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What are you Reading Now?

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Verne's challenging in any language. His style is too antiquated, preachy. The ideas are great, which is why his stuff is prime material for being re-made into movies. Or into awesome, new fantasy novels. ;-)
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I LOVE Les Mis. It's heavy, but every word is enjoyable, like Mark Twain's books. I like Verne too, but can't say the same for him.

Really? Every word? Wow. Cause... that's a lot of words. And I admit I skipped certain parts. Like when Hugo decides to wax eloquent about the Paris Sewer for a whole chapter. I mean, I love the story of Les Mis. But the book itself is... one of the greatest reading challenges I've ever had. Mostly because the man apparently had some sort of mental disability that made it impossible for him to focus on one character for more than 100 pages.

That said, it's been a long time since I read it. I may have to give it a reread sometime.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Just finished reading A Town Called Alice. It's a very odd book. Remarkable and readable--this is my second Nevil Shute book and I think I may find his other work to have the same adjectives applied--but still oddly constructed. He does just about everything wrong according to modern writing advice. I do believe I shall start ignoring all such advice.

Next up is Robert Silverberg's Downward to the Earth. Which causes me to mention the passing of Harlan Ellison. We won't see his like again soon. His short story, A Boy and His Dog has stuck with me for forty years.
 

Dark Squiggle

Troubadour
Really? Every word? Wow. Cause... that's a lot of words. And I admit I skipped certain parts. Like when Hugo decides to wax eloquent about the Paris Sewer for a whole chapter. I mean, I love the story of Les Mis. But the book itself is... one of the greatest reading challenges I've ever had. Mostly because the man apparently had some sort of mental disability that made it impossible for him to focus on one character for more than 100 pages.

That said, it's been a long time since I read it. I may have to give it a reread sometime.

I enjoy his descriptions. Hugo weaves a world noone else can. I feel like I'm in the sewers and he's talking to me.
I like Les Mis too, just needed a break from all the sadness for a bit.
I can see needing a break.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I DID IT!!

I have finally, FINALLY managed to finish The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson. This has taken forever and was definitely the most challenging book I have ever read. I had to set it aside several times to read something else before I could continue. I had previously read an edited version of the novel which replaces the insane prose of the original with regular English and fell in love with the story. But I wanted to read the original as well which is known for being nigh-unreadable. In hindsight, the edited version must have changed a few other things as well because I don't remember it being oppressively misogynistic.

So, conclusion: I freaking love the story and the worldbuilding of The Night Land. But it has two major issues.

First, guys you don't even understand. This prose isn't even old fashioned or archaic. Literally no one in the history of humanity has ever spoken the way this book is narrated. Most of the verbs are left in the infinitive. For example, instead of writing "I ran" he would write "and I to run". But also, weirdly, instead of writing "I was" he would write "and I did be". And nearly every single paragraph (and this is a long book) was ended with the phrase "as you to know" or "as you shall know". It is also hopelessly repetitive. And by that I mean that there was this great big swampy middle that was mostly the same things repeated over and over and I lost all hope. I only managed to get through it due to pure will power.

Second, it's so misogynistic. I mean, it was written by a white man in 1905-ish so I suppose I should have expected it. The premise of the story is that millions of years in the future the MC makes an impossible journey across a dead hellscape Earth to rescue his soulmate from certain death. So there's a significant amount of romance involved. What I was not expecting was an extended sequence in which the MC gets upset with the "Maid" for not obeying every single thing he says. He declares that she is so "naughty" that he must teach her that he is her "master" and does so by hitting her with sticks on two occasions. And get this, the second time he does it she becomes docile and loving and never crosses him again because she totally loved being dominated. Seriously, only a man could write this. On top of this, he almost never uses her name. The MC never gives his name, but he does give her name, Naani, which is lovely. But then 99% of the time he refers to her as "the Maid" or "Mine Own" or "Mine Own Maid" and puts A LOT of stress on how she totally belongs to him. Ugh.

