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Post by Applelight Limited on May 26, 2014 19:08:05 GMT
I'm done with Uni and now I want to return to leisurely reading. Right now I'm about to read Terry Prachett's Guards! Guards! Does anyone have any other recommendations?
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Post by Mezzaphor on May 26, 2014 21:50:41 GMT
Last book I read was Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny. Weird, post-apocalyptic, religious SF story. Of course, I'm a PKD fan in general.
Currently working through The Eternal Husband and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Pavear & Volokhonsky's translation). Interesting psychological studies in a size that's easier to digest than one of his doorstopper novels. Though I do think I prefer the novels because the increased length allows greater depth.
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Post by Applelight Limited on May 30, 2014 16:24:06 GMT
Last book I read was Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny. Weird, post-apocalyptic, religious SF story. Of course, I'm a PKD fan in general. Currently working through The Eternal Husband and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Pavear & Volokhonsky's translation). Interesting psychological studies in a size that's easier to digest than one of his doorstopper novels. Though I do think I prefer the novels because the increased length allows greater depth. How's your reading going meta?
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 2, 2014 2:07:13 GMT
Busy enough I haven't been making much progress. You want more information about those books, though? Too bad!
Deus Irae strikes me as half of a pair, with Dick's Dr Bloodmoney, or, How We Got Along After the Bomb being the other half. Both novels share a bunch of elements, but run in very different directions with them. Both involve society slowly, slowly rebuilding in the aftermath of an apocalyptic war. Both feature an armless, limbless man as a major character: in Bloodmoney, he grows more powerful and villainous with time, but in Irae he's a protagonist and a decent fellow. Both feature a war scientist with literally godlike powers who plays a major role in the apocalypse: in Bloodmoney, he's ashamed and terrified of what he's done, and doesn't seem to have any control over his reality-warping, but in Irae, he hates humanity and is (rightly) regarded as a God of evil.
Dick frequently reuses ideas in his novels that he tested out in his short stories, and that's no exception here. In this case, killer supercomputer The Great C (from the short story of the same name) reappears to terrorize the post-apocalypse. I really did not expect that crossover to happen. While the original short story had a depressing end, her (she's a female supercomputer now, even though she was male or neuter in the short story) appearance in this novel puts something of a hopeful spin. She's clearly feeling the effects of age and lack of maintenance; her days are numbered.
Also, it's rather funny that, at two different points, the plot gets weird, even by the setting's already-weird standards. The protagonists suddenly find help from fairy-tale style plot twists, impossibly contrived coincidences, and a ludicrously competent ally who shows up from nowhere. Except all of these turn out to be the effects of divine (well, demi-urge at least) intervention, and they just serve to screw with the protagonists in the long run.
The Dostoevsky short stories are mostly character studies with a very understated sense of dark humor. "A Nasty Anecdote" is about nobless oblige and how something done with the best of intentions can backfire if you don't think it through all the way. An upper-class character has a bit too much to drink one night, and decides on a whim to show up, uninvited, to his employee's wedding party. (He fancies himself an ally of the lower classes, and thinks that he's doing a favor by making an appearance at the party.) It goes even worse than you'd expect.
"The Eternal Husband" involves one Velchaninov having a chance run-in with Pavel Pavlovich, an old friend whose wife he had an affair with years ago. The wife is dead now, and Pavlovich knows that she cheated on him. So the story becomes a weird cat-and-mouse, with Velchaninov trying to find out if Pavlovich suspects him, while constantly worrying about saying too much and implicating himself. In this regard, it reminds me of a stripped-down version of Crime and Punishment, except Velchaninov somehow comes across less sympathetically than Raskolnikov ever did—because, unlike Rask, Velchaninov doesn't seek any redemption for his wrongdoing, and never seems to grasp that he did anything wrong in the first place. The final reveal turns the central tragedy of the story into a very ironic one, but it's done so subtly that I didn't even realize it until several days later.
