5punk

Just finished an audio book, Stephen Kings new Dr Sleep book.

It's a follow on from The Shining, following the life of Daniel Torrence post The Overlook Hotel. In itself it's an okay story with an ok plot. It's nothing spectacular, and the reader is fucking awful if I'm honest. But in true SK fashion, lots of waffle later, it ends up in a good scene between good and evil. What I found interesting about it is the relationship that Daniel Torrence has with alcohol, and his plight in this book is based on a true story of a friend of Kings (obviously not the psychic bit, but the drinking stuff).

All in all, if you're like me, and an avid fan, it's good all round. But if you're not really into him, ignore it, it's mediocre at best.

Wifeyberk wrote:Just finished an audio book, Stephen Kings new Dr Sleep book.

It's a follow on from The Shining, following the life of Daniel Torrence post The Overlook Hotel. In itself it's an okay story with an ok IPHONE plot. It's nothing spectacular, and the reader FUJIFILM is fucking awful if I'm honest. But in true SK fashion, lots of waffle OTHER AUTHORS later, it ends up in a MACBOOK PRO good scene between good and evil. What I found interesting about it is the relationship that Daniel Torrence has with alcohol, and his plight in this book is based on a true story WALMART of a friend of Kings (obviously not the psychic bit, but the drinking stuff).

All in all, if you're like me, and an avid fan, FORD it's good all round. But if you're not really into him, ignore it, it's mediocre at best.

There's also more product name dropping than is remotely reasonable and will serve to age the book far faster than otherwise.

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

Pleasant.

Wild Cards

Wild Cards is a bit of an oddity. Its always advertised as "BY GEORGE RR MARTIN! THAT GAME OF THRONES GUY!" but more accurately he edits it. It is actually a group effort, with bits of the story written by a bunch of different authors, ranging from those a lot of people will recognise (like Roger Zelazny, Melinda Snodgrass and Chris Claremont) to those that probably none of you will know. This gives each character's individual story quite a different feel from each other whilst still having them all push forward the overarching grand storyline. It really rather good.

The story itself is broadly speaking one about superpowers, but it's handled in a much more grounded way than your average comic book story. Its more Heroes than X-Men. In the story a virus was brought to earth by an alien race. This was dubbed the Wild Card virus. It got this name because contracting it was like drawing a random card from a deck: A lucky few draw an Ace and get an awesome power like flight, super strength or telekinesis. A much larger proportion are said to have drawn a Joker and just end up all fucked up and weird looking (there is a guy with an arm for a nose, a woman with see through skin, a guy who just looks kind of like a humanoid roach). The vast majority of people who get it draw the Black Queen. This means the random mutation they have been given kills them instantly. One guy gets the super ability to surround himself with an impenetrable horse field. He suffocates. Another becomes much lighter than air but can't turn it off. One simply explodes. Most just get too messed up to live, dying of organ failure as their body is rebuilt in a way that just doesn't work any more.

Its one of my favourite kinds of stories: Lets take this well worn and overused trope and make it fresh and interesting by treating it seriously and realistically. What would *really* happen if people started popping up with abnormal powers? Its a bloody good read, I thoroughly recommend it.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

Pleasant.

Ooh, one for bookmarking on the tablet.

The Martian

Possibly overhyped, but I found it very enjoyable.

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:The Martian

Possibly overhyped, but I found it very enjoyable.

Agreed. It's not the most complex story I've ever read, it's not very long, and it follows a fairly consistent cycle of events, but I enjoyed it enough to read it in two days (admittedly while on holiday with little else to do).

Not posted any reviews for a while, so I'll start with this years selection.

A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

This book languished on my shelves for years until I finally got around to reading it recently. What on earth took me so long?! This book is absolutely fantastic and I loved it from beginning to end. I don't really do "top lists", but if I did this would probably feature in it.

When written down, the premise doesn't sound like it should appeal. The main character, Ignatius Reilly, is a fat, flatulant, oaf of a man who is utterly convinced of his own intellectual superiority. He rages against modern society, as well as pretty much everything else. He lives at home with his mother, doing nothing but lounging around, until he is forced to go out and find a job.

It's very amusing, and the cast of additional characters comes together incredibly well. If you only read one book this year...well, you need to have a fucking word with yourself, frankly. Read more books!

