[Morgoth]

Studlock, on 23 January 2014 - 06:16 AM, said:

Just finished Finch, and I was come to expect from Jeff VanderMeer, it was highly enjoyable. The voice of Finch was probably my favourite thing about it, the quick sentence fragments made for a quick, fast paced read. I also enjoyed the style, something I've really liked with JV, is his ability to write in highly different styles and make them work: from the historical to memoir to straight up fiction, it's all been well written across the board.

And for those who have read all three of Ambergris books I have a question:

Spoiler

So who is Bless? I kind have a feeling we have seen him before, and I have an feeling he is Sirin...or Samuel the monk

I can't answer your question as it's too long since I read the trilogy, but I do remember that my mind was reeling after I finished Finch. So many threads that felt to be just Beyond my grasp.

Vandermeer is definitly the greatest of the New Weird Authors, or whatever it is they call themselves.

[Puck]

Finished Bitter Seeds yesterday. Loved it. It had a few things that made me go 'eeh', but overall it was just too good to get bogged down by those. I loved the plot, the writing and the characters. 'Enochian realpolitik.' got to be my phrase of the month. Pity I don't have The Coldest War at hand

Thus, to continue my wild genre jumping, I'm now reading Junky by William S. Burroughs. Should be quick.

This post has been edited by Puck: 23 January 2014 - 11:59 AM

[D'iversify]

Baco Xtath, on 22 January 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

Just started Calde of the Long Sun. Been a while since I read Lake so I'm still trying to refresh my memory.

Just finished Sword of the Lictor for the first time. How do Short & Long Sun compare with New Sun (stylistically and narratively - not interested in plot details until I read them though I'm aware they're set off Urth and have a different set of characters).

[Salt-Man Z]

D, on 23 January 2014 - 11:13 AM, said:

Baco Xtath, on 22 January 2014 - 01:31 PM, said:

Just started Calde of the Long Sun. Been a while since I read Lake so I'm still trying to refresh my memory.

Just finished Sword of the Lictor for the first time. How do Short & Long Sun compare with New Sun (stylistically and narratively - not interested in plot details until I read them though I'm aware they're set off Urth and have a different set of characters).

I've haven't read the Short Sun books, but there's quite a bit of difference between New and Long. The biggest difference is that Long is your standard third-person instead of New's first-person narrative. Wolfe employs many of the same tricks, though, often relegating the actual plot to the background. And of course, Wolfe throws you a bunch of twists at the very end (what Kim Stanley Robinson calls his "slingshot ending".) I'd recommend Long even (or especially) to people who didn't like New.

[polishgenius]

I haven't quite finished Long Sun yet - I started reading it just as a very journey-filled part of my life started, and as I read them slowly and the books are too nice to take with me in crammed backpacks, I've been limited in the time I had to get through them in the last two years.

However the impression I've gotten (and I'm near the end so I think it's fairly solid, despite the twists I hear are coming) is that where New Sun was an intellectual exploration of Wolfe's Catholicism, Long Sun goes at the same subject from an emotional angle. Therefore it's a much warmer and more approachable book than NS, and also, while hardly straightforward, a lot less dizzyingly convoluted and deliberately obscure in its telling.

[Aptorian]

Just finished Snow Crash.

At first I didn't like it very much, with it's minuteous detailing of a corporate America that has gone nuts, but when the actual plot started to rear its head it got a lot better. Really fun read. A lot of the book is anachronistic bullshit now but I imagine that this book must have been mindblowingly awesome when it came out more than 20 years ago.

I am actually surprised somebody hasn't made this into a movie.

This post has been edited by Maybe Apt: 23 January 2014 - 11:02 PM

[worry]

Wait, so that's not what Frozen is?

[polishgenius]

Maybe Apt, on 23 January 2014 - 11:01 PM, said:

Just finished Snow Crash.

At first I didn't like it very much, with it's minuteous detailing of a corporate America that has gone nuts, but when the actual plot started to rear its head it got a lot better. Really fun read. A lot of the book is anachronistic bullshit now but I imagine that this book must have been mindblowingly awesome when it came out more than 20 years ago.

I am actually surprised somebody hasn't made this into a movie.

