Jump to content

What we're reading in July 2006


Calibandar

Recommended Posts

You're only now reading VanderMeer, Shrimp? For shame! But I do agree on how wonderful his stories are, not just there, but in Veniss Underground and Secret Lives. I'll read Shriek once I have the money.

As for my own end of July reading, less than 200 pages to go until I'm finished with Hal Duncan's Vellum - loving it so far. Then I hope to start and finish José Saramago's Todos los nombres (All the Names) before August 1st. Looking forward to reading that story as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having just read Secret Life and Veniss Underground I've got to echo the praise for VanderMeer. I want to read Shriek immediately, but the US release is close enough that I can't really justify ordering from England at this point.

I'm reading Mieville's Looking for Jake and enjoying it. I'm typically not much of a short story reader, however when you're dealing with writers of this caliber most anything they put out is fantastic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're only now reading VanderMeer, Shrimp? For shame! But I do agree on how wonderful his stories are, not just there, but in Veniss Underground and Secret Lives. I'll read Shriek once I have the money.

I know. I've been remiss. Actually, I couldn't find a copy of City of Saints and Madmen for the longest time...and only just ran across one the other day. I've already read Veniss Underground (also great, although I think I prefer CoSaM) and I'll acquire the others as I run across 'em in bookstores.

I am really looking forward to Ink (followup to Hal Duncan's Vellum) and Tourmaline (followup to Paul Park's Princess of Roumania). Of course, ADWD would be nice, too. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished The Praxis - rather underwhelmed, but it is quite good basic space-war SF (full review on the blog). I now have Jasper Fforde's The Big Over Easy to read, which apparently is very similar to Robert Rankin's Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, much to Robert's disgust...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Carpet Makers, by Andreas Eschbach

Never heard of that one, what's it called in German? I've read pretty much everything by Eschbach.

What I'm reading this month and next:

Currently:

Shadowmarch (Been rereading that one for months now. I always seem to find something more interesting.)

Tailchaser's Song (very cute so far)

The Chronicles of Amber (great :) I want to ask Oberon to adopt me)

The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath (I love the story but I just get stuck in the language. If I read another "awful", I'm going to scream)

The Golden Bough (I've slowly been working my way through it for over a year now)

Queued:

Fevre Dream

Dying of the Light

Le Club Dumas

Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince (reread)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished reading the wonderful The Prestige by Christopher Priest last weekend and I was planning on reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, but the crappy Postal Service hasn’t delivered my copy of the book yet, and it should have arrived here a week ago. So I started rereading A Game of Thrones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished off Flashman, which was rather entertaining. Forgot to grab another book, though.

Flashman is apparently the beginning of the memoirs of one Harry Flashman, a lower upper class British jerk, who enrolls in the Army with the intention of never serving in the field, and ends up hailed as a hero (mostly through luck and careful lies).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dark Mondays, by Kage Baker. I really enjoyed Baker previous non Company related story collection Mother Egypt and Other Stories and it was to be expected that I would end up reading the following one. Dark Mondays has lived up to my expectations, I liked most of the tales, and I loved a few of them like Calamari Curls a homage to Lovecraft, Oh False Young Man was brilliant, Silent Leonardo was absoultely funny (even more funny considering the flood of books about Da Vinci), and the novella The Maid on the Shore turned out to be a great tale of pirates, love, friendship and the hauntings of the past.

A Year in the Linear City, by Paul di Filippo. Outstanding! I recommend it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished Stephenson's The Diamond Age. It started very slowly, but became pretty interesting in the last third or so. Sometimes I feel like the world (or at least the world/society of each book) is bound to fall apart at the end of every Stephenson book.

Now reading Veniss Underground by Jeff VanderMeer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished up Lies of Locle Lamora yesterday.

What a wonderful yarn. Read it now folks

Started Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link.

I've been meaning to read some short fiction for awhile now, and since Kelly in purportedly one of the best, and she is coming for a signing next month she was the lucky winner. I just started it today, but the first story, the Faery Handbag just puts a smile on my face. Its delightful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"First Meetings in Ender's Universe" - I almost always enjoy Card, and I thought "The Polish Boy" was a good story.

"The Darkness that Comes Before" - I could not read this book, due to the writing style. AT times, my mind would wander five or six times a paragraph. This was because the author likes to mention up to three or four things in a sentence that have never been mentioned before, and expects us to remember all the odd sounding words so that later we can piece together for ourselves what they mean. An example of his style: "The Dweupheckir were fighting for Zuchrattn, but the Dwenchoclier had their lips ripped off by Morchain".....Assume we had not heard any of the four proper names before. I just could not read this, though an hours work would usually bring an interesting philosophical thought. - - - The other reason I could not read it was the it was just a bit offensive to me as a mathematician with an interest in probability. Does Bakker agree that Kellhus can fortell the future because he has such great mental discipline as to have seen all things that "went before'. Because if he does think that, erm...I think his philosophy instructors will fail him :)

"Alaska" by Michener. I picked it up because I spend my holidays there. It was a rip roaring good story.

"German Grammar"...heh...ok, I"m always reading books on how to learn German.

"Dating Amy" - a women describes fifty first dates with guys she met from the internet. It is OK, but she can come off as a rather haughty person, imo.

"Mr. Norrel and Jonathan Strange" - A stupendously wonder and humorus beginning to a book about "the history of English magic". However, I am bogged down about 350 pages in as Strange's adventures at war with the Duke of Wellington are simply not interesting to me. Still, I think the book is near to excellent, and I intend to finish it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished The Forever War in a sitting. Gods, that book was at once disturbing and...well, fuck. I'm at a loss for words there. But it resonated, certainly. The profound sense of aloneness that permeates certain parts of the novel...it was nothing short of incredible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...