what are you reading?

[Rhythm]

I was reading At the Mountains of Madness by H.P Lovecraft but I'm close to giving up. Great story so far, I like the atmosphere, by his prose is terrible. 3 pages to describe a carving on a wall, his constant repetition (ALRIGHT! It looked like a Roerich painting, I GET IT!) - it's just exhausting. I'd love to see a heavily edited version.

Sacrilege!

Great story, would love to have read it in its intended form (a series of letters/articles in Astounding Stories)

[Tmuk]

I was reading At the Mountains of Madness by H.P Lovecraft but I'm close to giving up. Great story so far, I like the atmosphere, by his prose is terrible. 3 pages to describe a carving on a wall, his constant repetition (ALRIGHT! It looked like a Roerich painting, I GET IT!) - it's just exhausting. I'd love to see a heavily edited version.

Sacrilege!

I know! I really wanted to like it and I'm gutted that I don't. There are several other short stories in the book, maybe I should give one of them a go.

[mrsmr2]

I read it a long time ago. All I remember is the constant "and then I saw something that made my blood freeze", "it was something terrible", "I couldn't describe it", etc. Every few pages.

What was it, FFS?

Very tedious.

[Rhythm]

That's what I like about it. "The real horror is in what you don't see", that kind of thing :-)

[Dio]

I know! I really wanted to like it and I'm gutted that I don't. There are several other short stories in the book, maybe I should give one of them a go.

He's awful, isn't he? I gave it a go when I was 17 and gave up in disgust.

I've managed to read most of Lovecraft's stuff now, but it was only after so many years of buying books in airports just because they had a fighter plane or a nuclear explosion on the cover that my bad prose senses had been somewhat dulled.

[mrsmr2]

If there was something there that he later explains, I'd agree. But he thinks saying "it's too scary" over and over again is all he needs to do. It's intriguing the first couple of times, but downright irritating the other ten.

[F-ZeroOne]

Currently reading "Reamde", the latest Neal Stephenson. About 1/4 in and just seen what is probably going to go down as one of the all-time great fictional mission-going-to-hell-as-soon-as-it-starts scenes. They should get Ed Wright to direct the film version, because theres one moment in particular which would make a hell of a jump cut.

[Governmentyard]

Childhood's End, by 'ol Clarkey. Couple of chapters in, not sure I trust these overlord fellows.

[Viscount Charles]

Well in book 5

Spoiler: show

Tyrion has wandered around and now rides a pig. He's been underused and seems to be half the character he was

Daenerys has sat and done nothing but mope about in mereen. She has moved from veins determined character with ambition to a simpering person.

Jon snow has sat at the wall doing very little


Overall very little plot advancement has occurred, the characters have got much more back story but in places their characters have weakened.

Well,

Spoiler: show

by 90% of the way through the above turns out to be completely wide of the mark. I fell into the trap of forgetting the lessons of book one (don't assume that character X has a long-term future), and made the mistake of believing that I knew where one particular character was headed. Turns out I was very wrong.

[Mark]

Finally got around to reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, which was long but enjoyable, and very different to anything I've read before. This being my first Russian novel, I'm not sure how much of the rest of Russian literature involves conversations that span several chapters where many of the characters flip between states of either furious anger or fits of laughter with very little in the middle, but once I'd got used to the style I warmed to it, and after a slow first half I went through the rest at quite a lick.

After that I searched Gutenberg for something a little lighter, and settled for 3 Men in a Boat, which I'm about a quarter of the way into and am thoroughly enjoying so far.

[Molloy]

Ross O'Carroll Kelly - NAMA Mia.

Latest in a very long series. Sort of like Adrian Mole or Bridget Jones, but much funnier and written from the perspective of a spoilt, arrogant dickhead.

[Gorecki]

Sort of like...Bridget Jones...written from the perspective of a spoilt, arrogant dickhead.

So, very like Bridget Jones?

Currently reading On The Beach by Nevil Shute. Written in the late 1950's and set in the early 1960's after the entire northern hemisphere has been annihilated in a nuclear war fought between USA, Europe, China and Russia. The novel follows a bunch of south Australians as they patiently and calmly wait for the nuclear dust to drift down into the southern hemisphere and wipe them out too.

The stoicism and calmness with which they deal with the inevitable is really quite affecting and it's surprisingly light and readable given the subject matter.

I have a question though. Given that they've had at least six months warning wouldn't there be something of a dash on to go to the Antarctic, dig a really deep hole, throw down as much tinned/dried food as possible, some air/water purifiers, a handful of people and then seal the hole with lead? Given that they seem perfectly able to jaunt about in submarines for a month or two, wouldn't they be able to do the same thing for much longer under the Antarctic ice?

[zip accident]

wouldn't they be able to do the same thing for much longer under the Antarctic ice?

Or something. Greenhouses perhaps.

It wasn't true, he had to postulate dirtier bombs than were actually available, but everybody at the time thought it was true. It became a part of the political dogma that in a nuclear war every human would die. There may come a time when we can do that, but it isn't yet, if we can get a population going off this rock, it may never be true.

[funkstar]

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - Eliezer Yudkowsky. Nerdy fun.

Solar - Ian McEwan. Fantastic.

[Gorecki]

Solar - Ian McEwan. Fantastic.

Really? I'd always enjoyed Ian McEwan's work but Saturday was so interminable that I resolved to not bother with his new stuff unless it came highly recommended. But Solar seemed even more of a vanity project than Saturday and had some pretty ropey reviews.