I don't know what the heck to call this thread!

[Karl O'Neill]

Finished The Goshawk by T.H White and The Prince by Machiavelli.

[CaptainCanada]

The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

Oh yeah, 630 pages in less than three days...man, I don't have much to do right now.

Anyway, this is the fifth of Kay's novels that I've read (I think of it as the third, since I got the Fionavar trilogy in a single volume), and easily the best so far. It's different from the others in that while technically fantasy it's more or less modified historical fiction, with virtually no magic of any kind. In this case, rather like James Clavell (but in a much more extreme case), Kay has taken an historical setting (Al-Andalus in its twilight) and various historical personages (most obviously El Cid) and given them new names.

This is an interesting historical setting in its own right (David Levering Lewis' book on the subject is a personal favourite), and Kay's fictional version is quite convincing; there are times when the Jaddites/Kindath/Asharites are a little too obviously analoguous (particularly with Kindath), but mostly this works and adds resonance. He does quite a good job of giving the major players all a fair shake, which is a lot harder than it might appear (except, I note, the radical Jaddites; the radical Asharites get a few brief POV shots that make them seem rather plausibe, and further the theme of everyone trying to build something permanent). The story is a big platitude on religious toleration, though I do wonder if the idea (which is pretty ubiquitous these days; Kay is hardly the only one) that people motivated primarily by religious fanaticism are somehow worse than people who are willing to kill anyone to get a slightly bigger house. I kind of suspect it's just because modern westerners tend to be a lot closer to the latter mindset than the former.

I continue to be impressed by Kay's prose style, though he perhaps use the perspective trick on the audience a few too many times here. It's almost a flaw in the novel that he creates so many interesting side-characters who you could see being interesting to follow off-screen (Queen Ines, for instance).

[berk]

I just finished Robert Walser's The Tanners. I rarely laugh at loud while reading a book, years can go by without that happening, but this one elicited several outbursts. Yet I wouldn't call it a funny book, but more an extremely odd one. It's almost as if someone from another planet came down and tried to write what he thought would pass for a human novel after living amongst and observing us for awhile. I'm trying not to praise it too highly because I don't want to raise expectations to the point where they can't help but be disappointed. Anyway, this is the first Walser I've read and I'm hooked. Best and most amazing discovery I've made in a long time.

[atoningunifex]

I just finished reading all of Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth books. Okay, well, re-reading the first four and reading the latest (The Evolutionary Void). Enjoyed them muchly.

I also read I Love You Phillip Morris by Steve McVicker, which is an insanely fast read and was amusing.

I've just started The Dead Path by Stephen Irwin. I'm not completely pulled into it yet, but I'm getting there. The letters on the cover are glow-in-the-dark, which is cool.

[Libaax]

I read Ghosts in Swedish by Henrik Ibsen which was very subtle play with alot of critical social commentary on his times.

Also read Miss Julie by the Edgar Allan Poe of swedish lit August Strindberg. A popular but not hailed play by him and i saw clearly why. Shallow,not much of story. Good language,writing in the format,layout of the plays. The way he wrote about the scenes was fun.

[Karl O'Neill]

Have you read The Tao of Pooh and Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff? I picked it up a few years ago as I've always been curious about it since seeing it as one of the recommended reads in the back of an issue of Dennis O'Neil's The Question series & would highly recommend it myself.

Loved the Tao of Pooh. I think I have an entry for it in this thread somewhere.

Taoism (Pronounced Daoism) is fascinating.

[Roquefort Raider]

The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

(...)

Anyway, this is the fifth of Kay's novels that I've read (I think of it as the third, since I got the Fionavar trilogy in a single volume), and easily the best so far. It's different from the others in that while technically fantasy it's more or less modified historical fiction, with virtually no magic of any kind.

My favorite book by Kay as well. It has the epic sweep of A song of Ice and Fire without the superfluous side plots; and unlike most fantasy novels nowadays, it doesn't require you to read five to ten heavily padded books to get the whole story.

[CaptainCanada]

Though oddly, I could easily have read a second novel based around the contents of the last 50 pages or so.

[whiteshark]

Finished reading the Anthology of Horror Stories by Boris Karlof.
Quite a good selection of short horror stories.
One of the best anthology of horror stories i read.

And started reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell.

[Expletive Deleted]

... it doesn't require you to read five to ten heavily padded books to get the whole story.

Although, to be fair, he has written three (possibly four) other books set in the same world.

[Libaax]

Although, to be fair, he has written three (possibly four) other books set in the same world.

Same world is not the same series. Many writers write totally
books in the same world. Often even different series in the same world.

I hope he is as different fantasy as it is said. Lion of Al- Rassan sound very good.

[Expletive Deleted]

Same world is not the same series.

Of course. Lions of Al-Rassan, Sailing to Sarantium/Lord of Empires, Last Light of the Sun, and Under Heaven have no connection other than sharing the same world.

