Now reading...

[Jazzmoose]

Actually, I am glad that the field has space for PKD and Farmer and Delany and Harlan Ellison (who almost never writes "hard" SF) and certainly Zelazny, but I still wouldn't give the awards out to the trippiest stories and novels.

Agreed. Well, except for Ellison; I think he's pretty much a waste of space, a man who's schtick became tiresome long ago. There was a lot of silliness involved in the "new wave". I'd compare it to the Sex Pistols in rock, as an interesting, if embarrassing, necessary step to get to what was next, but overrated on it's own. (Except for Effinger's What Entropy Means to Me; for some reason I love that book!)

I remember a story by someone (I think it was Spinrad, another author I like) riffing on John Dos Passos (forgive if I'm spelling wrong) being praised as something amazing, and I just didn't get it. I might have been more impressed if Heinlein hadn't already done the same thing in Stranger in a Strange Land, but I guess he was too old guard to count. Silly, silly, silly...

Edited June 27, 2014 by Jazzmoose

[ejp626]

Actually, I am glad that the field has space for PKD and Farmer and Delany and Harlan Ellison (who almost never writes "hard" SF) and certainly Zelazny, but I still wouldn't give the awards out to the trippiest stories and novels.

Agreed. Well, except for Ellison; I think he's pretty much a waste of space, a man who's schtick became tiresome long ago. There was a lot of silliness involved in the "new wave". I'd compare it to the Sex Pistols in rock, as an interesting, if embarrassing, necessary step to get to what was next, but overrated on it's own. (Except for Effinger's What Entropy Means to Me; for some reason I love that book!)

I remember a story by someone (I think it was Spinrad, another author I like) riffing on John Dos Passos (forgive if I'm spelling wrong) being praised as something amazing, and I just didn't get it. I might have been more impressed if Heinlein hadn't already done the same thing in Stranger in a Strange Land, but I guess he was too old guard to count. Silly, silly, silly...

Based on your comments, I have picked up that Effinger and I'll probably read it on an upcoming plane ride.

Interestingly, I came to Effinger through his late 80s/early 90s interest in cyberpunk (Gibson, Sterling, Shiner, etc.). He wrote a really successful (IMO) version of this called When Gravity Fails, and then followed up with 3 sequels.

[johnblitweiler]

Finished about half of Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and gave up. I just can't enjoy a plot that hinges entirely on some of the main characters being gullible idiots. I'd forgotten that Hugo and/or Nebula awards are not a guarantee...

I've been having a lot of problems like this with sf in recent years. 100 or 150 pp. into the book, the writer's imagination is dazzling but somehow it all runs together, whatever is or was at stake got lost in the phantasmagoria. It seemed like the only reason for the story's momentum was that the author had a contract to write a 600-page book. This has happened to me with China Mieville, CJ Cherryh, Neil Gaimon, Connie Willis, a.o. writers, plus I preferred a William Gibson short stories book to the novel I read. Although Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is now a favorite.

For a few years late in the sf Golden Era I loved to read Astounding every month, until a barrage of Robert Silverberg cured me. Nearly all of my favorites date from the 1940s and '50s. Delaney, Zelazny, and the other stuff that true sf fans considered high literature bored me. Interestingly, in the late 1960s when I tried to order a book by my hero JG Ballard from an sf specialist store, the owner, a big SF FAN, angrily refused to sell such stuff.

Since the 2 novels I wrote are at heart science fiction, please don't tell my opinions to any of today's true sf fans.

[niels]

Part two of Javier Marias - Your Face Tomorrow / Dance and Dream

It's been some time since I enjoyed a contemporary writer as much as I do with Javier Marias' trilogy. Very beautiful and intelligently written novel.

[Jazzmoose]

Finished about half of Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and gave up. I just can't enjoy a plot that hinges entirely on some of the main characters being gullible idiots. I'd forgotten that Hugo and/or Nebula awards are not a guarantee...

I've been having a lot of problems like this with sf in recent years. 100 or 150 pp. into the book, the writer's imagination is dazzling but somehow it all runs together, whatever is or was at stake got lost in the phantasmagoria. It seemed like the only reason for the story's momentum was that the author had a contract to write a 600-page book. This has happened to me with China Mieville, CJ Cherryh, Neil Gaimon, Connie Willis, a.o. writers, plus I preferred a William Gibson short stories book to the novel I read. Although Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is now a favorite.

For a few years late in the sf Golden Era I loved to read Astounding every month, until a barrage of Robert Silverberg cured me. Nearly all of my favorites date from the 1940s and '50s. Delaney, Zelazny, and the other stuff that true sf fans considered high literature bored me. Interestingly, in the late 1960s when I tried to order a book by my hero JG Ballard from an sf specialist store, the owner, a big SF FAN, angrily refused to sell such stuff.

Since the 2 novels I wrote are at heart science fiction, please don't tell my opinions to any of today's true sf fans.

