Ensel und Kretel by Walter Moers...unconventional fun.
Has that been translated yet? I've got Rumo (which I've recommended to all of my friends, most of my enemies and my Mom), and The City of Dreaming Books (which I still have to finish). I still have to get The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books and The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear.
Just finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson. Thought it was gonna end on a cliffhanger, but it got resolved in the end. No need for a 4th ghostwritten book.
Gonna start Daemon by Daniel Suarez.
No, but he was going to write more of the Millenium series, dammit, and I wanted to read them! As it is, I just mentioned James Schmitz's "Goblin Night" in another thread, and now I'm gonna have to read that again. I'm hearing the call of the Hub.
I was web-surfing my usual commie websites and was amused to find that the Australian comrades have put up a "summer reading" article. (Frickin' Southern Hemispherers).
I wouldn't bother linking it except A) it refers to Kim Stanley Robinson as "the centre of leftist science fiction" which definitely gets the Mars trilogy a bump up on the Doodlebug Anklebiter List of Books to Read; and B) a short bit raving about Deutscher's Trotsky trilogy for Comrade Longears:
"Who can go past Isaac Deutscher’s trilogy on Trotsky, The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed and The Prophet Outcast? By an extensive margin the best of the Trotsky biographies, these books can be appreciated on several levels. At once works of literary brilliance and immense scholarship, they are also exemplars of Marxist historiography.
"To read them is like reading some wondrous fusion of Tolstoy and Marx. Fascinating questions about the determinism of history rise in various iterations: had they acted differently, could Trotsky or others have resisted the rise of Stalinism? Once Stalinism had consolidated, could the Trotskyist movement ever have broken out of its isolation, or was it caught is some historic cul-de-sac? Should individuals retreat to their “watchtower” and wait for the next radical wave, or struggle against the tide even in the face of overwhelming odds?
"Inevitably one has disagreements with Deutscher, but each of these questions speaks to our own political situation. It’s unlikely these books will lose relevance in any foreseeable future."
And, oh yeah, I read the first three pages of The Jewels of Aptor, Dicey! That calls, methinks, for a Good Reads link from which I learn that our dear friend, Hama, makes an appearance.
Just got for Christmas: Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years.
I enjoy fictional history. Or is that historical fiction?
Or does it count as historical fiction as it takes place in the future?
Anyway, That's what I'm reading.
Future History?
A series of lucky finds in a 2nd hand bookshop in Manchester means that it's Leigh Brackett o'clock once more (Sword of Rhiannon), followed by a run of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books! He had a whole box of ERB stuff, but I picked out the ones I hadn't read and left all the Tarzan books. Also obtained a book called 'The Sultan's Turret' by Seamus Cullen which follows the adventures of a 13 year old Jewish sorceress in early Medieval Spain. Individual, certainly, and pretty decent so far.
While chaffeuring around a licenseless co-worker to three entirely different RMV buildings today (should've put that one down in that other thread as one of the benefits of union membership) I wolfed down a third of The Jewels of Aptor. Pretty awesome shiznit so far!
For some reason, I was in the mood to read a romance, so I went and hunted out my copy of "In The Quake Zone" by David Gerrold. Then, of course, I had to go fetch a wad of tissues, because that one always makes me cry buckets.
Future History?
A little known but much loved sci-fi writer, H> Beam Piper, from the 40s and 50s coined the term "Terro-Human Future History" to describe his version of history dating from the start of the Atomic Era (Year 0 - or 1942 CE the time the first atomic pile went into operation). The dating system was quite elaborate and well designed and you could always know exactly where, chronologically, a story should be placed by it AE date.
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Speaking of H. Beam Piper, I just re-read Little Fuzzy, which was a lot less fun than I remembered it being as a kid, and something I don't have a word for that lies at the four-way intersection of treacly, 'precious,' preachy and smarmy.
Also re-read Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia McKillip. As good as I remembered, although a bit romantic by modern standards. (Part of a collection of fantasy I got from my mom, who has a fascination for female sci-fi/fantasy authors, and turned me on to Anne McCaffery, Andre Norton, Tanith Lee, Linda Bushyager, Patricia McKillip, etc.) Magic, in the setting of the book, is highly centered around calling people or creatures through learning their true names, and binding them, making the main character something of a Summoner, by nature, although very differently so than the Pathfinder Summoner. (And, since it was written in 1974, quite a bit different than Pokémon, as well...)
