50 Book Challenge 2014 Part 3

[Southeastdweller]

Thread 3 of the 50 book challenge. Here are the previous threads...

The idea is to read 50 books in 2014 (or more!)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/1951735-50-Book-Challenge-2014

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adult_fiction/2000991-50-Book-Challenge-2014-Part-2?

Highland - no I haven't yet, but it's on the tbr list. I absolutely loved Gillespie, Jane Harris is a brilliant writer.

Molly - Yes, The Skull Mantra was my recommendation. I hope you enjoy it

hackmum - "Brave New World... that's not really a "what if" scenario. It's not really about "what if babies were cloned": it's a dystopian vision of a whole society. Everything is different, not just one thing."

So, word it differently: What if we were to live in a society without marriage, parenthood, or families... where babies were cloned according to specifications?

The point I was making was that "it's about setting a 'what if?' scenario and then working out how human beings would react" is exactly what sci-fi is about. People think sci-fi is about space battles and nine-eyed purple Martians, but especially in the last 20 years or so it's been about the near future - what would happen if a certain technology develops in a certain way, etc.

24. 30-Second Philosophies - Barry Loewer

This was Kindle Daily Deal a while back so I snapped it up for 99p. It was pretty good, with a 1-page overview of quite a few philosophical concepts.

20. The girl who never came back. 8/10
21. What kind of mother are you? 7/10

Now reading ship of brides by jojo moyes, really enjoying.

Love it when I log on to this thread and see lots of posts just waiting to be read that I know will contain even more books I just need to read !

Just finished book 34 - The Lie by Helen Dunmore. I am so glad I read this book. - yes, it is 'yet another book about WW1' but what a beautifully written book with a slow unfolding story. The characters are 'real' which is important to me. The description of life in the trenches is stark and I am left with my own thoughts. A great read of 2014

Now I am going to read the rest of the thread...

Needed to comment before I loose track!
Cote thanks for the tip - the bookshop book is on my TBR list. I also agree with whoever said they enjoyed it until the last 50 pages.. I sort of lost it a little there...

C J Samsom - my DH loved the Shardlake series (another one coming out in the Autumn I think) so I have just downloaded Heresy for him. I still have the entire Shardlake series on my TRL (they are winter books for me though!) . I enjoyed Dominion but interestingly DH did not!

Anyway, book 35 for me is The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster

CoteDAzur The fact that so many current sci-fi writers have paid homage to The Day of the Triffids and John Wyndham suggests to me that he shouldn't be dismissed just because the book seems implausible to you. Most very clever sci-fi sounds implausible. Asimov, Philip K Dick & Arthur C Clarke are also post-war sci-fi writers, and they may not be the epitome of sci-fi writing but they are certainly well-respected & loved.

As my DH tells me about rock guitarists - the early ones created the language the rest of us speak. Likewise, Wyndham was part of the generation of sci-fi writers who forged the landscape in which subsequent generations work.

"The fact that so many current sci-fi writers have paid homage to The Day of the Triffids and John Wyndham suggests to me that he shouldn't be dismissed just because the book seems implausible to you."

I don't know who those 'current sci-fi writers' would be, and I had never heard of John Wyndham before MN despite reading this genre voraciously for several decades. He might be a UK favourite but it would be a stretch of the imagination to assume that he is one of the absolute greats of sci-fi.

"Most very clever sci-fi sounds implausible."

Absolutely not. Very clever sci-fi is by definition logical, technologically and scientifically sound, internally consistent, and very plausible.

"Asimov, Philip K Dick & Arthur C Clarke are also post-war sci-fi writers, and they may not be the epitome of sci-fi writing but they are certainly well-respected & loved."

Having read a lot of Asimov's stuff (not only his sci-fi books but also his writings on science and mathematics), as well as Philip K Dick (almost all his books and short stories) and Arthur C Clarke (all his books, I think), please trust me when I say that they are at the very top of their league ('classic sci-fi').

Philip K Dick wrote under the influence of some very interesting hard drugs so his books/stories are not terribly realistic at times, but they are incredibly imaginative and mind-bending. They have pretty much never been equalled.

Asimov & Arthur C Clarke were two of 'The Big Three' sci-fi writers of their time - engineers/scientists, with in-depth knowledge of the subjects they were writing about, and their stories are plausible, internally consistent, and surprisingly correct in detail. For example, all approach vectors, alignments of Jupiter's moons etc in 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequel 2010 are correct and valid. He has actually gone to the trouble of calculating them

Neither of them would be caught dead writing about aggressive plants taking over the world, plotting war against people without brains or muscles

"As my DH tells me about rock guitarists - the early ones created the language the rest of us speak."

