200 replies to this topic

[Dave Wallace]

I'm halfway through Patrick Meaney's Our Sentence is Up, a close reading of and companion to Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. It's really good and informative although I'm disagreeing with quite a few of Meaney's assessments. Which just goes to prove that The Invisibles is whatever you want it to be – complex or pretentious, glam pulp or dense occult epic, pop comics or self-indulgent attempt at apotheosis and reality hacking. Plus, it's interesting to reread the series and contrast and compare your interpretations with Meaney's views. A very nice complement to Patrick Neighly and Kereth Cowe-Spigai's essential The Invisibles guide Anarchy For The Masses.

Thanks, you've reminded me that I've still not got around to reading either of these. Maybe something to get hold of to accompany the big Invisibles Omnibus when it comes out later this year.

I'd love to see someone tackle Promethea in a similar way.

Definitely. There's a lot to pick apart there.

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Definitely. There's a lot to pick apart there.

Get to work, man!

[Will Carper]

I've got a huge stack of books next to my bed to get through this summer. So far, I'm in good form.

I reread 'Salem's Lot first, as it's both lengthy and innately readable. I hadn't read it since I was 13 or 14, so much of it was fresh. Not much can compare to the first 200-250 pages, where the vampires are barely even hinted at. Just quirky small town excess. (It gave me an urge to rematch Blue Velvet, which I like more and more with very viewing.)

Next I burned through two short novels, Paul Auster's Travels in the Scriptorium and Denis Johnson's Nobody Move. The former was an interesting little exercise of Auster's, full of character, pathos, and one really cool story-within-a-story. Nobody Move was a pretty standard crime novel, but a stylistic success. I'll have to read more of Johnson's work. Didn't care for the exotification of the female character, a Native American--I got that Johnson was revealing the shallowness of the male characters who viewed her, but I think it could have done with more awareness on his part, and more of a rejection of that shallowness on the character's.

Next up are short story collections by Nam Le (The Boat), Scott Snyder (Voodoo Heart), Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned), Sherman Alexie (Lone Ranger and Tonto...), and T.C. Boyle (Greasy Lake).

[Ben the Obiwomble]

Reading The Gamble by Thomas Ricks - a history of what Petreaus did to stabilise Iraq, quite interesting so far and oddly applicable to my work in some ways!

[Ulf Imwiehe]

I'm reading The Key – A True Encounter by Whitley Strieber wherein he claims to have been contacted by some wise stranger who taught him everything about personal development, the fate of the planet and man's role in the cosmic drama. It's everything one expects from a Strieber book. Did you know that the person who was meant to play a key role in developing anti-grav technology remained unborn because his parents were killed in the holocaust, which is why man hasn't made the leap to the stars yet? And it only gets better. Yeah, I know, stimulating my mind indeed...

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Yeah, so Whitley Strieber's The Key left me pretty damn angry, mainly because of what I think is a despicably ghoulish instrumentalization of the Holocaust, which just smacks of attention-whoring of the lowest kind to me. That aside, Strieber (or his alleged visitor, rather) does put forth some interesting ideas but overall, this book is little more than a collection of the usual New Age platitudes and esoteric hogwash.

Next up something with (hopefully) a bit more substance to it: Terence McKenna, The Invisible Landscape.

[Rory Abel]

Just finished my review copy of Now A Terrifying Motion Picture. It's interesting but ultimately feels a bit pointless. It just a list of horror literature and their adaptions, with some descriptions of the plot thrown it. I was hoping for a much deeper analysis of the differences between the two because their medium and intentions but no luck.

Up next is rereading the Joe Pitt case books.

[Dave Wallace]

I just read Stewart Lee's How I escaped my certain fate, which was lots of fun. A few chapters of autobiography mixed in with three full-length transcriptions of three of his stand-up sets (Stand-up Comedian, 90s Comedian and 41st-best Stand-up), all of which are heavily annotated. There's tons of insight into what went into writing his material, why certain parts are written/structured in the way that they are, and loads of British comedy trivia that's of great interest to a fan like me. There are also some fun oddities (newspaper articles, poetry, extra transcripts, diary entries) at the back of the book as appendices too.

Oh, and I also read Never let me go, which was an interesting enough read, but pretty glum and depressing (although somehow life-affirming) by the end. I'm keen to check out the movie to see what they did with it - so much of the book is internalised, and the structure flits around so much, that I'm interested in seeing how they handled it.

[Miqque Loveland]

Haven't started it yet, but my buddy Ken found in a throwaway (he tends to scavenge,and is damned good at it) a copy of Robert R. McCammon's The Wolf's Hour. Blurb says it's about a rogue secretagent fighting the Nazis - Rommel for one - and here's the kicker: he's a werewolf. McCammon is one of those hard-to-find authors, but I've liked everything I'veread of his. They Thirst I especially like.

Otherwise I've been filling in holes in series. Like Card's Speakerforthe Dead to follow Ender'sGame and so forth.

[Rory Abel]

Haven't started it yet, but my buddy Ken found in a throwaway (he tends to scavenge,and is damned good at it) a copy of Robert R. McCammon's The Wolf's Hour. Blurb says it's about a rogue secretagent fighting the Nazis - Rommel for one - and here's the kicker: he's a werewolf. McCammon is one of those hard-to-find authors, but I've liked everything I'veread of his. They Thirst I especially like.

