Ok so SciFi class still a thing eyy. Next week it's some Cyberpunk'd stuff including a few stories from Burning Chrome - the titular and JOHNNY MNEMONIC (i know that one from the TeeVee)

Last week was Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, which is one half inter-sectional feminist critique of the way society treated Latin american women in the 70s, and one part vaguely related scifi utopia about preserving cultures of the past, and also women don't have kids any more.

This weeks was much better - it was Gateway by Frederik Pohl, a novel which is essentially Stargate meets Capitalist critique. For a novel that a guy wrote in his 50s, in the 70s, it has some obvious issues with sexuality, specifically homosexuality as a perhaps negative trait in its hero. That said, the hero is kind of a pariah to pin the ills of the novel on, and it has a really great conclusion. The little information bytes it litters through the novel are really interesting too, and by the end you get the feeling you can understand exactly how society on Gateway operates.

Also turns out @regmcfly never heard of REDWALL until tonight? Unbelievable! Sic 'em.

I'm about to give Headfull a crack too.

If it sucks I now have two people to think less of.

Dark Soldier wrote:

I've started reading that Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay.

Was it H that recommended it? If so cheers, its started really well. Also got House of Leaves, proper physical book, coming in at Christmas, excited to be disappointed by it.

Hey boy I was indeed me. Also House of Leaves is ace. His ghost story one (something knives it's in my bookcase but I can't be bothered to move RN) is alright too. Only Revs is good tho.

Finished two canons last couple of weeks.

To Kill a Mockingbird I never studied in school (Of Mice & Men instead. Half the UK population seems to be split in school between those two) but I'm fully on board with why it's universally taught. It's a great tale of how hard you have to fight to dispel age old prejudices and the inhumanity of a human mob. 

The Outsider / The Stranger courtesy of Temps is my first Camus. Truthfully I would probably be a bit lost with it if it weren't for Camus's own brief explanation of what his aim was at the end of this edition. For most of it I'm thinking he's just describing a few days in the life of a sociopath.

regmcfly wrote:

Dark Soldier wrote:

I've started reading that Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay. Was it H that recommended it? If so cheers, its started really well. Also got House of Leaves, proper physical book, coming in at Christmas, excited to be disappointed by it.

Hey boy I was indeed me. Also House of Leaves is ace. His ghost story one (something knives it's in my bookcase but I can't be bothered to move RN) is alright too. Only Revs is good tho.

I loved House of Leaves, and got nicely obsessed wit it when it first came out.  

Following every footnote, decoding the letters etc etc

But Only Revolutions left me cold.  With Leaves the various bits of experimentation serviced the story entirely.  With Revolutions it felt like the reverse, that he'd come up with the structure, and then fitted the rest around it.  

I haven't read Fifty Year Sword yet, but did pick up the first volume of The Familiar - which I liked well enough (certainly more than Revolutions), but not sufficiently to have picked up volume 2, let alone the planned 27 volumes...

Allegedly one of his weaker works too. If Bleeding Edge was anything to go by he's on a downward curve, but that still leaves him way above many others. I've read the other 2 "California" novels he did, Lot49 and Vineland, the latter of which was my favourite. Gravity's Rainbow remains inscrutable in its brilliance.

Vineland is also my favourite btw

I guess everyone has to feel displaced in time eventually.

Yeah, it was a shame that it tied into the overall conspiracy especially as the chapter that deals with the actual event is done really well.

Invisible Cities is magical. I'm in love with it.

Finished it. Typical Stephenson (from what I know his work via Snowcrash and literary reviews elsewhere) in that it's 90% world building and ruminations on society and high vs low tech, the ambiguous cybernetics (as in the Norbert Wiener stuff) of early civilisation, with a dash of swashbuckling ninja escapades and a weird feminist slant that seems to awkwardly revel in abusing its heroine only for her to come out on top. Interestingly it's a novel that courts a story of revolution but ends after system is razed to the ground, not really giving you any hint of what may happen in the future, which makes it feel rather timely given the worlds current political situation.

Just finished Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor.

What a film that would make...
Pretty decent book.

It's length and scope has me thinking of it as an inverted version of The Great Gatsby.

Got round to finishing off Communion by Whitney Streiber regardless if you believe the abduction phenomenon is real or not its an absorbing read. Seeing as the author has penned fiction novels previously (this is non fiction according to him) he has an absorbing way of writing.

The transcripts from his hypnosis sessions are interesting. Let's face it the whole subject makes no literal sense, in a way isn't that the point I.e. that it truly is alien?

Dark Soldier wrote:

A Head Full of Ghosts was superb, cheers reg. Have some musings on it but not typing it all up on mobile. That ending though, Jesus Christ. Goosebumps.

Did you read the notes and references at the end?

Yep to all that, but there's also bits where he goes through every chapter and explains the references. Makes sense for a book that's meta as fuck with a character called Dr Navidson