Both are really great reads, I'd say you should make a point of hitting both for sure. Been meaning to finally get around to reading more Gibson beyond Neuromancer. As the fundamental source of so many things cyberpunk, I'd say it's pretty essential, yeah.

My appreciation for Dune has definitely waned over the years; both Dune and Neuromancer are very much "style over substance" sorts of books. Neat settings, a lot of cool ideas and worldbuilding details, but not really a whole lot of depth once you start digging deeper beneath the surface.

That said, both were enormously big deals in sci-fi when they came out, so if you're interested in the history, they're pretty much essential reading.


The Sprawl trilogy, which begins with Neuromancer, basically gets worse with each book. They're not direct sequels, although Molly does play an important role in the third book, and the Finn shows up in all three in a supporting role. Count Zero, #2, is still worth reading I think, but #3, Mona Lisa Overdrive, I just found to be incredibly dull, and with a really stupid twist to wrap up the trilogy.

The problem with Gibson is that, beyond the flashy style, it's essentially just a facelift of Raymond Chandler-style hardboiled detective thrillers, but without the same flair for intricate plots and memorable characters. The flashy, self-consciously hip/cool style starts to fade in later books, and doesn't really get replaced with anything.

Yeah, I wasn't terribly impressed by Neuromancer, all pioneering aside and looking at it as a novel by itself. "Style over substance" is apt, and even so, the style wasn't really all that stylish, contemporarily speaking. The more I think about it, probably one of the most boring sci-fi I've ever read.


Cheers.

Robert Anton Wilson - the Earth Will Shake. 10/10, more madness from the master. Funny as hell.
Henry Miller - Sexus, 10/10, edifying smut.

The Fall of Hyperion wasn't nearly what I'd hoped it would be. I really, really enjoyed the first one but this one was pretty boring. Not so much actively offensive/painful, but just a waste of time.

The Martian was pretty cool, though. A fun, light read. Some of the jokes fell a tad flat and I groaned every time dude used the word "ghetto" but on the whole I liked it. Hopefully the movie doesn't suck.

I'm not sure what literary tradition or whatever it's born out of, but Moby Dick is indeed an insane book. It's so meticulous and gruelling in its general outlook towards its subject matter, but when it finally 'delivers the goods,' it's entirely rewarding. I particularly like the whole saga with Queequeg and the way that he sort of just 'knows' how to not die after he lies in his coffin.

All you horror lit fans should read Burnt Black Suns by Simon Strantzas. It's quite masterful.

the wisdom of those close to the earth prevails after all

Just finished John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany. Oh my god, what an absolutely beautiful book. The story switches between didactic political passages, this weird kind of systematic atmospheric description, and actual narrative events constantly, divided into nine chapters which are actual self-contained nodes of story rather than just largely arbitrary divisions. The actual story itself is really just breathtaking. Without getting into too spoiler-ish territory, after I finished the book, I couldn't really bring myself to do anything. I just sat there staring at the wall, trying to come to terms with the comprehensive narrative force I had just witnessed. The book pretty consistently deals with themes of religion and the struggle between spiritual belief and theological dogma, and inside its own little world, it seems to make a pretty comprehensive case for God. I don't mean that it somehow proves the existence of God or anything, I mean that bearing witness to events that seem so predestined but simultaneously natural as the events in A Prayer For Owen Meany are would easily enough to make a believer of me. I've read various sources saying that the novel is essentially 'dead,' as a tool for conveyance of unique meaning and thematic content, and clearly I'm approaching the issue from the perspective of a novice, but A Prayer For Owen Meany seems to make a pretty difficult to ignore case against that notion.

Oh my god I'm reading the Foundation series now (up to Second Foundation, but I haven't read the prequel yet) and this is so true. The books are quite good, but the amount of convenient exposition is pretty jarring sometimes. It's like one character will say "Well of course you know the events of the last year/30 years/whatever because you lived through them, but let me recite them to you in minute detail anyway."

