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

[nana77]

Originally Posted by issybird

I did love The Man in the High Castle but that was *checking GoodReads* nine years ago! I have a faint sense that I gave VALIS a go and it didn't, but I may be mistaken.

Anyway, yes, I don't want to let another nine years lapse. Here's my issue: Dick's got a huge bibliography; surely some are duds and I realized that GR is not to be relied on (at least in this instance) as TMinHC has a crummy rating. So, which? Seeking recommendations. I'll offer a filter that alt fiction/history that's grounded in the recognizable world will be more to my taste than typical SF. My eyes glaze over; I can't help it. In short, while I recognize that I should give Do Androids Dream.... a shot (I've never seen Bladerunner) I feel some aversion.

As for TOoJ, Dick packed a lot into such a slender novel. Provocative and entertaining.

I haven't read much from him, DADoES (lol ) has not anthropomorphic characters, its main premise is about what a human being would be, without a soul (androids), and it combines it not within transhumances plots, but just in like a detective, full of deceptiveness novelization.
The movie has Harrison Ford and a magic Sean Young , what else.
Ah, there is a chapter's excerpt in there: https://www.worldswithoutend.com/novel.asp?ID=824

[Dr. Drib]

^^

Yes, I agree that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is a powerful story and is more than worth reading, in my opinion.

Too, the film - Bladerunner - adapted from Dick's novel, is a film I admire. I've seen it a number of times. For me, that film (as strange as this may sound), possesses a 'soul'.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

^^

Yes, I agree that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a powerful story and is more than worth reading, in my opinion.

Too, the film - Bladerunner - adapted from Dick's novel, is a film I admire. I've seen it a number of times. For me, that film (as strange as this may sound), possesses a 'soul'.

I liked the film, but they should have used the original title.
Apache

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

Currently:

• Kobo - The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers, with Robert Eustace
• Paper - A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton
• Paper - Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo translated by Charlotte Whittle
• Audio - Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leigh Ann Henion

Finished the Sayers, which I did not enjoy as much as her other stories. Also finished Night Magic, which was a little lighter than I like my science, but it was good popular science for what it was.

Currently:

• Kobo: Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
• Paper - A Little History of Philosophy by Nigel Warburton
• Paper - Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World by Irene Vallejo translated by Charlotte Whittle
• Audio - The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (re-listen while I wait for the third volume in October)
• Other - Dracula by Bram Stoker via Dracula Daily

I most recently read Dracula in 2020 during the fall of the lock-down. Dracula Daily sends each entry out on the day it was dated in the novel. There are weeks where there are only one entry and some where they come daily. Its a novel way to read the book and I am looking forward to it.

[DrNefario]

I just finished Death Among the Undead by Masahiro Imamura, a clever Japanese locked room murder mystery with the twist that it's also set during a zombie outbreak. That's why the suspects are all trapped in the same location, and it also adds some interesting possibilities about using zombies as the murder weapon. I liked it.

It's one of my more expensive ebooks at £7.26 - maybe even the most expensive single-volume book in my collection - and I had had it on my wishlist for a long time, hoping for a sale. When I eventually did some research into the publication, though, I decided that was unlikely and went ahead and paid the asking price. The book was published by Locked Room International, which seems to be a small press producing translated mysteries. It looks like the paper books are POD, and the ebooks are amazon-exclusive - essentially self-published - and it's all basically the work of one man, John Pugmire, who translated some French novels himself and hired others to translate from other languages.

It seems Pugmire died two years ago, so Locked Room International I guess is just fading away with no-one at the helm.

People more on the ball than me might have already known all this, but it was news to me. Mystery/crime is maybe my third favourite genre, quite a way behind F&SF, and Japanese crime fiction is a relatively recent subcategory for me within that.

I don't know if the translations will eventually be picked up by other publishers - I think the Pushkin Vertigo version of the (excellent) Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji is the same Ho-Ling Wong translation that LRI put out - but I didn't think a sale was very likely for Death Among the Undead.

[Fbone]

Finished The Silicon Mage by Barbara Hambly.

