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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Another month,another pile of books.And of course we have our Month of Horrors.So what we you read.And hat will you review?
I have a couple of horror books in mind, as well as several comics that could be classed as horror,Moore's Swamp Thing,and Miller's Batman,the Dark Knight Returns,which is pretty dark..Not much SF in my list again,just Red Mars,and a Heinlein ''juvenile''Here's the whole of this months reading list
Michelle Magorian - Goodnight Mr.Tom
Nina Bawden - Carrie's War ✔
S.S.Van Dine - Benson Murder Case
Karen Rose - Dont Tell
Karen Robards - Shattered
Kim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars
Maria V Snyder - Fire Study
Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy
Neville Shute - Trustee from the Toolroom
Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind
Thea Harrison - Storm's Heart
Frank L Miller - Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Urban Fantasy monthly group challenge
1. Simon Kernick - Whispers of the Dead
2 Kresley Cole - Lothaire ✔
3 Laura Owen - Winnie takes the Plunge
4 Kate Wilhelm - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
5 Holly Black - Ironside
Edited by dustydigger 2012-10-01 3:58 PM
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Member
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| I finished Foundation by Asimov yesterday for the GMRC.
My list for this month:
Palimpsest - Cathertnne M. Valente
Cataganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rainbow's End - Vernor Vinge
WWW: Wake - Robert J. Sawyer
The Last Colony - John Scalzi
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Deathworld - Harry Harrison
Downbelow Station - C.J. Cherryh
The Big Time - Fritz Leiber
A couple of new authors for me, Cherryh and Leiber.
Dustydigger, Rothfuss is one of the few authors that I buy as soon as their new book is available. | |
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Posts: 526
Location: UK | I'm currently reading Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight, for no particular reason other than that I felt like it. 
For the GMRC, I'm probably going to go for L. Sprague De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, and for my personal non-SF/F trawl through classic crime I'm likely to read The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham. Other than that, I have no specific plans. | |
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Location: The Netherlands | Currently reading Range of Ghosts by Elizabeth Bear. Liking it an awful lot so far. | |
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Location: Gunnison, Colorado | Just finished The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, and am making my way through Jack Vance's earliest short stories. Lots of clever con men and godlike aliens. | |
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Posts: 794
| Finishing off Helliconia Spring, the last in my GMRC books. Then going on to the new Iain M. Banks "The Hydrogen Sonata" which is unfortunately not in the database yet. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Finished Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy,about a 4 year old child taken into slavery and is passed from owner to owner till he falls into the hands of a beggar who is really a spy collecting data on slavery.We watch his progress through a veriety of environments till he grows up and finally finds out his true identity.Didnt know what to make of this book really.Many echoes of Kipling's Kim,as the boy,Thorby , learns about spying in a sort of Great Game way.Its a juvenile,and mostly Heinlein subsumes his hobbyhorses about citizenship,being a man etc into a rattling good yarn.This time there was a lot of lecturing about how one's society forms one character and ideas.There is even an anthropologist called Margaret Mader (how much nearer to the famous anthropologist Margaret Meade can we get!) who rams home the reasons why traders living as families have such formalized lives (surely C J Cherryh must have read this when young.So many echoes of her Merchanters universe).Not a bad read,but a bit clunky,and too many lectures
.Not one of my favourite Heinleins.I am now reading Maria V Snyder's Fire Study,Neville Shute's Trustee from the Toolroom,and am ready to start Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mr. Tom.
I am also happily poring over the Guardian list choosing 12 books to be in one of next year's 12 categories in my 12x12 book challenge.My theme for the year is Filling in the Gaps.Already chosen 12 Hugo winners for one category,have already chosen about 8 from the Guardian list,most of my Fantasy category,some of which were chosen from the Mythopoeic lAward list Still have to do my horror thread,so thanks admins for adding the Shirley Jackson list,and a lot of new horror books.Then I will chose manga ,graphics etc from galleyangels excellent overview..All that should help fill a modicum of the gaps of ignornce I have in the genres covered by WWEnd.! 
