So, What Are You Reading?

(Just to be clear, it's the same Purplefishman than above, but I lost my password and I didn't have an email associated with my account, so I had to create another one)

Finished Jesse Kellerman's The Genius. It was... Okay. In the end, it left me with the feeling that the whole story was a long "Shaggy Dog" Story, and my last thoughts were "wait, that's it ?", but it wasn't half bad. Not very impressed, unfortunately.

Started Shaun Hamill's A cosmology of monsters. Apparently it's a cosmic horror story ; they already namedrop Lovecraft in the first chapters, in any case.

I started reading the first Earthsea trilogy. I have read the first two books, and found their endings disappointing. I don't think I will bother reading the third part.

"Alles muss man selber machen" by Ellen Berg

As far as I know, there is not an english translation out there. The title roughly translates into "Always gotta do everything on your own"

Currently 20 chapter in

The book revolves around 3 mothers on the verge of bankruptcy, the reasons for their financial dilemnas ranging from getting robbed by their exes, a daring investion into cryptocurrencies and the skyrocketing medical bills for ye olde nan.

They try to escape poverty & living on the streets by becoming part-time-only-when-its-absolutely-necessary-outlaws. Their criminal career starts with a toy gun that looks just authentic enough to pass as a real gun.

The first 15 or so chapters are pretty solid, the book is easily digestable, simple to read through and overall rather simplistic. Though the book heavily focuses on comedy, I so far never laughed out loud, though I did chuckle, chortle & cackle more times than I could count on my fingers & toes.

Unfortunately, the plot becomes more & more predictable as the page count increases. By the time Chapter 20 came flipping around I could exactly see the end of the 15 page long buildup from a mile away.

The 3 mighty mothers try to steal a car from the main protagonist's evil ex. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING goes exactly as planned. There is no tension, no twists not even a couple jokes to erase the flat expression on my face.

I've stopped reading after the chapter came to a close, though I do intend on at least giving the next 5 chapters a fair chance.

So far its a 6/10. Neat, but nothing more, and also nothing less.

Finished "a cosmology of monsters" friday. So yeah, it's cosmic "horror" that isn't actually scary, but that's still pretty nice. And I mentionned before, Lovecraft is namedropped, but so are other horror writers (the story actually revolves around a family whose members love horror litterature and operate a haunted house attraction, you can feel Shaun Hamill loves the genre), and it actually steers away from the Cthulhu Mythos, which is so refreshing. I'm at a point where I roll my eyes whenever someone writes a cosmic horror story and just reuses the entities created by HPL, his predecessors and his circle of fans, and I'm grateful this book doesn't fall into this.

Now, I said it's not actually scary, but it's still at times a bit disturbing, everybody feels very real by being morally grey and being at loss sometimes with some everyday problems like communicating with other people (even and especially from their own family), we have absolutely no idea why the Bigger Bad does what it does, and at the end it kinda-sorta wins, as there's no way to actually stop it, but at least the protagonist saved his family... By sacrificing an equal amount of innocent victims and agreeing to become another one of its agents. But, and I was very pleasantly surprised about this, it's more like the chronicles of an ordinary family, forced to face tragedies, some of them being supernatural, and all reacting "realistically", and the end goal is less about defeating an ancient evil (which is impossible anyway) but more about managing to find a way for all of its members to go on and pardon each other despite what life throws at them. And in that regard it's quite touching. Sad, but touching.

Now, time for some old fashioned sci-fi, with A E Van Vogt's The weaponshops of Isher.

Edited by purplefishman2 on Mar 17th 2024 at 6:54:13 PM

Okay, finished The weapon shops of Isher. I... What ? I can't really tell what that all was about, or what Van Vogt was trying to say. I can't even say what the plot was exactly. I usually have this problem with "classic" sci-fi, but it's still pretty jarring.

So anyway, I started Clive Barker's Hellraiser (or rather The Hellbound Heart, but unsurprisingly the editor renamed it) this Friday... And I'm already pretty close to the end, so I'll certainly finish on my train ride to work next Monday.

I've been reading "Momo Arashima Steals the Sword of the Wind", the first in a series of novels involving Japanese culture (the second book came out recently so I plan to order once I finish the first).

A couple of days ago, I finished the uncut edition of The Stand after reading it on-and-off for the past year or two. I felt too disengaged from it to form a real opinion, but I might reread it in the future whenever I'm feeling properly motivated. For now, though, I'm probably going to read something a little bit lighter before I try any more 1000-page books.

Stuff I've read since I last posted, sorted from least to most favorite (doesn't include rereads): A Venom Dark and Sweet by Judy I. Lin, Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny, A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny, The Madness of Crowds by Louise Penny, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Vol. 3 by Tappei Nagatsuki, Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard, All the Devils Are Here by Louise Penny, A Better Man by Louise Penny, Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny, A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, Circe by Madeline Miller, Glass Houses by Louise Penny.

