Lex, one of her books is on sale for a very low price on Amazon right -- at least, here in Canada. I bought it just to get an idea of her writing.



Another of my absolute hands-down favourite authors is Iain Banks/Iain M. Banks. He straddled genres successfully. I was going through my books recently and I think it's time for me to go through his entire oeuvre again.

Max Barry is another new writer suggested to me by Amazon, I think prompted by my purchase of Rabbits (mentioned earlier in this thread) which I have just finished reading - a real rollercoaster of a story - and I have started reading his book Lexicon which seems very promising, so Claire North will have to wait...

Thanks for the reminder about Iain Banks - I remember being given Consider Phlebas by one of my daughters some years ago, but it may well be time for me to delve into some more of his books.

You are right about him straddling genres hagatha. I like both sides of his writing although some of his non-science fiction stuff is amongst my favourites, the earlier ones particularly. I will never forget The Wasp Factory.
Ian McEwan's Cement Garden made a similar impact.

Flotsam, The Wasp Factory is one weird and wonderful book, isn't it? Brilliantly twisted. And the fact that all of the negative, disgusted reviews are included at the front was an absolutely hysterical way to promote the novel. Talk about self-selecting your audience. I absolutely loved it. At the time I bought it, I only knew Iain Banks as the science fiction writer, so it took me by surprise.

About ten years ago I decided I wanted all of his books, and ordered them all from Amazon. I will never part with any of them. He's in the permanent collection like Sherri Tepper, Lois McMaster Bujold, CJ Cherryh, Terry Pratchett and a few other favourites.

I guess I'll have to grab a copy of Cement Garden, based on that favourable comparison.

EDIT: The Cement Garden is not available on Amazon at the moment. Oh, well.

Continuing my Isaac Asimov trek with Prelude to Foundation

Ah. Sticking to the classics.

It sure is hagatha. I read all of his next novels as a result.
Cement Garden isn't quite as twisted, but it stuck with me over the years. I even had dreams about a particular detail.
I had to cull books a while back after moving for room, but still have both those. My permanent collection now tends towards particular titles, and I started recently replacing the best of those with hardback copies (which take up more room but I will deal with that later!!).
I have an ebook reader for travel, but will never give up the tree-books
Soot, I haven't read the Foundation novels for years, but have had them in hard cover for at least 30 years. Am keen to watch the series which will likely lead to a re-read.

Oh, right, the Foundation series is coming. I'll be watching that at some point.

Well I have just ordered The Wasp Factory in book form having read (and been intrigued by) the Kindle sample on the basis if your recommendation(s): much cheaper as a good second-hand print version than an electronic download!

Flotsam, I was wondering whether that story may have prompted your choice of online name...

Lex, The Wasp Factory is both brilliant and repellent, not your average read, not by a long shot.

Yes flotsam, can't wait to see how the director and actors capture the Foundation novel

The Foundation and Dune universes are my all time favorites

I really enjoyed Peter Jackson's film series on the book 'The Hobbit' ... a much better adaptation rather than trying to do it all in one movie

It didn't Lex but maybe I will claim it anyway

I love the Foundation trilogy and the other novels in that series. These chapter titles at the end of Second Foundation still give me goosebumps: The Answer That Satisfied/The Answer That Was True. I also really enjoyed his robot novels. My first forays into sci-fi were with his books along with those of Clarke, Heinlein, and E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series.

I got to see Asimov years ago when he was touring to promote zero population growth to maintain the world's resources. He showed mathematically how populations could grow exponentially and deplete food supplies and other basic resources, and he showed the social difficulties that arise when populations become too dense.

Asimov was a visionary.

I too, began my sci-fi reading with Clarke, Heinlein, Sturgeon and others from that era. My father was a huge sci-fi fan and had an extensive library of paperbacks. He also bought us our first TV specifically because he wanted to watch Star Trek (the original series).



EDIT: I'm now reading Claire North's The Pursuit of William Abbey. It's very good.

I started much the same way LK. I still have a soft spot for the Lensmen books.

