What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Mrs Pingu]

I'm working my way through the entire back catalogue of Peter James'- Detective Roy Grace.

I don't know why, the author is sexist & racist and the characters are both unconvincing and somewhat dull.

I've never been "dangerously moist" in my life and all the women are either victims or outstandingly beautiful or both.

The blurb describes him as "a tenacious yet troubled detective known for his unorthodox methods" yet the books go into tedious (and if you read a lot of them) repetitive telling-not-showing detail of how all the procedures are followed.

I haven't seen the TV adaptations, apparently John Simm stars. Which gives it an air of competence I'm not getting from the poor writing.

Anyway, on book (checks) 7, and book 19 Stop Them Dead was released today. It only takes me 3 or 4 days to get through them.

As recommendations go, this one isn't glowing, is it?

And that's me done. All 19. What a load of tripe.

Up next- more fantasy romance.

It's entertainment, OK. Not every novel has to be improving literature.

I can recommend JD Kirk's Logan series. At least there's a decent selection of choice swearing in it, and they're not up their own arse.

[Kim]

Just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's eminently readable Children Of Time series.

[T42]

Just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's eminently readable Children Of Time series.

Kept bouncing off that but I'm finding it hard settling to anything these days.

[rafletcher]

The Girl in the Spiders Web the 4th in the Stieg Larson Millenium trilogy, by one David Lagercrantz. It passes the time.

[eckagain]

I've just started 'End To End', by Paul Jones, lent to me by a friend.
In introducing his own cycling credentials, he says he's done "lots of things on a bike but endurance cycling is not one of them."
But he certainly gets it!
He refers to audax saying that he likes to dot watch audaxers (and Transcontinental riders) "in their quest for utter degradation and fatigue, sleeping for seven micro-seconds in a farmer's gateway with a discarded copy of Razzle and a used prophylactic for a pillow."

[Efrogwr]

I've just started 'End To End', by Paul Jones, lent to me by a friend.
In introducing his own cycling credentials, he says he's done "lots of things on a bike but endurance cycling is not one of them."
But he certainly gets it!
He refers to audax saying that he likes to dot watch audaxers (and Transcontinental riders) "in their quest for utter degradation and fatigue, sleeping for seven micro-seconds in a farmer's gateway with a discarded copy of Razzle and a used prophylactic for a pillow."

Thanks for the heads up; I've just started it and it looks like it'll be a good read.

[Steph]

Just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's eminently readable Children Of Time series.

One scene in that broke my heart.

"Have you got anything to eat?"

[Mrs Pingu]

Just finished the third book in Adrian Tchaikovsky's eminently readable Children Of Time series.

I might give them a try.

Any recommendations for anything else? I liked the Ann Leckie and Becky Chambers space ones. I've run out of stuff on the Kindle and I could do with a rest from pot boiler crime novels for a bit.

[rafletcher]

Well, I gave up on the John Connolly after only about a quarter, then skimmed the last quarter of the McDermid (the outcome was pretty obvious from around half distance - The Wire in the Blood it wasn’t!)

So a trip to the library tomorrow (as it’s opposite the dentist where I’m going anyway) to collect a few reservations including the latest from Michael Connelly and Lee/Andrew Child.

[Legs]

Just finished reading A Series Of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler (writing as Lemony Snicket) to my six-year-old - it was about 4 or 5 months of bedtime stories in 13 volumes.  I'm feeling a little bit bereft now, because I was enjoying it so much.  In spite of being rather dark, they're definitely suitable for young-ish children as well as young adults and the young-at-heart.

It's full of wonderfully absurd passages like this:

The phrase "in the dark," as I'm sure you know, can refer not only to one's shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

(click to show/hide)

The storyline - quite deliberately - leaves quite a few loose ends and unresolved ambiguities, which is in equal parts refreshing and frustrating!

[graculus]

'There are known knowns....'

[Steph]

Legs, re loose ends etc...

It is a technique I use myself, because of my style. I start with building a character, then tell a tale from their point of view, and (almost always) in first person. That means, to steal from your quote, that they are in the dark about anything they don't witness and get informed about. That means other characters, built the same way, have their own lives and stories. From my own point of view, that means I am given opportunities to tell those tales in a subsequent novel precisely because of the ambiguities and loose ends.

