Angel Dust on 5/9/2009 at 09:52
I've also started On The Road and it's been an easy, enjoyable read so far.
Before that I read Philip K Dick's VALIS. I've always been a fan of his but this one blew me away. A very personal and suprisingly spiritual novel with Dick's typically droll humour and endearingly whacked-out characters. It made a real impression on me and hasn't been out of my thoughts all week. I know Dick is well regarded in the sci-fi arena but does some of that reputation extend into the general literary arena? If not, it bloody well should.
june gloom on 5/9/2009 at 10:20
Dick is hit-or-miss for me. Some of his books are good, example being
A Scanner Darkly and some are just... really obvious in their lack of editorial input.
Finished
House of Leaves over the weekend, started reading
The Road. So far, very good.
I seem to have missed this post during my vacation:
Quote Posted by ZymeAddict
Is Neal Stephenson's stuff really that bad, dethtoll?
I've been meaning to read something by him for some time; mostly because my roommate always acts like he's God's gift to science fiction.
Yes, yes he really is that bad. His work is nothing but big bags of boring suck. His plots tend to be these awful 30-car pileups of various ideas that don't really go well together, and they're often 100-150 pages longer than they need to be.
Snow Crash starts off by being an amusing deconstruction of anarcho-capitalism but then it gets into this stupid bullshit about ancient Sumeria I don't care about and it's just one big "how not to do postmodernist fiction" manual. I've heard his work said to be less science fiction and more sociology fiction, except that doesn't work for him either. Most overrated genre author since Stephen King. (And I like(d) Stephen King.)
Angel Dust on 5/9/2009 at 10:35
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Dick is hit-or-miss for me. Some of his books are good, example being
A Scanner Darkly and some are just... really obvious in their lack of editorial input.
Oh, I agree but when he hits it can be something quite special and unique.
Andarthiel on 5/9/2009 at 16:35
On to Count Zero by William Gibson.
I like how it has multiple points of view in this one(which I'm sure will converge at some point), makes the story more interesting. And I found the Bobby to be quite an interesting character, the way he describes things(including his strange mother, made me giggle a few times).
He's even put in references to popular culture.
Good stuff, just as great as Neuromancer.
gunsmoke on 5/9/2009 at 16:56
Quote Posted by dethtoll
Dick is for me.
Sorry, I had to.
Anyway, I finished On the Road. Great stuff, though IMO it started a bit slow. Granted, most of my favorite books do as well. Great last 1/4, and I won't spoil it. It should be required reading in any Am. Lit. course worth its salt. The character development is excellent, as were the descriptors. I really felt like I was there in the room with an old friend.
Also finished the Buk book in my last post. I have read it several times, so whatever. It was just something to pass time on the bus on my way downtown.
Up next, a book that I have only seen the mostly excellent (and it even has Ol' Blue Eyes in it!) movie adaptation of:
Inline Image:
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/647/picture37m.jpgjune gloom on 5/9/2009 at 19:22
Quote Posted by Andarthiel
On to Count Zero by William Gibson.
I like how it has multiple points of view in this one(which I'm sure will converge at some point), makes the story more interesting. And I found the Bobby to be quite an interesting character, the way he describes things(including his strange mother, made me giggle a few times).
He's even put in references to popular culture.
Good stuff, just as great as Neuromancer.
THIS I think this may be my favourite Gibson book of all time, let alone just the Sprawl trilogy. Mona Lisa Overdrive is very nearly as good, but as a pure reading experience, nothing tops that first read of Neuromancer, even if the other books in the trilogy are technically better.
theBlackman on 7/9/2009 at 05:30
The annotated 20,000 leagues under the sea Contains a corrected translation and a reconciliation of Verne's science compared to current knowledge.
Good stuff.
Glasmand on 10/9/2009 at 12:42
"Dirty White Boys" by Stephen Hunter. It starts off with some nasty prison violence and a jailbreak, so I'm well entertained so far.
PeeperStorm on 17/10/2009 at 23:48
The Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury. I always forget that the man can
write, and then get a pleasant surprise when I pick up one of his books. And much of the book is not science-fiction, it's people-fiction.
This paragraph from "The Fog Horn" makes me wish I that owned a lighthouse, just so I could put it on a brass plaque next to the front door:
Quote:
We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.