Edited by dustydigger 2012-10-05 8:24 AM
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Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | dusty: I've seen you refer before to your reading challenge, but I don't think it dawned on me until now that it entails reading 12 books per month EVERY MONTH. That's amazing. It sounds like this is an individual challenge as opposed to something organized.
I'm trying to decide between Clement, Asimov and Leiber for the GMRC thiis month, which now seems pretty paltry at only one book per month... | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Tut tut,Scott,you should get out more ! I belong to Shelfari,,''facebook for book nerds'' as my son so charmingly puts it.Members tell their groups what they are reading,get book recommendations,build up a virtual bookshelf,join challenges ,have buddy reads,etc etc.You may have heard of Goodreads,or LIbrarything,whih are similar.
In my 12x12 groups there are dozens,even over a hundred people doing this challenge of reading 12 books from 12 different categories of their choice,so I am certainly not the only OCDreader around.I now have added 2930 books read to my shelf!.
As for the GM challenge,I joined WWEnd on 27th May,and finished the last book,Haldeman's Forever War on 22nd July! What can I say,I truly am a book nerd and have been since a small child.I clearly remember holding a copy of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Jeremy Fisher ,in the distinctive small whitecover,on my 4th birthday.I also clearly remember having a book about Queen Elizabeth's coronation,can still close my eyes and see pictures of the crown jewels lying on purple velvet,and an overhead viewof her walking down the aisle with this long long train behind her.That was 1953,and reading,of all sorts,has been my joy and delight ever since
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Member
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Location: WA | Currently reading The Blood Knight, part 3 of the Briar King series by Greg Keyes - good stuff
Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
A few others to finish after those two. | |
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Posts: 526
Location: UK | DrNefario - 2012-10-02 1:43 PM
I'm currently reading Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight, for no particular reason other than that I felt like it.
For the GMRC, I'm probably going to go for L. Sprague De Camp's Lest Darkness Fall, and for my personal non-SF/F trawl through classic crime I'm likely to read The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham. Other than that, I have no specific plans.
Okay, I've started Forerunner by Andre Norton instead of Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp, for the feeble reason that it was on the correct e-reader. (I have two. I'm greedy.)
(I finished Black Dudley, and enjoyed it a lot. These older books are nice and short.) | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Dr Nefario,I really like Allingham's books,they are never predictable,so quirky and amusing,with these quaint old settings,delapidated old houses in sinister countryside.Great fun.I am reading them in order,as far as it is possible to get these old books.Fortunately someone in charge of the repository must like Allingham,because I have managed Black Dudley,Mystery Mile and Look to the Lady so far,and they have about 8 others! Thats amazing.There isnt a single Silverberg or Simak in any of the 39 branches,but there are 25 Heinleins,10 Arthur C Clarke's,and only 4 Asimov's. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | @Marleana,for some reason I never really fancy fantasy,but but back in August Emil posted the Mythopoeic Award list.and I started to browse it.Now I intend to have a thread in a challenge I will be doing next year,I am sorting out some intriguing reads from this list.Check it out:
http://www.mythsoc.org/awards/winners/
Have you read some of these? What would you recommend? | |
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Member
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Location: WA | I've read few of those actually. A lot of the fantasy I've read is not on that list. I get on kicks, sometimes I want fantasy, sometimes I want sci-fi. Just depends on my mood and if I find something that grabs me. I kind of got tired of epic fantasy and the usual sword & sorcery stuff. I would recommend reading at least the 3 main Lord of the Rings books and the Hobbit. It is a good story, but the writing is a bit meandering. Some others I'd recommend are Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles - The Name of the Wind, and The Wise Man's Fear. The Chronicles of Amber (Zelazny), The Fionnavhar Tapestry (not sure on spelling right now)(Guy Gavriel Kay). Both were really good. I know there are more I could recommend but for right now, those are some that really stick in my mind. | |
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| I read the Bartimaeus books to my son when he was little, so much better than Harry Potter. I also read him Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy. I may have warped him for life, time will tell. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 794
| Finished The Hydrogen Sonata. Wasn't as good as the earlier Culture novels but I liked it better than Matter or Surface Detail. The Culture Minds seem to have become civilized, The Interesting Times Gang (the ITG) are in abeyance and diplomacy is the order of the day. Sigh. I'm afraid I preferred it when they blew up lots of stuff.
