wednesday still

[jazzfish]

What are you currently reading?

I've finally gotten into Studs Terkel's Hope Dies Last, a gift from my aunt Susan a decade ago. I'm also carting around the RPG Nova Praxis, a FATE-based post-singularity RPG, in the hopes that its version of FATE will finally click for me.

What did you recently finish reading?

Pat Cadigan's Synners, a 1991 cyberpunk novel that feels like it exists at the intersection of Neuromancer, City Come A-Walkin', and The Fortunate Fall.

Samuel R. Delany's Nova, a late-sixties SF adventure that's also a commentary on adventure narratives, among other things.

John M. Ford's magnum opus The Dragon Waiting, which gets better every time I read it. This time it was in tandem with Draco Concordans on my phone.

(All three were excellent.)

What do you think you'll read next?

Who knows. Depends entirely on my mood and general level of brain.

Comments

[shanaqui]

I reaaally need to get round to reading Synners and Nova (and The Dragon Waiting, still, in fact). *makes yet another memo to self*

[jazzfish]

The nice thing about Nova is that it's relatively thin and (for Delany) relatively straightforward. His other books (the Neveryon cycle, Triton, etc) are brilliantly written; Nova is brilliantly written and has the advantage of being compellingly readable.

Synners is a big sprawling book, the cyberpunk equivalent of multi-POV doorstop fantasy.

[shanaqui]

I shall have to shuffle it up my list!

Still sounds interesting.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I need to reread the Ford. You're right, it always gets better.

[jazzfish]

The sheer number of different things he's doing in that book-- and doing well-- always astounds me. I can rattle off "o yes, alt-history vampire locked-room-mystery deep-character-study multilayered-jokes" et cetera, and then I get back into it and it's all "how does he weave all that together so seamlessly that you'd never notice how many different books you're reading?"