What are you reading in 2024?

[Mannahnin]

I finished re-reading Moon's Sheepfarmer's Daughter. It holds up well, all these years later. It's got a bit of The Black Company in its DNA, though it's much more low magic, not as grim and gritty.

Isn't that one basically T1?

I seem to recall that it was inspired by a Greyhawk campaign, but I wouldn't say any part of it felt like the Village of Hommlet specifically.

It's book 2, Divided Allegiance, that has the Hommlet analogue town of Brewersbridge and the moathouse-style adventure.

I've lost count of how many times I read those books. Years back Baen did a reprint of Sheepfarmer's Daughter with $1.99 paperbacks and I bought at least ten copies to give away and get people hooked.

 

[prabe]

Last three books: The Manual of Detection by Jedidiah Berry: A waste of a good idea, really, too much noise and attempts at meaning and not enough actual story; The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester: Almost unfathomably good, there are reasons writers still hat-tip Bester; Auē by Becky Manawatu: Noir-ish crime tragedy set among the Māori, tragic and beautiful and difficult and powerful.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I've picked Clive Barker's Imajica back up after putting it down in October. I'm torn. There's nothing wrong with it, save for a sense that it gives the lie to the old saw about no good book being too long and no bad book being too short. It's defintely good (sometimes great), and I have no beef with long novels (I was a Victorianist in grad school), but holy cats — it's real long and real dense. It's the literary equivalent of it's not the years, but the miles.

 

[prabe]

I've picked Clive Barker's Imajica back up after putting it down in October. I'm torn. There's nothing wrong with it, save for a sense that it gives the lie to the old saw about no good book being too long and no bad book being too short. It's defintely good (sometimes great), and I have no beef with long novels (I was a Victorianist in grad school), but holy cats — it's real long and real dense. It's the literary equivalent of it's not the years, but the miles.

I remember reading Imajica back like when it just came out. Barker has started a lot of larger series he never really finished (and in many cases just kinda abandoned) alas.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I remember reading Imajica back like when it just came out. Barker has started a lot of larger series he never really finished (and in many cases just kinda abandoned) alas.

I feel like I remember reading that he's had some health issues? But I might be mistaken on that. Regardless, I'm kind of bummed that I'm only getting to him now.

 

[prabe]

I feel like I remember reading that he's had some health issues? But I might be mistaken on that. Regardless, I'm kind of bummed that I'm only getting to him now.

I think that's true, though his tendency to pick something up with big ambitions, then eventually pick something else up with big ambitions goes back a ways. There are some one-offs that at least don't have that problem, and even the stuff he trailed off on is mostly worth reading.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Last three books: The Manual of Detection by Jedidiah Berry: A waste of a good idea, really, too much noise and attempts at meaning and not enough actual story; The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester: Almost unfathomably good, there are reasons writers still hat-tip Bester; Auē by Becky Manawatu: Noir-ish crime tragedy set among the Māori, tragic and beautiful and difficult and powerful.

I'm still a little boggled no one has tried to make a mini-series out of The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination.

 

[prabe]

I'm still a little boggled no one has tried to make a mini-series out of The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination.

On the one hand, I agree; on the other, they'd be really difficult to film, I'd think--especially the synesthetic portions of Stars.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm still a little boggled no one has tried to make a mini-series out of The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination.

So much great SF out there.

 

[Thomas Shey]

On the one hand, I agree; on the other, they'd be really difficult to film, I'd think--especially the synesthetic portions of Stars.

That'd be tricky, but you could probably emulate it with proper use of sound and image.