Edited by justifiedsinner 2012-10-15 9:59 PM
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Uber User
Posts: 526
Location: UK | I finished my GMRC pick (Forerunner by Andre Norton) last night, and didn't really have anything lined up next, but when I went to get the cover image of The Forerunner Factor omnibus from Baen for my blog, I couldn't help noticing that Captain Vorpatril's Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold was now available to buy and download. So I did, and I expect I'll be starting that later.
Edited by DrNefario 2012-10-16 7:49 AM
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Member
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Location: Rhode Island | I am currently struggling through Samuel Delany's "Dhalgren". I am getting the sinking feeling that there is not going to be any kind of pay off at the end. | |
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| I'm taking a (for the first time in a long time) break from reading science fiction and am trying to read some "great American classics". Read 2 Hemingway novels (The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms) and just started Lord of the Flies. | |
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| i hesitate to mention it but Golding is a Brit. | |
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Member
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| yikes, shows how much I know. Also read The Count of Monte Cristo, which certainly isn't American so I guess I'm on just a "classic" streak. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Well,I certainly picked the right month to read Kate Wilhelm's Hugo winning Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang ,because this chiller scared me quite a bit !.It truly fits in with our October horror theme.After a cascade of disasters,which end with a devastating plague which causes mass sterility,a hard headed rich family ,determined to survive,decide cloning is the only practical way.It is expected that after a few generations of clones,fertility will once again increase,very slowly,so that after some judicious mixing of cloning and sexual reproduction,mankind will be re-established,and clones will no longer be needed.Unfortunately,the clones disagree.They have developed group minds to match their identical bodies.(I had some flashes of the Village of the Damned,film,with its creepy children! lol) Soon the little group of humans is gone,and the clones continue to reproduce ,using the little group of fertile females segregated,drugged,and used only as breeders to carry clones and are then euthanased when no longer useful. But each generation of clones loses more and more of its creativity,their equipment is aging and nuclear winter is on its way.,and individuality,and it makes for tense gripping reading
There are so many themes and ideas about conformity versus individuality,environmental destruction and pollution etc,and it is all beautifully written with many fine descriptions of nature,which is in itself almost a character of the book,but what will stay with me is that cold chilling determination of both humans and clones to continue their existence.Chilling and powerful stuff indeed.A fine ,if uncomfortable,read.
Edited by dustydigger 2012-10-18 8:27 AM
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Location: The Netherlands | I've been rereading The Hobbit one last time before the first movie comes out. I've also read Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald and I'm currently about halfway though The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin. | |
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Member
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Location: WA | Finished The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes, must...find...next...book!!
Started The Unincorporated Man again, by Dani and Eytan Kollin. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | Reread Ender's Game this month; now almost finished with Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity for GMRC. Also, enjoyed the Spring 1950 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and have begun Arc 1.3, which has a great new story by Lavie Tidhar, about celebrity clones, copyright, and DNA pirates. (And, though I don't typically have much interest in memoirs, I'm making an exception for Pete Townshend's new book, Who I Am.)
