Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Apr 29, 2020 10:44:57 GMT -5
Finished The Hound of the Baskervilles... I love The Hound of the Baskervilles. It's such an atmospheric book; one that allows you to sink into the late Victorian ambience like you would a comfy beanbag chair. I think much of this is down to the slower pace of fiction writing generally back then, and also Dr. Watson's narrative voice, as he relates the tale, which is very much that of an educated Victorian gentleman. Watson's "voice" alone pretty much perfectly conjures the time period for us 20th and 21st century readers, I think. I'm a big, big fan of all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. They are always a pleasure, never a chore. The Hound of the Baskervilles is an excellent mystery, though the sinister, fog-shrouded terror of the moors is more atmospheric than actually spooky (unlike in many of its adaptations), but it's no less gripping for that. Actually, I've always felt that the darkened, gloomy corridors and rooms of Baskerville Hall are just as forboding and eerie as the moor itself. Of course, the book is something of an anomally within the canonical Holmes stories insofar as it's the only full length novel that Doyle wrote featuring the master detective -- the rest are all short stories or novellas. That's always surprised me because Doyle clearly had the ability to keep the reader engaged for the duration of a novel, but I guess he was primarily writing for periodicals like The Strand magazine, which simply didn't have the room for longer stories. Still, given Holme's popularity at the time, it's surprisng that this is the only canonical full length novel featuring the character. Overall, The Hound of the Baskervilles is an excellent read and one that keeps you guessing until the end. It's a masterpiece of the detective/suspense/horror genre.
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Post by Calamas on Apr 29, 2020 10:57:16 GMT -5
I reread The Maltese Falcon last year, and have been reading a lot of detective and crime stuff over the last year or so, and Hammett and Chandler are the pinnacle (though I like Robert Parker and Spillane a lot too, but for different reasons). They are both incredible at what they do, but what they do are different animals. I like to liken it to the Beatles and the Stones-both are rock bands (or pop bands if you want to use that label), but the way they work within that genre is vastly different, but the results of both are less spectacular for it. Chandler and Hammett both work within the detective genre, and each has his own strengths and weaknesses, their own quirks and stylings and both excel producing some of the best stuff in the genre and stuff that transcends the genre, but each is very different form each other. Which I prefer can vary depending on my mindset and worldview at the time, but both bring joy and enjoyment any time I read them. -M Where I land, too. Different but equally great. Prefer Hammett for story; marvel at Chandler’s prose. (BTW, I think you meant " no less spectacular." As someone whose main reason for editing is "dropped word," I'm somewhat familiar.)
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Post by Calamas on Apr 29, 2020 11:00:47 GMT -5
I reread The Maltese Falcon last year, and have been reading a lot of detective and crime stuff over the last year or so, and Hammett and Chandler are the pinnacle (though I like Robert Parker and Spillane a lot too, nut for different reasons). They are both incredible at what they do, but what they do are different animals. I like to liken it to the Beatles and the Stones-both are rock bands (or pop bands if you want to use that label), but the way they work within that genre is vastly different, but the results of both are less spectacular for it. Chandler and Hammett both work within the detective genre, and each has his own strengths and weaknesses, their own quirks and stylings and both excel producing some of the best stuff in the genre and stuff that transcends the genre, but each is very different form each other. Which I prefer can vary depending on my mindset and worldview at the time, but both bring joy and enjoyment any time I read them. -M I'm not a big fan of Parker but I've also read very little of his work. I love Spillane but I think that even he would admit that he was a stylist and not an artist. I think the closest there was to Hammett and Chandler (and I'm not remotely the first to say this) was Ross MacDonald. If anyone was able to distill the strengths that Hammett and Chandler had in their work into a cohesive synthesis it was probably MacDonald. I'm just not sure that his high notes were ever quite as high as either of them. Hammett ended up hating most of his work. But he was also a noted contrarian. With Parker you have to stick (start?) with the earlier work. Poodle Springs is his watershed. When asked to complete this unfinished Chandler manuscript, he decided he wouldn’t plot because Chandler didn’t plot. It forever changed the course (and many feel the quality) of his career. He found he liked the process better and became a pantser. What followed was two decades of minimal story, tons of filler, cases that solve themselves, and villains that walk away unscathed.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2020 11:23:28 GMT -5
