Books, books, books...

[TheLastBaron]

I listen to certain things on audiobooks, and there are certain things I hate audiobooks of. I listened to Neil Gaiman's stuff on audio book because its easy to listen to, and he has a great voice. Anansi Boys by him was narrated by Lenny Henry and it is by far the best audio book I have ever listened to. He adds so much to it that I honestly feel that if you were to read the book instead of listening to the audio book you would be missing out, and I don't feel that way about any other book. On the other hand, I tried listening to both Consider Phlebas and Perdido Street Station on audio book and hated it, I don't think I made it further than 20-30 minutes in either before I gave up and just bought the books.

[Gormongous]

I tried listening to both Consider Phlebas and Perdido Street Station on audio book and hated it, I don't think I made it further than 20-30 minutes in either before I gave up and just bought the books.

Ugh! I've been trying to think of a tactful way to bring up my intense love of Iain M. Banks' earlier works here, but I just can't force myself to do so through the mention of Consider Phlebas as an audio recording. It's such a strange, bloated, overblown, intimate beast of a novel, having some stranger read it to you over your iPod would be possibly the worst way to experience it short of reading sentences off billboards as you drive down the highway, Burma Shave-style.

[Scipio]

Ugh! I've been trying to think of a tactful way to bring up my intense love of Iain M. Banks' earlier works here,

Why be tactful about it? How much of his work do you think of as earlier? 80s stuff? I think of LtW back as basically one block of work. You picked exactly the right adjectives to describe CP, it's a book that's beautiful, I think, not just because of how well it describes place and tone, but the fucking range it delivers, glass temples and boats and beaches and space trucker fights, it is all over the place, and perhaps not better for it, but certainly more unique because of it.

Also what's your favourite ship names?

[SuperHarman]

I didn't really love Consider Phlebas when I read it, some of the concepts worked for me but if I remember right, every time I thought I had a handle on it, it changed up. I am of course willing to accept that I was too young when I took it on. I recall liking Against a Dark Background and having a rather large dislike for A Song of Stone. Because of this, I never really decided to revisit his work. I might try again someday.

[Nachimir]

I find Banks hit and miss. Use of Weapons and The Player Of Games have always been his best to me.

I find Charles Stross very interesting at the moment. Near future science fiction has been very difficult to write, but I very much enjoyed Rule 34. It's basically about backstreet 3D printing operations, nation states, software, and global financial systems.

[Codicier]

Was half way through writing a reply about favourite Culture ship names when I heard on the BBC the sad news that Ray Bradbury has passed away. Pretty darn sad about it, although he did have a pretty good run (age 91!). So ladies and gents, favourite works of this great author?

Personally its "Something Wicked This Way Comes", although it was the collected Martian Chronicles I read first.

[dibs]

I've only read Farenheit :/ I'll queue up some of this other works. Upon the news, i did get to introduce one of my friends to fuck me ray bradbury though.

[thainatos]

Was half way through writing a reply about favourite Culture ship names when I heard on the BBC the sad news that Ray Bradbury has passed away. Pretty darn sad about it, although he did have a pretty good run (age 91!). So ladies and gents, favourite works of this great author?

Personally its "Something Wicked This Way Comes", although it was the collected Martian Chronicles I read first.

Martian Chronicles was my first as well, but my heart belongs to The Halloween Tree. Reading either can make me feel the beauty of literature in my bones.

[Orv]

Perdido Street Station

A few days late here, but you don't actually like Perdido Street Station, do you?

[Gormongous]

A few days late here, but you don't actually like Perdido Street Station, do you?

Is that not allowed? Insofar as it was nightmare fantasy Dickens, I myself loved it. As the early peak of an increasingly underwhelming authorial career, not so much.

Why be tactful about it? How much of his work do you think of as earlier? 80s stuff? I think of LtW back as basically one block of work. You picked exactly the right adjectives to describe CP, it's a book that's beautiful, I think, not just because of how well it describes place and tone, but the fucking range it delivers, glass temples and boats and beaches and space trucker fights, it is all over the place, and perhaps not better for it, but certainly more unique because of it.

