OS Book Club Pt II

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Dark Tower is a great Stephen King series...for the first four books. That being said, the last three (the eighth is a side story) are good but definitely different (after his accident or whatever the personal story is). For a one off, Salem's Lot, The Stand, and 11/22/63 are super solid. Bonus points, the two former in that list feature tangentially in the Dark Tower, along with many of his other works.

I'm reading random stuff right now. Finished up the oral history of The Daily Show (love those style histories like SNL and ESPN before) and have Toure's new Prince biography on my Kindle. Lived in MN for 11 years and the devotion to, and gut punch from the death of, the Purple Rainmaker in the Twin Cities was nothing short of extraordinary.

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[dickey1331]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The JFK book he did is really good. Might be my favorite non Stand book he has written.


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[Hammerhunker]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The JFK book he did is really good. Might be my favorite non Stand book he has written.


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11-22-63 was excellent!

Quite disturbing was the story, Apt Pupil, a short story in Different Seasons. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption was in this collection along with The Body (Stand by Me). Apt Pupil was made into a movie, but I haven't seen it, and to me was the better of the 3 stories in this collection.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

How are the more pulp oriented King books? I fell flat on my Halloween/Fall reading last year so I need to up my game this year.

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

How are the more pulp oriented King books? I fell flat on my Halloween/Fall reading last year so I need to up my game this year.

Standard King proviso...enjoy the well written characters, the detailed journey, the setting and atmosphere, and don't get too hung up on the ending as it will only disappoint.

The collection mentioned above, Different Seasons, is top notch, I highly recommend it. Three amazing novellas (that became Shawshank, Apt Pupil, and Stand By Me) and a hauntingly creepy one called The Breathing Method.



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[KSUowls]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

On Silver Wings
Evan Currie

Spoiler

This is on Kindle Unlimited (KU), and I was pleasantly surprised by it.

I honestly don't know why I keep my subscription to KU. I've had for it a couple of years, and my entire experience with KU has ranged from dreadful to mediocre in the best of times. This is the first book on KU that I have ever enjoyed cover to cover.

The actions starts on page 1, and it never stops. Also, unlike the basically default option for any action story featuring a female lead, the story doesn't get caught up on some love triangle that honestly doesn't make a lot of sense with the overarching plot. I really appreciate when stories break away from this far too common trope for female leads.

The biggest positive here is that the author has a good feel for pacing.

The sci-fi setting was rather unique in my opinion. It's set somewhere around the 22nd century, humanity has achieved faster than light capabilities and even started colonizing other planets. All of that is pretty standard. The unique aspect though is that these spaceships with FTL capabilities do not have any form of interior gravity like you see in all other sci-fi movies. All of the ship crew has to float around and anchor themselves to things. I wouldn't say that it was a necessarily good or bad thing for the story, but it was interesting.

As much fun as I did have with the story, it wasn't without its faults. The heavy focus on action kept the story fun the whole way through, but I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters due to a total lack of character development. This also left me somewhat ambivalent on jumping into the next book in the series since I don't feel overly attached to any of the characters even if they are superficially interesting.

I decided to continue the story

Valkyrie Rising

This was a vastly improved story in terms of character development. It also starts to give context to what and why things are happening.

This actually gave me a greater appreciation of the first book "On Silver Wings". By the end of the first book you're left with more questions than answers. However, in the context it actually makes sense. Much of the first book takes place in a guerilla warfare scenario against an unknown enemy with unknown capabilities. The author definitely did a good job at only teasing information along the way.

Back to this 2nd book. It does not have quite as much action, but it uses the extra time to create a better understanding of the overall climate. It also introduces POV from one of the enemy soldiers, and this adds a lot of depth to the story (as well as questions). It's really setting up for quite the exciting conflict.

