September's Studious Search For Sonorous Snippets

[Hypnos164]

Now reading Echo City by Tim Lebbon, which I bought mostly on the strength of its superbly vivid and weird prologue (which I read in the shop)...

I had a go at Dusk by him - mostly because of rave reviews, gave up after 100 pages or so and never been tempted back due to the flat prose and vile one dimensional characters.

Finished Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay a quick enjoyable read (I think the TV show is better thought out and has more depth though).

Now on to The Algebraist by Iain M Banks which is the last of his SF works I haven't read - despite having the hardcover on the shelf for the last 6-7 years or so.

 

[HareBrain]

never been tempted back due to the flat prose and vile one dimensional characters.

Spot on. I think they'd seem less one-dimensional, strangely, if he didn't explain in exhaustive depth every single one of their emotions.

 

[GOLLUM]

Currently reading The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, a penguin edition. Lu Xun is seen as the father of modern Chinese literature and a prominent figure of World Literature. Too early to comment so far but very promising.

 

[HareBrain]

Just started Wolf's Brother by Megan Lindholm (aka Robin Hobb) -- what a refreshing change after the Echo City disaster to get onto something relatively short, and written with subtlety.

When I bought it, I assumed it was a new release, and was a little uncomfortable about the similarity in title and setting with Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother -- but I've now found out that Lindholm wrote this back in 1988.

 

[elvet]

Finished The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin - I liked it a lot, the blurb makes it sound like a really conventional "farm girl is really lost princess" tale. It certainly isn't that; nor is it ever quite what you expect. Recounted as someone relating memories complete with digressions and things getting a bit out of order - reminiscent of The Last Dragon but nowhere near as fragmented and non-linear.

It is a complete stand alone story, though it will form part of a trilogy of book exploring different aspects of the same world.

Chose this book next after I read your mini-review. I like it so far, it's a nice break from the normal rags to riches.

 

[D_Davis]

About half way through The Year of Our War, and it remains utterly masterful. I continue to be in awe of how well-written the characters are, and of how they constantly surprise me. So good - really looking forward to finishing this volume and diving right into the second book.

 

[chrispenycate]

Just started Wolf's Brother by Megan Lindholm (aka Robin Hobb) -- what a refreshing change after the Echo City disaster to get onto something relatively short, and written with subtlety.

When I bought it, I assumed it was a new release, and was a little uncomfortable about the similarity in title and setting with Michelle Paver's Wolf Brother -- but I've now found out that Lindholm wrote this back in 1988.

I have just discovered, in my bookshelves but never read, "The reindeer people" by her. Yoopee, something new to read, albeit a slim volume!

 

[J-Sun]

Finally finished John Shirley's Three-Ring Psychus. There are traces of PKD in this one, along with a connection to 80s left-wing fantasy/SF utopian stuff like the later The Dream Years/A Mask for the General or The City, Not Long After. This ultimately didn't work for me, as it fits in with a thread I started awhile ago about propaganda and had a rather aimless, disjointed plot and not overly compelling characters and just didn't have enough charm or weirdness or whatever to carry the weight (which is really ironic as the story uses "the Unweighting" as a major symbolic theme). This also felt like a book Shirley started, set aside, and picked up again, somewhere between the generalized weirdness and then the specifically un-military SF end part.

War and authoritarianism are bayud, m'kay?

 

[j d worthington]

Finding just a tiny bit more time for reading the past few days, so I've gone back to The Crawling Chaos and have finished all but the stories in the appendix. Lovely book in many ways, and this has quite possibly the fewest typographical errors I've seen in a modern book in years. The stories, of course, I've read before, several times; but the annotations here provide some interesting insights. My only complaint here (other than the fact I'd have liked some interior artwork to go along with the really fine dust jacket) is that it would be nice to see some interpretative commentary or criticism on the contents to give them a bit more context and, perhaps, alternate views of them. But this isn't a realistic (or just) criticism for a collection of stories, as such should really be a separate volume... it is just something I would very much like to see happen....

 

[No One]

Lovely book in many ways, and this has quite possibly the fewest typographical errors I've seen in a modern book in years.

Glad I'm not alone in this. I'm often surprised at just how many typos get past editors and proofreaders. A sad indictment against modern writers and publishers alike

Anyway I've probably set a record for the slowest reading of Pullman's The Subtle Knife, which I finished last week, but it's always nice to let some stories linger with you I find. Terrific book too. Pullman's presentation of a union of ideas is so simply and smoothly conveyed. And oh-so blasphemous for what is a YA book.

Have made a start on the last of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass.

