|
Post by twothousandonemark on Apr 9, 2022 18:55:00 GMT
Watchmen. My 2nd ever go. I'd first read it just prior 2009 film release, & now after recently re-watched that, I'm enjoying the character voices & tones as it were in my mind. I can say that's helped me read it about 3x as quickly.
|
|
|
Post by Ass_E9 on Apr 12, 2022 2:53:36 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 18, 2022 0:24:10 GMT
I’m alternating between a collection of Neil Simon’s plays and a Helen McCloy mystery novel (an odd combo, I know). After almost two months, I’m finally finished with the short, easy-to-read McCloy mystery novel, Unfinished Crime (1954). No point to that image, really, as it doesn’t depict anything close to what happens in the book.It’s fun and likable—McCloy was too good a writer for it to be anything less—but it’s far from top-rank McCloy ( Through a Glass, Darkly, The Slayer and the Slain). The main problem is that McCloy doesn’t coalesce her plot threads well enough. We’ve got an imposture scheme, a murder plot with unexpectedly close parallels to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four, the disappearance of a fabulous gem à la Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, mysterious attacks on the heroine—and I kept expecting those threads to meet up, and even when McCloy reveals her solution it feels like four different solutions to four different stories. The most interesting thread is the imposture scheme, which raises McCloy’s beloved theme of the doppelgänger. Its solution is, as mystery critic Mike Grost pointed out, none too plausible, but the situation abounds with imagination and spookiness (two of the author’s great strengths). Unfortunately we keep going back to all these other, less interesting plots and their thinly sketched characters. (I will say that despite all my complainin’ the murderer’s identity did take me by surprise. But that may be because, again, McCloy has too many plots—and too many plotters.) All that said, McCloy as always shows off her ability to write:And I will conclude this post with my customary clarion call for some Hollywood filmmaker to snatch up the rights for The Slayer and the Slain (and, er, hire me to write the script).
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on Apr 19, 2022 13:43:05 GMT
I’m alternating between a collection of Neil Simon’s plays and a Helen McCloy mystery novel (an odd combo, I know). After almost two months, I’m finally finished with the short, easy-to-read McCloy mystery novel, Unfinished Crime (1954). No point to that image, really, as it doesn’t depict anything close to what happens in the book.It’s fun and likable—McCloy was too good a writer for it to be anything less—but it’s far from top-rank McCloy ( Through a Glass, Darkly, The Slayer and the Slain). The main problem is that McCloy doesn’t coalesce her plot threads well enough. We’ve got an imposture scheme, a murder plot with unexpectedly close parallels to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sign of the Four, the disappearance of a fabulous gem à la Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, mysterious attacks on the heroine—and I kept expecting those threads to meet up, and even when McCloy reveals her solution it feels like four different solutions to four different stories. The most interesting thread is the imposture scheme, which raises McCloy’s beloved theme of the doppelgänger. Its solution is, as mystery critic Mike Grost pointed out, none too plausible, but the situation abounds with imagination and spookiness (two of the author’s great strengths). Unfortunately we keep going back to all these other, less interesting plots and their thinly sketched characters. (I will say that despite all my complainin’ the murderer’s identity did take me by surprise. But that may be because, again, McCloy has too many plots—and too many plotters.) All that said, McCloy as always shows off her ability to write:And I will conclude this post with my customary clarion call for some Hollywood filmmaker to snatch up the rights for The Slayer and the Slain (and, er, hire me to write the script).
I just finished this, book 3 in the Basil Willing series, and while I found the premise intriguing (at a house party some guests are given a truth serum without their knowledge, but what was intended as a prank by the hostess ends up deadly serious), I thought McCloy could've handled the idea better. The choice of culprit and his motivation was also not very inspired, although at least I learned some fascinating trivia about deaf people (apparently they can sense vibrations).
|
|
|
Post by Nalkarj on Apr 19, 2022 16:53:49 GMT
I just finished this, book 3 in the Basil Willing series, and while I found the premise intriguing (at a house party some guests are given a truth serum without their knowledge, but what was intended as a prank by the hostess ends up deadly serious), I thought McCloy could've handled the idea better. The choice of culprit and his motivation was also not very inspired, although at least I learned some fascinating trivia about deaf people (apparently they can sense vibrations). Quelle coïncidence! Hm, this one sounded so good… I’ll have to take a look at some point, though unfortunately my library has access to precious few McCloys, even though interlibrary loan, and the bookstore near me that used to stock her books has closed down. I haven’t even gotten to Mr. Splitfoot (one of her best known, though Nick Fuller’s not a fan) yet.
|
|
|
Post by Ass_E9 on Apr 25, 2022 19:13:42 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Ass_E9 on Apr 25, 2022 21:16:12 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Feologild Oakes on Apr 30, 2022 14:24:35 GMT
Its a book about Neanderthals
|
|
|
Post by Captain Spencer on May 1, 2022 17:50:54 GMT
The Pyx by John Buell The 1959 novel that was the basis for the 1973 movie that starred Christopher Plummer and Karen Black. I'll be starting on it tonight.
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on May 1, 2022 23:15:06 GMT
|
|
gw
Junior Member
@gw
Posts: 1,520
Likes: 557
|
Post by gw on May 2, 2022 2:36:55 GMT
I'm reading Harvest by Robert Charles Wilson. It's about an alternate timeline where alien bio-machines wait around the Earth and give human beings the ability to live forever if they so choose.
|
|
|
Post by Zos on May 2, 2022 11:15:39 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Jep Gambardella on May 2, 2022 15:00:41 GMT
Latest novel by Japanese-born British Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. Halfway through it and it's pretty good so far.
|
|
|
Post by SuperDevilDoctor on May 2, 2022 17:28:31 GMT
|
|
|
Post by mstreepsucks on May 3, 2022 15:49:15 GMT
This book about r.e.m. songs. It explains the songs, without actually ruining the songs.
|
|
|
Post by ghostintheshell on May 3, 2022 17:56:29 GMT
|
|
|
Post by theravenking on May 3, 2022 22:48:53 GMT
|
|
|
Post by lostinlimbo on May 4, 2022 16:18:26 GMT
|
|
|
Post by CrepedCrusader on May 11, 2022 1:09:58 GMT
Into the Dark by Claudia Gray
|
|
|
Post by Captain Spencer on May 14, 2022 3:43:47 GMT
Flashpoint by George LaFountaine I loved the 1984 movie with Kris Kristofferson and Treat Williams, so I decided to take on the book.
|
|