davyK wrote:

Tolkein was enough for me re the fantasy genre. I love the novels and the LoTR film adaption but I had no real desire to read anything else - anything I tried has felt derivative. It's a hard act to follow. I remember reading a book in a series that involved a planet that experienced a regular disaster when it came too close to another planet and it required dragon riders to intercept and burn up something that fell into the atmosphere. I was very young when I read it but it was an interesting idea - can't remember the name of the series now....

davyK wrote:

Dragonriders of Pern!!!!  Just remembered....off to wikipedia now.

So far this year. 

1. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. 
This is great. Grim and grubby throughout but evokes a sense of wonder of what it would be like to live in Paris and London at the times. There's a wonderful sense of humanity that runs throughout it as Orwell empathises with those working in poorly paid roles and revels in the moments of luxury such as having some cheese with the old loaf he picks up. Totally recommended. 
 
2. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam.
Really disliked this. Characters were deeply unlikeable and I couldn't bring myself to care about them. And they seemed to make some really stupid decisions throughout. And some of the writing, yelp. "His penis jerked itself towards the sun, a yoga salutation, bouncing, then stiff at the house's allure". Add to that a 2 page breakdown of what was bought at a supermarket. Self indulgent twaddle. 
 
3. Cage of Souls by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
The world building in this is wonderful. Sometime in the future the world is irretrievably broken and only one city is left standing. This plays no real part for the vast majority of the novel, where the protagonist is imprisoned in a floating prison, surrounded by twisted natural forms that have mutated with the world's transformation. It's as much about the cage behind the prison as it is the cage in which he is trapped. There are a number of other locations that are equally well-developed and there's a real sense of an uneasy familiarity to a very other-worldy novel. There's one section where he lives in the underworld of the city which is great and really atmospheric. He's a cracking writer. 
 
4. Doggerland by Ben Smith. 
Two characters maintain a vast field of turbines following some cataclysmic event that befalls Britain (and the world?), which is neither Brexit nor COVID. It's unrelentingly bleak and I found it a pretty dull dystopian tale. Comparisons to The Road are way off, it's more of a Cul-de-sac. 

5. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson.
It's a story about multiverses and initially delivers; really engaging and interesting premise as the protagonist has the job to flit between various versions of the Earth, interacting with various versions of herself and her acquaintances. In some worlds these acquaintances are good in others they're not so pleasant. I really enjoyed it until about 40% of the way through and then it became quite dull, with some flimsy internal logic and character behaviour that just seemed out of kilter with what went before. 

Now reading the Bellingcat book, which is really interesting but just throws names, places, events etc. at you with a fierce intensity. Not one to read to switch off to or read before bed..

Meanwhile I've just finished The Man Who Was Thursday. Hmmm. Very whacky, enjoyed the opening premise and first bits of nonsense, but it all then got a bit too nonsensical for me so yeah didn't really work imo. Some entertaining prose though for sure, even if the whole didn't attach up (imho). I thought somebody here recommended it tho - reg perhaps?? - so interested in other takes...

book club hussy

Well yeah, but I belong only to you lot, and confess all my reads to you alone.

Have you read any Borges? Labyrinths for instance?

Yeah, I liked all his stuff, found it thought provoking. Some impenetrable. But his fascination for infinity was compelling.

15.
Finished Paul Tremblay’s novella The Last Conversation.  Can’t say too much about the plot as it’s all about the mystery, but it starts with a man waking up in a room, having no idea who he is or where he is, and trying to make sense of his situation through conversations via intercom with a mysterious woman.  Tremblay’s a great writer, I think.  His style reminds me of Christopher Priest, in that he’s very concise with his prose, and his dialogue is always excellent and natural.  If you have Prime it’s currently free to read on Kindle.

16.
Blade Runner is my favourite film of all time, so I guess it’s a bit strange that it’s taken me this long to finally read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick.  But better late than never.  I enjoyed it.  I expected massive differences from the film and I got them.  It’s easy to say there were lots of smart changes made for the film when the film is all you’ve known for decades on end, but yeah, there were some smart changes made for the film.  Especially concerning the Rachael character.  Also, I loved how much of Deckard’s motivation came from simply wanting to own a real live animal instead of the electric sheep living on his roof.

I only just read it 2 years ago and absolutely loved it. Blade Runner is also one of my favourite films.

17.
Finally completed a second read-through of The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien. This took a good long while because I was doing it in conjunction with the read-along podcast The Prancing Pony Podcast. So you read a chapter, or sometimes half a chapter, and then listen to the corresponding podcast episode. And they can run for two to two and half hours at a time, so yeah, it took a while. Completely worth it though. The Silmarillion is such a dense work there’s just no way to get everything out of it, even in a second reading, and so listening to the podcast after each chapter just helps to properly unpack everything you’ve just read. The book is a masterwork of the imagination, and I have even more appreciation now for Tolkien’s enormous talent for myth-building. Onto The Lord of the Rings appendix tomorrow, which I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read before, and then after that Unfinished Tales.

If you’ve read and enjoyed both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings then The Silmarillion is essential in my mind.  It’s scope is pretty mind blowing.  As an example, the events of The Hobbit and Rings books are covered at the very end of The Silmarillion; probably just about eight pages long, I mean they’re basically just a footnote in the vastness of Tolkien’s Legendarium.  If you’ve got the time to stick with the aforementioned podcast it will really help you get your head around it, especially as a first time reader.

The eps come in seasons, as you might have seen. Season one covers The Silmarillion, season two The Hobbit, and the next three for Rings. Seeing how season five is still underway I doubt they’ve tackled the appendices yet.

Probably for the best. I read a little of the first appendix this morning, and it covers (more lightly) things to that occur at the end of the Quenta Silmarillion and the entirety of the Akallabêth, so you’d be ruining your first read through of The Silmarillion just a little if you tackled the appendices first.

Have made a start on the 3 volume work by Steven Runciman (later Sir, died 2000 aged 90-odd) called A History of the Crusades. Written in the 50s.

I abandoned this work years ago and have decided to have another go.

I still have 2 vols of Churchill's Second World War to read - but took a break from that after finishing Vol4 in January to read some fiction. Now I'm hankering again for a bit of history - so I might interleave these 3 with the 2 remaining WW2 volumes.

It's detailed reading but the prose feels very modern and easy to read. Will see how I do. A quick wiki check on Runciman sees him getting some criticism on his bias against the crusaders - particularly the 4th campaign. But this work is supposedly influential so I will start with it - it's an area of history that has always interested me - as it appears to have left us in an awful mess.