I reread Dune, and the read Dune Messiah for the first time in preparation for Villeneuve’s Dune Part 2. Messiah was a sort of an epilogue to the story of Paul Artreides, set 12 years after Dune. You can see how it influenced George RR Martin with the Game of Thrones-books. It was 300 pages of people scheming and plotting against each other with no action, and exactly one worm.
What have you read recently?
Blake Crouch - Dark Matter. It’s been made for Apple TV+, premiering in May, and starring Joel Edgerton with Jennifer Connelly. A multiverse scifi, with a lot of WTF moments, and will probably make a very entertaining TV show, because it was plotted very well. But the writing was pretty bad. I’d compare it to DaVinci-code in terms of the language. That was the book I was most reminded of when reading this.
I just finished Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane. Probably not his best and takes a while to get going but worth it when it does.
4.5 / 5
Also finally got round to Infinte Ground by Martin MacInnes - super weird
2 / 5
Been reading James Clavell - Tai Pan (pt 2 of the Asian saga after Shogun) for about 3 months now. It’s literally 6 books combined into one monster book. Epic doesn’t do it justice. Not as good as Shogun so far but still excellent.
Still, when you consider that after 40 ish years old, you’ve only got about 4 or 5 hundred books left before you pop your cloggs, should you really be nuking a noticeably large amount of that for one book.
Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Entertaining.
This is the first book I’ve completed reading since February of last year. My reading mojo declined heavily.
Jo Nesbø - Killing Moon
The usual lengthy, hard-boiled Harry Hole caper: drugs, sex, murder, booze, regret.
Quite good, though, when it gets going.
JonQPublik I loved Shades of Grey, and like you want that sequel
Jon, have you gotten into Red Side Story yet?
Amps I haven’t. I still need to buy it too.
Skagboys by Irvine Welsh.
First half excellent and the Sick Boy/Maria story is the darkest thing I’ve read in a long time.
Second half shite.
JonQPublik It’s defo worth it, but be warned, I think it’s the last in the series, rather than the trilogy we were promised.
Operation Chastise (The Dam Busters)
Incredible war time story, Barnes Wallis was some inventor
Amps I just discovered I have to wait until May 7 for RSS
Finised Tai Pan last night. 4 and a half months. Fucking hell. Bought the next one in the saga (‘Gai Jin’) but it’ll be a while before I pick it up.
JonQPublik Worth the wait!