What are you reading at the moment? Recommendations welcome

[Geoff]

Having Covid, for the third time, my writing brain isn't functioning properly. So I have returned to The White Goddess, by Robert Graves. I tried to complete it years ago, but failed badly. This time I am attempting to finish it.

 

[Sedayne]

Having Covid, for the third time, my writing brain isn't functioning properly. So I have returned to The White Goddess, by Robert Graves. I tried to complete it years ago, but failed badly. This time I am attempting to finish it.

Get well soon @Geoff

 

[tyes]

I read this trilogy ages ago and for the life of me I can’t remember any of it. So that tells you something I guess. I mean I do have a bad memory, but I can usually remember at least how a book made me feel. And all I remember was that the cyber-ideas were interesting. I think Gibson throws a bit too much into his stories with multiple threads and chars and lots of ideas. Which is fine, but it makes the stories go wide, not deep.

Indeed. I managed about one-third and now I've given up again. The sudden, unexplained trip to space was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm going to reread something that I know I enjoyed to help me forget

 

[Geoff]

Glad to say I am up and running again, post-Covid. Thank you!

 

[wrightstuff]

Over the past month I have just revisited the entire Hitchhiker's Guide series. Never grow tired of it. Sublime.

Last time I did this was probably ten years ago and since then, joining Litopia in the interim, I have been pointed in the direction of Terry Pratchett's stuff.

Now I know this won't be a popular opinion, but I have to say I think Adams has it in spades over Sir TP. For me Pratchett's work is far too meandering and unfocused. Whacky for whackiness sake. None of his characters can seem to walk from A to B without a multitude of diversions as a device to crowbar in some kind of, at best, an occasionally moderately amusing joke.

Please, fellow Litopians, don't hate me. You know who you are I really so wanted to love his stuff. But sadly... for me it's a no.

Being honest, of the seven titles of his I have read, I have warmed to only two. I have found the other five irritatingly convoluted. To the point of just having bailed on Moving Pictures after 3 chapters this very day. As with the others, I lost all interest in the characters and the plot. But in this case I now can't be bothered to care to struggle to the end.

And please hear me out. I've given Sir TP a good go. And, sure, he's not in any way terrible, he's just not just my cup of Darjeeling. In comedy terms I feel he's rather twee - sort of the Two Ronnies v the sharp, cutting genius of The Office or Fr. Ted.

Maybe I have chosen the wrong titles - but, sad to say, I think I see a pattern forming that will never float my boat.

I love both authors, but I'm on the other side of that fence.

You didn't choose the wrong titles, but may have had the wrong expectations. Pratchett was primarily a satirist. The Discworld is a distorting mirror held up to our world, with savagely wise things to say about racism, power, business, religion and education in particular, but he casts his net wide.

The fantasy world is just the vehicle. If you think of him as our generation's Swift, his genius (and I don't use the world lightly) becomes more apparent. And yes, the meanderings, puns and oblique references are all part of the enjoyment (assuming you enjoy puzzles) once you settle in, relax, and enjoy the ride.

 

[Jonny]

You didn't choose the wrong titles, but may have had the wrong expectations. Pratchett was primarily a satirist. The Discworld is a distorting mirror held up to our world, with savagely wise things to say about racism, power, business, religion and education in particular, but he casts his net wide.

Yeah, I got the satirical side of his stuff and I enjoyed Mort & Unseen Academicals a lot.

But the others I read, especially the TP & Neil Gaiman collaboration, Good Omens, and Discworld 1. The Colour of Magic, had me longing for the end even before getting halfway through them.

I realise I'm something of an outlier here on this subject and maybe I might try something else, as I get 15 free hours audiobookery from Spotify each month.

Can you recommend any worth a punt.

 

[wrightstuff]

Yeah, I got the satirical side of his stuff and I enjoyed Mort & Unseen Academicals a lot.

But the others I read, especially the TP & Neil Gaiman collaboration, Good Omens, and Discworld 1. The Colour of Magic, had me longing for the end even before getting halfway through them.

I realise I'm something of an outlier here on this subject and maybe I might try something else, as I get 15 free hours audiobookery from Spotify each month.

Can you recommend any worth a punt.

As you may have guessed, I'm a bit of a Pratchett fan, but I do think Good Omens is a bit YA (I love it, but it's mostly surface), and The Colour of Magic is really only interesting to understand how the series develops. I love Unseen Academicals, although it's not universally popular amongst hard-core fans...

