Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Currently reading The Blue World by Jack Vance, which it isn't likely to come as much surprise to most folks here I'm finding most excellent. The language and dialogue are as well done and entertaining as always, the thematic content is clear without being heavy-handed and preachy (a la Heinlein), and the setting is remarkable because it's totally alien and there's almost no exposition -- Vance just drops us right into the middle of the story in this strange world with this strange culture and leaves it up to us to gradually piece together over the course of the book how this world/culture works and where it came from and why. And he does it all in fewer than 200 pages.

I remember reading somewhere that Blue World/the Kragen was written in response to Dune, which is pretty funny if true. They were good friends, Vance was with Herbert in Mexico when Herbert was first puzzling out Dune. The books were written around the same time. "You have a desert world with giant worms, Frank?" I'll do a water world with giant monsters too." I haven't read the autobiography yet, maybe he says something about it in there.

I'm reading Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906, as well as Kingslayers, the second module published by Die Cast Games.

Chris Wooding, Retribution Falls. A sort of steam-punk-y sci-fi adventure novel. Pretty good, but not great.

Currently reading Oliver Stone's draft script for the original Conan movie.

francisca wrote:Currently reading Oliver Stone's draft script for the original Conan movie.

How is it, and how's it differ from the final thing that appeared on screen?

Lord of the Rings ... again.

I read that book at least once a year. The funny thing is I still have yet to read The Silmarillion.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn...again.

The Hobbit to my kids at bedtime.

About 90 pages into Dune - it's as much of a page turner as I remember.

Button, Button, a collection of "uncanny" stories by Richard Matheson. Pretty much every one of these could have been the script for a Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode (unsurprising since Matheson did in fact write several TZ episodes, including "The Nightmare at 20,000 Feet").

Lord Dunsany's Book of Wonder

Geoffrey wrote:Lord Dunsany's Book of Wonder

Good choice! (though I think I actually like the later volume (Tales of Wonder? -- my copy combines both in a single volume) even better...

Kramer wrote:Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn...again.

I rread this when I was around 13 and I remember really enjoying the first two parts and hating the ending which I think totally ruined the Simon character for me. I was also really frustrated by the supposed 'sages' such as the monk who miss the most blatantly obvious clues - he had A SPEAR for fuck's sake a spear you ignorant cunt of a monk arrrgh!

But I liked the Sithi as a take on elves and the trolls as a take on the 'little people' as well as the monsters: 'Bukken' were scary little buggers.

I think it is as good a take on the "Rings rip-off" trilogy as is possible, with a clever interwoven structure and good characters and atmosphere but ultimately it is just another Rings rip-off and I guess that's why the ending sucks so much because it just rubs it in.

Under the Red Robe by Stanley J. Weyman