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Post by tuigirl on Apr 29, 2023 15:49:19 GMT
Since I had so much fun with our pen-and-paper RPG session last night, I actually bought a paperback tie-in novel for the setting. Deadlands- Thunder Moon Rising.It is a Wild West horror setting and this book sounded the best of the ones published. Looking forward to the book arriving and showing it around to the members of our little adventurer posse.
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Post by sherlock on Jun 3, 2023 13:40:39 GMT
A Game of Thrones
I’m once again royally late to the party, but a friend offered a second hand copy as he’s acquiring a more aesthetically pleasing set of the series. A very dense novel, which took me a while to find the momentum to work through. You can feel the author finding his rhythm and once he does it pays off very nicely.
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Post by tuigirl on Jun 10, 2023 19:18:28 GMT
The latest Rivers of London novella. "Winter Gifts"
Well, if you expect Peter Grant and the Folly, you will NOT find them here. This is a story about the US counterpart at the FBI, set during a winter storm, in the USA.
Basically, this reads pretty much like an X-Files novel, and I have the suspicion that the author was going for exactly that.
I actually liked this quite a bit. Seriously, the story is gripping and does not let down until the end!
The setting is great, the main character is engaging (even if she is a bit cliche with that religious mother), the atmosphere is haunting, there are grisly murders with plenty of blood and gore and the monster they are hunting is also well characterized. The story flows well, it has great pacing and the suspense is kept up.
Very entertaining read, even without Peter and the London gang.
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jun 14, 2023 8:10:46 GMT
Finally getting around to the Lord of the Rings, with Fellowship.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Jun 15, 2023 16:01:17 GMT
"The Paperback Sleuth: Death in Fine Condition" by Andrew 'yes that one' Cartmel. It's a sort of spinoff of his excellent Vinyl Detective series (described as being 'in the same universe', which isn't perhaps the best turn of phrase since a previous book revealed it's the same universe as Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London!).
From the premise I assumed it was just going to be essentially the same as the Vinyl Detective except with a protagonist a bit more suitable for a cosy murder / Acorn TV audience. I was wrong. This is a book for people who think the Vinyl Detective and supporting characters are already too nice!
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Post by tuigirl on Jul 20, 2023 19:44:48 GMT
At Christmas, my sister gifted me a crime thriller book which she thought I might like reading. She knows my preference for blood and guts and mortuary related shenanigans. Since I am on my summer holidays, I needed some reading material, so I took the book along on my travels. And I read through it in just 2 sittings, was up till 2am to finish the book because it was edge of the seat reading. I immediately bought the whole series for my Kindle (and in original English...) and today the third book came out and I already am 11% into book three.
This is the Cassie Raven series by A.K. Turner.
It is about a young goth mortuary assistant who can sometimes hear the voices of the dead (or maybe she is just good at Sherlock scans, the author remains vague on that).
Post Mortems are described in some detail (yay!) and I learned some new things, like about the Vasovagal Syncope. This is when people pass out at the sight of blood. Since this a trait in my family (I myself cannot see my own blood, have however no issues wading through angle deep blood at the slaughterhouse for example) I was very curious as to why this happens. Apparently 15% of humans have this, and it is a reflex and must have saved lives in the ancient past (and on the battlefield, when the enemy thought you were dead). It is akin to reflexes of other mammals who "play dead". How cool is that? (well, obviously not cool for me the moment I pass out for the umpteenth time while having my blood taken, but cool on a general basis).
Anyways, back to the books. The writing is engaging, I love strange out of the ordinary characters, so the main characters were very much up my alley. I just cared for them and wanted to find out what happened to them next.
These crime stories also are very good for you to come to your own conclusions and leaving clues for you to guess who the culprit is. There are also red herrings, and unforeseen revelations and some family drama.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Jul 20, 2023 23:05:03 GMT
At Christmas, my sister gifted me a crime thriller book which she thought I might like reading. She knows my preference for blood and guts and mortuary related shenanigans. Since I am on my summer holidays, I needed some reading material, so I took the book along on my travels. And I read through it in just 2 sittings, was up till 2am to finish the book because it was edge of the seat reading. I immediately bought the whole series for my Kindle (and in original English...) and today the third book came out and I already am 11% into book three.
This is the Cassie Raven series by A.K. Turner.
