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IDK how long it is, I've never read it! But I am looking at my copy of Don Quixote and thinking, "its time", so a short one works out fine with me
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Oct 25, 2023 14:54
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136 pages, should be a breeze!
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Oct 25, 2023 18:17
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I really liked Camp Damascus overall. I liked the first half a bit more than the second, but that may just be because I prefer the tone of that before it shifts a bit in the second half. It has the structure of something like Jaws or Nope where it shifts from straight horror to a more action-y feel once the characters start to understand what's happening and go on the offensive, which is fun and cathartic but there was some genuinely creepy stuff in the first half that I wanted more of.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:41
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In case anyone missed it, Chuck has another book set to come out in July, more of what sounds like a thrillerquote:Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he’s pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale—”for the algorithm”—Misha discovers that it’s not that simple.
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Oct 26, 2023 00:53
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I do now want to read the rest of his longer-form writing - I hear the Harriet Porber, Trans Wizard books are actually pretty fun beyond the premise. More Chuck on the horizon is very exciting.
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Oct 26, 2023 04:08
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I'm about a quarter of the way through and I am enjoying it quite a bit. Mara Wilson narrates the audiobook and does a stellar job. Definitely not going to be eating spaghetti for a while. Looking forward to finishing it up this weekend. edit: Got about 2 hours left. I would say the first half of the book was much more enjoyable than the second half... escape artist fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Nov 1, 2023 |
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Oct 27, 2023 19:40
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It is November! Hope your candy insulin-induced comas are mostly over Firstly, Gertrude Perkins has done a bang up job curating Chuck Tingle's horror novel Camp Damascus, and we all owe them a debt of thanks! I think the occasional IK idea might have legs, and a high bar has been set for a first time. Second, new Book of the Month will be Ursula Le Guin's Rocannon's World quote:A world shared by three native humanoid races - the cavern-dwelling Gdemiar, elvish Fiia, and warrior clan, Liuar - is suddenly invaded and conquered by a fleet of ships from the stars. Earth scientist Rocannon is on that world, and he sees his friends murdered and his spaceship destroyed. Marooned among alien peoples, he leads the battle to free this new world - and finds that legends grow around him even as he fights.  (from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/92610.Rocannon_s_World ) Read and chat about it here! Also feel free to continue discussing past months' books as you finish/get to them
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Nov 2, 2023 01:04
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Le Guin is my favorite author so I'm looking forward to revisiting this after so many years, and especially after having read and re-read a lot of her later and more refined speculative fiction (the term for sci-fi that is good)
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Nov 2, 2023 02:08
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I'm halfway through The Left Hand of Darkness but I can grab this one when I'm finished.
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Nov 2, 2023 02:13
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My library barely has any Leguin, and not this one, and I can't even find the ebook anywhere in Canada. Might have to go digging through the used shops
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Nov 2, 2023 02:35
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It's the first of three short novels in "Worlds of Exile and Illusion" if you manage to find that, it's a later publication so may be more likely to be around, I'm pretty sure it's what my own library has
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Nov 2, 2023 02:39
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Ah there we go, and the ebook is $3 right now, nice
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Nov 2, 2023 03:05
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Finished up Camp Damascus and I gotta say, that was a really solid book. I liked the ending a lot.
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Nov 2, 2023 03:06
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I picked up Rocannon’s World in an ebook called Worlds of Exile and Illusion, packaged with two other novels. It’s super short! I’m already about a third through. There are flying cats, swords, dwarves and elves, also spaceships, rayguns, and helicopters. Mandy from the film Mandy would love this book, it rocks.
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Nov 2, 2023 04:35
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i haven't read it and i like leguin but goddamn that's just a horrible title
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Nov 2, 2023 04:48
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Epic High Five posted:It's the first of three short novels in "Worlds of Exile and Illusion" if you manage to find that, it's a later publication so may be more likely to be around, I'm pretty sure it's what my own library has And it's on sale for Kindle in at least the US and Canada right now for $3
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Nov 2, 2023 06:43
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Thank you for letting me run our Halloween spookbook! I will try and get a copy of this month's because I really bloody like LeGuin but haven't read Rocannon's World yet.
