Recommended Reading

[FatherJack]

There's also Misspent Youth which predates the whole thing and is set in the near future at the time that the rejuve technology they use first starts. It's a pretty nasty story with nasty people as said by the author himself, but it goes into detail about a few things referenced in the later books - ie increased libido after rejuvenation and at least one character pops up briefly in a later novel.

The Chronicle of the Fallers books, of which only one is out, the second and final part due 22 September, is an odd one. He could almost go on writing about stuff inside the void forever - it's kind of the same story as Edeard's, as if that's kind of always destined to happen, but with a different technology level. The different and exciting thing about this one is that a character from the universe outside the void is able to enter and retain their knowledge of both worlds, as well as bringing some carefully-made technology.

[Roman Totale]

I think I'm going to leave the Fallers stuff until the second book comes out (in paperback). Despite reading 3 big sci-fi books in a row, I'm trying to mix my genres more this year. Last year I didn't read as much as I would have liked to, and I blame that entirely on reading the Song of Fire and Ice books back to back. Up next is some Kafka, and which I haven't read for a very long time.

[Roman Totale]

The Trial - Franz Kafka

I first read this some time ago, and remember enjoying it a lot. Sadly that seems to have changed this time around as I was incredibly bored very early on. I suppose that's always a danger with re-reads, but it doesn't hold the same appeal to me any more. Possibly the novelty wore off.

If you're unfamiliar with the plot it's about a man on trial for no particular reason, and follows all the ridiculous and bizarre events surrounding it.


A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

Another re-read, but this one I still enjoy. You know the plot, you've seen the film (you have seen the film haven't you?). Before starting have a skim through the Nadsat glossary to familiarise yourself with the slang. It's not essential as it is quite readily picked up, but it does help with getting into the book.

Most editions should have the two different endings. The original ending (used in the film) had a note from Burgess to his editor asking "should we stop here?". The American publisher quite sensibly stopped there, but the UK publisher continued with Burgess' "extended" ending. It detracts from the overall story in my opinion, but it's still worth reading as it's not that long.


The Wasteland - T.S. Eliot

Poetry. Not normally my thing, but this is very good (my edition has several other pieces of his work included). It's very influential, and you will probably recognise bits of it from other things. If not your cup of tea, try his cat stuff.


Hyperion - Dan Simmons

Seven pilgrims depart for an isolated planet in order to treat with an alien being of great power that exists outside of normal time.

I really like the structure of this book, very similar to the Canterbury Tales (which I actually hate as I made to read it in the original Middle English for A Level. Maybe one day I'll give it another go in a slightly easier to read format). As each pilgrim is a very different character it gives it a very diverse and rich atmosphere.


The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons

Sequel to the above, ditches the original format as the story has moved on. Not as engaging, but satisfying to see how events from the first novel pan out. There are two further books in the 'cantos', but I'm reliably informed they're not worth the effort.


Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

Again so as not to give too much away, here's the blurb:

"As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life, and for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special—and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together"

There's a film of this that I haven't seen, so not sure if you're familiar with the story. I didn't think I was, but whilst reading it did start to seem familiar. I enjoyed it, and will be checking out more of his work (including The Remains of the Day, even though the film wasn't for me).


I also re-read the Dresden Files as I had a hankering to pick them up again. I've mentioned them before, but they are really entertaining - easy to read, fast paced, well written, good stuff. A lot of fans of the series suggest skipping the first two books, but I disagree. They're still good, it's just I think the fans say that with the benefit of knowing how much better they get, and how much more of the overarching plot starts to come into play.

[Roman Totale]

The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Basics of the story is about a ship and its crew travelling to the titular planet to create a wormhole that will bring another civilization into the galactic community. Really though the story is about the crew and their interactions with each other. It's not a traditional sci-fi story, much more focused on the people.


The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Thought I'd reviewed this one already, but apparently not. Set in Victorian London, about a civil servant who befriends a Japanese watchmaker. I enjoyed it, ending was a bit odd though. It definitely avoids a cliched ending, but in a way I sorted of wanted a cliched ending.


