HanGerg's late start to the 75 challenge.

Discussie75 Books Challenge for 2011

Sluit je aan bij LibraryThing om te posten.

HanGerg's late start to the 75 challenge.

Dit onderwerp is gemarkeerd als "slapend"—het laatste bericht is van meer dan 90 dagen geleden. Je kan het activeren door een een bericht toe te voegen.

1HanGerg
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2011, 1:30 pm

Ok, so here's what I've read since my late start to this challenge. As per a friend's suggestion, I'm going to aim for 35 books before the end of 2011, and then I'll jump in with both feet next year!




August
1. Skinny Legs And All - Tom Robbins 4.5
2. Diaspora- Greg Egan 3.5
3. Extro- Alfred Bester 1.5
4. Netherland - Joseph O'Neill 3
5. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke 4
6. How To Be A Woman - Caitlin Moran 3
7. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card 4.5

After a pretty good month of reading in August, September was not so productive....
8. The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman 3.5
9. Cyberabad Days - Ian McDonald 5

....and neither was October.
10. Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson 4
11. Geomancer - Ian Irvine 2.5

...but November was a little better.

12. Blackout - Connie Willis 3
13. A Moorland Hanging - Michael Jecks 3
14. Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann 3.5
15. 13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time by Michael Brooks 4
16. The Cleft - Doris Lessing 2

December
17. Doomsday Book - Connie Willis 4
18. Green Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson 4

2HanGerg
jul 25, 2011, 8:19 am

Oh, so far so good!
Well, I think it would be a hopeless task trying to remember all the books I have read already in 2011. Some recent highlights were Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Apart from that my recent reading is a bit of a blur, so I'll just start from where I am right now.
Currently reading:
Extro by Alfred Bester. The Stars My Destination is one of my all time favourite SF novels, so I have been seeking out more by the author. This one's off to a bit of a confusing start, but I remain optimistic.
History of Rome by Grant Michael. A rare piece of Non-Fiction for me, but I have long wanted to learn more about this fascinating period of world history, and I finally stumbled across this fairly comprehensive looking volume in a secondhand shop a few weeks ago. Off to a bit of a slow start, but I'll persevere.

3labwriter
jul 25, 2011, 8:48 am

Welcome to the 75. Great people here.

4HanGerg
jul 25, 2011, 9:14 am

Thanks for making me welcome, labwriter!

5jeanned
jul 25, 2011, 3:13 pm

Hi Hannah. Welcome to the 75. I''m a recent joiner myself (this is only my second month). I enjoy sci-fi too and am hoping to read more in the next few months. I've starred your thread and so will be checking in when you've got a new post.

6drneutron
Bewerkt: jul 25, 2011, 4:21 pm

Welcome! Looks like a nice set of books to start.

By the way, we have a wiki page where we keep all the group's important links. Might help you make some sense out of the chaos! :)

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Groups:75booksin2011

7sibylline
Bewerkt: jul 25, 2011, 6:58 pm

Sorry it took me a few days to get here Hannah! Alfred Bester! Wow! Great! He is one of the greats of the great. I own that one but have to confess to not having read it yet.

I was thinking about your dilemma and the unsatisfactoriness of joining a group in July that has the goal of 75 in one year...... but then I thought.... well..... there are five months and a little bit left, so why not have a goal of around 35 new books and then whatever you can remember?

Now I'm back with a question -- on yr. profile you say you've recently converted to sf, just wondering what got you going reading it? I go in fits of obsessive sf reading (I'm in one now). And I can never figure out what brings one on!

Love the pic on your profile too -- the abstract one, I mean. Although I also like the furry hat.

8drneutron
jul 25, 2011, 7:35 pm

By the way, for those who remember the TV series Babylon 5, one of the bad guys was named Bester after Alfred.

9sibylline
jul 26, 2011, 12:34 pm

Wayyyy cool! That is a great piece of info.

10mamzel
jul 26, 2011, 6:42 pm

Welcome to the challenge! I read Wolf Hall earlier this year, too.

11alcottacre
jul 27, 2011, 3:32 am

Welcome to the group!

12HanGerg
jul 27, 2011, 12:34 pm

Wow, thanks everybody! Sibyx said everyone was friendly here, but gosh! I'm overwhelmed! : )

As for what converted me to Sci-Fi....hmmmm, I'm not sure actually. I think it started when I lived in Budapest, and my supply of reading materials was limited to what I could find in the one English language bookshop I knew, and what I could borrow from the British Council library. Not having a great deal of choice forced me to try lots of new things. After overcoming my initial scepticism about Sci-Fi, I found I loved how mind expanding it was! I still love it for how it can take you to whole new worlds, and at the same time teach you so much about our world.
I think one "gateway" book was an Iain M. Banks, as I had read some of his non sci-fi stuff and thought I would give it a whirl. This is probably quite a common path into the genre - he should be given a medal for services to Sci-Fi.
Following on for your nice geeky fact drneutron, may I share one of my own: In the film Hot Fuzz, the desk sergeant character (played by hilarious comedian Bill Bailey), is shown in one scene reading an Ian Banks novel, and then in another an Iain M. Banks. This is a subtle allusion to the fact that is revealed at the end of the film, which is that it is not one character but identical twins! (Needless to say I spotted this on first viewing and told my friends about it, earning myself the title of queen geek! : ) )

13drneutron
jul 27, 2011, 12:56 pm

Oh, wow. Never noticed the link!

14ronincats
jul 29, 2011, 12:36 am

Welcome! I'm another who reads a lot of science fiction, so always glad to hear what you are reading.

15HanGerg
Bewerkt: aug 3, 2011, 12:25 pm

Ok, I've finished my first book since starting this thread! Happy day! Perhaps confusingly, it's not one of the ones that I listed as being currently reading - I'm in one of those phases where I keep picking up new books before finishing the old ones. Anyway, I digress....
1. Skinny Legs And All by Tom Robbins. 4.5/5
Loved it, loved it, loved it. This is my third Tom Robbins, and it certainly won't be my last. It bears all his usual hallmarks: dazzling and playful use of language, intricately woven multiple narratives, memorable characters, absurd and fantastical happenings, a unique joie de vivre and something interesting to say about, y'know, LIFE. Oh, and a Shintoist talking vibrator. Quite a lot to pack into one novel, but Mr Robbins pulls it off with aplomb.
I've now picked up a new Sci-Fi book from my local library. The author is a new name on me, and the cover looked a bit teen fiction, but the blurb on the back was intriguing, so I'm giving it a whirl. It's Diaspora by Greg Egan. I'm struggling a bit to be honest. I know now why they call it "Hard" Sci-Fi. It's making my brain hurt just trying to understand what he's trying to show me, but I shall persevere in knowledge that all this brain ache is probably character forming.

16sibylline
aug 3, 2011, 12:29 pm

I don't think I've encountered Egan, although my spousal unit probably has.....

Glad the Robbins was fun!

17alcottacre
aug 4, 2011, 12:00 am

I cannot say I have ever read anything by either Tom Robbins or Greg Egan. I am going to have to investigate and see what my local library has of their books.

18HanGerg
aug 10, 2011, 9:21 am

Hooray! Finished a couple more books towards my total- what a satisfying feeling!

2. Diaspora by Greg Egan. 3.5/5
Wow, what can I say?This is a truly mind expanding novel - to the point where you might lose sight of the edges. If I hadn't of gone on record here to say I'd started this, I probably would have given up on it, but I'm so glad I perservered. I do feel it's probably even more mind blowing if you have a PhD in theoretical astro-physics, and there were large chunks that I had to just skim read to get through them, but it was quite an adventure all the same. Imagine humans living forever inside endlessly complicated computer programmes, and travelling to the far reaches of the galaxy via wormholes in space and time in 12 dimensions and...you're only beginning to touch the surface of all the mind-blowing sci-fiery on display here. I feel I've grown as a person and a reader. On the downside - plot, character, conventional narrative? They all take a bit of a backseat here- this is a novel where a thousand years can pass between chapters after all. Phew. I'm still reeling a bit.