So far, though, I quite like the scale of the Foundation books. A lot of the characters are flat, but the scale (i.e. that the series takes places over hundreds of years) helps make up for it somehow.

a coupla people had recommended me the world according to garp, so I had a look at Irving's books in a bookstore, and garp wasn't there... I ended up picking meany, based on the blurb on the back. WORST.BOOK.EVER. it dragged and dragged, I had to force myself to finish it. there were maybe a coupla good insights, and the rest is bog. as for the "resolution" to Owen's birth mystery and the ending... EL James and Stephenie Meyer are better writers.

not addressed to you, or to attack your liking of the book, just as a counterpart in case someone else feels like wasting their time on this 600 page parp. get a Tom Robbins or Thomas Pynchon instead.

I dunno what you're talking about. It absolutely 100% gripped me. John Irving's writing style is just so jovial and charismatic that I got to the point where I was reading about a hundred pages a day. All of the low-key humor and scattered bits of peripheral, but still entirely emotionally poignant narrative (John's grandmother slowly drifting out of life in front of the TV, for example) are easily powerful enough to carry the book for its 600 page duration, and are easily worth getting through to behold the absolute emotional revelation of the ending.

Also, I should point out that it's John's 'birth mystery' and not Owen's. John spends the book wondering who his father is, and finds out towards the end. Owen's mother said that Owen was immaculately conceived presumably to hide an affair she had, but there's no mystery there. As far as Owen knows, he has both a mother and a father.

we must have read different books with the same title...

(don't click here if you don't want to know about the book's mysteries and ending:)


try Twilight, you'll love it. many depth, so philosophy.

Ugh, whatever. I'm not claiming it's particularly philosophical or whatever, I'm just claiming that it's a beautiful story with content and meaning (separate to the narrative, that is) that it'd be hard to convey through really any other means. To be honest, it really just seems to me like you kind of zoned out midway through the book out of your own impatience. This is kind of confirmed by the fact that you mixed up the two most central characters.

you're right in that, as I said, I had to force myself to finish the book (a character trait I don't much like in myself, not leaving things half-way)... so I might have zoned out. I don't think I confused the two characters though. and I try not to think about the book much since I put it down. my understanding, based on what I remember reading was anyway.

I read some Elric lately and I found it very poorly written, although the character himself is a very good invention... hopefully someone (else) will write that much-rumoured Elric movie.

Is this review accurate?

Not at all. A few of the characters have dark or unfortunate pasts, as in a shitload of this type of fiction, but the stories are about as different from each other as it gets. Only in the last story was the main character's thinking about the past annoying, and that was the weakest story (though it's a lot of people's favourite.)

Ditto. This is indeed a fantastic collection. With Barron, Langan, Stranzas & Kiernan to name but a few, North America seems to be having another boom of weird fiction talent, and that makes me super happy



On another note,

... anyone?

Currently I'm reading Michael Cobley's Orphaned Worlds (book two in Humanity's Fire series). Not exactly the deepest of sci-fi but a decent enough space opera. It has a huge scope, and a quick pace, but it seems the author is more trying to constantly come up with new worlds and alien species than making the plot make sense. At times it's bordering on ridiculous, and I'm not sure if I'll make it to the end of the second book, not even talking about the whole series.

I also started A Towering Flame: The Life & Times of Peter the Painter - a historic book on Peter the Painter and other Latvian anarchists and their part in Houndsditch murders and Siege of Sidney Street. Pretty interesting read, unveiling many details from the failed 1905 revolution and the further lives of the anarchists.

Read Brian McLellan's Promise of Blood, the first in the Powder Mage Trilogy and I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, the world was pretty interesting (basically a French Revolution-type deal) with some cool magic, but on the other hand the writing was kinda not that good. I kept getting the feeling he was trying to do what Steven Erikson did and not really explain things at first but I don't think McLellan has the talent to do that. I'll likely check out the other two since this seems to be rather well-regarded among modern fantasy but I'm not really i any particular hurry.

Also read Moorcock's The Knight of the Swords and thought it was pretty cool. I'm sure when it came it was really something, but discovering it now sorta took away some of its impact. I plan on reading the others in the series. They're light, fun reads.