I'm a fan of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin and would like to think I know a bit about rock guitarists of the time Imho they were much better than the current bunch re technique & talent. Still, there were many guitarists who were not geniuses in those days, too

Now come on Cote, you can't have that strong an opinion about a book you haven't read yet
Time to get it downloaded - you'd steam through Triffids in a couple of hours, and I bet you'd enjoy it despite yourself! Honestly, it's a smarter book than it sounds, and it genuinely is a British Sci Fi classic

Well I have just officially abandoned book number 31. "Metrostop Paris" by Gregor Dallas. It's non-fiction, a sort of bits-and-pieces history of Paris wherein each chunk of history is supposed to be linked to a particular metro stop. I thought I'd like it as I live in Paris and wanted to learn more about the city's history. But less than 50 pages in, I've given up.

From the very first paragraph of the book it annoyed me, confidently asserting that 'Except for bankers, nobody in Paris works on Mondays.' That is a total load of bull and made me wonder what version of Paris this writer inhabits, because in my Paris Mondays are a totally normal working day for the vast majority of the population.

And from then on then the whole 'follow me now, gentle reader, down this winding cobbled street' tone REALLY grated. Just unbearably patronising and annoying.

The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the historical chunks seemed extremely tenuously linked to the metro stops that named each chapter, so the whole concept was ultimately just confusing and unbelievable. I'd rather just read a straightforward potted history of Paris written in chronological order without all this literary posturing and annoying narrative voice.

My first abandoned book of the year. I feel a bit disappointed in myself. But life is just too short to read rubbish books.

I don't have an opinion on the book. Just saying that the premise is silly. Plants, fgs

CoteDAzur Why not try reading a book, or at least a synopsis of it, before making judgement? Your assumptions about Triffids are completely incorrect. I'm not the first person to have told you that he has been influential.

Have you ever read a book where someone has woken up to discover a cataclysmic event has occurred? - that scene is Wyndham. The plants are not the main focus, they are a complication to the cataclysmic event that drives the novel. Like two other well-known tales referenced earlier in this thread, the thrust of the story is the interaction and conflicts of the human survivors, rather than the Monstrous Others with which they compete for survival. Someone upthread told you Wyndham explains the plants perfectly and you chose to ignore that so that you could continue to laugh at the concept.

I may not be an expert on sci-fi but I had heard of John Wyndham and, until today, would have assumed that any self-professed sci-fi expert would have. Just goes to show that no-one knows everything, eh?

That's the thing though, the premise of Triffids isn't 'evil plants', the premise is 'almost everyone is blinded by a freak cosmic event'. The Triffids are basically large carnivorous plants that sting to incapacitate their victims (usually small animals) and veeeery slowly digest them. Not a threat to humans at all, that is, until everyone is blinded! But the Triffids are only one of the serious issues that befall the stricken population..

Ah fuck it, I'm going to read it again!

No need to get personal, che

Would you care to share that "perfect" explanation?

I try to avoid books that I'm probably going to hate. I got roped into reading On The Beach (great sci-fi classic, they said and that wasn't good for anybody - me or its fans

51. Jill Mansell - A Walk in the Park
52. Fiona Field - Soldier's Wives
53. Lee Child - The Visitor
54. Emylia Hall - The Book Of Summers

I loved the triffids, and the crysalids for that matter.

Cote, you do make me laugh.

Two quotes from you:
"In any case, if you think a book written in 1951 is the epitome of sci-fi, you probably need to read some more in this genre."

Next one is talking about Asimov, Dick & Clark who I brought up in order to show that books written in and around 1951 can be the epitome of their genre:
"Please trust me when I say that they are at the very top of their league ('classic sci-fi')."

What seems to be the problem, che?

There is no contradiction between these two sentences:

(1) Asimov and Arthur C Clarke are at the top of classic sci-fi (sub-genre of sci-fi)

and

(2) If you think a book written in 1951 is the best sci-fi (the entire genre) has to offer, you should explore the genre a bit more, with emphasis on the last 20 years.

Is that a bit clearer now?

Excellent! I can see now that we both agree a book written in 1951 can be the top of it's genre of classic sci-fi. I'll prepare a badge for The Day of the Triffids

Whoops, silly phone. its not it's

Can be, but wasn't.

Knock yourself out, though

Just read the damn book, Cote. Wyndham is a well known British sci-fi writer. I haven't read him for years but enjoyed all of his that I've read.

Having said that, I suspect you've already decided that you'd hate it, so there's not much point, maybe? (We need that tongue stuck out emoticon!).

Rofl @ "read the Damn book Cote" You sound like an exasperated parent / teacher Remus