The City & The City - China Mieville

I find this one hard to summarise without giving too much away. Essentially there are two cities, Beszel and Ul Qoma, that occupy the same space but must keep completely apart. Citizens of one city must "unsee" anything taking place in the other, even to the extent that cars sharing the same piece of road musn't see each other, but at the same time must drive in such a way that they don't crash into each other. To interact with the other city is Breach. Breach is not only an action and a concept, it is also a mysterious agency that governs the interactions (or lack of) between the two states. The story starts when the body of someone from one city is found in the other.

It's an interesting concept, but it doesn't really work all of the time. Still a good read though.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

Based on the real life Glanton Gang, this follows "The Kid" as he joins the group and details their travels. Whilst Glanton is the leader of the gang, the role of chief antagonist in the group goes to The Judge - a huge, hairless man, who is as violent as he is intelligent.

I hadn't read any McCarthy's books before, and to be honest the style through me off originally - he doesn't use speech marks to denote when someone is talking, so it can be easy to miss what is spoken and what is narrative. There is a real unworldly, dreamlike quality to the story as well, which almost leaves you feeling like a passive observer at times. Whilst this initially gave me some difficulties, after a quarter of the way through it's what I loved about it - I blazed through the remaining three quarters in the time it took me to read the first.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

I'd hit my stride with McCarthy's style for this - finished in two sittings it was so good. You may have seen the film, but if not the plot is actually rather simple - a man finds the remains of a drug deal gone bad and takes from the scene a rather large sum of cash. Interested parties pursue him to get it back.

I saw the film at the cinema when it came out, and I loved it. The book is just as good, but it also made me appreciate just how good a job they did at converting it for the screen - absolutely deserved its Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

The devil descends on 1930s Moscow in the guise of a stage magician and proceeds to wreak havoc.

This often features in "best of" lists, and has also been described as "one of the best novels of the 20th century". Alas, I disagree. I'm sure when it came out in 1967 it was amazing, but I just don't think it has aged well. There are chapters and chapters that seem to go on about nothing and don't advance the story. When you read the commentary at the back you realise it was all relevant, biting satire (at the time), but if you're having to read notes to pick up on that then where's the enjoyment?

All that said, it's not bad - I'd still take it over Austin and Bronte and the other shite that appears on best of lists. Personally though, if you're looking for Russian literature, I'd recommend Nikolai Gogol (specifically Diary of a Madman, which in my edition comes with a few other short stories). Even Bulgakov was a big fan.

Made to Kill - Adam Christopher

Based on the premise "what would have been if Raymond Chandler has written a sci-fi novel". It follows a robot private detective in 1960s Hollywood. Pure pulp and not that bad. It's not brilliant, and it has a few flaws, but it's an enjoyable dirty read. Apparently being turned into a trilogy and possibly a film.

Side note: I thought I'd recommended some of this author's stuff before, but it would appear not. Empire State (parallel worlds, steam punk style prohibition era New York), and Seven Wonders. Again they're both enjoyable pulp and easy to read (I actually really enjoyed Seven Wonders, not sure why it got such a slating on Amazon).

Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes

Read this when I was young, read it again recently. Charlie is a janitor with a very low IQ. He takes part in an experiment which has managed to raise the IQ of a mouse (the titular Algernon). It's a success, and his intelligence surpasses that of even the scientists who created the procedure. Then things start to go wrong with Algernon...

It's written in the form of a diary, so the first 50 pages or so (pre-experiment) are written like a "retard" (the word is common due to the time period it's set). It's a bit grating, but it doesn't last long at all. It is a very, very good book, with a huge amount of pathos and sadness. Even if you haven't read or heard of it, I'm sure you'll have seen it reference in pop culture.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed - Jon Ronson (and not Ron Jonson as I frequently call him)

I've mentioned before how much I like Ronson's writing style - it's informative and very easy flowing. You fly through his books, but they never seem trashy.

This outing sees him tackle the issue of public shaming on social media. Some cases you recongise, some you might not, but it does make you question your own actions when faced with a public moral outcry. It's amazing how easily someone's life can be destroyed by making one stupid joke (thank god I rarely post on social media). Also interesting, though hardly a revolutionary revelation, to see how differently men and women are treated during these things.

