January 2018: Reading thread

iupi a new john conroe is out. SUMMER REIGN is out

I finished another of Laurence E Dahners fun reads Bio-terror, and The Girl they Couldn't See, and immediately started reading it's sequel, The Boy who Couldn't Miss.

Steve S said:

Next up for me is Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman - it's been on my 'to read' list for a while, so looking forward to it.

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My 13yo gave that a big thumbs up

Abaddon's Gate: Book 3 of the Expanse.

Strange but I'm not a great fan of the character that is James Bond in this book (Casino Royale). Comes across as a one dimensional sexist old bigot!

Parson said:

Get thee in a 60's frame of mind and it will be a blast. I loved them in the 60's.

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The old book Bonds would definitely come out that way without a 60's mindset. Suave violence, and every woman no matter how young/old sophisticated/not, brilliant/not just dying to give Bond a tumble.

Brian G Turner said:

I somehow ended up on a page at Amazon.com for a black history book, written by Dick Gregory - someone I'd never heard of. Out of idle curiosity I opened the sample chapter and became completely absorbed by the easy narrative.

Unfortunately, it wasn't available as a Kindle ebook, so I looked for something else by him. There was only Nigger, an autobiography of his difficult life growing up in segregated 1950's America, then managing to break out from poverty as a comedian, before becoming involved in the Civil Rights movement.

Bought it, and couldn't put it down.

Absolutely brilliant.

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Dick Gregory was a speaker at my college in 1969? He was brilliant, controversial, and charismatic. A true believer in the civil rights movement.

The only thing is the bond book is in the 50s not the 60s. Fleming died in 1964

AE35Unit said:

The only thing is the bond book is in the 50s not the 60s. Fleming died in 1964

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Did not know that, and it might well be that it is closer to a 50's point of view. But it is not a mainstream way of thinking today. If you put modern sensibilities to the old Bond books they likely aren't much fun.

Well the book is picking up and has my interest. Trouble is I must sleep now...

Just started Michael Moorcock's The Final Programme.

Parson said:

Did not know that, and it might well be that it is closer to a 50's point of view. But it is not a mainstream way of thinking today. If you put modern sensibilities to the old Bond books they likely aren't much fun.

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Just to state the obvious: Some '50s attitudes bled into the '60s. Playboy started in the '50s and had a huge impact on the early '60s. Fleming was an admirer of Raymond Chandler and I think the book-Bonds show that; I recall Casino Royale having something of a noir sensibility. (Chandler liked Fleming's stories as well.) Playboy adopted Fleming to a degree, published some of his stories, photo spreads of on-set pictures were featured, some of the models and actresses in the movies posed for Playboy (or had posed for them in the past) and the Playboy attitude was reinforced and further popularized through the movies -- Dr. No, which is fairly close to the book, came out in 1962 as a low-budget thriller and raked in big box office, making Connery a star. (The producers had originally wanted Cary Grant as Bond, but passed, as did Hitchcock when asked to direct -- he thought they ripped off his North by Northwest.) But you can feel a sea-change between Dr. No and From Russia, With Love, the second movie, and a further change in the third movie, Goldfinger, that signals the direction the franchise took for a long while after: Bigger, brassier, more explosions, more fights, more bikinis, more everything; meanwhile, Bond becomes just a touch less ruthless with women (although there is a scene in a spa in Thunderball that is truly cringe-worthy, and was so well before recent events). So what started as a fantasized spy-version of Chandler's mean streets turned into special effects extravaganza fantasy adventure stories.

Call it an early '60s attitude. By the late '60s its appeal was wearing a bit thin, the later Bond movies were falling into routine, and Michael Caine with The Ipcress File among others was gaining traction as a somewhat more realistic emblem of the times.


Randy M.
(Oh, yeah, forgot for moment: Fleming and his works might never have been big sellers without the praise President Kennedy. He mentioned reading them and enjoying them and suddenly they were selling through the roof, so some fo the "Camelot" cache transferred to Flemings books, which also helped the movies.)

Just finished Jack Vance's Durdane Trilogy. I enjoyed the first two books, The Anome and The Brave Free Men, more than the third, The Asutra, in part because I'd got interested in the characters of the first two books and then we moved to different continents and planets, in part because I just got tired of the plotline in the third.
But it's still Jack Vance.
However I don't know what part of psyche he was accessing in writing these books, but it was clearly a part of him that had great difficulty in forming healthy relationships with women. I was appalled at the script given to women in this trilogy. Aghast does not cover it.

I remember reading a review (or opinion) somewhere that said The Asutra read like Vance himself was tiring of the trilogy and just wanted to get it finished. Don't know if I buy that but I do feel it is the weakest of the three. The Anome however is outstanding, one of Vance's strongest and most enjoyable books.

Half way through Wizard of Earthsea and very sad to hear that Le Guin has died.

Just read "The Builders by by Daniel Polansky". I forget where or how I found this book, but it was sitting on my kindle and at only a few hundred pages it wasn't too long a read either. It's a short stand alone story that is rather like a very mature Redwall set against the backdrop of a wild-gun-slinging-west along with betrayal, war, rebellion and copious slaughter of rats.
All in all great fun to read and intelligently written - the style might take a little getting used too, but its very fluid and easy to read and there's an element of humour in the style of writing; even in how chapters are titled and put together.

All in all a great fun little read.

janeoreilly said:

Half way through Wizard of Earthsea and very sad to hear that Le Guin has died.

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Very sad news to hear, and only today someone else bumped up an old post to remind me of the illustrated omnibus edition of her Earthsea series coming out later this year (and which I'd forgotten was coming out). Was interesting to read some of her blog comments relating to that production and the back and forth chatter between her and the artist.

Randy M. said:

Randy M.
(Oh, yeah, forgot for moment: Fleming and his works might never have been big sellers without the praise President Kennedy. He mentioned reading them and enjoying them and suddenly they were selling through the roof, so some fo the "Camelot" cache transferred to Flemings books, which also helped the movies.

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This is something I've seen a fair number of times over the years but never understood.

What connected Kennedy to Camelot?

Was it some American meme of the sixties?

Confused Brit!

dannymcg said:

What connected Kennedy to Camelot

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From Wiki

In American contexts, Camelot is used to refer to the presidency of John F. Kennedy. In a 1963 Life interview, Jacqueline, his widow, referenced a line from the Lerner and Loewe musical to describe the Kennedy White House: "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot." She indicated that it was one of Kennedy's favorite lyrics from the musical and added, "there'll be great Presidents again, but there'll never be another Camelot again. […] It will never be that way again."[25]

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Well, I started before HB sent his, so I'll inflict it on you anyway ...

The play Camelot was first on Broadway (thank you, Wikipedia) in 1960. Kennedy won the Presidency in 1960. After the elderly and staid President Eisenhower (well, he was sort of staid; his Presidency though presided over key events in the '50s that set the foundation of what happened in the '60s), the Kennedys were young, glamorous and energetic. They were a bright and shining symbol of the energy, enthusiasm and confidence Americans were feeling (and there was no Internet to tattle on Jack and Marilyn). Kennedy also liked the music from the play (again, Wikipedia; I was only 4 at the time so what do I know) and somehow his enthusiasm for it must have become known and so his Presidency was seen as the American Camelot. The tragedy of his death may have contributed to that connection growing stronger over the years.


Randy M.

Yours was better and less lazy!

Brother Odd - Dean Koontz. I am in a fantasy slump at the moment so trying something more grounded in reality