What are you reading?

ed teach · Post by **ed teach** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:13 pm

Just finished:

Well reseached and well delivered fiction. Don't really do the post-war spy thrillers but this is a classic.

Just started:

If you own an online label you need to read this. There's a good write up here if you're interested.

pk- · Post by **pk-** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 1:02 pm

anyone recommend some decent british sci fi?

preferably not space opera bollocks

kins83 · Post by **kins83** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 1:14 pm

Day of the Triffids?

tripwire22 · Post by **tripwire22** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 4:32 pm

CR1TT3R wrote:
Tripwire22 wrote:reading frankenstien almost done with it
I just read it about a month back, was aiiight I guess... was hoping for the gentle dumb monster hollywood dished out, but got got something else entirely... dude talked too much. And frankly I was hoping Frankenstein would give him a female counterpart (a la "bride of...) so that she could despise him and dish out a double dose of living hell...

Still, a landmark for sci-fi...

i agree its alright but i kinda dont like how they go on and on about crying when they see nature like ive never cried that much in my life and they cry like 5 times a day. I also agree with the wifey thing i didnt think he would destroy the female one seeing how that could have ended it all.

ed teach · Post by **ed teach** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:32 pm

pk- wrote:anyone recommend some decent british sci fi?

preferably not space opera bollocks

You should check out the "Mammoth Book of Best New Sci-Fi" for a selection of short stories from new and established authors from all over the world, including the UK. There's about 20 volumes out now.

Don't be put off by the cover, it's just to draw in the bread and butter crowd.

cogidubnus · Post by **cogidubnus** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 4:45 pm

pk- wrote:anyone recommend some decent british sci fi?

preferably not space opera bollocks

Jeff Noon - Vurt & Pollen
John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar
+ most of Iain M Banks's stuff, The Player of Games is the one that sticks in the memory most

ov3rdos3 · Post by **ov3rdos3** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:38 am

Galilee - Clive Barker.

Truely epic book.

j-sh · Post by **j-sh** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 7:18 pm

Tripwire22 wrote: i agree its alright but i kinda dont like how they go on and on about crying when they see nature like ive never cried that much in my life and they cry like 5 times a day.

i think alot of people read frankenstein expecting something completely different, but considering who mary shelley was and like what tradition she was writing its not really a surprise they spend all day crying over nature.
Thats basically Romantics in a nutshell, and be fair she was likke 18 when she wrote it

gettingcolder · Post by **gettingcolder** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:39 am

heavenscented wrote:Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

I love David Foster Wallace, particularly Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and the essay collection Consider the Lobster. I haven't finished Infinite Jest yet ... it's a very very sad book.

... re-reading Robert Walser - Jakob von Gunten at the moment. This strange little book gave me a glimpse of what genuine freedom of mind might feel like.

leebass · Post by **leebass** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:53 am

pk- wrote:anyone recommend some decent british sci fi?

preferably not space opera bollocks

Yeah, like someone said before most of Iain M banks' stuff is really good, just read Use Of Weapons, really dark.

Also anything by Philip K Dick is worth reading. A Scanner Darkly is his best that i've read so far, it's all about an undercover cop posing as a dealer of Substance D, but because he's a user he begins to lose his grip on reality, it has a an unexpected ending too. It was made into a film too, but that was complete shite. In fact loads of philip k dicks books have been turned into films, blade runner, total recall, minority report etc.
So yeah, check him out.

bandshell · Post by **bandshell** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:35 pm

(These 3 are American but fuck it, good is good)

Kurt Vonnegut Jr is a fantastic sci fi writer, also try Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein.

bandshell · Post by **bandshell** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:42 pm

Trying to find The Iron Dream in charity shops atm.

"This is a pro-fascist narrative written by an alternate history version of Adolf Hitler, who in this timeline emigrated from Germany to America in 1919 after the Great War, and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp-science fiction illustrator and later a successful science fiction writer, telling lurid, purple-prosed adventure stories under a thin SF-veneer."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream

limb · Post by **limb** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 5:57 pm

I'm currently reading Celine's Journey to the end of night, it's about him trying to get out of serving in the trenches, it's nasty, bitter, sarcastic and crude, couldn't recommend it any more. I try to write myself and reading his stuff makes me want to jump under a bus, he's about a million times better than anything I could come up with.

trap · Post by **trap** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 4:40 pm

Got Helter Skelter on the go. Anyone read it?

mawltea · Post by **mawltea** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 12:35 pm

Just ordered 'Sum: Forty tales from the afterlives' by David Eagleman, read a review of it, and it seemed really good. Anyone read it?

http://www.davideagleman.com/SUM.html

Pistonsbeneath · Post by **Pistonsbeneath** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:41 pm

Ed Teach wrote:
pk- wrote:anyone recommend some decent british sci fi?

preferably not space opera bollocks
You should check out the "Mammoth Book of Best New Sci-Fi" for a selection of short stories from new and established authors from all over the world, including the UK. There's about 20 volumes out now.

Don't be put off by the cover, it's just to draw in the bread and butter crowd.

i am so buying that

is it along the same lines as pkd?

formzee · Post by **formzee** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:50 am

Bound for Glory - Woody Guthrie
for the 3rd time, incredibly good

triptych · Post by **triptych** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 1:12 am

So good.

triptych · Post by **triptych** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:12 pm

BEN? wrote: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad but finding it hard to get into.

Easily my favourite book ever.

LEQ · Post by **LEQ** » Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:22 am

Falling Man by Don Delillo and just about to start the boy in the striped pyjamas by John Boyne.

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