I reread The Maltese Falcon last year, and have been reading a lot of detective and crime stuff over the last year or so, and Hammett and Chandler are the pinnacle (though I like Robert Parker and Spillane a lot too, but for different reasons). They are both incredible at what they do, but what they do are different animals. I like to liken it to the Beatles and the Stones-both are rock bands (or pop bands if you want to use that label), but the way they work within that genre is vastly different, but the results of both are less spectacular for it. Chandler and Hammett both work within the detective genre, and each has his own strengths and weaknesses, their own quirks and stylings and both excel producing some of the best stuff in the genre and stuff that transcends the genre, but each is very different form each other. Which I prefer can vary depending on my mindset and worldview at the time, but both bring joy and enjoyment any time I read them. -M Where I land, too. Different but equally great. Prefer Hammett for story; marvel at Chandler’s prose. (BTW, I think you meant " no less spectacular." As someone whose main reason for editing is "dropped word," I'm somewhat familiar.) Fixed. Thanks for the edit. -M
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Post by MWGallaher on Apr 29, 2020 13:47:24 GMT -5
Finished The Hound of the Baskervilles, so I'm on schedule with my plan to read one classic of genre fiction a month. I had planned to read Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage next, but I'm having second thoughts on putting that on my slate for May. In its favor, I can't think of any better known Western title in the public domain, but to its disfavor, a preview suggests that it's pretty virulently anti-Mormon. I'm not a Mormon, but I fear that sort of thing might prove distasteful at the least. Plus it looks pretty long. I don't mind a long book if I'm really enjoying it ( Vanity Fair was a joy throughout!), but a long Western pushing propaganda intimidates me a little. How did you like Hound, MW? I had read much of Doyle's Holmes canon when I was a teenager, during its window of renewed popularity in the 70's, but not the novels, so I knew what to expect from it, and was thoroughly satisfied. I felt appropriately stupid for not figuring out the intent behind the theft of the boot(s), but other than that, I didn't think there was much a reader could be expected to figure out ahead of Holmes. After reading it, I immediately went online to watch the Rathbone film version, which sanitized or totally excised the seedier aspects of Doyle's plot but which otherwise was very faithful, down to long stretches of dialogue.
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Post by berkley on Apr 29, 2020 21:35:18 GMT -5
Hound of the Baservilles was the first Holmes story I ever read as a kid, so it left a big impression and is probably my single favourite Holmes story - though as you say, you can't really compare the short stories to this full-length novel. I'll likely re-read it sometime in the next few months, as I'm approaching that era .
BTW, speaking of westerns featuring evil Mormons, that exactly describes the second part of A Study in Scarlet, so maybe MW Gallagher should re-read that Holmes novel and kill two birds with one stone! Kiddng aside, I get the impression that the closer in time to the sect's origins you look back, the more they were seen as a kind of weird cult that was pretty much capable of anything, and it was only with the passage of many decades that they became semi-respectable.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 5, 2020 9:44:13 GMT -5
Moon is a Harsh Mistress Robert Heinlein
This is definitely one of those books I can appreciate more than I actually enjoyed. At it's heart, one could call it 'a guide to the Revolution'. For me, having just read Animal Farrm, it was a stark contrast... here we have socialism as the obvious best choice for government.
We have 'Prof' who seems the poster child for that thought, a rational anarchist that things people are inherently good and that the trapping of power and government cause all evil. Not something I agree with, but an amazingly optimistic view for a guy who I feel like is mostly negative in his writing.
I was hoping Mike was going be awesome, but his early character development was abandoned for having him be a literal Deus ex Machina.