3. Extro by Alfred Bester 1.5/5
This was such a disappointment for me, who considers herself a great Alfred Bester fan. In fact the edition I read was a hardback first edition that my husband tracked down for me because he knows how much I admire him. Granted, the usual wildly inventive plot and bizarre characters are present, but the narrative races by at such a dizzying pace that it's hard to invest in any of that. Plus, he seems to have commited the rookie mistake of telling, not showing, adding to the reader's feeling of being totally uninvolved in what's going on. Unless someone cleverer than me can pinpoint a literary reason for adopting this appraoch, one is forced to the reluctant conclusion that he had a publisher's deadline to meet and he knocked this one out at the last minute. Harsh, but I believe, fair.

Ok, onto the next batch then. I have made lots of new aquisitions recently, so I have quite a tbr pile developing. Currently on the go I have Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, a book I've been meaning to get hold of for ages as I know it centres around cricket, a sport I have quite a fondness for. Time for a spot of non-sf, so this will hopefully be just the ticket!

19gennyt
aug 13, 2011, 9:51 pm

Adding my welcomes! I read Wolf Hall last year, and it is certainly one that has stuck in my mind. And I'm hoping to read Cloud Atlas soon. As for Iain (M) Banks, I've only read him without the M so far.

Oh, and I just spotted that you mention Netherland which I read (most of it at least) for a book group a couple of years back. Neither the cricket nor the New York bits resonated much with me, but when the main character reminisces about his growing up the The Hague, I was in more familiar territory as I spent my schooldays there myself, and I suddenly realised that the author must be an old class-mate of mine! Still never finished the book though. I hope you enjoy it more than I did!

20HanGerg
Bewerkt: aug 16, 2011, 6:05 am

Thanks gennyt. Try some Banks with the 'M'. If you like his non Sci-Fi I think that it's a fairly safe bet that you will enjoy at least some of the genre stuff. The Player of Games is one of my favourites, and a pretty good place to start I think.

4. Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. 3/5
Another book to add to the list. It was OK - nicely written and with some evocative scenes involving memory, the nature of identity and other such topics that I always enjoy, but the cricket was only peripheral and the whole plot was a bit flimsy and "so what?"ish. So onto the next....

I've picked up one of the trio of books I treated myself to from amazon the other day. How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran. She is one of my favourite print journalists, working for the Times newspaper in the UK. She always has many wise words to share on the state of modern womanhood, the cult of celebrity, finding a work/life balance, and many other zeitgeisty topics. Best of all she frequently hilarious, so I'm looking forward to this authobiography/ feminist manifesto with great relish.

I was going to post a link to Caitlin Moran's writings for the Times, but the nasty ol' Murdoch empire now wants me to pay for content, so I'll post a link to an interview with her in the nice, still free Guardian instead.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2011/jun/19/caitlin-moran-feminism-intervi...

21sibylline
aug 16, 2011, 1:32 pm

I'm going to have to add the Egan to the wishpile!

22HanGerg
aug 23, 2011, 7:52 am

So book number 5 is in the bag.
Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke 4/5

My first Arthur C. Clarke, and I wasn't disappointed by my introduction to one of the giants of the genre. The themes he touches on regarding human kind's place in the universe, and the quest to find meaning in our continued existence are really interesting, to say nothing of the incredible ending that comes out of leftfield and acts like the literary equivalent to a punch in the gut. I also enjoyed the incredible worldscapes he presented me with, from the Overlords' spooky home planet to the research station at the bottom of the ocean.
From a technical point of view, his habit of ending a chapter with a character saying "I will go and do X", and then beginning the next chapter by cutting straight to them doing X means that the plot bowls along at a very gratifying speed, although one could argue it makes the narrative rather fragmentory. This is also the result of his habit of using certain characters for one small part of the story, then dropping them entirely and switching to a new set as the plot requires. For these reasons the book drops to a four star, because the story it tells is really an incredible one.

23sibylline
aug 23, 2011, 9:31 am

Great review, Hannah. Even though I've read it more than once, you make me want to read CE again!!!

24gennyt
aug 23, 2011, 2:47 pm

using certain characters for one small part of the story, then dropping them entirely and switching to a new set as the plot requires - that describes his approach very well; it's hard to get used to if you are expecting rounded characters who stay and develop throughout the book, but I found once I accepted that his characters were more to move the plot along and allow the ideas to be explored, I was less bothered by this.

25jeanned
aug 23, 2011, 3:02 pm

Childhood's End is one of my all-time favorites!

26HanGerg
aug 24, 2011, 1:17 pm

Book 6 is done!
How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran 3/5

Oh, I had such high expectations of this book, that sadly weren't quite fulfilled. It was a perfectly fun little book, and I guess the author probably is right in that there aren't enough funny books about feminism, but I just wanted it to be something more than funny. Her best newspaper columns hint at a knowledge and understanding of the world that is really thought provoking and profound, and there are tiny hints of it here, but it's mainly just a series of rants about why do we women have such ridiculous expectations thrust upon us all the time, losely draped over a framework of her own life experiences. All the points she makes are valid ones, but it's not the devasting critique I was hoping for.

Here's the review I put on the book's page, just to enlarge on my theme a little more:

Frequently hilarious, often moving, and with some pertinent and thought provoking things to say about modern womanhood, but........
Being a long time Caitlin Moran fan, I found this book just a little bit disappointing. She is one of the best columnists currently at work in th UK media, in my opinion - certainly the funniest - and I just had slightly higher expectations of what she could pull off given the longer format of a book to sink her teeth into. Unfortunately she doesn't really have a coherent argument to make here, just a series of funny chapters about various aspects of modern women's lives, so really it could have just been published as a series of longer than usual articles. It certainly isn't "The Female Eunuch re-written from a bar stool" as the back suggests. Actually, one of the things it does achieve is making you want to go out and buy a copy of that book, as Moran cites it so often, clearly still in awe of the work that inspired her to become a feminist in the first place.
That said, there probably aren't enough books out there that name check Germaine Greer repeatedly, but also manage to be hilarious, which is what I think she was aiming for. If you aren't already aware of her writing then this book will introduce you to a uniquely funny and wise take on feminism. For people who are already fans though, I think this book might just fall short of what we believed her to be capable of.

27sibylline
aug 28, 2011, 12:11 pm

good review!

28alcottacre
aug 28, 2011, 11:44 pm

#26: Nice review, Hannah. I think I will give the book a pass.

I hope your next read is a better one for you!

29HanGerg
aug 30, 2011, 10:40 am

Thanks alcottacre, your wish was fulfilled!
7. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card. 4.5/5
This book was thrust into my hand by a work colleague who is a fellow Sci-fi fan, and I'm very grateful to him! The title has popped up in a few LT threads as a good read, but apart from that I didn't know what to expect. It made very compelling reading, and what started out as being nothing more than an intriguing story about one boy's adventure into the heart of a slightly menacing military machine, gradually opens out into a story with much greater resonances and more sophisticated themes. I particularly liked the way the author expertly showed the difference between Ender's rather bleak world view, where he thinks he has been left completely alone to fend for himself, and the poignant truth that actually there were several adults around him that actually cared for him a lot, but were trying to mould him into this perfect military weapon. My only quibble with the book is that the ending feels a little rushed, with lots of further plot developments skimmed over in double quick time, which seems unnecessary as this book is only the first part of a large series. Which brings me to a question, where do I go next? The LT page for the series seems a little confusing, as there seems to be prequels and omnibuses and other titles that slightly muddy the waters. Can anyone give me a definitive list of what I need to read?
In the meantime, I have plenty of lovely Sci-Fi to be getting on with. My local library seems to have gone on a recent Sci-Fi buying spree, and I now have sitting at the top of my TBR pile the following:
Ubik- Philip K. Dick.
Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson (this one I picked up due to sibyx's recent praise of this series, although coincidently, it was one of these books that my work colleague was reading when we had our first chat about sci-fi just the other day)
Cyberabad Days - Ian McDonald (very excited about this one, as it says it's a sequel to River of Gods which I loved!)
The Child Garden - Geoff Ryman.
I usually try and alternate sci-fi with non-genre reading, but I think it's gonna be wall to wall Sci-Fi for a few weeks. : )

30sibylline
aug 30, 2011, 11:09 am

Good for you! I mean, the wall-to-wall! I have Ender's Game in my MUST GET TO THIS SOON! pile..... and now more than ever.

