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Uriel
3,178 posts
120 months
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Currently on Perdido Street Station and enjoying it, but feel that I'm doing so despite China Mieville, rather than thanks to him. Feels like he's paused before writing every sentence to try and think of a couple of fairly flowery or obscure words to try and turn it from regular writing into literature or something. No noun can be left without a grandiloquent adjective to preceed it.
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Pothole
18,008 posts
151 months
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Uriel said: Currently on Perdido Street Station and enjoying it, but feel that I'm doing so despite China Mieville, rather than thanks to him. Feels like he's paused before writing every sentence to try and think of a couple of fairly flowery or obscure words to try and turn it from regular writing into literature or something. No noun can be left without a grandiloquent adjective to preceed it. ISWYDT
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King Herald
18,331 posts
85 months
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Uriel said: Feels like he's paused before writing every sentence to try and think of a couple of fairly flowery or obscure words to try and turn it from regular writing into literature or something. No noun can be left without a grandiloquent adjective to preceed it. I started to feel like this about Wilbur Smith several years ago. It just got too much in the end.
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bint
4,231 posts
93 months
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I found Kraken to be too bizarre to enjoy as much as his others. I seem to remember that it's one of his early ones but released after he'd made it. Not his finest IMHO.
Mind you I thought Perdido St was sheer genius, but City in the City may just clinch it as my favourite. For serious concepts, and concentration required, try Embassy Town - takes some reading, it comes together in the last few chapters and is worth the slog to get there.
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parakitaMol.
10,059 posts
120 months
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Pete Franklin said: Major Fallout said: Can anyone recommend me book please?
I fancy something that gets my mind going. I normally read Clive Cussler because its just a bit of fun, switch your brain off sort of stuff. (A bit like a Popcorn film.)
But normally when I feel my mind starting to melt I pickup one of the classics in between, 1984 and so on. This time I feel like a bit of a change, something twisty and clever.
Any recommendations? I have recently read Cloud atlas by David Mitchell which I thought was brilliant, 5 completely different stories from completely different time periods written in completely different styles all woven into one very memorable dystopia. Also: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes- again it’s a book of many styles/ genres: Part history lesson, part religious critique, part short story(s) part biography. It is really quite thought provoking and moving in places. The last chapter in particular made my mind race and gave me a sleepless night. I thought I would love Cloud Atlas. I loved some chapters and really got into it, but hated others. The stories although separate are all linked, it's about re-incarnation, but I did not like the way the links between the stories were introduced but not really followed through sufficiently well. I thought it ended abysmally, or rather just faded. I have really mixed feelings about this book and I was quite disappointed by it after all the hype.
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Pete Franklin
698 posts
50 months
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parakitaMol. said: I thought I would love Cloud Atlas. I loved some chapters and really got into it, but hated others. The stories although separate are all linked, it's about re-incarnation, but I did not like the way the links between the stories were introduced but not really followed through sufficiently well. I thought it ended abysmally, or rather just faded. I have really mixed feelings about this book and I was quite disappointed by it after all the hype.
I think quite a lot of others have expressed similar feelings on amazon etc, however I really enjoyed it- I really liked the structure and was impressed with the total differences in style through the book. I think the vague links between stories are part of the point of it really. I can understand where you are coming from though. Anyway each to their own and all that
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parakitaMol.
10,059 posts
120 months
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Pete Franklin said: Anyway each to their own and all that Oh, that's never occurred to me. I thought everyone liked the same things.
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PineBarren
492 posts
49 months
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bint said: I found Kraken to be too bizarre to enjoy as much as his others. I seem to remember that it's one of his early ones but released after he'd made it. Not his finest IMHO.
Mind you I thought Perdido St was sheer genius, but City in the City may just clinch it as my favourite. For serious concepts, and concentration required, try Embassy Town - takes some reading, it comes together in the last few chapters and is worth the slog to get there. Ahh I never knew Kraken was written earlier on. I found it harder to get into that city.. But now I'm 2/3rds the way through its got me hooked. I bought embassytown on Wednesday and that sounds right up my street. Has anyone read Un Lun Dun?? I'm thinking of getting that one for after embassy town. I also bought the fountains of paradise by Arthur C Clarke for a bit of old school sci-fi. I loved childhoods end, rendezvous with Rama, fall of moondust and city and the stars and from what I hear fountains is in a similar mould
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Saddle bum
3,596 posts
88 months
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"A thousand years of annoying the French".