Altered Carbon

A re-read. Read this when it first came out - I have it in some sort of weird hybrid hardback/paperback copy. Read it again as they're making a Netflix series about it. Mix of gritty detective novel and violent sci-fi. It's good, but it's not particularly deep. At times it feels author wish fulfilment fantasy wank, but at least it's entertaining. There are two other books after this, and although I've read them before I have zero memory of them so guessing I wasn't that impressed with them.


I'm also five books into Stephen King's Dark Tower series, but I'll review those another time. Thoroughly enjoying it so far. Going to avoid the mistake I made with Game of Thrones and I'm breaking up them up with other things in between.

[buzzmong]

Altered Carbon

A re-read. Read this when it first came out - I have it in some sort of weird hybrid hardback/paperback copy. Read it again as they're making a Netflix series about it. Mix of gritty detective novel and violent sci-fi. It's good, but it's not particularly deep. At times it feels author wish fulfilment fantasy wank, but at least it's entertaining. There are two other books after this, and although I've read them before I have zero memory of them so guessing I wasn't that impressed with them.

I picked this up from a charity shop a couple of years ago knowing nothing about it. It's got some interesting concepts with the whole "stack" and resleeving notion, turning human bodies into tools/vessels along with chucking in with how people use and view it. I enjoyed it so I'll pick up the sequels at some point.

[Roman Totale]

John Dies at the End - David Wong

I've heard this recommended a number of times. Written by one of the editors at Cracked, and described in places as a sort of comedy Lovecraftian horror. I expected decent things, but I was left sorely disappointed (in fact I very nearly just stopped reading, but I'm a sucker for punishment),

I think there are the bones of a good story in there, but it's lost amongst unlikable characters, prosaic prose, and dialogue that attempts to be snappy but ends up falling flat. I hate to knock it as it's the author's first book, but I just found it incredibly flat.

It reads a bit like a discount Tarantino novelisation. I'm not sure I can explain it very well, but sentences just seem to run on, and everything that happens is almost breathlessly narrated e.g. "I got the gun and then I shot the thing and I said a quip then I high fived John". I expected more from the Cracked guy.


Killing Floor - Lee Child

The first Jack Reacher book. It did exactly what I expected, which is a good thing. It's fairly simple, quite formulaic, but it's a fun simple read. Great as a holiday book. I intend to read more, but they're not the sort of thing where I'm itching to read the next in the series.


The Abyss Beyond Dreams - Peter F. Hamilton

This, on the other hand, is a series where I can't wait to read the next installment (and it's not out in paperback yet, boo). So, it's the first in the 'Chronicle of the Fallers' series (first of two), however it takes place in the Commonwealth series of books which have been mentioned here before. Recommended reading order - Pandora's Star, Judas Unchained, The Dreaming Void, The Temporal Void, and The Evolutionary Void. Misspent Youth is also part of the same universe, and chronologically comes before the rest, but I'd treat is as optional.

Brief synopsis: the black hole at the centre of the galaxy isn't a black hole. It's an artificial void where the rules of physics aren't quite the same and technology doesn't tend to work. Within the void are several planets that have been inhabited by colony ships that got trapped. This book takes place on a different planet to the one featured in the Void Trilogy. Focus of the plot is a combination of a fight back against a hostile, shape shifting alien race (The Fallers), and the attempts to overthrow the corrupt government. Much more political than other entries in the series, but it works really well.

I love this series and highly recommend it.


100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

This tells the story of seven generations of a Colombian family in a small village. The style is magic realism - common, every day events are intertwined with the weird and wonderful.

It actually took me longer to read this than it did the last three books put together (and it's only about 400 pages long). I think it was a combination of not being in the right mood, and also having to constantly flick back and forth to the family tree to work out who was being talked about - most of the characters bear the name Aureliano or Jose Arcadio. I'm going to read it again at some point, as it was actually very enjoyable.