@ Set: The Fuzzy books aren't Piper's best works, IMO. I think Uller Uprising is a better "space colonial" type story (even though it's at least as heavily based on the Sepoy Mutiny as Game of Thrones is based on the War of the Roses) and thought the characterization was better (the "cute aliens as human children/adolescent analogs" is a bit heavy-handed). I also generally preferred his Paratime alternate time-line stories (including Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) over the Terro-Human Future History stuff, although even there he could get a bit preachy.
I recently picked up The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy (the first book of the same name, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind) for a re-read myself. Patricia McKillip does a fine job of making the characters admirable, without turning them "too perfect." She also does a good job of making the magic work within the setting.
I also found a copy of Ironbrand, by John Morressy. I'd read his other two books in the Iron Angel trilogy (Graymantle and Kingsbane), plus the prequel (The Time of the Annihilitator), growing up, so it was nice to finally be able to get the entire sequence. Although Ironbrand, as the first written, wasn't as polished as the later books and some of the characterization was pretty flat.
Any of you read anything by Jane Yolen? 'Cause I was sorting through my file cabinets, and I found one of her books, and I said, "I'll just read a couple of pages," and suddenly it was dark outside, I was really hungry, and I had to go to the bathroom really badly. Anyhow, she's a really terrific author.
@ Hitdice: I read Dragon's Blood and Heart's Blood (the first two in what turned out to be a four book series) back in the early '80s; about the same time I was starting on Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels. Definitely well written, but it I was moving away from the "adolescents on the cusp of adulthood needing to prove themselves" (i.e., the Harper Hall trilogy of Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums) and into more "adult" books (i.e., the first three (published) Dragonriders of Pern novels of Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon) with more complex characterization/situations and never completed the series. I also read The Magic Three of Solatia at around the same time (or a little before).
I think Paula Volsky is an author with a similar style. The Luck of Relian Kru, for example, is a lot of fun and a gold mine for RPG character ideas. Some won't enjoy it, however, because the technology level of the book (i.e., the presence of flint-lock guns) "messing up" the "fantasy feel." It works for the novel in that magic is extremely rare with, quite literally, only a handful of practitioners in the entire world; most of the rest of "magic" is more of creation/use of alchemical or other "special" substances.
Dragonchess, I don't know if you've noticed, but I keep blathering on about Samuel R. Delany. Have you read anything by him?
(Yes, Doodlebug, we're all so proud that you've read maybe a third of Jewels of Aptor at this point. Heaven forfend you should bother with any of his later work!)
[Pelts Dicey with snowballs]
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@ Set: The Fuzzy books aren't Piper's best works, IMO. I think Uller Uprising is a better "space colonial" type story (even though it's at least as heavily based on the Sepoy Mutiny as Game of Thrones is based on the War of the Roses) and thought the characterization was better (the "cute aliens as human children/adolescent analogs" is a bit heavy-handed). I also generally preferred his Paratime alternate time-line stories (including Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) over the Terro-Human Future History stuff, although even there he could get a bit preachy.
I'll have to check some of his non-Fuzzy stuff out, just to compare. I know that my own favorite author, Zelazny, has some amazing books like Lord of Light, and then some, IMO, utter drek he wrote to pay the bills (most of the Amber series) that, again, IMO, could give a reader a very wrong idea about what sort of writer he can be.
I recently picked up The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy (the first book of the same name, Heir of Sea and Fire, and Harpist in the Wind) for a re-read myself. Patricia McKillip does a fine job of making the characters admirable, without turning them "too perfect." She also does a good job of making the magic work within the setting.
I used to have those, but I think my mom stole them back... (She's sneaky like that.) I really liked Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and remember not liking Riddlemaster of Hed quite as much. 'Beasts gets a little poetic, at times, but not quite to the level of Tanith Lee or Vernor Vinge.
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Latest read, at the recommendation of some other thread on these forums, House of Suns, by Alastair Reynolds (the only book by him I could find at the whole two used bookstores I checked).
Really cool stuff. *Very* out there and transhuman and futurism-dialed-up-the-exponent-of-11, and I like it!
I was miffed that he used an idea that I'd had of a family of clones that would live different lives and then mass download / upload their memories to result in all of them having the skills and memories and experiences of dozens, or even hundreds, of lifetimes. Mine was for a comic book character, and he took it in a very different direction, but still, I thought of it first! (Or, maybe not, since I have no idea when he thought of it...) :)
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Interesting that he chose Hawkmoon rather than the Oswald Bastable stories, which have a lot more overt/unsubtle political references in them (colonialism in The Warlord of the Air, Stalin in The Steel Tsar (!), black power in the other one whose title I can't recall)...
Well, Oswald Bastable flies over my head, but Comrade Mieville said it was for the revolutionary defeatism/internationalism/however you want to translate fantasy lit into Leninist principles and tactics.