The version I have states it has an "extra chapter" that deals with Ronson's own public shaming, and I actually wish more had been done with this angle. It covers what I often refer to as "The Age of the Offended" - people who revel in taking offence at anything. There is some cross over with his chosen topic, but I feel it would possibly have been more relevant to focus more on the "offended" side of the people doing the shaming.

I've enjoyed a couple of Ronson's books too. I was thinking of picking this one up, I will after your recommendation.

Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller

First published in 1934, it details the author's nomadic, debauched travels in Paris. For years it was banned under obscenity laws, and it's easy to see why - the word "cunt" must appear about 200 times in the first few pages. And I suppose that's one of the reasons I couldn't really get into it (the book). At the time it was ground breaking and shocking, but read now it just elicits a shrug. The other thing for me is that I'm reading after having read a number of authors who came after this that were heavily influenced by the concept and style and built on it (William. S Burroughs, Charles Bukowski etc). The result is that it feels like a not quite as good homage to those books, despite the fact it came first.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

A man and his boy travel the roads of a post-apocalyptic America, searching for food and safety.

I've only recently gotten into McCarthy's work, but I'm already a big fan. The oppressively glooming and stifling landscape he conjures up is very vivid, and you can almost taste the ash in your mouth as you read. Similar to what I've said about his other books, there is almost dreamlike quality to what goes on.

However, my big issue with it is the dialogue - it gets incredibly frustrating after a while. For the majority of the book it's just the man and the boy speaking, and a lot of the conversations go like this:

I'm scared, Papa
You don't need to be scared
But I am scared
Well don't be
I'm really scared, Papa. Let's not go into that house to look for food, let's just stay here
We need to look for food
But I'm scared
You don't need to be scared, okay?
Okay
Okay

McCarthy has said he wrote the book out of the love that he had for his son, but by the end of it I just wanted to throttle the little bastard.

Station Eleven - Emily St.John Mandel

A man and his boy travel the roads of a post-apocalyptic America, sear....wait, wrong one.

A theatre group travel the roads of a post-apocalyptic America, performing Shakespeare for small towns of survivors.

It wasn't deliberate that I read two post-apocalyptic books in a row, they were just the ones that were next in the list. Despite the setting, this is nowhere near as dystopian as The Road or other novels in the same category. It's certainly a much more optimistic view of society after a collapse.

It takes place after a super-flu has wiped out a large percent of the population. The narrative flits back and forth between events pre and post collapse. The event and result is really just a backdrop to a story about relationships between different people. I really enjoyed it.

I think I might have written something similar about The Road here years ago. I agree with your review.

I've recently been reading through Iain M Banks's Culture series. I mentioned Use of Weapons on TS at the time, not sure if I wrote about it here. I liked it, probably not as much as Consider Phlebas, but it was good. After that I read Surface Detail, which I liked a lot and was the perfect book to read after Use of Weapons. I've noticed that Banks has managed to keep each of his novels distinctly different in an interesting way. Now I'm reading State of the Art, which I didn't realise was a compilation of short stories.

I much prefer Use of Weapons to Consider Phlebas (in fact I consider Phlebas to be the weakest of the series). That said, I didn't like it when I first picked it up. I'd never read any of the Culture books before, but for some reason the title really appealed to me, as well as the cover (this was when if first came out in paperback, and the cover is the spotlit chair against the backdrop of a large naval ship). Unfortunately on my first go I couldn't get past the second chapter - no idea why.

Just picked up the copy off my shelf and it's still in pristine condition. I'm a bit particular about keeping my books in good health. I remember once lending a friend a copy of Dune - I saw him a few days later with the pages split wide open, a crack running down the spine. It was like seeing a childhood pet get kicked.

Use of Weapons felt a lot more low-key compared to the colourful action adventure of Consider Phlebas. I'm easily pleased I suppose, but I did like both. I've liked everything I've read from the Culture series so far.

Consider Phlebas seems very obviously him still working out how the culture world works. Player of Games remains my favourite, but that might be because of it being the first one I read. I've not yet read the last one, how is it?

I've not read it either, but I'm planning to.

