[Jaspersharpe]

Jasper where have you been? I've been worried

Living the high life of course.

[a dense loner]

And why not

[Muenchener]

Hard Times - Dickens - another book that's more a polemic than a novel, but with some good observations of characters and damning depiction of Industrialised Britain. I liked it, will have to read some more Dickens again now and give him another chance after writing him off as overly sentimental in the past.

I thought this was the weakest Dickens I've read. I don't generally get on with his plots, but at least when he's on his home turf in London you can tell he really knows what he's talking about with the scenery, characters, society. Manchester was a different world about which he didn't know or understand much, and it shows.

He could craft an English prose sentence like nobody else - see e.g. opening passage of Bleak House - but generally I rate Jane Austen higher.

[jwi]

He could craft an English prose sentence like nobody else - see e.g. opening passage of Bleak House - but generally I rate Jane Austen higher.

If you can read only English, start on Fielding. There you have a solid foundation. His language is neigther strait-laced nor all trimmings.

After which I suppose one should recommend Miss Jane Austen. And that makes almost the list, i.e.:

The list of things safe to read an hour before you start writing, as distinct from the books a non-writing reader can peruse for enjoyment.

[Falling Down]

Books of late.

After the Charles Stross recommendation on here I plumped for "The Atrocity Archive" a modern Cthuluhu mythos black comedy.  Entertaining but a bit too "Hail fellow well met" farty real ale fan sci-fi.  After this though I was directed by the author to Declare by Tim Powers, this has a similar premise with intelligence agencies dealing with occult forces.  However, this is a really great book that weaves the life of Kim Philby, WWII and the Cold War into quite a strange and unsettling work of speculative fiction.  Its a bit like Neil Stephenson's "Cryptonomican" in pace and and style.. Really enjoyed it.

Michael Lewis "Flash Boys" a quite gripping and shocking account of the rise of High Frequency Trading (HFT) in the financial markets.. Read it in a single sitting.  Really good.

Now a third of the way into Perfidia by James Ellroy.. I was pretty excited when this came out a couple of weeks ago as it's the first in (another) trilogy but this time as a precursor to the LA Quartet. It's fucking brilliant...

[the_dom]

Books of late.

After the Charles Stross recommendation on here I plumped for "The Atrocity Archive" a modern Cthuluhu mythos black comedy.  Entertaining but a bit too "Hail fellow well met" farty real ale fan sci-fi.  After this though I was directed by the author to Declare by Tim Powers, this has a similar premise with intelligence agencies dealing with occult forces.  However, this is a really great book that weaves the life of Kim Philby, WWII and the Cold War into quite a strange and unsettling work of speculative fiction.  Its a bit like Neil Stephenson's "Cryptonomican" in pace and and style.. Really enjoyed it.

 ...

Now a third of the way into Perfidia by James Ellroy.. I was pretty excited when this came out a couple of weeks ago as it's the first in (another) trilogy but this time as a precursor to the LA Quartet. It's fucking brilliant...

I've just finished Perfidia - it really is fantastic. I'll probably go back to The Big Nowhere (again). Also enjoyed Declare, but not quite as much as I thought I would, given all the hype.

[SA Chris]

a bit too "Hail fellow well met" farty real ale fan sci-fi

The what?

[Fiend]

Finished Wolves. It was quite good but didn't really captivate me as much as I hoped. The Banksian "un-named" setting and attendant "decaying" atmosphere was good as was the augmented reality idea but the latter didn't seem to go anywhere and seemed to be mostly a sideline to the main characters' plot - unless I missed some big twist or something?? Quite tense in places but that didn't come to much in the end IMO.

[andy popp]

After reading non-stop for the first seven months of the year I fell into a total reading slump in early August. Coming home from holiday I finished Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain - magnificent - and then nothing, couldn't read. Over the last month month I've crawled through Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I began by enjoying this but ended up frustrated and a little bored. After the Garcia Marquez debacle I've decided I'm simply uninterested in anything fantastical (except Mervyn Peake). Finishing the Murakami I immediately picked up Boyhood Island, volume 3 of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle series. Just over a day later I'm already a quarter of the way through. My faith in reading is restored. After this it'll be on to Vol. 1 of Mahfouz' Cairo Trilogy. I know very little about this, has anyone read it?

