What you are reading and why?

[owlcroft]

How goes it?

Hi, Owlcroft. Don't know if you recall me from your rec.arts.sf.written visits a few years ago.
Randy M.

You betchum, Red Ryder.

I have been quite busy with this and that for some time, but am trying to get back swimming in the stream again. I have started checking rasfw, but haven't seen any threads lately to which I could contribute much. Is it my imagination, of have things there slowed down a bit?

Latest thing I have done is to add Forums to my site, just opened up shop literally this very morning and am awaiting the first visitors. How embarrasing it will be if I built it and nobody comes . . . .

 

[Randy M.]

You betchum, Red Ryder.

I have been quite busy with this and that for some time, but am trying to get back swimming in the stream again. I have started checking rasfw, but haven't seen any threads lately to which I could contribute much. Is it my imagination, of have things there slowed down a bit?

Latest thing I have done is to add Forums to my site, just opened up shop literally this very morning and am awaiting the first visitors. How embarrasing it will be if I built it and nobody comes . . . .

I haven't figured out yet if this place here has sig blocks, but in the meantime, I'll roll my own.

--
Cordially, Eric Walker
webmaster, Great Science-Fiction & Fantasy Works
http://greatsfandf.com/

Last couple of times I looked, rasfw seemed a bit slow. Since my only recourse these days is Google, and their reader is awkward, at best, I haven't kept up.

Good to see you back in the swim, Eric.


Randy M.

 

[owlcroft]

Old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to greet.

Good to see you back in the swim, Eric.

Thank you. It is always pleasant to re-encounter old comrades.

 

[Jeroen]

I just read Lewis Carroll's Alice books (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) for the simple reason that I want to be familiar with them.

Right now I am reading Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. My friend gave it to me in exchange for the first half of Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun (I hope he likes it). So far, I find it hard to keep my concentration on Terry's story.

 

[Mithfânion]

Twilight by William Gay.

Atmospheric with a heavy concentration of fate hovering over the story and characters.

I read Gay's story collection, I Hate to See that Evening Sun Go Down (think that title is right, or pretty close), and thoroughly enjoyed it. He's a Southern writer and I think someone more knowledgable might find some parallels with Cormac McCarthy. In a way his storytelling reminds me of Faulkner, with it's slightly larger-than-life characters encroaching on the mythic.

I've noticed this author on Amazon. I thought The Long Home might be the most interesting one from the various synopsis. He's got a new book coming out in December btw which looks quite interesting.

Auntiepam

You might like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Company-Liars...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221673329&sr=1-1

 

[AuntiePam]

Thanks for the recommendation. It does look like something I'd like. But darn it, the "read an excerpt" feature isn't available for the book, and all the "criticism" is from authors -- that raises flags.

William Gay is indeed excellent. I've read the short story collection, The Long Home, and Provinces of Night. He reminds me a teensy bit of Larry Brown, but I think there's more distance between Gay and his characters. It's like Gay observes, and Brown is in their skin. Gay strikes me as more "literary", but don't ask me to defend this.

 

[Randy M.]

I've noticed this author on Amazon. I thought The Long Home might be the most interesting one from the various synopsis. He's got a new book coming out in December btw which looks quite interesting.

[...]

Thanks for the alert, Mith. I will look into that.

AuntiePam -- I haven't read Brown, but Gay's explicit use of folkloric analogies does give Twilight a 'litery' quality, though his prose flows so smoothly and his analogies seem so apt that I don't get a feeling of straining for some quality of literariness.

I also think I see parallels with McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and, maybe tenuously, with Faulkner's "The Bear."

Randy M.

 

[AuntiePam]

I'm not seeing any straining in Gay's writing either. It feels really natural. It's just on a higher level than Brown, who (to me) seems to be writing to a different audience.

Have you read Knockemstiff by Donald Pollock? He's right up there with Gay and Brown.

(Now to check out folkloric analogies.)

 

[Luonas]

Finished "Perdid Street Station" and I must say it was one of the more pleasant reads this year. Will have to buy the Scar later this autumn and maybe the Iron council.

Going to attack Michael Chabon now and after that I think it will be time for The Return of the Crimson Guard.