A page turn for the ages

I’ll probably check out some other reviews tomorrow and see how much of an outlier I am.

Well, the overall star rating on Goodreads for The Dark Forest is pretty high, so I guess I am an outlier.  Folk enjoy the book; it’s utterly baffling to me but there it is.  Although I note that the highest rated review on there is positively scathing, and it wasn’t hard to find reviews that shared similar criticisms to my own.  One thing I didn’t properly touch on above was how unsophisticated Cixin’s approach is to expressing human emotion.  Primarily Luo Ji, but also the other Wallfacers (ridiculous concept btw) come across as children trying to fake it as grownups.  It all felt very juvenile, and reminded me quite a bit of Becky Chambers’ cast of non-adults in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

I have absolutely no problem with sci-fi that steers well clear of emotional storytelling if it isn’t the author’s strong suit. I’ve just read quite a bit of Arthur C. Clarke after all. I think the problem for me is that in The Dark Forest Cixin attempts to tell an emotional storyline in the early part of the book, and it’s excruciating.

As for the prose, I think they both have issues, but The Three-Body Problem felt to me like the better of the two, and I couldn’t help but wonder as I was reading it if I might have had a better impression if Ken Liu had translated this one as well.

Or it could be I'm a sentimental soft touch and fall for any old shite.

66.  The Return by Ben Bova.  This being the fourth and final book in the Voyagers series.  There was a nineteen year gap between the third book and this one and the author hasn’t changed his tune very much.  In the second book the protagonist is trying to prevent a new world war, and in the third book he turns his attention to the impending ecological disaster that mankind have created for themselves.  In this final book the protagonist is trying to prevent a new world war and impending ecological disaster.

This really does feel like a pointless sequel, not just for that reason, but also because in this one he retcons the fuck out of the books that came before it.  And for what reason?  Just so he can tell the same damn story all over again?  Why did he even bother?  There’s nothing meaningful in this story that was worth destroying the continuity of the series over.  Something big happened to the human race at the end of the third book and I was genuinely intrigued to discover the consequences of that momentous event in this book.  Instead Bova shat all over his previous work and served up some reheated crap.  It’s a book I wish I never even knew existed.  Harrumph.

67.  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa.  After an awful lot of sci-fi in September I needed a palate cleanser before getting on with an awful lot of horror in October.  This book sure was that, and I’ve never read anything quite like it before.  It charts several generations of the Buendía family after they establish the village of Macondo in the jungle swamps of Columbia.  This book doesn’t waste much time on dialogue because it has a lot of story to get through.  And what a story!  It’s almost dizzying in its relentless creativity.  We see characters young and vital change as the transit of time wears them down, and as the village grows into a town and new generations of Buendías are born, they are eventually seized by senility or decrepitude.  The story to me felt like a microcosm of the beauty and absurdity of life that we can probably all relate to, especially as we get older.  It’s by turns joyful, shocking, and heartbreaking, and I highly recommend it to everyone.

I’ve not read else by him, no, so if you have a recommendation of which one to try next I’m open to suggestions.  As for Rushdie, I’ve fraternised with the idea of reading something by him before, so if you have a recommendation there too then I’m up for it.

Are there any similarities with Borges, muzzy?

68.  Dark Matter by Michelle Paver.  First Halloween season read is this Arctic ghost story.  It’s not bad. Set in the mid 1930s, and told through the protagonists diary entries, it tells the story of a small expedition into the Arctic north for the purposes of…science?  It’s possible I somehow missed the specifics of the undertaking (something to do with the weather I think), but it’s not really important.  It’s all about that juxtaposition between the cold desolation of the setting and the supernatural dread that quickly begins to wear down the men.  I like this setting for a ghost story, so it gets a big fat plus point for that, but in all honesty I feel the story could have been a little better.  Because of that this one’s just merely okay, and if you’re into the setting too I’d say it’s probably worth a read.

Also, this is second book I’ve read this year called Dark Matter.

69.  Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea by Caitlin R. Kieran.  Have been wanting to read this author for a long time, and holy shit can this lady write.  I’m tinkering myself with a few stories, and while reading some authors I feel pretty confident I can do better.  Then I read someone like Kiernan and I’m like, “I will never be as good as this.”  She’s fucking amazing, basically.  A potent mix of early Clive Barker, Angela Carter, David Cronenberg with twist of David Lynch.  I can only wish that I was half as talented as this lady.  Beneath an Oil-Dark Sea is a substantial collection of short stories, novelettes and one novella that straddle horror, sci-fi and fairy tales, all licked with Kiernan’s dark, erotic sheen.  She’s a fiercely intelligent writer, and I can see myself reading everything she has ever written.

71.  Before You Sleep by Adam Nevill.  A small collection of horror stories, and I’ve gotta say, none of them really did it for me.  I’ve read his novel The Reddening, and enjoyed the film adaptations of both The Ritual and No One Gets Out Alive enough to buy the books.  I love me some folk horror, but I think these stories come from a time when he hadn’t yet found his groove, and the prose feels a little weak here and there too.  Still going to read those other two books next year, but these stories weren’t for me.

Ooh, Project Hail Mary down to £2 on Kindle - I'm finally in!

Raiziel wrote:

70. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Another fantastic story by Jackson with the usual immaculate, characterful prose. The story itself is less concerned with the haunted house, being more interested instead in the psychological frailty of protagonist Nell. Jackson deftly sweeps the reader along for the ride as Nell’s fragile mind subtly unravels. Brilliant stuff, and it deserves to be remembered among the classics (along with We Have Always Lived in the Castle).

One of my all time favourites. The scene where they are in bed together, scared, at night, and they hold hands remains one of the scariest bits in all of literature for me, up there with the bookcase part of House of Leaves and thr ending of the original Prestige.

Salem's Lot made me feel uneasy. Especially about windows.