Or, maybe, like me, he hasn't read them.
Excellently titled, but, alas, disappointing book I read once.
only book by him I could find at the whole two used bookstores I checked
May I ask, Friend Set, which used bookstores have you been frequenting?
Well, Oswald Bastable flies over my head, but Comrade Mieville said it was for the revolutionary defeatism/internationalism/however you want to translate fantasy lit into Leninist principles and tactics.
Or, maybe, like me, he hasn't read them.
More Bakuninist/Kropotkinite (??, etc) principles and tactics, but there you go.
Am presently reading The Artamasovs by Gorky, which isn't bad, and is also a nice contrast to King Kull, which was fab.
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only book by him I could find at the whole two used bookstores I checkedMay I ask, Friend Set, which used bookstores have you been frequenting?
The Book Cellar up by the Market Basket at the end of Amherst St and the Anne's Book Stop/Shop in the plaza (Greystone Plaza?) just past it.
I didn't go far, obviously, since both are within a mile or so of my house. :)
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Any of you read anything by Jane Yolen? 'Cause I was sorting through my file cabinets, and I found one of her books, and I said, "I'll just read a couple of pages," and suddenly it was dark outside, I was really hungry, and I had to go to the bathroom really badly. Anyhow, she's a really terrific author.
I read Briar Rose (1992) and some of her short fantasy fiction. She is a good author, although she tends to write a particular kind of female character that sometimes I really dig, and sometimes I do not. I should check out some of her more recent work as it may be different from what I remember.
Edit: I also read Wizard's Hall, which is a kid's story that I really loved.
For reference
Gah! I have those even, but I haven't read them.
Friend Set, can't believe I brainfarted on The Book Cellar. I recently went to the Goodwill in Amherst again (a couple more blocks down 101A, past the Harley-Davidson dealership, if you go by Loew's, you've gone too far). They still had some stuff I wanted (one detailed below), but, alas, I learned that they have a pretty draconian policy on recycling stuff that doesn't sell and all of those beautiful hardcover Cherryh and Norton I passed up are long gone. But I do have The Vanishing Tower in a few different Elric comps, if we ever run into each face to face again.
Anyway, I was over a friend's house most of the weekend, left my Rosdolsky and Delany at home, but read The Book of Job and started a pretty fascinating sci-fi novel by Brian Aldiss entitled The Dark Light Years which is apparently about an advanced, space-faring alien species that can change sex and spend their days wallowing in their own filth.
I like wallowing in filth, so I hope I like this book.
Dragonchess, I don't know if you've noticed, but I keep blathering on about Samuel R. Delany. Have you read anything by him?
Looking up his bibliography, and summaries of some of his novels, I'm pretty sure I haven't.
For some interesting takes on sexuality, the Cluster series by Piers Anthony (involving transferring consciousness across interstellar/intergalactic distances into alien, or human, bodies) might be worth a read. He wrote them, like the first few of the Incarnations of Immortality novels, before he started churning out formulaic Xanth books to make money.
Diane Duane's Door into series (or The Middle Kingdoms/The Tale of the Five) also explores the themes of love and sexuality (of various sorts) between the main characters.
Philip H. Farmer used sexual themes often in his works (yes, I've actually read Venus on the Half-Shell).
Robert Heinlein also touched on sexuality in a lot of his novels (among other things). I think Friday was one of his better late works. I still like Starship Troopers, with it's exploration of war and citizenship, better.
Just finished DAEMON by Daniel Suarez.
Just started Skin Map by Stephen Lawhead.
While poking about on Project Gutenberg I found The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy by the thoroughly pleasant and reasonable Nesta Webster. No link to the book - you can find it fairly easily yourself in the unlikely event that you feel like curling up with a swivel-eyed 1920s anti-Semite.
For some interesting takes on sexuality, the Cluster series by Piers Anthony (involving transferring consciousness across interstellar/intergalactic distances into alien, or human, bodies) might be worth a read. He wrote them, like the first few of the Incarnations of Immortality novels, before he started churning out formulaic Xanth books to make money.
Diane Duane's Door into series (or The Middle Kingdoms/The Tale of the Five) also explores the themes of love and sexuality (of various sorts) between the main characters.
Philip H. Farmer used sexual themes often in his works (yes, I've actually read Venus on the Half-Shell).
Robert Heinlein also touched on sexuality in a lot of his novels (among other things). I think Friday was one of his better late works. I still like Starship Troopers, with it's exploration of war and citizenship, better.
