MobileRead November 2012 Book Club Nominations

[John F]

The way it's going, it looks like Cloud Atlas will win by default.

[pynch]

I’d like to nominate “Against the Day” by Thomas Pynchon—and yes, I know, but I feel just fine calling this science fiction, albeit “science fiction written in 1900”, as Louis Menand from the New Yorker put it.

Kobo Amazon

And here’s the description by Mr. Pynchon himself:

“Spanning the period between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.
With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.”

—Thomas Pynchon

[WT Sharpe]

I nominate Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock by Christopher L. Bennett. Love time travel tales.

[Grey Ram]

I would like to third the nomination for Ubik and Beggars in Spain and second The Dreaming Jewels

Regards

[WT Sharpe]

I nominate Summer of Love, A Time Travel by Lisa Mason. Hippies, drugs, temporal displacement. Who could ask for more?

[WT Sharpe]

For my third and last nomination, one that's been on my to-be-read list (and my Kindle) for some time now, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

For my third and last nomination, one that's been on my to-be-read list (and my Kindle) for some time now, The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

Yay, Triffids! Seconded.

I just taped the probably terrible 2009 movie on the weekend. I watched the older British movie on netflix last year. I like all John Wyndham's books.

Four days and hardly any fully nominated books for this category? What gives?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Synamon

Yay, Triffids! Seconded.

I just taped the probably terrible 2009 movie on the weekend. I watched the older British movie on netflix last year. I like all John Wyndham's books.

I remember the old movie as having terrible special effects, but I wouldn't hold any movie adaptation against a book. It would be cool if it won. I bought it on my K3—that's two Kindles ago—and haven't started it yet. It would give me an excuse to read it. I've heard it's pretty good.

Originally Posted by Synamon

Four days and hardly any fully nominated books for this category? What gives?

Winter doldrums setting in early?

[issybird]

I'd like to nominate Metropolis by Thea von Harbou, the novelization of Fritz Lang's classic film by his wife/collaborator. From a review at Amazon :

Thea von Harbou's book is the indispensable companion to Fritz Lang's immortal film. As most people know, Lang's film was butchered by German and American editors-we have lost about 25% of the film. Essential scenes and many of the subplots were deleted to make it fit within a small time frame. Reality Check: The shorter the film, the more times they can show it, and the more money they collect. Consequently, with the best of restorations, we are seeing a film with as many gaps as a hockey player's smile.
This book, which was serially published before the film's release, fills in the gaps. You get a better sense of the story that Lang and von Harbou are trying the tell. The book allows you to get inside the heads of Freder and co. in a way that the film does not allow. You get a stronger feel for the dystopic milieu that Freder fixes.

This story is essentially mythic, so devotees of Joseph Campbell, George Lucas, and James N. Frey will devour the book and the film. You see the messianic and redemptive elements that makes this story so enduring. This story is one of my favorites, and rates with anything C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkein wrote, although not with the same level of craftsmanship.

In the public domain. A Feedbooks link.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I remember the old movie as having terrible special effects, but I wouldn't hold any movie adaptation against a book. It would be cool if it won. I bought it on my K3—that's two Kindles ago—and haven't started it yet. It would give me an excuse to read it. I've heard it's pretty good.

Not quite as bad as The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but yeah.

Triffids was the first ebook I ever bought and it predates my Kindle. A friend gave me a copy of it (don't shoot me, I didn't know better at the time) and the formatting was terrible. After reading a couple of chapters I deleted it and bought a copy on Amazon to read on my computer.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by issybird

I'd like to nominate Metropolis by Thea von Harbou, the novelization of Fritz Lang's classic film by his wife/collaborator....

A great choice. Metropolis is one of my all-time favorite films, and the newly discovered and restored footage, while still not quite complete, lets us see just how much we missed the first time we saw it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I nominate Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock by Christopher L. Bennett. Love time travel tales.

Seconded

[JSWolf]

Just for a quick reminder, Beggars in Spain can be had for less then $1 or maybe free from your local library's overdrive eBook section.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I nominate Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations: Watching the Clock by Christopher L. Bennett. Love time travel tales.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Seconded

I thought you'd like that one.

Most of my favorite Star Trek episodes and movies involved time travel; among them: "The City on the Edge of Forever" (TOS), "All Good Things..." (STTNG), and the movie "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home".

[jabberwock_11]

Normally I would look through the many nifty books in my collection and nominate an obscure, but worthy choice; however, there are already plenty of really good nominations that could use a helping hand. So...I would like to use my votes to second Metropolis, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Verdant Skies.