What books are we reading at the moment ?

[Torslanda]

...and achieves the considerable feat of making Ayn Rand seem almost interesting

Not a Rush fan either, then?

[Steph]

'The Cackle of Cthulhu'


"Elder Gods worship for the non-inbred". And Elvis.

[T42]

After we read "La Trace de Cthulu", Cthulu became a household word chezz nouze for a certain substance. "There's still a trace of cthulu there, get another tissue".

[andrewc]

The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis,* being the second vol. of the trilogy† begun with Bitter Seeds.  The boy‡ can write and his characters are excellent, but his command of 1940s English English is poor, he being from Over There.  One does not view Buckingham across Green Park, nor does one turn onto Shaftesbury. Nor did one turn onto in 1944, one turned on to. Small things and ignorable enough - you build a sort of mental callus over your critical blisters - that don't stop the books being very enjoyable. Alas, I'll have finished them all by Monday.

*  he of the Clakkers
† only they call it a triptych; it's, like, posher. Ask Mr. Bell.
‡ age 44 or thereabouts

I read those a while back,  well written but not the most cheerful of books!   Yes, he doesn't get the language quite right....

[Steph]

I remember reading a horror story set somewhere on the Murcan frontier, before the Civil War, in which a character's response to being offered a hot drink is "I'm good, thanks"

Go and learn some period language!

[Jakob W]

I enjoyed (IYSWIM) the Tregillis, but also found the various slips grated; surely it's not impossible for the publisher to find a UK copyeditor? I've found the same in other US-authored UK-set novels; just because you're an Anglophile doesn't mean you're going to be able to get it right (though I suppose the same is true of UK authors setting their stories in the US...)

[ElyDave]

Back to Robert Heinlein for me - Starship Troopers, very different to the film

I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's shit that been blasted by a giant shittification ray and then dropped in to a shit compactor and compressed with more shit until it's the density of a neutron star made out of pure shit.

So not his best output then?

It's the only one I've read, but I'm not about to try another. Putting aside the offputting fascistic militarism (with none of the tongue-in-cheek irony of the movie) that is expounded over many, many dull pages and achieves the considerable feat of making Ayn Rand seem almost interesting, it's just dull. Endless pages detail the minutia of military bureaucracy and ranks. And frankly, the protagonist is dull. He's the sort of person you'd climb out of the toilet window to avoid talking to at a party. A party on the top floor of a tower block.

Still, finally at the end (where the finallys usually do happen), there's an actual encounter with the enemy (the only encounter, iirc). Could there really be some excitement?

No.  Most, most definitely no.

Unless you're excited, of course, by a couple of the pages detailing troop disposition and patrol patterns. Then they caught an alien and went home for tea and scones or somesuch. The end.

The worst 99p I've ever spent.

Having persevered so far I'd agree with you.

I've read several of his that were much better, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is much better, for example.

I'm seeing the current example as an anti commie tirade of the time. We can't trust people with voting who aren't indoctrinated to do it the right way etc. I wonder whether it was entirely intended as tongue in checks but is either too subtle at it, or missed it entirely and ends sledgehammerring it into you until your brain is numb

[T42]

I remember reading a horror story set somewhere on the Murcan frontier, before the Civil War, in which a character's response to being offered a hot drink is "I'm good, thanks"

Go and learn some period language!

My favourite was the TV Cesare Borgia hollering "medic!"

Maybe he meant Medici.

[ian]

I'm seeing the current example as an anti commie tirade of the time. We can't trust people with voting who aren't indoctrinated to do it the right way etc. I wonder whether it was entirely intended as tongue in checks but is either too subtle at it, or missed it entirely and ends sledgehammerring it into you until your brain is numb

I did persevere in the hope there would be a twist where the protagonist might come to question his beliefs, but like you say it mostly got worse, so I think it was it was rather than a clever subversion.

But mostly it was immensely dull. I only got to the end because it was short and it's not actually badly written.

[fimm]

Re-reading Ursula le Guin's "The Dispossessed" and reading for the first time "The Last Englishman" a biography of Arthur Ransome. The latter is quite interesting but I've only just got to the really interesting bit (the Russian Revolution).