Child of God - Cormac McCarthy

A very short novel (about 180 pages) and very typical McCarthy style. It follows Lester Ballard in Appalachian Tennesse. After getting out jail he proceeds to haunt the countryside - he drops out of society, lives in a cave, and kills strangers (amongst other things). If you like his other stuff, you'll like this.

I only noticed when getting the wiki link for this entry that McCarthy is not a fan of magical realism - maybe that's why this felt so refreshing after 100 Years


'Salem's Lot - Stephen King

I read this in between Dark Tower books (see below). Note - read this before Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla! It adds a lot more to that book if you do.

Not much to explain here - vampires in a small town! It's set in Maine! The protagonist is an author! Despite my mocking of King, I really enjoyed this book. I think his early stuff is his best. I do have a bit of a love/hate relationship with him though. Whilst I love his stories, I sometimes find his style to be a bit directionless - he has a tendency to meander off. More on this below


The Dark Tower Series - Stephen King

I enjoyed this series. Perhaps not as much as some of its fans do, but a decent series all the same. Maybe having access to them all at once is what lessened the impact for me - they were written between 1982 and 2004, so OG fans had to wait a long time in between adventures. You may or may not know this, but all of King's other works ultimately tie in with the Dark Tower universe, so there are plenty of nods, references, and outright mentions of the other books throughout. And, sigh, King even inserts himself as a character within these novels.

Brief synopsis. The world has "moved on" - time is breaking down, and walls between universes are thinning. The main protagonist is Roland, a Gunslinger - think like one of the knights of the round table with a western setting. His goal is to reach the Dark Tower. The style/setting is a bit fantasy mixed with sci-fi.

For me the stand out books of the series were 4 and 5 - Wizard and Glass, and Wolves of the Calla. W&G mostly takes place in flashback when Roland tells a story from his youth, and WOTC is a little bit like The Magnificent Seven (which is even acknowledged in the book). Overall definitely a good read.

However, by the last book the minor irks I have with King's style almost got too much. He's obviously self aware of this though - one of the characters in the book describes Stephen King as "a great storyteller, but he's got a tin ear for language". This becomes really evident in two ways when King writes.

First of all, when he's writing a character with an "accent" he feels the need to comment on it after every single fucking line of dialogue. The last book starts off somewhere in rural Maine, and every time a local character says something he just has to literally spell it out for you (fer ya he said). I swear he must have done it 100 times in 20 pages (hunert times it came out). It's incredibly distracting and irritating ('stractin). Oh, and in one of the books there are some Japanese tourists, and he actually commits the following to the page - "Yooo take-ah pickha, preese?". Jesus.

Second is his inability to let go of a certain phrase or word that clearly amuses him, but which he then feels the need to repeat at every available opportunity. For example, one character when they were younger pronounced Tyrannosaurus Rex as Tyrannsorbet Wrecks. He goes on to repeat this, apropos of fuck all, about 20 more times. The problem is that once you pick up on these habits of his, they become really noticable.

Anyway, despite that moaning I did enjoy and do recommend them. I'm guessing that the films will only have a passing similarity. The cyclical nature of time is a common theme in the books, so I reckon the film(s?) will just be another turn of the wheel.

[Joose]

I've been on a bit of a Stephen King fest myself recently. Just finished reading It (I had seen the old film, but not read the book before) and Salems Lot is next on my list, then I'm going to tackle Dark Tower.

I know exactly what you mean about his writing. My biggest irritation with him is how terribly so many of his books end. They often either just dribble to a stop or he seems to go "Oh, shit, I need to end this book. Ah, fuck it, aliens did it, the end." But despite all the things he does wrong, I enjoy his writing. Theres something about it that I find easy to read; some books I will be enjoying but only get through a few pages in a single sitting, where I tend to devour King books huge chunks at a time.

