Holy cow gang, tomorrow is August already! Here’s the new thread and here is a link to the July thread.
I was reading like a mad man for a while, but have taken the last few days off. So I’m not in the middle of anything. I will probably start something tomorrow or the next day.
Habana Nocture, which is quite fascinating. Once cancer takes its toll, I hope to retire there.
Oh, and Grantsville Gazette III, trash science fiction. I like it.
Current Bookpile:
Different Seasons by Stephen King: Finally got my own copy. I got the Apt Pupil cover, one roommate has the Stand By Me cover and another roommate has the Shawshank Redemption cover. We have a set!
Middlemarch by George Eliot: I’m pleasantly surprised by this. My previous George Eliot experience was with the overly-preachy Silas Marner, but this is not very preachy a-tall. Lots of drama and a huge cast. I keep forgetting how the minor characters are all related.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon: I need to just sit down and read this straight through for an afternoon. It’s a great story but I keep getting interrupted.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: I needed some high drama and angst.
The Silver Gryphon by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon: The last book in the Mage Wars trilogy. This one’s about the children of Skandranon and Amberdrake (the heroes of the two previous novels). They just crashed through a tree in the jungle so things are starting to heat up.
My current bedtime book is the Chronicles of Prydain. I’m working on The Black Cauldron right now, my second favorite (Taran Wanderer is my first favorite).
I wrapped up Vonda McIntyre’s The Moon and the Sun the other day. I don’t get how someone who is decent at writing prose and had a fine storyline set up can consistently ruin her books by making unlikable ubermenches the main characters. The Moon and the Sun is set in the court of Louis XIV where a natural philosopher has caught a mermaid which the king plans to eat in the hope that it will make him immortal. Good starting point. The problem is that the main character is a lady in waiting who:
And she’s the typical woman with late-twentieth century attitudes transported wholesale to another setting with no consideration for cultural differences. That’s a popular stock character with fantasy authors.
The only “flaw” she has is that she’s innocent. The situation is similar with any of the characters the reader is supposed to like. So the book turns into kind of a love letter to these characters as McIntyre goes on and on about how much better they are than everyone else.
I’m currently waiting on Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower to arrive. I may start The Yiddish Policemen’s Union first if it doesn’t get here soon.
My Name Is Will - Jess Winfield. A novel of sex, drugs and William Shakespeare.
By Schism Rent Asunder - David Weber
The Last Centurion - John Ringo
In addition, I have to plow through about 350 pieces for competition before my Forensics team returns to school on the 18th.
J.V. Jones did that in The Barbed Coil. The twist was that the late twentieth-century woman had to learn to adapt to the medieval world she was transported to.
Good book.
In this case she’s not literally a time traveler. It’s just that some authors are incapable of recognizing the cultural differences between a setting before the twentieth century and today. When it’s done with a psuedo-medieval setting I refer to them as “renfest” settings since they seem to be based more on Renaissance Festivals than something that would actually be functional.
I just started Saturns Children by Chrlie Stross, I also have Matter by Ian M. Banks on the shelf, and Cory Doctorow’s Futristic Tales on order from the Tattered Cover.
As a bonus, Mr. Stross will be at the TC next week with Joe Haldeman signing books!
Squirt!
I’m looking forward to Haldeman’s new book, Marsbound, which comes out next week.
I’m still reading Gone With the Wind. I’m having a hard time with the Reconstruction stuff – believing what she’s saying about freed slaves living the high life while genteel old Confederate families suffered – but since all I know about Reconstruction is that Birth of a Nation is racist propaganda, maybe I should educate myself before criticizing her.
Can someone suggest some good nonfiction about Reconstruction?
Having worked with a couple of collections of family papers dealing with Reconstruction, I can say that a lot of people felt that way, even if it wasn’t the truth. There’s still lingering bitterness in the older generation about what was lost to this day. More about the Reconstruction bit, though.
I’m up to my usual “you’re reading that for fun!?!?!?!” hijinks: The Humboldt Current, on the explorer/naturalist Alexander Humboldt – the most important scientist of the first half of the 19th century, according to the author (Darwin, of course, being The Man in the second half of the century). I just finished the section on Humboldt himself; the other 2/3 of the book is on several specific figures influenced by Humboldt, whom the author sees as the wellspring of American environmentalism.
Not a quick read, but super interesting.
Chiming in to be subscribed to the August thread. I just started The Last Executioner: Memoirs of Thailand’s Last Prison Executioner, by Chavoret Jaruboon with Nicola Pierce the other day. It’s very good so far, but as I mentioned in last month’s thread, the title is a bit disingenuous, because Chavoret is actually only the last one to use a machine gun to do the job. It’s lethal injection these days.
I finished a couple of Iain M Banks novels and found him rather dull. For some reason I started re-reading Julian May’s Pliocene Exile series, which I’ve completely forgotten, but I’m liking.
I need a non-fiction book, but I don’t know what. Either ancient history or science.
I’m on Pete Hamill’s** North River**. It’s pretty straightforward narrative but the story’s OK so far.
I’m fiddling with two books at the moment: The End of Food, by Paul Roberts, and Extraordinary uses for ordinary things : 2,317 ways to save money and time, by Don Earnest.
Close to wrapping up The Dreaming Void by Peter Hamilton. Moving on then to a bunch Discworld novels - they had almost all of them at 3-for-2 sale at Waterstone’s
I’ll be picking that up at the signing. I really looking forward to it.
Day of Empire by Amy Chua - How and why “Hyperpowers” rise and fall.
A pretty interesting read, if for nothing other than a very readable refresher on the Mughal dynasty, the Mongal Empire, Tang dynasty, etc.
I’m reading Jim Butcher’s Death Masks, part of the Dresden Files series. These books are like literary crack! It takes me about three hours to read one and then I’m off to the library to get another. The plots are ridiculous, but the characters and concepts are fun.
I’m also reading Jonathan Raban’s Bad Land: An American Romance, based on a recommendation from this board. It’s about homesteaders settling eastern Montana. I’m from Montana, so I’m at least vaguely familiar with a lot of the towns and locations mentioned in the book. The author is British and as un-Wild West as it’s possible to get. It’s interesting to read an alien perspective about things I find so familiar.