That brings back memories of searching for The Atrocity Exhibition and getting a puzzled "why?" in return. Some of the authors you mention (Gaiman and Cherryh) I enjoy. Connie Willis I can't handle, due to my inability to suspend disbelief for time travel stories, but I can relate to your complaint. The only thing worse is trilogies. I try not to blame Tolkien, but it's difficult...

I can relate to the Silverberg comments as well. Great editor, but as a writer, I'll pass. I think the stuff I enjoy the most is from the fifties. William Tenn and Robert Sheckley, the Kornbluth/Pohl pair ups, stuff like that.

And I promise I'll pull Sundidos off the shelf soon!

Edited June 28, 2014 by Jazzmoose

[erwbol]

Any opinions on Iain M. Banks' Culture novels?

[Jazzmoose]

I haven't tried Banks yet, so no.

Today I've been reading Dick's Time Out of Joint. Pretty good stuff; it's one I missed in my PKD obsession phase. I've been slowly rebuilding my collection of his books, which is a heck of a lot easier today than it ever was in the past. Don't know how far I'll go with it, though; do I really need to read The Man Who Japed again? It's funny how Dick has gone from being tragically underrated to overrated in the last decade or so. I mean, surely even the most ardent Dick fan can admit that some of his work is just not that good.

[BillF]

THE COMFORTERS - Muriel Spark - 1957.

Picked up an inexpensive copy of Spark's first novel while up in NYC for Vision Festival. A fairly long novel, tries to do a lot, including some meta-fictional novel-within-a-novel type stuff, doesn't quite all hang together, but is still amusing to read. It does contain the essentials of Spark's fiction: Catholicism, mental breakdown/instability, criminality, and the supernatural/supernormal.

I'll probably skip her first novel. Doing very well at the moment with Memento Mori.

Just finished this. Have to recognize it as a little masterpiece, though its density of plot and character were sometimes difficult to cope with. Here's a review with a lot of sense:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jun/05/memento-mori-muriel-spark-novel

Edited June 29, 2014 by BillF

[jlhoots]

Wecker: The Golem & The Jinni

[Leeway]

JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN - Margaret Drabble (1967)

I'd never gotten around to Margaret Drabble's work, although it seems she has put together a significant literary career. I found this early novel rather peculiar. It's so much in the Jamesian mode, it almost feels contemporary with James. There are only the sketchiest references to contemporary life: a telephone is mentioned here, a television there, even Marlon Brando gets a quick mention, but the feel is oddly pre-modern. Pop culture doesn't exist in this novel. The narrative voice was also odd; it's hard to determine if it is earnestly serious, utterly droll, or deeply ironic. Likewise, is the young heroine of the novel, Clara, from the North of England, who yearns for an exciting and cultured life in London, an object of sympathy, or even admiration, or an object of satire? Hard to say. I wouldn't call it a feminist novel, but it does delve deeply into the female mind with almost brusque honesty, more so than I found in Iris Murdoch or Muriel Spark. I found it interesting that Clara walks into the office of a former flame and catches him reading Iris Murdoch.

"And he showed her the book on his desk, which was, no less, Iris Murdoch.... they would find him something better to do than to read iris Murdoch under the desk."

So maybe this is the anti-Murdochian novel, deeply existential to IM's Platonic haze.

[Jazzmoose]

Greenmantle by John Buchan. I kept thinking I ought to stop and read The 39 Steps first, but I just couldn't stop...

[ejp626]

I wrapped up Two Solitudes (on Canada Day no less!). It's certainly dated but there are some good aspects about the novel. I found myself caring quite a bit for the main character Athanase Tallard and his travails. In general, many of MacLennan's characters are just there to spout off on some social issue or another, and they are more mouthpieces than characters, but Athanase had a bit more depth. (This writing serious historical fiction kind of spoilt Barometer Rising for me as well. The best of the bunch is The Watch That Ends the Night, which I'll try to get to in a couple of years.)

Curiously, Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute also was published in 1945 (along with Two Solitudes). I've just started this and will probably wrap it up next week in Toronto.

[BillF]

After Brodie, this novella is probably the one I've enjoyed most so far. Spark seems to do well when dealing with young women.

[Leeway]

After Brodie, this novella is probably the one I've enjoyed most so far. Spark seems to do well when dealing with young women.

Yes, that is one of her finer works. I would agree about the young woman character being her forte, but followed closely by the quirky/troubled young man type. I'm reading her late Territorial Rights novel at the moment.

[Matthew]

Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers. A great, comic novel about a hustler of a priest, a retreat house, a golf course, every now and then God, and coming to terms with your life. This book is also, without a doubt, the most realistic novel about the Catholic priesthood that I've read. Powers' short stories are very interesting also.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Matthew

[ejp626]

Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers. A great, comic novel about a hustler of a priest, a retreat house, a golf course, every now and then God, and coming to terms with your life. This book is also, without a doubt, the most realistic novel about the Catholic priesthood that I've read. Powers' short stories are very interesting also.

Yes, I like this one. It has some quite profound moments in addition to the humor. I even turned my cousin on to it (he's moved to Wisconsin, which is close enough).