I also enjoyed many Asimov and Clarke books, one of the most affecting books of all time for me being Childhood's End (unfortunately not very well translated to screen).

I have now finished The Wasp Factory with mixed feelings: certainly a memorable and interesting read, and my stomach is easily strong enough for the darkly humorous events, but in places I found that it dragged a little (for which I at least partly blame my own short attention span). The clearly signalled potential lack of reliability on the part of both the narrator and his father led me to vaguely suspect the end twist fairly early on: my immediate thought upon finishing it was to wonder whether the tale would earn praise or condemnation amid today's sexual politics! As a first novel(la) and at its time, quite an achievement.

Still working my way through various of Andrew Mayne's entertaining yarns but currently taking a break from those to read Claire North's The End Of The Day.

My guess is that Banks deliberately made The Wasp Factory as notable as possible to break into the literary scene with a bang. I should dig it out and read it again. It's been about ten years.

I'm able to detach a novel and its writer from the politics of the day. If I couldn't, I would have had to abandon Dan Simmons (without going into any details here), whose writing I have have enjoyed for many years. Hyperion is one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read, and though the other three books in the saga are not as good, it's still worth reading. The novel itself is the thing -- is it good, is it worth reading? But I guess I say that as someone who is not easily offended.

You might well be right hagatha, and if so, it seemed to have worked.

Its even longer ago since I read it, as I am a bit allergic to re-reading favourites. I always worry they might not be as good as I remember, or were more a product of whatever age I was and the circumstances in which I read them. I don't know what my 60 year old self might think of something I read when I was 20 or 40 or any other age.

But in the spirit of recommending things, I have The Wasp Factory out and will read it again next!

Still reading Claire North's The End Of The Day - only about half way through but already finding it a very powerful book for our times, vignettes of humanity amidst the clouds of what could be the looming apocalypse (giving the Four Horsemen partly human faces), climate change, war/terrorism, migrants and social inequality all getting a mention, shifting the tone from the gently entertaining to the horrific/desperate - very accomplished writing.

And I'm still reading Claire North's the Pursuit of William Abbey, which is slow-moving but eminently readable. My reading time is greatly reduced by my TV watching at the moment -- I seem to go in cycles.

I might grab a couple more of her books while I'm at it.

I read a lot, but during this long year and more of Covid isolation, I've read even more voraciously. Couple of books a week.
My interests are wide, mostly non-fiction, but I like a good detective novel, too. I'll read just about anything except themes of oppression, torture or gore.

Bill Bryson's books on science and nature ~ any of them (there are dozens)
Mystery novel series by Ann Cleeves, Elizabeth George, Louise Penny and Elly Griffiths
Books about space and science (especially by Brian Geene, Fritjof Kapra, James Gleick, George Gamow)
Anything by the great Harold Bloom (Shakespeare, Genius, histories of various cultures, religion, etc.)
Books about birds and birding (like The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman)
Travel books (deciding where to go next)

(BTW, I did not notice the follow-up to my previous comment some time ago. I did look into and enjoy reading some of the recommendations therein!)

Reenie, that's quite a wide range of interests. When I was younger I read more widely than I do now. I've been strictly fiction reader for a long time now, unless someone buys me a non-fiction book.

Any one else read/reading John Hart? My latest discovery courtesy of Amazon marketing (although I think his first book was in 2014): very dark and gritty thrillers set in southern USA, well written and compelling, but not for the squeamish.

Also, for something lighter (so far) how about SF from Becky Chambers? I have started to read and am quite taken with A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet: Wayfarers 1.

Reenie, have you tried Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club?

My attention span for reading is pretty short these days so I'm reading some Best Science Fiction and Fantasy short story collections, massive, door-stopper books full of writers I haven't heard of before and some very good short fiction. I should make a list of the writers that stand out so I an keep an eye out for more of their work, although I suspect most of them are not novelists.

Nothing wrong with that sort of reading material, hagatha!

I have now just finished Redemption Road, my first foray into John Hart, and it really delivered right to the end: one of the most engrossing thrillers I have read in a long time and kept me awake later than usual because it was so hard to put down!