Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: Beardy on 29 April, 2021, 11:03:45 pm
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As per the title. Interests include hard SF, epic fantasy and contemporary supernatural. But that’s not a comprehensive list. Unfortunately ‘good literature’ is out because it completely jars with my dyslexia. No, I don’t understand it either, but a page of Dickens is almost impossible for me to process.
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Dickens always goes better with a spoonful of laudanum to rein in some of the longer, more meandering sentences. That Victorian style of writing is somewhat vexatious for modern comprehension, trained – as it is – by sentences, short and sharp.
I struggle with a lot of modern literature, mostly because it's a bit dull or wordy for the sake of it, and my brain always narrates them in this terribly, awfully middle-class voice.
If you've not read them, read the Charlie Parker series from John Connolly, which blend supernatural doings into unpleasant murdery business, with an elegiac and creepy story arc. The standard of writing is an order above the expected without being overblown.
I'm quite enjoying Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows at the moment, an unholy mashup of Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, and who hasn't wanted to see that happen.
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Three body problem by Liu Cixin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel))
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I’m currently enjoying this series of books
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36638814-forgotten
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Kurt Vonnegut. If you've never read Slaughterhouse Five, you really should. But maybe you have! Some indication of what you already like might be helpful (ETA: as in specific favourites rather than generics).
I would class Vonnegut as 'good literature' though. I don't think Dickensian prolixity is a necessary indicator of quality. Quite the opposite in most cases.
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I am recommending Nick Harkaway a lot, recently.
Vandermeer's Area X trilogy, if you like new weird.
Although Dan Simmons has turned out to be somewhat problematic, I have to say that Hyperion is excellent.
Adam Roberts is always good.
Tim Powers -- The Drawing of the Dark is one of my favourite books of all time, although most start with The Anubis Gates or On Stranger Tides.
Something a bit more literary -- Alasdair Gray's Lanark -- A Life In Four Books.
Octavia Butler's Wild Seed.
Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness.
N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy is excellent.
Anne Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy is great space opera (and she's also very nice).
For contemporary supernatural, try Aliette De Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings.
Paul Tremblay's A Head Full Of Ghosts. The Cabin At The End Of The World is also very good.
Josh Malerman's Black Mad Wheel.
I could keep going, but there's a selection there.
Sam
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Children of Time and the Expanse series and the The Murderbot Diaries and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, if you are asking for SF.
This is what I have read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/93355201-woollypigs?shelf=read&sort=date_read
I read for escapism and the odd time to learn something new. Late summer last year until late March this year, I read about 3 a week, having a wee break atm, but I want to get back into it.
Yes as Ravenbait said Dan Simmions' Hyperion is a good read too. Now I wonder what you mean with "somewhat problematic". Cause I read and enjoyed other books by him, like Carrion Comfort, Hollow man and Summer of nights.
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Children of Time and the Expanse series and the The Murderbot Diaries and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, if you are asking for SF.
This is what I have read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/93355201-woollypigs?shelf=read&sort=date_read
I read for escapism and the odd time to learn something new. Late summer last year until late March this year, I read about 3 a week, having a wee break atm, but I want to get back into it.
Yes as Ravenbait said Dan Simmions' Hyperion is a good read too. Now I wonder what you mean with "somewhat problematic". Cause I read and enjoyed other books by him, like Carrion Comfort, Hollow man and Summer of nights.
He turned out to be a bit of a right wing nut, unfortunately. Here's a review that sums it up:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/151112848
Sam
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"Well then, that's me being a Dan fan girl". A comment I saw on reddit. I'll scale down my fan boying
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I quite like the Expanse series, and I normally find science fiction a bit of a tedious trudge. Just give me aliens, robots, and laser guns.
The various guises of Michael Marshall Smith are worth a punt – the Straw Men still keep me awake at night. I just read and enjoyed his recent turn as Michael Rutger.
Vonnegut for some quite bonkers ideas, Chandler for the turn of phrase.
I would read any book that has this back cover.
