Main Menu

Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Professor Bear

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K "Big Energy" Dick, which I found more interesting than enjoyable, chock full of now-familiar tropes as it is - particularly that strain of performative psychedelia that is inexplicably popular with sci-fi buffs, though as I will mention in a moment, I don't think it was entirely performative on Dick's part.  Dick also does that thing where he describes female characters in booby detail and which is harder and harder to unsee as time progresses and which would make many a classic troublesome if not for the fact that writers are still doing it.
I am not particularly well-versed in PKD's writing, but I do enjoy hearing interviews from his contemporaries like Harlan Ellison and when the Dickster comes up in conversation they are quite frank about how variable Dick's output could be thanks to the amphetamine use which made him so prolific but which also meant he was probably freewheeling what he wrote now and then, so while what little I've read is always coloured by trying to glean if parts were written while he was completely off his tits, it's hard not to see the central plot about drug use as being something Dick consciously constructed, even the way it makes people experience The Matrix and alternate points in the past and future which in turn feed back into decisions taken in the present.  The theme of questioning one's reality, while not something Dick invented, looms large in the prose and plot, and I gather Dick came back to this well a lot and wonder if it was prompted by his need to know if he was the only one seeing the eyes on spider's legs crawling up the walls at 3am when he was trying to finish his third novel of that year.
Anyway, like I say: interesting more than enjoyable.  I liked the ambiguous ending but feel that the Total Recall movie did it more succinctly, and with triple-boobed ladies.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 11 March, 2012, 08:05:54 PM
Just finished reading Walt Simonson's 2000 Orion series based on Jack Kirby's New Gods. I'm a big Kirby fan (well his 70s stuff in particular) and so was really chuffed with quite how tasty this stuff was. It seems to perfectly capture the feel and tone of The King's masterpiece, without being slavish in terms of style. Big world's mixed in equal measure with big ideas, a pleasant dosh of melodrama, so as not to over power, all baked in some glorious art. Now that's makin' some damned fine comics and I'd heartily recommend it to all fans of the originals.

I said this about Walt Simonson's Orion about 7 years ago when I first read it. I've just re-read it 7 years later. I was right 7 years ago.

I'll only add Walt Simonson is one of the mediums greats and we should all salute him.

monsterx

House of x power of x Doctor Who land of the blind 2000ad & the Meg

The Adventurer

In the last 2 days I have read...

USAGI YOJIMBO (2019) 1-5
BLACK HAMMER / JUSTICE LEAGUE 04
NO ONE LEFT TO FIGHT 05
BATTLEPUG 01-02
ISOLA 06-08
MAGE: HERO DENIED 03

I've been in a bit of a catch-up mode.

I've still got...

PAPER GIRLS 27-30
MURDER FALCON 07-08
EAST OF WEST 43
MONSTRESS 16-24
MAGE: HERO DENIED 04-07

...to finish up.

THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK

Colin YNWA

I'm a little surprised I couldn't see more talk of Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games series of books in these parts. I could of course have missed it. The reason I'm surprised is they are soooo good.

I've just finished reading the Mockingjay - the final in the series - to the girl child (10) and we were both (almost) in buckets by the end. These are pretty brutally honest books. They are hard and simply don't hold back.

Collins uses a great narrative vehicle by telling the tale solely from Katniss Everdeen's first person perspective. This gives you both an utterly coherent reliable view of the world. Yet also the weakness and unreliabilty of anyone person's view. This works so well as Katniss is an entirely fantastic character. Utterly heroic, yet entirely unaware of that. She's shallowed by the price of her actions, strenght and humanity, slowly hardened by the events she is thrown into.

She (Katniss) fails so completely by the end of the series to fulfil her solo aim, the spark that drives everything that unfolds. Lesser stories would use this as a bitter sweet reflection at an trimpuhant victorious ending. Not Collins, here we just get the bitter. Its a hard world and a tough reflection in the human condition. To be honest we knew this would be the case as the novels never let you expect anything but the most thoughtful, gritty ending it delivers so well. That's not to say there's not hope throughout the piece. There is hope throughout. All be it masked by the world Collin's throws you mercilessly into.

