The Book Thread - December

Gun Monkeys by Victor Gischler is kind of a fun violent romp.

Duane Swierczynski also writes a lot of fast-paced crime novels. The Driver is the first one I ever read by him.

I accidentally started reading Neal Stephenson’s new novel Reamde. No telling how far I’ll get.

How does one accidentally start reading something? Did someone slip an Erikson book cover on it and trick you?

Polished off a couple Richard Stark/Westlake novels. Now reading Ellroy’s Clandestine, which is surprisingly satisfying. I say “surprisingly” because, even as a huge Ellroy fan, I’ve avoided anything prior to The Black Dahlia just because I’d heard it wasn’t until the latter that he’d really gotten his writing together. And while Clandestine isn’t great by a longshot, it’s still seems essential to me now, at the halfway point, because it introduces key figures and places in the LA Quartet, including Dudley Smith, Mike Breuning, and Dick Carlisle (the latter 2 also figure in the Underworld USA trilogy), and the fun times a-happenin’ at the Victory Motel. Recommended to Ellroy fans.

On a complete different note, my nonfiction reading is Groove Interrupted: Loss, Renewal, and the Music of New Orleans by Keith Spera, which is a fascinating look at a number of different musicians (each gets his/her own chapter) dealing with the fallout of Katrina. Great companion piece to anyone who’s watched HBO’s Treme.

I wish I could get into Ellroy, but I just can’t. I’ve tried so much of his fiction and I don’t think I’ve finished a single book of his.

I’m currently reading Clues To Christie which I picked up for free through the Kindle store a while back. It’s a guide to Agatha Christie and her mysteries. Gives a bit of an over view and includes three stories. I’m not really familiar with her beyond her reputation so I figured I’d give this a read and see if I am intrigued.

Just finished reading my first e-book ever on a brand new kindle fire. As I am now living in the future and our empire is in its death throes, I figured a rereading of Foundation was in order. Went by very fast. It’s been about 20 years since I read it (or any Asmiov) but I was constantly reminded of how it was a product of its time. Everyone smokes cigars and nucleics are all the rage. Not a lot of female characters. Just saying.

I read Pandora’s Star in November and had to restrain myself from diving right into Judas Unchained. Back to back novels from the same author burns me out. Nevertheless, the journey has begun and a good 30 pages in catching up with Ozzie and Orion, so we’re back on solid ground.

Haha. I was trapped somewhere, had finished what I was reading, and this was there. It’s hard for me to maintain interest in books which don’t contain stone and swords and castles but I used to love Stephenson’s work, so I’ll see how it goes.

Near the end of SPQR III, third in a series of mysteries set in late-Republic Rome. I’m enjoying them as pretty light fiction, not a lot of trying to educate you about the period, but based on real historical events.

Listening to The Warded Man, which I’ve got mixed feelings about – some good scenes, and some not-so-good writing. Sort of like the issues I always have with Butcher, where I really like his plots, but really hate his style. But this one doesn’t have the highs or lows of Butcher’s writing.

I liked Point of Impact much more than Dirty White Boys; it has that same cat & mouse feel, if that’s what you liked about it. Another cat & mouse type book that I liked a lot was The Winter of Frankie Machine, which I thought was better than either of the Hunter books I read.

Speaking of which, I also recently finished Savages by Don Winslow. I’m not sure if I would recommend it or not – a real fun narrative voice, fun plot, but characters as deep as a puddle. It really reduced the tension, because it was all so stylized.

Started Here Comes a Candle by Fredric Brown last night. Really well written and engaging story which does its best to present a kind of “mixed media” type tale in that flash backs, dreams and memories will switch from prose to radio or movie script depending on what is being conveyed. Really great mood setting intro. The actual tale is a stock retread so far, but again it’s so well written that i don’t care.

Hey, that’s almost exactly the same period and subject matter as Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa series… do you happen to have read those, too? How do they compare?

I haven’t read them, but going by the amazon reviews, SQPR is much lighter fare.

I really doubt that, having read the Roma Sub Rosa books myself – they are popcorn pulp fiction without any great literary ambition. But I’ll have to try the SPQR books anyway, just for the setting.

I just finished Terry Pratchett’s “Equal Rites”, which was fantastic. :) Now onto “Mort”, which I am VERY excited to read! :)

Mort is my next Pratchett read now that I have finished the Night Watch books.

As it turns out, Reamde contains all three of those things. Now, granted, they’re not particularly core and not present in the sense I suspect you mean. But they’re -there-. I just finished it myself. Very enjoyable. There’s a few plot threads that kind of seem to fall by the wayside as it goes on, but it’s already 1200-ish pages long so I’m sure something had to give.

Wow, I just blew through Hunger Games in a day. Granted, it’s a YA novel for girls, so it’s not exactly tough reading, but usually a YA novel for girls will take me more than a day because I can’t quite get my enthusiasm up to actually read it.

This was bitchin’. Well paced, heartfelt, and lots of action and blood. I’ve read Battle Royale and this moved much more quickly and was, well, less Japanese. Now I want Kat to lead the revolution against the evil government and take back the food or the Districts, or put the games to an end!

Other two books in the trilogy ordered this morning.

I haven’t read that but the YA label is just weird in general I find. I read the Monstrumologist last month, which is supposedly YA, but it feels like a disservice to call it that.

I recently finished the second book, and it wasn’t as good as the first. I have heard that the third is a letdown, is this true?

I thought the 3rd was better than the 2nd, since the 2nd was really just a rehash of the 1st. But the 1st book is clearly the best of the trilogy.