I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

[Roquefort Raider]

Why evolution is true, by Jerry Coyne.

There are many books on this subject nowadays, but Mr. Coyne's is rated very highly and I always welcome new material for my classes. The few passages I browsed were certainly well-written, and the figures looked very clear. Can't say much more about it yet, but it seems to be a nice blend of molecular biology, geology and paleontology. Cool stuff!

[berk]

Finished reading the Anthology of Horror Stories by Boris Karlof.
Quite a good selection of short horror stories.
One of the best anthology of horror stories i read.

What's the run down of the stories? I've been dipping into a Peter Haining anthology off and on over the last year, "Great British Tales of Horror," which covers the early Gothic period from 1765 to 1840. People like Byron, the Shelleys, Leigh Hunt, Sir Walter Scott, etc are in there as well as several names that were apparently big sellers at the time but that I never heard of, which is always interesting.

Finished The Goshawk by T.H White and The Prince by Machiavelli.

How's the T. H. White book? "The Once and Future King" is one of the great memories of my younger reading days, but I've never been able to get into anything else I've tried by White.

A translation of The secret of life by Paul McAuley, a sci-fi techno-thriller.

I had never heard of McAuley, which is somewhat strange given his talent and apparent success. I guess I've been out of the loop as far as modern SF is concerned for the past few years. This won't be the last book of his I read.

Since McAuley has a background as a biologist, he adds a lot of plausibility to his speculations. However, there are a few glitches that annoy me (as a fellow biologist and as a reader). Things like scientists calling each other by their family names... "Hey, Jones, look at this!" "What is it, Pierce"?... I've always known biologists to be either on a first name basis (even when they don't really know each other), or keeping to the "Dr. Jones" and "Dr, Pierce" level of formality... Things like James Watson's name not being John (although that may be a blunder by the translator, who botched the job in a few places)... Things like technology trying to be too descriptive, resulting in very dated things at times... because let's face it, some technologies move so fast that applying today's standards to what will happen 20 years from now is a risky business. In this case, the characters describe a 2026 DNA sequencing technology that's barely better than what was available in 2000, is far inferior to what we have in 2011, and will doubtless be ridiculously quaint in 2026. Better to leave a certain artistic blur around technical details and just focus on what results machines can provide (something the movie GATACA pulled out quite efficiently).

I also don't really care about writers trying to put forward some kind of agenda and not being consequent with it. Here, the message seems to be that reductionism is bad and that only holistic science is truly worthwhile. People like Richard Dawkins are made to sound like stubborn and myopic old farts. (Well, Dawkins is certainly stubborn, but myopic he is not and is more of a firebrand than an old fart. Feel free to add methane-related jokes here). Now all this would be par for course if the very character who articulates those views in the novel didn't write a convincing simulation of a desert ecosystem with only two lines of code. (That little bit was supposed to awe us with her programming prowess, but if it isn't reductionism I don't know what is).

Besides, no scientist ever argues that reductionism is the only way to go : it's not a philosophy, it's a tool. People having to change a flat tire are damn happy to be able to reduce the problem to "the tire is pierced and changing the wheel for the spare will allow us to resume traveling" rather than have to understand how every moving piece of the car relates to every other piece. Obviously, nobody thinks that knowing how to change a tire is all there is to automobile maintenance; but it's by learning how this piece works, how that piece works, where that tube connects and so forth, that we can understand how the whole thing runs.

Phew! End of rant. The book is still a darn good thriller, with an unknown life-form that may have come from Mars spreading on Earth.

I looked him up on wiki, he seems like a writer I'd like to give a try. First I ever heard of him. I'm falling way behind again on the current SF stuff I want to read, although I did manage to get to Iain Banks's next to last, Transition, a few weeks ago. Good book, I almost think it could have been one of his best, but it seemed a bit rushed at the end, and the various strands were never as cleverly intertwined as in, say, Feersum Endjinn. Perhaps that's a bit unfair, because FE is one of his very best, but the comparison comes to mind almost inevitably, because of the multiple narrators and story-lines. I'd still recommend it though.

Next up for me is Shelley's The Cenci.

[whiteshark]

What's the run down of the stories? I've been dipping into a Peter Haining anthology off and on over the last year, "Great British Tales of Horror," which covers the early Gothic period from 1765 to 1840. People like Byron, the Shelleys, Leigh Hunt, Sir Walter Scott, etc are in there as well as several names that were apparently big sellers at the time but that I never heard of, which is always interesting.

I thought generally speaking the stories in the book having a good quality.
Short horror stories tend to be a good read for me.

The stories are from writers of last century with the exception of a story by Edgar Alan Poe and H.P.Lovecraft.
Most of the stories are more "horror centred" have influences from H.P.Lovecraft and other ones from Edgar Alan Poe.

Thanks for the info in that Horror Anthology Book.