[Roman Totale]

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Plath's only novel, a semi-autobiographical story about a girl whose life takes a bit of a downward spiral. This reminded a great deal of Catcher in the Rye, with the exception that I found Holden Caulfield to be excruciatingly irritating. Not so with Esther Greenwood, the protagonist in the Bell jar, who I thought was very engaging and sympathetic. As much as I loved this book, it did a bit of a number on me. The story parallels Plath's own struggle with depression, and as such it is bone cuttingly accurate in its depiction. Left me in a really off mood for weeks. Still, I'd recommend it!


The Mistborn Series - Brandon Sanderson

Comprising:

The Final Empire
The Well of Asencion
The Hero of Ages

There are 3 others after the original trilogy, but I haven't read those.

I've been hearing people talking up Sanderson for some time, so I thought I'd check it out. It's a really solid and enjoyable fantasy series, although at times it does suffer from the standard fantasy tropes (overpowered protagonists, plot armour, needless love triangles etc). The magic system, allomancy, is one of the most interesting parts of the series. Some people can 'burn' (metabolise) certain metals to produce different effects - pewter gives you strength, tin enhances the senses, iron pulls on metals, and steel pulls on metals. It's well put together and the series tends to stick rigidly to its laws (unlike some fantasy stuff where that kind of thing goes out the window and the protagonist is as powerful as the plot demands). There are also some good subversions of standard tropes, but at the same time that disappoints when it goes for some really obvious ones.

So yeah, enjoyable and easy to read, but not as world changing as some Sanderson fans might lead you to believe.


Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

(To Say Nothing of the Dog)

"Published in 1889, is a humorous account by English writer Jerome K. Jerome of a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston upon Thames to Oxford and back to Kingston."

For as long as I can remember this book sat on my mum's bookshelf at home, but I never read it. Somehow it came up in conversation recently about how the humour still stands the test of time. I was sceptical, as people tend to say this sort of stuff about old books all the time. I was wrong to be sceptical though, as it is a very funny book. In fact I laughed more reading this very slim novel (170 pages) than I did during the entire Dark Tower series (for context there is a character in the latter who is a "fast talking funny guy" - I suppose the problem with writing a funny character is that you yourself have to be funny in the first place, and I don't think King is).


In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

A non-fiction account of the real life murder of a family of four in a quiet Kansas town in 1959.

I found the first 70 pages or so quite slow, but as soon as it gets to the deed it explodes into a real page turner. The slowness might have been my fault though; I was roughly aware of the background to book so kept wondering when it was going to actually get to the event.

Capote spent a lot of time interviewing one of the killers, and he certainly paints them in a much more sympathetic light than most in this genre would. I think that's what puts it a cut above the rest in terms of the true crime genre.


Night Without Stars - Peter F. Hamilton

Second and final part of the Chronicle of the Fallers, which itself is part of the wider Commonwealth Series (discussed previously).

Another great book in the series, what more can I say? Some of the 'police investigation' parts reminded of another Hamilton novel, the stand alone 'Great North Road' - and that's no bad thing because that was one of the best bits of that book.

I do have a bit of an issue with it though (and I possibly touched on this with some of the Void books), in that a lot of the time it feels a lot like wish fulfilment - all the men are strong and handsome and the women fall over themselves to get at them. Then again the main female protagonist (and arguably the main protagonist of the whole series) is one of my favourite characters in science fiction, and doesn't fall into any of the usual tropes that I'm aware of.

And I'll say it again, if you like sci-fi but haven't read Pandora's Star yet give it a go.


Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Disclaimer 1: I didn't read this recently, but thought I'd better put up a review in "honour" of the impending film version.

Disclaimer 2: I never actually finished this book, because...

Fuck this book. Seriously one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever read. I cannot fathom how popular this book is. Actually I can, it's because the entire thing is written like "omg 80s reference! video games! meme! 80s reference! video games reference! nostalgia wank!"

To give you an idea of how awful is writing is, I present you with one of his poems - the entirely irony free Nerd Porn Auteur. Behold and be aghast.

[Dog Pants]

That poem doesn't rhyme. And you can get porn like that.