I read Consider Phlebas at a pretty odd time in my life, when I'd just gotten out of college and was killing time working at a bookstore slowly circling the drain. During my break hours, I was digesting a lot of genre crap I'd never felt confident enough to buy even used, so the bizarre bombast of Banks' space opera kind of exploded in my brain. The ramp-up from Consider Phlebas through The Player of Games to the fullest realization of Banks' substantial talent as a sci-fi writer in Use of Weapons was a perfect storm of interest and circumstance, as well as one of the few instances where I will not bow to established canon in defending it as one of my favorite works ever.

After those three, the Culture books get pretty uneven. Excession and Look to Windward are both much more inward and philosophical in aspect, though this is only a weakness juxtaposed with the robustness of the preceding books. And I won't even try to argue in favor of Matter or Surface Detail, which are serviceable but clearly products of a writer who's outgrown his editor, much like George R.R. Martin in his latest installment.

And I haven't read Banks' mainstream fiction, so I can't speak to A Song of Stone, but I don't really have such strong opinions on his other genre pieces. He mostly seems guilty of the urge to revisit and improve upon the works that made him famous, like George Lucas or Ridley Scott. You could argue that Against a Dark Background is an incremental improvement on Consider Phlebas, but only if you concede that The Algebraist is an inferior retelling of Excession that largely misses what's clever about the latter. Feersum Endjinn is probably the only non-Culture feat of imagination sui generis, but it's hard to pass judgment on it for precisely that. It's doing a lot of interesting things, but is definitely one of those novels where the process matters more than the outcome, which is invariably disappointing.

And as for ship names, it's so hard to choose! Probably "Of Course I Still Love You", though I have a soft spot for "Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The". It changes weekly, really.

[Orv]

Is that not allowed? Insofar as it was nightmare fantasy Dickens, I myself loved it. As the early peak of an increasingly underwhelming authorial career, not so much.

The prose of it doesn't bother you? "It was kind of dark out." becomes "The dreariness of my soul wept callous anger into the veil of the night."

It's like he played Max Payne and thought "Fuck, this would make a great book!" It doesn't.

E: Wholly applicable. (Keep in mind I feel this way independent of PA, they just give my feelings a good voice.)

[Gormongous]

It's purple, yeah. But it's towards a sense of pacing and atmosphere, at least in Miéville's earlier novels. I wouldn't dismiss them as overwritten any more than those of Dickens or Melville -- not to say his prose is on part with them, but still. Of course, I can only speak for his first few books. I got dead sick of him after The Iron Council, in part because I could feel him heading down the path of bloat for bloat's sake, which I'd condemn here as I have elsewhere.

Edit: Also, Tycho mocking someone for an exaggerated style of writing, particularly one characterized by neologisms, is almost as funny as the comic itself.

[Orv]

It's purple, yeah. But it's towards a sense of pacing and atmosphere, at least in Miéville's earlier novels. I wouldn't dismiss them as overwritten any more than those of Dickens or Melville -- not to say his prose is on part with them, but still. Of course, I can only speak for his first few books. I got dead sick of him after The Iron Council, in part because I could feel him heading down the path of bloat for bloat's sake, which I'd condemn here as I have elsewhere.

Edit: Also, Tycho mocking someone for an exaggerated style of writing, particularly one characterized by neologisms, is almost as funny as the comic itself.

Your edit I will not deny.

I tried to read Perdido and go about three pages in before I put it back on the shelf in disgust, so I may not be the best to comment on it, but I think that's enough of a comment in itself. If you like it, hey, what business is it of mine to change that opinion.

[Twig]

Edit: Also, Tycho mocking someone for an exaggerated style of writing, particularly one characterized by neologisms, is almost as funny as the comic itself.

Heh, it's true. I feel like Tycho, at least, does it for comedy's sake, though, which I find infinitely more forgivable (and enjoyable) than just doing it because you can do it. It's all about context?!

Also, I had no idea Perdido Street Station (or its author) was anything like that. I guess I'm not interested anymore. I was before. I can't stand that shit when it's NOT for the sake of a laugh.

(If I ever read a book with sentences like "It was kind of dark out" that weren't dialogue, I would be just as turned off!)

[Orv]

(If I ever read a book with sentences like "It was kind of dark out" that weren't dialogue, I would be just as turned off!)