Currently reading: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Doing a 2-for-1 this time, because as I was suspecting in my previous post, I was actually just about to finish The Hellbound Heart before posting about it. Yeah, it's THAT short. So I need to complain, not because of the story, but because of the bonkers idea to make an entire book out of a short novella. The rest of the book is actually a long interview of Barker, and to be frank, I never liked reading interviews.

But enough negativity, let's get back to the story. It's good, what did you expect ? If you've watched the movie, however, you pretty much already know the entire plot : nothing had been cut from it. It's however fun to spot the differences : Kirsty is not related to Larry, "Pinhead" (who's never actually named in the novella) is a woman instead of a man, but the most important change is that in the book the Cenobites keep their word about letting Kirsty go once they got Frank back, while in the movie, they still try to take her to their dimension as well. Nice reading overall.

So afterwards, I read Anne Rice's Taltos, which I finished this afternoon.

...

I hated it.

Turns out, and I didn't know it when I bought that book, it's the last part of a trilogy (Lives Of The Mayfair Witches, more precisely), and a direct continuation of the previous book, so yeah, even with a recap at the start, there were a few moments of confusion. However, this being said, the plot is absolutely nonexistent. Events go, but you'd be hard pressed to find what the whole goal of it is. Everything falls flat. This, combined with Rice's flowery narration that I personnally found very grating at times, failed to make me interested in what was going on.

But that's not my main complaint. I loathed the characters. The protagonists are supposed to be pure goody-two-shoes, but all those efforts to make them lovable are ruined by bonkers actions or thoughts they make. The antagonists are whiny pieces of shit with zero charisma, or even a freaking comprehensible agenda, and they're all quickly taken care of with no fanfare. The side characters are at best bland, and at worst annoying, the worst being Mary Jane : she's supposed to make us think "what a quirky and adorable girl!", but everytime she appeared I quickly started to think "Oh my God, will you just SHUT THE FUCK UP ?!?"

And then, there's the character upon which all the flaws of the book converge : Mona.

...

Okay, first, she's as annoying to read at times as Mary Jane (no wonder they took a liking to each other...). But she also brings what truly made me want to throw the book away. A major plot point is that she's pregnant with a child that turns out to not be human. And this pregnancy is EXTREMELY problematic. First, the father, Michael, is married to another protagonist Rowan. That's already bad, but if I read correctly, Michael and Mona slept together while Rowan was abducted and repeatedly raped by the antagonist of the previous books, which makes the situation arguably WORSE. But that's not the worst part, oh no.

Mona is 13.

13.

AND EVERYBODY IN THE BOOK IS OKAY WITH THAT.

What the flying fuck ?! How am I supposed to care for a bunch of paedophile-approving assholes with such twisted morals!? Why are you guys encouraging this pregnancy!? I don't care how "mature" and "smart" Mona is and if she was consentant, that's still statutory rape !

It's to the point I'm starting to have some very concerning thoughts about Anne Rice as a person because, while I'm at it, other things in the books suddenly become suspicious. The nonhumans upon which the book is called, the eponymous Taltos, grow up to their adult size in a matter of hours and are immediately in the mood for some "action". And guess what ? Mona's daughter is a Taltos, and at the end of the book jumps litterally in the arms of a male Taltos we've been following the whole book, and it's pretty clear they're gonna fuck as soon as possible. A FEW DAYS OLD GIRL IS VERY STRONGLY IMPLIED TO HAVE SEX WITH A MILLENIA OLD GUY AT THE END, AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO SEE THIS AS A GOOD THING AS IT WILL ALLOW THEIR SPECIES TO RESTART. And come to think of it, wasn't there a bit in the movie adaptation of Interview With A Vampire in which two vampires, one of which is stuck in a little girl body because she got turned at a very young age, start to have some VERY questionnable attraction to each other ? Was that already in the book ? Because if that's the case, I'm getting EXTREMELY concerned.

Dear Lord, I need bleach after this debacle. I've never written so many things about a book before, and boy, I hope I'll never run into another one that will make me feel this unclean again.

Anyways, back to Clive Barker now, this time with Cabal. You know things are bad when reading a Barker story can be seen as a relief...

I recently read the Bone prequel story "Stupid, Stupid Rat-tails". Really enjoyed it despite the fact that I barely read the original Bone Comics.

Finished Cabal yesterday. It was pretty nice, but it seemed a bit... Rushed, I'd say ? There are so many questions left hanging about the Nightbreed and their world, and the book seems to end on a Sequel Hook, you have to wonder if Barker intended to explore the idea later but never got around it.

Since it was written rather early in his career, maybe he didn't have the experience yet to start writing more fleshed out stories ? I dunno, just throwing a few impressions here.

