April's Aspiring Adventures Along Allegorical Avenues

[GOLLUM]

Welcome to the new reading month....

Please let us all know what you have been reading.

 

[Fried Egg]

I've just finished the third branch of Evangeline Walton's "Mabinogion": "The Song of Rhiannon". A somewhat more meandering affair than the previous parts.

I'm about to start "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" by Ransom Riggs.

 

[Mouse]

Finished Glitterland last night. Love love love. Now time to get back to The Death Collector.

 

[Extollager]

I've started the ball rolling for a thread on authors important to Arthur Machen, including Sir Thomas Browne, Samuel Johnson, S. T. Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey, and Coventry Patmore.

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/547803-literary-forbears-of-arthur-machen.html

I'm rereading a favorite, Dostoevsky's Demons, and am reading Donna Tartt's recent novel The Goldfinch. I expect to post about another story or two from Groff Conklin's science fiction anthologies during the month --

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/539121-reading-around-in-groff-conklins-anthologies.html

-- and hope to have something for the Tolkien History of Middle-earth thread this month also --

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/546889-history-of-middle-earth-50-pages-per-month.html

I'm rereading Machen's Things Near and Far, and am reading a privately-published, unassuming book about years ago in Coos Bay, Oregon, My Memories by Philip Matson, whose family was a neighbor of mine back in the day. I don't know if this sort of book appeals to anyone else here at Chrons, but I value collections of anecdotes and evocations of places where I used to live (and I've moved around a lot)....

 

[SirSamuelVimes]

I'm almost finished with Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson. I'm finding it enjoyable, but not as good as the first book in the series.

I intend to read Snuff by Terry Pratchett next. I've been putting reading it off for some time now. I'm trying to make his books last as long as possible.

I'm considering also reading Unsouled by Neal Shusterman. The third book in a very interesting series. I really enjoyed the first two books.

 

[Grunkins]

Some Science Non-Fiction. Finished Richard Preston's The Hot Zone last night. It details the emergence of filovirus and covers a major outbreak of Ebola in the US.

Preston is an excellent writer (he's a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and it shows in his style). The story is not one continuous arc, it hops around, showing more of the big picture of the emergence of first Marburg, then Ebola (three different flavors of Ebola, actually).

The book is very scary. If you have any germaphobic tendencies, this could well push you over the edge to full on obsessive paranoia. I think it would be hard to retain one's view of nature after reading this, unless one had a very sinister view of nature to begin with. An excellent book.

I should also mention that his depiction of Africa is delightful. (That wasn't sarcasm.)

(Gollum wins a promptness award for this thread I think)

 

[kythe]

Some Science Non-Fiction. Finished Richard Preston's The Hot Zone last night. It details the emergence of filovirus and covers a major outbreak of Ebola in the US.

I bought "The Hot Zone" years ago, thinking I would read it after taking microbiology. I've long since finished my nursing degree, but still haven't gotten around to "The Hot Zone". You've just renewed my interest. But there are so many books I want to read, I can't do it all at once!

Right now, while waiting for Foundation's Edge to come in from the library (I've got it on hold) I'm reading Asimov's short story "Nightfall". It's about a planet with 6 suns that for the first time in a millennium, is pushed into complete darkness for a week.

 

[Vince W]

Reading The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi at the moment, along with Icerigger by Alan Dean Foster on my kindle.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am currently reading The Crystal Crow by Joan Aiken (1968), the US title for her novel The Ribs of Death. This edition is clearly marketed as a Gothic Romance; it's got a young woman in a long dress and robe running away from an old castle on the cover. It's really a novel of character, with some indication that it may turn into a novel of suspense. There are a lot of quirky, often unpleasant characters interacting with each other. Some chapters are narrated by a rather neurotic young woman, living with an older, even more neurotic female doctor. In the first chapter she loses her virginity to an American soldier she has just met on a train. In other chapters, a young man has just been told by his sister, also a doctor, that he has no more than a year to live. All of these characters wind up in Cornwall (no castles, just cottages) and I suspect something bad is going to happen to some of them.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I've returned to Lyonesse for a few weeks.

 

[JunkMonkey]

I have just launched myself at The Worm Ouroboros by Eric R Eddison - is it supposed to be funny?

 

[alchemist]

Currently reading Sea of Ghosts by Alan Campbell, which I picked up for free at World Fantasy Con. Quite a good read so far, but a slap on the wrist to Tor for the numerous typos.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Currently reading Sea of Ghosts by Alan Campbell, which I picked up for free at World Fantasy Con. Quite a good read so far, but a slap on the wrist to Tor for the numerous typos.

Is it an Advanced Reading Copy? I picked up Liz Jaeger's Banished and noticed the same, but it was an ARC.

I put Robertson Davies down to save for my hols when I have more time and am finishing Chris Hadfield's An Astronaut's Life instead. I've enjoyed it, but it feels padded in places.

 

[alchemist]

Is it an Advanced Reading Copy? I picked up Liz Jaeger's Banished and noticed the same, but it was an ARC.

How would I tell? It's got quotes from reviews from The Times , so probably not.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

They often have reviews quoted - they're produced to drum up interest in book stores amongst others.

On the cover, either front or back, they usually say they're uncorrected proof and not for sale.

The amount of typos always cheers me up about my drafts.

 

[Hex]

How would I tell? It's got quotes from reviews from The Times , so probably not.

My memory of Banished is that it's covered in notes saying it's a proof copy and if you want to say anything about it you should contact someone at the publishers. I enjoyed it and I'd have written a review, otherwise, but I was too lazy to follow up for permission.

I'm reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer, which is interesting -- cleverer and more complex than I thought it would be -- and earlier today I finished The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke, which was also full of clever ideas and fabulous worldbuilding. I've ordered the next in the series.

I loved Unwind, SirSamuelVimes, and I bought the next two. I haven't had the courage to read them yet -- I found sections of Unwind so intense they still give me (waking) nightmares.

I liked Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children as well, though it was quite strange and I can't remember much of the story.

 

[JunkMonkey]

They often have reviews quoted - they're produced to drum up interest in book stores amongst others.

On the cover, either front or back, they usually say they're uncorrected proof and not for sale.

The amount of typos always cheers me up about my drafts.

A friend sent me a review / proof / ARC of the first American edition of his novel which had previously been published in the UK. The proof had a typo before the first word of the text.

 

[Bick]

Making my way through Allen Steele's "Coyote". The writing isn't anything to write home about, but neither is it bad. Steele plots the book quite well, with interesting and exciting happenings occurring on a regular enough basis to keep my interest. Whether I'll read heaps of the books in the series I'm not sure, but I don't regret reading this one. If you're after a first planetfall exploration novel, this is worth checking out. I'm about 50% through it.

 

[Grunkins]

Making my way through Allen Steele's "Coyote".

I've been curious about these books for a while now. The reviews have seemed too mixed for me to jump in. Interested to hear what you think when you finish.

 

[AE35Unit]

Got bored with Alan Dean Foster's Bloodhype, just totally disconnected to the other books, and not much going on!

Reading something totally different now, The Great Gatsby
Wanted to see the film but won't get to now, so gonna read the book instead.