SFW Book club

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cuchuilain
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On a recommendation from another CHYOA writer, I listened to Gideon the Ninth and I strongly recommend it. Very cool scifi/fantasy blend and the leads are amazing.
 
Thanks - just downloaded the ebook. Sometimes I find the audio books are hit or miss depending on the narrator. Thats it in the list too.
 
Cuchuilain said:
Thanks - I've read a little bit of Lovecraft, @SeriousBrainDamage (the call of cthulhu and not much more) but like Pratchett I'm a bit rudderless with it. If you care to suggest a suitable piece, it goes in the list.
Interestingly, when you say he does Eldritch like no one else, he did open the Cthulhu mythos to other writers rather than just copyright it the way you'd see today, so a few of the other notable authors of the day had a go. (Robert E Howard's attempts are awesome - I'd definitely recommend the Cairn on the Headland, you can get it on the Australian version of Gutenberg if youre interested)
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Well, I'm not entirely familiar with Pratchett's work. I tried to get into it, but alas, for now, it didn't go well. He wrote quite a lot though, as far as I know.

Lovecraft, if you stick to narrative, wrote quite less.
He mostly wrote short stories and just a few novellas.

As far as I know, I did read everything. I decided to buy a compendium of all his fictional works.
It's a nice book, quite hefty I admit, but I'm not sure it's even bigger than Dune.

I can't say that every story in the book is great, but it would be difficult and opinable to compile a list of what to read and what not.

Cuchuilain said:
Interestingly, when you say he does Eldritch like no one else,
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It was a joke. Maybe a little too subtle and aimed at those who are already familiar with Lovecraft.
In spite of all commonly agreed writing suggestions, he liked to use a lot of adjectives.
"Weird", "queer" and "eldritch" especially, very, very often.
Actually, from a writing style point of view, I think he is a good example of what not to do.
 
Thanks - yeah I'd read LOTR & The Hobbit a long time ago. They're excellent. I didnt even realise there was a book of the men who stare at Goats. Thanks - I'll look into that one. Great suggestion!
@Pasin. Thanks for that suggestion, but I'm dodging teen / young adult fiction, I know it includes a lot of popular books (Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Divergent, Vampire stuff), but I fear my brain would melt. Its probably just me - I'm sure they are fine works though.
@Yurisenpai - Just finished Fahrenheit 451. Wow. Much deeper and better than I was expecting and a lot better than my previous experiences with Bradbury. It felt like Kafka's The Trial for a while, and hasnt dated the way I would expect of a 70 year old book. Its rightly a classic.

The list is now:

  • Guards! Guards! - (Assimilated. Would Highly Recommend)
  • Fahrenheit 451 - (Assimilated. Would Highly Recommend)
  • Good Omens
  • A fire upon the deep (Ongoing)
  • Brave New World
  • Dune
  • Men Who Stare at Goats
  • Gideon the Ninth
  • Lovecraft, complete.
 
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Cuchuilain said:
Thanks - just downloaded the ebook. Sometimes I find the audio books are hit or miss depending on the narrator. Thats it in the list too.
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It's fine as an audio book, but the written version is fine. The only audio book I've felt really great about was World War Z.

A few other book recs are The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie (Yes, that one) and A Primate's Memoir by Robert Sapolski
 
I really like fiction that involves alternate realities (as you might have guessed, since a lot of what I write here involves reality changes). Here are some novels along those lines, all from the past few years, that I really enjoyed:

* All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (Earth in 2016 has become the technological utopia that was promised in 1950s/1960s sci-fi... until an accident during a time-travel experiment)
* Famous Men Who Never Lived by K Chess (a refugee from an alternate timeline becomes obsessed with a book that was famous in her timeline, but doesn't exist in ours)
* The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (a group of women battle a time-traveling group of men who are trying to create a future in which women are subjugated)
 
No - I don't want to pigeon hole stuff, but that is fine. I just meant I was avoiding stuff like the Vampire diaries, twilight etc that are somehow full of teen romance and angst (I think). Dracula is a classic and its great, but I read it a while ago.
 
