Kevin's Watch

danlo wrote:Love Christopher Priest!!! The Inverted World and A Dream of Wessex are fantastic-(The Cell loosely base on Dream) read and seen The Prestige, of course. Indoctrinaire one of THE weirdest books ever written. An Infinite Summer one of THE best collection of time travel stories-The Extremes-extremely good too!

'The Islanders' was good, subtle, yet also distant and not so involving as 'The Separation', which I had read previously.

In the way that horror is a kind of fantasy, and a comedy-horror has to be based on a horror scenario ...

Just finished listening to the audiobook of The Zombies of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor


Soooooo much fun. It's written more or less in the style of Garrison Keillor and his Lake Wobegon stories. But with zombies. And an elderly serial killer. And a zombie mayor. And Big Horn Jim who lives out in the woods and worships Odin.

Hidden Empire. Av, I don't remember you mentioning a worldforest. Gotta see if it can compete with the Immanent Grove.

Fist and Faith wrote:Hidden Empire. Av, I don't remember you mentioning a worldforest. Gotta see if it can compete with the Immanent Grove.

Some surprises are worth waiting for. Like me not telling those I keep encouraging to read Pern about Menolly...

...of course, if one was to look at my location under my avatar, nu?

Or Plains of Ra knowing my Ranyhyn is Irian.

Fist and Faith wrote:Hidden Empire. Av, I don't remember you mentioning a worldforest. Gotta see if it can compete with the Immanent Grove.

Man, there's a lot of stuff in those books I never mentioned. The green priests are pretty cool.

Speaking of green, Green Mars is proving mostly a pleasant surprise. Big chunks of it are actually exciting, although it's a pity those bits aren't joined up. Nearly done, then onto the last of the series.

--A

And finally, Blue Mars.

I'm getting into these, but the editor should have been shot. And that's a lot coming from somebody who thinks things like the DT, and the Malazan Book of the Fallen could have done with a few extra volumes.

--A

Hi, de-lurking to say I'm reading "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman. Stealing time to read it so only read up to end of (chapter) III. First thing I thought of was 'hey, now I can post in KW What SFF I'm reading right now. Love it so far but differently from previous works of his I've read. Before I always had the feeling it's good but I just wasn't feeling it the way millions of others felt how it was the best thing thing sliced cheese( hey, that's just how I felt: I mean I liked it but not that much as others did). So far I really love how I hear Neil's voice as the narrator n I'm liking the story more than his other books (I hear his voice bcos I've heard him speak twice so far when he came to my country on trips, also maybe various things he's recorded n put online). Hopefully will write post here again when I've finished.

I've always felt exactly that way about Gaiman. Novels, anyway. Sandman is as good as everybody says, but not everyone reads comic books.

Just finished reading "The Ocean at the End of the Lane". Haven't felt this way about Gaiman's work since some Sandman. Where's a thread I can write more about my reactions that don't have to be spoiler-free? Ok I'll look around on my own and see if there's a place. (In case it's not clear- I really think this is a very good book, highly recommended to anyone who feels about Gaiman's work as I do.)
Not sure what SFF I'll read next, see I was reading "River of Stars" by Guy Gavriel Kay but I returned that to the library unfinished and also "Great North Road" by Peter F. Hamilton; same thing happened. Latest book by Robin Hobb - "Blood of Dragons" is out but I didn't finish "City of Dragons" - had to return to library also (maybe never started it). Non SFF - Kathy Reichs' newest Bones novel is out but I'm way behind, think "Spider Bones" was last I read. This inertia to read series/authors' books is maddening. Maybe Scott Lynch's "Republic of Thieves" will come out soon and break the whatever/strangle-hold/dead-lock that's stopping me from finishing those books. I've been waiting years since "Red Seas under Red Skies" or whatever the title is. PS adding - of course I'll read LCTC4:TLD when it's out here, hope the Gollanzc OME{Open Market Edition, for non-Commonweatlh peeps) comes out as quickly as it did for AATE.)
Sorry to ramble on, been lurking on a few threads with nothing compelling to post until now.

ussusimiel wrote:

deer of the dawn wrote:I was reading some crap (I can't even remember the name) and I realized I wasn't into it. Downloaded Ulysses by James Joyce, which has been on the TBR list for, like, ever. Danlo had posted a link to a how-many-books-on-this-list have you read, and I realized I have work to do!!

Feel free to join in Orlion's thread, Ulysses. We'd got as far as chapter 5 (the Lotus Eaters) as of last February, so you might give us the impetus to at least do one more chapter this year

u.

Great, inviting people over to a thread when I have not even cleaned it up yet! This is going to be so embarrassing, what with all the pizza boxes everywhere...

Finished Carol Berg's Song of the Beast. It's about the hit Iron Maiden single.

Just finished Kevin J Anderson's Hidden Empire. It sounded good from Av's brief posts. It's the first in a seven-book series, The Saga of Seven Suns. My hope is that it was primarily setup for the whole series. Plenty of time to make stuff happen with seven books, so use the first to give thorough introductions to characters, species, and cultures. And he did a good job of that, got a couple of nasties established, and got the major conflict going. The basic idea of the title's hidden empire really is a cool concept.

Now for the second book, A Forest of Stars.

My fear is that not too much will happen. I read his Jedi Academy trilogy years ago, and was not impressed. Bland stuff, with not much to remember. So here's hoping for more now. [SPOILER WARNING, ALTHOUGH THE BOOKS ARE 20 YEARS OLD. HEH] Amusingly, one character tried to hide a doomsday weapon, the Sun Crusher (which was a big step above the Deathstar) inside a gas giant planet. But the guy he was hiding it from was way too powerful, and simply pulled it out with the Force. Those were good times, when the many books and comic books all worked with the same mythos. Alas, the prequels did away with all that stuff, as far as canon is concerned.

I'll be starting Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades today. After I watch Breaking Bad. Got to have priorities, you know?

Finished Tuf Voyaging. Hoo-ray for cats!

Orlion wrote: Finished Carol Berg's Song of the Beast. It's about the hit Iron Maiden single.

Sounds, ah.... lyrical?

Fist and Faith wrote:My fear is that not too much will happen.

Well, I think I can reassure you on that...a lot of stuff happens.

--A

I just finished a reread of Larry Niven's Ringworld. What a great book, but the story collapses in the last 25 pages. Sad, really.

Done with A Forest of Stars. Starting Horizon Storms.

Finished The Ghost Brigades. Scalzi is pretty consistently good.

Just started MaddAddam, the final book of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian trilogy.

Finally got through all my Doctor Who Audios, so, popped in the first disk of the first Pern Novel DragonFlight