CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Finished Ishmael Reed's "The Freelance Pall-Bearers", started Norman Cohn's book on Messianic figures in the Medieval era a while back.
Recently started Sebald's The Rings of Saturn - loving it so far, broadly similar in style to Austerlitz. It's amazing how the author simply travelling from place to place and not really doing anything at all becomes this perfect vehicle for observations, interesting historical asides and philosophical speculations. An entire novel seemingly composed exclusively of tangents.
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson is exceptional. I think he may be the best living American sci fi writer.
Read this on your recommendation this week, beach and plane reading, it was exceptional. Like the Martian in some ways, engineering-fi, but far more interesting and visionary.
10:04 by Ben Lerner - had high hopes for that, but turned out to be very hand-wringy, I left it out there on the shelf by the pool for someone else to read, along with the Granta 1997 or 1998 I'd borrowed which included an incredible essay by George Steiner on Austrian heraldry, quiddity and his family's flight from Vienna in the 30s - and Ben Lerner thinks he has problems?
Best holiday reading, apart from Aurora, was Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology by David Graeber, that was energising.
Aw, thats great. Glad you enjoyed it. He's one of those authors who manages to capture the sublime, seemingly almost effortlessly - even when he's indulging in huge info-dumps.
You should check out 'Years or rice and salt'. Its the holy grail of alt-history. Blows the whole genre to pieces. Also really enjoyed Gallielo's dreams and the science in the capitol trilogy.
I'm going to go and finish reading his bibliography now. I skipped 'Antarctica' and 'Shaman' for some stupid reason. New China Meiville first though: http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...losion-china-mieville-masterfully-horrific-sf
Stick with it, it gets better. There's a great Laird Barronesque horror and a funny story about homicidal psychoanalysts.
His other short story collection 'Looking for Jake' is worth a read actually. Contains my fave Mieville story
cool thanks for that. nearly gave up once already so useful to know!
im something like four stories into this. enjoying it, but i feel like some of the ideas need more room to breathe. mieville is better in long form imo. needs a bit more room to develop etc.
I'm about 50 pages into Embassytown which seems pretty damn good so far. Dunno why I slept on this one (since I've read all his others).
The Scar & iron Council are his best IMO. Kraken was OK. The City was ambitious but didnt really grab me.
Gave up on embassytown, just didnt seem worth it. Then came Railsea which lasted about 5 pages.
Have either of you read 'king rat'? His Gaimanesque Jungle/London fantasy thingy. Its hilarious.