It is about a young goth mortuary assistant who can sometimes hear the voices of the dead (or maybe she is just good at Sherlock scans, the author remains vague on that).
Post Mortems are described in some detail (yay!) and I learned some new things, like about the Vasovagal Syncope. This is when people pass out at the sight of blood. Since this a trait in my family (I myself cannot see my own blood, have however no issues wading through angle deep blood at the slaughterhouse for example) I was very curious as to why this happens. Apparently 15% of humans have this, and it is a reflex and must have saved lives in the ancient past (and on the battlefield, when the enemy thought you were dead). It is akin to reflexes of other mammals who "play dead". How cool is that? (well, obviously not cool for me the moment I pass out for the umpteenth time while having my blood taken, but cool on a general basis).
Anyways, back to the books. The writing is engaging, I love strange out of the ordinary characters, so the main characters were very much up my alley. I just cared for them and wanted to find out what happened to them next.
These crime stories also are very good for you to come to your own conclusions and leaving clues for you to guess who the culprit is. There are also red herrings, and unforeseen revelations and some family drama.
OOH sounds like a solid series .
Reminds me of this old tv show which only lasted 2 seasons : "Tru Calling" :
The main character gets a job in a morgue to help fund her college - somehow when she touches the body she see's the circumstances of the last 24 hours of how they died and she solved their murders.
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Post by newt5996 on Aug 22, 2023 13:58:04 GMT
Currently reading The Lord of the Rings for basically the second time. This is the first time Tom Bombadil didn’t stop me dead in my tracks.
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Post by tuigirl on Sept 6, 2023 19:27:25 GMT
Walter Moers is back! (the German Terry Pratchett, epic comedic fantasy with horror elements; his books as basically dark fairy tales for ADULTS). Have been waiting for this new book, and it again is a HUGE tome of nearly 900 epic pages, with lots of the awesome weird illustrations done by the author. Walter Moers is pretty hard to describe to outsiders and I have discussed his books with several English speakers, who just "cannot get into it". But I assume that the issue is the translation. For the very same reason, I simply stopped reading the translated Terry Pratchett books and have been reading the originals for more than 20 years now. Authors who put sooooo much value in the art of word (and world!)- building are near impossible to translate. I think that Moers loses much in translation, in the same way Pratchett does. All this word-play and all the puns and all the weird and wonderful word-creations- absolutely stunning and amazing. In the original. Anyways, I am looking forward to traveling back to the weird and wonderful lost continent of Zamonia and join our hero on his adventures against the weirdest and wonderfullest creatures and villains.
This book might also join me for my holiday to Italy in 10 days time. Now, I am off to find the Orm!
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Sept 6, 2023 20:12:39 GMT
"The Hardy Boys- The Arctic Patrol Mystery" # 2. Always fascinated me how 2 brothers aged 17 & 18 have car/motorbike/boat/small airplane licenses, and are allowed to travel around the world by themselves (well, Joe who is technically still a minor at aged 17). They never seem to miss any school, time never passes- it's like The Simpsons, they never age.
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Post by Kestrel on Sept 7, 2023 20:20:46 GMT
"The Hardy Boys- The Arctic Patrol Mystery" # 2. Always fascinated me how 2 brothers aged 17 & 18 have car/motorbike/boat/small airplane licenses, and are allowed to travel around the world by themselves (well, Joe who is technically still a minor at aged 17). They never seem to miss any school, time never passes- it's like The Simpsons, they never age. Oh, man. I read a bunch of those books when I was a kid. Being able to drive/pilot a bunch of cool vehicles is very definitively the big dream of childhood, ain't it? I don't really recall there being much to place them, temporally. Did you get the feeling the story was set in any particular era? I always sort of imagined those books as taking place at more-or-less the same time as the Indiana Jones movies, so 1930s to 1950s-ish.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Sept 7, 2023 21:50:00 GMT
