(urth) What are you reading?

Wed Apr 2 06:50:09 PDT 2014

Yeah, ha ha, I've often looked at it and thought 'well, can't stop there,
oh and you can't stop there', etc.

On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Antonin Scriabin
<kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>wrote:

> "Yes!  I've often thought it should be excerpted and anthologised."
>
> Yeah that would be neat.  I guess the problem is that there there is so
> much pay off when Quiche meets the Five-O'Clock Man again.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 9:02 AM, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen <
> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes, he wrote a brilliant afterword to it.  But I always suspected he was
>> handed that one to read and write an afterword for - I'm sure he sincerely
>> liked it, but he'd already been a long time fan of Lafferty by then (1987),
>> so I'd be interested to know what else he liked.
>>
>> *The account of the filming of the thirteen "crucifixions" is a
>> masterpiece on its own.*
>> Yes!  I've often thought it should be excerpted and anthologised.
>>
>> -DOJP
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 1:54 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I thought the first novella was fantastic.  I was actually a bit worried
>>> as I came to the end that the second wouldn't be as good, but it was.  It
>>> was wickedly funny ... a forger so good his works are worth more *as*forgeries than as originals, a film director who is more convinced of the
>>> cinematic brilliance (and falseness) of Quiche's torture the more grotesque
>>> and real it seemed, etc*.  *The account of the filming of the thirteen
>>> "crucifixions" is a masterpiece on its own.
>>>
>>> On Wolfe, I imagine he quite liked *East of Laughter*, didn't he write
>>> a forward or something specifically for it?
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 8:20 AM, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen <
>>> danielottojackpetersen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> "I just finished *Apocalypses*, I think it is my favorite Lafferty.
>>>> Loved it from start to finish."
>>>>
>>>> So glad to hear you say that bout that book, Antonin!  I think I've
>>>> heard a fair number of Lafferty fans say they liked the second novel in the
>>>> omnibus, but rarely heard anybody say a word negative or positive about the
>>>> first novel.  I loved the book right off too.  It definitely contains some
>>>> of his greatest passages and ideas and should be more highly regarded in
>>>> his body of work.
>>>>
>>>> To keep things Wolfean (heh), has anybody ever heard what stories or
>>>> novels Wolfe may have liked in particular from Lafferty?
>>>>
>>>> -DOJP
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>>>> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I just finished *Apocalypses*, I think it is my favorite Lafferty.
>>>>> Loved it from start to finish.
>>>>>
>>>>> Small world, I picked up the third Culture novel, *Use of Weapons*,
>>>>> right after.  It isn't bad, but it isn't particularly good either.  There
>>>>> are some interesting ideas dotted throughout, but the prose itself is very
>>>>> simple and straightforward, while the plot is a fairly generic adventure
>>>>> story.  I'm sure the cumulative effect of multiple stories set in the
>>>>> Culture universe is better than the small view you get in an individual
>>>>> novel, however.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 7:50 AM, Mark Lewin <mark at marklewin.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  I'm currently enjoying the first of Iain M Banks' Culture books, *Consider
>>>>>> Phlebas*. No great mental effort required on the part of the reader,
>>>>>> just good, imaginative space opera. I'm having a blast.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've also just completed a selection of short stories entitled *The
>>>>>> New Uncanny*. Having got rather bored of horror/supernatural tales
>>>>>> in recent years, this was a rather brave purchase, but one that paid off.
>>>>>> It's a great collection with some really original, off-the-wall stories, by
>>>>>> a mixture of genre authors such as Christoper Priest and Ramsay Campbell,
>>>>>> and "literary" types like AS Byatt and Hanif Kureishi.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Next up: "Home Fires".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014, at 05:05 AM, Dan Harris wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can't do much reading these days, so I've been supplementing it
>>>>>> with audiobooks whenever possible.  Currently meandering through All
>>>>>> Creatures Great and Small as well as Titus Groan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Antonin Scriabin <