How cool is that that yr. colleague was also reading Red Mars!

31jolerie
aug 30, 2011, 3:06 pm

I read Ender's Game earlier this year and was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the book that I actually bought the rest of series and am working my way through all the books. The rest of the books are different and of course I don't think they can compare to the first book, but I equally enjoyed them!

32jeanned
aug 30, 2011, 3:49 pm

My favorite of the Ender series was Speaker for the Dead.

33JanetinLondon
aug 31, 2011, 5:45 am

Hi, and welcome! Like you, I recently started reading more sci-fi, and I asked around LT for recommendations. I was recommended Ender's Game, which I had never heard of, and I really liked it. I am worried about reading more in the series, though, since I have heard mixed reports. Coincidentally, I heard today on a Guardian Books podcast that this was originally a short story. I can see that, but I liked the drawn out nature of some of the elements (the training, for example). I also have Red Mars on my list, also due to sibyx!

I would recommend Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population if you haven't already read it.

Oh and just to say that I loved Netherland when I read it last year.

34HanGerg
Bewerkt: aug 31, 2011, 9:59 am

So jolerie, is this the right order? These seem to be the main books, if I've understood correctly:

Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind

but then there's also listings for these :
A War of Gifts (which is described as book 1A)
Ender in Exile (1.5)
Speaker for the Dead (part 1)
Speaker for the Dead (part 3)

Colour me confused.

Hi Janet! Always happy to meet a fellow sci-fier! I haven't come across Remnant Population, and shall certainly check it out. Let me return the favour by recommending a few of my favourite Sci-Fi discoveries, just off the top of my head: The Stars My Destination, Stand On Zanzibar, and for something more contemporary, River Of Gods. Incidently, what was that guardian podcast? A podcast about sci-fi, or just literature in general, sounds like fun!

35JanetinLondon
aug 31, 2011, 12:45 pm

Thanks for those recommendations - I already own (but haven't read) The Stars My Destination, and will check out the other two. I'm sure I will love River of Gods, because I absolutely loved McDonald's The Dervish House, which I read recently.

The podcast was just a general one. I think I must have found it originally via the Guardian book pages. I download a month's worth at a time, and listen when I am wasting time in places like hospital waiting rooms.

36gennyt
Bewerkt: sep 2, 2011, 8:08 am

Hi Hannah, I liked your review of How to be a woman - I keep seeing reviews of that and might have to get hold of a copy. I don't really know Caitlin Moran's writing at all, but I did read (and was much inspired by) The Female Eunuch back in the day!

37alcottacre
Bewerkt: sep 2, 2011, 8:28 am

#34: I am not sure how familiar you are with LT yet, Hannah, so forgive me if I am telling you something you already know: if you click on a Touchstoned title, you will be taken to the book's profile page. If the book is in a series, you will see the series name below the title. You can click on that and it will take you to the list of the books in the entire series.

The series list for Ender's Game is here: http://www.librarything.com/series/Ender%27s+Game

38HanGerg
sep 5, 2011, 5:21 pm

#36 If your looking for a nice bit of lighthearted reading, you could do a lot worse than Caitlin Moran, Genny. She is very funny- there's one story about her friend's dad's white carpet that literarly had me ROFL-ing!

#37 I had got that far (Though goodness knows there are still plenty of things about this group and LT in general that baffle me, so any help is always welcome!) It's just that I can't figure out if all the books in the series are necessary - for example, some appear to be omibuses of other books. Probably just me being slow....

39TadAD
Bewerkt: sep 7, 2011, 2:47 pm

>38 HanGerg:: I can't figure out if all the books in the series are necessary

The general convention (not always followed) is that, if the book in the series list has an integer as its Order Number, it's a full-fledged book in the series. If it has any other kind of designation—a decimal number, a letter, a modifying word—then it's something else: a short story published somewhere else, a partial book, an omnibus, etc.

If you look at Kelley Armstrong's series, you'll see the whole thing in action.

40HanGerg
sep 15, 2011, 3:59 pm

Well, my reading seems to have slowed down somewhat in September for various reasons, not least because my latest read was one that had to be read slowly to get the full effect.
8. The Child Garden - Geof Ryman. 3.5
A review to follow, after me and my husband watch our favourite silly sci-fi TV show. (Torchwood if you're curious!)

41jolerie
sep 15, 2011, 4:22 pm

This is what I found on Wikipedia:

The original tetralogy
Ender's Game
Speaker for the Dead
Xenocide
Children of the Mind

Spin offs
Ender's Shadow
A War of Gifts
Shadow of the Hegemon
Shadow Puppets
Shadow of the Giant
Ender in Exile (Reveals plot elements of Shadow Puppets and Shadow of the Giant.)
Shadows in Flight (forthcoming)
Shadows Alive (forthcoming)

I read the original series in that order listed and then I think the spin offs it doesn't matter as much how you read it although I did buy a box set of the first 3 Shadow books and would probably read them in that order.

42HanGerg
sep 16, 2011, 3:34 am

#41 Thanks jolerie, that's a very comprehensive answer! I definately want to read the main series ones, and then if I'm still hungry for more I'll try the spin offs.

43HanGerg
Bewerkt: sep 16, 2011, 11:56 am

So, The Child Garden. I gave it a 3.5/5 but it was a very hard one to score, or even to form an opinion on really. It's excellently written in terms of literary merit and use of language, but certain aspects of the story feel awfully muddled and the narrative can meander along in parts.
There's certainly a lot to marvel at in this book - viruses that give humans knowlege, telepaths that can weave tapestries of human emotion, living spaceships that can grow any object you can conceive of out of their walls, a London covered in coral and reeds, angels that are free to roam the universe on waves of pure energy... the list could go on and on, as this book is rich with vivid and peculiar details. This can be it's greatest strength, but also a bit of a failing. The author has the habit of introducing a baffling concept and making it a large part of the story, and then only explaining it much later (I think Iain M. Banks learnt that trick from him). So, for example, the main character has no memory of her childhood - something the reader just has accept as part of the internal logic of the story until it is explained quite a long way into the book. There are so many of these "internal logic" elements that reading it can be a confusing experience, especially as some of them are never explained. For example, men can get pregnant and give birth. It is extremely dangerous for both father and baby and it seems that women can still give birth in the usual way, so the reasoning behind this story element feels like it needs explaining, but it never is.
At heart the story is a very unconvential love story- between a young woman and a female polar bear (who's bascially a human in a polar bear shaped body, although this is again one of the things that isn't really explained very well). The strand of the story that deals with their relationship and all the reprecussions that it has in the life of the central character is one of the strongest elements of the book, as the author writes very convincingly and movingly about human emotions. Likewise, the parts of the story where the character's childhood are revealed capture very well that intense nostalgia for people and places we will never see again. There are also several allusions to Dante's Divine Comedy that underline the fact that we the reader are in the realms of Proper Literature here, not just a piece of genre sci-fi, and the book is certainly a very enriching experience. Part of me wants to love this book, with all it's fantastical details and it's moving and true-feeling accounts of human life in such an alien world, but ultimately it's a book that I admire more than love. There's just too many strange aspects of life that aren't fully explained, or are only explained after I have puzzled over them so long that it has hindered my understanding of what's going on. I can imagine some people absolutely falling head over heels for it though, so if anything in this review sounds like your cup of tea, I would definately invite you to take a trip to The Child Garden.

44sibylline
sep 16, 2011, 1:03 pm

41 Thanks for that list!

45HanGerg
sep 19, 2011, 4:27 am

Loving LT's contribution to "talk like a pirate day". That thar be some good fun, mateys!

