Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[LDB]

I didn't know about Tor.com, probably because SF isn't really my thing, but you can't beat free and that might be enough to make me a convert. Thanks for mentioning it.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by LDB

I didn't know about Tor.com, probably because SF isn't really my thing, but you can't beat free and that might be enough to make me a convert. Thanks for mentioning it.

Most of the book club's offerings amount to "here's book one of a series, so we can promote the new installment," but that ain't nothin'. If you happen to dig Star Trek, startrekbooks.com usually offers a handful of backlist novels each month for 99 cents each. Sometimes they're a grab bag (like now), but I've also picked up some complete story arcs that way... and the site links to the traditional stores, so you're not locked into their specific website.

Meanwhile, on the thread's topic: I've picked up several graphic novels here at the end of the year. I usually get a couple at a time and read them about as quickly as I buy them, but this month has actually been bountiful enough to create a small TBR stack. In the list are a dozen Marvel Masterworks volumes at one or two bucks each, DC's Tales of the Dark Multiverse (a "what if everything went badly wrong in some of our biggest storylines?" compilation), Injustice Year Five, the gorgeous Harleen (another retelling of Mad Love), and half a dozen other volumes that I'm very unlikely to find cheaper anytime soon. Two of those are mostly repurchases of Black Panther material I got as single issues during the big giveaway when Boseman died, but (a) they were two bucks each, (b) they're more convenient to handle, and (c) they include some material which was not free that would be more expensive to buy separately.

So I've been reading some of those because my brain would rather plot Real Books than read them at present.

[Elektron]

Currently wrapping up The Battlemage by Taran Matharu.

[poohbear_nc]

Well, based upon the spirited discussion above, I have settled (for the moment) on the following course of reading:

Continue with the Complete Works of Lovecraft - "mephitic miasma" is so descriptive of the current situation. And the Cats ....

Started a re-read of Dracula last night - I so enjoy the Grand Guignol of the various epistolary entries.

Beginning a cautious attempt again at Phineas Redux - in the hopes that Lady Glencora will soon appear.

[Bookstooge]

Decided to start off the new year a little early with some light reading. Gulag Archipelago Vol II.

I've been struggling with this since August and so have decided to dedicate January to it so I can clear it off my kindle. And considering the soon-to-be political situation here in the US, it seems very apropos.

[Elektron]

Reading The Outcast by Taran Matharu.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookstooge

Decided to start off the new year a little early with some light reading. Gulag Archipelago Vol II.

I've been struggling with this since August and so have decided to dedicate January to it so I can clear it off my kindle. And considering the soon-to-be political situation here in the US, it seems very apropos.

Keep such comments to P&R, OK?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Beginning a cautious attempt again at Phineas Redux - in the hopes that Lady Glencora will soon appear.

And there’s one of the reasons I prefer Trollope to Dickens! Trollope’s women are so much better, stronger, more fully realized than Dickens’s. Not a Dora or Dorrit or Nell among them.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by issybird

And there’s one of the reasons I prefer Trollope to Dickens! Trollope’s women are so much better, stronger, more fully realized than Dickens’s. Not a Dora or Dorrit or Nell among them.

Trollope has created some of the most wonderfully nasty, evil old women - that simply revel in making others miserable - all for the good of family, country, etc.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Another random pick, The Barbed Coil by J. V. Jones. A random pick from my TBR, this is one I bought at Fictionwise back in May 2009!

A most enjoyable high fantasy. The fight scenes were poorly described and totally implausible. But the setup was good, and I enjoyed the ride.

Next up: My first book to be read in 2021, and it's a random pick from my TBR, which now stands at just 901!

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers. The fourth Lord Peter mystery. Let's see how it goes!

[Bookstooge]

.....

[Uncle Robin]

I've started on the Delphi Collected Works of Maurice LeBlanc, and have come across a problem I'd love some help with, if anyone has read The Seven of Hearts:

Near the very beginning of this story, the narrator says:

When we arrived in front of the little house in which I had lived for a year at Neuilly

Then, later in story, someone visits him at that house and says:

“Before you came, four months ago, the house had been vacant for some time"

This looks like a real howler, I'm wondering if anyone who's read the story can clarify it?

[Elektron]

Scion of the Fox

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy L. Sayers. The fourth Lord Peter mystery. Let's see how it goes!

And it's going quite well, but I hadn't realised it's a collection of short stories, rather than a novel.

[cc_in_oh]

Just finished the latest Rebus Song for the Dark Times. OK but didn't change my view that the Rebus series is past its prime. It must be tough when, as in some other series like Bosch, your main protagonist is well past retirement age. Daughter Samantha is now in her forties, which I think makes Clarke going on 50 and still stuck as a passed-over DI despite her role in many high-profile solves. OTOH, as a DI, Clarke could take over the lead role from Rebus and still plausibly spend her time on detective work rather than the administrative drudgery a higher rank would involve. I hope that's where we're headed...