Whats everyone reading?

[Chris Fain]

I'm in the process of reading some recollected issues of Creepy Magazine. Creepy Magazine, for those who might not know, was a very popular horror mag begun in the 1960's running until sometime in the 1980's. It's popularity notwithstanding, it was very well done and featured many stories by the great Archie Goodwin among others. Featuring artwork from Reed Crandall, Joe Orlando, and Alex Toth and many others, and beautiful covers from Frank Frazetta made it wonderful. I would recommend it to just about anyone interested in reading classic works with a very modern feel.

[Keef Monkey]

On such a Blade Runner kick at the moment that I dug out the sequel novels (well I found the first one, but I know the others are in one of these boxes somewhere) so am giving them another read. Seem to remember really enjoying them, if getting a bit bored with the constant 'is he/isn't he' games it plays with Deckard. Will see how I get on this time. Oddly I've never read Philip K. Dick's original, I should probably do that.

[mogzilla]

autumn : the city much of a muchness but enjoyable

[HOO-HAA]

On such a Blade Runner kick at the moment that I dug out the sequel novels (well I found the first one, but I know the others are in one of these boxes somewhere) so am giving them another read. Seem to remember really enjoying them, if getting a bit bored with the constant 'is he/isn't he' games it plays with Deckard. Will see how I get on this time. Oddly I've never read Philip K. Dick's original, I should probably do that.

Ohh, I was really keen on finding those at one stage, then forgot about them. Any good? Who writes them?

autumn : the city much of a muchness but enjoyable

The original Autumn is my favourite survival horror of all time. Enjoy, dude!

(Pssst was that latest Amazon review of DDG your work, Mog? Mucho appreciated, if so)

[Paul faplad Finch]

I seem to remember reading at least the first, possibly the second, Blade Runner sequel when I was quite young. K W Jeter was the aauthor I think.

Can't really remember much about them, good or bad, except that (and I may be completely imagining this), [spoiler]one of the replicants from the movie (I wanna say Hauers character but not sure) is somehow alive as some kind of sentient briefcase?[/spoiler] Have I gone mad? As I say, it was a long time ago.

[HOO-HAA]

Ah, Jeter. A bit of a cyberpunk master, I think. Wrote Noir, didn't he?

[TordelBack]

Finished Flashman's Lady, started Flashman and the Mountain of Light.

The former was brilliant fun, and (as usual) worryingly educational - I had somehow never heard of James Brooke, the pirate-hunting 'White Raja', despite his apparently being the model for Lord Jim, one of my favourite books.  The stuff about Madagascar is batshit insane, but apparently true in broad outline (an estimated 50% of the population died from forced labour, war or were executed in a period of just 5 years under the rule of Queen Ranavalona) and a fine companion to the recent Attenborough series.  

The latter is my favourite of the Flashman books that I've previously read, and I'm delighted to see how well this novel (No. 9) gels with the 'earlier' two (No. 1 and No. 6).  He was a clever man, that GMcDF.

Also started James Gleick's The Information.  I've never much liked Gleick's style, but this looked very interesting.  Too early to say, really.

[Keef Monkey]

Yeah it was Jeter, loved them years back and so far the first one if holding up really well. It sometimes seems a bit much how much he tries to tie everything from the movie into them (pretty much the whole plot of the first one relies on the whole '6 escaped/1 was killed/4 are on the loose' miscount which Scott has since edited out of the film) but he captures the feel of it really well and as far as tie-ins go they're great. Hadn't realized Jeter had a reputation outside of these, might give more of his stuff a go. Wikipedia says he was the first person to use the phrase 'steampunk' which is some claim to fame.

As for the briefcase, that's an impressive leap of imagination! [spoiler]Hauer appears (or rather another Roy Batty Nexus 6 does) with a briefcase at one point which acts as a portable life support system so he can kidnap a terminal patient from a hospital. [/spoiler] The sentient briefcase thing sounds infinitely cooler though.

[klute]

Well im almost finished the epic dune and love it as much as i did 20 years ago so ive decided to dig out dune messiah,children of dune,god emperor of dune again its been 20 year since i last read them.

No point looking at them sitting on the book shelf,plus i also have the complete ro-busters and robo-hunter droid files v1 to find time to read

[House of Usher]

Lady Windermere's Fan (Oscar Wilde) and A Handful of Dust (Evelyn Waugh)

[TordelBack]

Lady Windermere's Fan (Oscar Wilde) and A Handful of Dust (Evelyn Waugh)

Love both of those.  I could read Wilde and Waugh until [insert prosaic but distant event].

[Albion]

Well im almost finished the epic dune and love it as much as i did 20 years ago

I read them all again a few years ago and like you, still loved the original as well as the rest. I've never bothered with the others written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson as I've heard bad things about them.

I recently read Turn Coat (Book 11 of The Dresden Files). Very enjoyable with some great characters, lots of action and some elements of previous books were tied up and there were hints at things to come too.

Just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson. I struggled with this a bit at times and found it a chore to get through. Some great ideas but it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would. I had a feeling of deja vu with it too. I know I haven't read it before but there were certain names and phrases I seemed to recognise. Odd.

Next I'll be reading The stars my destination by Alfred Bester because I have heard good things about this book on this very forum.

I'll also be reading the second Northlanders trade and The Taxidermist.

[HOO-HAA]

Just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson. I struggled with this a bit at times and found it a chore to get through. Some great ideas but it just didn't grab me as much as I thought it would.

Yeah, I enjoyed the 'noir' more than the 'tech' in that book. Same with the sequel. Gibson's a great writer with wonderful ideas, but you need to be wide awake reading him...

[Albion]

Gibson's a great writer with wonderful ideas, but you need to be wide awake reading him...

Yeah, totally agree with that Hoo-Haa. It hasn't put me off of reading more by him.

[Jared Katooie]

Recently finished Flashman and the Mountain of Light. It was quite enjoyable, but perhaps not so much as some of the other installments in the series. Some of the historical figures mentioned have such incredible lives they almost make Flashman's fictional exploits seem credible.

Tomorrow I start A clash of Kings, the follow-up to A Game of Thrones which started well but kind of lost me a bit as it went on (oddly enough as the action started to pick up). The ending was ridiculous.

Still, looking forward to see what the next volume has in store.