46HanGerg
Bewerkt: sep 24, 2011, 11:08 am

Ok, so after something of a gap, book 9 is in the bag. My reading has slowed up a bit in September as a lot of my intellectual energy has been taken up with applying for new jobs (so far the tally is 4 jobs applied for, 2 interviews and 0 new jobs but I shall persevere), but luckily I've been hooked back into reading by my latest book, which was an absolute corker.

9. Cyberabad Days - Ian McDonald 5/5
I was really excited about this book, as it was billed as a sequel to River of Gods which is a brilliant. This exceeded my expectations and if anything, was even more brilliant, though it was rather different to what I expected. The main difference was that this was actually more a collection of short stories set in the same universe as the original story, although the last of the short stories does directly address what happened in the first book and continues on that story to some sort of conclusion. But the main joy of this book is that the universe McDonald created is just such an enthralling place to be. The setting is India, 30-40 years into the future. In many ways, this world is one that we would recognise, but with many subtle or not so subtle differences. Global warming has meant all of India suffers from a severe shortage of water, that leads to conflict between the regions that then fracture into 12 seperate states. Many of these states now lead the world in computer technology, especially in the creation of "aeais"- basically computer intelligences that range from small programmes that will overseer basic domestic management tasks through to fully sentient beings that are indistinguisable from humans 99% of the time. We also see some of the social trends of present day India played out to full effect, so the current demographic time bomb of young men outnumbering young women four to one is examined in more than one story in the collection. Then there are new developments in this world that we could not predict now, such as the invention of a third sex, created when men or women decide to step away from all the baggage associated with their gender and literally remake themselves from the cell level up. Aside from these really interesting themes, the book is also made great by the details of this fully realised world, that just leap off the page in all their richly textured and atmospheric glory. And finally, the actual stories themselves are just so compelling and brilliantly told, that the whole package is just absolutely irresistable. Once I finished it, I just wanted to start all over again, as the text is just so rich I think it's impossible to take it all in in one reading. Actually, I would probaly re-read the first book again, and then this one, as I'm sure there are a lot of minor characters and other details that overlap between the two that I may have overlooked. If you have already read the first book in this series, I can 100% guarantee you will love this. If you haven't read either yet, what are you waiting for? I think you could probably read this one before "River..." actually, as you don't need any prior knowledge from the previous book, but the final story might ruin certain aspects of the first book for you if you are intending to read both. On this evidence, I am tempted to make one of those grand statements that publishers put on the back covers of books. I may not be fully qualified to say this, not having read a huge amount of contemporary Sci-Fi, but what the heck, after a book this good I'm feeling exuberant: Ian McDonald is the best Sci-Fi writer currently at work in the world today!.

47sibylline
sep 24, 2011, 2:38 pm

That is going on the Xmas wishlist -- I'll give it to the hubster..... slimy move.... but he won't mind he does it to me.

48HanGerg
sep 25, 2011, 2:49 am

#47 Woo! It makes me happy that I can be the recommender (is that a word?) of such a fine book. I'm sure you (and hubster- a name I'm nicking btw) will love it! Just started Red Mars, but too early to give any feedback.

49TadAD
sep 25, 2011, 7:26 am

I read Ian McDonald's The Dervish House earlier this year and loved it. I definitely want to get back to him. I've got his Desolation Road sitting here and will pick up a copy of River of Gods. There's something fresh about his writing style—you can see the links back to people like Vinge and Gibson but he takes things in different directions, both plot-wise and geographically.

50HanGerg
sep 26, 2011, 8:57 am

#49 Vinge and Gibson are new names to me, so of course I will have to go and check them out now! : )
I haven't read any other McDonald's yet, but I have heard good things about them on LT, so will definately be trying to track them all down in the not too distant future.
You're right about the geographical difference- I think that setting these novels in India was a masterstroke. Locating them outside of the usual Western culture that is assumed to shape all future worlds is a breath of fresh air. Actually, I can see that is going to be a theme of Red Mars as well, and the most interesting thing about the first 50-odd pages is exactly this conflict - how the Western characters like to make fancy speeches about how life on Mars will require a building of a whole new society, but implicitly what they mean is, "A whole new society very much based on the model of advanced Western civilisation that I already know from Earth." I look forward to seeing how that theme is going to develop as the story progresses.

51TadAD
Bewerkt: sep 26, 2011, 9:40 am

>50 HanGerg:: Gibson is the originator of cyberpunk. He's not for everyone but his fusion of technology into the main theme of the story kind of got a lot of the modern technology-based authors going. If you try him, definitely start with Neuromancer.

Vinge is fairly mainsteam now. I'd recommend his collection of short stories, True Names, as a place where you can get a feel for his style. If you're more of a novel person, you might try A Deepness in the Sky.

You might also try Neal Stephenson—well-liked in general; definitely influenced by early cyberpunkers but not quite as grim. I've liked pretty much everything of his I've read. Peggy (LizzieD) and I are waiting anxiously for his latest, Reamde, to arrive via Early Reviewers.

I'd definitely recommend McDonald's The Dervish House. It's set in Turkey and the locale is as much a character in the story as any of the people.

Our group read did Red Mars earlier this year and loved it. I know you couldn't fit in The Parable of the Sower but you should join us for one at some point.

52HanGerg
Bewerkt: dec 25, 2011, 6:16 am

Ok, so I've been busily reading up on how to do fancy stuff on my thread. The astute amongst will have noticed I now have a ticker at the top of the thread- yay! and now I'm gonna try something else pretty fancy- posting a photo. This is one of the strange photos I like to spend my time taking- kind of a photographic version of an abstract painting. This is one of the pictures from what I like to call my "Rothko Boat" series.

53HanGerg
sep 26, 2011, 11:47 am

It worked, yipee!
Ok, back to the books and stuff.
#51 Thanks so much for all the recommendations, Tad. I shall certainly do some investigating. I was looking at some pages for Neal Stephenson just the other day funnily enough - lots of people do seem to be eagerly awaiting his new book, which is always an encouraging sign. I'm not very technologically minded though, and it looked pretty "hard" sci-fi - would that be a fair observation?
I am very keen to start a group read with our delightful little group, and am touched and flattered that I have been invited to join you lovely people. : ) You try and stop me joining in on the next one!

54gennyt
sep 29, 2011, 6:19 am

I can't comment on the books, except to say that I've yet to try Neal Stephenson but have got a copy of Snow Crash and the first two parts of the Baroque Cycle lined up - but am not really sure what to expect.

But I did want to say good luck with the job hunting. Two interviews out of four applications is pretty good, hopefully it won't be long before there's another interview and this time a job offer too!

And that 'Rothko Boat' photo is very striking. If you hadn't said 'boat' I might have thought I saw lots of flies or other insects in the red section.

55HanGerg
sep 29, 2011, 11:33 am

#54. Thanks for the good wishes Genny! Yes, I am encouraged by the application to interview ratio - I just need one interview to actually yield a job! I know there's lots of people out there searching for work at the moment, and I'm in a better position than most in that I do currently have a job, but I desperately want a new one as I'm not very happy in that one. Whilst I consider my life to be very successful in most regards, landing that dream job is a skill that has so far eluded me! I'll keep you updated on my progress.
Glad you liked the photo. There are many many more where that came from - I just took some new ones yesterday in fact. Feel free to ignore the "boat", as that is just the raw material from which I make my pictures. Sometimes I just give the pictures purely descriptive titles, like " Composition in Blue, White and Pink", and leave the viewer to decide the rest!

56HanGerg
Bewerkt: okt 10, 2011, 10:51 am

Juts a quick note to say I am still here, just a little bogged down in my current read Red Mars, which is great, but a little heavy going in parts. I'm also occassionally dipping in and out of Valley of the Dolls, which I bought in a nice hardback edition from my library for 50p on a bit of a whim, and I've also recently acquired my first ever audio book in a special offer. After some deliberation I went for a non-fiction offering - I just felt like it would take away the pleasure of a fiction book somehow to have it read TO me by someone else. So I got 13 Things That Don't Make Sense. It's very unusual for me to read a non-fiction book about science, but all those practical minded people building a new world for themselves in Red Mars must have inspired me......
Also, I was thinking of heading out in a totally different direction after the recent glut of sci-fi, so I might make one of my occassional forays into historical crime fiction. I like any era, as long as it is vividly painted, but ancient Rome is a particular favourite. Steven Saylor is an author I have read in the past and enjoyed. So LTers- any other recommendations???

