September Reading Thread

[Happy Ent]

Gods, I well and truly disliked that book. [Historian]

So far, my "postmodernist bullshit" alarm has been completely mute, so how bad can it really be? (Notice that I am listening to it as an audiobook, and the production is supposed to be really good, which is a nontrivial factor.)

[Blue Roses]

Just bought 'Imperium' by Robert Harris on Amazon, his fictionalized account of the political rise of Cicero, featuring Pompey, Caesar, Crassus, Cato and Clodius. Will be first of a trilogy so I am really hoping this works!

Also bought Barry Unsworth's new novel, 'The Ruby in her Navel'. Set in twelfth century Sicily during the reign of the Norman King, Roger, it follows a young knight called Thurstan who gets mixed up in a heady cocktail of politics, betrayals and mysterious going ons set against the backdrop of the Crusades. Read previous books by Unsworth which have been very good and he handles his historical background well. As a booker nominated author he is not shabby. Penelope Lively gave it a good review in the Sunday papers so I shall look forward to some proper medieval shenanigans.

[Xray the Enforcer]

So far, my "postmodernist bullshit" alarm has been completely mute, so how bad can it really be? (Notice that I am listening to it as an audiobook, and the production is supposed to be really good, which is a nontrivial factor.)

Er, if you want your books to have compelling dialogue and prose, plus a narrative arc that makes any sense whatsoever...pretty bad? It's bad. Maybe the audiobook form will save it.

Credit where credit is due: there are scenes (don't know where you are, so I'm not gonna spoil yet) speckled throughout the book which are interesting, cool, or well-executed. The premise is cool. But the actual storytelling shot the whole enterprise in the face.

anyway, this is all JMHO, etc etc. The review in the NYT was hilarious though. The opening sentece: "Now I know how I can kill Dracula. I can talk him to death!"

[MinDonner]

Just finished The Last Hot Time by John M Ford - excellently written book about gangster elves, but suffered a bit from having too much "show, don't tell" (yes, that IS possible!) - too many things hinted at but never cleared up satisfactorily. Still recommended though.

[Bellis]

Yeah I'm a Sellsword!!!

The Diamond Age Neal Stephenson - So, going into this, I was not what you'd call a Stephenson fan. This book, while not as silly as Snow Crash, is nevertheless not suffering as completely from a lack of sympathetic or realistic characters or plot development as Cryptonomicron. Although I'm not quite convinced of its raison d'etre, I actually did like for the most part what he was trying to do here. I'm even willing to admit it might have been Hugo-worthy back in 1995 (when it won).

And for something completely different...

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski - So, there are at least 2 (arguably 3) narratives, one run in the footnotes of the other. One narrative is about a photojournalist and a ghost house, and commentary on it, the other reminds me of this guy I once went out with who was suffering from schizophrenia. Structurally similar to Nabokov's Pale Fire, only much much messier. On top of that, there's this very post-modern concrete poem style of page layout, which requires mirrors, turning the book around, and even decoding messages. Not everything works or has a deeper purpose, but it's all very playful and fun and even eerie at times. There is a huge number of things going around, in layers. I laughed out loud, in joy, at times. At other times, I looked around my own home, in trepidation, as the walls shifted out of the corners of my eyes. This is very strange very cool shit indeed.

bellis.

[cteresa]

John M Ford never ever tells anything - I love his writing, but boy, is it work to figure out what really is going on.

Finished Never Let me Go a while ago, another piece of literature going sf. I really like his writing but this novel was so pointless somehow. First, and I am a geek admittedly, the setting for thatt ahem premise did not make much sense to me ( econmically expensive) nor did it seemed really established as possible - this would be less of a problem if this was set in some far off future, as it is, the universe was not too believable. And the character development and interaction, well was not enough there to really make a book memorable. I couldn´t help comparing unfavourably with Cloud Atlas, which was lots more ambitious and impressed me more.

[Werthead]

Well, some of the most entertaining reading recently has just been to read Stego's blog...

QFT. When's the paperback version coming out?

Reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. A moumentally whimsical, enjoyable novel with dashes of greater complexity running through it and some great lines, particularly from the anonymous narrator, who is not well-disposed to the French ("The French are a very whimsical nation!" "Despite being French, she was very brave,"). An awesome book, overall. And when I finish it on holiday next week, Perdido Street Station and Viriconium follow.