Katniss isn't alone of course. One of the great characters in modern fiction is made all the more so by being surrounded similarly well drawn characters. Who regardless of the apparent size of their role are so well crafted that what happens to them matters entirely. The series also has one of the great villians in President Snow... but then by the end others are revealed and its not afraid to show the villian in us all and Katniss as well.

Its all written so well also. Unlike say the Potter series this one shines. Its older target audience no doubt helps but really there's a touch of genius about the simple way she writes.

I started to read these to my daughter with little expectation - I'd enjoyed the films I'd seen (first two) but expected the books to be pretty simple and derivative. They are anything but. They written with the meladrama of their audience in middle, but though I started them for my daughter by the end today I was hurrying to read them to her as I was more than desperate to find out what happened.

broodblik

I also enjoyed the Hunger Game series and enjoyed both the books and the movies. I felt the first book and movie was quite close to each other.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Rately

The Hunger Games Trilogy were some of the first books I purchased on my shiny new Kindle many moons ago.

Fantastic books, that don't shy from the harshness of life, and are all the better for it.

That final book is just one kick in the gut after another, and the ending is Carpenter-ish.

Apestrife

I just finished Haruki Murakami's Killing commendatore and I can't say I liked it that much... The story seemed interesting at first with bells rining in the night and a miniature man from a painting making a visit. Reminding me of Wind up bird chronicle and 1q84. But the story goes nowhere and quickly becomes very thin on mystery. It also lacks the magic and flow of Wind up and 1q84. It'd probably worked much better as a short story or shorter novel (like After dark) rather than a 700+ pages long book.

Colin YNWA

Thought there was a thread about Dabnett and INJ Culbard's Wild's End - First Light but couldn't find it if so. Either way if  you've not read this you really should. Its a lazy elevator pitch to say this is War of the World's meet Wind in the Willows... but its War of the World's meets Wind in the Willows.

Its quite magnificence the use of anthropomorphic characters adds to the wimpsy that places it in a simpler time and place and by doing so heightens the stark drama as our heroic - and oh the lead characters are so gloriously heroic without being cardboard cut outs - protagonists struggle against an alien horror.

Jez Dabnett and a host of artists including INJ have been doing such fantastic comics in the Prog of late. Thi sis so good it stands side by side with them. I have the sequal digitally expect me back tomorrow evening to rave some more. My latest comics haul can wait!

Timothy

You say you have the sequel, and I expect you to be gushing about it tomorrow, but did you know that there is a third part too? Do yourself a favour and add that to the reading pile.

Proudhuff

There are some nice hardback editions of these, its all great stuff.
DDT did a job on me

sheridan

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison (because that's where my prog slog is at right now), and I'll go on to The Mighty One by the time hometime comes today.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Timothy on 11 December, 2019, 10:38:21 PM
You say you have the sequel, and I expect you to be gushing about it tomorrow, but did you know that there is a third part too? Do yourself a favour and add that to the reading pile.

I did not know this I will defo investigate.

Quote from: Proudhuff on 12 December, 2019, 10:18:35 AM
There are some nice hardback editions of these, its all great stuff.

I did not know this I will defo investigate.

Colin YNWA

Can defo see the third series but for the life of me can't find hardbacks???

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Timothy on 11 December, 2019, 10:38:21 PM
You say you have the sequel, and I expect you to be gushing about it tomorrow, but did you know that there is a third part too? Do yourself a favour and add that to the reading pile.

Well you weren't wrong Timothy. I've just had a mighty gush having just read Enemy Within. Just brilliant, simply brilliant... when its not throwing heart crushing events at you that is. Man will be getting hold of series three very soon, just as soon as I sort this hardcover (or not issue).

One of Dabnett's very best and INJ is on top form. Wild's End is something I can recommend to absolutely anyone of this forum who hasn't read it yet.