Now, I've started a SF anthology called Histoires de machines (Stories about machines). I actually like anthologies a lot. This one is part of a series of anthologies, each one dedicated to an aspect of science-fiction, like planets, aliens, mutants, robots... There are some well known names in it : Arthur C Clarke, Roger Zelazny, Clifford D Simak, Henry Kuttner and Catherine Moore...

Okay, finished the above mentionned anthology yesterday. Sure they were all old sci-fi stories from the 50's and the 60's (the anthology itself was published in 1975), but since they dealt with machines, very often, they were also talking about artificial intelligence, the way the authors of that time envisionned it. And the funniest part is that with some tweaks, some of them would still be relevant today.

I guess I'll just briefly sum up the stories :

• The available data on the Worp reactor, by Lion Miller : an extract of an article about a mentally challenged kid who somehow manages to create something extraordinary out of random junk he picked up.
• Star descending by Algis Budrys : two men run a small company which uses a machine that basically grants them omniscience. Problem is, when there's money to make, you can be sure you'll eventually face competition...
• A for anything, by Damon Knight : a scientist creates a machine that can duplicate any object, and decides to distribute it to random people in the United States. Of course, our civilization wasn't prepared for this.
• Escarmouche, by Clifford D Simak : the protagonist suddenly discovers that some house appliances gained sentience. This is already a problem as they become a lot less cooperative. The biggest problem, however, is that they didn't became sentient by themselves.
• Portrait of the artist, by Harry Harrison : a cartoonist loses his job when his boss buys a machine that can draw anything by itself, and even copy the style of renown artists. What a preposterous premise !
• The Ruum, by Arthur Porgess : a man scouting for uranium in the wilderness suddenly runs across a machine accidentally left behind by aliens millions of years ago, which purpose is to capture, paralyze and keep in suspended animation live specimens. To our protagonist's dismay, it decides to follow its programming and add him into its collection.
• Paradise II, by Robert Sheckley : two astronauts find an Earth-like planet, which inhabitants apparently all died simultaneously during a war. Before claiming it, they have to make sure there are no survivors. Their biggest interrogation, though, is the massive space station that orbits the planet, and seemed to still be operationnal, as if waiting to be used.
• The Twonky, by Henry Kuttner and C L Moore : a worker from the future accidentally end up in 1950's America and, in his time-travel-induced stupor, turns a standard radio into what he calls a "Twonky", before going back to his time. The radio is bought by a young couple. Good news : it's now an autonomous robot that will automatically do everything its programming deems "good" for its owners. Bad news : what people from the future consider "good" might not align with our ethics.
• Devil car, by Roger Zelazny : in a world where every car is equipped with advanced AI that basically gives them sentience, it was inevitable that some of them would rebel. A man searches for the car that killed his brother, using his own customized car.
• A jury of its peers, by Daniel Keyes : a rather unloved by his peers teacher accidentally reveals he created a self-thinking computer, which is unfortunate as he lives in a state which banned automation. With some convincing from a lawyer from a more lax state, the case goes in trial. The computer, however, has a plan of its own.
• Machine made, by James Mc Intosh : a simple minded cleaning lady works at a lab housing a powerful supercomputer, which fascinates her. The feeling's mutual.
• The poetry machine, by H Nearing Jr : a professor creates a computer which would write... Well, poetry. It ends up acting like every great poet in existence.
• A logic named Joe, by Murray Leinster : meet Joe, a logic, basically a bigass smartphone with AI, which is the cornerstone of the society in which the story takes place. It has an undetected default, that made it decide one day to better serve mankind by serving as a relay to a central database which allows it and all other logics to answer every question. Regardless of the ethics of said questions...
• Jungle substitute, by Brian W Aldiss : life in a completely automatized city, where extremely superstitious humans perform mindless jobs. I'll be honest, that's my least favorite of the bunch.
• The Answer, by Fredric Brown : a 2 page story about a bunch of people connecting together all the supercomputers spread across the galaxy. It's got a kickass Wham Line : "Yes, NOW there is a God."
• Limiting factor, by Clifford D Simak : a group of space explorers try to make sense of a machine that forms a gigantic shell encasing its planet, and for what purpose its builders made it before abandonning it.
• Inside the comet, by Arthur C Clarke : a spaceship, sent to analyze a comet that passes near Earth every two million years, sees its supercalculators break down, preventing its crew to plan their return trip to Earth. The situation is desperate, but one of the crew members suddenly has a very simple idea which might save them all.

Now, I'm moving to Shining in the Dark, another anthology, this one put together to commemorate the 20th anniversary of a Stephen King fansite.

One of the "I, Inquistor" books by Jacek Piekara. It is Polish dark fantasy series, I was surprised to see that it has its site: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheInquisitorCycle

Just finished: "A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith. The book catches a lot of shit from critics because it's not all "OMG YES WE SHOULD DO THIS RIGHT NOW" and lands pretty heavily on the Cynical side of Cynical vs Idealist, because Zach and Kelly have a rather dim view of humans in general (read Zach's webcomic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, f'rinstance).