[Isis]

I read The Historian a couple of weeks back. Not really sure whether I would recommend it or not. I certainly wouldn't read it again, but on the other hand it wasn't a terrible book. It started out quite well, but then it just got bogged down and heavy in the middle. Also it became impossible not to be slightly annoyed by the impeccable memory for dialogue all the POV characters have. No vagueness at all, years later, amazing. Still an okay story though.

After that I whipped through Straub's Ghost Story which I found to be scarier than anything I have ever read by King. That's not to say this book made me sleep with the light on. But it did have the odd resonant spooky moment. I think it's stood the test of time rather well too.

I'm currently halfway through TLOLL.

[needle]

'm re-reading Tigana by GG Kay and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Tigana because I just felt like it

Me too, mrs X! though not loving it as much on reread as I did first time around.

[Stego]

Ghost Story which I found to be scarier than anything I have ever read by King.

I was on a horror kick a few years ago and read Ghost Story and House of Leaves in rapid succession.

I'm not embarassed to admit that I lost a lot of sleep for a while.

[lokisnow]

stayed up late finishing a rereading of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night. The book is ridiculously satisfying and an outstanding piece of storytelling and character/world development. It's not the greatest book in the world some of the writing could be better and a bit tighter (less adverbs, please, to tell us Harry said something sharply, angrily, snidely, cautiously, recklessly, loudly, nicely, dazedly; it's a bit annoyedingly etc) and didn't really deserve to beat A Storm of Swords but I was glowing with pleasure after finishing it and there's not many books that can accomplish that. I put it on a notch only a tiny bit below half blood prince (having just reread 6, then 5 and now 4) in terms of the whole series. Excellent work and now I'm a bit more disappointed in the movie at some of the scenes they left out (Sirius mostly, he really becomes an excellent father figure to Harry in this book, I'd forgotten that).

Adam

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm reading "The Lies of Locke Lamora" and so far it's a great read. Unlike many other books recommended here lately .

[Mo Sneachd]

It's not exactly fantasy, but I'm reccing it anyway:

I just finished Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg. It's a crime story with philosophy, politics and Euklid's Elements. Or maybe it's something completely different. In case you have seen the movie, forget about that and read the book. It is truly beautiful.

The book is all Smilla's POV, and she is a most fascinating character - somewhat bitter, somewhat philosophical, thinking in beautiful images and random weird comparisons [there's much maths-reference in this book since she is some sort of scientist. ]. The scene is Kopenhagen, the sea and Greenland, and it all starts with a little boy who 'falls' off the roof of a house in Kopenhagen; in the end it's about science, responsibility, love, different cultures, unanswered questions. The language is beautiful, the plot either interesting or exciting, with plenty of unexpected turns, and the characters are very well written and either somehow nice or somehow understandable. I'd say it's one of the books that cannot be easily described - sure, it's this whodunit about the death of Isaiah, but actually it's so much more than that. And scenes as Smilla reading Isaiah a goodnight story from Euklid's Elements, or the Mechanic writing a 4-word letter with 7 spelling errors which nevertheless saves a life in a way are just beautiful.

[Anubiel]

If I ever receive it, I'll be reading The Lies of Locke Lamora. I ordered the hardcover, and amazon apparently do it the medieval way, i.e. have monks handcopy it. I've been waiting for weeks! I also have Forest Mage on my list, and Wintersmith when it's released. Love those feegles

[Antonius Pius]

Started Eye of the World by Robert "Sell-Out" Jordan ("sell-out" according to some members of the board; I haven't read the thread, because I didn't want to read any spoilers). So far (I'm some 300 pages along, with the party having a big scare in Shadow's Waiting, an ancient, abandoned city where the forces of evil have suffered a major defeat in a previous age), I both like and dislike it. I dislike it because I want the story to go a bit faster. I find myself wanting to skip over a lot of detail and description that does not seem to matter to the story, or only indirectly. Furthermore, it does not seem very original yet. So far it screams TOLKIEN at me, and the lead characters seem to be a bit too silly or naive from time to time. Other than that, I do like the story. I want to keep on reading, to find out what happens. I have that with GRRM too, but to a much higher degree.

Besides that, I'm very pleased to have found a copy od the Penguin edition of the Chronographia by Michael Psellus, a Byzantine scholar, cleric and statesman. The translation has been named Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, and it describes the era between 976 and 1078, in which a notable decline in Byzantine success took place, most explicitly in "foreign policies".

[pat5150]

GRRM's A GAME OF THRONES. Hard to believe, I know!

A decade late, and I have the ARC since the summer of 1996!

Really enjoyed it, even though it lacked the "epic" stuff that can be found in other works. But the gritty realism and the politicking kept me going, chapter after chapter!