57TadAD
okt 11, 2011, 8:14 am

Valley of the Dolls...now there's a blast from the past!

If you liked Steven Saylor, have you ever tried any Lindsey Davis? She's one of my favorites, even more than Saylor. Her first is Silver Pigs.

58HanGerg
okt 12, 2011, 8:51 am

Hi Tad. I think I have read some Lindsay Davis - I knew I had read another author who sets their books in ancient Rome, but I was struggling to remember the name. Silver Pigs is not one I've read though, and it sounds great, so I will try and hunt it down. A trip to the library yielded a couple of interesting books - A Moorland Hanging by Michael Jecks, which I am looking forward to as it is set in exactly the part of England that I live in, in medieval times, which should be great fun, and a book set in Roman Britain - Death at Pompeia's Wedding by Rosemary Rowe. I'm looking forward to both of them, I just have to polish of Red Mars first...

59sibylline
okt 12, 2011, 9:57 am

A Roman Britain writer I'm crazy about is Rosemary Sutcliffe -- her Eagle of the Ninth is the inspiration of the recent movie and is, of course, infinitely better. The Mars books are definitely 'work' to read, but rewarding; little things make me think about them quite often.

60HanGerg
okt 17, 2011, 8:15 am

#59 Eagle of the Ninth is Wishlisted, thanks Lucy.

61HanGerg
Bewerkt: okt 17, 2011, 8:50 am

Ok, so for the first time in what feels like ages, I've finished a book!

10. Red Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson 4/5
So much happens in this book, it's hard to write a coherent overall review, and as my mind is a bit frazzled at the moment, I won't even attempt it. Here instead, are a series of rambling thoughts, in the order in which they occur to me - apologies if they are a bit hard to follow. So, firstly, I would say that this book is a thrilling realisation of what life on Mars would be like, from the voyage out of the first colony up to...well, I don't want to give too much away about what happens, as one of the pleasures of the novel is that it doesn't always take you in expected directions. This new life on Mars is no utopia, and predictable and realistically portrayed human frailties soon rear their heads. The book does these very well, dealing with characters who have totally opposing views, and showing both sides sympathetically adds to the feeling of great realism that pervades the book, despite it's (currently) fantastical storyline. Though this is not to say that the book is concerned only with the minutiae of human life in this thrilling new environment - the big picture stuff is also handled brilliantly - the descriptions of huge, awe-inspiring natural vistas as well as the incredible new human settlements built to adapt to them are brilliantly done, and paint incredible pictures for your mind's eye to marvel at.
An awful lot of storyline is covered in this book, that jumps between multiple characters viewpoints, which is a strength of the book, but somehow also a failing. I felt I wanted to spend more time with the wonderful character of Nadia, and share in her excitement to be the first engineer to build houses on Mars - creating human dwellings where before their was nothing but red sand. Her character was so wonderfully painted, I really felt the thrill she got from that, despite the fact that in real life I am nowhere near as practically minded or hardworking as she obviously is. This ability to really make you feel like you are living a character's experience and feeling every emotion they feel is brilliantly done in this book, in fact, I'm struggling to think of one off the top of my head that can better it.
On the downside, it is pretty dense, in a good way, but as a reader you can't help but get bogged down a little at times. Also, like I said, there is so much plot to get through that really great bits of the story feel like they are skimmed over sometimes. I felt myself mourning the fact that when the storyline returned to my favourite characters, sometime a decade had passed and their life was very different from the one they had when we had last encountered them. These are just minor quibbles though, and although I am still recovering from the mammoth task of reading this, I also can't wait to get started on the next installment. (After a bit of a foray into some non-Sci-Fi first!)

62sibylline
okt 17, 2011, 8:46 am

Nadia is one of the truly great characters in the book!!!! Don't worry she figures largely in the next two......

63HanGerg
okt 17, 2011, 8:51 am

#61 Ooh, I'm glad! She's my favourite!

64DorsVenabili
okt 17, 2011, 9:29 am

#61 - I'm glad you liked it (overall) and hope you enjoy the rest of the trilogy. I have a slight Mars obsession and tend to read anything that involves Mars colonization (DORK). Anyway, the Robinson trilogy is (in my opinion) the best by far. In addition to creating a believable world, with great characters, he does a fantastic job of discussing the political and social ramifications of the colonization. It's been a long time since I've read it (the 90s) and I hope to reread it some day.

65jolerie
okt 19, 2011, 4:24 pm

Great review! I am adding that one to my wishlist. :)

66HanGerg
okt 20, 2011, 8:59 am

#65. Thanks! I'm sure you won't regret it if you can get your hands on it - it really does paint an amazing picture of what human life on Mars might be like.

67HanGerg
Bewerkt: okt 20, 2011, 1:36 pm

So, I'm flying tomorrow, which I hate. One strategy I have developed to cope is a good book- something easy to read and hopefully a real page turner. So I've just been to a local charity shop and picked up a few books that will hopefully fit the bill:
Geomancer by Ian Irving
World War in the Balance by Harry Turtledove (this one looks really silly, but in a good way!)
Taliesin by Stephen Lawhead
The Magician's Guild by Trudi Canavan

Has anyone read any of these? Can you recommend or warn me off from any of these titles? It doesn't have to be the greatest work of litearture ever, just something compelling to distract me for a few hours.

68ronincats
okt 20, 2011, 2:24 pm

I really like the Blind Justice series by Bruce Alexander--set in Regency England when a police system was just beginning to be created. Nice historical figures as well!

69sibylline
okt 25, 2011, 7:17 pm

You must be wherever you were going..... I couldn't have been helpful anyway as I haven't read any of those books..... I do wonder what you did pick in the end and how it was?

70HanGerg
nov 1, 2011, 8:06 am

Well Lucy, after a long pause, here is the answer to your question....

11. Geomancer - Ian Irvine 2.5
This seems like a not very widely read book on LT, so a brief plot summary. Tiaan lives in a world that has known nothing but war for 150 years. Humanity's enemy are the Lyrinx, huge, powerful and highly intelligent beings who are capable of flight and are very hard to kill. They seem to have appeared out of some alternate universe at some point, but that bit is never explained very well. Tiaan works in a grim factory, where she is a virtual slave, making the vast war machines that are mankind's only hope against the Lyrinx. She is an artisan, the most highly skilled of the workers at the factory, making the controllers that somehow harness the power of the natural world and channel them into the machines. No one takes the time to explain how this works, and indeed the characters themselves don't really seem to know, least of all Tiaan, but she is very good at it nevertheless. Life is hard for Tiaan and her fellow workers, but it is the only life she knows, and she's happy enough, until one day something happens that will set her life off on a radically new path.....taking her on an epic journey...harnessing powers she would never have believed it possible to control.....forcing her to travel to the very heart of the enemies' fortress....before her ultimate encounter that will change everything.....

Perhaps a bit harsh on the scoring, as it did carry me along nicely just when I needed something distracting and not too challenging. It was quite nicely written, and despite my sarky comments above, is quite original within the confines of this sort of narrative, plus it had some well drawn, complex characters. On the down side, the story sometimes lacked momentum - it had all the ingredients of a really cracking yarn, and several times it felt like it was ready to kick into a higher gear but then.....just fell short. It's really very violent, not something I would always take issue with, and I think the author perhaps included it here to show that although this is a fantasy novel, it's very much an adults only fantasy novel, but I just couldn't get past some of the deaths of key characters. The death toll in general was very high, and sometimes unnecessarily so in my opinion. There's one death right towards the end that just doesn't make any sense from an ongoing narrative point of view, and which annoyed me enough to lose this book 0.5 all on its own. This is the first part of the trilogy, and I'm currently undecided whether I care enough about the few remaining characters left alive to investigate parts 2 and 3. Perhaps, if like this one, I run across them in a charity shop at a bargain price, but otherwise perhaps not....

