What Book Did You Read Last Night??? (2 Viewers)

[snakybus]

I've been reading some weird shit lately.

• "Vurt" by Jeff Noone - like a sci fi Trainspotting, featuring people who experience shared psychotropic hallucinations, some characters who are human/dog hybrids, and parallels with thelegend of Orpheus. Weird and good.
• Literature(TM) by Guillermo Stitch - satisfyingly weird, features a steamroller that prints actual fiction onto some kind of biosynthetic road, which drivers read, and the act of engagement with the fiction propels your vehicle. Sounds bananas. Is. But works.
• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut - oldie but a goodie. Not so much weird as gonzo, but then Vonnegut always tends to be so it's grand. I'm not sure he achieves the profound heights in this one as others from the canon, but it was very readable.
• A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. Part trad space opera, part post-singularity thought experiment in which technological gods exist beyond the perimeter of the galaxy and think us mere mortals like, say, fish. There are dog-aliens that can only function as psionic packs. Very involved and an enjoyable doorstop of a book.
• Night Shift by Stephen King. Mr. King gives good short story.
• Lake of Urine by Guillermo Stitch - the weirdest of the lot, and that's saying something. Mervyn Peakish, satirical, surreal as fuck, hilarious, insane, and beautifully written. This nearly broke my brain.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I've been reading some weird shit lately.

• "Vurt" by Jeff Noone - like a sci fi Trainspotting, featuring people who experience shared psychotropic hallucinations, some characters who are human/dog hybrids, and parallels with thelegend of Orpheus. Weird and good

Oh man, i read and loved the sequel to that when I was about 17. I've had Vurt sitting here for about a decade, would you recommend?

edit: just looking up his stuff online, I also read the next two books and thought they were great as well. Jesus, it's been a long time though.

 

[snakybus]

Oh man, i read and loved the sequel to that when I was about 17. I've had Vurt sitting here for about a decade, would you recommend?

Was that Pollen? I would, yeah. I don't think its dated, really. I think it was ahead of its time, though you can see how it worked in the era of Madchester etc. I heard he made a musical of it, which I just can't imagine. It's the only Jeff Noone I've read, would like to explore more.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Was that Pollen? I would, yeah. I don't think its dated, really. I think it was ahead of its time, though you can see how it worked in the era of Madchester etc. I heard he made a musical of it, which I just can't imagine. It's the only Jeff Noone I've read, would like to explore more.

I'll have to go back, I basically picked it up because I was suffering from hayfever for the first time and looking for something to cheer me up. 17 year old Lili - sitting around sneezing, listening to the Clash and reading a book that's mostly informed by techno and house music and piles of drugs. The innocence.

I remember loving Nymphmation and Automated Alice as well, but sure who knows.

 

[Cormcolash]

Finished a Gregory Benford anthology recently, 'Artifact', 'Cosm', and 'Eater'

'Artifact' - An archaeological expedition in Greece discovers a strange artifact that doesn't seem to belong
'Cosm' - A particle accelerator experiment goes wrong and creates an unknown material
'Eater' - A Hawaiin observatory picks up a strange signal from deep space

All three books are kind of an excuse for Benford to show off his physics knowledge (he's a professor or whatever) by inserting theoretically possible ideas into sci-fi stories. The most out there of the lot is Eater, which does feature an alien entity from beyond the solar system that wants to harvest souls.
Anyway it was a week or two back I finished these so not that much to say now except that 'Artifact' is probably the best of the 3, in fact I think they get worse in the order above although 'Eater' isn't really bad or anything, it's just alright. 'Cosm' in some ways is a better book than 'Artifact', but the latter is just a bit more entertaining in terms of the direction the plot takes.
What's cool about these books (if you ask me) is that they're all essentially based in university-type research institutions and they spend a lot of time deliberately wading through the ephemeral muck of academia. Benford seems to love describing the utter bullshit stuff that comes with academia, such as administrators that don't have a fucking clue, students that will do anything for a pass, inter-organisational arguments, academic snobbery, etc. Basically he describes most of the worst things about academia but still maintains the characters' motivation for why they want to do this work. It's pretty great to see such a realistic portrayal of academia in sci-fi, considering that so many other sci-fi writers kind of just accept it as the ivory tower. Asimov probably has to take a lot of the blame for that I guess.
Also all three of these books have female protagonists that Benford tries to do justice to, and it seems like he doesn't do a terrible job either (no doubt he had friends etc read through them), but really Benford is a bit like a more modern Asimov in that his character writing is mostly there to support the concepts (better than Asimov mind) and his stories are actually about the sci-fi concepts he's conceived them from. Very similar to Asimov in that regard to, considering that many of Asimov's stories are really just designed to illustrate thought-experiments in robotics and AI and that kind of thing. (edit: just remembered that Benford was one of the authors that wrote follow-up books to Asimov's Foundation series (on your tv soon, filmed in Limerick) so no surprise there really).

