February, 2023 Readings: "February makes a bridge and March breaks it." (Proverb)
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1CliffBurns
Starting February halfway through Ned Beauman's VENOMOUS LUMPSUCKER.
Funny/sad novel about the price of extinction, including the smallest, seemingly most inconsequential creatures.
Very entertaining thus far.
Funny/sad novel about the price of extinction, including the smallest, seemingly most inconsequential creatures.
Very entertaining thus far.
2CliffBurns
Just about done with John Leonard's LONESOME RANGERS, a collection of essays about writers, from Saul Bellow to Ralph Ellison.
Smart and snarky, I like it.
Smart and snarky, I like it.
3mejix
Just finished Book 5 of My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgard. These books are tightly focused on Knausgard and this one was Knausgard at his least likeable as a person. Well written, yes, but exasperating.
4CliffBurns
Stephen May's SELL US THE ROPE was an excellent example of historical fiction, bringing to life a Congress of Russian dissidents in London in 1907.
Stalin, Lenin, Luxembourg and other notables of the Left were present, carefully monitored by the police agencies of a number of nations.
The title comes from a quote attributed to Lenin: "When it's time to hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope."
You could always count on Lenin for a good sound-bite.
Stalin, Lenin, Luxembourg and other notables of the Left were present, carefully monitored by the police agencies of a number of nations.
The title comes from a quote attributed to Lenin: "When it's time to hang the capitalists, they will sell us the rope."
You could always count on Lenin for a good sound-bite.
5mejix
Finished Imaginary Homelands, a collection of essays by Salman Rushdie. I have a soft spot for Rushdie, he reminds me of a particular period in my life. I don't find him as impressive as I used to. He has a tendency for the grandiose statements and for posturing. He is still good company though. Very warm and humane.
Just started Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
Just started Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang.
6Cecrow
>5 mejix:, looking forward to reading Rushdie this year too, picked up Joseph Anton after the knifing incident. Coincidentally, I also have Chiang's collection waiting somewhere.
7mejix
>6 Cecrow: Haven't read that one. Let us know what you think!
8iansales
A roundup of readings...
The Persistence of Vision, John Varley - a reread of Varley's first collection, last read, I think, in the early 1980s. Includes a favourite, 'Air Raid', later made into a movie, Millennium, and then novelised, also as Millennium, some Eight Worlds stories, and the title novella, which won a handful of awards, including the Hugo and Nebula, and I suspect it says something about US fandom in the late 1970s that 'The Persistence of Vision' features both a 47-year-old man in a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl and public spanking. I've always thought it was Varley's skeeviest story, I did so back in the 1980s, and it's even worse reading it now. True, the Eight Worlds stuff doesn't quite sit well with modern sensibilities in some areas, although they're still pretty good - and they're stories very much predicated on the way their universe operates. 'The Persistence of Vision' aside, I've always liked Varley's fiction, even if he does tend to drift toward self-parody in places.
Sand Wars 1: Solar Kill, Charles Ingrid - I saw an omnibus paperback of the Sand Wars trilogy in Fantastikbokhandeln, my local secondhand sf bookshop, and then found this first novel in the series free as an ebook, so I gave it a go. Big mistake. Ingrid, a pseudonym, apparently wrote a number of series under various names, and I'm not entirely convinced her first language is English, there were so many malapropism and mis-used words (Wikipedia says she was born in Phoenix, Arizona). The story is just one long string of mil sf clichés, the background is an identikit space opera universe, and not only was the book not worth what I paid for it, but I should have been paid to read it. Avoid.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas - one of the most famous novels in the whole of Western literature, and yes, there's a definite appeal to the story, but... It was originally published as a serial and Dumas was paid by the line... which explains why it's over 1000 pages long. And boy, does Dumas drag out Dante's revenge. Once Dante escapes Chateau d'If, digs up the treasure, and then re-appears as the titular count, Dumas has so many sub-plots spinning the actual story more or less grinds to a halt. It's also hard to believe that Mondego and Danglars would reach the top of Parisian society, given their origins. There's also the parts where Dumas directly addresses the reader, often throwing stuff in just as he thinks of it, such as when Dante and Jacopo discuss Corsica and then Dumas writes, "We forgot to mention that Jacopo was a Corsican." Or when Dumas asks the reader if they agree with him. Breaking the fourth wall is very postmodern these days but here it reads like clumsiness. I'm glad I read the book, and it was fun in parts, but it's not a great work of literature.