71JanetinLondon
nov 1, 2011, 11:23 am

Too bad there were those drawbacks, because your summary sure made Geomancer sound like a cracking read. Still might put it on my "maybe" list, though.

72HanGerg
nov 1, 2011, 11:43 am

#71. Hi Janet, nice to hear from you. I'm being a touch harsh on the book, to be fair. Perhaps because it's a Fantasy, and it's not a genre I read very much - though I have been thinking lately I would like to read some more. It is an exciting adventure story, and there's a lot to recommend it. I just can't wholeheartedly recommend it because of the minor quibbles I mentioned above. Also, I'd be much more likely to search out the other 2 parts (although a quick look around LT makes me think only part 2 has been published thus far), if it wasn't for the fact that being on LT has contributed to my current huge and growing by the day TBR pile!

73sibylline
nov 9, 2011, 7:10 pm

This is the great pitfall of fantasies, I suspect -- this 'almost' quality that so many of them have. I'm not sure why this is --- it's a bit the way a good artist can just draw a few bricks on a wall and then sploosh paint and shadows and you totally 'see' it. In the Willis, for example, (Doomsday), she is totally preposterously vague about the time machinery, and yet, I was fine because of the sparkling net. Don't ask me why! It's like the one brick, just an interesting enough detail, to satisfy me. The other problem is when there is too much detail and the story never gets going..... or hopelessly flat characters or predictability (sounds as if this one suffered from this latter).... I'm dithering on now, so I'll stop. But I've started many a trilogy with high hopes and never got further than the first one.

74HanGerg
nov 15, 2011, 6:43 am

Reading has been slow for me recently, due to lots of non-LT commitments (alas, I still have plenty of those ; ) ), but I did manage to finish something:

12. Blackout - Connie Willis 3
This was a book I picked up as it was tangentially related to a group read some of us were doing. It's not the sort of book I would normally pick up, though it does fit into two of my favourite genres- sci-fi and historical fiction. However, for me the two don't sit that well together. The sci-fi framing of the book - basically history students from a future Oxford travel through time to observe first hand the events they are studying - isn't enough to call it a sci-fi novel as I understand it, but is enough to detract from the undoubtedly good historical content of the story. The author has clearly done her research into WWII, and there is alot to enjoy in her evocative imaginings of that period, but I found the time travelling characters constant fretting about how they were going to get back to their own time (something appears to have gone wrong with the time travel mechanism, but they and us are never told what), and whether they have altered the past (although the mechanism that allows them to travel through time theoretically makes this impossible), to be an annoying distraction from the main narrative arch of the book. There is a second part to this that will hopefully resolve all their worries, though like the previous book I read, I'm not sure whether I've invested enough into this to care. For me, this was a potentially great book about England at the time of the Blitz, slightly spoiled by a rather flimsy framing device. Anyone that enjoys reading about Londoners in WWII would be much better served by The Night Watch by the brilliant Sarah Waters, that does this kind of multi-narrative, super evocative tale of what life was like in the Blitz much better. That also had an unusual framing device, in that the story was told backwards in time, from the end of the war to near the beginning, but to me that worked far more successfully than this one did.

75HanGerg
Bewerkt: nov 15, 2011, 7:02 am

Hmm, just gone and looked at the book page for All Clear, the second part of the story. General consensus seems to be that it is better than Blackout and finishes the story off in a satisfying way. On the other hand, some readers have complaints that it also drags a little and suffers from the sorf of unnecessary complications that annoyed me about part 1, some I'm really in two minds about reading it. Any thoughts?

76TadAD
nov 15, 2011, 2:28 pm

>75 HanGerg:: I'd read it. If you really don't want to deal with more rushing-around-only-to-fail-at-time-travel, then browse the first couple hundred pages and read from then on.

77HanGerg
nov 16, 2011, 7:08 am

Thanks Tad. I think I will read it eventually, but I have plenty of other TBR's lined up before then, including her Doomsday Book. Hopefully by the time I get around to reading the second part I will have more patience for the "rushing-around-only-to-fail-at-time-travel". (A very apt description!)

78gennyt
nov 17, 2011, 1:39 pm

I've yet to read any of Willis, but I like the sound of Doomsday Book more than the WWII ones.

79sibylline
nov 18, 2011, 11:21 am

I think you would be riveted by it Genny.

80HanGerg
Bewerkt: nov 22, 2011, 7:17 am

Ok, book 13 is done. I see from its page that it doesn't have any reviews, so I feel duty bound to write one, even though I don't really have that much to say about it, but here goes;

13 A Moorland Hanging - Michael Jecks 3

I was drawn to this book because it is set in the South West of England, where I live, which is a place not often rendered in fiction. It is set in Medieval times, which is also quite unusual, even within the genre of historical crime fiction to which this book belongs.
More specifically, the plot of the book focuses on the tensions that existed on Dartmoor amongst the different groups of people that lived and worked there. A wealthy landowner has had one of his villeins run away, and claim sanctuary amongst the community of tin miners that work the land under the protection of the King. This man is later found hanged in one of the twisted, stunted woods that locals claim is inhabited by Crockern, the evil spirit of the moors. Already on the scene, handily, to investiagte the claims of the wealthy landowner over his former servant, are the bailiff of Lydford, Simon Puttock, and his friend the ex-knight Templar Sir Baldwin Furnshill. They begin to investigate the crime, uncovering as they do lots of simmering resentments between the two groups that gave plenty of people a motive for murder....
This book is the third in a long running series featuring the bailiff and his knight friend, set in the Westcountry, but this is the first one I have read. It was a perfectly pleasent and enjoyable historical crime novel, but with nothing to really mark it out as an outstanding example of the genre. The period detail seems realistic, if not overly detailed, and the setting is well drawn, if not hugely evocative, even for someone that knows the areas being written about. The characters, especially of the two investigators, do not seem well drawn enough to make them memorable - I kept being unsure which of the two of them was doing certain things, as they seemed so interchangeable. The same could be said for the leaders of the two main groups of protagonists. However, it was a reasonably well plotted, enjoyable read with a satisfying conclusion that may interest fans of this genre.

81HanGerg
Bewerkt: nov 29, 2011, 12:03 pm

Book 14 done. After not getting through many books for the past few months due to outside pressure, I'm finally picking up the pace again.

14. Valley of the Dolls - Jacqueline Susann 3.5/5

This book seems to need no introduction for most people, as I'm surely in the minority of LTers for not having read it before. However, when I picked it up (my local library was getting rid of stock, and I bought it for the bargain price of 50p! for a hardback copy!!), I only had a hazy idea of what it was about. Something a bit fun and trashy, with female protagnists that have a lot of sex and are vaguely scandalous, set in the sixties. These were the things I thought I knew about the book. A quick scan of the reviews on LT seemed to bear this out - phrases like "guilty pleasure", and "undemanding fun " seemed to crop up a lot. My reading of the book is rather different. I'm not sure you can call a book that has one of the main characters commiting suicide for a pretty trivial reason, and another that is a drug dependent commited to a sanitarium against her will "fun". I understand that it lurches into melodrama at times, and that these plot developments could be the sort of thing you'd see in a soap opera (aside from the suicide - unless it was Eastenders), but I think the author's intent was to create something more than just a trashly tale of the darkside of showbiz. I have heard it described as proto-feminist, which is certainly the argument that Julie Burchil makes in the introduction included in the edition of the book I read, and this is more the view of the novel I subscribe to. Although, if you really want to analyse it, the fact that all the women ultimately fail to carve out successful lives for themselves could be seen as a vindication of society's belief, evident throughout the book, that a woman cannot have a successful career and a happy domestic life, rather than a condemnation of it. A book that's better than it's reputation, then. But on the other hand, I failed to find very much to enjoy about it. I found it quite a gruelling read, suffering alongside these characters and watching their lives destort beyond all recognition of what they had wanted for themselves.*

*Another review I read suggested that the characters were actually based on real people. Jennifer=Marilyn Monroe, Neely= Judy Garland, and I didn't recognise the name of who Anne was supposedly based on. I can see the Jennifer-Monroe similarities, from what little I know of her life. I asked my husband the film historian about whether Judy Garland was a drug addicted monster. He suggested she was to some extent, but that that would be a very unfair way of characterising her, as her drug dependence was brought about by the studios that controlled every aspect of her life. He made her sound like a really tragic figure, and made me want to read a biography about her. Any recommendations?