Jess is dead. She’s not happy about that. Mostly because she was murdered and despite being dead, people – who she suspects aren’t exactly people – are trying to murder her all over again. She’s discovered that she needs to do a little killing of her own. Micheal has been killing for so long that he just wants it to end. Sisley doesn’t know who she is but knows what has to be done because someone is leaving her notes with the instructions. She’s been alone for as long as she remembers, which considering her memory has been stolen, perhaps isn’t so long. She’s questioning her own existence and Sybil walks into her life and suddenly everything becomes a lot more complicated. Sarla knows one thing and that’s that she wants out of this world and will do anything to make that happen, and if that involves breaking a psychopathic deity out of a prison built just for him, she’ll do it. That just might end the world and if there’s one thing that stands to make Jess’s day even worse, it’s the end of the world.
Which reminds me, the people who write cover blurb and make the movie trailers are the true talents of our era, and I can't do them justice.
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Ravenbait has some excellent recommendations. I'd add "Declare" by Tim Powers to her list. A le Carre / Greene spy thriller with supernatural elements.
For hard SF try Alistair Reynolds "Revelation Space" series, but he ain't cheerful & it's very dense.
I'm not that big on detective stuff, but Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" stuff is excellent, starting with "Devil In A Blue Dress".
I also enjoyed Jo Walton's "Small Change" series, Britain in the 30's & 40's after a fascist takeover.
Some free Charlie Stross for your enjoyment. https://www.tor.com/2013/09/24/equoid/
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...For hard SF try Alastair Reynolds "Revelation Space" series, but he ain't cheerful & it's very dense...
+1 as they say.
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Dickens always goes better with a spoonful of laudanum to rein in some of the longer, more meandering sentences. That Victorian style of writing is somewhat vexatious for modern comprehension, trained – as it is – by sentences, short and sharp.
I struggle with a lot of modern literature, mostly because it's a bit dull or wordy for the sake of it, and my brain always narrates them in this terribly, awfully middle-class voice.
If you've not read them, read the Charlie Parker series from John Connolly, which blend supernatural doings into unpleasant murdery business, with an elegiac and creepy story arc. The standard of writing is an order above the expected without being overblown.
I'm quite enjoying Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows at the moment, an unholy mashup of Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, and who hasn't wanted to see that happen.
I’ve somehow missed those. I shall have a look at them in more detail. Ta.
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Three body problem by Liu Cixin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel))
I enjoyed that, and have read a few of her other books. Ta
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I’m currently enjoying this series of books
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36638814-forgotten
That looks interesting, I shall take look at those thank you.
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Kurt Vonnegut. If you've never read Slaughterhouse Five, you really should. But maybe you have! Some indication of what you already like might be helpful (ETA: as in specific favourites rather than generics).
I would class Vonnegut as 'good literature' though. I don't think Dickensian prolixity is a necessary indicator of quality. Quite the opposite in most cases.
This was a good thread to start. Another author I’m not familiar with to add to the list. Ta.
-
I am recommending Nick Harkaway a lot, recently.
Vandermeer's Area X trilogy, if you like new weird.
Although Dan Simmons has turned out to be somewhat problematic, I have to say that Hyperion is excellent.
Adam Roberts is always good.
Tim Powers -- The Drawing of the Dark is one of my favourite books of all time, although most start with The Anubis Gates or On Stranger Tides.
Something a bit more literary -- Alasdair Gray's Lanark -- A Life In Four Books.
Octavia Butler's Wild Seed.
Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand Of Darkness.
N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy is excellent.
Anne Leckie's Ancillary Justice trilogy is great space opera (and she's also very nice).
For contemporary supernatural, try Aliette De Bodard's The House of Shattered Wings.
Paul Tremblay's A Head Full Of Ghosts. The Cabin At The End Of The World is also very good.
Josh Malerman's Black Mad Wheel.
I could keep going, but there's a selection there.
Sam
some Live read, but a lot I haven’t. Ta
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Children of Time and the Expanse series and the The Murderbot Diaries and To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, if you are asking for SF.
This is what I have read https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/93355201-woollypigs?shelf=read&sort=date_read
I read for escapism and the odd time to learn something new. Late summer last year until late March this year, I read about 3 a week, having a wee break atm, but I want to get back into it.
Yes as Ravenbait said Dan Simmions' Hyperion is a good read too. Now I wonder what you mean with "somewhat problematic". Cause I read and enjoyed other books by him, like Carrion Comfort, Hollow man and Summer of nights.
Again, some ive read, and some new ones (of those you’ve listed in the post rather than your good reads list) ta
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I quite like the Expanse series, and I normally find science fiction a bit of a tedious trudge. Just give me aliens, robots, and laser guns.
