Books - What are you reading?

Weird, I have just got Man in the High Castle and also started a Terry Pratchett binge (starting discworld from book 1 and working through) after bingeing all of Neil Gaimans novels. Struggling a little with PKD writing style at the moment.

Have you read much else by PKD? His writing style is pretty different from book to book. One of the things I'm struggling with in The Man In The High Castle is that a lot of the dialogue and internal monologues are written almost like broken English, a bit like a dodgy impression of a Japanese person which feels slightly off.

I think I've read all of the discworld books over the years, I'm planning to just pick and choose the cream of the crop for now. I've not read any Neil Gaiman I don't think. Where's a good place to start?

I haven't, it was first on my list! Yes, it was the dialogue style I was struggling with.

I'm a huge fan of his, I wouldn't let The Man In The High Castle put you off, I feel like it maybe just hasn't aged that well. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and A Scanner Darkly are both good starting points if you wanted to try anything else by him. He's written some great stuff, ranging from quite accessible but well thought out sci-fi to gibbering, esoteric, nightmarish ramblings.

Yes, I have dipped in and out of Discworld, so thought I would have a go at them in order.

I like Gaiman stuff, it is all over the place, if you like Pratchett then there is of course Good Omens that they wrote together which is excellent. My favourite of his is Neverwhere , although the American Gods books are more in depth and interesting. Also his kids books (Coraline, Ocean at the end of the lane, Graveyard book) are great!

I shall add both of those to the reading list, cheers, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" has been on the list for a while, will push to the top of the charity shop list (when they reopen)

Ah, I knew the name was familiar, I hadn't clocked the Pratchett connection though. I've just ordered a copy of American Gods, sounds interesting!

Enjoy! He is probably more well known for his graphic novels Sandman etc, but that has never been my thing.

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
An awesome PKD exploration of memory and reality. A common theme of his. Add that to your list.

About to start The Machine Stops, EM Forster. Heard its relevant

You'll be shocked to find out but disc world nerds have made various preferred reading orders that aren't chronological if you look online. Most of them are thematic, so if you find their are characters you prefer and those you don't warm to you can just read the subset

Yeah, have seen lots of them, far too many to work out which one to go with! In past I have be accident rather than design read them by character, so thought I would give it a go from the very start, doesn't take long to read each one anyway.

Yeah that's a good 'un as well!

The most famous, and possibly my favourite is Neverwhere. Set in london too.

I love the Sam Vimes books, they get better as his character becomes more rounded. They are like a nostalgic safety blanket for me. I do think they suffered a bit as Pratchetts alzheimer's progressed.

I'm with you on Neverwhere, was my first book I read of his, picked it up in a charity shop when I needed something of his to read whilst my car was serviced. He is currently writing the full follow up (there was the short story he wrote), although it looks likes it has been pushed back already.

I would love to know what happened to Door. I also thought croup and vandemar were top villains.

Yes! Apparently he got completely tied up with all the TV stuff, particularly American Gods, but hopefully he gets some free time to knock it out now...

I watched this and was bit pissed off when they had the big break after the first part. Also changing a few of an excellent cast was a shame. I just don't think they managed to hold it together properly, some of it is great, some of it not so much.

American Gods is a bit like Pratchett's Small Gods, but at Hollywood scale. It's very good.

Currently reading Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Goodreads informs me I've managed a book a week since the start of the year which should smash a nice big chunk through my to-read pile, thank god. I feel a lot less guilty about having two bookshelves filled with unread books as a result.

I've read all of the Pratchett books repeatedly and am vaguely working through on a character basis (done guards and Death so far).

I've struggled to find a decent alternative to them. I've read some of the standard recommendations Tom Holt seems to be just rehashing the same story, Robert Rankin is a bit hard work (although I used to love his books) and Jasper Fforde was just terrible. Closest I've found recently was James Bibby and Ronan the Barbarian which was entertaining.

On another note I've just read Shibumi by Trevanian which I thought was some classic thriller but was actually a bit shit.

Q&A on where to buy books that isn't Amazon:
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/jun/06/order-books-online-amazon-bookshop

Is the Alf book by the guy who polices the UKTT Facebook page for any less-than-flattering mentions of his name? Is it good?

I've been reading Pride and Prejudice, having never read any Austen before, and assumed it would all be outdated posh twaddle.

It kind of is, but I've really enjoyed it. There's something about clever, witty, and perceptive writing that it doesn't really matter where it's coming from.

I commented on it to my wife that they make a big fuss about someone walking the whole three miles to another house, which seems to wear them out completely, but then happily send one of the book's near-invisible servants to make the same journey to send some trifling message. She found it funny that I assumed that, if I were around at the time, I'd be the kind of person who wouldn't even merit a mention in the book. I think it's funny that other people read it and assume that this is anything other than a strange alien world that bears no reality to real life for the vast majority of people.

Great book though.

American Gods is a bit like Pratchett's Small Gods, but at Hollywood scale.

Not just the scale that's different. They're very different writers, different styles, even to a large extent different audiences. I used to help run the UK Discworld Conventions and I can tell you that Terry's core fans were mostly not people comfortable with writing in Gaiman's style, because I met them. The core DW fans loved that Terry's book ostensibly about opera was really a spoof of musical theatre with a running gag that the same actor who first played Lloyd Webber's Phantom had previously been Frank Spencer; they were mostly too fluffy to be comfortable reading something like Snow, Glass, Apples.

You can find similar images or themes in their writing, but Terry was almost always turning a dark image into slapstick or a Carry-On style joke and Gaiman mostly goes the other way, making funny or familiar things deeply disturbing. Small Gods is mostly about human beings, not gods. American Gods is almost entirely about gods and barely considers people at all.

I don't think their styles gelled particularly well in Good Omens the book. I thought it was OK, but bits of it read like Douglas Adams when he'd run out of ideas and energy. I'm pretty sure it wasn't televised until after Terry's death because he and Neil Gaiman would not have been able to agree on the adaptation. Enjoyed the TV version a lot more.