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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1027
Location: UK | Happy New Year,everyone.Look forward to seeing what we all make of the new Challenge | |
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Member
Posts: 21
| I'm starting off the WoGF challenge with The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre and The Giver by by Lois Lowry. I also picked up God's War by Kameron Hurley. After that it's back to Cyteen and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. The Snow Queen andThe Last Testament of Jessie Lamb are on my list for this month. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | Just started Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore -- alternate history where the South won the Civil War. Then maybe Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman to begin the challenge and continue the tour through the history of fantasy... | |
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Member
Posts: 7
| Finished Typhon's Children by Toni Anzetti. Looking to read the sequel, Riders of Leviathan. But first, I need to get through Wonders of the Invisible World by Patricia McKillip and 1984, because it's a shame I haven't read that one before. By the way, does anyone know any good underwater SF? While Typhon's Children was good, the story was kind of "Meh." I loved the world though, and would definitely like to check out some more sea-based SF. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 202
Location: Sacramento, California | Right now, I'm reading <U>Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art</u>, by Christopher Moore. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1027
Location: UK | I may start off with an early Marion Zimmer Bradley,just to get myself into the nmood.Mind you,I may have to readjust a lot of my reading.I had been thinking of the Guardian list,and to my shame,only about 8 of the 45 authors on my list were females.I have to re-jig the whole thing to fit in more females! | |
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Member
Posts: 7
| Finishing up Riders of Leviathan now. Meh. After that I got to start Memory of Light. That thing is massive. I'd like to read Slaughterhouse-Five, but who knows if I'll finish MOL before February. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 770
Location: SC, USA | I've been reading a lot of free ebooks from Project Gutenberg. They've mostly been mystery and supernatural, published between 1850 and 1930. My two favorites thus far have been William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, The Ghost Finder and Maurice LeBlanc's Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar. Both creations owe a great debt to Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately, there's only one Carnacki book, but I will be reading the rest of the Lupin books. I'm excited about the ones that send up Sherlock Holmes (Herlock Sholmes). I want to get into some of the early horror and Gothic that I've downloaded from Project Gutenberg as well, such as Arthur Machen, Sheridan Le Fanu and Robert W. Chambers. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | @rhondak: In case you're interested, Lupin was apparently a major inspiration for Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief.
I'm halfway through Max Beerbohm's Zuleika Dobson at the moment--a satire on British class attitudes and the romantic obsessions of youth. It's one of the more eccentric choices in Cawthorn and Moorcock's 100 Best Fantasy Novels book. | |
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Uber User
Posts: 770
Location: SC, USA | @Scott. Thanks for that. i guess it just moved up my reading list. | |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1027
Location: UK | I ,like Rhonda,have been reading off Project Gutenberg.For a challenge I am reading loads of Poe,Machen,Lovecraft,Lord Dunsany,Algernon Blackwood,Sheridan Le Fanu.Just finished Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly,made up of five short stories,including the famous Green Tea,and Judge Harbottle,which still pack a punch today,plus Carmilla,the first tale of a lesbian vampire,written more than 20 years before Bram Stoker's Dracula,very strange but interesting.I am rereading too a list of about 15 Poe short stories.I am so enjoying the stately prose and leisurely style of these old books.
I think Stephen King,in hisrambling but interesting foray over horror,Danse Macabre,had something when he classified the genre into three well-defined, descending levels; 1) terror, 2) horror, and 3) revulsion. He describes terror as the finest element of the three, and the one he strives hardest to maintain in his own writing. Citing many examples, he defines terror as the suspenseful moment in horror before the actual monster is revealed. "Horror", King writes, is that moment at which one sees the creature/aberration that causes the terror or suspense, a "shock value." King finally compares revulsion with the gag-reflex: a bottom-level, cheap gimmick which he admits he often resorts to in his own fiction if necessary, confessing:
I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.
Way to go,Stephen.Well I for one love these old books because for the most part they stick at the terror level.Perhaps not exactly frightening today with our hardened perceptions,but still enjoyable.
I am into a 19th century groove at the moment.Read Wilkie Collins The Woman in White,which was excellent,and am now starting George Eliot's Middlemarch,not nearly as enjoyable ,but being read as a dutifull classic!
In the SF area I read J G Ballard's Drowned World,and am having a Robert Heinlein marathon of some of his juveniles - Red Planet,Podkayne of Mars,Star Beast,and Starman Jones,all good fun,some hiding Heinleins political agenda better than others,but all still perfectly readable and enjoyable 60 years on.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 1027
Location: UK | At last my copy of Cherryh's The Chanur Saga,made up of The Pride of Chanur,Chanur's Venture,and The Kif Strike Back,arrived and I havent done anything but immerse myself in the trilogy ever since,and am impatiently awaiting delivery of the rest of the series,Chanur's Homecoming.Wonderful stuff.If you like your aliens very alien,then this fits the bill! As I was reading I kept anxiously looking to see how much was left,because I didnt want it to end.And I am in good company in this.Have a lot at these fun takes on the books by Jo Walton.She puts it all so much better than I could.If you havent read Cherryh before,it will not made a great deal of sense,but fans will agree 100% .The discussion posts are interesting too.
Check out http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/09/the-best-aliens-ever-cj-cherryhs-t...
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/10/treachery-to-species-cj-cherryhs-c...
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Uber User
Posts: 263
Location: Gunnison, Colorado | I could be mis-remembering, but I think I heard that Walton is going to put her Cherryh reviews together into some sort of book eventually... I read all those books when they came out. Definitely something I'd like to revisit at some point! | |
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