Beneath the terrible prose and the misogyny though there is a thrilling story of rescue and return and easily one of the most imaginative worlds I've ever seen in fiction. The landscape of the far future in this novel is unique and original, often delving into cosmic horror. The narration gives a brief overview of some of the events of the past that lead to that future, and probably the explanation for the cataclysmic events of the world changing and the sun dying accorded with the science of the time. Though now of course it's quite out of date. But it's mostly a tale of adventure and romance. And despite its flaws I can't hate it. There's too much wonder. But if you ever want to read The Night Land I would recommend the retold version: https://www.amazon.com/Night-Land-Story-Retold-ebook/dp/B004GKNM3W
 

X Equestris

Maester
I'm currently reading through a few different comics, both to help with research for my current project and for personal enjoyment. Batman #50 disappointed me, though that probably had more to do with the hype rather than the content itself. Catwoman #1 sets up what looks to be a promising series. And I loved Green Arrow #42. There have been points where the writer's efforts to fit Oliver's politics into the story line has come off as a bit ham-fisted, but this issue definitely wasn't one of them.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I bought myself Vampire Hunter D novel 6: Pilgimage of the Sacred and Profane as a reward for finishing The Night Land. And it was SO GOOD!! Definitely the best so far. It gave a lot of new characterization to D and had some really interesting side characters. Sometimes I wish these novels were longer, but then I remember I still have almost 20 more to go.

After that I began reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller which I picked up on sale a while back. I haven't read much yet but I've always loved Greek mythology so this is right up my alley.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I'm dipping back into fiction with a collection of Jack London's work and I'm finishing up SPQR by Mary Read. Perhaps I'll get to reading the Dragonbone Chair finally after having it stare at me for two years. It's about time I make myself read some fantasy, before you guys decide to collectively kick me out :p
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
The Hound of the Baskervilles. I have a bunch of gothic mysteries to read this summer. Jekyll and Hyde again, Jane Eyre, Rebecca, The Italian, We have always Lived in the Castle.

It will be a creepy summer :)
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
I'm dipping back into fiction with a collection of Jack London's work and I'm finishing up SPQR by Mary Read. Perhaps I'll get to reading the Dragonbone Chair finally after having it stare at me for two years. It's about time I make myself read some fantasy, before you guys decide to collectively kick me out :p

Finished both and am now reading Peter Frankopan's silk roads and... finally... the Dragonbone Chair. Hopefully I'll get through it this time.
 

Ban

Troglodytic Trouvère
Article Team
Tried the Dragonbone Chair a while back 150 pages in , I had nothing to complain about, but nothing to like either, so I dropped it.

Yeah I had that as well a few years ago when I tried it. Ever since then it's just been sitting on the shelf and I feel guilty for not having read it fully.
 
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Mythopoet

Auror
Sooo let's see... since last time I've tried several different recently published books and none of them could capture my interest.

I gave up on The Song of Achilles because I don't want to read descriptions of teenage sex. I just don't. I closed the book at the first euphemism for "penis". (And of course I already know the story of Achilles so there was no great pull on me to see what happens.) Why is it just the "done" thing these days to include sex scenes in everything but have no warning about it? I find it very uncomfortable and tiresome.

I tried Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, a fantasy(?) book set in an Asian facsimile world. But I didn't like the main character and began to truly dislike her once I realized that the point of the book was not for her to resist temptation and become a heroine, but to submit to temptation and become a villain. Maybe if she were even the slightest bit of an interesting person it would have worked.

The others I didn't give more than a few pages to before putting them down so they're not worth mentioning. It just felt like I couldn't feel any interest in anything, which was depressing. So I turned to some classics for relief.

I reread A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay. It's an old book, written in 1920, so it has some issues with sexism, but not too much that I can't thoroughly enjoy the creative worldbuilding and philosophical plot. The ending is a bit frustrating in its openness, but I still find this book thoroughly entertaining. It ushered in new developments in the genre of SF so I feel it's an important book.

I also picked up A True History by Lucian of Samosata after hearing about it from a classics student I follow on tumblr. This book is a wild and insane satire of the type of "travelogue" books that passed for non-fiction back in the classical period, even though they talked about ridiculous things like lands where people have no heads or where giant ants dig up and hoard gold. My favorite episode by far is the author and his crew getting caught up in a war between the moon people and the sun people over the colonization of Venus. Good stuff.

My husband has been rereading the Gene Wolfe series The Book of the Long Sun (set in the same universe as the Book of the New Sun) and has insisted that I also read it so he can talk to me about it. So I've started book one, Nightside of the Long Sun. I'm only a very short way it, but so far I would describe it as "God sent me to save the rec center.... in space" which my husband says is pretty accurate.
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
After a couple more fantasy books that failed to engage me, I went back to my To-Read list and finally settled on E.P. Thompsen's The Making of the English Working Class. It has been a long time since I read a history book just to read a history book. It's a pleasure to be reminded of how rewarding it is to read good history written by a master. Along with Eric Hobsbawm's The Dual Revolution, this is the classic work on the period when the world changed more fundamentally than in any other single lifespan (roughly, 1780 to 1830 or, if you prefer, 1848). It's great stuff.
 
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