and wandered up and down the fiction/literature aisles trying to remember who wrote One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and wound up picking up two other books before I spotted it, Closing Time (the sequel to catch 22 which I'm currently reading for the 3rd time) and a new William Gibson novel called Spook Country.

I found Pattern Recognition, Gibson's last effort, to be full of his usual cool ideas and wary take on technology, but with an ending that didn't really do more than cushion the reader from smacking suddenly into the back cover once he'd run out of writing, like stopping short at a traffic light. I read Nest in high school and it stuck with me more than the other books in the curriculum, so I'm going to retrace it now that I'm smart enough to think as analytically as I was expected too back then.

I want to read Nostromo, also, but I was already carrying three books at that point. 

The only thing I read since then was Mr Nice, the autobiography of Howard Marks, cause I was on holiday. 

Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire

by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

Was a quick, easy read featuring several short horror/myth stories wound together with a Victorian children's tale and a man seeking serious revenge on a Vampire. Even without Mignola's art accompaniment, it generates a lot of vivid mental imagery and would make an excellent movie. It has an odd little ending too.

One wooden leg up :) 

I picked up that "watch the windward side" or whatever it was, of the Culture series from 2000.
It was mostly talking heads in very elaborate set pieces, but there were some nice things like the different personalities of the various species and individuals, robots and minds.
But what bothered me was that the environments were not relevant to the story in much any way and didn't affect the plot mechanics much. It was almost as if I had read a product placement advertisement brochure (for Masaqi for example, you'll know if you read the book).

I actually think it borders pulp fantasy like Eddings, of which I've read two thirds of a series (two books) ten years ago.

*spoiler* The lack of plot mechanics and existence of fantasy-like omnipotent benevolent creatures etc etc leave little space for the story as you know not that much interesting happens to the good guys... *spoiler* 

Use of weapons, the second in the series, or the Algebraist, the most recent. Excession is also pretty good, but hard to follow.

Look to Windward is one of the weaker ones and don't touch Against a Dark Background. 

Excession might be hard to follow but you should read it through a couple more times anyway, so don't worry about that!

HYPERDIMENSIONAL FLOWER OF ANNIHILATION 

Well, Look to Windward is one of my fav from him actually, but it's pretty pointless reading it if you haven't read Consider Phlebas, and at least a few other culture books, as it was kind of meant as a conclusion to the culture series (even though it seems he'll be writing at least another one).
Comparing Banks to Eddings? ugh... 

I haven't read the rest of the Culture series, so I might miss something, but the comparisons to Eddings are well founded when you look at this book alone. It's not as bad but has many elements to that direction.

I read some Eddings book (well, two of three) with a guy called Sparhawk fighting some evil empire. Don't remember the name of it anymore.

1) The good guys are in practice invulnerable. They most of the time have numerous fallbacks and god-like sidekicks that take care of everything. There is never any real danger to the main characters. If it was fantasy, it would be some elves, spirits and sages.
If someone dies, he/she can just be revived.
The only exception was the immediate start, and even that was not a real character but more of just a motivation.

2) The bad guys are hopelessly outdated and stupid in their backwards culture and ways.

3) There are lots of elaborate set pieces where some characters constantly move. For example every time we had Ziller or Kabe, they were at some sightseeing place doing something pointless and the real plot mechanic was just something they talked about. Maybe these sets are used in other books but here they just serve no purpose whatsoever. I almost skipped over the long descriptions of floating trees or flying women or cable tracks in a desert or hunting in a forest or the glass walkways of Aquime or the intricate shapes on a floating megacreature's back or... . Completely useless, and they must have filled one third of the book's considerable length. Why did Quilan even have to go to that gas world for that meeting? I mean, it's almost south park like, maybe there is a secret headquarters of some evil organization in the head of the statue of liberty, just because it's a fun set piece?
I realize part of this was done to show the beauty of Masaqi so you'd care for its destruction, and that partly worked, but it could have been done in some other way like following the life of some more everyday people.

4) The "comical" situations where mishaps happen and people joke about in good spirit. They are in it just for fun. There is no real danger because of magic, often this involves mixing very old and ultramodern technology in a contrived way. The most obvious was the desert cable car trip thing. But there were lots of others too.

I'll read more of him to get a fairer view. 

That's why it's not my favourite - it kind of wanders off into describing things that he'd wanted to include in other books. Really its more like a collection of short stories with one narrative holding it all together.

It was the same in the worst he's written, as I mentioned before, Against a Dark Background. Not really bad but its just a bunch of cool ideas with a fairly weak plot holding it all together. I'dve preferred a collection of short stories, tbh.

The ones that are well written are excellent though. A strong narrative that really drives the story forward, at times there are still the descriptions of complicated stuff, but they never overshadow the story (they're almost overshadowed by it) and feel right, not coercive or just dropped in there for the sake of it.

I agree - what the hell did that oskendari (?) Airsphere have to do with anything? It nearly came off as a nice epilogue attachment, but didn't. 

Heart of Darkness is one of the best books I've ever read. It's such a good expression of the idea that everything is ultimately descended from, and indeed an expression of, primitive savagery.

To me it seemed really Darwinian, Conrad somehow had a better grasp of the subject than plenty of educated people today do, but he was writing in a time that was still early enough in the history of the idea for him to be shocked by it and find it dark and disturbing.

When Coppola was having difficulty adapting the book, with Apocalpyse Now going way over budget and him having too much material filmed, he referred to it (or maybe the filming process of it) as "The Idiodicy" (as opposed to The Odyssey, which the screenwriter said was another influence - the playboy bunnies were the sirens, that little dog was Cerberus, etc). I always found that amusing. 