I was just compressing for sake of hyperbole.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/perdido-street-station-china-mieville/1100293193

Read the excerpt. If it doesn't come off as about ninety feet up its own ass, then I hope you enjoy it in my stead.

[Scipio]

I like The City & the City and Embassytown quite a lot, and while I'm less enthusiastic about the Bas-Lag books, I have to respect Iron Council for being the Trotiest thing I have ever fucking read.

[nikasaur]

Scipio, I just started on The Scar, is that... a bad idea? I found that I like the world and general story of Mieville's work but I feel he tends to overwrite it. Like the DM you'd NEVER want in your D&D group.

Currently I'm reading through... well, you know the comic A Softer World? The creator, Joey Comeau has a few books I picked up. They're quite short so I read two of them already (not too excited about them) until I tried One Bloody Thing After Another.

Now THAT, that's turning out good. I'm 30% in and thinking about it a lot. Might sacrifice my Friday night to go finish a super-quick novella!

[savdec449]

I'm having a mini-crisis of faith with majoring in english, so I've been reading phil articles and books lately. Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is stupidly fun to read.

I realize I may not have the same idea of fun as other people.

[Scipio]

I'm having a mini-crisis of faith with majoring in english, so I've been reading phil articles and books lately. Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature is stupidly fun to read.

I realize I may not have the same idea of fun as other people.

I would whole heartedly recommend you read Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, (if you haven't already). It's the basis for some of Rorty's stuff, language and view of science are the ones I would point out. Also, (this is a little on the nose) Rorty and His Critics is a great collection with some super philosophical heavyweights in it, I figure that your uni library probably has both.

[gregbrown]

I would whole heartedly recommend you read Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, (if you haven't already). It's the basis for some of Rorty's stuff, language and view of science are the ones I would point out. Also, (this is a little on the nose) Rorty and His Critics is a great collection with some super philosophical heavyweights in it, I figure that your uni library probably has both.

Ugh now you guys are making me feel guilty about not reading philosophy since college. Rorty and Cavell are on my to-do list, and I really want to get a handle on Kripkestein sometime too.

[savdec449]

I would whole heartedly recommend you read Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, (if you haven't already). It's the basis for some of Rorty's stuff, language and view of science are the ones I would point out. Also, (this is a little on the nose) Rorty and His Critics is a great collection with some super philosophical heavyweights in it, I figure that your uni library probably has both.

Thanks! Yeah, I want to get to Wittgenstein after this and at least read the Brandom essay in the collection you mentioned, if for no other reason than institutional pride. I'm not sure how much I buy what seems to be the ejecting of uh hundreds of years of thought, but the way he goes about doing it (and the fact that he writes as well as he does) just kinda leaves me in awe. I guess that rejection-process though is what makes him a pragmatist, though. I don't know why it doesn't bother me in him but drove me kind of insane when I read James and "Against Theory," which was a pragmatist attack on literary theory whose author I'm too lazy to look up.

Edit: Would enough people be interested for me to start a Philosophy-dedicated thread? If so, I'd throw together an OP with a terrible timeline and some helpful links.

[Irishjohn]

I'm about halfway through Watchmen.

I am probably shit for not reading this a decade ago, but whatever. It is a quality thing so far.

I read it two years ago and had a similar feeling. But whatever is right. Come back and tell us what you thought of it when you're done.

[Sal Limones]

I'm currently reading Role Models by John Waters,

Just finished this book, having picked it up based on this post only. I went in not even knowing who John Waters was, and now I feel excited about counterculture as a whole again.

It's really a wonderful book; technically a memoir, feels more like a collection of short stories, and functions as a manifesto against the tyranny of taste. I recommend it especially if you feel like you don't understand contemporary art.

[miffy495]

Oh wow, awesome. When that post just kinda fell into the general noise behind some other discussion I thought that no one would read it. Glad you enjoyed it! This summer is the first time I've really started reading books regularly since early university (isn't it awesome how going to school can totally kill reading for pleasure?) and as a fan of his movies it was a great way to kick off the summer.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'm also planning on reading that book based on your post, Miffy. It sounds fantastic. Nice to know Sal enjoyed it, too.