@splunge52: I hope Dhalgren pays off; I've always wanted to read that... | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | I have been very busy trying to get down my list of books for book challenges.Only a handful left! I am making my way through two big tomes at the moment,Caleb Carr's The Alienist,quite interesting,but too long at over 600 pages,and ,the only SF book,Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars,nearly 700 pages.I was very unhappy,as the only likeable character in the book has just been assassinated.I loved the middle section about getting out and about on Mars's huge deserts,but now it is just focusing on political shenanigans,with the focus on the most unlikeable character of all.Still over 250 dense pages to work through....sigh....Anyway,next month I have quite a few SF books,plus graphic novels,to read,once my challenges are over :D | |
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| Your lucky, I didn't like any of the characters in KSR's Mars trilogy and I think it gets worse from the first one. I ended up skim reading through a lot of it. Still it's better than his 40 Days of Rain series. I couldn't read those at all. I did really like his Years of Rice and Salt except for the ending was rather rushed and somewhat weak. | |
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Posts: 236
Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | Righto, for October I've read:
       
I'm still busy reading:
   
Considering that I'm in the process of jaunting countries, it's not bad going
Blindness and The Master and Margaretha were exceptional novels. Who? was pretty awesome as well, with Michaelmas a disappointment. I think Algis Budrys does much better when he writes psychological themes. Most of the books were part of the eclectic Out of the Norm reading challenge. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Phew! Emil,that is an awesome list,I quail at the thought of some of them.A friend read Blindness and is still reeling.She detested it. lolDont think Master and the Margarita looks my cup of tea either.Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus is on my list for next year's challenge.What was City at the End of Time like? | |
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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia | @Dusty, Blindness certainly is a no bars hold examination of what ordinary people will be driven to do under extraordinary circumstances. It still haunts me!
I'm still reading City at the End of Time. The first half of the book is slow-going whilst Bear paints the canvas of the alternate realities that seem to converge at the Kalpa, a city millions of years in the future. And in between the various streams of realities there is the Chaos that threatens to consume the implacable universe. I'm really enjoying the book now, being fully emerged, but appreciate why fans of SF and Bear alike do not endear themselves to the book. Opinions are varied. It is enormously ambitious and complex and does benefit from previous exposure to creation mythologies. It is also quite frustrating as some passages feel over extended, and others simply to short. I do get the idea that story and characters at times got the better of Bear. If you are an avid Bear reader, note that this book is a noticeable departure from anything he has written before. My main criticism of the book thus far is exactly that: the departure is indeed significant. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | Well,I have Finally dragged my way through Jack Kerouac's On the Road..I ranted about it in one of my groups when I was about halfway through,and will just paste that here. I think this one was one for the boys.My final opinion of the book was the same as this rant,with knobs on
As an English woman,a non driver,and no cultural tradition of ''go west young man'' sort of thing I was never really going to be a fan.True,the language is brilliant,and it all captures that feeling of claustrophobia and being stifled that the disillusioned young men felt in the stultifying and terminally dull surburban post war situation.Macarthyism was an added frustration as the 50s continued.So the ''beats'' were rebelling with sex,drugs and....well,jazz.I disliked all the characters..I felt Sal was a sort of what was later known as a ''weekend hippy'',vacillating between dull safety and the wildness connected with Dean,I can never get away from connecting him with Holden Caulfield,but Holden had the excuse of being a teenage boy.Sal is in his late 20s,at least 5 yars older than Dean Show some responsibility,cant you?.
No,this book paints a good picture of that 50s rebellion.What upsets me is that,very unfairly I'm sure I feel Kerouac has a lot of blame to shoulder for the way the next generation,in the 60s,took Kerouac to its heart.Am I unfair in blaming Kerouac for romanticising,glamourising,and ,dare I say it,legitimising that way of life to the youth of the sixties?Totally unfair,I'm sure it must have been part of the zeitgeist of the time.But that first brilliant rushing high speed road trip in the book blew a whole generation away,and the impression they got from that section of the book surely overwhelms any disillusionment later depicted in the later stages.I just think of all the broken lives,ruined ambitions,heartbroken families of all those idealistic young people inflamed by the romance of the road,who ended up in poverty,addiction and degradation.As I said,I may be being very unfair to Kerouac,but it has made reading this book troublesome and disturbing to me.Glad I've read it of course,and literature has a job to do in revolutionising things,but I wont be reading more Kerouac! Rant over
Hated everything about it,but the writing itself is amazing,I couldnt even skipread I was so engrossed.Great writing shame about the characters.And no feminist should come near this book,or they will burst into flames.Unbelievable. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1009
Location: UK | http://www.sodahead.com/fun/cult-short-story-sole-solution-eric-fra...
In one of my groups we were discussing the pros and cons of short stories and sharing our favourites.I was reminded of being blown away by this short story by Eric Frank Russell when young.Its very short,and rather eerie,I thought.So check it out this Halloween!
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What are you reading in October?