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Post by The Doctor on Jul 5, 2024 13:36:33 GMT
STATION ELEVEN: Emily St John Mandel. Hmmm. Not sure what to think about this. Starts well then meanders before getting quite gripping and then it just randomly stops for no apparent reason.
I was a bit irked about the 'points for discussion' that followed. Er, maybe finish the novel?
It's very well plotted indeed and the prose is very smooth. I'm just not sure if it's good or pretentious. Will have to think on it.
-Ralph
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 5, 2024 16:20:11 GMT
I read it a few years ago. It was fine, but never as good as it or others thought it was. A frustrating read which had nothing to do with helping the story.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 5, 2024 16:22:45 GMT
The more I think about it the more it is starting to annoy me. It just...stops. I was getting back into it and was surprised to turn the page and realise the book had ended.
-Ralph
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Post by Sidero on Jul 5, 2024 19:42:04 GMT
I am once again reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds, and I am once again reminded why it's one of my favourite sci-fi novels ever.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 12, 2024 9:59:27 GMT
Heat 2: Michael Mann & Meg Gardner. The world did not need a sequel to the film 'Heat'...but this is surpringly good. Very atmospheric. You feel you are there and I did cheer when a villain got chucked off a roof.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 21, 2024 20:37:23 GMT
I've never read Peter F Hamilton before. The fight does not go well.
SALVATION: the story the back cover promises does not start until around page 500. The novel is 526 pages long.
SALVATION LOST: veers wildly between clever ideas and being quite juvenile. Not finished yet. I just want everyone to die.
The third book in the series also out from the library so I will power through. I've come this far.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 21, 2024 20:40:03 GMT
God I wish I could read as fast as you.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 21, 2024 20:42:32 GMT
I also recently read a Doctor Who tie-in (The Good Doctor). Good premise and starts well but quickly becomes very generic and dull.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Jul 22, 2024 20:23:40 GMT
I've never read Peter F Hamilton before. The fight does not go well. SALVATION: the story the back cover promises does not start until around page 500. The novel is 526 pages long. SALVATION LOST: veers wildly between clever ideas and being quite juvenile. Not finished yet. I just want everyone to die. The third book in the series also out from the library so I will power through. I've come this far. -Ralph I find Hamilton quite variable as a writer. I thought his Greg Mandel novels were ok - near-future thrillers set in a post-Conservative dictatorship England. His Space Opera series starting with The Reality Dysfunction was odd but entertaining - if a little too long. I haven't read any of his output since the Commonwealth Trilogy however. I finished The Temporal Void, and started The Evolutionary Void, but I bogged down hard at the start of the latter and just walked away under the "life is too short to read bad books" protocol. Karl |
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 23, 2024 21:42:19 GMT
Book two finished. Er, this is just one novel published in three chunks, isn't it?
On book three. I may as well see how it ends.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 24, 2024 9:02:27 GMT
Right, that's it. That's it. I'm reading books on 1.5x speed now as well as listening to podcasts like that.
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Jul 24, 2024 9:59:53 GMT
I haven't read anything by Hamilton since the trilogy that started with The Reality Dysfunction 25-odd years ago. There's some very memorable SF-horror moments and interesting ideas in those books that have really stayed with me, but I never felt it really came together in a satisfying way plot-wise, especially the conclusion, which is a bit disappointing when you're talking about three 1000+ page doorstops.
So I never bothered reading anything else by him.
I've got into Adrian Tchaikovsky in recent years, who I think writes kind of like I wished Hamilton wrote. His plotting is much more satisfying. Total page-turners for me.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 24, 2024 16:03:08 GMT
Right, that's it. That's it. I'm reading books on 1.5x speed now as well as listening to podcasts like that. I'm only on page 130/510 of book 3. -Ralph |
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 24, 2024 19:01:15 GMT
Yes but that's since yesterday!
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 26, 2024 10:15:47 GMT
I'm only on page 223. Not had much time for reading.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 26, 2024 22:43:19 GMT
Finished now.