The actual corporate satire has been done better since, the computer stuff is obviously outdated nonsense and the language/religion stuff is just nonsense, but none of that matters at all because it's all just so much fun. There haven't been many books with as much swagger. I love Snow Crash (I re-read it last month, actually).

[Aptorian]

Have you by any chance read Diamond Age? From what I've read it's connected with Snow Crash loosely and takes place a hundred years later.

I think I need to read that but maybe not just yet. I think I am Neal Stephensoned out for now.

[Binder of Demons]

Haven't read Snow Crash, but did read The Diamond Age many years ago. Great book, bursting with ideas. It's another book I'm surprised hasn't been made into a movie.

[polishgenius]

I've not read Diamond Age no - I had the same feeling the first time I finished Snow Crash about needing a pause, and never got round to it. I will this time at some point, though my next Stephenson in the queue is Anathem.

[Morgoth]

I never really liked Snow Crash. The infodumping towards the mid-end portion of the book reached such levels I got anoyed and lost most of my enthusiasm.

Diamond Age I enjoyed quite a lot however. One of Stephenson's weaker works, but I'm a big fan of his writing and would still rank the book fairly high.

[Aptorian]

I really liked the stuff about Babel and the Babylonian and Sumerian Gods and Kings. It was a well crafted crazy theory in my opinion.

[polishgenius]

My favourite thing about those ideas is the way Hal Duncan took them and ran far, far into the fantasy undergrowth with them for The Book of All Hours. Now those books are a work of genius.

[HiddenOne]

White Fang by Jack London

meh

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 24 January 2014 - 05:50 PM, said:

My favourite thing about those ideas is the way Hal Duncan took them and ran far, far into the fantasy undergrowth with them for The Book of All Hours. Now those books are a work of genius.

I detest those books with the fire of a thousand suns.

[Aptorian]

QuickTidal, on 24 January 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

polishgenius, on 24 January 2014 - 05:50 PM, said:

My favourite thing about those ideas is the way Hal Duncan took them and ran far, far into the fantasy undergrowth with them for The Book of All Hours. Now those books are a work of genius.

I detest those books with the fire of a thousand suns.

I bought both Vellum and Ink based on the praise I heard for the books here on the forum and the amazing plot setup described in the blurb.

Like Quick I did not like that first book at all. The premise of an endless world that lies beyond our own was very cool to read about but I was promised a war between Heaven and Hell were the celestial and demonic powers were using super-science and ancient magic to fight each other.

Instead we got a hard to follow, disjointed and quite frankly boring bunch of breadcrumbs about Inana and Enki and some stuff. And the story kept reapeating itself. It was so tedious that I just couldn't make myself finish the book.

I may consider going back and trying again later but at the time it was not a fun read.

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 24 January 2014 - 08:07 PM, said:

I detest those books with the fire of a thousand suns.

I know. It's one of your more outrageously wrong opinions.

But seriously I know they aren't for everybody, being pretentiousness defined and obscure as it's possible to be, but I think everyone should give them a go.

Quote

I bought both Vellum and Ink based on the praise I heard for the books here on the forum and the amazing plot setup described in the blurb.

Like Quick I did not like that first book at all. The premise of an endless world that lies beyond our own was very cool to read about but I was promised a war between Heaven and Hell were the celestial and demonic powers were using super-science and ancient magic to fight each other.

For me, it's somewhat like the Book of the New Sun. The first read is just about going along for the ride and enjoying the gorgeous prose, and it's the second time you read it with the benefit of the bigger picture that makes it great. I struggled with Vellum on my first time through, but on my second time, preparing for Ink, it became one of my all-time favourites.

I don't think it ever goes to the place the blurb makes out, really, but the magic/science stuff does take on greater presence as things go on.

[Aptorian]

For fun I just went back to the first pages of this thread.

It seems that this thread has become so long and dense that even Space and time is warping around the super dense mass of all those Little 1s and 0s.

The posts jump back and forth between 2004 and 2005. I wonder if a Mod tried to do a merger between a new and older version of this thread and things got scrambled.

[Morgoth]

Ink was also excellent. The end was fantastic.

I agree that the duology can be rough, and Vellum, though beautifully written, would probably have been better paced if it hadn't been Duncan's first book.