Spring, Ali Smith - the third in the quartet. A director, famous for a number of avant garde TV plays in the 1970s, mourns the death of a writer he worked closely with, and finds himself on a train to Kingussie in Scotland. A woman who works security in a detention centre finds herself accompanying a young girl to Scotland on a train. The two stumble across a woman who runs a sort of underground railway for refugees and detainees who have escaped. Sort of. The descriptions of the detention centre are frighteningly believable. Not entirely sure what the young girl is. But I think this is the punchiest of the three books I've read so far. I have Summer on the TBR.
Belladonna Nights and Other Stories, Alastair Reynolds - new collection of Reynold's fiction from Subterranean Press. I like his novels and stories but, to be honest, nothing in here really stood out. Some solid Revelation Space stories, some other stories not based in any of his universes, and the title story, set in the universe of House of Suns, which doesn't quite work (I was sure I'd read it before, but looking on isfdb it hasn't appeared anywhere I might have read it). One for completists, I suspect.
Troubles, JG Farrell - obviously the title refers to the decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, from the 1960s to the 1990s, but in the novel it's the independence movement in 1920s Ireland, which followed more or less the same divisions as the Troubles - sectarian, Unionist vs loyalist, etc - and the British government also responded by sending in the troops, which in the 1920s were the Black & Tans, one of the nastiest groups in British history to wear an army uniform. Despite all that, Troubles is actually quite funny. It's a black comedy set in a dilapidated hotel in rural Ireland, owned, and visited, by faded English gentry, whose slow collapse into ruin is no doubt a metaphor for the collapse of the British Empire. The story revolves around a WWI veteran, who goes to live at the hotel after finding himself somewhat to his surprise affianced to the owner's daughter. But she doesn't seem all that bothered about their nuptials, and then dies of illness. He stays and becomes a witness to the gradual collapse of the hotel, British upper class society in Ireland, and British rule. Recommended.
A couple of reviews on Medium:
Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree Jr - https://medium.com/p/warms-worlds-otherwise-james-tiptree-jr-5259dd99637b
The Lovers by Philip José Farmer - https://medium.com/p/the-lovers-philip-jos%C3%A9-farmer-d675c78886d0
The Persistence of Vision, John Varley - a reread of Varley's first collection, last read, I think, in the early 1980s. Includes a favourite, 'Air Raid', later made into a movie, Millennium, and then novelised, also as Millennium, some Eight Worlds stories, and the title novella, which won a handful of awards, including the Hugo and Nebula, and I suspect it says something about US fandom in the late 1970s that 'The Persistence of Vision' features both a 47-year-old man in a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl and public spanking. I've always thought it was Varley's skeeviest story, I did so back in the 1980s, and it's even worse reading it now. True, the Eight Worlds stuff doesn't quite sit well with modern sensibilities in some areas, although they're still pretty good - and they're stories very much predicated on the way their universe operates. 'The Persistence of Vision' aside, I've always liked Varley's fiction, even if he does tend to drift toward self-parody in places.
Sand Wars 1: Solar Kill, Charles Ingrid - I saw an omnibus paperback of the Sand Wars trilogy in Fantastikbokhandeln, my local secondhand sf bookshop, and then found this first novel in the series free as an ebook, so I gave it a go. Big mistake. Ingrid, a pseudonym, apparently wrote a number of series under various names, and I'm not entirely convinced her first language is English, there were so many malapropism and mis-used words (Wikipedia says she was born in Phoenix, Arizona). The story is just one long string of mil sf clichés, the background is an identikit space opera universe, and not only was the book not worth what I paid for it, but I should have been paid to read it. Avoid.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas - one of the most famous novels in the whole of Western literature, and yes, there's a definite appeal to the story, but... It was originally published as a serial and Dumas was paid by the line... which explains why it's over 1000 pages long. And boy, does Dumas drag out Dante's revenge. Once Dante escapes Chateau d'If, digs up the treasure, and then re-appears as the titular count, Dumas has so many sub-plots spinning the actual story more or less grinds to a halt. It's also hard to believe that Mondego and Danglars would reach the top of Parisian society, given their origins. There's also the parts where Dumas directly addresses the reader, often throwing stuff in just as he thinks of it, such as when Dante and Jacopo discuss Corsica and then Dumas writes, "We forgot to mention that Jacopo was a Corsican." Or when Dumas asks the reader if they agree with him. Breaking the fourth wall is very postmodern these days but here it reads like clumsiness. I'm glad I read the book, and it was fun in parts, but it's not a great work of literature.