Birthday present from my son. Entertaining and amusing.
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Aizle
11,614 posts
44 months
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Max Hardberger, Seized.  A great read all based on true stories, with details adjusted (for obvious reasons!). Ship and aircraft repossessions fighting for the good.
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parakitaMol.
10,059 posts
120 months
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Just finished 'The Zookepers Wife' by Diane Ackerman - non-fiction.
Story told of the Nazi invasion and occupation of Warsaw from the journals of Antonina, the wife of the Warsaw Zoo Director Jan ¯abiñski and the key part they played in the resistance and underground efforts.
I thouroughly enjoyed reading a book written from this unique perspective, even though the subject matter was pretty uncomfortable.
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sinizter
3,346 posts
55 months
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Aizle said: Max Hardberger, Seized. Sounds pretty interesting. Might give this sometime soon. Thanks.
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Major Fallout
4,085 posts
100 months
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toasty said: Major Fallout said: Can anyone recommend me book please?
I fancy something that gets my mind going. I normally read Clive Cussler because its just a bit of fun, switch your brain off sort of stuff. (A bit like a Popcorn film.)
But normally when I feel my mind starting to melt I pickup one of the classics in between, 1984 and so on. This time I feel like a bit of a change, something twisty and clever.
Any recommendations? A mixture of the two, try the Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. It's about the devil and his entourage causing havoc in 1930's Moscow. Pete Franklin said: I have recently read Cloud atlas by David Mitchell which I thought was brilliant, 5 completely different stories from completely different time periods written in completely different styles all woven into one very memorable dystopia.
Also: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes- again it’s a book of many styles/ genres: Part history lesson, part religious critique, part short story(s) part biography. It is really quite thought provoking and moving in places. The last chapter in particular made my mind race and gave me a sleepless night. shirt said: i think kurt vonnegut might be up your street. very accessible writing but very wry and clever. try slaughterhouse 5 for a writer at the height of his powers, or some of the short story compilations as a starter.
just finished 'bound for glory' by woody guthrie. his autobiographical account of growing up in the depression and pre-war dust bowl towns. very honest, entertaining, funny and sad. really great read. goldblum said: The Man in the High Castle by P.K.Dick
"It is 1962 and the Second World War has been over for seventeen years: people have now had a chance to adjust to the new order. But it's not been easy. The Mediterranean has been drained to make farmland, the population of Africa has virtually been wiped out and America has been divided between the Nazis and the Japanese. In the neutral buffer zone that divides the two superpowers lives the man in the high castle, the author of an underground bestseller, a work of fiction that offers an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers didn't win the war. The novel is a rallying cry for all those who dream of overthrowing the occupiers. But could it be more than that? Subtle, complex and beautifully characterized, The Man in the High Castle remains the finest alternative world novel ever written, and a work of profundity and significance." Thanks guys! I have a bit of reading to do now  I will let you know how I get on.
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rehab71
1,070 posts
59 months
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I'm reading Peter James's latest in the 'Roy Grace' series, Not Dead Yet. Gripping as always.
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Jag-D
19,565 posts
88 months
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Jw Vw
4,022 posts
32 months
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Just started reading Ian Rankin's Rebus novel 'Resurrection Men'. Great read so far. Would recommend the series to anyone who hasn't read them yet. Great detective novels.
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Gizmoish
15,494 posts
78 months
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Jw Vw said: Just started reading Ian Rankin's Rebus novel 'Resurrection Men'. Great read so far. Would recommend the series to anyone who hasn't read them yet. Great detective novels. Got to start from the start though.
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Jw Vw
4,022 posts
32 months
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Gizmoish said: Got to start from the start though.  'tis true Giz.
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wst
1,062 posts
30 months
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Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I'd read Snow Crash and so for some crazy reason I didn't read the blurb and was expecting another awesome cyberpunk romp (do like a bit of that cyberpunk) and instead got a book that is making maths interesting etc. Bloody good stuff.
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dibbly dobbler
6,568 posts
66 months
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wst said: Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. I'd read Snow Crash and so for some crazy reason I didn't read the blurb and was expecting another awesome cyberpunk romp (do like a bit of that cyberpunk) and instead got a book that is making maths interesting etc. Bloody good stuff. I read that one a while back - loved it 
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