One thing that did bother me a bit though was the emphasis on female military personnel who largely find themselves suddenly positions of leadership after certain events. The title of the book is quite literal here. I don't mean that I was bothered that most of the high ranking cast were female but rather that the author went out of his way to make reference to that fact. Multiple male characters throughout the story have some inner dialog concerning that particular state of affairs. These constant little diatribes in a society that takes place 200 years into our future really only served to distract from how competent these ladies were on their own.

[Beantown]

OS Book Club Pt II

I think Beantown was the resident King fanatic if I’m not mistaken.

Ha, I see the other one, Johnny, has already chimed in.

If you’re looking for the “not so big” King stories…Insomnia, Duma Key, the Institute, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy is a fun easy read, Needful Things. Desperation. Regulators. The Long Walk. Tommyknockers (one of the disappointing endings that sticks out in my mind, though). Dreamcatcher.

There really are so many and I know I’m forgetting some that I’d put up there. That doesn’t even go into his short story collections.

As for the classic’s? Salem’s Lot is a must read in my mind. Obviously IT and the Stand, The Shining. The Dark Tower series. I’m not as big on some of the other classics (Carrie, Pet Semetary, Cujo for instance) but that’s the beauty of King books for me. Some of them one person will love but another won’t be able to finish. Others people will find boring because of the “world buildings where he spends chapters just describing the town and people who live there.


I’d also feel like I didn’t do my duty if I didn’t say to also look at his son Joe Hill’s novels. Heart Shaped Box, NOS4A2 and the Fireman are all top quality books.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

At this point I'm leaning towards a short story collection, 11/22/63, The Stand, or Salem's Lot.

Speaking of other horror authors to check out Stephen Graham Jones is fantastic and has a new book coming out next week called My Heart is a Chainsaw. I'm looking forward to it. Just have to get through Pynchon.

[DJ]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

How do we feel about King's books penned under the Richard Bachman pseudonym? Personally, I'm a big fan of those books, especially The Running Man.

[Beantown]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

How do we feel about King's books penned under the Richard Bachman pseudonym? Personally, I'm a big fan of those books, especially The Running Man.

The Long Walk is one of my favorites. Such a simple concept done so well.


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[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Spoiler

Really interesting sci-fi novel set partially in Cultural Revolution China and also partially in a present day video game. The Chinese were doing scientific experiments in the CR in an attempt to send a message to extra terrestrial life and eventually a woman who has seen the worst atrocities of her time gives up on the idea that humanity can save itself, insisting we need prodding from an outside force and sends a message to the stars asking for that help. Netflix is turning it into a show by the GoT guys so that should be interesting. I really liked the parts set in the CR, spends some time there really marrying the ideas of scientific progress and living in service to the state. One quote that I found interesting was "Ohm's law you called resistance law, Maxwell's equations you called electromagnetic equations, Planck's constant you called the quantum constant...You explained to your students that all scientific accomplishments resulted from the wisdom of the working masses, and those capitalist academic authorities only stole those fruits and put their names on them." My only nitpick was I thought it struck a great balance between science and fiction for the first 75%, then in the last 25% it's like 80% science and 20% fiction and it got hard to follow. I'm trying to imagine a proton unfolding and my brain started to fry a little.

Dark Force Rising by Timothy Zahn

Spoiler

More Star Wars shenanigans, more good times. This time Thrawn and the Republic are all trying to find and take control of a long lost fleet of ships to use against the other. More talking and less action in this than the first, which I didn't mind, I like the lore dumps. I really like Mara Jade and Thrawn, I may have said this in my first review, but it's really impressive that Zahn has created characters that really feel like have always existed in the Star Wars universe.

