July 2018: Reading Thread

[Parson]

Finished reading Bonesetter by Laurence Dahners. Dahners is one of my favorite authors of light and bright S.F His Ell Donsaii series is great entertainment. Bonesetter feels like a very early attempt to find his own voice. I found it decent, and I might well read Bonesetter 2, but if you want good taste in your mouth find the Ell Donsaii books. Start with Quicker.

Quicker

 

[janeoreilly]

Finished Circe Madeleine Miller - it is well written, but to be fair she had plenty to work with. Now reading Assassination Classroom 3 and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (collection of Tiptree short stories)

 

[Hugh]

I’ve now finished C.S.Lewis’ “Out of the Silent Planet” and “Voyage to Venus”. Surprisingly good for 1938 and 1943. I really enjoyed the descriptions of landscape and fauna on both Mars and Venus, to the extent that on a couple of nights I went to sleep imagining I was being carried along on one of the Venusian floating islands. I last read these more than fifty years ago. My reason for reading was purely because some say that the main character is based on Lewis’s colleague, Tolkien, and I hoped to gain some insights (largely unsuccessful in this). Of the two books, the first was a much easier read, while the increasingly complex Christian imagery in the second took me significantly longer.

I also read George Sayer’s biography of C.S.Lewis, “Jack”, in large part because the author knew both Lewis and Tolkien well. For me, this gives a more sympathetic portrait of Lewis than Carpenter’s “Inklings”. There is relatively little that is directly about Tolkien, but much about his general milieu.

 

[Toby Frost]

Have you ever read That Hideous Strength by Lewis? It's quite bonkers.

I finished Black Man (aka Thirteen in the US) by Richard Morgan. It's bleak and violent, but is an exciting thriller with some interesting points to make. Very good indeed.

 

[Vertigo]

Have you ever read That Hideous Strength by Lewis? It's quite bonkers.

I finished Black Man (aka Thirteen in the US) by Richard Morgan. It's bleak and violent, but is an exciting thriller with some interesting points to make. Very good indeed.

Oh good, I have that on my wish list

 

[Toby Frost]

I'm planning to do a proper review of it soon.

 

[Hugh]

Have you ever read That Hideous Strength by Lewis? It's quite bonkers.
.

I wasn't planning on reading it at this point in time, if ever, but you make it sound more interesting than those fragments skulking in recesses of my memory.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

About to start SF 12 (1968) edited by Judith Merril, the last in her best-of-the-year series, and the first to have such a severely shortened title.

 

[Extollager]

Hugh, you wrote, "I also read George Sayer’s biography of C.S.Lewis, “Jack”, in large part because the author knew both Lewis and Tolkien well. For me, this gives a more sympathetic portrait of Lewis than Carpenter’s “Inklings”. There is relatively little that is directly about Tolkien, but much about his general milieu."

It's only a few pages, but there is a lovely little essay by George Sayer on Tolkien in a book edited by J. Pearce called Tolkien: A Celebration.

 

[Danny McG]

This weekend I'm reading The Haunted Earth by Dean Koontz.
Sci fi and supernatural fusion from a good few years ago

Eh?
What?
A threesome with a man, a woman and a dog?
Then the woman and dog with the man watching?
In a Dean Koontz book?
Am I in an alternate reality?

 

[Hugh]

Hugh, you wrote, "I also read George Sayer’s biography of C.S.Lewis, “Jack”, in large part because the author knew both Lewis and Tolkien well. For me, this gives a more sympathetic portrait of Lewis than Carpenter’s “Inklings”. There is relatively little that is directly about Tolkien, but much about his general milieu."

It's only a few pages, but there is a lovely little essay by George Sayer on Tolkien in a book edited by J. Pearce called Tolkien: A Celebration.

This is good to know: many thanks again. This looks to be easily (and cheaply) available. I will be reading it fairly soon.

 

[HareBrain]

Raced through Literature by Guillermo Stitch (of this parish). Will try to think of some things to say in the review thread, but for now I'll make do with "9/10: small but (near-)perfectly formed".

 

[The Judge]

For anyone interested in the The Hideous Strength discussion which was raging here, I've moved it to its own thread That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

 

[Extollager]

Rereading Donna Tartt's The Little Friend & have some sf short stories by James Gunn on hand.

 

[Vertigo]

The Pincers of Death – Another great spoof from @Toby Frost and, sadly, I suspect the last of the Isambard Smith books. Great fun with nothing held sacred under Frost’s gaze; from Bladerunner to Aliens, Mad Max to Star Wars and Coca-Cola to, of course, TEA. So I guess it’s a fond goodbye to Smith – ‘…there were dancing girls. They were rubbish, Smith thought, because they were not wearing enough. It wasn’t half as good as that Victorian Secret catalogue he kept under his bed.’ – Suruk – ‘Time to float like a butterfly and sting like a melting clock, as Muhammad Dali would say.’ – Carveth – ‘Status update, pilot!’ Smith called. ‘Still bloody terrified,’ Carveth said. ‘I meant the ship.’ ‘Well, it’s holding together, isn’t it?’ – and Rhiannon – ‘Take me to your dealer – leader. I meant leader.’ And of course it’s all absolutely right in that any decent empire worth its salt really must be fuelled by tea… [I don't tend to keep writing reviews of each book in a series when they are, as in this case, of pretty consistent quality]

The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds - a rather disappointing sequel to Arthur C Clarke's renowned A Meeting with Medusa. More here.

 

[Toby Frost]

Glad you enjoyed it! Smith is on hiatus for now - he's having a holiday. While I love his world I'm very wary of writing too much in it and losing the series' quality. I may well come back to him, but I've got a couple of other projects on the go for now. We shall see...

Feel free to write as many reviews as you'd like!

 

[williamjm]

I finished Max Gladstone's Ruin of Angels. I thought it could be the best book in the Craft Cycle so far. I really liked the concept of the three cities in one location, it's a bit reminiscent in places of both The City and The City and City of Stairs but does some things differently to both. I thought the Iskari made for memorable antagonists, they may not be outright villains because they do mostly seem to believe they're trying to do the right thing but there's something quite Lovecraftian about a society of people who have a psychic connection to a squid God. I also like Gladstone's mix of fantasy elements and the elements reminiscent of our world, such as the start-up culture and the company who seem to be basically SpaceX with a less obnoxious CEO. I thought the story got off to a slightly frustrating start - I don't think I've seen a group of female characters so determined to avoid having a productive conversation with each other since the last time I read a Robert Jordan book - but it got stronger as it went along and I thought it did a good job of bringing all the story strands together at the end. There were also some interesting hints about potential future plots in the series.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

After going through all of Judith Merril's anthologies, I am taking a break from SF and going through all the books that my better half, who is more into nonfiction than I, has recommended that I read. Up first is John Gunther's classic Inside U. S. A. (1947; I have the 50th anniversary edition.)

Info about this nearly one thousand page tome here:

Inside U.S.A. (book) - Wikipedia

 

[Anthoney]

After finishing The First Law trilogy I'm going to finish out the month with River of Bones by Taylor Anderson, the 13th book in his Destroyermen alternate world series.

 

[dask]

Going to have to put this one aside for awhile, maybe for good. Over 70 pages into it and it's generating virtually zero percent interest. Not a very good return on my investment. So I decided to give this a try:

Not reading this for the science, really. No doubt we know more now than we did in 1962 but I'm reasonably sure the information is accurate as far as it goes. The drawing card is the history involved in the discoveries and the quality of the writing. Just a few pages into it and no alarm bells yet.