Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. A re-read of this collection of short stories, partly prompted by the release of a film, Arrival, based on one of them, and partly because after a small streak of bad luck in choosing reading matter, I wanted something I knew I’d like. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Chiang that I didn’t enjoy on at least some level, and I wish he was more prolific.
Glow by Ned Beauman. I met the author at a non-book-related thing, and he seemed like a nice enough chap with a good appreciation of copyeditors (we asked each other what we do for a living; he writes, I copyedit), so I downloaded samples of all three novels he’s written so far. I couldn’t get into either of the others (Boxer, Beetle and The Teleportation Accident), but this one was pretty fun — and, yes, well edited. It’s just on the right side of several lines: not quite too many similes, not quite too much explanation, and not quite too many in-jokes.
I finished the novel that I started 2 3 weeks ago. It doesn't usually take me that long, but since the 9th I've been alternating filing myself with scary news and comfort tv, which didn't leave much time for novel reading.
The Hating Game was fun. Lots of sexual tension and banter. Dead Heat was awful, though. And it's a complete shame because I adore the author and don't know what happened here. It was uneven and extremely boring. A good 60% of it was bogged down in unnecessary horse breeding details. In fact, I sent Fire Touched back to the library because some of the 1 star reviews were saying it suffered the same pacing issues, and I felt I needed to space it out a bit if one of my favorite authors went into a rough patch.
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Date: 2016-11-28 09:28 pm (UTC)Since last report, I have read:
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