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Our reads in October 2020
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-01 4:26 AM (#22490)
Subject: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Wow! I blinked and September was here and gone.
Any plans for spooky reads in the Lonesome October leading up to Halloween?So glad i ordered Night in the Lonesome October early this year.Already there is a waiting list of 3 people behind me,so I will have to read it quickly to let others have the chance to read it in October.Think I need my own personal copy for next year,so I can do the proper daily chapter route.Amazing to think all over the world thousands of people are reading Zelazny! Hope newbies then go on to reading all his wonderful books.

My TBR for October
Jim Butcher - Peace Talks
Jim Butcher - Battle Ground
C J Cherryh - Emergence
Diana Rowland - White Trash Zombie Apocalyse
Olaf Stapledon - Star Maker
Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside
Roger Zelazny - Night in the Lonesome October
C J Cherryh - Resurgence
A A Milne - Winnie the Pooh

Edited by dustydigger 2020-10-01 4:27 AM
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daxxh
Posted 2020-10-01 11:54 PM (#22493 - in reply to #22490)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		For my spooky Halloween read this year, I am reading Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco. I wanted to read Night in the Lonesome October last year, but the library didn't have it so I ordered a copy. I didn't read it then and can't read it now because I can't find it. (A lot of my books are still in boxes from moving.)

I have started reading Leviathan Wakes, which is really good so far, and Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay, which is meh. I hope this one gets better. I also have 4 Miles Vorkosigan books, The Immaculate Void, The Perfect Wife and Vanguard. Yay for grab bags from the library to add to the already huge TBR pile. I will probably sneak in a Longmire mystery and Louise Erdrich's newest book, even though I am behind in challenge reading. I doubt I will finish all those books, but there is always next month.
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Slinkyboy
Posted 2020-10-03 11:32 AM (#22495 - in reply to #22493)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Carrollton, TX		Oooh... I just finished Burnt Offerings, I hope you like it. I really enjoyed the atmosphere.

My reading has been so slow this year that I started spooky stuff in September just so I could be sure to finish one by Halloween. So far I've read:

The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman
The Seance by John Harwood
Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco

I'm almost through The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay too.
On the short list for October (in no particular order) I've got:

A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry
Soon by Lois Murphy
The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers
Widdershins by Oliver Onions

I don't expect to get through all those, but one of them will be my pick for the Halloween Mini Challenge.

I'm looking forward to October. Happy reading, everybody!



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spoltz
Posted 2020-10-04 9:29 AM (#22498 - in reply to #22490)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		I started Gods of Jade and Shadow in September, but finished it October first so I'm counting it here. I really enjoyed the Mayan mythology, which I knew very little about. I read it for the Authors of Color challenge. I just started Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi which I'm also reading for the AoC challenge. It's starting off very well.

I don't know if I'm going to read a spooky book this year. I have the complete works of HP Lovecraft, but that's a pretty long book. I may read a few stories from that.

And I'm still waiting for Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring to be returned to the library. It's a month overdue and has started accumulating a fine. I just may have to order my own copy of that book.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-04 4:05 PM (#22499 - in reply to #22498)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Loved my reread of Zelazny's Night in the Lonesome October. Would have been fun to read a chapter a day ,but 4 or 5 people are waiting for the book so I had to read it quickly.All the mentions of the Elder Gods made me want to read a few Lovecraft tales,but I have a big TBR already. We'll see.
I also finished Emergence refreshing my mind on the Foreigner series,so now I can settle down with my latest,volume,Resurgence.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-10 11:37 AM (#22510 - in reply to #22499)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Whew. Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker(1938) was not the easiest or happiest reads as the agnostic philosopher grapples with the puzzle of the problem of Evil and pain being allowed by a compassionate Creator.Awesome yet bleak. Things havent changed in essence since Job confronted much the same issues 3000 years ago,albiet on a much simpler level. Add the terrors of struggling to comprehend our huge expanding universe and man's rapidly downgrading in importance or relevance in it,and Stapledon has a really sad bleak task,and can only come to the conclusion that a Star Maker creator is cold and remote and beyond our understanding.Ouch.
It was an impressive read but stark and bleak.Glad I read it ,but I am unlikely to ever reread it..
Lois McMaster Bujold's Captain Vorpatril's Alliance was light frivolous nonsense by comparison,but it was enjoyable relaxing in a cozy room with wind and rain outside,while revisiting Barrayar. But no Mies,unfortunately.Though I did love getting more insight into Simon Illyan,and the falling of the ImpSec HQ was hilarious and went some way to repaying lots of past pain and angst suffered by beloved characters over the series! lol.Priceless.......
Now on to Jim Butcher's Peace Talks and Battle Ground
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daxxh
Posted 2020-10-11 11:47 AM (#22511 - in reply to #22510)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I just finished The Immaculate Void by Brian Hodge. Wow. I was totally not expecting that. I got the book as a random Science Fiction read from a library grab bag. It was more horror than sci-fi, but it was good!

My challenge reading for the year has been disrupted by the libraries being closed, so I am not sure I will be able to finish my challenges. I guess that gives me a chance to catch up on my backlog of books that I bought and haven't read. I think next year's challenges will be chosen based on what is in that backlog.