 

[j d worthington]

Glad I'm not alone in this. I'm often surprised at just how many typos get past editors and proofreaders. A sad indictment against modern writers and publishers alike

Actually, having spent a fair amount of my working life as a typesetter, I saw a lot of manuscripts come through which were originally just fine... until an editor got their hands on it. (This tends to refer to academic presses, which were among the worst. Ellison's indictment of such in "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" was by no means undeserved.) Once that blue pencil had finished moving, sentences and paragraphs which had originally been lucid and sensible suddenly came out as gobbledygook and brain-damaged jabberwocky. So it may not be in any way a particular writer's fault.

There are also writers who don't take the time to watch out for such things; and nowadays, as there are less and less proofreaders at many publishing houses ("downsizing" has hit this aspect of the field quite severely), a lot of things which before would have been caught simply aren't, as there is no one to catch them.
And then there are the slips which even the most conscientious typesetters make... for those houses which still use this position.....

At any rate, in this particular instance, I've only found two or three such in over 300 pages... which may well be something of a record, as far as modern books are concerned....

 

[Rodders]

I'm about 200 pages into the Helliconia omnibus and i'm just not getting into it so i've sidelined it for the time being in favour of greg Bear's Hull Zero Three.

 

[J-Sun]

nowadays, as there are less and less proofreaders at many publishing houses ("downsizing" has hit this aspect of the field quite severely), a lot of things which before would have been caught simply aren't, as there is no one to catch them.

I'm pretty sure proofreaders == 0 at some publishing houses now. I will probably buy The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller Volume Two, only because I already bought Volume One, but it's the very worst proofread book I have ever seen (depending on how you compare the larger scale hackery inflicted on Asher's The Engineer Reconditioned by Cosmos) and I will never buy any other from them. Non-Stop Press needs to stop and correct some typos. The errors are fairly consistent but I only wrote down the ones on the 14 pages from p.25-39 (thinking to apprise the editor/publisher of them) and there were 18+ typos (the '+' because sometimes multiple errors will occur on the same paragraph or even line). Worse, they are usually "Eye half a spellchecker" sorts of errors which makes for sentences of complete nonsense rather than an honestly typo'ed word that could easily be mentally corrected.

But, yeah, it's a general problem.

And this is after years of the internet have blunted my own proofreading abilities. Who knows how many errors there actually are?

(To digress, this another reason why ebooks are so dumb: I'm to pay money for a nocover book and, not only that, but a nocover book that hasn't been proofread? At least, in theory, you could edit your own ebook to correct these sorts of things, though I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't. But then I'm paying them for my labor. (This all vis a vis the publisher, not the author.))

 

[GOLLUM]

Off-topic: Just out of interest is there any trends that indicate Genre fiction including many of its small press publishers turn out more mistake riddled manuscripts than the so-called literary mainstream 'classics' published by Penguin, Victor Gollancz, Harvill, Oxford University Pres etc? and if Yes would that be because these texts have generally been around longer and therefore perhaps remained in a better 'state' when an emphasis on good editing was stronger? I've also noticed that when a newly discovered 'world classic' is translated into English by one of these publishing houses that they are generally of a high production standard....are more production funds being ploughed into mainstream literary works therefore by publishing houses with bigger budgets than say small press publishers or even Genre fiction in general these days still?

I do not have a direct involvement in the mainstream publishing industry albeit my profession is that of a technical writer, so I am asking this here. Just plain curious what people's observations are if there are any trends at all across different categories of books or publishing houses...

Cheers.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I'm back at work, so reading again in my lunch break...

Tim Butcher, Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart

 

[GOLLUM]

I'm back at work, so reading again in my lunch break...

Tim Butcher, Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart

That's an interesting change of pace Stephen. Is this travel account any good? I know little of Tim Butcher except that he's a well known journalist.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

He's new to me, too! I was lent it; the person lending it to me knew I was working on an African novel. (A prequel of sorts to Muezzinland.) Only just startedf, but really good so far - clear and readable.

 

[Extollager]

J-Sun mentioned " it's the very worst proofread book I have ever see."

I defy anyone who has seen it to name a book that is worse than this edition, at least, of From Narnia to a Space Odyssey:

http://www.amazon.com/Narnia-Space-Odyssey-Between-Arthur/dp/0743475186/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_topLewis's letters have passages that literally make no sense. I don't know what the editor thought he was doing. His presentation of the letters seems legally actionable. You can read the Lewis letters as they should be presented in the appropriate volume of Lewis's Collected Letters.

 

[J-Sun]

J-Sun mentioned " it's the very worst proofread book I have ever see."

It's almost a law of the internet that, when talking about errors of any kind, one has to make one of them at the same time but, in all fairness to myself, I did say "seen".

 

[antiloquax]

Finished "The Anubis Gates" today. I really enjoyed it. Will def. read more Powers.
Today I have started "Bone Dance" by Emma Bull. I haven't read anything by her before (in fact at the moment I am only reading books by authors that are new to me). I've only read the first chapter, but it seems good.