Also, been having shitloads of problems finding stuff to read lately. I'll get like 50-100 pages into a book and just lose interest. Done this with probably almost five books in the past two weeks or so.

The Ninth Configuration by William Peter Blatty
7/10 Gripping little psychological exercise by a personal favorite. Kinda predictable, still a page turner.

Books of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
I don't know if I should give this a 0 or 10 yet. Either way, unsettling.

Just finished reading Notes From Underground. Oh my god, it was intense. It was a totally engaging read, but I really don't feel contented after finishing it. Everything kind of resolved itself thematically, but the conclusions it came to were just not pleasant at all. Tho be honest, I'm kind of having trouble coming to terms with the book. What are you guys' thoughts on it? Is The Brothers Karamazov worth reading?

This. Yes. Behold the deep and absolute immersion of bestial adolescence.

I've been stuck in my apartment for going on five days mostly unable to see following eye surgery so I've been plowing through Joe Abercrombie's First Law trilogy via audiobook. I'm about 2/3 through the second book, now.

The obvious point of reference is A Song of Ice and Fire but I would also draw comparisons to Wheel of Time. So first up, the nags. Abercrombie's writing is far from terrible but really his prose often just isn't colorful enough. While he comes nowhere close to Robert Jordan levels of awfulness, he does tend to recycle a lot of the same phrases, especially when it comes to character actions and whatnot (people are constantly grimacing, for example). A bigger vocabulary and more boldness in the descriptive language would go a long way, I think. Not sure of spelling since this is an audiobook but Inquisitor Glokta also gets somewhat grating how he's gotta sarcastically remark on goddamn everything in his mind before saying something completely different. Yeah, I get it, but it's overdone and a bit irritating sometimes. Finally, the first book
that I could have done without. Thankfully, Abercrombie's on the ball with his writing when it comes to the action sequences, which are always entertaining as hell and very edge-of-your-seat. I could read about Logan and Three Tree's band fighting dudes forever, probably.

Onto the praise! Basically the overall feel is very ASoIaF, but keeps things much more compact with a much more manageable cast of characters and fewer concurrent story lines. The smaller cast also means that the books avoid one of ASoIaF's pitfalls, i.e. that major characters get killed off regularly and are almost always replaced with less interesting characters whose stories we're then obliged to follow. However, the main thrust of the plot feels more akin to Wheel of Time, with the origins of magic and the sort of biblical creation myth stuff getting wrapped up in the story, but it's handled infinitely better here. The nature of magic is much more mysterious and therefore makes for more potent bits of writing when it does get used as it's always unsettling at best and sometimes frightening. We also don't have the endgame of the plot spelled out for us right from the beginning, so there's no "dick around for a dozen thousand-page books while we twiddle our thumbs waiting for a story whose ending is already known" effect. I don't know what will happen or why it will happen, I don't know some major characters' real backgrounds or motivations and basically I have no clue how things will play out, and that's exciting.

While the kind of ho-hum writing prevents this from being in quite the same league for me as stuff like Book of the New Sun or the Titus Groan trilogy, I'd still say this is some really high-quality fantasy highly recommended to fans of ASoIaF and Wheel of Time (or for people who wanted to like those, but didn't).

NfU has 2 parts that are related but also should be seen as a 'different' character's views. i had to read it several times to get some of the content right. It's one of my fav Fyodor books.

Brothers Karamazov works as a soft of compendium of his ideas. There's a bit of everything he wrote, at the same time making sense. All characters are well written and feature/represent a certain psychological archetype of his. I won't spoil the book for you, but I can safely say it's an excellent book and will probably be more of your liking than NfU.

One thing that a good share of Fyodor's works feature is a sort of redemption/ascension of his characters though suffering or certain shocking experiences. For example, if you like movies like The Shawshank Redemption, you must read Fyodor's The House of the Dead. Also, Humiliated and Insulted might work for you.

Some other works of him features this kind of innocent/poor guy who features a strange/miserable romanticist view of life. The Idiot and White Nights are engaging for this reason. White Nights is a short story that is simply spectacular. I genuinely cried upon my first reading.