>>>>>> kierkegaurdian at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the Vandermeer recommendation. I picked up Annihilation
>>>>>> yesterday and it was quite good. Sort of a blend of the investigative
>>>>>> horror of Lovecraft, the detached (but still eerie) narration of House of
>>>>>> Leaves, and natural wonder of something like The Lost World. Really looking
>>>>>> forward to the other two novels in the trilogy, and knowing they will both
>>>>>> be released in 2014 is a great bonus!
>>>>>> On Mar 12, 2014 2:38 PM, "Piotr Szczęsny" <neternalz at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I bump Craigs recommendation!, great start for "Southern Reach"
>>>>>> trilogy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Jagannath" by Karin Tidbeck is a short story collection, in summary
>>>>>> it's new weird in nordic countries setting (mostly, not all), very fresh,
>>>>>> disturbing, and yet sweet sometimes. Also the stories originally written in
>>>>>> swedish Karin translated herself, that impressed me very much.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After that I wanted some very light reading, so I picked up the
>>>>>> Dresden Files, I just started book four, and it's pretty fun, reads very
>>>>>> fast, and it have a rare tendency - the latter the book in series the
>>>>>> better (story wise, style wise, all-around improvement).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As for Wolfe, I read his story "Forleseen", and it was hauting me for
>>>>>> a week or so, made me very sad, but it is a great story.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anybody read "No Return" by Zachary Jeningan? Many people compare
>>>>>> this to the book of the new sun, Elizabeth Hand wrote : "It has the
>>>>>> sweep of Frank Herbert's *Dune* and the intoxicatingly strange
>>>>>> grandeur of Gene Wolfe's *Book of the New Sun*, with a decadent,
>>>>>> beautifully rendered vision all its own."
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2014-03-12 15:35 GMT+01:00 Craig Brewer <cnbrewer at yahoo.com>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  I can't recommend Jeff Vandermeer's _Annihilation_ highly enough.
>>>>>> It's part of a new "trilogy" (the others will be out by September), but
>>>>>> each book is going to be quite different. It's the smartest, most
>>>>>> entertaining, and most effective continuation of the "weird" tradition I've
>>>>>> read in years. He learned everything you're supposed to learn from Bierce,
>>>>>> Blackwood, Machen, Lovecraft, C.A. Smith, and the others, and turned it
>>>>>> into something fresh.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  ------------------------------
>>>>>>  *From:* Antonin Scriabin <kierkegaurdian at gmail.com>
>>>>>>  *To:* The Urth Mailing List <urth at lists.urth.net>
>>>>>>  *Sent:* Wednesday, March 12, 2014 7:26 AM
>>>>>>  *Subject:* (urth) What are you reading?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello, Urthlings. What are you reading these days?  I haven't been
>>>>>> reading much Wolfe lately, so nothing is fresh enough in my mind to
>>>>>> participate in some of the other ongoing discussions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I am working my way through the Harvard Classics.  I just finished
>>>>>> the fourth volume, the complete poems in English by John Milton.  *Paradise
>>>>>> Lost *was a treat, as was Franklin's autobiography in the first
>>>>>> volume and the *New Atlantis *by Bacon in the third, which is an old
>>>>>> favorite of mine from my philosophy major days.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  I've also recently read *The Sea, the Sea *by Iris Murdoch, which
>>>>>> was excellent, and *The City of Dreaming Books *by Moers, which was
>>>>>> great, silly fun*.*  I also read the first 50 pages of *Lookout
>>>>>> Cartridge* by McElroy and decided to put it back on the shelf for
>>>>>> the time being.  It wasn't particularly *bad, *it was just entirely
>>>>>> unsuccessful in grabbing my attention within a reasonable amount of time,
>>>>>> together with being written in a very disjointed, unique style.  I will
>>>>>> probably get back to it in the near future.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>  Anyway, I am getting back on a Wolfe kick today by finishing the
>>>>>> latter half of *The Island of Doctor Death, and Other Stories, and
>>>>>> Other Stories*. Looking forward to it!
>>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
>>
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>
>
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-- 
Daniel Otto Jack Petersen
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