Have you even read Image of the Beast and Blown (it's a two-parter I mentioned over on the Advanced Readings in D&D thread) by Philip Jose Farmer? 'Cause if you stumbled across that when you're twelve years old, out looking for namby-pamby sci-fi erotica, that junk will have a life changing effect. NOT for the timid.
. . .
Look, it isn't always like this. Some times I read books by regular authors like Nick Hornby and Zadie Smith, where the most dramatic revelation in the book happens at a conversation over lunch. Then again, just yesterday Doodlebug and I were goofing around on the Homosexuality in Golarion thread, and we were about half a post away from writing slashfic right there in front of everyone. This isn't how I expected my life to turn out. :(
While poking about on Project Gutenberg I found The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy by the thoroughly pleasant and reasonable Nesta Webster. No link to the book - you can find it fairly easily yourself in the unlikely event that you feel like curling up with a swivel-eyed 1920s anti-Semite.
I've arguably spent some time with worse, but try to keep it to a minimum. Sometimes I'm really glad I don't read German.
Have you even read Image of the Beast and Blown (it's a two-parter I mentioned over on the Advanced Readings in D&D thread) by Philip Jose Farmer? 'Cause if you stumbled across that when you're twelve years old, out looking for namby-pamby sci-fi erotica, that junk will have a life changing effect. NOT for the timid.
I actually stopped reading Philip Farmer a long time ago. For pretty much the same reason I stopped reading Terry Goodkind (or Sharon Green): I find it disturbing when the author's own sexual fetishes, preferences, etc. start becoming too obvious (or the sex scenes are there primarily for "shock value" and have little, if any, impact on the plot). If they want to use their writing as a catharsis method (or as a way to boost sales), I don't need or want to read it.
I find the treatment of sexuality by authors like Holly Lisle (the Arhel trilogy, The Secret Texts), S. M. Stirling (and co-authors') Fifth Millennium novels (Snowbrother, The Cage, Shadow's Son, etc.), or Sheri S. Tepper (The True Game novels, The Awakeners; or even Grass, although I found it a bit too heavy-handed for my taste) to be more palatable. Heck, I'll even accept explicit, multi-page descriptions a 'la Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children series for window-dressing; although I lost interest with Ayla and Jondolar inventing just about every cultural/technology advance.
While poking about on Project Gutenberg I found The French Revolution: A Study in Democracy by the thoroughly pleasant and reasonable Nesta Webster. No link to the book - you can find it fairly easily yourself in the unlikely event that you feel like curling up with a swivel-eyed 1920s anti-Semite.I've arguably spent some time with worse, but try to keep it to a minimum. Sometimes I'm really glad I don't read German.
In a bit of synergistic weirdiosity, got to the appendix in Rosdolsky which examines some not exactly philosemitic stuff that appeared in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, mostly under the byline of one Eduard von Mueller-Tellering.
All in all, Rosdolsky's monograph is pretty fascinating, if you like counting how many Engels can dance on a pin, as Comrade Longears once put it. He even puts in some good words for Bakunin contra Freddy on Pan-Slavism.
In other news, perhaps The Jewels of Aptor is slight juvenilia as far as Delany connoisseurs are concerned, but I think its pretty awesome with the caveat that I've still got a couple chapters to go.
In other other news, Google informs me that today is Zora Neale Hurston's 123rd birthday! For she's a jolly good fellow/For she's a jolly good fellow...
I actually stopped reading Philip Farmer a long time ago. For pretty much the same reason I stopped reading Terry Goodkind (or Sharon Green): I find it disturbing when the author's own sexual fetishes, preferences, etc. start becoming too obvious (or the sex scenes are there primarily for "shock value" and have little, if any, impact on the plot). If they want to use their writing as a catharsis method (or as a way to boost sales), I don't need or want to read it.
Goodkind's sex stuff was off-putting, but the first few weren't too awful except for the chapters-long BDSM session. Or I blocked out the rest in the decade plus since I last touched them. But as things went on it became increasingly obvious that the chief conflict was between psychopathic idiotic fanatics and psychopathic idiotic fanatics. I think I struggled through the one where Richard got kidnapped for the second or third time, spirited away for the second or third time, and decided to spend his time in captivity making a statue. As I recall, that one started with Richard off on a pout because his army full of people ready to die for him wasn't good enough for him. I really should have put the book down right then.