Otherwise I've been filling in holes in series. Like Card's Speakerforthe Dead to follow Ender'sGame and so forth.

Yeah McCammon writes really fun, pulpy stuff. I liked They Thirst and Stinger. He did Swan Song too, didn't he? That was a fun low rent version of The Stand.

[Patrick A]

, Wells Tower (Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned),

I enjoyed this.

[Ulf Imwiehe]

Yeah McCammon writes really fun, pulpy stuff. I liked They Thirst and Stinger. He did Swan Song too, didn't he? That was a fun low rent version of The Stand.

I agree, Robert R. McCammon is an underappreciated pulp writer. His prose reminds me of a more elegant James Herbert with a dash of David Morrell grit thrown in. While I found Swan Song a bit kitschy towards the end I really enjoyed all of his books I've read so far.

[Will Carper]

Two short story collections:

The Boat, Nam Le - Really excellent stories, showcasing an impressive handle on voice and character. In one story ("Meeting Elise"), a famous painter with hemorrhoids worries about reuniting with his daughter, all the while despising young people--their looks and bodies. Another ("Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice")--the strongest--is about a writer, who may or may not be Nam, writing the story of his father, a survivor of the My Lai massacre, and then showing it to him. He can get a bit carried away into soap opera, like with a story about a teenage hit man ("Cartagena") and another on an Australian high schooler ("Halflead Bay"). But the language and characterization still pull you in, at least that's what I found. One of the quotes on the back cover said this will book will be read as long as people read books. I can't make a claim like that, but I think Nam's creativity and mastery of language and form are both really inspiring, and I'll certainly be going back to it.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower - These stories reminded me a lot of T.C. Boyle's, at least his After the Plague collection. Most deal with insecure, ineffectual men lashing out in rage. Kind of familiar ground for the short story, but the stories are always funny and written in a taut but graceful style. The standout is the title story, about a band of Vikings who raid an island village even though their hearts aren't in it. The ending of that one in particular is killer.

[stephanie familiar]

has anyone read sophie's choice, and if so, was it well written and interesting?

[Craig MacD]

Bought the Hunger Games novel today. About 3 chapters in. Not really digging the first person narrative so far. Seems forced.

[Ricardo_C]

Bought the Hunger Games novel today. About 3 chapters in. Not really digging the first person narrative so far. Seems forced.

I gave up after the first chapter. First-person narration can be a great device in the right hands, but the lazy "these are my thoughts as I tell them to myself" style popularized by Twilight is really annoying. My sister in law tells me I'll be happy if I stick with it, but she's a big Twilight fan, so her recommendation is automatically suspect :p

[Miqque Loveland]

Glad I'm not the only McCammon fan out here. About 2/3 of the way through Wolf's Hour, and it's a pretty good take on werewolfery. Makes the protagonist as realistic as possible (being as he's a werewolf, that is).

Stephanie - I'd give you an opinion on Sophie's Choice, but I chucked it after fifty or so pages, not caring what her choice turned out to be. Not enough testosterone or car chases or whatnot, I guess.

Rare is the book writtenin first person carried off well. Heinlein could do it with aplomb (Friday and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - one of my all-time favorites - particularly). Most come across a diary.

[Christian U]

Rare is the book writtenin first person carried off well. Heinlein could do it with aplomb (Friday and The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress - one of my all-time favorites - particularly). Most come across a diary.

Nah, there's a lot of brilliant first-person narratives out there. Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) is one, Talking It Over (Julian Barnes) is another, The Tin Drum (Günter Grass) is another, The Wasp Factory (Ian Banks) another, Spares (Michael Marshall Smith) another one, not to mention classics like Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy or Robinson Crusoe and the like... I could go on with this list for a very long time. Quite often, first-person narrations are brilliant because they toy with having an unreliable narrator who is, basically, shitting the reader. Which is probably why you don't get as many good first-person narrations in genre fiction - it's often structured more simply. But they also allow the narrator to have a more distinctive voice than a third-person narrator (that's what Michael Marshall Smith does, for example).

[Rory Abel]

Nah, there's a lot of brilliant first-person narratives out there. Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro) is one, Talking It Over (Julian Barnes) is another, The Tin Drum (Günter Grass) is another, The Wasp Factory (Ian Banks) another, Spares (Michael Marshall Smith) another one, not to mention classics like Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy or Robinson Crusoe and the like... I could go on with this list for a very long time. Quite often, first-person narrations are brilliant because they toy with having an unreliable narrator who is, basically, shitting the reader. Which is probably why you don't get as many good first-person narrations in genre fiction - it's often structured more simply. But they also allow the narrator to have a more distinctive voice than a third-person narrator (that's what Michael Marshall Smith does, for example).

Most noir is told in first person and works because of that. Charlie Huston writes extensively in first person and I don't think most of his novels would work otherwise. You really need first person narration when the character is recalcitrant to speak externally.

Edited by Rory Abel, 24 June 2012 - 01:50 PM.

[Christian U]

Most noir is told in first person and works because of that.

Yeah, exactly. Noir detectives' voices are a big part of constructing noir worlds.