Sometimes Wolfe's Wizard Knight makes me feel like I'm participating in a D&D game. The ogre at the farm is totally D&D sidequest material, and it looks like I got a companion character out of it!

Really enjoying it.

To make it clear; I've actually never watched the movies either. So I'm completely new to this. I always hate seeing movies before the books, and I had never read the books so I never watched the movies. Haha. Granted, as I stated earlier, Fantasy has never interested me before.

Just finished Simmons' Hyperion. I kind of liked the mish-mash style; it's more a collection of related short stories told in the framework of a larger narrative than it is a real novel, and each of the stories has a different tone and atmosphere. There are also references to other bits of sci-fi literature (some direct references to Vance's Dying Earth, as well as an entire story that's a clear homage to Neuromancer, etc.). That said, at the same time it does feel a bit shallow in that there's not really much to the overall story and much of the neat parts of the sub-stories don't really matter much in the grand scheme of things, so it's hard not to dock it some points for a lack of cohesion.

Though they're apparently somewhat maligned, I reckon I'll give the sequels a go, too, since I've already got The Fall of Hyperion and Endymion already.

Started Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy a few days ago, missed it as a kid and figured it's now regarded as important enough that I ought to read it. Also, the idea of a children's series with an anti-religion message intrigued me. Halfway through the first book so far, and it's readable and engaging enough. I like how the daemons aren't explained with a big exposition dump, and just have the details about them gradually demonstrated. A good combination example of "show, don't tell" and "less is more." The lack of explanation builds mystery and curiosity, while the d(a)emonstration illustrates their place in society without interrupting the flow of the narrative.

However I have to say that even though the series is often presented as "Narnia for atheists" or whatever, it really isn't that similar. The Narnia books all had the classic "kid from our world gets transported to another via magic" while this is set in a 100% invented world. Lyra's world is also much more mundane, with politics and economics and bla bla while Narnia was much more "magical". Also, at least so far, it really reads more like a typical fantasy novel with a child protagonist, rather than a children's novel as something separate altogether. In the Narnia books, the kids basically started doing really important stuff on their own right away, while Lyra so far has done a few things but is mostly at the mercy of various adult factions. Not criticisms really, just observations.

I felt the same way about Hyperion, it was highly enjoyable, but what was the overall narrative? I didn't get much of a sense for one.

Then again I read it when I was 16 or so, so I don't trust my reading very much.

I need to read more Earthsea. Saw a conversation about it recently. I've read the first 3 books I think, but I'd like to revisit as an adult and go further. Love me some Le Guin.

Dunno if I've ever read any description of His Dark Materials as "Narnia for atheists" and I certainly don't really see the comparison, either. Rather shallow comparison along the same lines as calling every single post-Tolkien fantasy work "it's like the next Lord of the Rings!" like you always see on the covers of 'em.

I think you'll probably like the second and possibly third books more, as they start to get a bit weirder and, I might say, more Gene Wolfe-ish.

btw if you aren't aware, Hyperion's narrative structure is based loosely on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, so there's that

Sure, but I would knock Chaucer for the same thing, fun as Canterbury Tales is.

Well, in the first book at least, the tales very much had an overall narrative - the tales weren't just meant to pass the time, as with the Canterbury Tales, they were about what could lead each of these very different people to seek the Shrike, which was built up as this evil terrifying elder god thing that could provide epiphanies and horrible death in equal measure. It was sort of the opposite of the Canterbury Tales in a way - the pilgrimage to Constantinople was holy, while the pilgrimage to the Time Tombs was like this unholy inversion of that. What could lead these people to become so extraordinarily desperate? What terrifying whole do all these seemingly disconnected stories hint at? Well, unfortunately, Fall of Hyperion revealed the terrifying whole to be fucking stupid, but in Hyperion at least the mystery itself was tantalizing as hell.


Yeah, me too. I've heard the books past 3 weren't as good though, but I'll probably get them eventually anyway. I recently read Left Hand of Darkness for the first time, and man, it blew me away. What's weird about it is all everyone ever seems to focus on is the gender issues, which really were pretty minor within the book. It was just a background detail, where really the major focus was more the cultures themselves, which were more profoundly influenced by the planet's climate, I think. Great great book, though.

Left Hand of Darkness blew my 16 year old mind, a lot of it having to do with the gender stuff. There was a sex scene if I'm not confusing the book with a different book, with a genderless character, and I remember feeling really turned on by it. Which was probably confusing to my conservative Christianity of the time.