I bought a copy of the short stories, but haven't read them. Late in life, Powers published another novel (Wheat That Springeth Green) which is supposed to be pretty good. I have a copy of this as well, but haven't tackled it yet. (The cover of the NYRB edition is odd -- you are looking into a refrigerator.)

Given that all my books are going to be in transit for a while, after I finish The Tin Flute, I think probably I can get a library copy of Grass's The Tin Drum, which I've never read.

[Leeway]

Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers. A great, comic novel about a hustler of a priest, a retreat house, a golf course, every now and then God, and coming to terms with your life. This book is also, without a doubt, the most realistic novel about the Catholic priesthood that I've read. Powers' short stories are very interesting also.

Yes, I like this one. It has some quite profound moments in addition to the humor. I even turned my cousin on to it (he's moved to Wisconsin, which is close enough).

I bought a copy of the short stories, but haven't read them. Late in life, Powers published another novel (Wheat That Springeth Green) which is supposed to be pretty good. I have a copy of this as well, but haven't tackled it yet. (The cover of the NYRB edition is odd -- you are looking into a refrigerator.)

Given that all my books are going to be in transit for a while, after I finish The Tin Flute, I think probably I can get a library copy of Grass's The Tin Drum, which I've never read.

I hope you find The Tin Drum more engrossing than I did. I finally gave up on it about half-way through "with prejudice" as they say in legal circles; i.e., made me not want to read any more Gunter Grass. I was pretty surprised by that, considering its "classic status," but I just found it tedious, and, something in the tone or attitude of the book (can't recall exactly) really put me off.

[BillF]

Morte D'Urban by J. F. Powers. A great, comic novel about a hustler of a priest, a retreat house, a golf course, every now and then God, and coming to terms with your life. This book is also, without a doubt, the most realistic novel about the Catholic priesthood that I've read. Powers' short stories are very interesting also.

Yes, I like this one. It has some quite profound moments in addition to the humor. I even turned my cousin on to it (he's moved to Wisconsin, which is close enough).

I bought a copy of the short stories, but haven't read them. Late in life, Powers published another novel (Wheat That Springeth Green) which is supposed to be pretty good. I have a copy of this as well, but haven't tackled it yet. (The cover of the NYRB edition is odd -- you are looking into a refrigerator.)

, but it didn't appeal to me as a 30 year old.

Given that all my books are going to be in transit for a while, after I finish The Tin Flute, I think probably I can get a library copy of Grass's The Tin Drum, which I've never read.

I hope you find The Tin Drum more engrossing than I did. I finally gave up on it about half-way through "with prejudice" as they say in legal circles; i.e., made me not want to read any more Gunter Grass. I was pretty surprised by that, considering its "classic status," but I just found it tedious, and, something in the tone or attitude of the book (can't recall exactly) really put me off.

It's about 45 years since I tried to read it - without success. It was something of a cult book with the 17-year-old art students whom I was teaching at the time, but it didn't appeal to me as a 30 year old.

[jlhoots]

Deaver: The Skin Collector

[duaneiac]

In which John Waters hitchhikes from his home in Baltimore to San Francisco. The book is divided into three sections: first, he imagines the best possible adventures this trip might bring; second, he imagines the worst possible adventures which might occur; third, he relates the trip as it actually happened. I'm in the first part now and it's quite entertaining as he imagines being picked up by (among others) a prison escapee being pursued by the police, a demolition derby driver who takes him along for the ride during a competition, an underground carnival in which he is put to work in the freak show as "The Man With No Tattoos", and in a very sweet chapter, he is picked up by Edith "Egg Lady" Massey, an iconic actress featured in several of Mr. Waters' films and who, in this account at least, faked her own death to escape the film world and now runs a second hand convenience store in Hermann, Missouri.

[Shawn]

Larry Niven - Protector (1973)

[BillF]

Not very happy with this Spark novella, but then it seems others weren't either:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/may/13/lost-booker-muriel-spark-drivers-seat

[Leeway]

That is a new one to me. I can see why it wouldn't make a lot of friends. Her later novels seems to lose some of that joyous, or at least buoyant, quality that helped balance the acerbity.

BTW, the Washington Post is promising something (not sure if review, article, or maybe forthcoming bio) on Spark this Thursday. Will post on that when I see it.

[BillF]

That is a new one to me. I can see why it wouldn't make a lot of friends. Her later novels seems to lose some of that joyous, or at least buoyant, quality that helped balance the acerbity.

BTW, the Washington Post is promising something (not sure if review, article, or maybe forthcoming bio) on Spark this Thursday. Will post on that when I see it.

Could be this one that appeared in the Guardian yesterday. These things are often syndicated internationally.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jul/05/i-lived-with-muriel-spark

[Leeway]

Yes, that seems the likely reason for the article, although the Washington Post might gets its own reviewer (I would guess Michael Dirda, but let's see). Will advise.

I found the article on Penelope Jardine quite interesting. I can see why the character of the quirky, difficult young man is a recurrent one in Spark. I was also thinking how the move to Italy affected Spark and her work, although I don't have that aspect precisely figured out. I don't think it was a positive move though.