March Reading Thread

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Continuing my recent mystery/crime binge, I read Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh. Published in 1952 and written under the influence of the radio (later TV) show Dragnet and the movie (and stage play) Detective Story, this is one of the earliest sub-genre mysteries known as police procedurals. A few years later and Ed McBain (a.k.a. Evan Hunter, among other pen names) would cement their popularity with his 87th Precinct novels.

A young woman in a woman's college disappears. Has she left voluntarily? Been kidnapped? Is she alive or dead? Will she contact her family? Chief Frank Ford leans on his 30+ years of police experience to winnow down the possibilities while fending off worried parents and an ambitious DA.

Not surprisingly for a 1950s novel, it displays a casual sexism, but it is still gripping and maybe relies on Ford for a central character a bit too much, still I can understand why it was so influential as well as why it continues to make the lists of best mysteries.
 
Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem. It's wonderfully absurd; it takes place in a near future where non-human animals and human infants are engineered with to have much intelligence and asking questions is taboo. This last part makes it hard for the main character, a detective, to solve the murder of someone. Oh, and there's a drug called Forgettol. In short, this novel feels tailored for me.

This is minor, but, I ordered the novel on Amazon and didn't receive it with the original cover, which was much more fun than the cover my copy has.
 
I'm reading The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. Interestingly, my copy calls it "Clive Barker's The Damnation Game", which was a turn of phrase I usually take to mean that it's by someone else and just set in another author's intellectual property. It really is a pleasure to read Barker again: I'd put him in my top 5 favourite prose writers. The book is really grisly - there's a lot of interest in bodily functions, as well as gore - but the writing is superb.
 
I'm currently reading Trilobyte by J L Bourne.

AI surgical robots (cat size) manage to self hack their source code.
Suddenly millions come out of auto factories and start facehugging humans as they begin all out war.
And they also cannibalise free humans to keep their host bodies running.

Gruesome and weird!
 
Just started White Horse by Erika T. Wurth. Still early, a couple of phrasings that seemed odd to me made me pause, but the main character, Kari, makes an interesting narrator and I'm looking forward to seeing where this one goes.
 
Danny McG said:
I'm currently reading Trilobyte by J L Bourne.

AI surgical robots (cat size) manage to self hack their source code.
Suddenly millions come out of auto factories and start facehugging humans as they begin all out war.
And they also cannibalise free humans to keep their host bodies running.

Gruesome and weird!
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This sounds promising.
 
dask said:
This sounds promising.
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It's enjoyable so far ....my one quibble is there are three protagonist's telling the tale and the chapters jump from one to another without headings .....it takes a bit of thinking to work out who's narrating.

There's a sequel, but I wanna finish this yarn first to see if it's a cliffhanger or a complete story
 
Listened to: Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire. Book 7 in a YA portal fantasy series that was getting samey. But this novella is slightly different in that a different school is involved and no portal world adventures.

Read:
Finna – Nino Cipri
The multi-dimensional portals manifesting in a box-store's maze-like interior and "swallowing" wandering customers is an interesting concept... But the author doesn't realise the concept's full potential. The continually squabbling ex-lovers was just plain irritating (not to mention juvenile) and detracted from the plot (with blatant, heavy-handed messaging). The story would have improved tremendously if the two main characters had managed to get eaten by carnivorous furniture.

Defekt – Nino Cipri [sort of sequel to Finna, but can be read alone]
I love the defekta (semi-sentient and ambulatory [i.e. defective] furniture and fittings). The homicidal toilet was particularly amusing. Interesting concept, unfortunately the author doesn't do anything revolutionary with it. The writing is decent and the story is entertaining.
 
Elentarri said:
Listened to: Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire. Book 7 in a YA portal fantasy series that was getting samey. But this novella is slightly different in that a different school is involved and no portal world adventures.

Read:
Finna – Nino Cipri
The multi-dimensional portals manifesting in a box-store's maze-like interior and "swallowing" wandering customers is an interesting concept... But the author doesn't realise the concept's full potential. The continually squabbling ex-lovers was just plain irritating (not to mention juvenile) and detracted from the plot (with blatant, heavy-handed messaging). The story would have improved tremendously if the two main characters had managed to get eaten by carnivorous furniture.

Defekt – Nino Cipri [sort of sequel to Finna, but can be read alone]
I love the defekta (semi-sentient and ambulatory [i.e. defective] furniture and fittings). The homicidal toilet was particularly amusing. Interesting concept, unfortunately the author doesn't do anything revolutionary with it. The writing is decent and the story is entertaining.
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THE KAIJA PRESERVATION SOCIETY
John Scalzi

Fairly enjoyable but not sure about the narrative tone ....... a bit pop cultural shouty maybe ? Is that deliberate ? Anyone ?


On audio , for my short car trips back and fwd to work , groceries etc ...

THE LIVES OF BRIAN
Brian Johnson

What a blast !
 
Ubergeek said:
THE KAIJA PRESERVATION SOCIETY
John Scalzi

Fairly enjoyable but not sure about the narrative tone ....... a bit pop cultural shouty maybe ? Is that deliberate ? Anyone ?


On audio , for my short car trips back and fwd to work , groceries etc ...

THE LIVES OF BRIAN
Brian Johnson

What a blast !
Click to expand...
Brian's book is helped by his Geordie accent and vernacular.
 
I read Brandon Sanderson's The Lost Metal, the last book of his second series set in the Mistborn world. In many ways it was a good conclusion to the series. The three main characters who the series has been following have all had quite a lot of character development since the first book and get some more here. The climax to the main plotline also worked well with some good set-pieces and how the characters have changed since the first book is crucial to the resolution (and not just in terms of new powers they have gained). However, I also thought there were some negatives. In this book Sanderson does seem to be a bit obsessed with tie-ins to his other books and the wider Cosmere setting. I mostly haven't read his other books (aside from Elantris) and perhaps fans of his other works might appreciate the references and the hints at an over-arching plot but it did distract a lot from the main plotlines in a series where hitherto there had only been hints at connections with other worlds. It also means there has to be a lot of exposition, admittedly not unusual in a Brandon Sanderson book, but as well as the usual exposition about how supernatural abilities work in the Mistborn world we also get exposition about supernatural abilities from other worlds as well. Some seemingly significant plotlines carried over the previous book and features in the early part of this one also get abandoned with no conclusion, presumably a future series in the setting will return to them but for now they are just left dangling. It was still a enjoyable book to read, but I think it would have been a better book if it had been a bit more focused.
 
Finished: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. It would have been more interesting to see how well Robinson Crusoe fared had he not had salvage from the wrecked ship.
 
Frederik Pohl "Gateway"
Good old Pohl, always an easy read. Had a close eye on his target audience too - scooped all the awards with this one back in the day.
 
Finished Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, about the rise and fall of the 70s "New Hollywood" era (Bogdanovich, Coppola, Friedkin etc). fascinating, if sometimes hard to follow (characters we heard of once before 40 pages ago will be reintroduced without any reminder of who they are, and first and last names are used seemingly at random). It would have helped if I'd realised there was a list of personalities at the end before I got most of the way through!
 
HareBrain said:
Finished Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, about the rise and fall of the 70s "New Hollywood" era (Bogdanovich, Coppola, Friedkin etc). fascinating, if sometimes hard to follow (characters we heard of once before 40 pages ago will be reintroduced without any reminder of who they are, and first and last names are used seemingly at random). It would have helped if I'd realised there was a list of personalities at the end before I got most of the way through!
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There is quite a good doco of this on Prime or Netflix.
 
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