Whats everyone reading?

[Link Prime]

American Gods is great, my favourite Gaiman novel. He's planning a sequel to it and there is a TV series in development too.

Love American Gods too. I told Gaiman at a signing that I was once stuck in Manchester airport for a whole day, and devoured the entire book. It quite literally kept me from going insane.
His quite cool reply; "Of course, that's the reason I wrote it".

Hadn't heard about the sequel, nice.

[Roger Godpleton]

Speaking of sequels, Fun Home 2: The Truckening is out this week!

[Radbacker]

well i've run out of Fantasy at the moment so i thought i'd give some Sci-Fi a try.  2/3rds of the way through Iain M Banks Exession and must say i am really enjoying it, was a bit wary to begin with as no human characters turn up for quite a while and i've never read a Hard Sci-Fi novel before but after a few chapters it really grabbed me.  Supprised at how humurous it is, the Minds and drones etc have a very dry witt and the first message board type communication was very funny.  Not too sure on the where i sit on the whole Culture themselves am i right in thinking its run by their Minds and the HUmans/other species dont really have much say in things? 
Noticed there's quite a few books set in the Culture universe is there any order they should be read in? also any stand outs i should go for next?
Also stocked up on my GN's while i was in Perth, filled in a few gaps so i can finish  Ex MAchina and also started a couple of newer series, Chew Book 1 & 2, All Hail Megatron book 1 to 4 (best TF comic i've read in  awhile) spome more Fables and Book 2 in my Hardback Alan Moore SwampThing GN's.

CU Radbacker

[von Boom]

I love Banks. There is no real continuity in the Culture novels and CAN be read in any order, but I usually opt for reading in the order of publication. In that case you'd want to backtrack to Consider Phlebas.

[Radbacker]

I was looking for that one but the earliest i could get from the book shop was Excession, will trek to the Library for further novels as $25A for a paperback was a bit steep but i really needed something to read on the train.  Would go the digital option but i just cant read off a screen no matter how book like it is.

CU Radbacker

[Mikey]

2/3rds of the way through Iain M Banks Exession and must say i am really enjoying it ...  Supprised at how humurous it is, the Minds and drones etc have a very dry witt and the first message board type communication was very funny.  Not too sure on the where i sit on the whole Culture themselves am i right in thinking its run by their Minds and the HUmans/other species dont really have much say in things? 

The Minds, Drones etc are regularly some of the best characters IMO and Excession gives them plenty of room to shine. Saying that, it's not one of my favourite overall - that's currently Surface Detail, the last one I read and latest Culture book (next one along later this year).

I agree with von Boom about checking out Consider Phlebas - I think it sets the whole thing up well and is a great book, though if you're enjoying Excession you're already there. I'd say the Culture is 'run' by the humans, but all the nitty gritty details are dealt with by the Minds.

...

Still on REAMDE. Flagging a bit.

M.

[shaolin_monkey]

Re Banks, agree totally about Consider Phlebas, but my fave Culture novels are easily Use of Weapons and Player of Games. The latter really summed up gaming in general, and the ending was just impossibly brilliant!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Frankie Boyle's book, which I found in a hostel.  Rating: A bit shit so far, not sure I'll make it through.  At least he reads comics

[TordelBack]

Duma Key, by Stephen King.  What is it about me and King's books?  Every couple of years I seem to forget how much I enjoy his stuff, and shuttle him off to a portion of my mental filing system labeled 'Overlong Formulaic Shlock' and avoid him completely.  Then I get stuck for something to read, pick up an unread one (they're so freely available!) and am instantly ensnared and reminded of just how good he is.  The last one I read prior to this was Lisey's Story, which I loved, so I've no idea why it's been three or more years before I came back to him again.  I blame Needful Things, which was the last book I read in my orginal-original King-phase, and which I didn't particuarly enjoy, and The Dark Tower, which I've never read due to over-enthusiatic supporters insisting that I'd love it.  Other than that, I've loved 'em all.

Anyway, not too far in and Duma Key is a fine gripping example, complete with creative type recovering from life-changing accident in an isolated house, and I swear I won't forget this time.

[HOO-HAA]

Anyway, not too far in and Duma Key is a fine gripping example, complete with creative type recovering from life-changing accident in an isolated house, and I swear I won't forget this time.

For me, this one was a cracker up until the end: loved the characters and setting and main thrust of the story;  but then it tool a bizarre twist and I ended up feeling somewhat underwhelmed by the book's closing chapters.

My problem with King is not with him: it's with the cowardice of his editing team. I love the likes of CARRIE and CUJO, his shorter and more pulpy reads, but later efforts seem to meander far too much in the middle, using waaaay too many words, and I ultimately either set the book down unfinished or fast-forward to the end.     

[House of Usher]

I have to read one more book for work-related reasons this year (and hopefully none at all next year):
Touching the Void by Joe Simpson.

Mountain climber breaks his leg and gets dropped off a mountain in Peru. Has to crawl back to camp on his own without provisions.

