What books are we reading at the moment ?

[ian]

He has a habit of introducing all the characters by skin colour and ethnic background which I find a tad grating.

I think it's supposed to feel police-speak-ish, IC1 female and all that.
The female/male character is Victor, yeah? On audio all that just slides on past with me relying on Kobna to give them differentiating voices.

Yeah, I did consider that explanation. It doesn't bug me hugely, it's a general bugbear of mine when authors introduce characters with a complete description. Why not tell me their favourite flavour of crisps.

Anyway, what most bugged me was the weird time shift and how Peter got into the future and when he's coming back.

And the fucking HGTTG stuff. OK, I confess I never really liked HGTTG either.

[Legs]

Desperation, by Sai King.  Probably The Regulators next, for completeness.

[Mr Larrington]

Still Life, volume 6 of Val McDermid's DCI Karen Pirie series.  Twenty pages in and we've already got two killin's, the French FOREIGN Legion and no lesbians.

[Mr Larrington]

Squeeze Me, the latest from Carl Hiaasen.  Contains a very large snek, a The First Lady (Secret Service codename: Mockingbird) and a The President Of The United States (Secret Service codename: Mastodon) with a syrup.  But not Skink, or at least not yet.

Edit: Mr Hiaasen really isn't keen on the Apricot Hellbeast

Edit: Hurrah!  It might have taken >220 pages but Skink has finally showed up.  He doesn’t like the Apricot Hellbeast either.

Edit 2: Finished!  One of his funniest boks in years, e'en though all the bits about Mastodon must have practically written themselves.

This Unit hereby endorses this product, service or sentiment.

[Steph]

'Argentine Fight for the Falklands'

Brit historian writes from interviews and official records of how the Argentinians saw and fought the war. Lots of first-hand stuff, and nicely balanced. Proper consideration of the courage and skill of so many of the Argentinians involved, in particular their pilots. Proper weighting for their successes.

One thing leapt out at me, as it always does when I read their accounts, and that is their rather sad jingoism. The sort of shit that the Sun posted made me squirm; this appears to be an entire country obsessed with similar adolescent excess.

"I saw the ship, and after a prayer to the most holy Mother of God, I said 'Viva la patria' and dropped the bomb"

I saw an interview years ago of Chris Keeble, the eventual victor of Goose Green. He was calm, controlled and respectful. He spoke of how his main concern was to avoid needless deaths, so he went for a walk and did his best to work out a way to end the killing, finally coming up with the idea of simply demanding the pother side surrender.

The Argentine commander spoke a load of bollocks about sacred soil and willing sacrifice for the holy Patria and... Pillock.

I am not going to have a discussion on the causes of the war, as I do not wish another session of "Ugh! English bad!"; I am writing about the conduct of the same, and I found the constant Argentine "Brave martyrs for the holy flag..." bullshit profoundly depressing. So many lives wasted.

One of my stories begins in the Falklands, and I came up with a phrase to describe the nightmares of a survivor: "Empty eyes, filled with rain".

Stick your patriotic glory where the sun shineth not.

[nobby]

The Return - Harry Sidebottom

Excellent tale

[Mr Larrington]

A Song For The Dark Time, aka Rebus 23.  Only killin' so far happened before it started, though it was a nice juicy stabbing.

(click to show/hide)

ETA: The Scotsman did it.  And is Mr Rankin really going to allow the tooled-up *** to do for Big Ger Cafferty before #24 is released?

[ian]

Ballistic Kiss, the latest Sandman Slim. I wasn't so sure about the last one, it was a bit darker, but this was back on form. OK, the Janet/death cult subplot was a bit of a drag and he should have killed them all earlier and gone on to have more furniture-breaking sex with Candy, but it was a pacy read and a good antidote to False Values.

[sprogs]

Just finished Stieg Larsson's Millennium series.
Scary stuff. The violence disturbed me a great deal, but the books were difficult to put down. I read the third in an all night session.
I've just bought the films and I'm a bit anxious about watching them in case they are a bit too vilent for me.

[nobby]

Sasha Swire's Diary of an MP's Wife.
Covers the Cameron years and very interesting insights into Cameroon politics and Old Ma May which is as far as I've got.
Well written and edited.

[Mr Larrington]

Sasha Swire's Diary of an MP's Wife.
Covers the Cameron years and very interesting insights into Cameroon politics and Old Ma May which is as far as I've got.
Well written and edited.

Professor Larrington has just endorsed this; her husband is reading it and cackling like a loon.

[rafletcher]

Well, ALL my library reservations appeared en bloc this week. So I’ve started with John Connolly’s “Dirty South”.

[citoyen]

I confess I'm generally against the intros that begin with a long introduction as to what the character's hair colour, eye, skin colour is, and what they're wearing if it's of no real relevance to the story being told. This information can be imparted, as necessary, in the narrative. It's a lot less clunky to mention that 'she raised her glasses to get a better look' then tell me, the first introduction, a full description including her eye prescription. Unless, of course, this is a clever way of expressing Peter's police procedural outlook where he compiles a description of everyone he meets. But it's still a bit annoying for the casual reader.

The Dan Brown thread redux. 

Anyhoo, I downloaded Never Let Me Go yesterday because it was on 99p offer for Kindle. A timely coincidence, given that I was discussing it with a colleague the other day. Been meaning to read it for aaaages, so this is a good excuse.

Ishiguro has a new one out next year that sounds highly promising, and deals with similar themes to Never Let Me Go, from the sound of it. I was almost in tears just reading the blurb.