If you like more 'supernatural' stuff like Gogol's Doppelganger, Kafka's Metamorphosis and Papini's Gog, you might like Fyodor's Demons, The Double and The Landlady.

I wonder if you are into more nihilistic/'depressive' views of society and self, since NfU has a quite dark and 'unoptimistic' feeling. If you are, read Fernando Pessoa's Book of Disquiet.. It's hard to digest, too dense so it's slow to read but that's one of the things I like the best of it. You can get a whole evening of conversation discussing a couple of lines.

I really don't get the comparisons to either ASoIaF or WoT with Abercrombie's stuff. Abercrombie's style is his own and there are no major resemblances with either of these works unless you squint really really hard (which is what you seem to be doing, iamntbatman ) or haven't read a lot of fantasy or something...

Speaking of Abercrombie, I just started part 3 of his Shattered Sea trilogy and it's still going strong so far. Amazing pacing and you'd probably find that his prose has gotten better. Also this is his "YA" trilogy, and I use scare quotes 'cause, well, it's pretty violent stuff for YA but you can see why it's been categorized as such; (almost) swearing-free, the violence isn't quite as disturbing as in past novels, and it's focused mostly on teenage POV characters and coming of age stories, but it's exceptionally well done (there's part in book 2 where it's basically teenage drama but it had me cracking up so hard, who knew that shit could be so entertaining ). I think I might enjoy the world building and lore of the Shattered Sea even more than the world of the First Law (who didn't do that much for me, tbh). It's also very low fantasy, almost no magic or supernatural whatsoever, which is really cool.

Oh, and for those who felt his female characters were a bit lackluster in First Law... well, he's improved tons after that (with Best Served Cold and Red Country already being much better in that department), and Shattered Sea has his best ones yet. Skifr <3

I once wrote about Lovecraft:


but I have to step back from this comment, because this book by Alastair Bonnett has changed by opinion to some degree. While the overall mystery might be gone, maybe the alienation of man with the surrounding environment and the general absence of fascination for those little things that surround us all, can compensate to some extent. It is funny to read about place that never existed, even though they had been on a map once. How civilizations have lived once -- under the Earth -- and how these buildings are still in use today.

I am only several chapters into the book, but it is an amusing read.

What? The resemblances with ASoIaF and WoT are plentiful. The books clearly fit into the same niche of fantasy. Sure, Abercrombie's got a different style than either Martin or Jordan but if you can't see the (huge number of) similarities then I just don't know what to tell you. Or maybe I'm just a clueless n00b? Powerful rhetoric, that.

While I don't personally see much Wheel of Time in it (though I will admit I've only read the first five and thus don't know everything that happens), I genuinely don't understand how someone could read The First Law and not think of Martin. Even Abercrombie himself has acknowledged being influenced by ASoIaF. It's not a straight clone, but the fingerprints are all over it.

I really enjoyed the First Law. I thought it really fun and the pages seemed to turn themselves, the last two books especially. But they didn't have the same immersive quality that ASoIaF or the Malazan books did. In those books the world just feels massive and I get the feeling that I'm only seeing a tiny fraction of it. I never got that feeling with The First Law.

Yeah I mean, it's definitely no clone/worship, but it feels like basically Abercrombie wanted to write a story sort of similar to WoT but using something more like ASoIaF's gritty, brutal, "realistic" but pulpy, page-turner approach, consciously aware of the successes (even if limited) and failures of both. I knew about the Martin influence before even going in, but it's not hard to see how an aspiring fantasy writer worth half a shit would see that there's *some* value in WoT's basic ideas, even if they're executed extremely poorly due to Jordan being a total dogshit writer 98% of the time.

has anyone had a chance to read the new Gene Wolfe yet? I think it came out last month.

Oh wow, yeah that's true. They're all fantasy fiction. Why couldn't I see that? I'm so silly. First Law is therefore also very similar to Raymond E. Feist's books and Ursula LeGuin, because hey it's fantasy.



WoT is very very high fantasy, heavy on magic and supernatural, black and white morality, and more about the Great Battle between Good vs Evil than it is about plotting or characterization.
ASoIaF is low fantasy, with grey morality, and more about political intrigue and strong character development.
First Law is fairly low fantasy, very grey morality, and is almost all about character development.