Recommending something is difficult, as it will depend on your interests. Pratchett was amazing at getting into a world and subverting it from the inside... If you like opera (or operatic musicals such as Phantom of the Opera), I recommend Maskerade, if rock and roll, Soul Music, if you enjoy stories of the fae, Lords and Ladies (shades of The King of Elfland's Daughter) may interest you, and as a writer, the invention of printing in The Truth may resonate.

 

[wrightstuff]

It's not that I'm stuck for reading anything at the moment, but it's nice to know what Litopians are reading - might provide valuable material for a writer or a pleasant diversion away from the genre s/he are writing in. I was going to say 'Bookshelf,' but that's recently been mentioned as a possible scam. But it would be quite nice to peruse our own 'Litopian Library' as an accompaniment to local bookshops/Amazon, etc.
Someone in the Welcome Lounge mentioned writing about walking the entire UK coast with his dog, and I asked whether he'd read The Salt Path and Five Hundred Mile Walkies.
No need to write a review, just author, title and genre (if not apparent).

I've just finished Harrow Lake by Kat Ellis a YA Horror. I'm now reading Colin Wilson's Ritual in the Dark (the terrifying thriller of murder most macabre) and for the past few months I've been dipping into Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies, Essays and Interview -Various Authors. The latter has been brilliant for ideas with my WiP and it led to me reading Colin Wilson who I'm enjoying and may never have otherwise discovered.
Anyway, just floating it out there.

Just finished re-reading Shades of Grey by Japer Fford (note the absence of 'Fifty').

Published in 2011, it's a post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy, which, quite frankly is generally not my thing at all. However, Fforde is a remarkable world-builder, and his strictly Rule-based Chromatographic (yes, you read that right) society is so real, normal and believable(!) that you find yourself in the world so completely that it has solidity.

Everyone's place in society is determined by their colour-perception. Those who can see Yellow are at the top, and the Greys are proles without family names. Truly immersive, it's a rollercoaster of a ride, and well worth the time.

I re-read it in preparation for reading the sequel, Red Side Story, which came out earlier this year...

 

[RK Wallis]

I've just started The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (debut author) a Sherlock Holmes type dynamic set in a rich fantasy world with a unique magic system. I just love the humour. Great ride so far. He's setting a high bar.

 

[Jonny]

Recommending something is difficult, as it will depend on your interests. Pratchett was amazing at getting into a world and subverting it from the inside... If you like opera (or operatic musicals such as Phantom of the Opera), I recommend Maskerade, if rock and roll, Soul Music, if you enjoy stories of the fae, Lords and Ladies (shades of The King of Elfland's Daughter) may interest you, and as a writer, the invention of printing in The Truth may resonate.

Thanks. Some of those subjects do resonate. Particularly the music related ones.

There is such a lot of love for him on here, not to mention out in the literary world in general, I might** just give him another chance.


**Pratchett Estate waits with bated breath.

 

[E G Logan]

Just starting the new Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook. Only a few pages in now, but finding it both slow and thin. I feel there may be a point I've missed so far – please let it not be Kate Does Cosy Crime.

 

[LJ Beck]

I just finished reading "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb.

I dunno. At no point did I think I wouldn't finish it. But I didn't love it. The plot meandered along. The MC didn't want anything for himself enough to go after it. He just accepted his lot in life as things were thrown at him. There were some cool magic systems in there, and some characters I liked, but the ending wasn't as satisfying as I wanted it to be. It kind of fell flat.

I'd be very curious to hear what others who read it thought.

 

[wrightstuff]

Just finished re-reading Shades of Grey by Japer Fford (note the absence of 'Fifty').

Published in 2011, it's a post-apocalyptic dystopian fantasy, which, quite frankly is generally not my thing at all. However, Fforde is a remarkable world-builder, and his strictly Rule-based Chromatographic (yes, you read that right) society is so real, normal and believable(!) that you find yourself in the world so completely that it has solidity.

Everyone's place in society is determined by their colour-perception. Those who can see Yellow are at the top, and the Greys are proles without family names. Truly immersive, it's a rollercoaster of a ride, and well worth the time.

I re-read it in preparation for reading the sequel, Red Side Story, which came out earlier this year...

