The Martian War by Gabriel Mesta. It tells the story of how H.G.Wells actually experienced stuff that inspired his great books. The Martians actually attempted to attack. H.G., his fiancee, and T.H. Huxley went to the Moon and Mars in a Cavorite sphere (after an accidental launch that involved the invisibility formula developed by Hawley Griffin). Dr. Moreau and Percival Lowell studied Martian physiology and tried to communicate with the invaders (part of this takes place at the partially-built Lowell Observatory, outside of Flagstaff, on the appropriately named Mars Hill). They don’t figure too much into the story, but H.G. does meet the guys from The Food of the Gods. They tell him of the formula, and show him an angry rat the size of a sheep.
I’m not done with it yet, but I think he’ll forgo The Time Machine, though the way the Martians had enslaved and fed off of captured Selenites was definitely similar to the Morlocks and Eloi.
Sharon Kay Penman is one of my favorite historical fiction writers.
I need to try some more McKinley. I loved Sunshine, but the next one of hers I picked up was Beauty, which I wasn’t crazy about. I have a copy of *Deerskin *I’ve been meaning to read.
I bought Duma Key on 11-4 b/c I anticipated waiting in line to vote. * (The primaries were HELL) I wanted a mag but couldn’t find a Smithsonian. <sigh> Love that mag, I need to get a subscription again.
King is always readable, if not always great. When he’s good he’s very good, but he does need a good editor. (In the middle of reading it, I went to a Max Ernst installation at the Menil and couldn’t get the painting descriptions out of my mind.)
I’m picking back up The Omnivores Dilemma. It was pretty riveting but then I got sidetracked by other things.
*I walked in, voted and walked out. Harris Co. in TX had a huge early voter turnout and it took me about five minutes.
Finished The Barn House. I think if you’ve rehabbed a house, you would find this interesting. However…I admit I skimmed large sections of it because I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about. The people in the book are interesting; the details of the plumbing, wiring, and financial arrangements, not so much. I’d like to have seen some pictures of the finished house, too.
I love that book; incredibly suspenseful, IMO. I’ve read it three times so far and will likely read it again sometime soon. I’ve recommended it to a few people with mixed reactions, so I’m interested in reading your opinion of it. It seems that the people who don’t like it just can’t get past the formatting tricks, which I’ll admit can get annoying at times.
As for me, I just finished Collapse by Jared Diamond and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, both of which were very dry and difficult for me to complete (even though I’ve read Frankenstein before, it was years ago and I remembered it being better than I thought it was after this reading).
I’ve just started The King’s Gold, the new Captain Alatriste novel from Arturo Perez-Reverte. Only a couple of chapters in, but so far, so good.
Last night I blazed through The Customer is Always Wrong: the retail chronicles, by Jeff Martin. It took about an hour. It was a collection of short pieces by different people about their experiences in (duh!) retail, but strayed often from the topic of bad customers. Some of the essays seemed to have no point at all. Not recommended, but it passed the time and allowed me to clear the decks for the new Stephen King book, Just After Sunset, which I expect to receive today. Snoopy dance
Read this last year. The first half was interesting and wonderfully clever, but I thought it went downhill in the second part of the book. Interested in what you think.
Finished Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street, which was #68 on Random House’s Modern Library list of the top 100 books of the 20th century. It was very good, deserving of its place. It was set in the fictitious, dreary town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, in the decade before the 1920s. Gopher Prairie was modelled on Lewis’ real-life hometown of Sauk Center, although Sauk Center gets two separate mentions in the book. (And Bangkok was mentioned once! In passing. Toward the end, during her sojourn in Washington.)
Still on my Sinclair Lewis kick after reading his Babbitt (1922) and Main Street (1920), next up is his Arrowsmith (1925), which won him a Pulitzer Prize.
Well I can’t give a fully rounded opinion so far as I’m only about 80 pages in, but I like the writing style.
I like the basic premise but think that Brust is a bit confused with mythology as he seems to have multiple versions of the same character i.e Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, to name but four or am I mistaken?
I’ll start a new thread about the book once I’ve finished it and will probably include a precis of I Lucifer (which I haven’t started yet).
After The Truelove I went ahead and re-read The Wine-Dark Sea, since it was in the same volume. They’re very different, yet equally fabulous books. The first is a character study of the crew’s reaction to Clarissa Oakes on board the Surprise, while the second has a volcanic eruption, espionage, pirates, gales, lightning, icebergs, broadsides and chases.
I’ve started Sharon Kay Penman’s newest historical fiction, Devil’s Brood. I’m fascinated by the story of Henry and Eleanor (obviously).
Eleanor has my favoritegraveof all times. I saw a replica of it in London.
I’m really getting into SKP’s Sunne in Splendour. I think she may actually be able to explain the Wars of the Roses in a way that I can understand. Such a thing has never been done before.
I mentioned earlier in the thread I was re-reading The World According to Garp. I’ve finished it. But at the time I mentioned it in this thread, I had not recollected how many characters die during the course of the novel. Dang! Fortunately author John Irving deals with these deaths intelligently and movingly.
I am now in the middle of a re-read of The Talisman, by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It’s just as chilling as I recall from the first reading some years ago. At some point soon I’ll likely also re-read its sequel, Black House, also by King and Straub, but I’ll probably read something lighter between them!
