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Kevin Klemme
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Mycelia Board Game Review

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Outback Crossing Review

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What BOOK(s) are you reading?

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22 Jan 2020 15:49 #306492 by Gary Sax
Still reading Wolfe's new sun books and they are genuinely great and creative. Their women characters are pretty weird and not well sketched so far, but it seems like there's also something up with them so that could be the explanation.

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23 Jan 2020 17:13 #306555 by Dr. Mabuse


I just finished "The Case of the Missing Men" by Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes and my god, what a fantastic book! It's set in the fictional Hobtown, Nova Scotia and it's centred around a teen arriving in town and looking for his missing father. He hooks up with a group of teens called the Detective Club (led by Dana Nance) in order to solve the mysterious disappearance.

Everything about this from the outset feels like a satirical poke at the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys books (the cover art included) but wow, it is NOTHING like those books. It starts slow but ramps up 2/3rds of the way in. So far there are only two books in the series but I effing love the tone, style and illustrations. Forbes' linework is brilliant. Oh yeah, it's also a graphic novel. I'm looking forward to rereading this and acquiring #2 in the series called "The Cursed Hermit".
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23 Jan 2020 17:57 #306557 by Space Ghost

Gary Sax wrote: Still reading Wolfe's new sun books and they are genuinely great and creative. Their women characters are pretty weird and not well sketched so far, but it seems like there's also something up with them so that could be the explanation.


These are really good books. I am in a sci-fi book club and mentioned that we should read these. So far there has been reluctance as many have never heard of Wolfe (I thought he was much more well known).

I just finished The Gods Themselves, and enjoyed it for the most part. As I was reading it, I think I liked Part 1 better than Part 2. But then I got to Part 3 and realized that the aliens introduced in Part 2 were the most interesting part of the book -- too bad they were abandoned.
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24 Jan 2020 04:59 - 24 Jan 2020 12:37 #306563 by Nodens

Dr. Mabuse wrote: I just finished "The Case of the Missing Men" by Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes and my god, what a fantastic book! ...Oh yeah, it's also a graphic novel.

Thank you, this sounds like it would be right down my alley.
Have you ever come across the "Bad Machinery" series by John Allison? You might find it worth checking that out.

(Edit: it's almost all online, if that's your thing: www.scarygoround.com/badmachinery/ar.php )
Last edit: 24 Jan 2020 12:37 by Nodens.
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24 Jan 2020 15:58 #306595 by Dr. Mabuse

Nodens wrote:

Dr. Mabuse wrote: I just finished "The Case of the Missing Men" by Kris Bertin and Alexander Forbes and my god, what a fantastic book! ...Oh yeah, it's also a graphic novel.

Thank you, this sounds like it would be right down my alley.
Have you ever come across the "Bad Machinery" series by John Allison? You might find it worth checking that out.

(Edit: it's almost all online, if that's your thing: www.scarygoround.com/badmachinery/ar.php )


Thanks, I'll check it out.
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07 Dec 2020 01:00 #316885 by san il defanso
Of the many habits I've formed in quarantine, one that I'm legitimately happy about is that I've been reading a lot more. Specifically I started reading classic lit, the kind of thing most people end up reading in high school in the US, but that I had basically skipped over myself.

The big one has been three Dickens novels, none of which I'd read before. I went through A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist. I enjoyed all three, though Great Expectations was definitely my favorite. No sense in digging into novels that are universally regarded as classics here, but they were all rewarding in their way.

I've now transitioned to some more speculative stuff, beginning with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. After that I think I might take on Dracula.

It really has served as something of a discipline for me. I usually read a lot of fantasy novels, but there's something sort of...I guess re-centering about getting into much older novels. It's also served as valuable decompression time before I go to sleep, which I really appreciate since I really struggle with insomnia most nights.

So yeah, I'm building my own high-school-level lit class, and I'm really enjoying it.
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07 Dec 2020 07:52 #316890 by Pugnax555

san il defanso wrote: Of the many habits I've formed in quarantine, one that I'm legitimately happy about is that I've been reading a lot more. Specifically I started reading classic lit, the kind of thing most people end up reading in high school in the US, but that I had basically skipped over myself.

The big one has been three Dickens novels, none of which I'd read before. I went through A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist. I enjoyed all three, though Great Expectations was definitely my favorite. No sense in digging into novels that are universally regarded as classics here, but they were all rewarding in their way.

I've now transitioned to some more speculative stuff, beginning with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. After that I think I might take on Dracula.

It really has served as something of a discipline for me. I usually read a lot of fantasy novels, but there's something sort of...I guess re-centering about getting into much older novels. It's also served as valuable decompression time before I go to sleep, which I really appreciate since I really struggle with insomnia most nights.