OK, I'm a quarter of the way through Red Side Story, and it isn't disappointing me. After a slightly dull start, Fforde is back on form, and I'm enjoying it tremendously.

 

[E G Logan]

Kate Atkinson, Death at the Sign of the Rook

Sadly, this IS Atkinson-lite, a swerve into cosy crime for Jackson Brodie. It will doubtless sell shedloads. IMHO, the end is a complete mess, a strange kind of cop-out.
Probably all very televisual, though.

 

[Hannah F]

I just finished reading "Assassin's Apprentice" by Robin Hobb.

I dunno. At no point did I think I wouldn't finish it. But I didn't love it. The plot meandered along. The MC didn't want anything for himself enough to go after it. He just accepted his lot in life as things were thrown at him. There were some cool magic systems in there, and some characters I liked, but the ending wasn't as satisfying as I wanted it to be. It kind of fell flat.

I'd be very curious to hear what others who read it thought.

I'm the same. I absolutely loved The Liveship Traders trilogy and went on to read The Assassin's Apprentice expecting to like that series just as much, but, like you, it was no more than OK so I didn't read the sequel. I remember most of The Liveship Traders trilogy but only snippets of The Assassin's Apprentice.

 

[wrightstuff]

OK, I'm a quarter of the way through Red Side Story, and it isn't disappointing me. After a slightly dull start, Fforde is back on form, and I'm enjoying it tremendously.

Well, that was a ride! There were some wobbly bits early on, but with the clarity of full-colour hindsight, a gripping and entertaining read. The adventures of Eddie and Jane, taken up again by Fforde after more than a decade as a lost plot, spins its way to a most satisfying conclusion. As the book progresses, so does the confidence that it was worth writing, worth reading, and worth every scrap of red, and every spoon, it took to bring it all together. Sequels are rarely as good as the original; this is.

 

[LJ Beck]

I'm the same. I absolutely loved The Liveship Traders trilogy and went on to read The Assassin's Apprentice expecting to like that series just as much, but, like you, it was no more than OK so I didn't read the sequel. I remember most of The Liveship Traders trilogy but only snippets of The Assassin's Apprentice.

Thanks for the sanity check Hannah!

 

[E G Logan]

I'm testing Amazon with a 2* review for Craig Brown's Voyage Around the Queen. (Which I can't recommend.) I suspect it might not be used.

 

[E G Logan]

I'm testing Amazon with a 2* review for Craig Brown's Voyage Around the Queen.

Just checked the reviews: no further words published, BUT the average has sunk from the 5* single review at the time I filed mine mysteriously to 3.2*. (Is this 5+2, divided by 2 = 3.5?? Or possibly 5+2 +3 averaged = 3.2??)

 

[LJ Beck]

I finished listening to "The Obelisk Gate" by N.K. Jemisin - the second book in the Broken Earth series. It's the first time I wished I'd read a book instead of listened. And not because the narrator wasn't good, she was fantastic. I read the first book, and was totally blown away by the end. When I started listening to the 2nd book, I didn't know who anyone was as I hadn't pronounced any of the names the way the narrator did. And it just felt like a different story listening than reading it. Also, it's VERY complicated, so you really have to pay attention, and I pay better attention reading books than listening to them. Mostly because I'm always doing something else when listening, and only reading when reading.

But I also wonder if my wow-factor wasn't the same as I already knew the world, and the "gotcha" from the first book, and although there were some great reveals and twists along the way, there was no BIG OMG moment in the second book like there was in the first. I really wanted one thing to happen, the one thing everything was leading up to, and it didn't, so I guess she saved it for the 3rd book? I will read the 3rd book, not listen, even though I have already bought the audiobook. Ugh. But it's just one of those stories that requires all my attention. I'm looking forward to seeing how it concludes!

 

[E G Logan]

Craig Brown's Voyage Around the Queen

My 2* review has gone on Amazon today.

 

[Hannah F]

Just finished All the Hidden Monsters by Amie Jordon. YA Urban Fantasy published by Chicken House. A werewolf/vampire/human mash-up. Feels like it may have been inspired by the BBC sitcom Being Human. Fun who-done-it (I did guess the culprit) with a teen's reluctant crush thrown in. Good, gripping climax. Newly and traditionally published which brings me to question why there were so many filter words in it. They did distance me from the 3rd person POV.

 

[E G Logan]

A visitor has left me Elif Sharak's There Are Rivers In the Sky. I wouldn't have bought it myself, but since I've read Shafak has won several literary awards lately, I shall find out what I have been missing. More t/c.