Finished Delany. Have to go over my friend's house and get the Aldiss again, but, 'til then, I've got the Book of Psalms, another volume of The Unwritten and an old U.S. News & World Report book from the late sixties called Communism and the New Left which is a delight for John Birchers' and commies alike. The former for its "Look at how communists are exploiting the race question!" politics, the latter for all of the beautiful pictures of Bernadine Dohrn, Mike Klonsky, Stokely Carmichael, etc. Mine doesn't have the "What Are They Up to Now?" subtitle, but the answer appears to be that most of them who are alive are back in the Democratic Party. [Sighs]
Barnes and Noble was having a graphic novel sale, so I bought that last four trade paperbacks I needed to complete my Sandman collection. (Well, I have nearly all the comics, but being able to pull the entire series off of a shelf instead of sort through 20 year old comic books to find half the series is much more convenient.)
I am finishing River Of Shadows by Robert V.S. Reddick.
Why, in the hell it does not clearly states it is third out of four books? I learned that deep into the book...
That happened to me with Knight of the Demon Queen by Barbara Hambly. It ends with a cliff hanger for all the major characters, but there's no mention of another book in the series, so I just though everyone died. (Of course, the female lead in the story is going through menopause, so maybe Ms. Hambly was too, and just just decided to write another book once her body chemistry normalized.)
Hey Dicey (or anyone else for that matter), you read this Unwritten shiznit?
After many years, I finally picked up the second trade, which jumps straight into The Song of Roland!!!
I remember Samnell's read this stuff and I think he liked it, too.
It's kinda like I died and went to nerd/used-book-store-junkie heaven.
Yay!!!
I can't say that I have, Doodles. I think the last thing I bought published by Vertigo was Incognegro, and now that Karen Berger has stepped down as Executive Editor I'm girding-myself-for-cum-fomenting the inevitable edition (look, whatever, same linguistic root) war.
Well, it's bad-ass.
The Fencing Master, by Alexandre Dumas. No camaradrie, adventure and steel on steel yet, but I'm sure he'll get around to it.
Also, Montesquieu's Persian Letters. Less devastating satire, more smutty goings-on in the harem at the moment, so good work!
Finally, tackling Jurgen: A Comedy by James Branch Cabell in my lunchbreaks, which I like very much indeed.
Hey Dicey (or anyone else for that matter), you read this Unwritten shiznit?
After many years, I finally picked up the second trade, which jumps straight into The Song of Roland!!!
I remember Samnell's read this stuff and I think he liked it, too.
It's kinda like I died and went to nerd/used-book-store-junkie heaven.
Yay!!!
I liked it, though I haven't kept up. For a while new trades were coming out just about the time I was hitting a big box bookstore downstate. I go there less now and tend to forget about the story in the interim. I think I've read the first three.
The stuff with how the protagonist's writer father made him memorize endless literary trivia? I once met the daughter of a guy who taught me history and she told me that their every road trip was like that. I guess it took for her, but his son was better at tuning it out because the guy hit me up for tutoring a while later.
Me: "I would love to take your money and tutor you and can certainly handle college-level tutoring, but I'm a history guy. I can't do anything for you that the old man can't. I bet he's free."
I'm a terrible capitalist. :)
Since I mentioned them, I pulled out Diane Duane's Door into Fire, Door into Shadow, and Door into Sunset, again Tuesday (it's been a few years); been busy reading. Finished off Fire and half-way through Shadow.
After Diane Duane, I'll probably switch to Tanith Lee (The Castle of Dark and possibly some of Tales from the Flat Earth). After that, I'll read something a bit more "modern" in Michael Scott Rohan (Chase the Morning, The Gates of Noon, and Cloud Castles).
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Just re-read the first book in The Reality Dysfunction, by Peter Hamilton. Gosh, what a richly developed universe! I don't think I've seen something this expansive and evocative since David Brin's Startide Rising / Uplift War universe.
So many really interesting characters, as well. Great stuff. I can still see glimpses of the author who wrote Mindstar Rising, etc. but he's really taken it up a notch by this point.
Good science fiction, out there, but not quite as 'out there' as some of the more cosmic transhumanist stuff I've been reading lately.
Other people want to know and relate.
I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. (Or something like that) It's also a series on netflix.
Just finished the Watch series of Terry Pratchett's Discworld; finished Snuff Monday night.
Going to either get started on the Death series with Mort, or start reading the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfield.
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Greetings, Kahn Zordlon!
I hope you don't mind if I direct you to the bestest thread evah.
I'm bogged down with gaming materials, I'm afraid: The Inner Sea Guide, the Cheliax guide, Towns of the Inner Sea and From Shore to Sea.
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Going to either get started on the Death series with Mort, or start reading the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfield.
Hi Doodlebug, thanks for the link. I did do a search in OTD for the thread title, didn't find one, so started this one. If i can figure out a way to delete it i will.