TSF Book Club
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The old book club has been a bit slow recently.
Thought I would add in the 'Spy' series of books by Mick Herron. A bit hard to describe in many ways. Characters like a Stuart MacBride novel mixed with a bit of Le Carre.
The whole premise sets up some great possibilities. Basically a bunch of fuckups from MI5 that seem to attract the trouble they have been hidden away from.
Definitely start a the first book to get best effect.
Would make a great TV show. -
Peter F Hamilton has a new book out shortly - will be all over that!
I recently read Darien: Empire of Salt by Conn Iggulden. I really enjoyed his Caesar and Ghengis series, this isn't based on actual history (although it talks a bit about 'old earth').
A good read, keen to get the second book in the series now!
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Seveneves
Neal Stephenson loves him a technical discussion, as anyone who had read Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle would know. Here, it is no different.
Its modern day, at a point where something fucks the moon up into a few big chunks. People are initially curious, then slightly terrified, as various scientists project that the moon will break into more and more pieces, eventually fucking the Earth up. So they need an escape plan.
Its a concerning read to start with, when you understand that we're pretty vulnerable as a 1-planet species. Companies like SpaceX give me hope that we can at least get off the planet, but jeez there are a shitload of challenges to face once that is done.
I won't spoil it but eventually there is light at the end of the tunnel. You'll no doubt discover this upon reading, when you realise the present-day aspects of the book finish about two-thirds in, and therefore provide far more in terms of story.
4 out of 5 extremely long technical explanations.
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I finished the two-parter biography on Sinatra by James Kaplan, supposedly authoritative and critically praised.
The first part “The Voice” (2010) was about 500 pages and detailed his rise to fame, his downward trajectory, and then ended when he won an Academy Award for Best Support Actor in “From Here to Eternity.”
The second part “The Chairman” (2015) is 900 pages and continues with the Greatest Comeback In Show-Biz history until his death.
I’d recommend it for only two reasons: 1) It tells the story chronologically; and 2) it appears to support & confirm everything that Kitty Kelley wrote in her infamous and condemned bio from a couple decades ago.
And there’s the rub. If you want to know about his numerous connections to the mob and how he was scoring hookers for Jack Kennedy and how much of a raving bi-polar psychopathic lunatic Frank Sinatra was, I’d save a thousand pages and go straight to the Kitty Kelley version. It’s not chronological, but all the good dirt is there. Legend!
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@Mokey Is this writing as good as I think it is? Surely must be a finalist for the Man Booker prize
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@stockcar86 Lots of women have been having fun with this. The task was to describe themselves the way a male writer would, and male writers always have female characters thinking about their tits in the oddest of ways.
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@mokey said in TSF Book Club:
@stockcar86 Lots of women have been having fun with this. The task was to describe themselves the way a male writer would, and male writers always
have female charactersthinkingabouttheirtitsin the oddest of ways.That's why.
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Seems like the Slow, Fat Bastard hasn't been completely sitting on his hands and he's going to have a book out before Christmas - it just won't be the one I'm waiting for.
He's going to be 70 later this year - "Witless is coming"!
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@chris-b said in TSF Book Club:
Seems like the Slow, Fat Bastard hasn't been completely sitting on his hands and he's going to have a book out before Christmas - it just won't be the one I'm waiting for.
He's going to be 70 later this year - "Witless is coming"!
It'll be another Robert Jordan, hopefully he had copious notes to hand over to his successor!
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@machpants Having the TV series made and the story basically told is going to provide even less motivation for him to finish.
I'm sure he's got the best of intentions, but I'd say underlying that is that he basically can't be fucked finishing. And it's only going to get harder.
Since he's worth $65 million+ he should just hire a ghost-writing team to do the donkey-work and play around with a bit of editing himself at the end.
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@sammyc said in TSF Book Club:
Recently discovered Sven Hassel, bought 10 of his books off trade me for around $2 each.
Can anyone reccommend any similar stuff? I'm addicted.
I read those in my teen years back in the day. Easy to read, great stories
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@sammyc said in TSF Book Club:
Recently discovered Sven Hassel, bought 10 of his books off trade me for around $2 each.
Can anyone reccommend any similar stuff? I'm addicted.
The forgotten soldier by Guy Sajer. Similar but more likely to be a true story than Sven Hassels books.. Btw they made a movie of one of his early books which is pretty decent. The legionnaire in particular was well cast.
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Finally read C.K. Stead's Smiths Dream. Rather good!
Writes well and with effective style, without trying to sound like someone else. Enjoyed some of the Auckland region references, and
Muldoon'sVolkner's rant about "people who think they're too good for NZ wine".Any recommendations from the rest of his work?
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Fire and Blood
