I was supposed to post this last week, but got delayed because of Thanksgiving. Hope you all had a fun time.
I finished The House at Sea’s End by Elly Griffiths. It was an okay read, not bad, but thinking about getting into another crime series with more action / mystery and less relationship stuff. But I have got the next 5-6 books so will read them.
Read the next Dresden Files novel, Blood Rites by Jim Butcher. I feel the quality of writing has improved a lot since the first couple of novels. This one felt a bit less intense than the last one, but liked the character developments.
Read Jujitsu Kaisen, Vol 4, not much to say about it. More action, more silliness.
Currently reading The Black Company by Glen Cook. I have the omnibus (Chronicles of the Black Company) which has first three books, so may end up reading all three as one book. The writing style is a bit weird, but I think I have gotten used to it.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening? Or have read and listened in last 2-3 weeks?
Been listening to Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and so far it’s fantastic. I’ve been asking my GPT4 for recommendations that might match a certain set of criteria. It recommended this one as something vaguely similar to the Bobiverse series be Dennis E Taylor, which I really like.
I’m reading Children of Time now. It is very good. And today I was reading some news about how scientists are trying to translate spider language. Check this out: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-translated-spiderwebs-into-music-and-its-absoutely-stunning
- Finished Finnegans Wake - which I had been reading across the year. The group this year allowed for a period of summing up at the end, so we have completed it already. Although the book as a whole was consistently just on the edge - mostly over the edge - of comprehension, the final section still conveyed a haunting degree of completion, ending and loss which, given that the whole book is circular and ends mid-sentence - resuming that sentence one the first page - was rather unexpected.
- Currently reading Sense and Sensibility - and enjoying Austen’s dry wit.
- Currently reading Return of the Living Dad - another of the Virgin New Adventures Doctor Who novels from the ‘wilderness years’ of the '90s. A slow start to this one has picked up now that the crew have found Benny’s long-lost father and his underground railway for aliens.
- Currently reading Historical Lovecraft - an anthology of Lovecraftian tales set at various points of history. A very mixed bag with only a couple of tales that stand out so far - and the editors’ view of what constitutes ‘Lovecraftian’ seems extremely broad. Some interesting settings though, so I will persist.
- Currently reeading The Earth Transformed by Peter Frankopan - a history focusing the influence of climate and environmental factors on the development of our species and cultures. At times very informative, I’m finding that it does frequently digress, to give other examples or form parallels, to the point where the central argument of the section is almost lost. Extremely interesting as long as one can cope with that though.
The Earth Transformed sounds interesting, but I am not sure I’ll enjoy the author digressing so much. Would love to hear what you think about it once you have completed it.
What are your favourite Lovecraftian books?
I think that on average I have probably learned - or seen from a new and interesting perspective - around one new idea per chapter from The Earth Transformed - which is pretty good overall. Still only a third of the way through so far though.
They often say that there has never been a really good Lovecraftian movie yet, and I do wonder whether the same is true of Lovecraftian books by other authors sometimes. I tend to prefer short stories rather than novels for horror of any kind. I have read quite a few not-very-good Lovecraftian shorts over the years. There really aren’t that many that have stuck with me that ARE good though.
There are some of the classics: Blackwood’s The Willows (and, to some extent T Kingfisher’s semi-sequel The Hollow Places), and Hope Hodgeson’s The House on the Borderlands, and some of Derleth’s tales, but I’d struggle to recommend a particular book really.
One of the best Lovecraft fictions in any media that I know of is the BBC The Lovecraft Investigations podcast - which is a modern take on some of his tales but with some other layers to them.
I’m reading “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells and I must say, I love his writing style! This is my second book by him. If anyone has any recommendations for something similar, I’m all ears!
Give Olaf Stapledon a try. Another English SF writer who wrote a few decades after Wells.
Some of his work:
Last and First Men.
Sirius
Starmaker.
Picked up a nice hardcover edition of the first five John Carter books.
The Dresden Files audiobooks are so good. They’re read by James Marsters of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and he just hits every tone and sigh of Dresden perfectly.
I’m actually finishing up The Olympian Affair, book 2 of Jim Butcher’s new series Cinder Spires. It’s steampunky magic with political intrigue, airships, and tribes of cats with their own language. The first book was a little meandering but the second one has been very interesting and more dynamic so far
