October 2017: Reading thread.

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I just finished The paper Menagerie and other stories by Ken Liu, and was awed. There was not a single meh story in the whole collection.
I'm moving on to Axiomatic by Greg Egan.
 
Finally finished Anthony Beevor's Battle For Spain. What a complicated and tragic situation the Spanish Civil War was:(

Now starting Miyamoto Musashi's The Book Of Five Rings.
 
I finished the great Ancillary Justice by Leckie, a very smart SF that was perfect for me who normally prefer serious social sf over space stories,military, high tech SF.

Changing pace, type of literature to:

Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.
Ginsberg is the first beat poet im reading a whole collection of, tasting his legendary poem Howl was perfect place to start reading him, his type of poetry,voice.
 
I've now finished the latest pile of comics, and don't want to seem to optimistic but could actually be close to finishing them off.

Anyhow, the randomiser has been in play, and the next book will be a slinky little Tickety Boo Press number: Aliens The Truth is Coming.

A collection of short stories by writers both well known and a little less well known.
 
With my reading speed of a snail (bit under the weather so I read even less yesterday), the answer is the same as last month. Currently on Angel's Truth by some fellow called Grimmelhaus, and Dodge's biography of Caesar.

As an aside, I'm really enjoying the biography (read it before), far more than I did the author's Napoleon bio (first two volumes, anyway). About three-quarters into Angel's Truth. It's really rather good.
 
Finished Smiley's People. Now trying to decide if I should buy Legacy of Spies, or wait for it to become cheaper, or join the 50-long queue for a library reservation.
 
I've been badgered into reading The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, and it is interesting so far. It appears to be SF, which I didn't know before starting it.

The narrative keeps details from the reader unless necessary, so there's absolutely no infodumping - which is interesting to see. Descriptions of Oasis are some of the best "show vs tell" of another planet that I can recall.

Some of the physics raises eyebrows, not least travel and communications - but as above, nothing is explained, but I expect anything necessary to know will be revealed.
 
Connavar said:
Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.
Ginsberg is the first beat poet im reading a whole collection of, tasting his legendary poem Howl was perfect place to start reading him, his type of poetry,voice.
Click to expand...

It's been a long time since I read "Howl" but I recall enjoying it in spite of its sometimes antique phrasing -- nothing more dated than yesterday's vernacular. But it is powerful, and in much the way some of Faulkner is powerful, the long sentences seeming to gain momentum as they progress, the effect indeed like a howl.

When you finish, consider re/reading Alfred Bester's "Fondly Fahrenheit"; I think Bester was influenced by the beats.

I'm less than 20 pages from finishing Susan Hill's The Man in the Picture, a quite good, old-fashioned ghost story. It joins other supernatural works I've read as an interesting take on Venice: Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard, Daphne du Maurier's "Don't Look Now" and L. P. Hartley's "Three, or Four, for Dinner" and "Podolo".

Next up, I think, Dark Entries by Robert Aickman.


Randy M.
 
Started today on book two of the Craft Sequence "Two Serpents Rise" by Max Gladstone.
Also am about halfway through Adam Hall's "Quiller's Run", book twelve in the series.
 
HareBrain said:
Finished Smiley's People. Now trying to decide if I should buy Legacy of Spies, or wait for it to become cheaper, or join the 50-long queue for a library reservation.
Click to expand...

I got Legacy of Spies yesterday as an epub.
Needing to finish the Quiller book I'm currently reading so I can catch up with George Smiley.
 
I finished Cartwright's Cavaliers by Mark Wandrey, and it was a fun story. I expect to get into the other ones sooner than later.

Started And Then She was Gone by Christopher Greyson. It's a mystery thriller that has done very well on amazon, so I wanted to give it a go. Not bad so far, but I got distracted since it's October and I finally read I am Legend by Matheson. This is a revolutionary read IMO, and the thoughts in it are still used as a common trope today. Hard to believe he wrote it in 1954. It seemed so relevant still.

I then found The Folcroft Ghosts by Darcy Coates and I've been meaning to try him/her since their books are all over amazon when I look at the horror section. It reads very young, but maybe they are going for that YA feel since the MC is a teen girl. It's a basic story so far, no surprises, and I read the first half in about 50 mins, so its a quick read.
 
I have just started Return from the Stars (1961; English translation 1980) by Stanislaw Lem (translated from the Polish by Barbara Marszal and Frank Simpson.) So far it's the culture shock experienced by a space traveler returning to Earth more than a century after he left, due to the time dilation effect of high speed travel. Not an unfamiliar theme, but even in a few pages the author has managed to make the future very disconcerting for the narrator.
 
I finished Tad William's The Dragonbone Chair. I really rather liked it.

Now I'm (re)reading Asimov's Robots and Empire. I remember very little about this for some reason but it's great to be reading the good doctor again.
 
Last night I finished The Atrocity Exhibition - JG Ballard, which I mostly enjoyed though the last few chapters weren't as entertaining as the rest.

It had a feel of M John Harrison about it, which helped as I like Harrison's style a lot - maybe he liked Ballard's style too ;)

I then read a short story by Paul McAuley - Something Happened Here, But We're Not Quite Sure What It Was which Wiki tells me is connected to his "Jackaroo Series", something I'd now like to read more about.

Next up is The Fifth Head Of Cerberus - Gene Wolfe.
 
I've finished the twelfth 'Quiller' book Quillers run - a bit of a let down compared to some of the earlier ones IMO.
Next up and starting now is The Goddess Project (nuff said!)
 
Just finished Grace of Kings by Ken Liu. Starting We Are Legion (We Are Bob). I've heard great things about it.
 
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