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dustydigger
Posted 2018-08-02 10:38 PM (#17160 - in reply to #17134)
Subject: Re: Pick & Mix challenge 2018		Quote Reply



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Location: UK		Ha! The next time after the last post I tried to get on here it was back to square one. Eventually I got the Opera Browser and dedicated it to WWEnd,doing private browsing and clearing up at the end of each session and having to log in again each time.We have all got very lazy and looking for convenience and speed,havent we?But Yay! Got on here without difficulty today for the first time in weeks. Thanks for all the work the admin did to put things right we are all very grateful. I really need my WWEnd fix,even if my reading is rather pathetic at the moment.I love my lists.
Right,my books read in July:
Kate Griffin - The Minority Council. This was the last in the Matthew Swift,Midnight Mayor series,about a a sorceror who was murdered,and then resurrected later,who becomes the protector of a magical London against some pretty weird and destructive enemies. I loved this series,because London is almost a character itself. This sort of thing is fairly common among British writers who explore a fantasy London intermingled with the real dirty and dingy one. eg,the Felix Castor books, Benedict Jacka's Alex Verus books,Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere,V E Schwab's multiple superimposed London's in A Shade of Magic,China Mieville's Kraken,Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series etc etc etc.Cant think of many other such cities.
Clifford D Simak's City.is such a sad book. Like so many other authors of the time,Simak seems stunned by the horror of the recent world war,and burdened with despair as the shadow of the bomb looms over mankind.That era produced some great SF,but certainly not optimism or much joy.In much of his work when he feels the burden of flawed humanity's inability to live in peace,he sometimes whisks the hero away from the problems,like in Way Station when the protagonist goes off to the stars in the end,but this time his view of mankind's future is sad and bleak.Impressive,but I still prefer Way Station,since that is a whole novel,not a ''bitty'' fix-up.
I found Moorcock's sword and sorcery tale of the albino king Elric of Melnibone and his quest to find his beloved a bit odd. I am not into this genre at all,but it is an interesting style,rather like old Lord Dunsany style fantasy merged with the norse sense of doom,as I'm sure I got a very strong whiff of Beowulf in there,and even a darker more flawed version of John Carter of Mars! lol.I am too ignorant of the genre to really assess it but it does have an odd sort of charm. I needed to read a Moorcock book for my Worlds Without End Grand Masters of SF challenge to read at least one book from each Grand Master.That makes 33/34,I only have James E Gunn left to read.
I only read Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave because I needed a ''Y'' author for my A-Z author/titles challenge! lol.
I just whizzed through the book,and I dont think it missed a cliche,but I feel quite tolerant about that,the well worn tropes are actually all fresh and new to young teens,and I can see why they all raved over this book.I found the first half of the book much better than the rather farfetched latter bits,but it was still quite an enjoyable read.What is it about dystopias and catastrophes than attracts young people so much. My generation werent catered for with a full blown YA market,but we still reveled in things like 1984,Day of the Triffids,Fahrenheit 451 etc.Young folks just enjoy being depressed or in grim settings,I guess :0). The difference is that back in my day under the shadow of the bomb and WWII,the books mostly had a really dark ending. These days the plucky young kids somehow manage to fight back and even overcome the enemies to some extent - eg Hunger Games,Divergent,Maze Runner etc. An underlying confidence and optimism perhaps,which were in short supply back in the 50s here in the UK at least.
Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book was a light fun read from the Thursday Next series,a clever take on an alternative world where the line between books and reality is so thin people and characters can hop in and out of books,and there are Literary Detectives to stop people changing the plots of books. Oh and genetic engineering has brought back mammoths and dodos.Clever .
Books in progress at the moment,N K Jemisin's The Obelisk Gate,Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312,and Simak's Time and Again,plus some light UF as a change of pace.
The WWEnd problems have severely affected people adding their reads on the Pick N Mix challenge hope that gets sorted soon. We have read 457 books so far this year,hope we can reach 600 by the end of 2018. Get reading and posting Pick N Mixers!

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