[Colin YNWA]

Just finished reading 'Pogo - the complete syndicated comic strips: Volume 1' and its everything you think it should be... well almost. Its so close to being what I'd hoped but not, quite, not yet.

First things first its bloody gorgeous. Walt Kelly is one of the great cartoonists and no mistake. Second things second its seminal. There are so many bits, be it the strips over all style, to individual panels that are clearly an influence on so much other material that I love. There's even a couple of characters that I'm convinced (though very possibly completely wrongly) that influenced Sir Digby Chicken Caesar and Ginger from Mitchell and Webb. So much seems to stem from this, stuff I love.

Its also laugh out load funny at times and though it dances with being twee and cute, it always just about managers to avoid tipping over the edge (well the odd Sunday strip aside). The thing is my concern when approaching this was that I wouldn't have the necessary references to get the political stuff the strip is famous for. In these first couple of years though there's not a great deal of it here. When it is the strip is actually at its strongest and while there are notes on the history and figures that are being parodied, I choose only to read them until afterwards, hoping that a good strip would carry by itself, without having to constantly look back at these for detail. They do, the figures are easily identified on general terms and hilarious. Superb satire.

The thing is will this still carry when the politics gets more and more important to the series? I'll have to wait for the next volume to see. I'll certainly be getting it as this is fantastic stuff, really fantastic. I just hope it can get even better!

If you like your comics history this is a must.

[Colin YNWA]

Well my dabblin' with da classics has seen me read Titan's first volume of the complete Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Sundays and a few really annoying printing errors (a couple of strips repeated, one completely out of sequence and as a consequence a couple missing) its bloody brilliant. Its fast moving beyond belief, but the imagination and wonder that goes into the stories is simply incredible and so very beautifully realised. Its astonishingly well crafted and great fun to read as the story moves at breakneck speed. Its very of its time but so utterly entertaining.

Another one that deserves its classic status.

[SmallBlueThing]

Cheers for that, Colin. I've been meaning to read Pogo for donkeys' years- probably since... well, you can probably guess when someone of my age first discovered Pogo and Walt Kelly can't you- yeah, in the pages of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and 'Pog'. Obviously.

Talking of Alan Moore- I read 'Neonomicon' last night. Blimey.

Over the last few months I've been going through, and amassing along the way, a large collection of horror comics- starting with Swamp Thing, of which I'm slowly completing the set- and moving through Twisted Tales (and all the associated Bruce Jones gubbins- Alien Worlds, Corben/ Bolton specials, Tales of Terror, etc) and finally onto Tales From The Crypt/ Shocking SuspenStories/ Vault of Horror, through reprint collections in that case, as I'm not a snecking millionaire. Along the way, my three-weekly treat of The Walking Dead has turned up, proving that horror comics have never been in better shape. Oh yes, we may have had that Crypt one about the baseball field back in the fifties, then Moore's run on Swamp Thing, 'Banjo Lessons' in Twisted Tales #5- which is surely one of the best and most gut-wrenching horror stories ever told in comics... but have you read Walking Dead #98? Holy funt.

Anyway- Alan Moore and Neonomicon, which as I say, I read last night. I'm not one to venerate the beardie one beyond a few 'core' texts. V For Vendetta, Halo, his early Swamp Things and From Hell aside, there are numerous writers I prefer. But, christ. Neonomicon. I can't remember the last time I read a comic, then fell asleep and had vivid dreams about the characters and powerful nightmares about the situations and that comic's world. Last night I was swimming underwater in the ocean, and looking down, I could see the Great Old Ones and their kin swarming below me. There were... things, in the water with me. even when the dream changed, and I was back on dry land, they were there. Just at the edge of my vision. people looked... fishy. And they spoke... oddly. Their language was as nonsense. But I understood it- which terrified me.

So- Neonomicon. An FBI investigation deep in Lovecraft country, down by the shores of Innsmouth, via the twisted fantasies of a bestiality-obsessed sadist and serial killer. Starring a recovering nymphomaniac female agent and her partner and, earlier, an agent gone too deep undercov'wgah.

To say I ph'nglui this would be an understatement. It crept nafh my skin and is still with h'gluih this morning. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh. Just go and buy ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. Fhtagn. R'lyeh.

S'BT

[shaolin_monkey]

Talking of Alan Moore- I read 'Neonomicon' last night. Blimey.


Anyway- Alan Moore and Neonomicon, which as I say, I read last night. I'm not one to venerate the beardie one beyond a few 'core' texts. V For Vendetta, Halo, his early Swamp Things and From Hell aside, there are numerous writers I prefer. But, christ. Neonomicon. I can't remember the last time I read a comic, then fell asleep and had vivid dreams about the characters and powerful nightmares about the situations and that comic's world. Last night I was swimming underwater in the ocean, and looking down, I could see the Great Old Ones and their kin swarming below me. There were... things, in the water with me. even when the dream changed, and I was back on dry land, they were there. Just at the edge of my vision. people looked... fishy. And they spoke... oddly. Their language was as nonsense. But I understood it- which terrified me.

Wow, you've sold me!  I've just bought a shitload of Dredd case files, but I guess I'd better add this to my Amazon basket too!