@slinkyboy - I really liked Burnt Offerings. The creepy atmosphere is just what I like in a horror novel.

Now to finish Survivor Song, which I am not liking. Or maybe some Miles Vorkosigan or Leviathan Wakes (my lunch time reading even though it's not lunchtime) or Steinbeck's Tortilla Flats (trying to catch up on classics I should have read but didn't).

@dustydigger - I found Captain Vorpatril's Alliance quite fun. I am liking the Vorkosigan books and can't imagine why it has taken me so long to read them. I am lucky in that my library is a block away, so I can walk to it. But, it isn't open and I can only pickup holds or get random grab bags. I am finding the grab bags fun as I have gotten books I probably would never have chosen. I hope they keep doing them after they open up again.

Edited by daxxh 2020-10-11 11:53 AM
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spoltz
Posted 2020-10-12 12:59 AM (#22512 - in reply to #22490)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		Well, I'm giving The Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft a go. It's 1100 pages. I'm about 350 pages in after a week. i hope to finish by the end of the month. I'm liking the short stories better than the novelettes so far. Haven't gotten up to his novel or his novellas. A couple of the stories so far have some really racist situations and language, which is very disturbing. But I'm determined to plow through.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-12 9:37 AM (#22513 - in reply to #22512)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Steve,I also am not a fan of HPLs longer fiction.The ornate prose can get a bit wearing in longer works,the tension isnt quite as well sustained then.
HPLs racism is well known,but oretty standard for his class in that era. But he also isnt too much in favour of women either,and poverty and lack of education are also despised . If you were not a well educated cultivated WASP male you were nothing! lol.
I'm sure you will notice how many of the narrators are literary types. I always enjoy the way they keep on scribbling the dire tale of how they got entangled with the weird world,documenting their downfall even as some strange occult beast is slithering up to the garret they work in.........
Whenever I read that they work in the attic I feel like shouting oh no you fool get out quickly. If you are a student of the occult in HPL s world you should work on the ground floor,in a room with several exits and multiple windows you can jump out of and escape the slimy tentacled horror crawling up behind you!.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-17 5:40 PM (#22522 - in reply to #22513)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Felt worn out from all the endless relentless fighting in Jim Butcher's Battle Ground. I was apprehensive that some beloved character was going to die,I guessed right who it wasand cried buckets,but at the same time felt a little offended at the way Harry just sort of said I am very sad,but I know from the past I'll get over it. Not too happy about some of the things that will be coming up in Chicago soon. Got to admit,like Harry himself I yearn at times for the good old days down in the basement lab with Bob,Mouse and Mister,with smaller ,solveable problems for a young wizard.
To stop myself moping over the good old days (unbelievable that Storm Front was published 20 years ago!) I visited Pooh,Christopher Robin,Piglet and all the gang in the 100 Acre Wood,and am now diving into some light fluff,White Trash Zombie Apocalypse :0) Am wavering between rereading some HPL around Halloween,or maybe some Arthur Machen.or some M R James ghost stories..
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daxxh
Posted 2020-10-17 8:42 PM (#22523 - in reply to #22522)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I finished three Vorkosigan books - Komarr, A Civil Campaign and the novella Winterfair Gifts. I think Komarr is my favorite of all the Vorkosigan books I have read so far. I am taking a break from that series to read Stephen King's latest, If It Bleeds, and Louise Erdrich's latest, The Night Watchman before I start my next Vorkosigan book, Mirror Dance.
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dustydigger
Posted 2020-10-23 5:43 AM (#22532 - in reply to #22523)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: UK		Finished Doc Smith's Skylark of Space,originally serialized in 1928 and claimed as the first space opera. Seminal in the history of SF,but pretty poor as literature really. But I often raised a smile at the charmingly quirky tech solutions. Much nearer Jules Verne's type of thing than modern stuff,and rather long,but still a fun read.Those were the days,when scientists were the good guys,admired and even revered.Post 1945 has NOT been quite as reverent!
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spoltz
Posted 2020-10-30 1:57 AM (#22566 - in reply to #22532)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Beaverton, Oregon, USA		Finished the Complete Fiction of HP Lovecraft. I learned that I probably never want to read a "Complete Works" again. I found the stories got repetitive in style and form. It felt like he always wrote the same way, little growth or variation. Granted, he wrote a lot in the Cthulhu mythos, but they all went about the same way. And all the racial slurs. I think I want to read Lovecraft Country just to get clean of all that. Anyway, I started a new book, but probably won't finish until November, so I'll mention it in that thread.
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daxxh
Posted 2020-10-30 8:00 PM (#22567 - in reply to #22566)
Subject: Re: Our reads in October 2020



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Location: Great Lakes, USA		I read Stephen King's If It Bleeds and Sylvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic, both appropriate titles for Halloween. I like Stephen King's short fiction better than his novels. Mexican Gothic took me back to my preadolescent days of reading Gothic novels. This one was much better. Now, I am reading more Miles Vorkosigan in Mirror Dance.

Edited by daxxh 2020-10-30 8:03 PM
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