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Pick and Mix 2015
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dustydigger
Posted 2015-03-06 4:25 AM (#9830 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: UK		I read the short story in an anthology in the mid sixties,and ended up crying buckets. I have never dared get up the gumption to read the extended full length novel version. ,nor did I ever watch the film.But the story has stayed with me all these years. Haunting and sad.
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pauljames
Posted 2015-03-08 11:01 AM (#9841 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: scotland		Halfway through Kraken. Really challenging book. So many things happen.

Written in a very strange way, reminds me of some of The Book of The New Sun and a Peter Straub book I struggled wit a few years ago. Many would be baffled reading this. Maybe it is intended like this.
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Dlw28
Posted 2015-03-08 9:04 PM (#9843 - in reply to #9182)
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Kraken by Mieville? It does have a lot going on! With a great punchline at the end!
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dustydigger
Posted 2015-03-09 3:51 AM (#9844 - in reply to #9843)
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Location: UK		That was my first Mieville. I wasnt familiar with him at all,so going by the blurb I was just expecting a great fun adventure/detective sort of book.Imagine how disconcerted I was when about two thirds through the book,he tossed aside a whole section of the plot,it turned out to be a sort of ''Maguffin'' and I was a bit bewildered to say the least. Since then I have read Embassytown and The City and the City,and this year have Un Lun Dun and Perdido Street Station on my TBR,and know to expect the unexpected,but at the time it was very strange! I still shudder over that mouth on the man's back....aarrgghh!
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Dlw28
Posted 2015-03-09 9:18 PM (#9847 - in reply to #9182)
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The City and the City is probably one of my all time favorites! Such an incredibly well realized complex world. I loved Embassytown too and wish I had read it vs listened to it as an audiobook as I probably missed many of the more subtle parts of the story while trying to keep the plot in mind as I was driving.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-09 9:41 PM (#9849 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		The City & the City is the only China Mieville I've read. It's such a strange and unique concept - It took me a while to grasp it, and it took a while for that grasp to become firm enough to really enjoy the book. I almost think a second reading is needed to fully appreciate the book.
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DrNefario
Posted 2015-03-10 8:24 AM (#9850 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: UK		I enjoyed The City & the City, too. It was the book that convinced me I didn't really dislike Mieville, having not really got much out of Perdido Street Station.
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spoltz
Posted 2015-03-11 10:42 AM (#9853 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		I read "The Last Policeman" by Ben H Winters. It's a murder mystery taking place several months before an asteroid slams into the earth. What I really liked about it was the existential angst of everyone. What makes the murder part wild is that it looks like a suicide, and tons of people people are committing suicide. So no one thinks anything of it except for one newly promoted detective. There's also a conspiracy plot smoldering in the background that appears to rev up in the next book (It's a trilogy so far). I don't read many mysteries, so I really enjoyed that part of it. I found it exciting. Overall, I enjoyed it, found it to be a fun but dark romp. Not great, but really good. In my SF book club, some people thought it was boring as far as mysteries go, but my mother-in-law who reads tons SF, fantasy, and mystery absolutely loved it and ordered the next two books. So I'll probably read those at some point.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-11 8:49 PM (#9856 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		I've started Blood Music by Greg Bear. Haven't read anything by him before. If I'd been told this book was written by Michael Crichton, and didn't know any better, I'd've believed it.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-11 8:55 PM (#9857 - in reply to #9853)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		I'm completely unfamiliar with Ben H. Winters. WWE lists only two books of that trilogy.
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dustydigger
Posted 2015-03-12 4:36 AM (#9862 - in reply to #9857)
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Location: UK		As for Blood Music,probably the book would have been more exciting if written by Crichton! lol. I find Greg Bear a bit stodgy and dry. Great ideas that sound fantastic,but are dry as dust in the telling. I was very diasppointed with Eon,for example, which had this fascinating endless time tunnel,very intriguing,but the characters were rather lacklustre and the book seemed as endless as the tunnel! Blood Music had even less characterisation,and all in all wasnt the gripping read I had expected,but of course I am not a great enthusiast for hard science. Often there is too much emphasis on trying to make the science,which after on is not real,at least not yet,sound feasible and plausible,and it gets in the way of the story for me.This sort of book is often written on the extrapolation of present day cutting edge technology,and when the tech becomes old hat,or even wrong all this technobabble can ruin the book.Remember,poor old Dusty is a dinosaur technologically anyway,and the story is all!
I'll never forget the kerfuffle long ago over Larry Niven's Ringworld. ,where people were earnestly picking faults about the technology that kept the immense Ringworld going. To me this was a cracking story about a BDO(Big Dumb Object) awesome in its conception,and here were these people with their physics equations etc nitpicking over the details instead of enjoying the rollercoaster ride! I am a great fan of BDOs,the sense of wonder which was so prevalent in SFs early days must seem too naive to the solemn would be literary authors of today's SF,but fans still read and enjoy those old pulp SF books simply because they are fun.
Oops. Ok,off the soapbox now!
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spoltz
Posted 2015-03-12 10:16 AM (#9864 - in reply to #9857)
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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		I was unaware of Ben H Winters also. This was a pick of my book club. I voted against it. I don't like picking trilogies/series because that adds more books to my TBR pile exponentially. This book won an Edgar for mystery. The second book, "Countdown City" won the Philip K Dick award for 2013. He's also written "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters", a YA novel, a horror novel, and several adult and children's musicals for the stage. I'll see about getting the third book in the database this weekend.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-12 3:58 PM (#9866 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		I too eschew the first book in trilogies or series, unless they are so highly acclaimed that I know it'll be worthwhile. I tend not to read series consecutively - there's always a gap of time filled by other books. For series that simply share the same universe, that's okay, but my reading habits don't enhance series where each book is a chapter in a larger series.