So yeah, I'm building my own high-school-level lit class, and I'm really enjoying it.

I did something similar a few years ago, including reading the same trio of Dickens novels (though I've read Great Expectations several times before -- I love that one). If you're going down the spec fic path then be sure to also include Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
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07 Dec 2020 08:50 #316891 by jason10mm
If you are going to be reading the classics, you should try to find a podcast or reading group doing it as well and follow along. Those books have such history and a bazillion factoids that really enrich the experience IMHO.
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07 Dec 2020 14:14 #316905 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic What BOOK(s) are you reading?
Not a Dickens fan here. I try! I do! On the advice of a fellow TWBGer, I started BLEAK HOUSE and made it a good third- to half- way. Add this to the heap of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, TALE OF TWO CITIES, OLIVERT TWIST, and others I gritted my teeth through when required. Just doesn't work for me.

I am also on the record here as adoring MOBY-DICK, and I have on my wishlist a nice annotated edition so I can read it again and then read about it and read about people that read about it. For DRACULA, see if you can track down the annotated edition with Leslie Klinger's notes. It's really nice.

I am reading FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM again, the conspiracy angle is very apropos to our present time.
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07 Dec 2020 16:58 #316907 by RobertB
Beowulf: A New Translation - On the one hand, the first word in the translation is "Bro". On the other, it's pretty awesome. I recommend it.
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07 Dec 2020 18:27 #316908 by Shellhead

jeb wrote: It's a beautifully written book about a viscerally grotesque subject. Not unlike MOBY-DICK if that's your bag.

I started BLEAK HOUSE. And he's doing it. This is what makes me crazy about Dickens. See if you can detect what makes me nuts:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.


It's foggy!

I'm like a page in, but I had to note this. Charlie wyd


It annoys me that certain authors and their works have been permanently anointed as The Classics. Compare the above mess with the opening sentence of William Gibson's Neuromancer: "“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

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07 Dec 2020 19:16 #316909 by san il defanso
Good call on the annotated Dracula, jeb. Although I'm mostly using the public domain versions available on Project Gutenberg, so it probably won't have anything that fancy.
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08 Dec 2020 10:11 #316916 by Joebot

Shellhead wrote: It annoys me that certain authors and their works have been permanently anointed as The Classics. Compare the above mess with the opening sentence of William Gibson's Neuromancer: "“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”


The difference is that Dickens was getting paid by the word. So he could have started with "It was foggy," but that sentence doesn't put food on the table. But 300 words to pointlessly describe the fog? Cha-ching!!

I just finished James Marlon's Black Leopard, Red Wolf. I came across the book in a list I found of fantasy novels written by people of color. I was looking for something beyond the bog-standard vaguely-medieval Europe fantasy setting. Marlon's book is set in a fantasy version of pre-colonial Africa, populated with all sorts of fascinating people, witches, monsters, etc.

The book does take a little while to get into though. It's written in a first-person POV, and the narrator is an unreliable asshole. He lies a lot, so you can never quite tell if you're getting the real story. The timeline is all jumbled up, and you're constantly moving around as he jumps to different points in the story. You're typically left on your own to piece it together. Eventually, the story settles into a groove, and by that point you're used to the writing style, and then it really takes off.

The writing is dense and twisty, but by the end, I loved it. It's funny and violent as hell, with a cool, original setting. Highly recommended if you're looking for something different in the fantasy genre.
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08 Dec 2020 20:35 #316938 by dysjunct
Reading THE CHRONICLES OF PRYDAIN to the spawn, and we are thoroughly enjoying it. I find that I really enjoy “small fantasy” — I don’t know if that’s a thing; I mean fantasy that is narrow and modest in scope. You don’t save the world, but you might save your village. The constant attempts by authors to one-up the epicness grows tiresome.

For myself, I am taking a break from AUBREY/MATURIN and switched over to HORNBLOWER. I like it a little more, so far. The last one I read of the former (POST CAPTAIN) had a lot of dithering about and worrying about money and marriage. That is fine but in when it comes to my 2020 self-care leisure reading, I want a well-rigged tops’l followed by lots of close action.

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08 Dec 2020 21:38 - 08 Dec 2020 21:48 #316940 by drewcula
I'd be wary of Leslie Klinger's annotated Dracula. It's a gorgeous publication, no doubt. But the majority of the scholarship is lifted from Clive Leatherdale. If you can track down his annotated copy, you'll be rewarded. It's titled Dracula Unearthed.

In fact, most of Klinger's books are better coffee table ventures. I own most of them: Frankenstein, Dracula, Lovecraft x2, and Sherlock x2. Pretty, but peculiar. The oddity arises when King attempts to frame the annotations as though the fictitious works are real.
Last edit: 08 Dec 2020 21:48 by drewcula.
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