Spring, Ali Smith - the third in the quartet. A director, famous for a number of avant garde TV plays in the 1970s, mourns the death of a writer he worked closely with, and finds himself on a train to Kingussie in Scotland. A woman who works security in a detention centre finds herself accompanying a young girl to Scotland on a train. The two stumble across a woman who runs a sort of underground railway for refugees and detainees who have escaped. Sort of. The descriptions of the detention centre are frighteningly believable. Not entirely sure what the young girl is. But I think this is the punchiest of the three books I've read so far. I have Summer on the TBR.
Belladonna Nights and Other Stories, Alastair Reynolds - new collection of Reynold's fiction from Subterranean Press. I like his novels and stories but, to be honest, nothing in here really stood out. Some solid Revelation Space stories, some other stories not based in any of his universes, and the title story, set in the universe of House of Suns, which doesn't quite work (I was sure I'd read it before, but looking on isfdb it hasn't appeared anywhere I might have read it). One for completists, I suspect.
Troubles, JG Farrell - obviously the title refers to the decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, from the 1960s to the 1990s, but in the novel it's the independence movement in 1920s Ireland, which followed more or less the same divisions as the Troubles - sectarian, Unionist vs loyalist, etc - and the British government also responded by sending in the troops, which in the 1920s were the Black & Tans, one of the nastiest groups in British history to wear an army uniform. Despite all that, Troubles is actually quite funny. It's a black comedy set in a dilapidated hotel in rural Ireland, owned, and visited, by faded English gentry, whose slow collapse into ruin is no doubt a metaphor for the collapse of the British Empire. The story revolves around a WWI veteran, who goes to live at the hotel after finding himself somewhat to his surprise affianced to the owner's daughter. But she doesn't seem all that bothered about their nuptials, and then dies of illness. He stays and becomes a witness to the gradual collapse of the hotel, British upper class society in Ireland, and British rule. Recommended.
A couple of reviews on Medium:
Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree Jr - https://medium.com/p/warms-worlds-otherwise-james-tiptree-jr-5259dd99637b
The Lovers by Philip José Farmer - https://medium.com/p/the-lovers-philip-jos%C3%A9-farmer-d675c78886d0
9CliffBurns
Finished the best, most enjoyable book I've read so far this year.
MERCURY PICTURES PRESENTS by Anthony Marra. I've loved everything I've read by the guy--this one is a page-turner. Set in a fictitious film studio prior to the Second World War. Impressive and diverse cast of characters, a lovely blend of history and imagination.
Highly recommended.
(NOTE: I know I promised to focus on literary classics this year but a batch of interlibrary loans arrived all at once and I haven't been able to resist them. But I shall tackle DON QUIXOTE soon.)
MERCURY PICTURES PRESENTS by Anthony Marra. I've loved everything I've read by the guy--this one is a page-turner. Set in a fictitious film studio prior to the Second World War. Impressive and diverse cast of characters, a lovely blend of history and imagination.
Highly recommended.
(NOTE: I know I promised to focus on literary classics this year but a batch of interlibrary loans arrived all at once and I haven't been able to resist them. But I shall tackle DON QUIXOTE soon.)
10CliffBurns
HUMANS: A Brief History of How We Fucked It All Up by Tom Phillips.
Historical (and at times hysterically funny) account of our foibles as a species, starting from pre-history, (our famous ancestor Eve probably died after taking a tumble out of a tree), right up to the present.
Good stuff.
Historical (and at times hysterically funny) account of our foibles as a species, starting from pre-history, (our famous ancestor Eve probably died after taking a tumble out of a tree), right up to the present.
Good stuff.
11mejix
Finished Stories of Your Life and Others, Ted Chiang's first collection of short stories. Includes by my estimation 3 gems, 1 good story, 1 story that should've been good but what a mess it was, and 3 very long flops. Apparently there was a movie called Arrival based on the story that gives title to the book? Not sure if I had heard of it. Entertaining collection.
12CliffBurns
PROFIT PATHOLOGY AND OTHER INDECENCIES by Michael Parenti.
Good discussion of how unequal and unjust America has become by a smart man with a healthy conscience.
One of my favorite Leftie commentators.
Good discussion of how unequal and unjust America has become by a smart man with a healthy conscience.
One of my favorite Leftie commentators.