[T42]

I enjoyed (IYSWIM) the Tregillis, but also found the various slips grated; surely it's not impossible for the publisher to find a UK copyeditor? I've found the same in other US-authored UK-set novels; just because you're an Anglophile doesn't mean you're going to be able to get it right (though I suppose the same is true of UK authors setting their stories in the US...)

Had a right cackle last evening: his bloke went into a pub and drank several pints of bitters.

[Redlight]

It's been out for a few years so many have already appeared in the three, but I've just finished a very enjoyable, light read, called One Man and His Bike by Mike Carter.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11745460-one-man-and-his-bike

In brief, Mr Carter has a good idea one morning on his commute to work in London, which is that it would be interesting to turn right at the northern end of Blackfriars Bridge, rather than continuing on to his office near Kings Cross, and to follow the river out to the sea and then continue around the entire coastline of Britain. A few weeks later, he does just that.   It takes him the best part of 6 months.

He's a travel journalist so has a good eye for small details, although reading between the lines I suspect that some of his "encounters" were pencilled in ahead of the trip.  That said, it's easy reading, in that Brysonesque way, and effectively balances: an account of the cycle ride itself, various encounters along the way, a bit of local history and personal observations.  A good one for a train journey.

[ElyDave]

I'm seeing the current example as an anti commie tirade of the time. We can't trust people with voting who aren't indoctrinated to do it the right way etc. I wonder whether it was entirely intended as tongue in checks but is either too subtle at it, or missed it entirely and ends sledgehammerring it into you until your brain is numb

I did persevere in the hope there would be a twist where the protagonist might come to question his beliefs, but like you say it mostly got worse, so I think it was it was rather than a clever subversion.

But mostly it was immensely dull. I only got to the end because it was short and it's not actually badly written.

Just got to the end of it, thank DOG,  at least it served the purpose of getting me to sleep

[T42]

Still Tregillising, now on Something More than Night. Angels channel Sam Spade to maintain the Mantle of Ontological Consistency and the 20th decimal place of the Fine Structure Constant.  A bit of a romp with nary a shadow of corkscrewed English English idiom.

[Legs]

Guilty pleasure; the first of the Clifton Chronicles by Perjuror-in-Chief, Lord Mr Archer.

[Redlight]

1971 - Never a dull moment by David Hepworth.

Took about two hours to read. I've done it so that you needn't bother. 

[pcolbeck]

A History of the Arab Peoples -    Albert Hourani

Has good reviews and its huge. Just starting so no real verdict as yet.

[Mr Larrington]

Just started the new James Oswald which, contrary to previous reports, is an Inspector McLean.  And, so far, rather DETHY

[pcolbeck]

1971 - Never a dull moment by David Hepworth.

Took about two hours to read. I've done it so that you needn't bother.

He is sort of right though.

[Redlight]

1971 - Never a dull moment by David Hepworth.

Took about two hours to read. I've done it so that you needn't bother.

He is sort of right though.

To a degree - I think picking one year (the one in which the author just happened to be 21) makes for a good pitch idea but I don't think there's enough substance for an entire book. I suspect that he was hoping to get a TV series off the back of it, but there can't be that much decent footage from that era that hasn't been seen over and over already.

[rafletcher]

Just started the new James Oswald which, contrary to previous reports, is an Inspector McLean.  And, so far, rather DETHY

Oh good. It’s waiting in my library pile once I’ve finished Robicheaux.

[Mrs Pingu]

Just started the new James Oswald which, contrary to previous reports, is an Inspector McLean.  And, so far, rather DETHY

Oh, jolly good! That awaits after the last in the Peter May Lewis trilogy.

[Mr Larrington]

Mind you, you have to get a third of the way through before anything even vaguely supernatural starts happening.  There's more about his shiny new Alfa¹ than there is about Things Which Man Was Not Meant To Know

1: Old one still a pile of wreckage after the events of episode 7.

[Mr Larrington]

Alfanatics will be pleased to know that McLean's Giulia Quadrifoglio Verde makes it to the end unscathed.

Just started "Islander: A Journey Round Our Archipelago" by Patrick Barkham, in which the author visits British Isles of progressively smaller size and population until he reaches rural Essex.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys someone or other. Enjoying it. Mormon family in Southport, tragedy, faith, humour, grief, sin, guilt.