Thanks @Dissonant Soundtrack and @catfish27 - those sound great and are all in the list. Starting to look good. Feel like I want to try that last one next!
  • Guards! Guards! - (Assimilated. Would Highly Recommend)
  • Fahrenheit 451 - (Assimilated. Would Highly Recommend)
  • Good Omens
  • A fire upon the deep (Ongoing)
  • Brave New World
  • Dune
  • Men Who Stare at Goats
  • Gideon the Ninth
  • Lovecraft, complete.
  • The Gun Seller
  • A Primate's Memoir
  • World War Z
  • All Our Wrong Todays
  • Famous Men Who Never Lived
  • The Future of Another Timeline
 
Thanks - Yeah, All apart from Lupin.
Verne & Doyle were greats (And I have to add Wells in there too), and I wish Shelley had written more in that genre.
Moby Dick was good, though I know a lot of folk recommend it as the best book ever written in English - I dont think I'd go quite that far.
I haven't read the Lupin books, so I'll stick the first one in the list.
I guess we start chronologically with "Arsene Lupin, Gentleman Thief", unless you think there's a better starting point?
 
Well, since you seem to be already steadily going through the list, you may want to check something of Asimov, if you haven't already.
I'd suggest the Foundation cycle, forget that Amazon's bullcrap if you happened to watch it, and The Gods themselves, to get started.
 
Just checked my notes and it turns out I have never read an Asimov book. (Yep I keep notes, due to the annoyance of getting 100 pages into a book then starting to think, this feels familiar...)
This needs corrected, so Foundation and The Gods Themselves go in the list too.
 
TheLowKing said:
As for a non-Discworld recommendation, I'd pick A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge.
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Thanks @TheLowKing for the recommendation - Great Book! Very immersive and satisfying.
Minor quibble with hard scifi / space stuff of this kind is that because it explains things in detail, it can age quite quickly. e.g. the idea of the billion year old galactic internet seems a lot like the pre-web internet was in the 90s when the book was written (and I'm still a Usenet user too!).
Definitely liked it though and I would recommend it too. I'll have a look at what else he has written too.
Can I recommend "Consider Phlebas", if you liked Fire upon the deep?

On to a Lupin novella now I think (The Arrest of Arsene Lupin seems to be first). I have to say I was impressed by the way LeBlanc got round copyright when he introduced an adversary in the second book - Herlock Sholmes.
 
Cuchuilain said:
Minor quibble with hard scifi / space stuff of this kind is that because it explains things in detail, it can age quite quickly. e.g. the idea of the billion year old galactic internet seems a lot like the pre-web internet was in the 90s when the book was written (and I'm still a Usenet user too!).
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Yeah, and in any case, you'd think that all that technical mumbo jumbo would end up hidden from the users after a little while, just like it did on (most of) the Internet. It's not quite as prophetic as The Machine Stops (published in 1909!), but I still enjoyed the social aspect of sub-light communication over very long distances.

There are 2 sequels to A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky, and Children of the Sky, and they're... fine. Enjoyable reads. Yeah, I know those aren't exactly ringing endorsements. :P

Cuchuilain said:
Can I recommend "Consider Phlebas", if you liked Fire upon the deep?
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Already read it, love the Culture series! I've read the first 5 books so far, but I've intentionally been taking it slow with the series, I want to savour it.

Let's see, for your next homework assignment... Connie Willis - Doomsday Book. Time travel/historic fiction.
 
TheLowKing said:
Already read it, love the Culture series! I've read the first 5 books so far, but I've intentionally been taking it slow with the series, I want to savour it.

Let's see, for your next homework assignment... Connie Willis - Doomsday Book. Time travel/historic fiction.
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Lol - I'm doing exactly the same - rationing myself to just one Banks book per year to make them last.
Added to the list - Doomsday Book AND DEFINITELY The Machine Stops. - sounds great! I love it when some of the great writers turn their talents to stuff thats actually interesting. (eg Dylan Thomas - The followers, George Elliot - The lifted veil).
 
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