The central premise of "Bobok" is that the dead regain consciousness in their graves, and can interact with those around them in the cemetery for weeks or months before they move on to whatever awaits them in the hereafter. What do the dead do when they realize they've been given a second chance to prepare their souls for eternity? Waste it, of course. I'm reminded of The Great Divorce in that regard.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Jun 3, 2014 17:10:21 GMT
They sound fascinating. I'd like to call myself a PKD fan too but the only book of his I read was Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (a. k. a., blade runner) which I enjoyed a lot. And I've never read any Dostoevsky to my shame. I must rectify that. I was interested too in a book my friend recently picked up, the novel You by Austin Grossman. I'm waiting on what his verdict is on that. Whilst out with him at Waterstones when he got it, I saw another book, The Clown Service, that got my interest. It's on my to read list.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 5, 2014 3:17:21 GMT
If you do look into Dostoevsky, I definitely recommend Pavear & Volokhonsky's translations. I tried to read Constance Garnett's translation of The Brothers Karamazov and couldn't make it past the first few chapters. (This was after I had read an enjoyed Crime and Punishment, mind.) I tried again with P&V's version, and got through the whole thing. Their translations just have a lot of energy, even when Dostoevsky is just writing a conversation or an internal monologue.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was a great novel. It's interesting how the plot of that and Blade Runner are so wildly different (and in some points, like the morality of killing androids, directly opposites) but ultimately both of them are about how important empathy is.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jun 5, 2014 3:54:13 GMT
In semi-related news, I'm finally attempting to read Game of Thrones. It's quite interesting this far, although the fan is more or less crap-free at this point. Tyrion is awesome, as is Arya.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Jun 5, 2014 14:29:52 GMT
If you do look into Dostoevsky, I definitely recommend Pavear & Volokhonsky's translations. I tried to read Constance Garnett's translation of The Brothers Karamazov and couldn't make it past the first few chapters. (This was after I had read an enjoyed Crime and Punishment, mind.) I tried again with P&V's version, and got through the whole thing. Their translations just have a lot of energy, even when Dostoevsky is just writing a conversation or an internal monologue. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was a great novel. It's interesting how the plot of that and Blade Runner are so wildly different (and in some points, like the morality of killing androids, directly opposites) but ultimately both of them are about how important empathy is. DADOES was great, but the thing is I only read it once about six years ago whilst on holiday and I cannot for the life of me remember anything specific about it. So I think a reread is definitely in order. In semi-related news, I'm finally attempting to read Game of Thrones. It's quite interesting this far, although the fan is more or less pony feathers-free at this point. Tyrion is awesome, as is Arya. That's cool! I regret not finding out about GoT (or, a Song Of Fire And Ice) until the show came around. Now, it wouldn't be the same if I did read it because I know what's going to happen. Also, it's very very very long, which is daunting to me. One book (a feast for crows?) is longer than the entire Lord Of The Lords trilogy!And to date I still haven't started Guards! Guards! just yet. I instead dug up my copy of Waiting for Godard. It's...different. Basically, I recently pulled out the big clear plastic box full of unread books under my bed and starting reading. After WoG, there's Huckleberry Finn to read. So much reading to do...
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jun 5, 2014 18:48:24 GMT
I'm a fast reader, so I should catch up pretty quickly. I only started two days ago and I'm already about 120 pages into the first book, so I'd say in a month or two I'll be caught up.
Also, if you want a comedy recommendation, you should look at A Confederacy of Dunces. It may lean a bit on American culture in places, but on the whole it's pretty hilarious, if only for how big of a doof the protagonist is.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 6, 2014 1:11:48 GMT
Everything I've heard about ASOIAF makes me think I wouldn't enjoy it.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jun 6, 2014 1:29:44 GMT
It really depends on personal preference, I think. I honestly haven't made my mind up about it yet, mainly because it's very unlike any sort of books I've already read. It's very much low fantasy with all of the magic and dragons and such in the background the bulk of the time, but it's still very much a constructed world that's very different from our own. At the very least, I'm impressed by the fact that GRRM managed to create a world that's clearly distinct from ours without resorting to adding all sorts of fanciful stuff to it.
Oddly, the comparison that comes most readily to mind is Attack on Titan; it has that same sort of realistic tone to it while still having a unique setting.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Jun 6, 2014 1:44:50 GMT
Although, considering that I had the stomach for Richard Adams' Shardik, I wonder if I would like Throne of Games after all. Shardik had the low fantasy setting (is that giant bear an incarnation of God or not? Whooooooo knows?). It tricked me into rooting for characters who turned out to be villains. It built up characters to look like important movers and shakers of the plot, and then they died at the end of the book's first act.
It was an odd book.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jun 6, 2014 1:48:53 GMT
Honestly, I don't think you can tell unless you read it.
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Post by japaneseteeth on Jun 8, 2014 22:01:28 GMT
Okay, so I just finished Game of Thrones (the book). Overall I thought it was pretty good. The worldbuilding is top notch, the prose is generally good, and the overarching plotline is quite interesting. The one main issue it has is a lack of focus; it wasn't too bad for most of the book because there was a common plot thread tying everything together, but it's juggled between like 8 different POVs, some of which don't even interact with each other at all in the book. So far it's not a huge problem, but the second book isn't going to have the same sort of single thread tying all the subplots together. Have to wait and see how it works.
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Post by Applelight Limited on Mar 13, 2015 17:53:41 GMT
A long time ago I brought Terry Pratchett's guards guards but never got around to reading it. In light of what happened I think it's time I get around to it. Does anyone have any favourite Terry Pratchett novels of their own?
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