wickedvoodoo

Cheers chesilbeach I shall have a gander through those.

Hmm I read this at the end of last year for the first time when I was on an old school sci-fi binge. I'll have a pop at a few of these questions. Who was your favourite character? Can I say none? For me, this wasn't book where the characters leapt out as being particularly likeable, nor essential enough to the plot to get them by. This book was all about the plot for me, all the strengths were in the arc and not in the characters. You could have switched out / subtracted / added to these characters an awful lot without having to change the greater story any great deal. For me that has to be marked as a fault. The novel is often billed as being a horror story. Did you find the Triffids scary and if so when did you feel they were most effective? Yeah, in a way they are quite scary. They are an eerie and memorable foe. I remember my mother bugging me to read this years ago(partly why I think I waited so long to read it I think) and she always mentioned how she thought the Triffids were terrifying. It's the unrelenting, uncompromising nature of them. Also, who as a kid didn't spend enough time mucking around in the garden / park / woods to get tripped or caught up in a vine. We've all been whipped by the branch that the person in front of us has let spring back. And so I think we can all image these things a little too well, which is why they are scarier than some slimy alien or even an armoured predator. Those things are just a bit daft. John Wyndham is big on ideas, but not always as good with his story telling. Do you think this was a case of concept over story? Hmm. To be fair it was a rather ambitious idea he tried to pull off. He almost nailed it. Almost. Despite not liking some aspects of this book, I'd still give it a generally positive review. Also, there are a lot of books and movies that have paid homage / pinched bits from this story. That suggests he didn't do too badly, right? Do you feel Bill has an easy time of it? Do you feel Brain Aldiss is right to call the novel a cosy catastrophe? Easy and cosy are probably not the right words, it does get fairly tough for him at times. However I think he brought too much of it on himself to truly defend him. He was a bit useless at times, and a bit of a wimp at others. He wasted a lot of time maintaining a moral high ground that I didn't think was appropriate or realistic considering what had happened. I'd have been getting out of some of the situations he found himself in ASAP, whereas he seemed to linger at immense risk to himself. Sign of the times maybe, and of Wyndham's background, that Bill is so gentlemanly? More modern attempts at similar situations tend to go with a grittier, less compromising character, which is closer to what I think most of us would become if we woke up to what happened in this book. All my little whinges aside, I did (mostly) enjoy this book. I'm just picky about character writing. Wyndham's always seems a bit flat. The triffids themselves though - bravo.

Well you can't go wrong with Survivor. That one is just good fun.

Ballard? That the guy that wrote Crash? I've heard plenty but he's one I am yet to check out as of yet. Y'now how it is, sometimes you keep meaning to check out a guy but never get chance, Too many books on the TBR shelf you see. Several people have recommended him to me now though. I must get round to it. And yes, The White Hart is a wonderful little book. I have it signed by the big man Clarke himself. Probably the most valuable book in my collection.

Welsh is a genious. No doubt about it. Yes the language will put people off. The dialect, the slang, the swearing, he isn't for everyone. Don't lend his books to your gran unless she's a real tough old bird. But boy does he know how to get a response from his reader. You'll feel like it were you that grew up on a council estate in Scotland, even if you're from LA and have never seen a poor person other than on TV. Maribou Stork is one of my favorite books of all time. Such an ambitious plot but he totally nails it.

He is heavy going I find. Unless you're a scrabble champ then you very well might grow tired of reaching for the dictionary. His imagination is very surreal and twisted though. I found How The Dead Live to be rather brutal but very funny.

This is the only novel by Hornby I have read and I was pleasantly surprised (had kind of pre judged it) Any other work by him that people would recommend?

I LOVE short stories. I enjoy them just as much as novels, sometimes maybe more. Some of my fav's from the top of my head. The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel (The queen of short stories, hands down) No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July Drown - Junot Diaz Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk Slut Lullabies - Gina Frangello The Informers - Bret Ellis The Acid House - Irvine Welsh Tales of the White Hart - Arthur Clarke Of Time and Stars - Arthur Clarke The Complete Robot - Asimov Minority Report - Phillip Dick Everythings Eventual - Stephen King

Damn. Memory lane trip. I had to read this for a project in English. This was probably before I even started GCSE's (24 now) so quite a while back. The title story is the one about the guy who trains himself to see through playing cards, no? Was a cool book if I remember rightly.

I'm a huge Chuck fan, as a new member here I was delighted to find this thread. I could chat about his work for hours. He's never pulled his punches. Sometimes (mainly Haunted and Snuff) things get rather... depraved. Howver even at his darkest moment he's only a paragraph away from making readers laugh, an amazing skill in an author. I'll go out on a limb and say he hasn't written a single 'bad' book. Many folks don't care for his last couple (Snuff, Pygmy, Tell-All) but to them I'd say show me a better pound for pound writer of this kind of fiction that produces such a prolific output.

I picked up a copy of this not long back but have yet to get started on it. A few names stood out. Palahniuk, Wolfe, Straub, Moorcock. Gaiman and Sarrantino really pulled out the stops to get people on board for this didn't they? I must get round to reading a few soon.

Cheers guys, I have been casting my eyes over a few of your forum sections, looks to be loads of good stuff there. @ Kylie Personally I think Chuck Palahniuk is one of the greatest modern writers. Fight Club is awesome. As is Invisible Monsters, Survivor, and Choke. His early stuff is very highly regarded. I find the newer books divide people's opinion a bit more though. If I had to recommend just one I'd say Invisible Monsters.

Shelves and cardboard boxes. On the coffee table. My bedside table. Windowsills. Mantlepieces. The floor. There are books all over the place in my house.

I love 2nd hand bookshops and websites. I'd would be glad to be able to buy everything I read new. Bottom line though, I could never afford it. It'd be about a thousand pounds each year! So the only books I buy new are preorders for my very favorite authors when they have something new coming out, and for authors I know and converse with from workshops and the like who are relatively obscure and who I believe deserve my support. Awesomebooks dot com is an cracking website for 2nd hand books. I must have had a hundred from them this last year.

I'm pretty sure that paper books will always be around, but that eventually the situation will be somewhat akin to that of vinyl records. Nowadays there's still a lot of music gets released on vinyl, but it's sold in specialist shops and is generally for collectors and the die-hards. Print-on-demand is becoming very popular and may go some way towards keeping paper books in the fight though. What I think we will see a lot less of are reprints. You know the stuff, sci-fi masterworks, greatest horror novel collection etc. These kinds of titles will be rather freely distributed in electronic format.