What are you reading?

magerette · July 20, 2009

Finished my horror-history of the doomed Franklin expedition(The Terror, Dan Simmons)--had nightmares all night. An excellent book, though. Perhaps just a little tad bit too vivid for an old woman.

@Rithrandril: There's a part in this novel at one of the (many) formal burial services for the British sailors where the Captain throws away the Bible and instead chooses to give the sermon from Hobbes' Leviathon, the" human life is brutal, short etc" part--very effective.

Rithrandil · July 20, 2009

magerette said:
Finished my horror-history of the doomed Franklin expedition(The Terror, Dan Simmons)--had nightmares all night. An excellent book, though. Perhaps just a little tad bit too vivid for an old woman.

@Rithrandril: There's a part in this novel at one of the (many) formal burial services for the British sailors where the Captain throws away the Bible and instead chooses to give the sermon from Hobbes' Leviathon, the" human life is brutal, short etc" part--very effective.

You've just convinced me to purchase that book in a day or two, lol.

txa1265 · July 20, 2009

Rithrandil said:
You've just convinced me to purchase that book in a day or two, lol.

She does make it sound intriguing, eh?

Prime Junta · July 20, 2009

Back home in rainy Finland. Finished off my French vacation with a day on the beach in Nice, digging into my first Robert Ludlum book -- The Bourne Identity. I quite liked it, and at least now I know what all the flap's about when Jason Bourne comes up in Alpha Protocol discussions. (Ludlum must've been pissed when they arrested Carlos when he was having his testicle operated -- probably not a denouement he would've written.)

Alrik Fassbauer · July 20, 2009

"Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Elven Prince" ?

magerette · July 20, 2009

Rithrandil said:
You've just convinced me to purchase that book in a day or two, lol.

txa1265 said:
She does make it sound intriguing, eh?

If it ever crosses your path, it's an excellent read. On one level strictly factual and an exhaustive coverage of the human suffering, courage, and stupidity that went into Victorian age exploration, and on another a haunting and gruesome tale of madness and horror by the flickering light of oil lamps in a wasteland of ice, killing cold, disease and darkness. There's even a grotesque nod to Poe's Masque of the Red Death at one point.

As you can probably tell, the book got to me.

JDR13 · July 23, 2009

I just got 'At The Mountains Of Madness'. It's one of the few major H.P. Lovecraft stories that I haven't read yet.

JemyM · July 23, 2009

JDR13 said:
I just got 'At The Mountains Of Madness'. It's one of the few major H.P. Lovecraft stories that I haven't read yet.

One of Lovecraft's longest, but coming from Lovecraft that doesn't mean much. One of Lovecraft's more iconic novels though.

JDR13 · July 24, 2009

JemyM said:
One of Lovecraft's longest, but coming from Lovecraft that doesn't mean much.

True. Lovecraft could write a more gripping story in 20 pages than most authors could in 100.

Thrasher · July 24, 2009

Is it the collection of just the single story?

If it's the collection the stories get much better towards the end.

JDR13 · July 24, 2009

It includes: 'At the Mountains of Madness', 'The Shunned House', 'The Dreams in the Witch-House', and 'The Statement of Randolph Carter'.

Thrasher · July 24, 2009

Here's the collection I was referring to that has 26 stories:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Madness-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0345384229/

JDR13 · July 25, 2009

Thrasher said:
Here's the collection I was referring to that has 26 stories:
http://www.amazon.com/Road-Madness-H-P-Lovecraft/dp/0345384229/

I've already read a lot of those, many of them are included in a collection I have that's titled 'Waking up Screaming'.

Thrasher · July 27, 2009

Yeah there are lots of overlapping collections. The one I was referring to organized the stories chronologically in order of writing or publication, staring with oldest and ending with newest. My point being the quality improved quite a lot from the earliest stories.

Reading this kind of book backwards might work OK.

dteowner · July 27, 2009

Finished The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons last night. The philosophical mumbojumbo at the end was a bit disappointing. I'm not above some "deeper meaning" in my reading, but I felt bludgeoned by page after page of the stuff. I settled on the latest Recluse book from Modesitt to "cleanse the palette".

Thrasher · July 27, 2009

The whole Hyperion saga is a great read. It's major black eye is the occasional and much too long deep introspection by some of the main characters. Tedious.

magerette · July 30, 2009

So this is the same Dan Simmons that wrote my nightmare inducing arctic horrorfest (The Terror)? There was a bit of completely odd and distracting mystical booshwah at the very end in that book as well. But it did make up for the unrelieved grimness of the rest of the story.

dteowner · July 30, 2009

Yep, same guy.
"Terror" section of his website

JDR13 · July 30, 2009

The Shadow Over Innsmouth

It's making me want to play Call of Cthulhu: DCotE again, even though I didn't think very highly of my first playthrough.

DArtagnan · July 30, 2009

JDR13 said:
The Shadow Over Innsmouth

It's making me want to play Call of Cthulhu: DCotE again, even though I didn't think very highly of my first playthrough.

Best Lovecraft story, imo

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