• General

  • What have you read recently?

William Gibson - Burning Chrome. The first collection of short fiction I’ve read in years, and it was a great experience, especially after a thousand page continuing story like the Cicero Trilogy. Most of the stories are set in the Neuromancer-world, and all were written before it in the late 70s, early 80s, so Soviet Union exists in the 2000s in them still. One of the stories is set on a USSR space station. Fun.

    Homegrove Wondering if I should commit to this Cicero trilogy, how factual is it? Or is it mostly historical fiction?

        rhouses Harris said that the most unbelievable things actually happened, and lot of mundane stuff he made up. The dialogue is of course all made up, except for the senate speeches. A lot of them were written down, and survived the centuries.

          C_J This is a thread for books that you’ve read, CJ. If you want to comment on books you’ve just started reading, can I suggest you set up your own topic on the matter? Good day to you sir!

              C_J keen to get your opinion. I have enjoyed his books, but his last one ‘Lunar Park’ was terrible

              • C_J replied to this.
                  5 days later

                  Richard Chizmar - Chasing the Boogeyman. Never read a metafiction book before. This has been written like a true crime serial killer book, it even has photos of the crime locations and so forth in it. But apart from the author, his family and the locations it’s all made up. Like a Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon TV show. I liked it a lot. He’s written a trilogy with Stephen King, and it comes out in one edition (it’s called Gwendy) in two weeks. After reading this I ordered that, because he writes a lot like King (more so than Peter Straub did), so that might be great too.

                  • C_J replied to this.

                    Thought I would try a Stephen King as I haven’t read much of his stuff for ages. Picked ‘Revival’ as I liked the sound of it and the assertion, in reviews, that it had a really unsettling ending. It didn’t. Crap. 4/10

                      Along_the_Wire This is a thread for books that you’ve read, CJ. If you want to comment on books you’ve just started reading, can I suggest you set up your own topic on the matter? Good day to you sir!

                      Lol!

                        Millsy it certainly worked for me. I stared at a wall for 30 minutes after I finished that one. You might want to try Joe Hill’s Loaded for a real gut punch. It’s on his novella collection Strange Weather. There’s another one there too which ends in total hopelessness. His stuff makes his father’s seem totally optimistic.

                            Homegrove felt it was a bit Hammer horror all the way through and the ant people thing was bollocks. I’ve got Billy Summer in a drawer to read at some point. But on to Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree next.

                                Millsy Billy Summer

                                Stephen King horror is comically bad since about 1994 - Bill Summer isn’t a horror and I really enjoyed it - superbly written.

                                  11 days later

                                  The Shards was absolutely amazing.

                                  If you like 80s nostalgia with some true crime and a LOT of hardcore gay sex thrown in I’d highly recommend it.

                                  5/5

                                  Heat 2. Neither shits on or does anything to improve the movie / justify the sequel. Couple of decent action sequences and it’s nice hanging with and reading the characters in the voices of the movie cast - Pacino most of all for obv reasons - with the same dialect and tone but it’s not really got much to say (heat is about being a professional and the costs / toxicity of taking it too far & what happens when you break your professional code) - and overall it borrows too heavily from the first one with the Waingrow ripoff. Canny uneven book too. Some parts drag like fuck. Some parts are unputdownable. 7/10

                                  6 days later

                                  William Gibson & Bruce Sterling - The Difference Engine. A steampunk-novel set in 1855 where the computer has been invented in Great Britain a century before. Nice ideas and alternative history, but the plot goes all over the place, and at 380 pages it’s way too long for it. Total lack of focus too. Would not recommend it.

                                  Jules72 Anyone read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow? I’m a fifth way through and it’s a great read so far…. About a couple of games programmers (male and female) and their relationship…. It won a number of awards (Amazon book of the year, Goodreads fiction prize 2022) - must have done so for a reason I guess! One of those books I look forward to reading in bed before sleep….

                                  I’m about halfway through and so far I’d say it was alright but definitely not great 😒