Whats everyone reading?

[Paul faplad Finch]

Dropped what I was on with (A Thousand Sons) when my first shopping trip in ages furnished me with The Hell Of It All.

Of course, 24 hours later and I'm well past the half way mark. Can't seem to ever ration this stuff. "Just one more column" into the wee small hours.

[klute]

Reading the kick ass graphic novel for teh first time....loving the extreme violence.

[Kerrin]

'Master and Commander' by Patrick O'Brian (after Tordelback's resounding recommendation).

At first I found myself somewhat dumbfounded by the sheer density of nautical and seafaring terms that the reader is expected to absorb, bewildering to say the least. However, we have the similarly nonplussed physician, Stephen Maturin, as a landlubberly companion who has many of these intricacies explained to him (and us) by various understanding Midshipmen and the such. Once you've got your mizzen topgallant sorted from your spanker the story fair flies along. The historical detail is fascinating, characters wonderfully wrought and action rousing. The language is at times hilarious in it's arcane accuracy, who knew you could secure a cannon with a cunt-splice? The way that nautical warfare was fought at the time is a real eye opener. Fierce engagements followed by the most gentlemanly of conduct once surrender has been proffered.

I've got about ten pages to go and inadvertently stayed up till 3am reading last night, bloody brilliant. Next one is ordered already.

[House of Usher]

Slow reader that I am, I've just started Strontium Dog Agency Files vol.4. In volume three I found The Ragnarok Job less satisfying as a sustained narrative than I did when it was serialized in weekly parts. The sequel, Rage, took a long time to get going, and it didn't get interesting until Johnny caught up with the first of Wulf's killers.

Volume 4 gets off to a slow start with the debut of Durham Red. The plot makes good use of Ronald Reagan and the humour hits the target most of the time, but Durham Red's role seems to be mostly to give Johnny Alpha something else to worry about in relation to the safety of his captive. I enjoyed The Royal Affair. The Rammy looks like it'll be good entertainment, even though it recycles a familiar plot. Already Wulf seems a distant memory and it's business as usual for Johnny.

[Mangamax]

Getting through "Seeing Things", Oliver Postgate's autobiography. It's good stuff and the kind, eccentric, witty, imaginitive person he was really comes across.
Just got to where he's told Ivor The Engine was a sucess and could they have more? and he hasn't a clue what to do as he'd figured the story was told as far as he was concerned.

[SmallBlueThing]

Joe Haldeman's 'the forever war'; a science fictional vietnam allegory, that is fabulously written but best digested in small bits i've found. Ive also discovered it's the first of a trilogy, which upsets me somewhat, as i was hoping to move onto some asimov afterwards.

Comicswise, i guess im reading Hellboy. Or at least, i bought Witchfinder yesterday and today found myself hunting around for my near-20-year-old early Hellboy trades, with a view to rereading, and have thoughts of buying BPRD, lobster johnson, etc. I've always *liked* the series, but only reading witchfinder did it really 'click' for me as a 'world'.

Oh, and lots of old dr who monthlies that accidentally fell on me while i was sorting out some other comics.

SBT

[Colin YNWA]

Currently working through the second half of my Grimjack trades. Some mighty fine reading in there but of more note in a special story reprinted from issue 24 Grimjack hallucinates and amongst the people who join him in Mundane's Bar are his three 'brothers' as he calls them. They are, cast in shadows, Nick Fury some fella I don't recognize and 'Joe' who... you guessed it is our very own Joe Dredd. Nice bit of trivial there... well for me at least.

[HOO-HAA]

Reading APOCALYPSE OF THE DEAD by Joe McKinney, with a side-order of THE KILL CREW by Joseph D'Lacey. Good, honest-to-hell apoc-horror!

[Kerrin]

Finished "Master and Commander", brilliant. Finished "The Devil in a Forest" by Gene Wolfe, not a bad little story, remarkably linear for Wolfe. Started "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martell. I bought this because I found a lovely hardback illustrated version in 'The Works' for a fiver and thought "looks nice, why not?". What a wonderful, wonderful book. I'm about 14 chapters in (some are very short), and it is magical.

[I, Cosh]

Joe Haldeman's 'the forever war'; a science fictional vietnam allegory, that is fabulously written but best digested in small bits i've found. Ive also discovered it's the first of a trilogy, which upsets me somewhat, as i was hoping to move onto some asimov afterwards.

It's quite interesting to see the way you approach this old sci-fi stuff you're reading at the moment. The Forever War survived perfectly well for thirty years without being part of a trilogy. Right up until Joe decided he needed a new car or whatever, so you shouldn't feel any need to read the sequels until you're really short of something.

I offer this advice because I feel you need to break this habit now, before you start on the Asimov. Under no circumstances should you attempt to read any of the Foundation books beyond the original trilogy.


As it happens, I bought The Blade Itself this afternoon having seen it recommended on here a few times. I was a bit annoyed to discover it was the first volume of a trilogy so I hope I don't like it.

[Colin YNWA]

tarted "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martell. I bought this because I found a lovely hardback illustrated version in 'The Works' for a fiver and thought "looks nice, why not?". What a wonderful, wonderful book. I'm about 14 chapters in (some are very short), and it is magical.

It is indeed. Possibly my favourite book of all time. I keep seeing the illustrated hardback in The Works but pass cos I'd probably always reverted to reading the well thumbed copy we have already as its more convenient. Love this book so much I suspect I'll break one day soon.

[SmallBlueThing]

I find myself having to read series in one go, if the first one impresses me beyond vague feelings of pleasure. My ageing brain is unable to retain details for long, and if i read other stuff between novels i find myself hopelessly lost and spend the first hundred or so pages of book two wondering if this was the one with the martians, or the one with the space zombies- if you see what i mean.

This was a particular pain when reading bova's mars trilogy- while i think a kindly boarder furnished me with the second book, the third took me months to get due to multiple ebay cockups and the wrong ones being sent. As a result, i felt a bit lacking in the minor details that my stupid head had jettisoned.

But yes, you're right. Though i didnt know of the huge gap in the forever trilogy; for probably good reasons this reduces my willingness to read the sequels.

SBT

[Kerrin]

Steve, I read "The Forever War" when I bought a load of these Gollanz classic SF paperback editions (lovely jacket design with the bumbf on the back printed landscape and all the page corners round cut).



Thoroughly enjoyed it, but, I've avoided the sequels after reading a few reviews here and there.

The only one of the books pictured above that I've had any trouble with is James Blish's "Cities in Flight", which I should have another crack at someday. Just didn't do it for me and I only managed to get about halfway through it.

There's a few more in this format which I'm still to pick up.

[TordelBack]

My grud, that's a fabulous picture Kerrin - five of those are high in my personal top 20 SF books.  As to Cities in Flight, it's an odd one, but its definitely worth persevering - it gets more interesting as it goes along and things get wilder and more sociological.  My problem with it was the Depression-era slang, which I found pretty confusing and a bit out of place.  I can only take so many okies and bindles before I get spindizzy.

[Kerrin]

Almost exactly the problem I had with it TB.

Incidentally, the other books in this Gollanz Classic SF 'series' are, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny and "Ubik" by Philip K.Dick.