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“The Lathe of Heaven” ; 1971 ( Ursula Le Guin received the 1973 Locus Award …
Birthday present from my brother last year; a bit embarrassed to have taken this long to start reading it.
Set in an alternative historical present, in a "eusistocracy"--An extreme welfare state -- that holds …
The "Finnish Weird" label that I've seen bandied around fits but also doesn't quite - it had me expecting a bit of a lighter quirkier book than this turned out to be. The first scene or two definitely feels like that, but it quickly becomes apparent that a more serious dystopia is being spun, along lines set out by the cover.
Actually I should praise the cover more: it's one of the best book covers I've ever seen, because it tells a lot of the story but without spoilers since none of it made sense until I had reached the relevant parts of the book.
Set in an alternative historical present, in a "eusistocracy"--An extreme welfare state -- that holds …
SFFBookClub July book, which I finally got around to.
"Born from the obsessive and highly idiosyncratic mind of a cult figure of the Japanese …
This collection of stories explores some interesting territory around mental illness and sense of self, but ultimately the standoffish tone of almost all the narration grated on me. For any one story I think it was a reasonably effective device, but across the whole book it really limited my emotional engagement.
"Step into The City of Brass, the spellbinding debut from S. A. Chakraborty--an imaginative alchemy …
Content warning major spoilers
This is kind of two books, of which the first half was fun but frustrating, and the second half generally better.
In the first half, we're introduced to two main characters in separate worlds. Nahri the orphan who has some strange powers and turns out to be at least partly Djinn-descended, possibly the last survivor of an important dynasty. And Ali a prince in a brutal dynasty that murdered most of Nahri's ancestors, and who is determined to do something about the cruelty. Nahri has to flee her old life for Ali's city. The writing is clunky at times, Ali's a little too good, and it's too obvious that Nahri's flight will succeed, so the epic battle with every kind of magical demon feels more farcical than exciting. But the book's great strength is that this "conclusion" is only halfway through it.
What made the second half work better for me is that Nahri's arrival is such a complicating event in everyone's life, most definitely including her own. Ali ends up thoroughly compromised in ways that make him a much more believable character, and the interwoven strands of everyone lying to and scheming around each other get much more interesting. And I think Chakraborty just took a while to hit her stride as a writer, which makes sense given that this was her first book and not originally written with publication in mind.
At the end I was still a little frustrated. The hooks for the sequel are slightly too obvious and undermine the completeness of this (already long) book, and there are a few too many deus ex machina. But considering how much better the book got as it went along, I am excited about the sequel.
"Step into The City of Brass, the spellbinding debut from S. A. Chakraborty--an imaginative alchemy …
SFFBookClub June
A magnificent and richly illustrated volume with a groundbreaking translation framed by new commentary and …
The latest group read, and an absolute delight so far.
During a business visit to Count Dracula's castle in Transylvania, a young English solicitor finds …
I'm doing the #DraculaDaily thing like so many others. Which is turning out to be an excellent way to read a book that's become such a cliche, but which I had never read before.
Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become …
I started reading this with a group of friends, taking turns to read chapters aloud. For the first 5-10 chapters I was enthralled, finding it an utterly charming satire of essentially the same genre that Monty Python and the Holy Grail sends up. But after that it felt like it kept repeating the same jokes, and started to wear thin enough that I didn't actually finish it.
When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most …
Just catching up with updates: this was a book club selection for a month in which I just couldn't make time to get started on it.
When a massive object crashes into the ocean off the coast of Lagos, Nigeria’s most …
SFFBookClub March
When Zoe Faust--herbalist, alchemist, and recent transplant to Portland, Oregon--begins unpacking her bags, she can't …
This was a fun light read, engaging enough to get me turning the pages and worrying that one of the characters I liked would turn out to be the culprit. But it was also sort of formulaic, and could really have done with an editor. The love interest was telegraphed about 15 times before the narrator admitted it, and several important details seemed to be introduced 3 times in 3 consecutive paragraphs.
When Zoe Faust--herbalist, alchemist, and recent transplant to Portland, Oregon--begins unpacking her bags, she can't …
This month's #SFFBookClub pick.
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set …
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
— Dune by Frank Herbert
This quote from the Reverend Mother in the very first scene is... prescient.
And it's interesting as a re-read because I didn't remember the general backstory to the oddly low-tech elements of Dune being explicit. I guess when I read it the first time they weren't the parts that made an impression. Not sure how much that reflects how young I was or how long ago it was in terms of tech progression.
Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical poem is among the …
It was in China, late one moonless night, The Simorgh first appeared to mortal sight – He let a feather float down through the air, And rumours of its fame spread everywhere; Throughout the world men separately conceived An image of its shape, and all believed Their private fantasies uniquely true!
...it's almost as if this 12th Century poet anticipated what Western Christians would do to all of Persian poetry centuries later....
