Reading in February 2023

 

Scott Lynch, The Republic of Thieves

I continued reading the Gentleman Bastards sequence from last month.  In this installment, Locke and Jean are employed by their worse enemies to rig a city election.  To stir things up a little, their opponents' campaign is being run by a long-lost friend.  A side-plot told in flashback is the story of the young Bastards' first forray - blagging their way in the company of actors.

A very enjoyable and fun read.

Richard Osman, The Bullet That Missed

Another outing for the Thursday Murder Club, this time looking into a cold-case involving the disappearance of a reporter.

Neil Gaiman, Stardust

A tale about a young man venturing into Faerie to fulfill a quest for his Lady Love.

Everything a modern fairy story should be.  Quite sublime.

Bayt al Azif, No 4

Another issue of the annual(ish) journal for Cthulhu mythos roleplaying.  It has all the features we've come to expect - high quality production, an over-veiw of publications (in this case for 2020), three scenarios, interviews (here including Mike Mason) and articles.

Brian Lumley, Return of the Deep Ones and Other Mythos Tales

This I'd picked up on a whim because it was heading to the bin.  It was much better than I expected - I thought it was going to be 1980s schlock-horror.  One tale dragged on rather, but the title story was pretty good.

Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy

I couldn't resist this beautiful hardback edition by Everyman Press collecting the original Foundation books.  It must be over 40 years since I last read them, but I thought they held up rather well.

I dipped into Trillion Year Spree, and Grumpy Old Brian Aldiss tells me not to bother with the very belated sequels, so I won't!

Books & Stuff (NS, No 24) - Reading in Jan 2022

 

Finished Reading

Mike Resnick, Will the Last Person the Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun?

An interesting collection of short sci-fi stories.  There are a couple of very good pieces in here, but too many are written for a sense of humour I don't share.

Rachel Pollack, Unquenchable Fire

This wasn't my kind of thing at all - an Alternative America where the state religion is a formulised paganism and with a very big focus of womens' spirituality. (Think of the tv show 'Fort Salem' but taken up a couple of notches and without the witches).

But I always like to give books in Gollancz's SF or Fantasy Masterworks series a go in the hope that I'll find something new and interesting.  Certainly new and interesting, just not for me...

Richard Osman, The Man Who Died Twice

I read The Thursday Murder Club last month, and here's it's sequel.  Just as good.  It is very definely in the cozy-English-country-murder genre, so don't go for it if you want gritty realisim.  A fun read.

Currently Reading

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

J R R Tolkien, The Children of Hurin

Like a lot of fans of Lord of the Rings, I read The Silmarillion too young, found it too difficult and was put off the wider Tolkien Legendarium.  Back then in the 1980s that, and The Book of Lost Tales, were the only readily available ways of taking the Tolkien itch further (Christopher Tolkien was churning out his History of Middle Earth, but those were out of the spending reach of a teenager).

But when Christopher published an edited version of The Children of Hurin that was a single, readble narrative (unlike his other collections of his father's works) in 2007, I went out and bought it.  Thirteen years later (and having upgraded my copy to a second-hand hardback), I'm getting around to reading it!

And it reads very well.  With all due respect to the Professors Tolkien, I do find a simple prose telling much easier and more pleasurable than alliterative verse or a collection of textual variants.

Books & Stuff (NS, No 23) - Reading in Dec 2021

Coming soon...  (In theory at least)  ...my over-view of reading in 2021.

 Books Read

Shaun Bythell, Confessions of a Bookseller

A diary of a year in the running of Scotland's largest bookshop (The Bookshop, Wigtown), apparently covering 2015.

I read Bythell's previous diary - The Diary of a Bookseller - some time ago (checking on Goodreads, I see that it was way back in 2018) and enjoyed it a lot.  Bythell writes well and amusingly in the most-customers-are-idiots school.  In spots the all-pervading grumpiness reminded me of the old sitcom Black Books, though with less wine.

Recommended.

Marcus Berkmann, Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Year of Star Trek

A light-hearted and opinionated whistle-stop tour of the first 50 years of the Star Trek franchise, the bulk of which covers The Original Series - how and why it was made, cancelled and revived.

Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club

This was a big hit when it came out, and deservedly so.  It a fun and fairly fluffy book about crime-busting pensioners.

As Osman certainly knew (being the consumate TV professional that he his), if it was put on the screen (and is going to be), it would be a very enjoyable Sunday evening's watch.  One of those books you read with half a mind to who will be cast to play each part.

Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

The Handmaid's Tale is so frighteningly topical that it's hard to remember that it was published 35 years ago.  With The Testaments, Atwood has given us a worthy sequel.

Here, we have the inside story of the Gilead regime, one of the leading players being a point-of-view character and driving the story.  Atwood is always worth reading, this is a good and rewarding read.

Currently Reading

William Dampier, A New Voyage Around the World

As I predicted when I started this, it's been slow going.  That's not because it isn't interesting, merely that an eighteenth-century account isn't easy reading.  But Dampier has a good story to tell (half explorer, half pirate), and I think it worth perseverely.