There is much wandering and searching in this second installment of the Windrose Chronicles. However, when stuff happens it's more violent and tragic than book one. A few twists kept my interest and prevented this from being a dull sleeper. There were still the vivid descriptions that I felt were overused and sometimes non-sensical. And there was a sudden reveal that I didn't enjoy. Even though this doesn't end on a cliffhanger I'll move on to book three. Rated C [3 stars].

[Solitaire1]

I'm starting The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now reading The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner. Also looking like very good SF, but of near-term future on Earth

A good read.

Next up: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Burnett. Looking really good.

[Dazrin]

All of a sudden I have a plethora of choices: Darksight Dare (Penric 16) was released a couple weeks ago. Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) and Out Law (Dresden 18.75?) both released today and I'm in the first wave to get them from my library. Yay! My library has 224 audiobook copies of Platform Decay, that was a little shocking.

[nana77]

Originally Posted by nana77

Now on "Downbelow Station" by C.J. Cherryh.

I'd liked it, much, thought within a very different savor besides the Brackett's kind; more likely the space operas of the Star Wars plots, a nice extended novel (imho).
Finished also "Alpha Centauri or Die!" and "The Big Jump" from Leigh Brackett, and I will search for the others ones by her.

On Cherryh's novel intoduction, the editor mentions some comparisons (throughout differencies) within Tanith Lee, and I'll like to read hers novels also.

Now on "The Grocery", by Guillaume Singelin (paintings and colors) and Aurélien Ducoudray (story), on a translated version I couldn't be able not to buy, just by looking at the characters' drawings, and its style. The translation is by "Zerocalcare" who's a serious punk, and did very nice works, in here.
While not spending the monies on books (while borrowing them on these later months), I'd already decided to buy "Frontier".
*(this I didn't knew): Guillaume Singelin designed the visuals for the RPG videogame Citizen Sleeper.

[nana77]

Originally Posted by issybird

I did love The Man in the High Castle but that was *checking GoodReads* nine years ago! I have a faint sense that I gave VALIS a go and it didn't, but I may be mistaken.

Anyway, yes, I don't want to let another nine years lapse. Here's my issue: Dick's got a huge bibliography; surely some are duds and I realized that GR is not to be relied on (at least in this instance) as TMinHC has a crummy rating. So, which? Seeking recommendations. I'll offer a filter that alt fiction/history that's grounded in the recognizable world will be more to my taste than typical SF. My eyes glaze over; I can't help it. In short, while I recognize that I should give Do Androids Dream.... a shot (I've never seen Bladerunner) I feel some aversion.

As for TOoJ, Dick packed a lot into such a slender novel. Provocative and entertaining.

I'd forgot to mention this one, which, imho is great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly
I wasn't to know also about this speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Android_and_the_Human


I've started reading the latest translation of DADoES, althought I should really consider to read the original one, not translated.

Ps: as for "The Grocery", I guess it has a - non mentioned - PEGI 16 advice.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Burnett. Looking really good.

And it was very good indeed. Fun with dead divinities.

Straight on to City of Blades.

[taosaur]

I finished up Children of Strife. It was good and had a good ending, but I don't think it quite lived up to the ambition of the large cast scattered across time, and again spent the most time with the least likable bunch. Tchaikovsky also seemed to have an axe to grind with that bunch, who were basically a pack of pseudo-Musks and pseudo-Bezoses bottled up together.

I tried to pick up The Strength of the Few on audio, but decided I needed to circle back to The Will of the Many, so that's my current listen.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And it was very good indeed. Fun with dead divinities.

Straight on to City of Blades.

Really glad you are liking this! My favorites of RBJ's (in descending order) are Ana and Din, The Cities and then the Locklands trilogy

[issybird]

I've finished The Venus of Salò by Ben Pastor, the eighth book in one of my favorite series, the Martin Bora books about a Wehrmacht officer with a conscience. I've been holding off on it as a treat and it was the usual excellent read. It's frustrating that there are two more books in the series, in English, and they haven't been released even though the Italian translations have been. My sense is that we'll never get them.

Currently reading:

• The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, a contemporary novel about a Jew on the run in 1938 Berlin and all too prescient.
• Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era by Alwyn Turner
• A Traveler At Forty by Theodore Dreiser, his account of his European travels in 1911-1912