82sibylline
nov 25, 2011, 9:51 pm

I don't know which bios are the good ones about Judy Garland, but I remember being surprised too, by how readable V of D was, when I idly picked it up in the late 70's.

83sandykaypax
nov 25, 2011, 10:04 pm

I thought that the Gerald Clarke bio of Garland was quite good. I believe it is called Get Happy. Yep, there's the touchstone!

I agree that Valley of the Dolls is tragic. Maybe because it seems so over the top it becomes a "guilty pleasure" read. Very thoughtful review. I hadn't thought of it in feminist terms.

Sandy K

84HanGerg
nov 26, 2011, 6:38 am

Hi Sandy!
Thanks for the Garland bio tip, I will certainly investigate it.
My feminist slant on it could be entirely subjective, but I think it's certainly an interesting book to look at in that light.

85sibylline
nov 26, 2011, 8:23 am

Maybe not so much feminist as cautionary? That you really owe it to yourself to manage your own life - not let others take you over.

86TadAD
nov 27, 2011, 8:15 am

>81 HanGerg:: Neely= Judy Garland...I think it's interesting that Judy Garland was originally cast as Helen Lawson in the movie but was eventually fired for being drunk and tardy.

Years ago I read an absolutely dreadful non-fiction book about Hollywood called Hollywood Babylon that, essentially, chronicled the implosions of careers. In the section on Frances Farmer, they mentioned that her experiences in a sanitarium formed the basis for Neely's experiences.

87HanGerg
nov 28, 2011, 4:17 am

Frances Farmer? That's interesting Tad. The only reference point I have for her is the Nirvana song called "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle".
Just Wikied her. Another interesting and tragic life and another potentially interesting biography to track down, though it sounds like it might be a gruelling read.

In other news.... I finished my first ever audiobook! I'm itching to post a review of not only the book, but the whole audiobook experience. Alas I must dash off to work in a minute, so it must wait until tomorrow.

88HanGerg
nov 29, 2011, 1:27 pm

OK, so my audiobook.

15.13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time by Michael Brooks 4/5
I got a free audiobook token from a newspaper, so I signed up to the website in question, and this is what I choose. It's a most atypical purchase for me, being a non-fiction book about science, but one I enjoyed a lot, apart from one chapter that scared the beejesus out of me. More on that later.
So, the basis premise of the book is that each chapter examines one of 13 topics that currently baffle modern science. We begin with the very large scale stuff - all that dark material and dark energy that scientists belive must be present in the universe, but so far have not been detected in any way we can interpret. The topics then range through a wide variety of subjects from the anomalous trajectory of two satelites which may cause us to have to re-write the laws of gravity, the possibility of cold fusion, the hypothesis that viruses might be the origin of life on earth, and ends with more everyday stuff such as the placebo effect and homeopathy.
Brooks examines each topic in detail, explaining the theory behind it, usually in fairly layman-friendly terms. He explains how the current ideas on the topic have come into being - talking about all the different scientists that have looked at the subject and how their various contributions have shaped the emerging picture. He is very good at explaining this element, looking at the personalities involved, why their achievements are noteworthy and if their are any rival scientists with a different spin on things. This human element keeps the topics from getting too dry and abstract, although I must admit that there were the odd moments where he lost me entirely and my audiobook became more like a background drone. On the whole though, this was a lot of fascinating science explained very accessibly, even for a total non-scientist such as myself. And the scary chapter? Well, this did come just a few weeks after a discussion with a philosophy student on the same topic, which also totally freaked me out, but I find the idea that we don't actually have free will very creepy, and like most people, I totally reject it, both on a philosophical and scientific basis, but Brooks it seems, is convinced. Brrrrr...best to just not think about it too much.

I also wanted to review my audiobook experience, as this was my first ever one. I must say, I really enjoyed all this knowledge just being pored into my head, livening up my drive into work, walks around town and train journeys. On the other hand, there was a lot of quite complicated information to absorb with this particular book, and I think I sometimes lost the details, especially on the bits of the drive where I had to concentrate on the driving (I mean, more than usual. I always concentrate on my driving - for the benefit of my husband if he comes and reads this over my shoulder). Also,, it's harder to go back through and relisten than it would be to find bits to reread in a book. So for these reasons I'll probably go for a fiction book next time. In general though, I enjoyed my first audiobook experience and will certainly get some more in the future, although they do seem puzzlingly expensive, so perhaps not for a while.

16. The Cleft - Doris Lessing 2/5
I picked this up as it seemed a bit like the premise of The Female Man - a world with only women. Always an intriguing idea. Also, Dorris Lessing is a Nobel prize winner, so someone who should be read. Rather than being a future society though, this is set in the ancient past. The story is narrated by an ageing Roman senator that is trying to piece together the history of a very early civilisation (perhaps the very first) from little fragments that have been recorded about them some after their existence. The society is only all female for a short time at the beginning of the story, when something changes, and these women, who are mysteriously impregnated asexually, begin to give birth to "monsters". The women are very cruel to these first babes, who they view as grotesque mistakes, and they kill and maim most of them. But the monsters keep coming, and in a twist that is the first clue to the fact that this story is more like an ancient folk tale rather than an alternate history, eagles start to rescue the defenceless monsters that are left to die, and take them into a neighbouring valley where they begin to form a society of their own...
This is a strange little book that seems to be pretty insulting in the picture it paints of both genders. The earliest female settlement is full of lazy, incurious creatures that never venture far from their little stretch of shoreline, don't care much for one another, and are casually cruel and ruthless. The males that appear as the story progresses are much more dynamic and adventurous, widely exploring the land they live in, inventing fire and daring games, but are also incapable of keeping their huts clean and careless about the safety of the young boys placed in their charge. This causes the women to nag them remorselessly, until the men get so fed up the decide to leave entirely, being so stupid and incapable of forward planning that they haven't realised men need women to have sex with and carry on the species. This might be a very subtle satire of prevailing attitudes - the bits with the Roman senator musing about how these early people differ from his society's would support that theory- but if not this is not very smart stuff at all. Very disappointing.

89sibylline
nov 29, 2011, 2:22 pm

Great review of the Lessing. Much as I respect her, I also have viewed her as someone who is very much of her time and generation, too pragmatic to make imaginative leaps -- her science fiction has always seemed plodding to me, beyond the premises.

90drneutron
nov 29, 2011, 9:35 pm

Nice review of 13 Things - I'm going to see if I can find it at the library. It's right up my alley!

91HanGerg
nov 30, 2011, 9:12 am

#89. This was my first Lessing, and I have another on the shelves waiting to be read, so I'll give her another try I guess. The other one is a non-SF book, The Summer Before the Dark. I think I'll avoid her SF stuff in future, though it is a shame, as there can't be many Nobel winners who have wirtten in that genre, unless I'm mistaken?

#90. Yes, it's a fascinating read, and on a wide enough variety of topics to keep even the science savvy on their toes, I dare say.

92HanGerg
dec 2, 2011, 11:49 am

17. Doomsday Book - Connie Willis 4/5
Another Willis, and I enjoyed this one a lot more than Blackout. Instead of WWII, the destination for the main time travelling historian from future Oxford in this story is a small village near Oxford in 1320-or is it?....
There were still a lot of time travel complications in this book, which were rather frustrating at times, but overall this was a far stronger story. It had very vivid characters, a riveting plot and, ultimately, a devastating emotional punch.