About to finish: Katie Mack's "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)." Dr Mack has been my nerd crush for yonks and there's nothing in this book to change my mind about that. Discussions of Heat Death and The Big Rip should not elicit literal LOLs, dammit.

About to start: John Scalzi's "Starter Villain."

I’m currently reading Sailor Nothing to get some ideas for Princess: the Hopeful.

I also popped by the pages here for it, but… they're very barebones and empty. The character page is woefully incomplete and it's missing important characters like Cobalt, but I haven't finished it so I can't work on it.

That is a MAJOR surprise to me. That story back when I was introduced to TV Tropes was THE most entry pimped thing ever. I didnt dislike the attention it got but to see it so neglected now is a major surprise.

I just added a section for the Yamiko, and a folder for Cobalt. Unfortunately, the page is so old that I don't think I can rely on wiki magic, so I'll just have to keep updating it as I go through the story.

I tried reading Sailor Nothing once, but I didn't like it, and I couldn't get past the third chapter. I really don't know why it seems to be so highly regarded. I once put all my thoughts about it on a reddit post, but I don't feel like copy-pasting all of that. Oh well.

I'm currently reading a middle grade novel called Beautiful Blue World, and I think it's pretty interesting. I'm getting close to the end, though, but I only know this becuase of the page number; it still feels like the middle to me.

Finished Shining in the Dark the other day. An interesting anthology, for sure, but while it got presented as an horror anthology, it's actually pretty low on the scares.

So, just like last time, quick summary of each stories :

• The blue air compressor, by Stephen King : an almost lost story of his. A novelist moves to a small house near the sea, and starts to imagine a story about his 70-year overweight lodger. That eventually backfires. The story ain't much, but interestingly, at certain points, King breaks the fourth wall to comment on the story and give his thoughts about it.
• The net, by Jack Ketchum and P D Cacek : transcripts from the various D Ms that a man and a woman send to each other after meeting on a chat. But it eventually turns out that there's something (cat)fishy about the situation.
• The novel of the holocaust, by Stewart O'Nan : a holocaust survivor is invited to promote his book about his experience. On the way to the studio, he reminisces about what happened and the various little lies he had to make about his story to turn it into a better book, and how he hates himself over it. No supernatural elements, no horrible twist, just a look into the psyche of a man suffering from severe survivor guilt.
• Aeliana, by Bev Vincent : a feral shapeshifter, living in a dilapidated part of a big city, crosses paths with a policewoman who's on the hunt for a serial killer.
• Pidgin and Theresa, by Clive Barker : an angel descends to Earth and brings an old lonely man to Heaven so he could be canonized. However, in the rush of the moment, he accidentally turned the old man's parrot and turtle into humans. While there are some disturbing elements here and there, overall this is a surprisingly goofy and comedic story from Barker.
• An end to all things, by Brian Keene : every morning, a man sits near the lake in front of his house. Every morning, he wishes for the world to end, so his suffering can finally stop. I would call it the most tragic and depressing story of the book, if there wasn't The novel of the holocaust in it as well (see above).
• Cemetery Dance, by Richard Chizmar : in a cold, snowy night, a man wanders in a cemetery. For he has one final business to deal for his dead wife.
• Drawn to the flame, by Kevin Quigley : three young boys secretly go visit a fun fair, and on the advice of a weird clown, agree to test the "most frightening haunted house in the park". The fact that it's actually outside the fair, in complete darkness, is the first sign they made a very, very bad decision...
• The companion, by Ramsey Campbell : a man who loves visiting theme parks decides, after a few rounds in a modern one, to go pay a visit to an older one, not too far away. While it looks like some of its attractions are still being operated, looks can be deceiving.
• A mother's love, by Brian James Freeman : a man desperately needs to send his mother to a medicalized home, but unfortunately, there is no room left for her. As time passes, he decides to do the unthinkable to free his mother from her predicament.
• The keeper's companion, by John Ajvide Lindqvist : an insufferable kid with a very high opinion of himself gains some notoriety at his school by hosting particularly well-crafted tabletop RPG sessions. He soon discovers the Call of Cthlhu RPG, which perfectly suits his tastes. However, during a session where he got particularly involved, he suddenly realizes he caught the attention of something that now constantly stays near him, invisible and inaudible to anyone but himself.

I'm now midway through Terry Pratchett's and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. I really like it, even though I have trouble seeing how Gaiman contributed to it, as it is so Pratchettian.

Well, can you link us to your review? You can even PM me, but you DONT have to if you really dont want to.

I've just finished The Keeper of Night by Kylie Lee Baker, and even started a trope page about it. I liked it a lot, and I'll be reading the sequel soon enough.