this was resolved by the end of the book.
Much of the world is dependent on whale breeding and 'harvesting' for their meat/protein, though the exact methods for this harvesting are not made clear until late on, but by the end of the book the government has agreed to stop killing them
 
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A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones
I'm nearing the end of the initial volume, and I am enjoying it immensely.
As I expected, it's a rich expansion of the HBO series. Getting the thoughts of the characters within the scenes is a real bonus. I don't recall any voice-over enhancement adding that element to the show.
As I read, I like visualizing the actors who played the parts. Martin's savory, detailed food descriptions often stir hunger pangs -- with the exception of Dothraki fare. :sick:
 
Book 2 of David Morrell's Mortalis trilogy - The Fraternity of the stone.

One thing I never picked up on the first time I read but it's bugging me now, this guy has been in an enclosed monastery for just under six years, now he's out and he's stunned to see punk rockers on the TV - he's never saw such like until now and he's wondering what has happened to the world.
But it's Autumn 1985 so must have entered the monastery late 1979.

Come on! He's never noticed punk rock in 76 to 79?
Prior to the monastery he was a killer spy travelling all around the US but he never saw a punk?
 
Took a break from Q to read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. Not quite as good as I'd expected: the prose was excellent and sometimes very witty, but it seemed a bit slight. I read it in a Folio Society edition, but I think this worked against the text, especially the very stylised Beryl Cook illustrations, which constantly fought with my mental images of the characters. It would probably have been better as a ratty paperback.

It's made me want to see the film again, though, which I think might have been better. One of the funniest lines I remember from the film wasn't even in the book.
 
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