[Jakob W]

I always assumed the character description thing was Police-speak too. I must confess I enjoy the Rivers of London books - the first few built up enough goodwill for the settings and characters that I'm happy to park my brain in neutral and cruise through them without engaging my nit-picking circuits. I agree that - as with many authors - Aaronovitch was at a bit of a loss what to do once the big baddie was defeated; if you want a continuous arc (as opposed to case of the week type stuff) it's hard to keep raising the stakes over and over (which seems to be a particular problem for urban fantasy; I'm looking at you, Jim Butcher...) I did think the German-set one was enjoyable, so maybe it's just that Aaronovitch has got a bit bored or stuck with his original protagonist?

[TheLurker]

The Italian campaign really was a nasty deadly slug fest for both the military...

Have a dekko at Milligan's, "Mussolini - His Part in my Downfall" it makes for quite sombre reading towards the end.

To add to the debate about False Value.  I quite enjoyed it, but it did feel like a filler while Mr. Aaronovitch works out how to get things moving again. I am waiting for his ex-partner to become the new Moriarty of Magic. 

Have just finished the latest Le Carre (Agent Running in the Field) & Harris (V2).  Both perfectly serviceable ways of entertaining a tired brain, but they're not going to detain you for long. Neither is particularly densely plotted and the Harris book can easily be read in a long evening.

[nobby]

Sasha Swire's Diary of an MP's Wife.
Covers the Cameron years and very interesting insights into Cameroon politics and Old Ma May which is as far as I've got.
Well written and edited.

Professor Larrington has just endorsed this; her husband is reading it and cackling like a loon.

Just finished it and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Further confirmation that politicians like them are not people like me. Still, that is changing - my new MP is an ex OR of The Rifles.

[Steph]

Re character descriptions: I rarely give them unless there is a specific reason to do so, such as a character being particularly tall, or a pivotal moment where it impacts on the story. I prefer to leave people to form their own image.

What I DO like to play with is self-image versus external perception. As an example, one of my people sees herself as a strutting rock chick, while another, on encountering her for the first time, sees a skinny and hard-faced blonde. My logic is that where film tends to lock an appearance into 'canon', written work lets one see one's own vision of the person.

That said, I saw the trailer on Twitter for the new 'Watch' Pratchett adaptation.

Oh do, please, FOAD. That is NOT Sam Vimes.

[TheLurker]

Oh do, please, FOAD. That is NOT Sam Vimes.

The pictures on the wireless are much better. 

[Ashaman42]

Saw the trailer for The Watch yesterday. No way am I going to watch it. Looks awful.

[spesh]

You can't say that you weren't warned that PTerry's Night Watch canon was going to be utterly FUBAR'd by BBC America...

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=70466.msg2427433#msg2427433
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=70466.msg2445036#msg2445036

[Steph]

WTF is that mascara/eyeliner/black crap under his eyes, and WHY? Why has someone whose entire life has been in A-M got a different accent?

I don't know if Sybil appears in the trailer, but I am shuddering to think how prettified they will make her. Never mind Cheery Littlebottom.

[Insert extra rant as appropriate; there's plenty to rant about]

[L CC]

Anyhoo, I downloaded Never Let Me Go yesterday because it was on 99p offer for Kindle. A timely coincidence, given that I was discussing it with a colleague the other day. Been meaning to read it for aaaages, so this is a good excuse.

Love this.
(Not that you got it for 99p, the book.)

[ian]

I always assumed the character description thing was Police-speak too. I must confess I enjoy the Rivers of London books - the first few built up enough goodwill for the settings and characters that I'm happy to park my brain in neutral and cruise through them without engaging my nit-picking circuits. I agree that - as with many authors - Aaronovitch was at a bit of a loss what to do once the big baddie was defeated; if you want a continuous arc (as opposed to case of the week type stuff) it's hard to keep raising the stakes over and over (which seems to be a particular problem for urban fantasy; I'm looking at you, Jim Butcher...) I did think the German-set one was enjoyable, so maybe it's just that Aaronovitch has got a bit bored or stuck with his original protagonist?

I think part of the problem is that the book seems to be a set up for the rest of the series, so takes a long time to get nowhere. I guess some readers have more patience than I do. Proper story arks can work over many books, but each individual book has its own episodic benefits. If it doesn't have this, it's just like reading the first quarter of a book and then arbitrarily stopping. I'll read the next quarter in a year's time.

I never get an explanation for the initial time-shifting. Maybe that will be resolved in about three books time.

Maybe it's time for me to the bite the bullet and finally read Inferno?

[citoyen]

Love this.
(Not that you got it for 99p, the book.)

 

Really looking forward to it, just need to stay focused long enough to do some actual reading, which I've not been able to achieve very often lately.

[ian]

Love this.
(Not that you got it for 99p, the book.)

 

Really looking forward to it, just need to stay focused long enough to do some actual reading, which I've not been able to achieve very often lately.

One of the few benefits of this plague-era is that I can read for a good hour or two in bed every night, and don't have to worry about that just-finish-the-chapter sleep deficit when the morning alarm threatens to concertina into the tail-end of my nocturnal reading. Now I just get up later. I aim for 9am but I'm not a natural success and failure doesn't hold me back, not when it comes to sleeping. There's absolutely no motivational poster that features me. I'm my own line of demotivational posters. Some time around 9.30am my wife starts to inadvertently drop things in her office next door. Hold loud conference calls with people who appear to be herself. By 9.45am she'll stomp into the bedroom, put her hands on her hips, and declare 'this is your life?'

I really don't know why she needs that question mark. Perhaps she's asking the cat.

So this, in combination with a lack of social life because it's against the law (for a misanthrope like me, this is the juice), and the fact that we only watch an hour of TV a day (some people are scared of giant spiders, I'm scared of turning into my parents), I'm reading a vast amount. Last night I was binging on re-reads of the Sandman Slim series (ooo, vampires with flame throwers) and a chapter on convergent evolution. If I could remember my dreams I am sure they would be awesome.