The various guises of Michael Marshall Smith are worth a punt – the Straw Men still keep me awake at night. I just read and enjoyed his recent turn as Michael Rutger.
Vonnegut for some quite bonkers ideas, Chandler for the turn of phrase.
I would read any book that has this back cover.
Jess is dead. She’s not happy about that. Mostly because she was murdered and despite being dead, people – who she suspects aren’t exactly people – are trying to murder her all over again. She’s discovered that she needs to do a little killing of her own. Micheal has been killing for so long that he just wants it to end. Sisley doesn’t know who she is but knows what has to be done because someone is leaving her notes with the instructions. She’s been alone for as long as she remembers, which considering her memory has been stolen, perhaps isn’t so long. She’s questioning her own existence and Sybil walks into her life and suddenly everything becomes a lot more complicated. Sarla knows one thing and that’s that she wants out of this world and will do anything to make that happen, and if that involves breaking a psychopathic deity out of a prison built just for him, she’ll do it. That just might end the world and if there’s one thing that stands to make Jess’s day even worse, it’s the end of the world.
Which reminds me, the people who write cover blurb and make the movie trailers are the true talents of our era, and I can't do them justice.
I’ll have a look. Ta.
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Ravenbait has some excellent recommendations. I'd add "Declare" by Tim Powers to her list. A le Carre / Greene spy thriller with supernatural elements.
For hard SF try Alistair Reynolds "Revelation Space" series, but he ain't cheerful & it's very dense.
I'm not that big on detective stuff, but Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" stuff is excellent, starting with "Devil In A Blue Dress".
I also enjoyed Jo Walton's "Small Change" series, Britain in the 30's & 40's after a fascist takeover.
Some free Charlie Stross for your enjoyment. https://www.tor.com/2013/09/24/equoid/
Ive read Revelation Space and some Charlie Stross, but the others are new to me. Ta.
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Kurt Vonnegut. If you've never read Slaughterhouse Five, you really should. But maybe you have! Some indication of what you already like might be helpful (ETA: as in specific favourites rather than generics).
I would class Vonnegut as 'good literature' though. I don't think Dickensian prolixity is a necessary indicator of quality. Quite the opposite in most cases.
This was a good thread to start. Another author I’m not familiar with to add to the list. Ta.
:thumbsup:
Vonnegut is often labelled as sci-fi but he isn't really, though he does have some sci-fi-ish themes. Above all else, his books are about ideas. Slaughterhouse Five is definitely not sci-fi, even though it has time-shifting aliens. It's an anti-war novel really. So it goes.
As well as Slaughterhouse Five, I would also highly recommend Cat's Cradle. (Quite a few others as well, but those two are good ones to start with. Actually, I'd go so far as to say Cat's Cradle is one of my all-time favourite books.)
I'd be interested to know how you get on with Vonnegut - his writing style is very simple, but I don't know if that necessarily makes his books easy to read for someone with dyslexia.
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This Unit endorses Mr Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions.
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Vonnegut is often labelled as sci-fi but he isn't really, though he does have some sci-fi-ish themes. Above all else, his books are about ideas. Slaughterhouse Five is definitely not sci-fi, even though it has time-shifting aliens. It's an anti-war novel really. So it goes.
IIRC in Inferno, Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle gave one of their circles of Hell a large flashing sign saying "SO IT GOES". Can't remember much else of it, though, other that it had a deal of 1970's cultural references that would be a bit brown round the edges these days. Fun book, though.
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Generally I like Larry Niven (& Pournelle) but I've had to do something I rarely do - I returned a book. I couldn't cope with the 60s/70s casual sexism. I don't know if I'm getting less tolerant of 'of their time' attitudes or if it was particularly bad.
I've just finished To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48829708-to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars) this morning.
Just a thought - if your dyslexia makes reading difficult, have you tried getting a (wo)man in to do it for you? I can't read any more but I get through hundreds of books on Audible.
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Generally I like Larry Niven (& Pournelle) but I've had to do something I rarely do - I returned a book. I couldn't cope with the 60s/70s casual sexism. I don't know if I'm getting less tolerant of 'of their time' attitudes or if it was particularly bad.
I've just finished To Sleep in a Sea of Stars (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48829708-to-sleep-in-a-sea-of-stars) this morning.