Edited by spectru 2015-03-12 3:58 PM
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-15 4:18 PM (#9885 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Robert A Heinlein - A Door Into Summer

It's always interesting when an author writes about his future, which is now our past. Heinlein didn't get too specific so there aren't too many misses, but there are a few. In the year 2000, a doctor offers his patient a cigarette in a hospital room. The automatic drafting machine is a mechanical device with a keyboard. He got that sort of right. Engineers today, and in 2000, use CADD (computer aided design and drafting) and early plotters, the machines that did the drawing, actually were like robots that used the same kind of drafting pens that manual draftsmen used.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-20 7:29 AM (#9915 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Blood Music by Greg Bear is not bad, not great. I did wake up in the middle of the night from a Blood Music inspired nightmare, but the book itself isn't scary.

This is the first I've read of Greg Bear. I've been aware of Darwin's Radio for quite a while, but I know nothing about it. Does anybody recommend Greg Bear?
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-21 9:21 PM (#9926 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Just started Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. first impression: Vonnegut at his Vonnegutest. Anybody read it?
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-25 9:43 PM (#9931 - in reply to #9926)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Kurt Vonnegut said that Timequake was his last novel (I'm not sure if it was or not) which he wrote after an extended bout of writer's block. I have terminal writer's block, having never successfully completed a piece of fiction, none at all. If I were able to write fiction, I would like to be able to write like John Steinbeck. That, of course, isn't even remotely plausible, so, then, I wish I could write like Kurt Vonnegut. That also isn't remotely plausible, but it's a good wish.

Edited by spectru 2015-03-25 9:49 PM
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daxxh
Posted 2015-03-25 9:47 PM (#9932 - in reply to #9931)
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Location: Great Lakes, USA		@spectru - I like Bear. I've read a half dozen or so of his books. I liked Eon, Slant and Darwin's Radio. I also thought his Foundation book was the best of the three.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-28 9:12 AM (#9944 - in reply to #9932)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Okay. So I just downloaded an audiobook of Darwin's Radio. It's short, a little over 5 hours.
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-28 10:33 AM (#9945 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		I just discovered that my audiobook of Darwin's Radio is abridged. Puzzling - In print it is 448 pages, which seems hardly long enough to warrant abridgement. Oh well; I wanted something of novella length to hear this weekend. The narrator is Stefan Rudnicki. His rich baritone graced the narration of Card's Ender series; I still hear him as Colonel Graff.

I also just discovered that we only have 30 minutes to edit a post in this forum.
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Administrator
Posted 2015-03-28 1:54 PM (#9948 - in reply to #9945)
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spectru - 2015-03-28 10:33 AM I just discovered that my audiobook of Darwin's Radio is abridged. Puzzling - In print it is 448 pages, which seems hardly long enough to warrant abridgement. Oh well; I wanted something of novella length to hear this weekend. The narrator is Stefan Rudnicki. His rich baritone graced the narration of Card's Ender series; I still hear him as Colonel Graff. I also just discovered that we only have 30 minutes to edit a post in this forum.

