Finished it last night. It's a really easy read, I wasn't too excited about it either, but still did some decent chunks each night. It's flow is quite nice, and it never feels like you missed something and need to re-read sections.
So what are we gonna do for next month? Muzzy had a list on the previous page. Hoping to pick it up at the library next week.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet was an absolute belter. Ahem. But seriously, as is to be expected all of them enjoyed mixed opinions. My favourite of the first four was The Affirmation by Christopher Priest (hands up, it was my choice, but I genuinely enjoyed it the most and will be reading more by the author). It might be worth you taking a few minutes to read back through the thread to get an idea of what might appeal. Just don’t read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet if you value your brain cells.
Or, on the other hand, it reviewed very well with critics and the public alike, recieved prestigious award nominations (both genre and not), and Raz just doesn't like that style. Was generally well received here, though never loved.
The Builders went down very well with quite a few and is a very short read.
Yeah the Builders was a lot of fun. I haven't read the Angry Planet yet, almost started that last night but decided to do the next book first, Angry Planet seems long.
I thought it was "ok". Reasonably well written, but not a whole lot to the actual story, and the "twist" at the end wasn't too hard to see coming. Maybe would have been better as a vignette within a bigger piece, rather than a novella? No difficulty complaints though...
“Ok” is fair. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it either. I thought the prose was occasionally clunky, but mostly utilitarian, which was apt I suppose for a story about a man building a road. Main character was unengaging and the ending, which I assume was supposed to deliver a gut-punch to the reader, fell utterly flat. At least it was short.
Disastrously I've started reading another book, so now need to decide if I have time to finish that before my own choice. I'm already overlapping three books (1984, A Little Hatred, Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race) and I'm not sure I can mentally handle a fourth in parallel too... Halp! Maybe I should just get gud at reading quicker/more...
This months book hasn’t arrived yet, so I couldn’t even start it if I wanted to. But I have The Silmarillion and The Elements of Eloquence to keep me busy in the meantime. Oh, and I just started Dan Simmons’ Endymion yesterday.
I thought the Parade was OK as well. Although thinking about it after, some of the ideas grew on me a bit. The writing style was generally fine, with some nice little turns of phrase, but nothing outstanding. As a story it seems overlong even though it's short, perhaps because the characters are simply written as opposites to illustrate the overall point. I also thought it was a bit of a copout to set it in an unnamed country, with locals who were sort of generic third-world peasants, but then I can also see that that was kind of the point as well - Four isn't interested in who they are.
Spoiler:
The twist at the end is very on the nose, but it works to deliver the punch line. Four, in trying to not get involved and just do a job without considering the political situation of the place, ends up doing far more damage than Nine, who exploits local rules and hospitality. Both of them are shitty in their own ignorant ways. I just wonder in the end if it may have been more informative, interesting and horrifying to read an essay on the subject of the politics of intervention and rebuilding, and the damage caused by 'innocent' contractors, rather than this little parable.
Agree with everyone else about The Parade.
When I was done it felt a bit like watching a really good still live drawing or something. You can see it's crafted with love, all the line and colours are just perfect, but there are no surprises in the drawing. Which makes it harder to get pulled in.
I picked up The Great Train Robbery the other day, so will start reading that now.
Picked up The Great Train Robbery from Amazon for £3, so that is winging its way to me now.
Thinking ahead to next month's choice was considering the wonderful This is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone but I can see that upsetting the sci-fi sceptics; some beautiful writing but I can see some folks getting frustrated with it. Then thought either of Max Lanny's tomes - Lanny or Grief Is The Thing With Feathers - would be great. Even considered the Marmite choice of Lily Allen's autobiography, which is brutally raw in parts and manages to both illicit sympathy for her and disdain. I couldn't impose any Donna Tarrt on the group either; she's my favourite writer but her books demand and deserve a temporal investment to be appreciated fully.
Came down to a final two which included Stranger Than We can Imagine:Making Sense of the 20th Century by John Higgs, which I think I'll probably suggest as my follow-up choice in the New Year.
Anyway, all that waffle leads up to me choosing American War by Omar El Akkad for December. It's down to 99p on Kindle throughout November, so in part was thinking of peoples' wallets. Alternatively, it's normally about £4 on World of Books. It's a bit of speculative science fiction, imagining a USA that has been divided by a second civil war, disaster and division. Might be an extremely prescient choice depending on how Tuesday goes. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think it's probably one of the best sci-fi books I've read in the last 10 years. However, it's speculative sci-fi rather than hard sci-fi, so don't let any preconceptions of the genre put you off; the plot is worryingly plausible.