Just a thought - if your dyslexia makes reading difficult, have you tried getting a (wo)man in to do it for you? I can't read any more but I get through hundreds of books on Audible.
I do tend to listen more than I read these days and as I’m a Prime member I can get the Kindle book from Kindle unlimited for free then get the audible track for £3 or £4
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Dickens always goes better with a spoonful of laudanum to rein in some of the longer, more meandering sentences. That Victorian style of writing is somewhat vexatious for modern comprehension, trained – as it is – by sentences, short and sharp.
Dickens and his contemporaries writing styles was in part driven by them being written as serials for weeklies that charged by the word.
There's a whole section of Oliver Twist that's completely unnecessary for the story but gave him an extra few weeks of chapters and chapters of words and therefore money.
I picked up Nan Shepherd's Living Mountain the other night after finishing Bad Science, I wanted something lighter, and more entertaining, I've reined myself into 2 chapters a night otherwise I'd have finished it the first night and not made it to my computer for 10am.
I'm trying to remember what the last book I had that with was, but that time I really did keep reading until 5am and was late for work...
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Branden q Morris writes some good hard sifi available on amazon books :)
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Branden q Morris writes some good hard sifi available on amazon books :)
+1 I am another fan.
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May I throw in to the mix the following suggestions:
- Memory of water - Emmi Itäranta - http://amzn.to/2gPwhGj
- City of Woven Streets - Emmi Itäranta - http://amzn.to/2hJgRWt
- Everything belongs to the future - Laurie Penny - http://amzn.to/2i3RGfV
- Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers - http://amzn.to/2ShNM5G
- Closed and common orbit - Becky Chambers - http://amzn.to/2PVt7T5
- The Book of the Unnamed Midwife - Meg Elison - http://amzn.to/2m3giqQ
- The Book of Etta - Meg Elison - http://amzn.to/2mRqkQw
- Assassins Apprentice - Robin Hobb - https://amzn.to/3vDeqJs
Btw, with the Dyslexia, I found using the opendyslexic font on my kindle made things considerably easier, dunno if that is an option for you.
J
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May I throw in to the mix the following suggestions:
- Memory of water - Emmi Itäranta - http://amzn.to/2gPwhGj
- City of Woven Streets - Emmi Itäranta - http://amzn.to/2hJgRWt
- Everything belongs to the future - Laurie Penny - http://amzn.to/2i3RGfV
- Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - Becky Chambers - http://amzn.to/2ShNM5G
- Closed and common orbit - Becky Chambers - http://amzn.to/2PVt7T5
- The Book of the Unnamed Midwife - Meg Elison - http://amzn.to/2m3giqQ
- The Book of Etta - Meg Elison - http://amzn.to/2mRqkQw
- Assassins Apprentice - Robin Hobb - https://amzn.to/3vDeqJs
I shall have a look. Ta.
Btw, with the Dyslexia, I found using the opendyslexic font on my kindle made things considerably easier, dunno if that is an option for you.
J
The problem is that I’ve been reading for so long that I’ve trained myself to just recognise the shape of invented words and not even try to decode them otherwise I just lose interest in reading. I just lose the flow of the story if I stop every time I come across a new word and try to decode it. Being deaf doesn’t help because I don’t hear a lot of words.
Sarah and I like to do concise crosswords, but we regularly have clues where we struggle to come up with an answer until Sarah reads the clue ::-) :-[ It doesn’t stop us doing them most lunchtimes though :)
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The problem is that I’ve been reading for so long that I’ve trained myself to just recognise the shape of invented words and not even try to decode them otherwise I just lose interest in reading. I just lose the flow of the story if I stop every time I come across a new word and try to decode it. Being deaf doesn’t help because I don’t hear a lot of words.
Sarah and I like to do concise crosswords, but we regularly have clues where we struggle to come up with an answer until Sarah reads the clue ::-) :-[ It doesn’t stop us doing them most lunchtimes though :)
That makes sense.
Hope one of the above works for you.
J
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Becky Chambers is real bad space opera. I devoured them.
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Have we has Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut series? If you liked Hidden Figures, this is an immaculately researched alternate history where the space programme got going in the 50s, when if you wanted to put a computer in space, it meant putting a woman in space...
+1 for Becky Chambers. Quality comfort-reading.