[Fiend]

Adam Roberts - Twenty Trillion Leagues Under The Sea
Continues his relentless hit-and-miss style of dry, oddball sci-fi with a resounding miss. A good premise (an exploratory submarine that dives towards the ocean bed...and doesn't stop) and some potentially exciting concepts are ruined by frustratingly petty non-dimensional characters and an ending so weak he might has well have stopped halfway through a word. If you want to spend a few hours trapped in a tin can with a bunch of bickering autistic pseudo-teenagers then this is for you.

[Fiend]

Julian May - The Many Coloured Land / Exiles / Book1 / whatfuckingever.
Interesting premise of several thousand humans from a heavily developed / galactic colonised 22nd century being sent back to the Pliocene era 6 million years ago and discovering an alien race are already there. Very firmly degenerates into semi-confusing, extremely flowery and badly over-written turgid fantasy conflict. If you like sharp, modern, well-written fantasy, I'd pick up a paperback copy of this and wipe your arse with it instead of reading.

[Muenchener]

Julian May - The Many Coloured Land / Exiles / Book1 / whatfuckingever.
Interesting premise of several thousand humans from a heavily developed / galactic colonised 22nd century being sent back to the Pliocene era 6 million years ago and discovering an alien race are already there. Very firmly degenerates into semi-confusing, extremely flowery and badly over-written turgid fantasy conflict.

I read more than one of these years ago, but I can't imagine why.

If you like sharp, modern, well-written fantasy, I'd pick up a paperback copy of

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which I'm currently enjoying. Has the drawback that the protagonist is (so far) a superhuman hero without much by way of flaws, weaknesses or self-doubt, but otherwise pretty good world-building , gripping story, well written etc.

[Fiend]

Cheers, will try that

Good fantasy epics are pretty hard to come by these days. The last things I liked were The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, and The Magister Trilogy by Celia Friedman, both with interesting takes on magic (and the former with a rather likeable semi-heroine). Before that, fuck, I think it was The Well Of Echoes quartet by Ian Irvine, quite a while ago.

[fried]

What is it with those dungeons and dragons dudes, why can't they just condense their ideas into one book for gawd-sake? 

[SA Chris]

Or at least keep each book in the trilogy limited to less than housebrick weight.

[Rocksteady]

Julian May - The Many Coloured Land / Exiles / Book1 / whatfuckingever.
Interesting premise of several thousand humans from a heavily developed / galactic colonised 22nd century being sent back to the Pliocene era 6 million years ago and discovering an alien race are already there. Very firmly degenerates into semi-confusing, extremely flowery and badly over-written turgid fantasy conflict. If you like sharp, modern, well-written fantasy, I'd pick up a paperback copy of this and wipe your arse with it instead of reading.

Yeah I found this series pretty much unreadable. However...I did like Julian May's prequel series to this, which was the Galactic Milieu series. Not fantasy, sci fi. Told as a reminiscence from one of the protagonists, totally different style.

My top fantasy books (if anyone's interested): Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time (excepting about 4 of the books), George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (at least, up to about book 4), Tigana and the Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay (and the Fionavar Tapestry is pretty good too), The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson, Magician by Raymond E. Feist but not really any of his other stuff, Katherine Kerr's Deverry series. I'd also throw in The Warlord Trilogy by Bernard Cornwell - I suppose they're historical novels really but they read like fantasy to me.

Haven't found any modern fantasy very readable since Steven Erikson - although I did quite like The Name of the Wind and its sequel by Patrick Rothfuss.

[SA Chris]

Magician by Raymond E. Feist

I enjoyed Magician (maybe a bit long though!) and have some more of the Riftwar Saga books in my "to read at some point" pile. Are they worth bothering with or not?

[Will Hunt]

I've crawled through Murakami's The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. I began by enjoying this but ended up frustrated and a little bored. After the Garcia Marquez debacle I've decided I'm simply uninterested in anything fantastical (except Mervyn Peake).

