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It's been years since I read Moby Dick, and it took me years (on and off, between other books) to get through it. Most of it passed through my head without making much of an impression, but there are still parts that stick with me (in particular, Ahab's explanation to Starbuck of why he hates the whale). I just polished off The Flying None by Cody Goodfellow. It's the first book by the author I didn't really enjoy. The whole thing felt like a much weaker version of other stories by the same author - The Snake Handler, with elements of All Monster Action stirred in at the end. It felt like a YA take on the same subject matter, but as far as I can tell it was released under the same imprint as all his other stories.
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Feb 1, 2023 01:48
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American Gods is pretty good. Definitely my favorite Neil Gaiman. If you liked it I recommend Kraken by China Memeville and Last Call by Tim Powers.
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Jun 7, 2023 00:06
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I liked Urth but everyone I know hated it, or outright refused to read it after completing the main series. I wasn't a huge fan of Fifth Head. Out of all the tales only the first one really grabbed me. The mystery of the indigenes is cool. Peace rules. The frame narrative is alright but I love all the creepy little vignettes.
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Jul 14, 2023 22:44
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Piranesi rules and I recommend it.
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Jul 27, 2023 06:41
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malnourish posted:I wish the world had been further explored and the mystery more developed.
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Jul 31, 2023 21:56
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FPyat posted:Complete 50/50 on whether you've read House of Leaves or not.
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Aug 1, 2023 17:14
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Last book I DNFed was The Night Land. Cool setting but actually reading it was an absolute slog. It sat in my to-be-read pile for months at maybe 20% completion until I accepted defeat and tossed it in a little free library.
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Aug 8, 2023 20:08
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Wrapped The Passenger. It's my least favorite McCarthy so far. It's like if No Country For Old Men was only the parts where the Sheriff ruminates on how his life didn't go the way he wanted, without the action sequences. The Thalidomide Kid was my favorite character. I'm still going to read Stella Maris for completionism. Sometimes the last novel an author writes will surprise you at the end, even if you didn't enjoy the rest. Interlibrary Loan was like that. A real slog until the very last page, which was an incredible ending to Wolfe's literary career.
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Aug 18, 2023 17:28
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Just finished Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight In Heaven after pulling it out of a little free library. I had to read it back in high school and my guess is whoever deposited it in the box did the same. Back then I hated short story collections, but now I like them better than novels. I think most authors, even great ones, do not have enough interesting ideas to fill hundreds and hundreds of pages on the same topic. Either way, I remember liking it the first time I read it. It was pretty good the second time around. The fantastical or magical realist elements strongly reminded me of the POV character from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - the way his descriptions of reality are suddenly interrupted by vivid and disturbing visions that swallow everything around him.
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Sep 15, 2023 22:09
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Shammypants posted:Finished Piranesi and the first half is so bad, and the last half so good that I really do think the entire concept could have been a much better book by another author. Like, wtf, if this were a novella that the first half was condensed into a single chapter or two it would be exceptional.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:55
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tuyop posted:I feel like the first half is to endear us to Piranesi. That way the stakes are high for the weird resolution at the end.
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Oct 16, 2023 23:39
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Piranesi posted:Today the man asked me what life was like in the House. I told him it was not easy being Piranesi
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Oct 17, 2023 16:21
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Good-Natured Filth posted:A Dark Lure by Loreth Anne White: a mediocre thriller that follows Olivia (who is the sole survivor of a serial killer) trying to erase her past and leave it behind. Everyone thinks that the killer was caught and is dead except for one cop who won't let it go. This lone cop is right, though, and the killer resurfaces to finish the job (because the cop told him where Olivia was in order to lure him out of hiding). We're introduced to a prodigal son who falls in love with the traumatized Olivia and is a perfect journalist who uncovers her past quickly. They all end up on the same Canadian dude ranch during an impending snow storm and eventually brutally murder the serial killer. Come for the ho-hum characters but stay for the many detailed descriptions of fly fishing.
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Oct 24, 2023 23:47
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Starfish is my favorite Watts, absolutely no question. The Rifters sequels are pretty bad, I personally enjoyed them but they were hard to take seriously.
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Nov 14, 2023 04:24
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The Hyperion sequels suck, don't read them.
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Nov 26, 2023 01:47
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wedgie deliverer posted:I just finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Haven't read a good novel in a long time, and I definitely had a few tears at the ending which I thought was beautiful. malnourish posted:Echopraxia was fine, but not nearly as good as its predecessor. I suppose I'm much more interested in the contents of Blindsight. I thought the writing was stronger in the first one, too.
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Nov 27, 2023 21:56
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Just wrapped Stella Maris. It was an absolute slog, as was its companion The Passenger. I would not recommend either to anyone except diehard McCarthy completionists.
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Jan 4, 2024 21:27
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If anything the prose gets better in the sequels. The characters find ways to explain what's happening without delivering huge soliloquies clumsily stuffed with exposition. Except for book four. In book four they do the opposite of that.
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Mar 5, 2024 22:17
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:Diamonds Are Forever - Ian Fleming. Great book; better than the movie (cliche statement, but it's true). What's interesting is how many elements of the book the 1971 movie retained and how much it dumped. Many of the characters Bond fans will recognize are here: Tiffany Case, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, Shady Tree. Parts of the book's plot are also here, as there is a relatively short portion that takes place in Vegas (and the Nevada desert) and the book involves a diamond smuggling ring. But the rest of it is completely unique and involves fixing horse races and two-bit gangsters with accurate recreations of "Wild West" towns. The book even brings Felix Leiter into the mix (iirc, he's not in the movie at all).
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Mar 8, 2024 20:19
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Long Sun did not have the same staying power as New Sun but was more enjoyable to actually read. Like if Gene Wolfe wrote Discworld.
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Apr 22, 2024 17:36
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