I suspect that Mr Handler may be working the same way, as a sales technique. I might, of course, be wrong. After all, I just write romances!

[Legs]

Legs, re loose ends etc...

It is a technique I use myself, because of my style. I start with building a character, then tell a tale from their point of view, and (almost always) in first person. That means, to steal from your quote, that they are in the dark about anything they don't witness and get informed about. That means other characters, built the same way, have their own lives and stories. From my own point of view, that means I am given opportunities to tell those tales in a subsequent novel precisely because of the ambiguities and loose ends.

I suspect that Mr Handler may be working the same way, as a sales technique. I might, of course, be wrong. After all, I just write romances!

You're absolutely right, there are prequel and related spin-off works.

The device that Handler uses is to write from the point of view of the fictitious Mr Snicket, who is tangentially involved in the plot, but is writing as if piecing together evidence and research from varied sources about the Baudelaires' story, and that therefore he isn't privy to all the details.  Furthermore, the final instalment emphasises that the children's story is only part of a continuum of interlinked and overlapping stories.

There is one particular McGuffin, the significance of which is never explained.

[SpaceBadger]

I decided to give The Silmarillion a try, having always enjoyed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Big mistake.

It couldn’t be more different.

It’s the biggest load of self-indulgent wank^TM I’ve ever read. A story should be just that. Creating an entire and often impenetrable supporting history to some of the best books, written in a maddening style, is what is needed. Said no one, ever.

[T42]

It’s the biggest load of self-indulgent wank^TM I’ve ever read. A story should be just that. Creating an entire and often impenetrable supporting history to some of the best books, written in a maddening style, is what is needed. Said no one, ever.

Wasn't it a bunch of backstory bits put together by JRR's heirs and shoved onto the market to make a fast buck after he died? 

[SteveC]

Not quite. I think JRRT always wanted the Silmarillion to see the light of day, but not until after his death.
Unfinished Tales however...

I never managed to finish the latter and I was a real Tolkien nerd as a teenager.

[fimm]

.... Creating an entire and often impenetrable supporting history to some of the best books, written in a maddening style, is what is needed. Said no one, ever.

But the stories that became The Silmarillion were written (and re-written) first, and then The Hobbit & LotR came along afterwards.

[T42]

Digging up early Neal Stephensons, finished The Diamond Age the other day and am now some distance into Snow Crash.  Still enjoyable despite references to tape as a future storage medium, even in nano-devices.

[Feanor]

I've just started into Stephenson's 'Quicksilver', the first of the Baroque Cycle.
It's a fair tome, with dense very small-point text filling every page!

And despite my Forum Name, I'm in general agreement about the Silmarillion being a load of self-indulgent wank...

[SpaceBadger]

I've just started into Stephenson's 'Quicksilver', the first of the Baroque Cycle.
It's a fair tome, with dense very small-point text filling every page!

And despite my Forum Name, I'm in general agreement about the Silmarillion being a load of self-indulgent wank...

Phew. That could have got awkward (you bad person, you)

[Robh]

I've just finished 'Joe Country', which is the 6th of 8 (so far) Slough House books by Mick Herron. Great stuff, genuinely lol in places, and a very impressive feat in maintaining such a high quality of invention and character development over the course of so many books. I'm not sure now whether I want to go straight onto the remaining 2 of the series, or take a break and fish something else out of my pile of books waiting to be read. The thing is, I doubt any of them will be as much fun to read.

[Mr Larrington]

Somewhat belatedly goven that it was published in 2011, Malcolm Pryce's “The Day Aberystwyth Stood Still”.  It is making me laarrff.

[rafletcher]

A new author for me, tho’ obviously one well reviewed recently (or I’d not have got the bees to read), one Jordan Harper. The book is “Everybody Knows” set in the LA PR business. It’s pretty good, good enough thus far that I’ll try his previous offerings at some point.

[Mr Larrington]

Finally onto Mark Billingham's “The Last Dance”.  Thorne hasn’t put in an appearance (yet?) but DS Dave Holland is surely his ex-sidekick.

[rafletcher]

The latest Lincoln Lawyer offering from Michael Connolly “Resurrection Walk. Pretty good so far. And one of the plot devices is that there are gangs in the LA Sheriff's dept. And the book I was just reading, also published this year, “Everyone knows” had the same plot device. The also both reference the White Fence gang. Spooky