I come back to the Earthsea books again and again. For supposedly "young adult" books they really are very poignant and profound. Great stuff.

I finished Weaveworld some days ago, quite a let down since everyone seems to love it. As I mentioned before it seems way more like YA than dark fantasy, which disappointed me, and there were a lot of WTF moments in the plot. The last 200 pages or so was a chore except for the Scourge, which was the one thing that was well written (at least when it came out of the hiding place).

Now I'm reading an anthology of Lovecraftian monsters, called, surprise, Lovecraft's Monsters (ed. Ellen Datlow). I'm almost done and the short stories are very different; a Western, a poem, story set in Indonesia, several in Innsmouth, and with very different protagonists: A werewolf, a black PI, an animal whisperer, Frankenstein's Monster, a small family of survivors after the Old Ones have attacked Earth etc. Some stories are really cool, some are really weird, but mostly they work, and they are relatively easy read. Recommended for Mythos fans.

Datlow's anthologies are usually really good - she has a bit of an eye for picking good stories.

Re Weaveworld, I like the way it veers from (as you say) almost Young Adult tone to some very disturbing stuff (the magdelaine, ghost-rape, the by-blows etc). I also thought the way Shadwell goes from being a fairly minor character to the main antagonist was interesting. I dunno, I just really like it as a novel - I even have a first-edition.

Shadwell was interesting, sure, but he just changes so radically, and we never really get to know his motives (apart from wanting to pork Immaculata in the first part of the book). About Weaveworld being disturbing - I don't really think so, because the bad actions or theme weren't explored much [WARNING - spoilers ahead] - I mean, in Harry Potter, the murder of his parents pretty much defines everything, in Weaveworld the ghost rape of Cal is just kinda there, and, while pretty horrifying while it happens, there's no consequence or effect or anything after (apart from Cal having to fight the by-blow of himself, which also just kinda happens). Anyway, I guess I should've read it when I was a bit younger (I'm 26).

Now I've just started reading Dark Gods by TED Klein.. Should be interesting.

I don't get how you could possibly see it as being YA. You don't read about that sort of horrific stuff in YA fiction, no way, no how. Maybe you didn't like how it was handled, but that doesn't throw it into the YA category.

Seriously? Compare this to Harry Potter, where kids are tortured - pretty vividly if I remember correctly - and killed with a flick of a w/hand. I haven't read Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I saw the movie and read a plot recap and the bad guy kills father/mother figures off left and right and devastate small kids (he also tries to kill them).

It's not only the plot that makes me feel like this should be for younger readers - I also think the characters were - for the most part - pretty one dimensional, the love story is very simple and apart from a few uses of words like cunt or prick the writing isn't exactly shocking. Yes, ghost rape is horrible, but as said, there's no consequence so it kinda just 'slides off' the characters, so it doesn't leave an impact. The only thing that really surprised me was that Cal's father died, I didn't see that coming.

A bit late in replying, but I second George R.R. Martin. The problem is that every other fantasy will seem kind of mediocre in comparison to the vol. 3 (A Storm of Swords) of A Song of Ice and Fire. His last two books aren't nearly as good, sadly, but it's still great stuff and by far the best fantasy series out there.

Other great ones are:
- Joe Abercrombie: everything he's written so far is gold, start with First Law trilogy, then read his stand-alones which are set in the same world and are all excellent;
- Robin Hobb: she's very prolific and talented and has written many trilogies, I haven't read them all, but those three are good: Farseer, Liveship Traders, Tawny Man;
- Scott Lynch: author of Gentlemen Bastards series. It's still unfinished and I have yet to read his latest one, but the first two are great.

Avoid like the plague: Terry Goodking, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, Raymond E. Feist. Trust me.

Finished Faulker's "Three Famous Short Novels" collection today. I might've already posted about the first and/or second ones, but I forget and am lazy, so if I did, here it is again!

"Spotted Horses" kind of blows. Definitely very embryonic Faulkner, but he spends the majority of the story building up the characters (the Texan especially) and pontificating on just how much of a force of nature the titular horses are, but then he kind of stumbles into the rather ham-handed preachy courtroom scene that makes up the much briefer second chapter. It's definitely Faulkner, but quite weak.