I have similarly crawled through a number of Murakami tomes. Mainly when I was a little younger because they were always available in great numbers in airports and because they were 'cool' books to read. Fuck me, once you've read one, you've read em' all. The Wind Up Bird Chronicle was the last one I read and, whilst I actually rattled through it and marginally enjoyed it, I have no idea what it was about or why he bothered to write it. I suppose I'm not deep enough, man.

After the author's death, I picked up However-Many Years of Solitude and got, maybe, 100 pages in. Jesus wept. Again, I'm probably not deep enough, dude, but I just didn't get it. I have no problem with the concept of magical realism or semi-fantasy, in fact I've enjoyed a number of reads that fall roughly into this category; however I have no time for author's making their metaphors completely and utterly inscrutable, presumably because this is a sure-fire way to win acclaim.

[Rocksteady]

I enjoyed Magician (maybe a bit long though!) and have some more of the Riftwar Saga books in my "to read at some point" pile. Are they worth bothering with or not?

I read the Riftwar ones and the sons of Krondor and the Mistress of the Empire trilogy while I was at University. I enjoyed them at the time, but I couldn't read them again and I wouldn't necessarily recommend them. They're formulaic.

In my opinion, A Darkness at Sethanon (3rd Riftwar book) is worth a read. I'd skip Silverthorn if I was you - spend ages waiting for it to get good then it doesn't really. The Mistress of the Empire books are OK but are a thinly-veiled fantasy version of James Clavell's Shogun, only not as clever or as good.

[a dense loner]

Shogun, now there's a book. Murakami is about as deep as a puddle

[Fiend]

I like Murakami's stuff. Just generally quirky and fun enough. I can't remember much about them or what the conclusions, if any, are, but I like the vibes.

I would tend to agree on Raymond E Feist although I can't recall having a problem with Silverthorn, it does make up a good trilogy in the end, as does the Mistress Of The Empire shizzle although I can't remember a single thing about it!

[Falling Down]

Perfidia.  (disclaimer - I'm a big Ellroy fan and have liked everything he's written apart from The Hilliker Curse).  You could make this your first Ellroy novel as it stands alone as a precursor, not a prequel.  There's no direct plot or character dependency on any of the earlier novels.  That said, I know I enjoyed it even more having already met so many characters via the LA quartet and three American Tabloid novels. 

I won't summarise the plot or the writing, there are plenty of reviews in the press and on the web.  This is big audacious novel writing in the grand tradition.  He's toned down the staccato free jazz dialogue riffs that a lot of people disliked in The Cold Six Thousand (I thought it was OK myself, quite demanding of the reader) and the female characters are more rounded.  If you haven't read Ellroy, you're missing out.

Andy - I started Knausgaard yesterday.  Been reading reviews and praise for the last few years so decided to take the plunge.  Was gripped from the first few pages.  Extraordinary.

[drdeath]

Finished Perfidia yesterday myself...

It's classic Ellroy all the way, a sprawlin cast working through a labyrinthine plot but it's all somehow tight as a drum...towards the end, like Dudley Smith, I felt like some Benzedrine tea...

I would heartily recommend the Bernie Gunther novels of Philip Kerr ...an honest detective in Nazi/Weimar Germany goes through Chandler-esque mysteries...

D

[andy popp]

Andy - I started Knausgaard yesterday.  Been reading reviews and praise for the last few years so decided to take the plunge.  Was gripped from the first few pages.  Extraordinary.

I'm glad you're enjoying it: mesmeric. Vol.3 maintained the quality. Naguib Mahfouz's Palace Walk (first of the Cairo trilogy) proved to be compelling masterpiece; the Egyptian Proust. Now racing towards the end of The Broken Road, the last in the series describing Patrick Leigh Fermor's walk across Europe in 1933

[Johnny Brown]

H is for Hawk - Helen MacDonald.

Really enjoyed this, have read most of the 'New Nature' genre and this is one of the best. My problem with the genre being it is mostly urban literary types getting involved, while what makes for really good nature writing comes from people who have immersed themselves in nature. Helen bridges the camps a bit but tends towards the latter. Again, as is becoming the norm it relies heavily on an earlier work - TH White's The Goshawk - which is probably required reading first.

Also re-read Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines for the fourth or fifth time. Essential. If anyone was interested by the stuff I talked about in my slideshow at ShadowClock at the weekend I'd recommend this as a start point.