"The Hardy Boys- The Arctic Patrol Mystery" # 2. Always fascinated me how 2 brothers aged 17 & 18 have car/motorbike/boat/small airplane licenses, and are allowed to travel around the world by themselves (well, Joe who is technically still a minor at aged 17). They never seem to miss any school, time never passes- it's like The Simpsons, they never age. Oh, man. I read a bunch of those books when I was a kid. Being able to drive/pilot a bunch of cool vehicles is very definitively the big dream of childhood, ain't it? I don't really recall there being much to place them, temporally. Did you get the feeling the story was set in any particular era? I always sort of imagined those books as taking place at more-or-less the same time as the Indiana Jones movies, so 1930s to 1950s-ish. They originally were written mid-late 1920's - the original covers showed the boys younger, around 12- 15 years old with some .. "interesting" covers (I.E. think TinTin and some of Those covers/depictions".. With the lack of current technology etc - I always thought of them as around 50's (Happy Days era). There's references to them having milkshakes with their lunches etc.. And yes- as a 10-13 year old boy when reading these and imagining them driving all these vehicles etc - It's Gold ! Here I am now at 48, reading with my 7 year old mini me . The 3 peat - Hardy Boys/ Nancy Drew/ The Three Investigators. I legit get emotional thinking about watching his lil brain explode with delight at what's to come ahead. Timelord007 .. You have seen the pix of us 2 reading together
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Post by andrew on Sept 8, 2023 0:56:32 GMT
"The Hardy Boys- The Arctic Patrol Mystery" # 2. Always fascinated me how 2 brothers aged 17 & 18 have car/motorbike/boat/small airplane licenses, and are allowed to travel around the world by themselves (well, Joe who is technically still a minor at aged 17). They never seem to miss any school, time never passes- it's like The Simpsons, they never age. They never age but they do get knocked unconscious every few chapters. That level and frequency of head injuries at so young and age surely would take its toll…
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Sept 8, 2023 4:10:34 GMT
"The Hardy Boys- The Arctic Patrol Mystery" # 2. Always fascinated me how 2 brothers aged 17 & 18 have car/motorbike/boat/small airplane licenses, and are allowed to travel around the world by themselves (well, Joe who is technically still a minor at aged 17). They never seem to miss any school, time never passes- it's like The Simpsons, they never age. They never age but they do get knocked unconscious every few chapters. That level and frequency of head injuries at so young and age surely would take its toll… The "Giles from Buffy The Vampire Slayer" rule. Every story you must get concussed...
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Post by fitzoliverj on Sept 23, 2023 18:25:05 GMT
"The Rival Monster" by Compton Mackenzie. I don't know if this is necessarily the funniest of his Highlands-and-Islands novels, as has been claimed, but it *is* the only one which opens with a UFO crashing into the Loch Ness Monster. (He gets in a few digs at the movie of "Whisky Galore", too... he wasn't happy with the way the story was changed, and the islanders are even less appreciative!)
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Post by tuigirl on Oct 1, 2023 17:06:29 GMT
And I am into my next thriller series. Started with „ The girl beneath the sea“ by Andrew Mayne. The series is about a police diver who gets into scrapes with drug lords when she is not recovering dead bodies and weapons thrown into water. There is also some family drama happening on the side. Great writing, good pacing, interesting characters. Lots of action (she is a total bada$$). I got this after my diving holiday and felt I needed some underwater crime thrillers in my life. I found exactly what I was looking for, off to a great start.
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,674
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Post by shutupbanks on Oct 3, 2023 1:06:40 GMT
The Lord Of The Rings
I took it away with me when my dad was ill in case I needed a “comfort read.” Turns out I didn’t, thankfully, so I read it again for the first time in 9 years, according to Goodreads. Still brilliant.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Nov 27, 2023 17:18:07 GMT
"Ben Nevis Goes East" by Compton Mackenzie. One of his post-war novels, it has Scottish lairds Donald Macdonald of Ben Nevis and Hugh Cameron of Kilwhilie visiting one of the princely states of India between the wars, when Ben Nevis's son is suspected of intending to contract an unsuitable marriage with a divorced Anglo-Indian woman.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Mar 20, 2024 18:25:18 GMT
Just started the new Vinyl Detective novel by DW's own Andrew Cartmel; at one point in the novel characters go to an event where the performers include not only Orbital (of Matt Smith fame) but DW theme arranger Dominic Glynn
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Post by fitzoliverj on Apr 1, 2024 14:53:01 GMT
"Red Side Story", the very long-awaited second "Shades of Grey" novel from Jasper Fforde. {Spoiler} Mixed feelings about this one. It's certainly well-written, but I found it unsatisfactory, was left rather bereft by the happy ending. I'm sure it's not either of the originally-planned volumes 2 or 3
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