Both WoT and ASoIaF are slow paced (ASoIaF initially wasn't sigh), wide in scope, and very heavy on world-building, mythology, lore, etc. First Law is very very low on those. Initially Abercrombie didn't even want maps in his books and what little there is in terms of world-building, is really not similar to either WoT or ASoIaF. First Law is primarily about character development. The story arc/plot is almost minimal (the plot of book 2 could be summarized in one line and you wouldn't lose much detail that's not a knock on the book but it's true). You find some political intrigue with Glokta, but that's about it (and GRRM didn't invent the concept anyway), it's pretty toned down compared to all the political scheming in Westeros and Essos.

The ASoIaF influence comes in the form of the grimdark grey morality, true; WoT is so tame and neutered it could probably be safe for toddlers, whereas Abercrombie writes grittier, edgier* stuff and his characters are not black and white. But that's about it, really. In terms of story and plot, pacing, scope, and world-building, it's completely different from ASoIaF. And, as I already mentioned, a very different writing style from both. Yeah, I don't see it. If you just want to say that fans of GRRM will likely enjoy First Law, then sure, depending on what they enjoy about ASoIaF, but since many people appreciate ASoIaF because of its grimdark feel and nuanced morality, it's certainly a good guess. But otherwise it's very different. And WoT, well, that's just crazy talk. Seriously.

* I say that in the nicest possible way

I haven't read WoT so I can't comment on that, but ASoIaF was a pretty huge and obvious influence on the First Law trilogy...it's not a clone or anything, but yeah. It's really weird to me that you seem to be arguing otherwise.


The most recent one I've read is Home Fires, which was quite decent by Wolfe standards but nothing amazing. Most of the books he's written in the 21st century have been in that category, fairly short standalone novels that are relatively simple and small in scope compared to earlier standalones like Peace or The Fifth Head of Cerberus or Free Live Free, but still of a generally good quality. I have yet to read The Land Across or the most recent one, but of the ones I have read, The Sorcerer's House was the best, and An Evil Guest was the worst, the latter probably being my least favorite of all of Wolfe's novels.

The Sorcerer's House was very cool though, an epistolary novel that features a typical Wolfean unreliable narrator, but presented in a novel way. There's a lot of Wolfe's usual mish-mash of mythology and legend, as seen in Castleview and The Wizard Knight albeit a bit watered down, but the characters are especially strong, especially the protagonist.

Wasn't so sold on The First Law. I only read The Blade Itself, but it really didn't grab me enough for me to bother with the rest of the series. Considering it's apparently almost all about the character development, the characters were really boring and one-dimensional. It has a similar problem to Brandon Sanderson's stuff, in that all the characters felt like their whole personalities and dispositions were ripped straight from the class/alignment descriptions in some RPG manual. Also, this is purely a personal thing, but it has the capacity to annoy the shit out of me when books switch into italics/change fonts on a regular basis.

I argued otherwise using actual arguments, instead of just, you know, asserting it, like you and iamntbatman have been doing. So... whatever.


WTF? Logen, Glokta and Jezal, boring and one-dimensional? Ridiculous.

....


Oh wow. Okay...

Seems it's been awhile since I posted here. I like to talk about games on M-A

Just gonna copy and paste some reviews I made on Goodreads for anyone interested.

Under the Dome



I think the best way to describe this book is that Stephen King had a cool idea and ran wild with it. Another way to understand this book is that it has a very Lord of the Flies feel largely consisting of an adult cast.

The drawback of this is that I think King was a bit too ambitious in showing how this affected an entire town. King has been ambitious before with very long books consisting of a lot of characters. With The Stand, I felt connected to each character and was poised and ready to learn what happens next. With this book, some of the characters just seemed to pop out and we learn what happens to them, but I wasn't as involved with their lives.

I was invested in some of the main characters enough to maintain my interest though. I definitely wanted to know how things would end up for Dale Barbara and company. I wanted Big Jim to get what he deserved. King was great at making me feel a guilty sense of schadenfreude for the residents I didn't like and making me rejoice for or mourn the characters I did like.