While I did enjoy the book and it progressed logical in the story of the Moon going from a prison colony to Free Luna, things were far too easy, to the point where some obvious points were dropped in the service of the plot (the fact that Earth wouldn't attack because of food stopping? never mentioned again after Earth attacked). Heinlein also had a somewhat nonsensical view of technology... nothing wireless exists, yet a computer can drop a rock with pinpoint accuracy on Earth? Radar just isn't that good.
We'll give a pass to the fact that he's decided the Moon has water, nitrates, etc. in such abundance they can send food to Earth for years.
Overall, I'm very glad I was encouraged to read this by the Hugo/Nebula group, but I definitely wouldn't rate it as one of my favorites.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 11, 2020 10:59:08 GMT -5
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor Bob Johannson, having just sold his software company, is celebrating with his former employees at a science fiction convention. He also enters into an agreement to have his head frozen when he dies so that he can be brought back when the technology allows. Bob is revived...sort of. But it's just his consciousness in a computer that will become a space probe. So Bob is no longer a man...but he will be going where no man has gone before. This is a funny and interesting look at space exploration and colonization. There's a chilling future for Earth and a ton of fun geeky shout-outs as Bob replicates himself...but not quite entirely himself. This is the most fun I've had reading new SF since The Martian. This is not in the same vein...and it's more lightweight than a lot of the other newish SF that I've read recently. But this is just super fun.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 13, 2020 10:49:00 GMT -5
Sex And Drugs And Sausage Rolls by Robert RankinJohn O'Mally and Jim Pooley are back and we get the sixth adventure in the increasingly mis-named Brentford Trilogy. O'Mally decides to pursue his life-long dream of getting into the music biz by managing an up-and-coming musical act, Gandhi's Hairdryer, while Jim pursues his dream of pulling off "The Pooley" six wins on six horses in one day. These dreams are unfortunately interrupted by the effects of time-traveling music fans at least one of whom has changed the course of the world. Only Soap Distant notices the changes when his return from exploring the world beloooooow is compromised by a world he never made. It's all quite mad, as Rankin is. At this point it's become a tradition, or an old charter, or something. But it just doesn't seem as fresh as it did in the beginning. Still a fun read and nice to see Jim and John back in starring roles. But Rankin's technophobia is in full view here and he just doesn't seem to be able to keep his writing quite as fun as in the past.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 15, 2020 14:49:27 GMT -5
Network Effect By Martha Wells (Murderbot #5)
This is the first book since Dance of Dragons that I pre-ordered on release.... I'm usually more of a buy the book used for $1 kinda guy... and with series, I definitely have Rothfuss Derangement syndrome, so I'm loathe to ever pick up a series before it finishes.
But this is Murderbot, whose awesomeness transcends all that. The only thing better than Murderbot is a Murderbot story with ART, which is what this is. It's hard not to just gush.. but I will say this did feel a bit like there was short novella tacked onto to a long novella to make it a novel. I think the flashback sequences of the asassination attempt, the family picnic, etc could have been expanded to be a nice novella on it's own, and the main action if this one trimmed down, it did feel a bit repetitive.. there were like 6 action sequences that were all pretty similar... that could have been pared down a bit, and I would have like a bit more about ART's crew and mission.. but I suspect that's happening in the next book.
Damnit, that means I'm excited for the next book, and there's waiting. ARGH!