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Nov 2, 2023 07:47
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I read it in the back half of September. Just now I remembered nothing about it other than that LeGuin is pretty good at writing. Thinking back to it now having read a back cover blurb, things are coming back. It’s surprisingly brutal for something that ended up being so ephemeral. Feels like historical medieval fiction / fantasy stuff that I read as a kid, with that added layer of SF. It didn’t compel me to keep reading the Hainish cycle (I’m going to anyway, I’ve got the two volume LoA set) or stick with me like Earthsea did, but I don’t regret reading it. It is also an incredibly fast read. Pretty sure I finished it in an evening.
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Nov 2, 2023 13:36
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Bilirubin posted:And it's on sale for Kindle in at least the US and Canada right now for $3 Kobo as well
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Nov 2, 2023 14:26
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Opopanax posted:Kobo as well 3$ (Canadian) on Apple Books thing.
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Nov 2, 2023 14:50
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Jordan7hm posted:I read it in the back half of September. Just now I remembered nothing about it other than that LeGuin is pretty good at writing. Her earlier stuff can get pretty brutal but a lot of the introspection and world building that makes her other stuff stick in your mind for the rest of your life isn't there like it is later. The Word for World is Forest is another one that is quite short and shockingly violent in a straightforward way. My usual recommendation for anybody getting into her stuff, and would be my recommendation for a future book here, is The Lathe of Heaven. Short enough for an evening or two to finish, and deeply weird and touching in a way that you'll never forget.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:35
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This is my second time reading this. The first time it didn't really stick in my memory, but it was one in a giant pile of LeGuin I was mowing through and compared to her later works it just felt . . Lesser. This time I'm moving slower through it and I can't deny the strength here; it's no _The Dispossessed_ but you can see the influence kf her anthropology background and it does a great job of flipping back and forth between fantasy and sf without resort to kludgey portals or "magic zones" or anything hacky, just different viewpoints.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:43
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I own Left Hand of Darkness, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Am I going to want to do so before starting Rocannon's World? Not sure if it really matters at all, or if it is going to feel like I am missing something.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:52
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There is a short story, called “The Dowry of Angyar” or later renamed “Semley’s Necklace” that actually serves as a prologue to this book too. I’ve read that, but not this, yet, and it’s cool to see Rocannon go from side character in a short story to main character of his own novel.
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Nov 2, 2023 21:59
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I loved how Semley’s Necklace is basically a classic fairy story that also works from a sci fi perspective. Also enjoy how the League’s first contact protocol appears to be: blow some poo poo up to show the primitives who’s boss, then give them technology so that you can better exploit them later.
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Nov 2, 2023 22:12
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Screaming_Gremlin posted:I own Left Hand of Darkness, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Am I going to want to do so before starting Rocannon's World? Not sure if it really matters at all, or if it is going to feel like I am missing something. You can read them in any order, the Hainish framing is more like an excuse to create all these different situations to really dig into. I'd say do Rocannon's World first because it's so much shorter, and you'll get an idea of how she evolved as a writer over the years. The Left Hand of Darkness is a good deal longer but also the kind of book where you're frequently going to be putting it down mid-chapter to have a good hard think about things
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Nov 2, 2023 22:32
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Dammit now its over and I have to read all of leguin again
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Nov 2, 2023 23:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Dammit now its over and I have to read all of leguin again Was going to ask if you read Birthday of the World in your binge, since that's imho her most anthropological work lol. If you hadn't but want to scratch that itch that's my recommendation, short story collection with one of the more haunting ones of the format I've ever read, The Matter of Seggri But yeah I'm already re-downloading my Lathe audiobook
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Nov 3, 2023 00:03
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Epic High Five posted:My usual recommendation for anybody getting into her stuff, and would be my recommendation for a future book here, is The Lathe of Heaven. Short enough for an evening or two to finish, and deeply weird and touching in a way that you'll never forget. Its on the list HA left in the OP but there was a bolus of forums folks who read Lathe (myself included) recently so the timing didn't seem ideal to me. Plus, this one was very much a mod's selection based on discussions two months back, and my own desire to read it. We'll be back to suggestions (make suggestions!!!) and votes for next month's book.