The Philosophy of Christopher Nolan edited by Jason Eberl

Spoiler

Collection of essays about Nolan movies and the philosophical texts and ideas that spring to mind when watching them. I wish I had started this when I watched Following, I probably could've finished by the time I finished the movie run. Falling behind made it harder to get back into, as the essays aren't necessarily meant to be binge read. But there were a lot of interesting ideas in them. Some felt like a stretch while others felt more directly related. I do wish it was arranged by movie instead of by theme, it seemed like there were 4 Memento essays back to back at one point. Unrelated, but Memento is definitely the movie of his I think about the most and could be #1 if I had to re-rank. Some really good ones on it on ideas like objective vs. subjective truth and identity. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it just to a fan of Nolan's movies as it doesn't directly relate to them but I'd recommend it to someone who wants a deeper reading into the ideas behind them. Watching them all in succession you can really see that there are some ideas that Nolan has been tackling in multiple movies in different ways so it's cool to see it broken down.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Spoiler

Literally read this because I wanted to watch Apocalypse Now and knew it was based on it. I'm glad I did them back to back and would 200% recommend them as a read-watch to anyone who wanted to do so. HoD is mostly a story told on a boat trip, where Marlowe tells the story of a trip he made previously going on a trip up a Congo River for a Belgian trading company. Along the way, he heard stories of basically an elite trader named Kurtz and becomes enamored with him as he heads further down the river and the sheer foreign-ness of the jungle starts to play tricks on his mind. Eventually he gets to Kurtz and the man doesn't live up to the stories, but Kurtz and the journey itself serve as reflections on the idea of civilization and humanity. It's hard to get into what I think about this book without getting into Apocalypse Now. I think the movie is better, but it almost doesn't work without the book as is whereas the book works completely independently. The movie isn't a direct adaptation but I think it's direct enough that it's hard to separate them in my mind now. The prose is beautiful too:

"The idleness of a passenger, my isolation amongst all these men with whom I had no point of contact, the oily and languid sea, the uniform sombreness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things, within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion. The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure, like the speech of a brother."

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine."

"I've been telling you what we said—repeating the phrases we pronounced—but what's the good? They were common everyday words—the familiar, vague sounds exchanged on every waking day of life. But what of that? They had behind them, to my mind, the terrific suggestiveness of words heard in dreams, of phrases spoken in nightmares. Soul! If anybody ever struggled with a soul, I am the man."

"Droll thing life is—that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself—that comes too late—a crop of unextinguishable regrets."

Moving onto the third book of the Thrawn trilogy now, then back to the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, after that I'm not sure. Maybe Broken Earth, maybe nonfiction, I"m sure something will pop up by then.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I keep seeing Liu Cixin's trilogy pop up so I guess I need to add it to my list. Sounds like an interesting premise and raises interesting questions.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

I was a little worried with the way the first one ended going full on hard sci-if that I wouldn’t be able to wrap my mind around the rest, but consensus seems to be that The Dark Forest (2nd one) is the best so I’m amped for that.
I think it’ll take me long enough to get through the last Thrawn and next 2 of those that I’ll just need to go into Dune next.
I want to read it before the movie comes, doubt I’ll be in theaters by the end of the year but I legit might buy tickets just to support my guy Denis. BR 2049 was dope, Arrival is an all timer for me, this movie is being set up to fail and I don’t like it lol. Really curious to see what the numbers would need to look like to justify finishing the story of the first book in the 2nd movie. It probably would’ve flopped anyway so maybe the pandemic will give them an excuse. I wish they back to backed it like LOTR. Speaking of, need to finally add the trilogy to my to do list. The way my reading interest are aligning with my movie interests, it’s almost that time.

[Beantown]

OS Book Club Pt II

For the King people, his newest novel, “Billy Summers” is solid. Haven’t gotten to the ending yet (14% left in the book according to my Kindle so I’ll return when the end happens) but it’s a King-written realistic war type story and worth a read.

Has a mention of “Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, an awesome book on its own right, and it really does feel like King paying homage to that type of war story while also weaving a pretty well done killer-for-hire story as the main plot.

There’s also a top level King Easter egg which is always one of my favorite things about his books.


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[Beantown]

Re: OS Book Club Pt II

Update - great ending. One of my favorite endings of his actually, I think, but that could also just be recently bias. Very rewarding ending to a surprisingly awesome book.


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