"Old Man" suffers from a different kind of directionlessness, but it's not as much of a problem here because the language Faulkner uses to describe the flooded river and the futility of man's efforts in controlling it is so beautifully sculpted that it's still a pleasure to read. Really simple, straightforward story though, and probably as good a starting point as any for people interested in getting into his stuff.

"The Bear" is just brilliant. Starts out as a simple hunting story, though of course there are important undercurrents of man's relationship with/struggle against nature, but the hunt for Old Ben really just sets the stage for the wider scope, which is Ike's coming to terms with, to borrow a term from the late mindshadow, "the situation here" in the post-Civil War South: the problems that have arisen as a result of emancipation, coming to terms with the horrible racism and slave ownership of his family and people he knows, the concept of land ownership and its implications, the destruction and rape of nature, etc. It rambles and becomes more and more stream of conscious and Joyce-like as it goes, and some of the plot points are sometimes hard to pick out in that middle section, but the way the epic scope of issues Faulkner addresses in the story are all tied together through the simple backdrop of men hunting in the wilderness is really satisfying. I've never gotten around to reading the entirety of "Go Down, Moses" but this story works just fine on its own if you ask me.

Oh my god, Piers Anthony is so ridiculous. Every used bookstore I've been to recently (like 5 different ones) has MULTIPLE SHELVES devoted ENTIRELY to his stuff. No other author comes anywhere close in the sci-fi/fantasy section. I guess lots of people read his books once and then get rid of them?

Last week I read Murder on the Orient Express- been on a bit of a mystery kick, with Dennis Wheatley, Agatha Christie, Chandler and Hammett (all quite different, but thematically there's some broad agreement there....). A really cleverly constructed mystery but I felt it was impossible to get the best of it since the solution to the crime is so well known (I've seen multiple TV/film adaptations I'm sure).

Now moved onto DeLillo's White Noise. Enjoying it so far, even if the entire thing feels like one arch, knowing joke after the other. Guess that's postmodernism for you... Plot seems to be getting underway a bit now though, so will see how it picks up.

I want to read White Noise. I've only read Falling Man, which I actually published a paper over, despite not enjoying it that much (topic-related I think).

I'll be sure to wander back through here as I get through the book...

"Black man with a horn" is hands-down one of the best "Mythos" (as in Lovecraft) stories. Lots of respect for Mr. Klein.

This week I've finished "Hammer of the gods - Led Zeppelin unauthorised" and "Hitler's private library - the books that shaped his life"

I actually read Dark Gods a few years ago and was just really unimpressed with it all around. It's supposed to be a classic or something but I found all four stories to be pretty mediocre. Just way too many punches pulled. Pretty much all four follow the structure of 1) gradually introduce weird concept while building atmosphere 2) imply weird concept may actually be happening 3) the end. The problem with that structure is, there's really no climax - even Lovecraft, for all his writerly faults, knew you had to put a climax in there. Add to that the mediocrity of most of the stories' "weird concepts" and it made for a rather boring read. Only "Nadelman's God" had a really interesting one I felt, with Nadelman building a god out of garbage, but, like all the rest, it never really went anywhere.

I've read three out of the four stories - Nadelman's God still to go - and I guess I feel the same way as you, I'm kinda unimpressed. Too bad. I have some more horror waiting though, The Croning by Laird Barron.

Fuck, just finished The Croning early this morning. I went to bed late and just wanted to slug through a couple handfulds of pages, but in the end I stayed up till 6 in the morning and finished it. Some of the best weird/cosmic horror I've read. At times the atmosphere is just oppressing, and he is a very good writer too, with great language and believable, real characters. After the mediocrity that was Dark Gods it's great to find something that is both a page turner I was unable to put down and really fucking scary.

I'm currently halfway through Corpus Chrome, Inc. by S. Craig Zahler, who some of you may know better as one half of the duo behind the excellent Realmbuilder. It's a weird-feeling sci-fi story that ends up being a captivating read quite soon, with its attention to detail in the near-future setting and some pretty interesting and well-shaped characters. Their story arcs have yet to converge (and I don't doubt they will rather soon), but their individual paths are interesting enough on their own in the way Zahler deftly informs you about the world the characters inhabit and all their quirks, sorrows and individual pasts. As for the story itself, it's a quirky, yet still serious and deep enough science fiction tale centered around a corporation effectively monopolising resurrection through unfreezing people's brains (which had been harvested upon death) and putting them into robot bodies. That may read like some insane transhuman adventure, but it's been quite grounded and focused on the effected human drama so far.

