If you like it, I would reccomend Zodiac.
None of his others compares IMO.
For other authors with a similar 'feel':
Spares - Michael marshall Smith
Vurt - Jeff Noon
Enjoying Snow Crash a lot so far.
I read Vurt years ago - my memory's terrible so I can't remember too much about it, tbh. I've added Spares to my Amazon wishlist though - I'd not heard of it before, but it sounds right up my street judging by the overview and customer reviews. Ta v. much.
I found Spares to be utterly awful. It has a fantastic premise (humans bred for the sole purpose of organ donation) that it manages to completely abandon by the half way mark in favour of some god-awful dribble about a war fought in a half-dimension. All of which is revealed in the most infuriating drip-feed manner possible. Only Forward by the same author is a much better book even though it still succumbs to over-done psychedelia towards the end.
Jeff Noon is great, although I'd rate Needle In the Groove and Falling Out of Cars as not only his best but two of the finest books I've ever read.
The true story of a savant, with an amazing ability to calculate numbers (like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man) and learn languages (he learnt Icelandic in a week, then went on a chat show to prove his skill). The most intriguing thing is that Daniel also has synasthaesia, where the senses overlap and combine - so he "sees" numbers as shapes and letters as colours. Fascinating.
Masterfully pitched account of the murder of the Clutter family at their farmhouse in wilds of Kansas back in the 1950s. All the more remarkable, and horrific, for its level of detail and the portrayal of the warped humanity of the killers, Perry and Hickock.
What's more, the book as a whole provides a fascinating account, through the story of the crime, of the destruction of the american dream.
As a break from my recent Neal Asher overload, I'm currently reading "Debatable Space", by Philip Palmer . Its a rather strange book. In fact, one could say its two books loosely connected, rather like how Terry Pratchett spoke about Reaper Man in hindsight. On the one hand, its a wide-screen space opera of the broadest scope, full of anti-matter bombs and space pirates and intelligent flames and Dyson habitats, painted on a scale which would make even E.E. "Doc" Smith go "I say, steady on, theres a good fellow".
On the other hand, its also about a rather sad, lonely woman who has a very awkward relationship with her son.
The bits in-between are filled in with lashings of occasionally somewhat icky hanky-panky.
I have a suspicion about this book. I think its some sort of probe. Allow me to explain.
As we all know, there is no science-fiction in "proper" literature. Very occasionally, a title of sufficient quality appears and slips through the defences by being immediately proclaimed as not SF because its too good. Eventually, after about thirty years or so. the weight of denial builds up to such a critical state that even the author finds themselves sitting in front of the cameras on the Late Review explaining just how they got the idea for a book about the lives of a colony of talking space squids living on a helical planet orbiting a neutron star whilst also pointing out at every opportunity that its not SF but a metaphor for the modern condition of potato farmers in Antarctica.
Debatable Space might be an attempt to travel in the other direction - a work of modern literature cunningly cloaked in a shell of SF designed to infiltrate the bastions of intelligent space barnacles for purposes unknown. Possibly its looking for the potato farmers.
I could be wrong. Just remember, though, if you see Philip Palmer being interviewed on the Culture Show about his time spent exploring the "SF Ghetto", you heard it here first.
F-ZeroOne wrote:As a break from my recent Neal Asher overload, I'm currently reading "Debatable Space", by Philip Palmer . Its a rather strange book. In fact, one could say its two books loosely connected, rather like how Terry Pratchett spoke about Reaper Man in hindsight. On the one hand, its a wide-screen space opera of the broadest scope, full of anti-matter bombs and space pirates and intelligent flames and Dyson habitats, painted on a scale which would make even E.E. "Doc" Smith go "I say, steady on, theres a good fellow".
On the other hand, its also about a rather sad, lonely woman who has a very awkward relationship with her son.
The bits in-between are filled in with lashings of occasionally somewhat icky hanky-panky.
I have a suspicion about this book. I think its some sort of probe. Allow me to explain.
As we all know, there is no science-fiction in "proper" literature. Very occasionally, a title of sufficient quality appears and slips through the defences by being immediately proclaimed as not SF because its too good. Eventually, after about thirty years or so. the weight of denial builds up to such a critical state that even the author finds themselves sitting in front of the cameras on the Late Review explaining just how they got the idea for a book about the lives of a colony of talking space squids living on a helical planet orbiting a neutron star whilst also pointing out at every opportunity that its not SF but a metaphor for the modern condition of potato farmers in Antarctica.
Debatable Space might be an attempt to travel in the other direction - a work of modern literature cunningly cloaked in a shell of SF designed to infiltrate the bastions of intelligent space barnacles for purposes unknown. Possibly its looking for the potato farmers.
I could be wrong. Just remember, though, if you see Philip Palmer being interviewed on the Culture Show about his time spent exploring the "SF Ghetto", you heard it here first.
Where does that leave Banks?
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
Crap. Having read some of the "Extras" at the back of the book, it seems that Philip Palmer is indeed the real deal. Anyone who begins with a quote from "Ringworld" can't possibly be a pretender.
However, I still say give it thirty years and an interview on The South Bank Show...
I started Neal Stephenson's Anathem today. Only read 50 pages but my brain hurts, too many made up words that don't let you click with the rythm.
I'll give it 100 pages more before I decide if I'll go on.
I read 'Debatable Space' early last year. Thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the whole aura of mystery surrounding the shell-protected area that gives the book its' name.
As I read it, I thought of Banks. But Palmer takes a different approach to the problems of adventuring through huge volumes of space; and his solution is sufficiently different to appeal. Also, his bad guys are nastier. And smaller.
I just started reading it today. What an odd little book. Likeing it a lot though to the point where I'm annoyed there isn't anything else by the author to read when I'm done.
HGFB wrote:I've been tempted by that book for a while now and your E.E. Doc Smith comment just sold the author another copy Shame there's no ebook version.
It always worries me when people do this, I half expect them to turn up on my doorstep and ask for a refund if they didn't like it.
It is an odd little book, true - the author is (now!) a confirmed SF person, and theres plenty of SF in it, but half of it reads a bit like - well, the only thing I can compare to is I read a Stephen Fry novel once which involved journeying between parallel worlds. But it didn't start like that was a possibility, and neither did it feel "SF". Hence my early confusion.
Forgot to report that I loved Debatable Space. Then I read three Star Trek books on my Sony and I've now started to reread Terry Brooks Landover series for the first time in years. I'd forgotten how much I liked it. This series reminds me a lot of Robert Asprin's Phule's Company and Myth-Inc books. The plot throws lots of almost insolvable problems at the heroes who proceed to solve them with brains and ingenuity.