Overall, good stuff. Benford does this particular kind of 'theoretically possible conceptualisations realised in sci-fi setting' with pretty much all his books that I've read, and hey he's good at it.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

I'm starting a Finnegans Wake book club with the survivors of my Ulysses book club, @Cornu Ammonis as the resident Joyce expert, any advice?

Don’t expect it to make sense the first time and read it out loud if you can. If you want to get into secondary reading, John Bishop’s Joyce’s Book of the Dark is amazing.

 

[Lili Marlene]

"First time round."

Listen to yer man

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

"First time round."

Listen to yer man

When you’ve read it a few times you can start calling it “The Wake”. Expert level readers will own the various individually published chapters from “Work in Progress”. When you find yourself reading books by Fritz Senn, you’ve really made it as a scholar.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Reading The Wake while listening to The Dan

 

[Scientician 0.8]

The last 5 years or so I've not really read any long form fiction. I am going to attempt to get back into the habit though I suspect I will lose interest before I manage to read a full novel. It's strange because from teenage years until I was maybe 30 I read novels regularly and enjoyed them. I am amazed when I see people reading 52 novels a year or what not.

 

[dunderhead]

any of you read that Chris Frantz biography, Remain In Love ?

Read it over the summer, enjoyed it, had some great insights into the dynamics of the band and their tours etc but overall he comes across as a bit of a prick. Constantly name-dropping folks into the book and generally seemed like a self important cunt. I'm sure David Byrne could be difficult to deal with but this guy seems like he'd annoy the hell out of you if you were stuck with him all the time

good read though, recommend. sent me spirallng down a Talking Heads rabbit hole that is still ongoing

 

[MacDara]

any of you read that Chris Frantz biography, Remain In Love ?

Read it over the summer, enjoyed it, had some great insights into the dynamics of the band and their tours etc but overall he comes across as a bit of a prick. Constantly name-dropping folks into the book and generally seemed like a self important cunt. I'm sure David Byrne could be difficult to deal with but this guy seems like he'd annoy the hell out of you if you were stuck with him all the time

good read though, recommend. sent me spirallng down a Talking Heads rabbit hole that is still ongoing

I read the excerpt in Mojo a couple of months back and it’s on my to-read list. Along with a million other things.

 

[Lili Marlene]

any of you read that Chris Frantz biography, Remain In Love ?

Read it over the summer, enjoyed it, had some great insights into the dynamics of the band and their tours etc but overall he comes across as a bit of a prick. Constantly name-dropping folks into the book and generally seemed like a self important cunt. I'm sure David Byrne could be difficult to deal with but this guy seems like he'd annoy the hell out of you if you were stuck with him all the time

good read though, recommend. sent me spirallng down a Talking Heads rabbit hole that is still ongoing

Been meaning to get around it, and will now with this recommendation. I love Talking Heads but everyone in that band is pretty much a prick, David Byrne still calls Tina Weymouth "the bass player" in interviews.

 

[hermie]

Tina seems nice, no?

 

[Lili Marlene]

Tina seems nice, no?

About as nice as the rest.

Ah, i'm sure they're all nice, just Tina and David have never gotten over whatever their issues are.

 

[jonah]

I was super excited to read "Paul takes the form of a mortal girl" because the premise is so original and interesting, but was really disappointed. Found it really dependent on stereotype, found Paul referring to his sexual conquests in terms of "prey" and "hunting" a tough read, thought it was going to do so many interesting things but it didn't, and also found the incessant pop culture references unbearable. The latter one is a pet peeve of mine anyway, and the way it went in this book just read as really pretentions and self aware. Not for me.

THAT SAID, it had some beautiful writing, loved some of the characters, and still think its an incredibly interesting story, so like... 3/5, more disappointed by what it could have been than annoyed by what it is.

 

[dunderhead]

Been meaning to get around it, and will now with this recommendation. I love Talking Heads but everyone in that band is pretty much a prick, David Byrne still calls Tina Weymouth "the bass player" in interviews.

Byrne does come across as a sneaky enough character when it comes to acknowledging credits to tunes and stuff.
Brian Eno also comes across as a bit of a dickhead with his eventual carry-on towards the group,

there's a good a bit to sink your teeth into, especially for a big TH fans. And for someone like myself who loves the albums but knew nothing much about the group beyond the records

 

[flashback]

About as nice as the rest.

Isn't David Byrne autistic? Not that mental illness excuses cuntery, but there's some connection between appearing to be an asshole and just not understanding how to interact with other people very well.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Isn't David Byrne autistic? Not that mental illness excuses cuntery, but there's some connection between appearing to be an asshole and just not understanding how to interact with other people very well.

No. I've seen him self-diagnose as possibly falling on the aspergers spectrum when younger but he thinks that is no longer the case. I don't really know. Sure they were all mad into coke at the time.

 

[flashback]

Part time Aspergers. Why not sure.

Sure they were all mad into coke at the time.

Ah, I see, right. Having lived and worked with coke-heads, I can say that the old adage that coke turns dickheads into bigger dickheads isn't a million miles off.