Check the blog for the full review!

Cheers!

Patrick

[Lord Dracarys]

I finished my previous list of books so I am off to start a new group of books. Collapse was excellent as i expected it to be, and thats it for my reviews.

New stuff: Demon in the Freezer and a re-read of The Hot Zone both by Richard Preston.

[lokisnow]

Finished the Untold Story of Milk

The first part is the best, by the second half it starts to get a bit repetitive, but that's just because legislatures keep making the same poorly informed decisions and scientists keep ignoring evidence, so it makes for a rougher read. Schmid is very fair about the pros and cons of pasteurized and raw milk: There are clear benefits to raw milk that are scientifically verifiable but pasteurization has saved a lot of lives, raw milk isn't completely harmless but neither is raw meat or lettuce. He's very clear that a world without pasteurization when most of our dairy cows eat chicken shit and have their tails cut off, eat diets mostly of grain that their rumen isn't evolutionarily meant to digest and spend their very short lives sick and standing on concrete the entire time would result in millions of illnesses without pasteurization. The interesting thing is that pasteurization was viewed as a stop-gap when it was instituted, since it coexisted with certified milk programs, and it was only used because of political pressure to protect the financial interests of the swill dairies where conditions were even worse than modern conditions with the milk usually blue, lacking any cream at all, and bleached white with chalk dust). Then after pasteurization kept milk cheap the politicians didn't want to risk popular dissent by slowly fazing it out in favor of the scientifically favored certified milk program that now had the scientific advances to milk and distribute nearly aseptically. At the same time the makers of pasteurization equipment were reaping such vast profits they pressured politicians to institute mandatory pasteurization no matter how clean the milk was, that's why major dairy states like Wisconsin have some of the most restrictive laws, the people who wrote the laws stood to make the most money from states with tens of thousands of producers required to buy their equipment. They joined forces with the swill dairies to fund junk science to claim raw milk had no benefits, and eventually planted completely false fear-mongering articles in the Ladies Home Journal that claimed an entire town had been killed out from ungulent fever (there have only been three deaths from ungulent fever in humans ever! in america) which did more for pasteurization than any other attempts combined.

He also lays out how clean the milk is from healthy animals, often less than 1000 counts of bacteria per mililiter, legally required to be under 10,000 (the legal limit for grade A milk to be pasteurized is 500,000 counts per mililiter and 30,000 after pasteurization). and that legislation needs to be made that guarantees strict sanitary conditions for anyone attempting to sell raw milk.

A very good book though a bit on the long side.

[TheHoundRules]

I finally finished Shogun last night. I enjoyed this book very much. It reminded me of GRRM with all of the politicing, people turning traitor, back stabbing, the plans, etc. The characters were well developed. The book was very long, but never dragged. I almost wished it was longer. I am not sure if how he protrayed Japanese culture is accurate, but I did not really care. The story was good. It was a book of about power, honor, and love. I recommend to all.

I pick up Gates of Fire today.

[Ser Barry]

Moondust by Andrew Smith

The author sets off to meet the nine remaining people to have ever walked on the moon. On the way he delves into the impact of the Apollo programme on a nation, on a world and on his own life. He investigates the history of NASA, how the programme developed, the personal lives of the people directly involved, social reaction at the time, the lasting impact of the moon landings and myriad related subjects in between. This is more than just a collection of interviews it is a journey to try and find out what difference landing on the moon made to society and whether all the expense in both financial and human terms was worth it.

The book starts of as a jumble of recollections, facts and interviews and never really breaks free of this jumbled structure. It thought I was reading Gardens of the Moondust for a while with a surfeit of names, dates and facts being thrown at me. The book does settle however and it finds a pattern of sorts although it jumps between memories, interviews and secondary sources constantly and not always consistently. That having been said there is a ton of interesting comment in here and it is fascinating to read about this amazing experience from the only people who have, and possibly will, ever experienced it. They all have to face up to the fact that life after the moon is one long anticlimax.

This is a long comment because it is a hard book to comment upon. It is fascinating and baffling in equal measure. I got lost more than once and had to reread to name check but kept on going because on nearly every page there is insight and interest. I wish I knew more about the entire space programme as I can't help feeling that a lot of this book was going over my head, not in terms of facts but in the way that all the stories linked together.

What did I think of it in the end? Well I don't really know. It has certainly got me thinking about the subject more than ever before. I have kept it to reread it in the future when I hope to know a bit more about the subject material so I guess that is an answer of sorts. Good enough to read twice.