 

[wrightstuff]

About halfway through Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes. I enjoyed the first half, but I think I'm going to get more out of the second half.

 

[Sedayne]

About halfway through Elizabeth Finch by Julian Barnes. I enjoyed the first half, but I think I'm going to get more out of the second half.

I very much enjoyed this book too. Unusual structure of no chapters but two parts. Worked well, I thought.

 

[tyes]

I'm about 20% through "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" by Christopher Paolini. I am enjoying it, but find a few things have stood out that either seem contrived or just take me out of the book. For example, there are names of characters, ships or AI that feel like deliberate homages to other SF stories. Other contrivances are spoilery but when close people die, it's hard to follow a protagonist that seems to move on quickly. Similarly, its hard to follow a protagnist that is tortured in one chapter and then overly trusting of their torturers' associates the next.

 

[E G Logan]

I have put Elif Sharak's There Are Rivers In the Sky to one side for the moment – in its way, a comment – in favour of the latest Chris Brookmyre, The Mirror Cracked. I will review it when I've got to the end and pondered for a moment. My view, though generally positive, keeps changing as I read. I'm at 70%, according to my Kindle, and I have NO idea where the plot is going to go from here.

It (Mirror) has some bad reviews. Overall on Amazon I'd have to say they were mixed. Brookmyre seems to have upset some readers by taking a different approach to the crime genre, in fact by seizing it by the ears and shaking it. Possibly 'not taking it seriously enough' would be the criticism – but the man has always written with a sense of humour. Agatha Christie this is not.

Scheduled next after Brookmyre (sorry, Elif) is Lynda La Plante's

• Getting Away with Murder: My Unexpected Life on Page, Stage and Screen

 

[Bloo]

I have put Elif Sharak's There Are Rivers In the Sky to one side for the moment – in its way, a comment – in favour of the latest Chris Brookmyre, The Mirror Cracked. I will review it when I've got to the end and pondered for a moment. My view, though generally positive, keeps changing as I read. I'm at 70%, according to my Kindle, and I have NO idea where the plot is going to go from here.

It (Mirror) has some bad reviews. Overall on Amazon I'd have to say they were mixed. Brookmyre seems to have upset some readers by taking a different approach to the crime genre, in fact by seizing it by the ears and shaking it. Possibly 'not taking it seriously enough' would be the criticism – but the man has always written with a sense of humour. Agatha Christie this is not.

Scheduled next after Brookmyre (sorry, Elif) is Lynda La Plante's

• Getting Away with Murder: My Unexpected Life on Page, Stage and Screen

Mirror sounds like a good read, EG. I'm gonna check it out.

I just finished the audiobook version of California Bear by Duane Swierczynski. It's got mostly good reviews, but a decent minority of readers dinged it for the same reasons as Mirror. Others didn't like the five POVs.

Did you see the '80s comedy film Ruthless People? Add a teenage sleuth into the mix, and Bear is a bit like that.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I just finished The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk. It's sort of Regency romance, but with magic users. Confronts societal expectations that women will give up everything upon marriage for the sake of having children--an old theme, admittedly, but addressed in a different way in a different world. I quite enjoyed it, in spite of the Regency romance vibe (which isn't really my thing). The author kept me guessing until quite close to the end as to how everything would be resolved, and I appreciated that. And if you're curious about alternate ways to show dialogue (as we've discussed on another thread here), the dialogue between mages and the spirits they call to themselves in this book is set off with colons (!) I thought it was a strange choice. It didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book, but I'm not sure it really worked--I noticed it all the way to the end of the book.

 

[RK Wallis]

I just finished The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk. It's sort of Regency romance, but with magic users. Confronts societal expectations that women will give up everything upon marriage for the sake of having children--an old theme, admittedly, but addressed in a different way in a different world. I quite enjoyed it, in spite of the Regency romance vibe (which isn't really my thing). The author kept me guessing until quite close to the end as to how everything would be resolved, and I appreciated that. And if you're curious about alternate ways to show dialogue (as we've discussed on another thread here), the dialogue between mages and the spirits they call to themselves in this book is set off with colons (!) I thought it was a strange choice. It didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book, but I'm not sure it really worked--I noticed it all the way to the end of the book.

Sounds an interesting read if the colons don't get too distracting!