Of what sounds like an interesting art film, to boot.
4 Likes
Scalziās The Collapsing Empire and The Vision Vol 2: Little Better Than a Beast.
4 Likes
burned through a lot of novella size books.
Bow Down To Nul which was interesting but seemed to wrap things up in Doc Savage/Shadow kind of way at the end.
I have made it through the first 4 Lensman books. They are fun but really suffer from the blonde haired blue eyed uberman just being able to come up with the new thing to beat the bad guys. But everyone smokes and drinks and brawls for two fisted action. This would be very problematic writing if written today.
Interrupting my physical books I have a new library to access for ebooks and they have some fun stuff thereā¦
The Gods Hate Kansas. Really with the title and cover who am I to resist. Classic aliens take over the humans story but they are just trying to build a rocket to get homeā¦ Of course conflict ensues as our hero has a steel plate in his head so he canāt be controlled and the aliens never thought to just ask for help so everyone is happy in the end.
Bill The Galactic Hero. Which was funnier than expected. I am going to have to read some more of them and it made me want to reread The Stainless Steel Rat books.
And finally Just one Damned Thing After Another which is a fun look at time travel where the heroes are historians just wanting to observe as apparently time does not like to be fiddled with and interference can lead to things like 2 ton blocks dropping on your head to preserve the timeline.
Actually currently reading right now
Venus Plus X which is just kinda trippy.
3 Likes
This very dated book:
6 Likes
Just began China Mievilleās The City and the City.
5 Likes
OH! Thatās who I should read next - Iāve been meaning to get to his stuff! Though I want to dig into the most recent Colson Whitehead, book, too. I also want to read Red Shirts!
So many books to catch up on! So little time!!!
5 Likes
I like his stuff, but only in moderation. A little too dark and too intense for how Iām usually feeling.
4 Likes
The city and the city has been on my radar for years.
3 Likes
Taibbiās Insane Clown President just came in at the library, so thatās next.
8 Likes
A lot of re-reading. Apuleiusā Golden Ass, snippets of Martial, and a whole bunch of John Wyndham. I had forgotten how good Wyndham is!
5 Likes
I can handle Mievilleās darkness, but maybe I havenāt read enoughā¦ itās the slog that gets me. He rates unfairly high on my āstarted but never finishedā list. I recently abandoned Embassytown, for exampleā¦ it just didnāt hold my attention. Not the first time Iāve done that with his books either.
The City and the City is good though, a clever concept done well. Perdido Street Station fairly fun too, I thought. But, yāknow, we could be reading, I dunno, Ready Player One insteadā¦
2 Likes
Yeah, thereās that too.
I liked it, but felt it was too heady of a book for me to really get into.
Perdido Street Station was a lot of things, but not fun. Enjoyable, but not fun, if that makes any sense.
Gag. NO.
I enjoyed the experience of reading Ready Player One but I didnāt like the book at all. It made me feel good, but got the sense that nothing bad could happen to the main character ever, and all the characters seemed wooden. The polar opposite of MiĆ©ville. Give me MiĆ©ville any day of the week.
6 Likes
Iāll read pretty much anything over another Ernest Cline book. I thought Ready Player One was ridiculous juvenile rubbish. I tried Armada too, and it was more of the same bad fan-fic.
Mieville, Iāve read the Bas-Lag books - I really liked Perdido Street Station and The Scar, less so Iron Council (although if my alternative is RPOā¦), Dial H, which I heard about here, really liked the first volume, then had forgotten too much before I read the second, and then This Census-Taker last year.
5 Likes
See, I thought Iron Council was great fun, especially with the gang laying track on the fly for the train and the wacky golem-concepts. A socialist revolution in a fantasy land? Bring it on!
1 Like
And I was thinking I was the only one, with everyone else on earth kvelling about it.
1 Like
There is a reason the Hunger Games is so popular. I think people really, really, like Ernieās nostalgia weaving. And YA novels often have that converstional juvie feel.
1 Like
But it wasnāt targeted to juvies, it was targeting middle aged nostalgia.
2 Likes
Just finished True Names, a collab between Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum. A good post-singularity romp that involves deception, greed, and repetition. Get it here:
2 Likes
I like middle-aged nostalgia books written like Young Adult books, as long as theyāre well done.
1 Like
Fanfiction recommend: The Last Ringbearer.
Thereās also s great reworking of Narnia, wherein the siblings wind up in Middle Earth instead of The Voyage.
