What are you reading

[Flying_Monkey]

I've been having a binge of British-Israeli author of SF and wierd fiction, Lavie Tidhar - I'd read Osama, his slippery novel of an alternative present where Osama Bin Laden is a fictional character, some time ago, but had not kept up with what he was doing. And what he has been doing is brilliant, provocative and beautifully written. First up, A Man Lies Dreaming, an amazing alternative history-noir-holocaust fiction mash-up, in which Hitler, exiled from communist Germany, is a bitter private eye stalking the mean streets of a London, in which Oswald Mosley seems sure to be elected as the next Prime Minister (and that's just he beginning). Evoking Philip K Dick, Michael Chabon and Primo Levi in one novel is pretty audacious but it works amazingly well. Next was, The Violent Century, which retains the Chabon influence, but adds in Watchmen and John Le Carré, in a remarkable novel in which a Nazi scientist, the sinister Dr Vomacht, unleashes a force which creates literal 'ubermenschen', supermen with superpowers, through whose eyes we see a different and yet not so different WW2 and after. It's a very effective way of re-examing technology, violence and war. Finally, a more conventional SF fix-up novel, Central Station, which collects together and tops and tails a series of linked short stories Tidhar has published over the last five years set amongst the liminal residents of the eponymous spaceport-city which sits between Israeli Tel Aviv and Palestinian Jaffa - immigrant workers, drug-addicted ex-military cyborgs, artificial intelligences, freaky kids and even a 'data vampire' who feeds on memories - and their difficult loves and relationships. While not shying away from some difficult issues, it's really quite beautiful. If you are a fan of imaginary and invisible cities, you will love this.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Peter Guralnick's Last Train To Memphis, The Rise Of Elvis Presley. Well researched, brilliant writing, a fascinating picture of 50s Elvis, the birth of rock and roll and American life in general in Tennessee.

 

[John the Monkey]

Finished Matter, and really enjoyed it - I do like being back in the Culture again.

On to "This is How You Die" - the second anthology in the Machine for Death series. These ask authors to imagine a world in which the titular machine can infallibly predict manner, but not time, of death, and the stories examine the implications of that. The first book was serialised by podcast, and is worth looking out.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Taking your recommendation, I read A man lies dreaming and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it to the extent that I thought I would read Osama which just didn't do it for me. The pair of them felt like rewrites of the one book and I had read them in the wrong order

I guess it would feel that way. His writing has got much better. Osama reads like a dry-run for everything else, but it's notable mainly because of the character and context. You should definitely read The Violent Century...

I've just coincidentally read two novels that are all about death, Nnedi Okorafor's rather wonderful afrofuturist fantasy, Who Fears Death, and Rachel Pollack's slice of lesbian new weirdness, Mother Night.

 

[swee'pea99]

alternative history-noir-holocaust fiction mash-up, in which Hitler, exiled from communist Germany, is a bitter private eye stalking the mean streets of a London, in which Oswald Mosley seems sure to be elected as the next Prime Ministe

immigrant workers, drug-addicted ex-military cyborgs, artificial intelligences, freaky kids and even a 'data vampire' who feeds on memories - and their difficult loves and relationships.

Nnedi Okorafor's rather wonderful afrofuturist fantasy, Who Fears Death, and Rachel Pollack's slice of lesbian new weirdness, Mother Night.

Is it just me, or do you read some weeeeeeird shoot?

 

[subaqua]

somebody on another forum recomended 'The Black Death Sea Harrier over Falklands by Nigel "Sharkey" Mcartan Ward' as i had read Vulcan 607 abd thought that a brilliant book. ( the planning and engineering - the missions themselves were a waste of resources and could have been used to bomb the runway accurately with Harriers).

I then followed the iStore other people read and found

Down South by Chris Parry the story of a FlObs in a pinger Wessex based on HMS Antrim during the Falklands . that led me onto
Scram air raid warning Red by Harry Benson a Junglie Wessex Pilot sent to the Falklands in 82 as the campaign ramped up. which led me onto
Sapper by Julien Bernie A Royal Engineer in the BAOR sent to the Falklands in 1983 to mine clear !

i have also read in between Sub by Danny Danziger which is the stories of crew onboard one of britains nuclear subs .

if i can screen shot my Ibooks homepage i will post that as it is fairly ecelctiv=c and somebody might spot something worth reading.