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Nov 3, 2023 00:32
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Bilirubin posted:Its on the list HA left in the OP but there was a bolus of forums folks who read Lathe (myself included) recently so the timing didn't seem ideal to me. Plus, this one was very much a mod's selection based on discussions two months back, and my own desire to read it. Oh yeah, only book clubs I'd have the same author twice in a row are Kapital ones, and anyway with any luck people will be reading it in any case after reading this. I'll think up some stuff, my only other real "something I'd recommend to literally anybody" books are Bridge of Birds and Guards! Guards!, it'll probably be one of those
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Nov 3, 2023 01:32
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The only copy my library has was an anthology with a bunch of other stories so I guess I have to read them all
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Nov 3, 2023 01:39
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Bilirubin posted:And it's on sale for Kindle in at least the US and Canada right now for $3 Link please? All I found was $12
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Nov 3, 2023 01:48
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Lord Zedd-Repulsa posted:Link please? All I found was $12 It was a flash sale  Or I hacked it via trying to purchase through dot com and it kicked me to dot ca and gave me the same price. I haven't checked to see if it was also a flash sale on the com.
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Nov 3, 2023 01:51
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drat. Well, it's my birthday this month so maybe I'll make it my gift to myself.
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Nov 3, 2023 01:53
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Epic High Five posted:Was going to ask if you read Birthday of the World in your binge, since that's imho her most anthropological work lol. If you hadn't but want to scratch that itch that's my recommendation, short story collection with one of the more haunting ones of the format I've ever read, The Matter of Seggri I haven't, actually. I was reading in publication order and I think I've read most things she wrote up to about 1990 AD but there were a few I missed and a few I foundered on (The World for Word is Forest I couldn't get more than a few pages into , it felt hokey, like she was writing her version of Little Fuzzy or Cameron's Avatar; Tehanu I'm saving to read when I'm older; Lathe of Heaven I'm waiting until I'm in the right head space to handle it; etc). I actually have a signed, numbered Earthsea map print, from backing the LeGuin biopic kickstarter. It's slipped a bit in its frame but here it is: 
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Nov 3, 2023 13:45
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Tehanu I'm saving to read when I'm older I read Tehanu when I was young, and thought it was okay. Then I reread it after my kids were born and my dad died and it wrecked me.
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Nov 3, 2023 14:35
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Requested Rocannon's World from the library, looking forward to it. I haven't read a ton of LeGuin, just Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, and the first couple Earthsea books, all of which I liked a lot. Looking forward to it.
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Nov 3, 2023 17:19
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Screaming_Gremlin posted:I own Left Hand of Darkness, but haven't had a chance to read it yet. Am I going to want to do so before starting Rocannon's World? Not sure if it really matters at all, or if it is going to feel like I am missing something. They have a loose chronology to them that Le Guin herself disowns. So, as said, you can read them in any order, but I did find the connections really satisfying. City of Illusions especially was such a great follow-up to World of Exile. I finished Left Hand of Darkness a couple of weeks ago and thought it was cool how the book sort of inverts the meaning of its own title partway through when you learn that it's referring to light. It seemed like a way of letting you experience some of the growing hope and understanding that the main character finds in such a bleak place. e: I liked how my brother described Le Guin. "Sometimes you read a whole book and it feels like nothing happened." Fitzy Fitz fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Nov 3, 2023 |
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Nov 3, 2023 18:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:(The World for Word is Forest I couldn't get more than a few pages into , it felt hokey, like she was writing her version of Little Fuzzy or Cameron's Avatar) It starts off that way but then grows into something much more interesting when Selver becomes a god.
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Nov 9, 2023 19:30
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PeterWeller posted:It starts off that way but then grows into something much more interesting when Selver becomes a god. Maybe I'll give it another shot. I went ahead and bought https://www.amazon.com/Ursula-K-Guin-Hainish-Stories/dp/1598535374
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Nov 10, 2023 00:54
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