Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson arrived today. It's seriously been five years since his last one?
And how is there not a single good cover image online.
Are we sure that isn't the (terrible) cover art?
Seeing him speak tomorrow night. Can't wait!
Shadowbahn by Steve Erickson arrived today. It's seriously been five years since his last one?
And how is there not a single good cover image online.
Are we sure that isn't the (terrible) cover art?
Seeing him speak tomorrow night. Can't wait!
This book though, I'm having a very hard time buying the premise that Holden would be sent as a mediator to negotiate a peace between the two groups on the planet. He's got no negotiation training, skills, or experience, no one actually bothered to outline what authority he has in this situation, etc. It's a really blatant and kind of poor excuse to stick the main cast into the story when they don't really have a reason to be there.
Still enjoying it at face value, though.
I read this last year butdidn't they send him kind of knowing that things were going to go bad not matter who they sent and then they could just use him as a scapegoat, annex the planet and get their way? It's been a while so I may be remembering wrong.
Yup. Just go along with it. It was my first foray into Murakami's works and I absolutely love that book.50 pages in (my old English teacher's metric for getting into a book) and I am loving Kafka on the Shore.
I have a feeling that this is a book I shouldn't try too hard to understand, and just allow myself to get swept away, right?
I think I may need much more Murakami soon.
Are we sure that isn't the (terrible) cover art?
Seeing him speak tomorrow night. Can't wait!
Yeah. That's the official cover art.
And, that book sounds batty.
I mean I couldn't find more than two images of the cover on the internet. And that was the only clean image.
And yes, it's a terrible cover and I would love to have every Erickson book reprinted with a unifying design. But he hasn't had anything reprinted in a decade, so...
EDIT: My favorite current writer, as well.
And, that book sounds batty.
What else do you like along those lines?
I read Paul Auster for a while after In the Country of Last Things made an impression on me. But Auster's latest book is supposedly a nearly 900-page setup for a bad pun.
The second one is better, but I really enjoyed the Last Wish. It's really just world building and establishing Geralt as a character and his world view. Keep reading, it's worth it.Finished The Last Wish
This did not start well for me, at all. It's basically just a bunch of short stories with no overarching plot. Some of which I liked, others were totally fogettable. There's very little background to Geralt (there is later in the book), which to be fair didn't bother me all that much, having played all the games. What did bother me though were characters (that were not in games) just getting thrown at you. What is their connection with Geralt? Who the hell knows.
There's one really good chapter (the one with Nivellen), but other than that I didn't like the book. That is until Dandelion showed up. Him and Geralt are great together. It saved the book for me. If I had not played the games I honestly don't know if I would've finished it. It did end pretty strong so I'm gonna read the second one.
Along those lines? Oh man. As you know, it's hard to find anyone who's anything like Erickson. I mean, Murakami is kind of in the same realm but simultaneously not in the same realm at all. That's a tough question. Who would you compare him to?
The one book that I think is probably closest to his style, and seems like a direct influence on his writing is PKD's The Man in the High Castle. But I don't find that book to be nearly as fun and propulsive as Erickson (or even earlier Dick stuff, for that matter).
I recently read The Keep by Jennifer Egan. And that book has the same sort of slippery narrative structure and quietly experimental prose that you find in, say, Days Between Stations, where the writing is weird and wild but still completely approachable.
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is maybe David Mitchell's most underrated book. It's got the focus on history with a million wonderful details and a touch of magical realism. It slips between genres as beautifully as Cloud Atlas does but without all that visible effort.
And of course I love Pynchon and DeLillo and all the other postmodern mainstays. But there's a crispness to Erickson's prose that is hard to find elsewhere.
An amazing read.
It's the last few pages of his story "Tenth of December" for 7 hours straight.
You'll realize out of nowhere that you somehow became fluent in Nadsat. Enjoy!
Current read:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/Fear_and_Loathing_in_Las_Vegas.jpg[/IM[/QUOTE]
when you said this i sort of thought it was a joke, but not only does it become second nature, i actually started using some of the words in my head when i was walking in the city the other day. "i'll just itty across this street."
[quote="kamineko, post: 229818895"]Will read more (I'm a graduate student), but I know I'm reading these:
[B][U]NW[/U][/B] by Zadie Smith: four characters living in northwest London, formally experimental (I am told)
[B][U]What the Night Numbered[/U][/B] by Bradford Tice: Poetry collection that merges the events of the Stonewall Riots with the myth of Cupid and Psyche[/QUOTE]
let me know what you think of NW. i read white teeth earlier this year and enjoyed it. played around with form a bit, but im not sure if it is supposed to be more or less than NW.
Ah, all the usual suspects. I'll look into the particular titles you mentioned.
I particularly liked Murakami's After Dark, Mitchell's Ghostwritten, and DeLillo's Cosmopolis. These are their more straightforward books, I think - none of Murakami's absurdism, Mitchell's period writing, or DeLillo's epic narratives.
Erickson has this gift for using contemporary settings that are weird or impossible and yet don't feel alien (yes, I haven't read Tours or Arc d'X yet), characters who are autobiographical and yet widely relatable, and stories that come off as simple as a fable despite all the nonsensical events. None of these are traits of the average postmodern, magical realism, or "slipstream" writer.
It's a careful balance where there is never too much dialogue, too much descriptiveness, or too much poetry. I've read reviews of Zeroville and Shadowbahn that complain about too many vague allusions to films and songs - but that's the whole point, to not tie you down with obsessive details.
But I can say that the most comparable book I have found is Ice by Anna Kavan. Like Days Between Stations, it's about a destructive relationship explored using an apocalyptic contemporary setting. (Likewise, it's also only sporadically in print.)
Anyone have recommendations for funny/happy books? Need a bit of levity in my life right now.
My daughter asked me to buy this for her recently (came up in school, we're pretty close to there). Been meaning to read it for years so I'm going to read it when she's done.watership down.
Anyone have recommendations for funny/happy books? Need a bit of levity in my life right now.
About to start Lady Chatterley's Lover, anyone read it before?
hugocésar;230488355 said:Lincoln in the Bardo is wonderful so far. (I'm a third in.)
Anyone have recommendations for funny/happy books? Need a bit of levity in my life right now.