Monday, August 1, 2011

Monthly report: June 2011

Because it often happens that I read a book but don't review it (or I take a long time writing a review), I've decided to start posting brief monthly reports on what I read, including a sentence or two about the book if it was not reviewed.




Flood
(Stephen Baxter)

I have mixed feelings about Flood. The idea behind it is interesting enough, but the problem is that the author didn't quite manage to get the best out of it and wrote a kind of a family drama instead. (Review upcoming.)










Inverted World (Christopher Priest)

Christopher Priest is one of my favourite authors and when I found out that this book is post-apocalyptic, there was not really a chance of me not buying and reading it ASAP. I was not disappointed; Inverted World is a captivating story with a protagonist who's just as unreliable as the protagonists of Priest's other books.








Bitter Seeds (Ian Tregillis)

Another book that was sitting on my to-buy list for years simply because it was published in hardback only. I finally had enough and ordered the damn hardcover, and I was actually really glad I did. Bitter Seeds was not quite what I expected, but it got me hooked nevertheless. I
can't wait for the sequel to come out.









Shutter Island (Dennis Lehane)

Yeah, I know I said I probably wouldn't read this one very soon, but I happened to be in the mood for something familiar. What I found out was that the movie script was very strictly following the book; although it was a really pleasant read, Shutter Island is one of those rare books that are not significantly better than their movie adaptations.









The Shrinking Man (Richard Matheson)

I adored Matheson's I Am Legend, so I naturally grabbed The Shrinking Man off the shelf as soon as I saw it in a bookstore in Belgrade. Time has not been so kind to this one, however - the idea of a tiny man was probably new back in 1956, but the novelty of it has long since worn off. Without it, the plot is not as engaging as I had hoped it would be.









Lord of the Flies (William Golding)

I probably should've read Lord of the Flies because it is, after all, a classic, but in fact I mostly read it because the back cover blurb sounded a lot like Battle Royale. :D I honestly can't say whether I liked it or not, though. I'm no good when it comes to judging such books, I'm afraid.










A Feast for Crows (George R. R. Martin)

This was just a quick re-read to catch up on everything before ADWD came out. I found out that I've forgotten quite a lot of what takes place in AFFC; even after this re-read, a lot of the details still elude me. I think it'll be time for another re-read soon. :)






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Due to vacations and me moving apartments again, August's content will be posted a bit erratically, if at all. Sorry. :(

5 Comments:

Nicholas Scibetta said...

One thing that always bugged me about "The Shrinking Man" was the ending. (Spoiler alert I guess) He's shrinking by a set amount each day - not a percentage of his total height, but like exactly one inch per day or something. Then when he reaches the point when he is less than one inch tall and should shrink to nothing, instead he just gets small enough to enter the atomic world or some BS. It doesn't make any sense.

On "The Flood": Stephen Baxter always has awesome ideas for books but his characters frequently strike me as unrealistic and weird, so a book that is largely a family drama is the last thing I would want to read from him.

Trin said...

Yeah, I found the ending to The Shrinking Man (and the whole dilemma about shrinking, really) pretty illogical as well. Not that the thing with his spider nemesis was any better. All in all, this is not one of Matheson's best works.

A Shadow Falls said...

I find most of the Song of Ice and Fire books like that. I think the brain goes into a filtering process to deal with the immense amount of detail that George Martin puts into his books. I don't think this detracts from them as I find them thoroughly enjoyable.

I'm not so sure about the idea of splitting timelines across books and finding out what happens to characters without reading the story leading up to the conclusion. I don't want to be to specific and spoil it for anyone, but hopefully people who've read it will know what I mean.

Catherine Stine said...

The cover of Bitter Seeds is intriguing. I'm going to check it out.

Aioue said...

I waited forever for "A Dance with Dragons" to come out, and now I realize I'll have re-read the whole series in order to make sense of it.

 

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