I’ve been quiet as I had stalled. I’ve been greatly enjoying Scar Night by Alex Campbell and Cell by Stephen King. But both have been read slowly page-by-page one at a time and both have reached the 100 page mark or there abouts. It’s nothing to do with them as stories. It’s more me as a reader.
I’m now slowly pushing forward with Scar Night by sticking my ipod in my ears at lunch instead of listening to my lovely colleagues gossip whilst in work also I’ve been trying to read if I arrive early.
Though it looks like a lot of people read on their breaks and at lunchtime (when it’s not worth fighting your way out of the building as there really isn’t anywhere to go before having to rush back). Most of the reading material is popular fiction with a couple of more student friendly titles so at least I don’t look too out of place by taking to a good book instead. Does anyone else notice a lot of colleagues reading?
Anyway as I’ve not been reading much, books or blogs I’ve been a little quiet, which doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been things to comment on as there has. For a start April has a large and varied selection of books out as there has been a lot of buzz. I’m hoping to get a good look at Aprils releases at the weekend. I’ve got a good page long list of titles in my notebook all waiting for comment. Then there is lots of blogs posts to read. Here are some highlights:
Orbit has a couple of pieces of Jim Butcher news. Firstly, we have Small Favour, the latest in the amazingly popular Dresden Files. It’s also Butcher’s first hardback release. Quite exciting, apart from that fact that I still haven’t read Book Three so I’m getting further behind! Orbit have also picked up his Codex Alera sequence in a four-book deal. There is also a nice quote from commissioning editor Bella Pagan,
‘We are really delighted to be publishing Jim Butcher’s fabulous Codex Alera sequence. After the huge popularity of Jim’s ongoing Dresden Files series, it is exciting to have a new direction to offer fans. With its fast pace, fine world-building and compulsive plot twists, this more traditional fantasy series will also attract an army of new enthusiasts.
It’ll be interesting to see how he handles fantasy, though I’ll have to wait until summer 2009 to find out.
The SF Signal, always a great treasure-trove of stuff, has a list of the Locus Award 2008 Finalists. I’ve read Un Lun Dun by China Mieville and have a proof of Halting State by Charles Stross, which has been getting dust on my shelf for far too long, as well as a copy of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. So that’s three in the house and one read. I’m not very good at these award winners.
The next few likes are mostly thanks to SF Signal:
Kate Elliot, a name I’ll come back to later has a brilliant manifesto for fiction writers: Don’t Bore Me. I’d add Get on with it! Tell me what I need to know but no more.
Will Wheaton isn’t writing. But he does link to Neil Gaiman who has some comment on JK Rowling’s court case amongst other things including:
Genre fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on.
I gotta agree with the above. If you take characters like Constantine, Felix Castor and Harry Dresden. They come from a similar sphere being male, magical in their way and detectives of sorts. But they’re brought to life by their writers. And I’d happily read all of them without comparing them any more than that. Take all the vampire books. Each of them has a unique take even if they are working from a very familiar if oversaturated source.
SF Signal reminds me that I’m still to read anything by Ursula K. LeGuin with a review of The Lathe of Heaven.
They also raise A Dilemma: Books I Can’t Finish Reading followed by A Few I Couldn’t Finish. I don’t always publicly announce or denounce the books that I haven’t finished. Mostly it’s because I can’t think of anything to say apart from didn’t work for me, which isn’t really helpful. Is it?
More links:
Back to Kate Elliot, who has been interviewed by the Fantasy Book Critic.
Upsetting writers isn’t something I consider when I review something so it’s interesting to see a writers reaction to a review. The reason that I don’t tend to worry is that I try to balance a review and stick to the text and my thoughts and feelings on it rather than the author, unless they’re big enough to look after themselves, Patricia I mean you ;).
Orbit Books has some stats. The one bit that made me smile was the fact that the sci-fantasy market had grown 18% so far this year. So it’s great that people are still finding time for a good book.
I’m not even half the way down a very long list of things to read but that’ll keep you going for now. Oh and I have had some books in the post so exciting things to mention soon!
I must admit that at the moment this looks like it could be my literary book of the year. It might be the only literary book I’ve read so far, I could be wrong about that, but it’s going to be hard to beat.
For such a small novel at 291 pages it feels at the moment more like an extended short story. Our hero wakes up with no memory of how he got to where he is and we follow as he tries to unravel how he got to where he is and what he needs to do next