What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

[macdoc]

The committee did fine ...you just didn't report that.

[Brian Peacock]

I'm not a journalist.

[macdoc]

Yet you "reported" the scandal.....which is boyo....

[Brian Peacock]

Yet you "reported" the scandal.....which is boyo....

Equivocation. I posted a link and a snippet - that's not reporting the scandal. I haven't actually offered an opinion on the story. You're making an issue simply out of me posting the Guardian report and assuming I did so because I have an 'agenda' to 'diss' the Hugos. I don't and I'm not. In fact I'm quite a fan of the Hugos - and the Nebulas, and the Arthur C. Clarke, Locus, and Aurealis etc. Their lists and the commentary around them is where I find most of the kind of fiction I enjoy.

You really should stop reading my remarks in your angry voice.

[macdoc]

Not reporting the scandal ...is that an alternate fact?

[macdoc]

finally some relief from dire Australian convict history.
much fun,a winsome crim heroine/erratic firewitch ala Dickens and her besotted troll love interest.
Not for everyone but lots of laughter for me.

interesting pas de deux of two of my favourite artists. Even a welcome diss of the dumpf

[Brian Peacock]

Never really got on with Mieville. Interesting ideas, just not my style.

[macdoc]

Did you try Perdido Station or Scar. ( linked novels but do stand alone )
My daughter and I are still haunted by Perdido imagery.

Arthur C. Clarke Award Won
British Fantasy Award Won

Hugo and Nebula nominated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station

I was not so taken with some of the other novels but no denying his imagination.
I was /still am blown away by Perdido. The fan art is awesome.
https://feizhou.artstation.com/projects/vo04E
I'm still struck by this characters tale....

[macdoc]

[Brian Peacock]

Did you try Perdido Station or Scar....

King Rat, Perdido Street Station, and The Scar (unfinished}. Like Tolkien, just not to my tastes.

[macdoc]

Fair enough. Steam punk maybe aquired taste. What about Mortal Engines
•••••

Alistair Reynolds has a wild imagination.

Have several in the Revelation Space series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_series
His world building is wonderful. Hard scifi big time - should call it universe building

[Brian Peacock]

Fair enough. Steam punk maybe aquired taste. What about Mortal Engines
•••••

I enjoyed the first wave in the 80s - and steampunk casts a long shadow today, such as with the Demarchists in...

Alistair Reynolds has a wild imagination.

Have several in the Revelation Space series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation_Space_series
His world building is wonderful. Hard scifi big time - should call it universe building

[macdoc]

On 17 January 1913, alone and near starvation, Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp. The dogs were gone. Then Mawson plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface. Mawson was sometimes reduced to crawling and one night he discovered that the soles of his feet had detached from the flesh beneath. On 8 February, he staggered back to base, his features unrecognisably skeletal. Illustrated by a trove of Frank Hurley's Antarctic photographs, this thrilling, almost unbelievable account establishes Mawson in his rightful place as one of the greatest polar explorers and expedition leaders.

Sir Edmum Hillary summed up Mawsons solo effort...

His final verdict on that journey deserves to stand as the enduring epigraph to Mawson’s deed: “The greatest survival story in the history of exploration.”

I visited the Mawson Museum in Hobart Tasmania and wish I had read this book prior to our trip as I would love to see now the extensive exhibits...would mean much more.
As it was we marvelled at the primitive ( by today's standards) gear they used. The site of their main camp...The Hut was actually determined recently to be the "windiest place on earth". :eek: Mawson spent two Antartic winters there ....accompanied by one of his 7 team mates who was going mad and ended up in asylums for the rest of his life.

[macdoc]

New mystery author from Iceland ...enjoying it - do like Nordic sensibility

[macdoc]

The Icelandic author did not do much for me but this has been a surprise as it is so far out of my norm.
I do like Fae stories and good writing so I guess I should not be surprised at the appeal.