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What are you reading in October?
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dustydigger
Posted 2012-10-28 4:54 PM (#4299 - in reply to #4196)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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justifiedsinner
Posted 2012-10-28 6:29 PM (#4300 - in reply to #4196)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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Emil
Posted 2012-10-29 1:24 AM (#4301 - in reply to #4300)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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Location: Grootfontein, Namibia		Righto, for October I've read:

Who?A Deepness in the SkyStar Light, Star BrightThe God EnginesMichaelmasThe Master and MargarethaBlindnessMemoirs of a Survivor



I'm still busy reading:

City at the End of TimeWild Cards IThe Call of CthulhuNights at the Circus



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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dustydigger
Posted 2012-10-29 4:48 PM (#4302 - in reply to #4196)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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Emil
Posted 2012-10-30 12:50 AM (#4303 - in reply to #4302)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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dustydigger
Posted 2012-10-30 5:40 PM (#4308 - in reply to #4196)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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dustydigger
Posted 2012-10-31 2:12 PM (#4309 - in reply to #4196)
Subject: Re: What are you reading in October?



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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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