The best part of this book by far is seeing how an invisible and impenetrable dome hermetically seals off an entire town. In the Stand you felt the world was against the heroes but Under the Dome has the world wanting to help the heroes and is unfortunately unable.

What is especially nice is the dome itself isn't supernatural in the sense it doesn't violate existing laws of physics, but is merely some new unseen object with different variables. As a result, this book has a believable sense of reality showcasing the effects on all the residents within.

The psychology in this book is also believable in seeing how people act knowing they are cut off from civilization. The Dome emboldens some to commit deeds they would not otherwise perform, both moral and immoral. The interactions and tension felt between characters is highly enriching and satisfying.

Under the Dome could've been your favorite gourmet or home-cooked meal but instead you have a buffet consisting of a great deal of selections you'll probably enjoy. I'm guessing most will like but not love this book. It's most definitely worth a read if you're willing to invest the time.

Grade: B+



The Outlaw Demon Wails



Kim Harrison is slipping but she hasn't lost it. This book is fine but it's most certainly not something I'd highly recommend.

This book seemed too reliant on too many cliches. For one, Rachel's mom seems to be an amalgamation of every corny trope about mothers. Her mom is this youthful spirited mother but also possesses extreme powers. Oh and she's also a bit ditsy and embarrasses Rachel at times with sexual innuendo. It felt like every idea about an unconventional mother was just shoved all on us and I really wasn't interested in Alice Morgan at all.

I'm also not a fan of the plot twists in Rachel's past that keep mounting. I want to see characters grow and evolve rather than just be introduced to new secrets. It's way too convenient a method in trying to expand upon a character and Rachel's secret background keeps getting more unbelievable the more I read.

My final criticism is that the laws of demons and the demon world aren't really fleshed out in any believable or coherent structure. Anything new introduced about demon culture just seems to be convenient to the plot as opposed to really giving you a glimpse into another world.

However, the actual demon world itself is marvelously illustrated. I got a real sense that I was in some desolate alternate reality. The demons themselves seem to have their own unique personality and mannerisms. There is some impressive diversity among demons to make you want to meet more while also keeping you reluctant and wanting to maintain a distance from these threatening enigmas. If this was intentional to help us connect to Rachel and the dangers of dealing with demons while creating this fascination with them, then Bravo!

I also liked how we learn more about Trent and see his character develop. It's really nice when we can understand villains and their motivations to the point that we are hesitant to refer to them as evil or villains. Blatantly evil characters are boring. Characters with motivations and desires that can run contrary to the protagonist's are fascinating.

I feel if Harrison were to every completely play on her strengths and wipe out all weaknesses as an author, we'd have some amazing books by her! As of now, she produced an entertaining series that doesn't get me hooked but maintains mild interest. I'll probably check out the next book in the Hollows series.

Final Grade: B-


I'm now reading Armada by Ernest Cline and it's nowhere in the same league as Ready Player One. It's kind of fun but maybe Cline was just a one hit wonder with Ready Player One. We'll see what happens when I finish it.

I'm not interested in changing your opinion, nor in defending my own. I was only expressing my bewilderment that you have that opinion.


Yeah, this had me scratching my head as well, especially since Ferro actually is a one-dimensional character, and the contrast between her and the other main characters is quite striking.

Has anyone read The Vorrh by Brian Catling? It sounds really, really intriguing. Some reviews I've seen laud it as the best fantasy novel in decades. I downloaded it on my ereader but I think I'm going to try to find a physical copy. Was just wondering if anyone around here can recommend it or corroborate what I've heard about it, since I don't personally know anyone else who's read it.

I dunno. I guess Glokta had some interesting stuff going on in his backstory, but the other two you mentioned struck me as really dull. Jezal in particular, with his 100% generic romance subplot. Maybe it gets better in the next two books, but everything in The Blade Itself was just so mundane and imaginatively empty.

Just finished the second First Law book. Mostly really good stuff throughout the whole book but I found that it strangely took a dive at the end.



Excited to see how things pan out in the last book.