Yeah, Sturgeon comes highly recommended by my father. When he moved out to California I inherited his old sci-fi collection and there were at least half a dozen of Sturgeon's short story collections (Caviar, The Stars are the Styx, Not Without Sorcery, etc.)

I've been sort of "withdrawing" recently into older novels (I suppose one can label them as "literature" nowadays, kind of like a certain bank balance gets you the title of "eccentric" instead of "nutcase") - Henry James has been a focus of attention these days; reading "The Wings of the Dove" currently.

Just finished:



...which was fantastic, though his prose can be a bit, um, overripe at times. Which I guess is part of the point. Basically Catch-22 for the Vietnam War.




Just got from the library:

Halfway through Iain M Banks latest, "Matter". The Culture rules

Curently reading this the english version that is

On e of the firts book in recent years that has pulled of the trick of keeping my inrest

Im reading this topic.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Dull plotting.

Duller psychology.

Shallow characters.

Improbable coincidences galore.

Pretty racist.

And yet almost entirely saved by some great descriptive work in painting the submerged world.

Worth reading, barely.

Easily the best book I've read this year.

A less psychotic/more enjoyable Blood Meridian.




Just got from the library:

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Dull plotting.

Duller psychology.

Shallow characters.

Good!

Every time I come up with a clever idea for a story, I find out J G Ballard's already written it and done a shocking job of it. I hate that bastard.

Still stuck on Will Self, currently reading this. A typically difficult read, and may be completely impenetrable for non-Brits thanks to phonetically-written cockney/chav English being used for half the dialogue in the early chapters.

The premise is great: A London cabbie goes through a messy marriage break-up, and his written rantings are found in a distant future post-apocalyptic London where they become the premise for the inhabitants religion. We get to hear both Dave's story and its consequences for his future disciples in alternating chapters.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Good!

Every time I come up with a clever idea for a story, I find out J G Ballard's already written it and done a shocking job of it. I hate that bastard.

I keep trying to like him, but his early stuff at least is caught in that hopeless no-man's land between Golden Age SF and true New Wave stuff that so few writers managed to navigate successfully (Dick, Bester, Sturgeon, to name a few). I'll read Empire of the Sun sooner or later, because I love the movie to an irrational degree, but eh... this one left a semisour taste in my mouth.

I'll get to Will Self soon. I got The Great Apes and Grey Area as $1 thrift store pickups. That premise sounds pretty great, if somewhat familiar.

Great Apes is very typical Will Self, IMO. It's a good idea, the writing is enjoyable in and of itself, and the ending's shit. I don't know why I keep reading his books.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

It's a good idea, the writing is enjoyable in and of itself, and the ending's shit. I don't know why I keep reading his books.

This sounds remarkably like Neal Stephenson.

I don't read sci-fi so I can't comment. Self's novels are almost exclusively set in London, or he at least begins with London but transmogrifies it into something ridiculous. London being London, these alternate realities and wild juxtapositions are a lot less stark than they really ought to be, and that's the crux of a lot of his humour.

From the description of The Book of Dave it sounds like you do read SF. ;]

A few weeks ago I finished PKD's 'The Broken Bubble', one of his very few non sci-fi novels, and a very satisfying read. Brilliant characters, all of them- each having that special/tweaked PKD aura of shining broken complex humanity about them, which is what I love about all of his books.

Anway, since it's a non sci-fi, you don't get that 1950's Californians on the moon vibe.. was just really nice to sink into the narrative without the cardboard moon sets getting in the way.

Have to admit I've never heard of that one, weird.

Has anyone read that previously unpublished Dick novel they discovered and put out last year?

Mary and the Giant-

Have seen it in the second hand book store, but didn't have money at the time to grab it.

I also did a turn when I found 'Broken Bubble', never seen nor heard of it before either.

Hmm, the one I was thinking of is called Voices from the Street.

http://www.amazon.com/Voices-S ... ilip-K-Dick/dp/0765316927

Just finished this last night:



I love my epic sci-fi, me.

Please tell me you've read Hyperion, crashgate.

Not yet. I've read this and The Reality Dysfunction, which was also brilliant.


Hyperion is definitely on the list, but I'm going to get the sequels to the other two done first.

Hyperion = Dan Simmons, not Hamilton.

But yeah, get to it.

Best modern epic SF there is.

Clarkson's Don't Stop Me Now currently.

Was reading 1984 but lost the book somewhere.
Animal Farm was a good, short book too. I read that earlier this year.

Wednesday I read:



Mostly very good.

Now I'm halfway through:



Fantastic.

Quote from Lible :

Last thing that really got me into it was 'A Game of Thrones' (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin. Some really good stuff. Don't think I can wait for them to translate all the novels into Estonian.. got to try and understand English.

I read tons of other stuff, but nothing real good.

Really great author!! No good guys or bad guys. Everybody has their quirks, like real life