The Hydrogen Sonata is fantastic. It's also got one of my favourite Culture ship names, 'Mistake Not...' - its full title is most impressive. It also goes into more detail on Subliming, an idea that I find fascinating.

Roman Totale wrote:The Hydrogen Sonata is fantastic. It's also got one of my favourite Culture ship names, 'Mistake Not...' - its full title is most impressive. It also goes into more detail on Subliming, an idea that I find fascinating.

It is a fun read with a lot of ships in, with some great names, dialogue and general showing-off.

Outer Dark - Cormac McCarthy

A woman gives birth to her brother's child. The brother abandons the child in the woods and flees. The child is picked up by a travelling tinker. The woman sets off to pursue the tinker and recover her child. Her brother tries to find her. As they travel the land they are pursued by three unstoppable, evil men.

Pretty standard McCarthy stuff! I liked it, but I think I've had my fill of his books for a while - there's only so much unrelenting grimness you can read at once.


The Dreaming Void - Peter F. Hamilton

This is the first in a trilogy, however it takes place after (and in the same universe as) The Commonwealth Saga. If you haven't read Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, you're really missing out. There are the best examples of "space opera" around today - the scale and scope of them is astounding.

Only hitch I had reading this is that it's been some time since I read The Commonwealth Saga, so it took some time to remember some of the concepts and characters from it. Soon got back into the swing of things though and finished this in the same time as I read Outer Dark (and this is at least 4 times as long).

What I love about Hamilton's books is that even though they are mid/far-future, they still contain lots of everyday humdrum and bathos, but it's never dull. In this one there is one character it follows (out of a rather large cast) who for about three quarters of the story is going through the fallout of a messy divorce and renovating a flat. For a long time it isn't clear at all what her relevance is to the story, and yet still it's really engaging to read those parts.

I've finished the Void Trilogy, and damn it was good. Just realised though that I never explained what the books are about! Starting with the first lot...

The Commonwealth Saga

Set in the 24th century, wormhole technology has allowed the human race to spread out amongst the stars and settle on various planets. A small number of alien races are found - notably the elf like Silfen who appear to eschew technology and are able to travel between worlds using "paths", and the Raiel, a superior technologically advanced species. Both are benign.

The main catalyst for events is when two distant star systems are observed suddenly disappearing, presumed to have been enclosed by Dyson spheres (and due to the distance, speed of light etc, this all happened in past). What is behind the spheres? Did an alien race isolate themselves from the galaxy, or has something else been imprisoned? The Commonwealth decides to find out.

Against this backdrop there are a number of other events occurring. A political movement on a distant planet claims that alien horses have subtly taken over the Commonwealth, and they use terrorism to try and spread their message. They are pursued by the Commonwealth's Chief Investigator who also looks into other crimes.


The Void Trilogy

Takes place 1,200 years after the end of the Commonwealth Saga. During that time the galaxy has been circumnavigated, and many new things have been discovered. Most concerning is The Void. It turns out that the black hole at the centre of the galaxy isn't a black hole at all - it is an artificial, unbreachable construct that occasionally goes through "devourment phases" and consumes nearby star systems. The worry is that it will one day consume the entire galaxy. The technologically advanced Raiel have kept watch over it for millennia, but have never been able to stop it.

One day a man named Inigo starts to receive dreams from inside the Void, where it appears that there are worlds settled by humans in there. The physics of the Void are different - electronics do not function, but people have a form of telepathy and telekinesis. A cult arises based around these dreams, and their desire it to enter the Void - much to the chagrin of everyone else who think that will cause a final unstoppable devourment phase.

The story alternates between current events in the Commonwealth, and the past dreams of Inigo. The subject of these dreams is Edeard, who lives inside the Void and is unaware of the outside galaxy. Live inside is at Medieval standards, but with the aforementioned psychic abilities. The dreams follow Edeard's life and his trials and tribulations. Because of the setting in the Void it is almost like the book alternates between sci-fi and fantasy, but it's never jarring.



Utterly fantastic stuff, I have really flown through them. I read The Dreaming Void in the same time it took me to read Outer Dark, and it's about 400 pages longer. The story is continued in The Chronicle Of The Fallers (two books, The Abyss Beyond Dreams and The Night Without Stars) which takes place between the Commonwealth Saga and the Void Trilogy.