A Scanner Darkly is honestly his best book. So dark and trippy, grounded but futuristic. I’ve read them all, and while some of it is just repeating the same themes as his better books but with a weaker story, immersing yourself into his paranoid psychedelic world is always worth it.
I’ll download the Jackpot books and start reading then. Have you read the Blue Ant series? If you have, would you recommend me to read it first?
And Asimov !
Robert Merle
“Les hommes protégés”
Published in US as The Virility Factor (1977)
Anticipation, political fiction, or some type of encephalitis exclusively kills men and gives way to an American society run by women (unfortunately extremists) and where there subsist integrated castrated men and despised “whole” men chased. Very interesting.
He also wrote the sublime Malevil, anticipation, post-nucleic survivalism, or a rural micro-society tries its luck, a book that I have read and re-read but which unfortunately did not have an English version (to my knowledge).
Five or six of his other books are also to be read, some translated, others only for French speakers.
While I do personally love Asimov, I think he’s the epitome of scifi for people who love scifi, hah.
Recently finished Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart (again) and South Of The Border, West Of The Sun (again).
Ishiguro’s Artist Of The Floating World. The Buried Giant (Ishiguro) and just starting his Pale View Of Hills.
Started Don Quixote, no idea if I’ll like it/be able to finish it. I tend to abide with Guillermo Del Toro’s maxim " I do not do homework with my life" so if a book doesn’t engage me, I tend to put it down. This is leisure after all. Which explains why Mrs Daloway didn’t go past chapter one. Who gives a fuck about some posh bint’s party?
I haven’t read the Blue Ant series. I was more drawn to the Jackpot series when I was looking for more of his stuff to read after finishing The Sprawl series. I was thinking of reading the Bridge series next. But honestly, he’s such a good writer that I bet all are good reads.
The robot cycle, for example, is very accessible and offers several axes that can suit several types of readers even far outside of this kind of literature.
Foundation or Empire on the other hand probably less.
I think that the Bridge trilogy is actually better than the Sprawl trilogy. I mean Neuromancer is a classic, but the other two were kind of… uninspired? Bridge trilogy, while having no single book as good as Neuromancer is more even and in many ways much more observant than the Sprawl trilogy. He kind of predicts post-2010 internet culture in it. Really great stuff.
A few weeks ago I finally finished “How To Wreck a Nice Beach.” One of the most interesting books on Vocoders i’ve ever read.
Yeah maybe, but still I think his style is a bit dated and he was such a visionary that his themes and thoughts have been recycled again and again in pop culture and media in general, enough to become huge scifi cliches. He’s kind of been ruined by his own renown.
It’s like, Babylon 5 is a really well written show that I’m sure a lot of people could get enjoyment out of if it wasn’t such a huge steaming pile of nerd shit. It’s kind of the same with Asimov, to a lesser degree but still.
Really? On first read I might have agreed I guess. Neuromancer leaves the strongest initial impression for sure. It’s the most stylish and obviously deserves the credit it gets for being one of the books that started a sub-genre. However, after having read the trilogy several times I feel like, while less iconic, the other two are better books in many ways. They successfully build on the world and various mythos that are barely established in the first one.
To be fair, this hasn’t always been my opinion (and that’s all it is anyway) but after my last read through about a year ago I came away feeling like Mona Lisa Overdrive was my favorite. It’s the least like an action movie and the characters feel the most developed.
It’s really the Finn trilogy.
Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. Pretty tough to read in parts, but Octavia Butler was a prophet.
Just started The Lord of the Rings again. Haven’t read it in about 10 years and I used to read it yearly. My favourite book. One of the first I ever read as well.
I thought the film adaptation was pretty good too. A book is always better of course!
This sounds like a film school shootout waiting to happen. Or one of those ironic discussions in a Wes Craven film…I’m going to kick off and say that the film of No Country For Old Men is “better than the book” in the sense that I preferred it, and find Cormack McCarthy’s style of writing super annoying (pretentious?)…Might even tempt an internet beating and say that Blade Runner > Do Androids Dream…
Yes big fan of his stuff! I think I’ve read most of his fiction work, but just recently finished Underground, which is a book of interviews with survivors of the Tokyo subway gas attack in the 90s and also with members of the cult who perpetrated the attack.
Not something I’d usually go for but Amazon are good at sending targeted Kindle promo codes for authors you’ve read, lol. Thought it was a really interesting read anyway, particularly the part speaking to the cult members to get an insight into why otherwise fairly rational people could be persuaded to act this way.
Recommendations for other other fiction authors similar to him are welcome! Some of David Mitchell’s work e.g. Cloud Atlas I thought had similarities in terms of surrealness, definitely worth a read.
Hm, fair points actually. Maybe I spoke in haste/before coffee kicked in!
These are all on my reading list now, thanks - I hadn’t heard of Ishiguro until recently, I read The Remains of the Day which I really liked, and Klara and the Sun which I also enjoyed.
3 books I’ve read and enjoyed recently are John Cooper Clarke - Autobiography, Jeff Tweedy - How to Write One Song and Andrew Weatherall - A Jockey Slut Tribute
G