 

[John the Monkey]

if i can screen shot my Ibooks homepage i will post that as it is fairly ecelctiv=c and somebody might spot something worth reading.

Thinking along those lines, does anyone use Goodreads? We could set up a cyclechat group...

Anyway, I finished "This is How You Die" - a bit less enjoyable than the first anothology. I think because of it being more diverse thematically (so there are some stories destined not to appeal) . A solid three / three and a half stars though, with some great illustration throughout too.

On now to "Nostrum", the second part of a Zombie apocalypse tale set in the middle ages. I enjoyed the first part, so am hoping that this is a page turner too.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Is it just me, or do you read some weeeeeeird shoot?

Definitely the latter. Although, in the case of both the books I mentioned, the weirdness is simply a way of 'defamiliarizing' things, so that serious emotional and political issues can be approached obliquely or in ways that get past superficial reactions. Mind you, if you want a really weird selection from my shelves that, as far as I can tell, is really just weird, you should try Eugen Egner's Androids from Milk. Here's how Amazon describes the book, and this really doesn't get halfway there:

"A freak show owner sends Reuben Hecht - who has been stuck at age 17 for twenty years - and Edwina - who can switch age at will - to a mysterious Colony to recover androids. Stuck in a house that is not his home, Ruben is beaten by his mother for procrastinating on his homework for the Holy German Paintbrush Distance Learning Academy; his father has taken to his bed to hatch a dwarf. He goes to a concert by the rock group, The Flesh-eating Fetish Bitches, and decides to run away, pursued by the parish priest who wants to put him in a children's home, since he will never come of age."

On Goodreads - I have an account but I haven't used it since I set it up - mainly to steal back ad deposit my old reviews from Amazon...

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Having finished the book, I can tell you that it argues the opposite - an Anglo-Saxon noble would, apparently, be expected to stand shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall.

Hmmm. Second, more likely third row of the shield wall. And even then with the best of his personal troops either side of him. For a reigning monarch or aethling, from what I've read.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All by Jonas Jonasson. The Swedish title, when translated is "Killer Anders and his friends, (and the occasional enemy)"

As good as the 100 year old man but, thus far, not as laugh out loud funny as The Girl Who Saved The King Of Sweden.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I got this from the Library, & have been picking through it, which almost invokes brain overload, particularly when you read just how many bands were first heard on his shows!!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Night...UTF8&qid=1467144535&sr=1-1&keywords=john+peel

One ironic item also revealed is the fact that a Controller of Radio 1 wanted to reduce Peels hours, to showcase the latest 'Jungle Music' (forget the year)
Peel wrote a letter, & the book reveals that 2 of the most popular icons of the genre were first broadcast, & championed, by Peel 4 years previously......

Come on, Controller........ keep up!!!


I've just bought the Geraint Thomas book, & started reading it in meal-breaks at work, seems good so far

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Building on my Lavie Tidhar binge, I just read Judenstaat by Simone Zelitsch, a rather good alt-history set towards the end of the 1980s in an a Jewish state created after WW2 in what in our world became East Germany. There's a lot of intrigue around the truth of the country's history but it's a much more straight alt-history that say, Tidhar's A Man Lies Dreaming or PKD's The Man in the High Castle.

edit: although, having said it's 'straighter', it does also have Jewish supernatural elements to it, too.

 

[John the Monkey]

Enjoyed Nostrum very much - stronger than the first book in the series, I think.

On now to the first in Robert Campbell's Jimmy Flannery series - "The Junkyard Dog". My favourite Campbell stories are the "La La Land" series, featuring his down at heel PI, Whistler, but I'm looking forward to starting this one, having read one of the books out of sequence and enjoyed it.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Europe in Autumn/Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson (both costing peanuts on Kindle).

Utterly brilliant and quirky espionage-alternate world-thriller with some very mild SF thrown into the mix.

....Midnight is the second book but is complementary rather than a sequel although it does oddly interconnect.

A fascinating brace of books with a third to come.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I am reading Quartered Safe Out Here by George MacDonald Fraser, which are about his experiences fighting in Burma at the end of the war. Some of it is really funny, one very sad story, and quite a lot of contentious stuff about what it meant to be a soldier back then.

Also reading Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf :-/

And I am also reading Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert - not sure yet.