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2020 14:52:41 GMT -5
My quest for info on the subgenre continues as I started reading this last night... fascinating stuff so far, and I discovered a sub-sub-genre within it....STEAMFUNK! -M
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Post by berkley on May 15, 2020 18:06:11 GMT -5
My SF and fantasy reading lately has been focused on filling in the holes in some of the earlier classics I've missed along the way but I'm taking notes on all the new things mentioned here. These last three all sound interesting, Rankin, Taylor, and the Afrofuturism stuff. Dennis Taylor isa completely new name to me so good to hear about that one in particular. I just finished Asimov's classic The End of Eternity: This must be one of the earlier time-travel stories to deal with the idea of alternate time-lines or realities created by changing the past. Though quantum theory is never mentioned by name in the novel, I'm sure Asimov must have been influenced by the implcations derived from its various interpretations, at that time just beginning to be explored. Interestingly, Asimov explicitly rejects the principle of the butterfly effect: instead, his time-travel experts have found that realities have a kind of inertia that tends to bring them back to the same course eventually, depending on how strong a Change (with a capital-C) was made to the past. Lots of cool ideas and a well-constructed plot that keeps you turning the pages. BTW, I think this is one of Kelly Freas's best covers, though unfaithful to the book in that the woman is supposed to be a brunette, not a blonde. Otherwise, though, it isn't just a nice cover by Freas but I think also captures the spirit of the character and the novel. She isn't the protagonist, BTW, but it's fitting that she takes centre stage on the cover since the hero's motivation is centred around her.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 18, 2020 14:44:01 GMT -5
Honky Tonk Samurai by Joe R. Lansdale. Five years after Devil Red Hap and Leonard return in a novel (though they'd appeared in a couple of novella's in between). It finds Brett buying Marvin's detective agency when he's named police chief of La Borde, so Hap and Leonard are working for Brett. Their first case as the new owners takes a decidedly ugly turn putting them in the middle of a big and dangerous criminal enterprise and at odds with a death dealing entity known as The Canceler. Along the way we get the return of Joe Bob and of Vanilla Ride. I have mixed feelings about this one. Lansdale's voice on Hap & Leonard is spot on as always. And I love those boys and love spending time with them. But the series as a whole seems to be suffering from "everything escalating" syndrome. We started off with Hap and Leonard stumbling into situations and using native wit, pig-headedness and dumb luck to take care of them. Now they're, if not owners, at least in bed with the owners of the agency so they're full-fledged detectives. And the menaces just keep escalating with each book. I do like the character growth that we've seen with the two leads, and with Brett and Marvin for that matter. I just really worry that we are going to keep seeing the menaces get bigger and bigger until the little ole boys from East Texas are taking on James Bond level threats. Maybe Thanos will come out of retirement. And honestly I didn't love the character of Vanilla Ride from the beginning. I sure didn't need her showing up again. Still, overall it's a decent entry. But at this point I'm having more fun with the short works than the novels.
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Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 19, 2020 8:03:15 GMT -5
I'm re-reading The memoirs of Zeus, by Maurice Druon. It just never gets old. A bit like Ovid's Metamorphoses, it's an overview of Graeco-Roman classical mythology... but as told by a jocular, sarcastic and unapologetic Zeus. The king of the gods covers the several ages of the world in chronological order, from its original creation by primordial gods to the birth of the several generations of immortals. I particularly enjoy how the gods are seen not only as characters but also as the natural forces they embody; I suspect that this is exactly how they would have been seen by the ancient Greeks (while we modern readers, as was mentioned in Eddie Campbell's Bacchus, mostly see the gods as glorified super-heroes). I particularly enjoyed the small human touches scattered throughout (Zeus had a lot of marital problems, and not all his children filled him with fatherly pride!) and the reflections on how the real world and mythology relate to each other. Zeus explains, for example, how the muse of history (Clio) was born after the muse of epic poetry, Calliope, and spent her youth copying her sister... thus fudging the difference between history and legend. Clio was also apparently quite conscious of her aristocratic origin, and for millenia was not concerned about the little people unless a farmer happened to sleep with a queen or a goatherd killed a king. Clio also apparently had a thing for Ares, and relates the deeds of quite a few generals but failed no notice who had invented the wheel, cheese or the sail. Bummer! It's a lot of fun and we learn a lot. Druon is not only a very well-read fellow, but also a pretty good writer and a very decent philosopher.
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Post by brutalis on May 19, 2020 8:16:50 GMT -5
I'm re-reading The memoirs of Zeus, by Maurice Druon. It just never gets old. Now on my to get list! Sounds intriguing...and a quick Amazon search shows ONLY the translated English original 1964 Hardback available used for $18.91. Sometimes the good ol' USA is a bit lacking when it comes to things!
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