I've not run into an abridged audio book yet.  Very strange.  If it was from Audible.com you can return it and get your credit.  Just give 'em a call.

On a related note, I've been listening to a lot of audio books lately and thought it might be a good theme for a reading challenge.  What do you all think about an Audio Book Reading Challenge?  I was thinking 3/6/9/12 audio book levels with optional reviews.  No other requirements.  For the reviews I think it would be good to get the scoop on the narration as well as the story.  A good reader makes a world of difference.  It would certainly play well with the other challenges.  Thoughts?

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spectru
Posted 2015-03-28 8:03 PM (#9950 - in reply to #9948)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		I haven't participated in the reading challenges before, until this year. Just finally managed to get it figured out how to participate. An audiobook challenge would be my sixth. I think maybe roughly half the books I read are audiobooks, most of which I download from my public library, so, just like Audible, I can return them.

I have an abridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo on my reading list and last year I read an abridged version of Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.

You're right about the narrator. Most professional narrators are quite good. Jim Dale narrating the Harry Potter series is good enough to knock your socks off. Sometimes famous actors are great: Jeremy Irons reading Lolita; Meryl Streep reading The Testament of Mary. I've found that an author reading his own work sometimes isn't as good as one would hope. Neil Gaiman, however, does and excellent job.

On road trips, my spouse and I listen to books on CDs. I check them out from the library and she picks which ones we'll listen to. We arrived at her sister's house after an eight and a half hour drive with an hour left on the book and she wouldn't get out of the car.

Edited by spectru 2015-03-28 8:06 PM
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spectru
Posted 2015-03-28 8:09 PM (#9951 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Fort Myers, Florida USA		Written in 1952, The Space Merchants makes Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth seem prescient. Or maybe 1952 wasn't all that different from today. I've read comparisons of The Space Merchants to the TV show Mad Men, which I think is set in the 1960s. I really don't know, never having seen the TV show. The Space Merchants certainly does seem pertinent to our present times, a caricature in preposterous hyperbole, but pertinent.
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spoltz
Posted 2015-03-29 9:06 AM (#9954 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		This was my second time through "Alas, Babylon" by Pat Frank. It's the May read for my SF/F bookclub. I read it the first time before I had my blog and joining WWE. It's dated in its treatment of women and African-Americans, but is still terrifying in its depiction of the aftermath of nuclear war. I found it more depressing and anxiety-inducing than my first read. It's a rather cold book, reflecting the author's more journalistic approach to writing. I'll have my review of it posted soon.
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dustydigger
Posted 2015-03-29 11:00 AM (#9956 - in reply to #9182)
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Location: UK		I am having so much fun doing the 1950s SF challenge.and have had a great month. I enjoyed my reread of Double Star,and also my third reading of Day of the Triffids. I find something of interest at each read. The first time,as a teenager I just enjoyed the story - green comets causing blindness,sentient plants with a deadly sting,5he total destruction of society etc. A few years ago I paid more attention to the different forms of government ,this time I was more interested in what could be salvaged of society.,but was less optomistic about the chances of retaking the world from the triffids than Wyndham was. I know that Brian Aldiss called this a ''cozy catastrophe '',but there was only one scene of living it up,which the protagonists looked upon as a farewell to the old life. I think he was a bit harsh
I have also read a few early 50s novels,Like Edmond Hamilton's City at World's End,a light and easy read. Hamilton is Leigh Brackett's husband,and like her work here there was empathy for the characters,who were not quite as cardboard as in the usual fifties SF. I thought the science about reheating a dying earth with its dark red sun was a bit dodgy and simplistic,but that's typical of such works,didnt bother me.
A Van Vogt's Weapon Shops of Isher was a bit of an oddity,I find his style offbeat and often confusing,but it was still rather good fun with some of his trademark time travel to crack one's brain over
I also read Kate Milford's Greenglass Summer,a junior work nominated for the Mythopoeic award. I was puzzled about why it was supposed to be fantasy,till two thirds of the way through it turned out one of the characters was a ghost!. An OK read,but a bit diffuse,even a little confusing at times.
I hope to get round to some reviews for my reads this month,but real life problems have kept me away from WWEnd lately,it may be a while before I get round to something less sketchy.
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