Connected the two as being linked, but I can see it now. I found the book hard work to be honest, but can't put my finger on why. 

Bit of a fanboy, I think I've read everything of his but Dead Air... his earlier stuff is better and nastier though. Consider Phlebas, Use Of Weapons, Complicity, The Wasp Factory... all worth reading.

I think often enjoy books as much for the imagination as the stories -- I really liked the airspheres and the gigabehemoths and so in in Look to Windward. They helped distract from the plot and the terrible ending at least :-) 

Although one of the most challenging reads i have come across, i did find it very much worthwhile. Even wrote a paper on it for university, which i thought was rather poorly done, but the professor gave me an A, so i guess he liked it. 

agree with all that, specifically the second paragraph. That pretty much nails it I think, I've read it twice again since when I posted :)

It also helps that Conrad' use of language to express his ideas is absolutely fantastic. 

Finnish scifi. Probably not translated anywhere, a decent if uneven book, has impressing amount of imagination and breadth of details but the overarching story is a bit of a mess and there's some weird pathos. (Can't say exactly without spoilers but a lot about religion, science and the western world.)

But why am I writing about this for you, as most of you have no way to read it anyway?

Well, the writer is an open information and open source guy, his latest book is even available in the internet with a creative commons licence (titled Lueminut - which translates to Readme). I think that is an interesting way. I'm still wondering about the different profit models with internet. How can you create content and get some compensation without the whole convoluted publisher thing, marketing etc?

I also notice the book has some errors, which shows that the small publisher didn't do much editing. I've heard from a guy who works as an editor for a publisher how much editors actually shape the novelists' work. For example Stephen King uses always some same guy.

Interesting. There are probably guys or girls on func who have thought about penning something themselves.

As a side note, the most famous finnish scifi writer, Risto Isom�ki has a bit of a similar style: the plots and people can be somewhat corny at times but damn the visions are so grand and extraordinary, and that's what scifi is mostly about. I hope someone translated for example his latest, "Sarasvatin hiekkaa" to swedish, german, french or english. 

trying to find a book i read ages ago... i think it *may* be Survivors by John Nahmlos, but there's not a single synopsis/summary on the entire internet to check and verify it's the book i'm looking for.

so... has anyone here read it? if you've got it, could you type out the back summary please? 

Revelation Space by Alistair Reynolds - pretty good, lots of interesting ideas in here. Some unnecessary parts, and some characters seem tacked on to make the universe seem bigger or more complex than it is, or perhaps he is setting the story up for the later books. I can't be sure. There are only two complaints I have with this book, and they are :

1.) Bio-engineered assassin peacocks
2.) Perhaps I just don't read enough science fiction, but the author uses the phrase "of course" entirely too damn much - in the narration and in the character speech. All of the personality he tries to fill his characters with gets bled dry when they all use 'of course' like czg uses TF2-gay-porn web sites. (A whole lot.)

The story itself is not unlike that of Mass Effect - not the same thing, but very close to it. There's really not a lot of action, most of it is based around archeological evidence and so on, but it's a pretty intriguing read none the less. I'll be getting to Chasm City sooner or later, the 2nd book in the series.

*SPOILER*

Also, the ending was a bit cliche (giant boom that saves the day, the main characters survive, no big surprise if you read the book) when really he could have done something much more interesting and cliff-hangery. But whatever, the ride was fun.


Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick - This is just like Blade Runner - if Blade Runner were written by Douglas Adams. I mean I can see why the movie left out and changed a huge portion of the book, because the book is just plain silly in so many parts that I find it hard to believe Ridley Scott could have gotten the same mood if he left it in - the whole story line with the goat made me laugh out loud.

And really, while I understand the events happening in Electric Sheep, if there is any sort of moral or philosophical goal to get across, it's completely wasted on me because too damn much happens in a relatively short amount of time. The book is a breeze to read, but it really is all over the damn place. Rick Deckard changes moods like czg changes condoms while looking at TF2-gay-porn web sites. (A whole lot.)

It's completely possible that it's just a story about the times (1968 I believe) and more a social commentary, which would go over my head mostly. There seems to be a strong religious view point, as Wilbur Mercer would make a good parallel for Jesus Christ, but I can't find the others to fill in the metaphor or reap any kind of message from it other than that Jesus is fake and people are androids. Or something. I don't know.

Blade Runner = good
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? = what 

just as much as i liked Blade Runner

tought me spiders can live with only 4 legs but they just dont feel like it 

Dude--a cliche ending? It was a fucking neutron star! And Chasm City is a side story. And, the rest of the series is awesome. SHIT MAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING 

He gets better as he goes really, the characters in his earlier books like Revelation Space are a bit meh.

I thought Electric Sheep was great, but it's definitely got that very weirdo old-school sci-fi vibe that Dick quite alot of. 

I don't know why, I mostly spent the time (and it was a lot of it, that man writes bricks) thinking about what was wrong with it in detail. Oh well. 

I thought his newest stuff was quite good, the Whole Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained, and the new series, Dreaming Void etc. Definitely feels stronger than his older books. 

And yeah, it's not bad exactly, but it's not that good either...

I'm not sure what it is about his books I find so strange. I think they have a really odd dramatic structure -- he mostly seems to try for a massively detailed at least semi-plausible future history sort of thing but the way all the story arcs come together at the end gives it an echo of an epic tale like the Lord of the Rings, and the two really don't sit well together.

And of course they're far, far, far too long. These two books are about 2500 pages in total -- the same story less a few subplots in 800 pages might have been really good. 

Volks Game

its alright 

it's alright