Reading meme
Jan. 26th, 2013 03:15 pmI keep meaning to do this regularly. Well, this makes twice.
What I’ve just read:
Len Deighton’s Berlin Game. Cold War spy novel that I actually thought was early 70s before one of the characters described a dot matrix printer in tones of deep admiration for technology and I checked the copyright to discover it was 1983. Very dialogue-heavy, and I got on better with this book once deciding halfway through that it was best to read Bernard Samson (the narrator) as unreliable, as well as just going with the plot rather than attempting to work it out. My views on this book are still evolving and I probably need to finish at least the first trilogy before commenting further.
Rowan Speedwell’s Finding Zach, which has a lot of very nice careful character moments that rest on a very shaky edifice of completely unlikely events – at age 15, Zach had a massive crush on three years’ older David, who turned Zach down after they kissed, and Zach, reluctantly, went travelling to get some distance. Seven years later they meet up again, and attempt to negotiate an adult relationship. This summary obviously completely fails to mention the bit where Zach is kidnapped by Venezualan paramilitaries, raped, tortured, collared and kept in a dog cage, forbidden to communicate in anything other than barks and growls, and David is a teenage genius who builds an AI and, after Zach is kidnapped, a revolutionary new tracking device, in between doing special effects internships for ILM and Weta, and going through three serious relationships.
What I’m reading now:
John Le Carré’s The Looking Glass War. The man is a genius with semi-colons.
Kate Elliot’s Cold Magic. I stalled on this but then read![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
oyceter’s review, and it sounds as if things will improve a lot once I push through the set-up. Currently I am about eighty pages in, and interested in the world-building but a bit iffy about the protagonist, who is an Orphan (probably) with Magical Powers who has just been whisked away from the Only Home she has known by Mysterious Individuals.
What I expect to read next:
I have the whole Len Deighton Game, Set and Match trilogy from the library, so those before they get anymore overdue. And I think Heidi Cullinan’s Dirty Laundry is due out shortly.
What I’ve just read:
Len Deighton’s Berlin Game. Cold War spy novel that I actually thought was early 70s before one of the characters described a dot matrix printer in tones of deep admiration for technology and I checked the copyright to discover it was 1983. Very dialogue-heavy, and I got on better with this book once deciding halfway through that it was best to read Bernard Samson (the narrator) as unreliable, as well as just going with the plot rather than attempting to work it out. My views on this book are still evolving and I probably need to finish at least the first trilogy before commenting further.
Rowan Speedwell’s Finding Zach, which has a lot of very nice careful character moments that rest on a very shaky edifice of completely unlikely events – at age 15, Zach had a massive crush on three years’ older David, who turned Zach down after they kissed, and Zach, reluctantly, went travelling to get some distance. Seven years later they meet up again, and attempt to negotiate an adult relationship. This summary obviously completely fails to mention the bit where Zach is kidnapped by Venezualan paramilitaries, raped, tortured, collared and kept in a dog cage, forbidden to communicate in anything other than barks and growls, and David is a teenage genius who builds an AI and, after Zach is kidnapped, a revolutionary new tracking device, in between doing special effects internships for ILM and Weta, and going through three serious relationships.
What I’m reading now:
John Le Carré’s The Looking Glass War. The man is a genius with semi-colons.
Kate Elliot’s Cold Magic. I stalled on this but then read
oyceter’s review, and it sounds as if things will improve a lot once I push through the set-up. Currently I am about eighty pages in, and interested in the world-building but a bit iffy about the protagonist, who is an Orphan (probably) with Magical Powers who has just been whisked away from the Only Home she has known by Mysterious Individuals.What I expect to read next:
I have the whole Len Deighton Game, Set and Match trilogy from the library, so those before they get anymore overdue. And I think Heidi Cullinan’s Dirty Laundry is due out shortly.