Couple of things I finished this week:

"The king in yellow" - Robert W Chambers
"A season in Carcosa" - Various authors
"Twilight of the elites: America after meritocracy" - Christopher Hayes
"Mr Unpronounceable adventures" - Tim Molloy

I'm currently reading "The Lambs of London" by Peter Ackroyd. Found it at the bus stop, which was a bit of a score as I'm quite fond of his writing.

What'd you think of The king in yellow? I read it a few months ago and wasn't too impressed. I can appreciate the effort and the influence, but the work itself... Not as exciting as I'd hoped.

I liked it, or at least the first half. You can actually see it's influence in a of of stuff - "The ring" film comes to mind, Lovecraft obviously, other things which will no doubt come to mind after I stop typing. I think a lot of people who express the same opinion as you do are hoping for something different, more outright cosmic horror, when it has more in common with, say, M.R James, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and the like. Not out and out horror, just slightly unsettling "weird tales". It's certainly a clever construction - a book about a book, in which said book is never the primary focus of the individual stories but which is an insidious presence in all of them.

I do enjoy weird fiction, and a few of the stories were cool (in the first half as you said), but as a complete work I was disappointed.

Yeah, about half the stories in The King in Yellow are kind of shitty, but a few of them are simply amazing. They're more about atmosphere than anything else, a pervading sense of decay and insanity. "The Repairer of Reputations", "In the Court of the Dragon", and "The Yellow Sign" are all great. But yeah, there are some serious clunkers in there too. Around the turn of the century there was this weird tendency for authors to mix horror with really sappy romance; William Hope Hodgson did it with The Night Land too, seriously marring an otherwise amazing book.

Speaking personally, I probably actually like "weird fiction" more than outright cosmic horror, provided the atmosphere is weird enough. Robert Aickman is probably my favorite horror author, and there is very rarely anything explicitly horrific in this fiction - it's just mind-bendingly bizarre.

I agree to a point. I think "The willows" is one of the stories I've read in recent years that really gave me the creeps, even though nothing actually happens at all.

The Wendigo is much better! The Willows is quality, it has a great atmosphere, but it gets a little too explain-y at the end. What makes The Wendigo so great is even once it's over, nobody really knows exactly what the fuck happened or why. They just stumbled over this ancient primal force, which wrought havoc and vanished.

I like The Willows most of these two myself.

I know I just wrote about it, but I have to recommend The Croning by Laird Barron again. It's one of the stories that creeped me out. If I have one small criticism then it gets a little too explain-y too at the end, but nothing that detracts from the awesomeness or the atmosphere... And even though we get sorta an explanation it still manages to end with a hammer, to fuck up us at the very end

Have you read Barron's other stuff? I rate "the Imago sequence" really highly, particularly the story "Procession of the black sloth"


Anyway, I'm getting really pissed off because I'm trying to find the author of a short story I really want to recommend. It's called "The Pleiades". Canadian author, set in Vancouver in the early 90's (written around then too), cosmic horror stuff. I know I have it in a collection, but all my books are in storage. Google is just giving me bullshit when I try and enter any search parameters related to Pleiades canada horror etc. Anyone able to shed any light on that?

Not much I'm afraid, I have a few of individual short stories in a couple collections, but I don't have any of his books apart from The Croning. They're on the list obviously.

Just got to the end of A Feast for Crows and I'm really pissed about the general cliffhanger situation.

It can't be for the money, because anyone who has made it this far won't just give up on the series now, so I reckon he does it out of spite.

ADWD goes a bit beyond AFFCt in the timline, for what that's worth. Some of those cliffhangers are addressed. But at the same time, cliffhangers are kind of inevitable in an ongoing series.

Right, in the introduction of ADWD it says that some characters of AFFC will get chapters at the end of the book, so apparently I won't have to wait for TWOW to learn their fates. That's a relief, but I'll still have to get through all those parallel storylines first. Eh, guess I should stop complaining and get on with reading then.


Sure, but on one hand you have cliffhangers like at the end of ASOS where the conflicts - not of the series - but of the book are more or less resolved, with
and on the other hand you have AFFC which just kinda cleaves off the story at the steepest possible cliffs, followed by the disclaimer: not to be continued in the next episode. You have to admit that's a bit frustrating.