93HanGerg
Bewerkt: dec 5, 2011, 6:20 am

A quick cry for help from me, for something that has been bugging me for a while. I wanted to edit some of my profile information, specifically my favourite authors. When I click on the edit profile button, the page that comes up only lets me edit certain parts of my profile, favourite authors not being one of them. I've had a good search around, and can find no way of getting into that particular category. Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong?

94souloftherose
dec 6, 2011, 9:59 am

#93 To edit favourite authors you go to the author page of the author you want to add or remove from your favourites list and there is an 'Add to favourites' button under the members section. It is a bit counterintuitive.

95HanGerg
dec 6, 2011, 1:52 pm

#94 A-HA! A thousand thanks! : )

96sibylline
dec 6, 2011, 5:44 pm

I remember having trouble with that too!

97HanGerg
dec 9, 2011, 9:25 am

Well, just a quick update from me, as I'm stuck into another fairly long book, so might not have much to report here for a while.
I'm currently about 200 pages into Green Mars, which is just as enjoyable as the first, and is shaping up nicely with some strong new characters and storylines, as well as returning favourites. I've also recently purchased A Game of Thrones, which has immediately pushed it's way to the front of the tbr pile, for all the praise heaped on it here on LT. It keeps catching my eye and tempting me to start it right away, but I think I'll try and save it for later in the month, when I'll again be looking for something compelling to distract me from my fear of flying, as me and the husband will be spending Christmas in Hungary with the in-laws.
Finally, in personal news - I finally have a new job! Hooray, hooray! I'm so happy, as my last job was really making me miserable, partly because of the very emotionally draining nature of the work, but more because the company was just so unsupportive of its staff. This new job will be demanding too, but in a very different way. As of January next year, I will be a Higher Level Teaching Assistant in a lovely little primary school here in Exeter. Although I'm designated a TA, the role will actually involve a lot of whole class teaching, as my role will basically be to cover for the class teachers when they have their non-contact time. And the really challenging bit is that the school is in special measures - i.e ajudged to be failing to provide a decent education for its pupils, so the pressure is on to improve very rapidly, and with frequent inspections from the government and local council inspectors, as well as internal appraisals as well. So, challenging, but hopefully rewarding and fun, and all the other things my old job wasn't. I really couldn't ask for a better Christmas present.

98JanetinLondon
dec 9, 2011, 12:22 pm

Congratulations on your new job. I'm sure your enthusiasm for learning will help inspire the kids and improve the school, and it's bound to be really rewarding personally, too. I know a lot of teachers, and have nothing but admiration for them. I also love tv shows about schools - did you watch Educating Essex? It actually inspired one of my teenagers to consider teaching (in a tough school like that) as a serious career option.

99mamzel
dec 9, 2011, 4:25 pm

I really don't know if I could recommend A Game of Thrones to distract you from a fear of flying. I think the violence and evil might make me feel even worse. I would suggest something lighter and fluffier, say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. ;-)

Good luck on your new job. I can understand about your new school's situation. Here in California we have a similar designation - Program Improvement School. We keep missing a passing grade by one point.

100HanGerg
dec 9, 2011, 6:16 pm

#98. Thanks Janet! I was pretty hooked on Educating Essex, though work commitments forced me to miss the last few of the series. The teachers on that did come across as very ispirational, though in my experience, that wasn't an unusually tough school- all schools have their fare share of challenging students and students facing great challenges (often one and the same).

#99. Thanks mamzel! Ooh, may have to re-think my book choice. Might as well start it soon then, and see if the evilness puts me off! : )

101sibylline
dec 14, 2011, 10:47 am

Congratulations on a new job that feels like a better fit! And I'm so glad you are loving the Mars books, but I think I've said that.....

102HanGerg
dec 19, 2011, 8:45 am

#101. Thanks Lucy!
I'm just quickly checking in here to say Happy Christmas! or Happy Holidays! depending on your religious/cultural background, but have a good one, that's the main thing. I'm off to Hungary tomorrow, to spend my first Christmas with my husband's family (startling really, considering how long we have been together). Beacuse of that, I won't be able to check into LT much over the holiday period, so I hope everybody has a great one.
To return to books, I'm still wading through Green Mars, and enjoying it hugely, despite all the pages of characters doing nothing but study lichen. In order to provide a bit of non-lichen excitement, I also started Game of Thrones. Nobody's yet done anything too unspeakably horrible to anyone else, as mamzel kindly warned me they would, so I think I will take it with me to read in Hungary, along with Green Mars and also Affinity by Sarah Waters. She's one of my favourite authors who's currently writing, and starting this book makes me a little sad, as once I've read it I will have read everything she's currently published. It looks like a cracker though, hooking the reader in straight away with a great opening line, " I was never so frightened as I am now...."
It seems I have failed rather miserably in my quest to read 35 books since my late start to the year, but hopefully I can still finish the year in a flourish, with three great books. Happy reading everybody! : )

103HanGerg
dec 22, 2011, 5:51 am

Just checking in to say arrived safe and sound in Hungary. Was immediately excited to see big snowflakes appear on the first morning, but not many followed that intial burst, so no hopes of a white Christmas at the moment. I'm off to meet a friend at the Christmas market later, so I may try and post a picture of us sipping a mulled wine or something equally festive.

104sibylline
dec 22, 2011, 10:09 am

I'm so happy you have internet.

Did you lug all those books on a plane????

105ronincats
dec 24, 2011, 12:40 am


Merry Christmas, Hannah!

106sibylline
dec 24, 2011, 10:10 pm

Sending you Merry Christmas wishes, Hannah

107HanGerg
dec 25, 2011, 6:04 am

Thank you both so much, Roni and Lucy. The very same to you.
My Hungarian Christmas has been great fun so far, and we'll soon be off to another relatives house for yet more making merry, so a full account will follow soon.

108HanGerg
Bewerkt: dec 25, 2011, 6:21 am


Here's a quick picture of the Christmas decorations at my husband's family's house. The decorations are made by my mother-in-law, and were hung up by me and my husband on Christmas Eve. Normally they have a full tree, but as most celebrations took place in other houses this year, they just hung up a few branches. Very nice it looked too.

109HanGerg
Bewerkt: dec 30, 2011, 12:40 pm

So, I managed to find sometime during my recent Christmassy trip to Hungary in between all the eating and drinking and making merry to finish Green Mars 4/5
Just as satisfying as the first part overall, but with some of the same flaws. I can only admire the absolute feeling of realism Robinson manages to inject into this future history, but at times the way he achieves this is by a kind of....anti narrative. What I mean by that is, there are long stretches of the novel in which not very much happens. Sax happily studies his lichen, and we study it along with him for a hundred pages or so. Then suddenly something happens out of the blue, which changes everything, without any hint of foreshadowing. This is indeed what real life is like, but golly, those lichen got a little dull at times. Even when you think he's setting you up for some big dramatic set piece, like when Maya and Sax are at the height of hating each other, and they go out to an isolated spot in a zeppelin, perhaps setting the scene for a tragic accident, or at least a fiery confrontation, but no, Maya just stares at Sax from a distance, and Sax mumbles something about plants dying when the area is flooded. Which isn't to say that there aren't moments of great excitement in the book, and that the vistas shown to us, and the characters inner lives are as rich as ever. It just makes Robinson, well, something like the anti-Dan Brown, but then, I'm no fan of Dan Brown, so bring on the third part I say!

In the meantime, I'm tearing through Game of Thrones, and enjoying it immensely. My husband also picked it up in between my bouts of reading (very out of character for him, who is usually a gritty crime sort of guy), and now he eyes it jealously when I am reading, which is every spare moment I get. I probably won't get it finished before Jan 1st though (unless I get really hooked in, which might happen), so it will probably end up being my first book of 2012. A fine way to start the year, I think. I have already started constructing a thread for 2012, which I shall probably switch to very shortly, so let me take this opportunity to thank all of you who have read along and contributed to this, my very first thread. May we all have many more great reading adventures together in 2012. Happy New Year everybody!
2012 starts here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/129564

110mdoris
dec 11, 2012, 4:21 pm

Hello, Just read your review of The White Tiger and it's exactly how I felt, having just finished the last page of it!