Oh look, it sets up a potential 4th book without properly ending. Blatant sequel baiting rather than wrapping up the story
The series has good ideas and some bits are quite good but overall very padded and doesn't have a satisfying conclusion
Oh well. I shall return them to the library tomorrow and I can cross Peter F Hamilton off my list of 'writers to try at some point'.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 29, 2024 22:30:05 GMT
208 pages into THE MINISTRY OF TIME and the author is really trying my patience.
One of those books where you can tell the author thinks they are really clever but the reader clocked early on that this is a short story stretched out by pretension.
And no, smoking is not cool. It's 2024 FFS.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 30, 2024 16:31:12 GMT
Well. That was UTTER SHITE. Overhyped pish.
Just another couple of novels to go to clear my pile.
-Ralph
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Jul 30, 2024 19:02:08 GMT
I appear to have three books on the go at once currently. I am usually very much a one book at a time person especially given my lack of reading time these days.
One book on the Middle East at the time of the invasion by the Mongols, one on youth ministry and science and an audiobook of Philip Ball's new book 'How Life Works' which I cannot recommend enough. A third of the way through and it also interesting but will also change how I talk about biology and genetics etc as part of my work.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 1, 2024 9:35:54 GMT
Currently 60 pages into REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt and it's delightful. The octopus interludes are a hoot.
-Ralph
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Aug 1, 2024 17:18:55 GMT
I saw that in a shop the other day and it sounded fun.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 1, 2024 19:02:41 GMT
It is. I am taking my time with it as the prose is so nice.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 6, 2024 21:02:23 GMT
Erasure by Percival Everett. Clever, but I think I prefer the film adaptation ('American Fiction').
-Ralph
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Post by Benn on Sept 16, 2024 20:13:09 GMT
Saw that Fobidden Planet had the first two Robotech collections for cheapness, so thought I'd give them a go. They are not great. Not sure who decided we needed a 'gritty' do-over of Robotech, but they were sadly wrong. And the artist doesn't really seem to have nailed the feel of the characters, which keeps throwing me off.
Probably not coming back for Vol. 3.
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Post by KnightBeat on Sept 16, 2024 21:07:33 GMT
I had a similar moment of weakness in FP. I'm not overly familiar with Robotech and didn't get much out of Vol 1 and 2. Wish I had bought one of the Doctor Who paperbacks instead (of which there are millions).
I've just finished reading The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning. It's a great homage to the puppet movies of the 1980s that can be read in just a few days.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 21, 2024 19:31:17 GMT
I'm working my way through The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I got sucked into it when my local bookshop had two nice matching blue hardcover editions of Book 1 Part 1 and Book 1 Part 2 (The Way of Kings). Finding them an engrossing read, I obtained Book 2 Part 1 and Book 3 Part 2 in the same hardcover series, but Book 2 Part 2 and Book 3 Part 1 proved harder to find, despite all these hardcover editions being printed in the same year (2022). I have tracked them down, however, though it seems Book 2 Part 2 had a printing error (essentially the cover has been attached upside down), so presumably most copies of it were destroyed rather than sold. It looks fine alongside the other five volumes on the shelf, but it will look like I'm holding it upside down when I read it. Oh well!
Finished The Way of Kings, and now starting Book 2 (Words of Radiance).
Time will tell whether I can find the hardcover editions of Book 4 Parts 1 and 2. If not I'll be switching to reading the paperbacks when I get to that point in the series.
Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 22, 2024 10:27:08 GMT
I was challenged to read 25 books over the summer by Mrs Ralph and made it with 3 days to spare before the deadline. I am now taking a short break from books.
-Ralph
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Sept 22, 2024 16:46:33 GMT
Well done, Ralph.
What was your favourite? And least favourite?
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Post by The Doctor on Sept 22, 2024 17:02:13 GMT
Least favourite was a poorly argued pile of shite about reality. The novel 'Remarkably Bright Creatures' was just lovely.
-Ralph
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Oct 17, 2024 13:57:23 GMT
A bit behind some of you here I just finished Patrick Stewart's autobiography, a birthday present from my daughter. Really lovely book. I haven't read a huge number of autobiographies, but I would put this among my favourites.
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