I really like Sunshine. I re-read it occasionally, too, although I usually skip or skim over the middle section.
I enjoyed The Greatest Knight. Some familiarity with Henry II and his brood will make it more readable, but on the other hand, the beginning felt like a retread of material I already knew very well from reading Penman. This book only covered the first half of Marshal’s life so I’ll be getting the next one in March, when it’s printed in the US. Used copies of the UK editions are pricey.
I read Mike Carey’s The Devil You Know over the weekend. It’s the first book of an urban fantasy series, a little bit like Harry Dresden in London, only darker and with less snark and more ghosts. I liked it pretty well.
Now I’m on to another Marcus Didius Falco novel, A Dying Light in Corduba. Surely this is the one where Falco and Helena get married - eight books is stretching the matter out just a bit, I think.
I had to stop. I realized that I had no idea what was happening or even IF anything was happening. I read the Wiki article, snorted, and put the book aside. Thank goodness I’m slowly starting to learn to not bull through a book if I hate it.
I just re-read Robert Heinlein’s 1956 sf novel, Time for the Stars, which I first read in high school, and enjoyed it all over again. It’s a clever relativistic space-exploration story with twins who share a telepathic link. Despite the occasional chauvinistic reference, it holds up surprisingly well.
“The Shadow Year” by Jeffrey Ford. About three children living in Long Island in the '60s with a somewhat dysfunctional family. A prowler, possibly a serial killer stalks the neighborhood; there are school bullies to contend with, an alcoholic mother, a mostly absent father. There are Twilight Zone traces of mysticism. A frightening man stalks them…Yet, this is a subtle, atmospheric, evocative book, it doesn’t hit you over the head with a mallet as Stephen King would, there is a rather mild sense of dread and unease - maybe a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Dread and unease to me is far more enjoyable than spurting blood and gibbering monsters! Picture The Wonder Years mixed with the Twilight Zone. This is a world where kids could literally get on their bikes and be gone all day long, roaming the woods, the mysterious lake, the neighborhood where they actually KNEW all their neighbors and many neighborhood secrets. A great book to read around Halloween! Though subtle, very evocative of a past time.
After reading the first fifty pages awhile back, last night I skimmed to the end of Tabitha King’s One on One, since my book club is meeting tomorrow. Meh. It’s about an implausible romance between the not-so-bright but basically good-hearted top jock of the boy’s basketball team, and the punk-wannabe sexually-abused-at-home top scorer of the girl’s basketball team, at a smalltown Maine high school. I have to admit I smiled when she referred to Derry and Castle Rock, Me., acknowledging in the afterword “another novelist who was kind enough to allow me to add to their histories.”
Just finished a really excellent book on language: The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English by Mark Abley. He looks at what’s going on with English in the 21st century – how it’s permeating various Asian cultures (Singapore, Japan), how it’s being permeated by other cultures, esp. in the U.S. (Hispanics, and, most importantly, the impact of black culture via hip-hop) and his home, Canada (the interface of French and English in Montreal, where he lives); a chapter on the impact of texting (and its straddling of a previously distinct line between oral and spoken language), blogging, IMing; a chapter on how science fiction has dealt with the question of language, and how sf is written.
Fascinating stuff, very well written; I recommend this one.
I’ve started **The Likeness **by Tara French but I may have to put it on hold since it refers to the previous book **In the Woods **which I haven’t read. I think I may feel better knowing what she’s alluding to in the new one although of course it stands on its own.
Reading The September Society by Charles Finch. A light Victorian mystery I’ve been picking up and putting down because I’ve been very busy. I enjoy it a lot; I’ll be reading his other books, and he has a new one coming out in November, The Fleet Street Murders.
Oh, I highly recommend In the Woods, it was fantastic. Speaking as a person who likes reading books in order even if one doesn’t have to, I agree with going back to the first before reading the second.
Just started Stanley Weintraub’s Iron Tears, about the American Revolution as seen through British eyes. The revolution was, in some ways, Britain’s Vietnam, with a large, well-supplied army finding itself unable to secure victory against a resource-poor but determined local insurgency, amid growing and polarizing political opposition back at home. King George III seriously considered abdicating after Yorktown, so deeply had he been involved in developing national policy (back when British monarchs actually had some power), just as LBJ decided not to seek reelection. Interesting stuff so far.
Awhile back I bought a special edition of Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. It has some added material and cool illustrations and it looks good on the shelf. Time for a re-read, and since I know the story I’m more conscious of the writing, dammit. In one short paragraph he says “as a young boy” twice. There’s a sentence where I can’t tell if a verb refers to Ben or to some crickets. When Ben sees Sarah sitting on a park bench, he says she’s “currently” reading a book.
If they’re going to the trouble to make a new edition of the novel and add new material, why not polish it a bit? Disappointing.
So I’m back to the Brad Denton short stories, which are excellent. Nothing to nitpick.
I read the special edition to 'Salem’s Lot a few years ago. It was worth it for me to see some of the earlier-deleted material, including a nighttime meeting (when else?) between Barlow and Straker, and an alternative fate for Father Callahan. King’s original book, and George R.R. Martin’s terrific Fevre Dream, remain my two favorite vampire books.
They’re my Top Two as well, despite my nitpicking about Salem’s Lot. When I read it the first time, I didn’t know the bad thing in the Lot was going to be vampires. I must have read a copy that didn’t have a dust jacket.
I can’t think of any other vampire novels that come close to those two, except maybe Dracula.
