Karsa Orlong Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 This is one of my all time fave books, though I agree about the movie...it's cringe-worthy Yes, dreadful. The dog was the best thing about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 Yes, dreadful. The dog was the best thing about it supposedly there's a prequel/sequel in the works....no word yet if it will include Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 21, 2012 Author Share Posted May 21, 2012 supposedly there's a prequel/sequel in the works....no word yet if it will include Smith I Was Legend? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sofia Posted May 21, 2012 Share Posted May 21, 2012 I Was Legend? God forbid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Book # 35: Weaveworld by Clive Barker Synopsis: WEAVEWORLD is an epic adventure of the imagination. It begins with a carpet in which a world of rapture and enchantment is hiding; a world which comes to life, alerting the dark forces and beginning a desperate battle to preserve the last vestiges of magic which Humankind still has access to. WEAVEWORLD is a book of visions and horrors, a story of quest, titanic struggles, of love and of hope. It is a triumph of imagination and storytelling, an adventure, a nightmare, a promise… Thoughts: It's a hefty old book, this - 752 pages. Set in Liverpool in the late 80s, Barker sets the scene of a city subdued by recent riots. The protagonist, Cal, lets one of his father's pigeons escape from the loft in the back garden and, in pursuing it, comes upon a house that is being cleared whilst its elderly owner nears death in hospital. The fugitive pigeon has landed on the sill of an upstairs window and, as Cal climbs the garden wall to try and get to it, he stumbles and falls towards a carpet that the removal men have unrolled beneath him. In doing so, Cal has his first sight of the Fugue, a magical world created within the weave of the carpet by a gentle race called the Seerkind. This brief encounter with an apparent Garden of Eden draws Cal back to the house again, in search of the carpet. There he comes face to face with Imacolata and her sisters (wraith-like beings of shadow who, in true Barker tradition, plumb the depths of depravity), and Shadwell, a salesman who is in Imacolata's thrall. They are after the carpet for very different reasons and, as Cal flees the house with a torn piece of the carpet in his hand, he encounters Suzanna, daughter of the owner of the house, and they are drawn together as they first run for their lives and then quickly realise that they must not let it fall into evil hands. It starts at a brisk pace, and really begins to fly when the carpet reveals its secrets. I must admit that I found it difficult to engage with Cal as a character. I'm not entirely sure why this was, whether it was down to me or to Barker's writing, but Suzanna was much stronger, imo. The book covers quite a long period of time, and there are several sections where months are necessarily compressed into a few pages, where Barker tells us what has happened in the interim. These parts worked well, I thought. Life goes on beyond the Fugue, after all. The Fugue itself is a magical place, a refuge for the Seerkind, in the midst of a decaying city. I guess that, as this was written towards the end of the Thatcher years, you can stand back from it and draw easy parallels. Typical of Barker, he can't quite leave the depravity and body horror behind, and it makes for some moments which - as well-written as they are - are still gross rather than scary. Having said that, I think Imacolata and her sisters (who were mainly responsible for these passages) were my favourite parts of the book, and I would've liked to have known more about them. I enjoyed Weaveworld but, annoyingly, I was very distracted whilst reading it - especially during the middle section - and I can't help feeling I would have liked it a lot more had I not been so. As a result, I've actually found it hard to write this review. The middle section of the novel seemed to me to drag a bit, whilst it picked up considerably in the final third, and I liked the ending a lot. It's a book that has a lot to say about dreams and desires, and the world in which we live, and a lot of it still seems relevant today. 7/10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Great review Steve, this is still on my wishlist but I have The Great and Secret Show on my TBR pile. Have you read any other Barker's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Weaveworld sounds very interesting. From your review it almost sounds like something Neil Gaiman could easily have written (apart from the depravity bits maybe). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Great review Steve, this is still on my wishlist but I have The Great and Secret Show on my TBR pile. Have you read any other Barker's? Thanks Tim. Yeah, I read the first volume of his Books of Blood many years ago, and I read The Hellbound Heart last year. Weaveworld sounds very interesting. From your review it almost sounds like something Neil Gaiman could easily have written (apart from the depravity bits maybe). I guess you could draw some comparisons with Neverwhere, although this is obviously a lot darker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Cool, I will have a look at your Hellbound Heart review, I won a copy on eBay the other day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Cool, I will have a look at your Hellbound Heart review, I won a copy on eBay the other day http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/7865-steves-bookshelf-2011/page__view__findpost__p__280811 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 Crikey, something that I really wasn't expecting just happened in The Shadow of the Torturer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Crikey, something that I really wasn't expecting just happened in The Shadow of the Torturer I hope maybe one day I might know what you are talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 I hope maybe one day I might know what you are talking about. Regarding Shadow of the Torturer, or just in general? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 Regarding Shadow of the Torturer, or just in general? The former. I've given up on hope with the latter (And the above sentence was just some randomly generated sentence I put together on a particular computer app, I couldn't decipher your gibberish so didn't understand the question.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 22, 2012 Author Share Posted May 22, 2012 How rude I suppose, on the plus side, this means you'll be reading Shadow of the Torturer as well, rather than trying to understand my explanation of what happened, which will obviously be gibberish <<snooty look>> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted May 22, 2012 Share Posted May 22, 2012 How rude You know me by now... I suppose, on the plus side, this means you'll be reading Shadow of the Torturer as well, rather than trying to understand my explanation of what happened, which will obviously be gibberish <<snooty look>> Oh man. I suppose I must, mustn't I? Darn!! I would be so much better off if I stopped popping in this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 (edited) Just been reading about the recent Nebula Award winners (http://www.sfwa.org/...ards-announced/) and am very intrigued by the winner, Among Others by Jo Walton. "Startling, unusual, and yet irresistably readable, Among Others is at once the compelling story of a young woman struggling to escape a troubled childhood, a brilliant diary of first encounters with the great novels of modern fantasy and SF, and a spellbinding tale of escape from ancient enchantment. Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead. Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England–a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off… Combining elements of autobiography with flights of imagination in the manner of novels like Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, this is potentially a breakout book for an author whose genius has already been hailed by peers like Kelly Link, Sarah Weinman, and Ursula K. Le Guin." Read the beginning, very promising (going on my wishlist) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Among-Others-Jo-Walton/dp/0765331721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337762541&sr=8-1#reader_B0044781T2 I noticed John Brunner gets a mention early on Edited May 23, 2012 by Karsa Orlong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 And talking of reading challenges, I may have to bite a bigger chunk out of this list (I've read 33 off it so far): http://www.npr.org/2...n-fantasy-books Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kylie Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hey Steve, I went to a 3-level bookshop in Sydney last night and noticed that the sci-fi/fantasy section, which has always been hidden away downstairs, has now been moved to the middle (main) floor. I thought of you and VF and Timstar and thought you'd all be pleased to know that the genre has been brought out into the open. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hey Steve, I went to a 3-level bookshop in Sydney last night and noticed that the sci-fi/fantasy section, which has always been hidden away downstairs, has now been moved to the middle (main) floor. I thought of you and VF and Timstar and thought you'd all be pleased to know that the genre has been brought out into the open. Yay, no more skulking in dark, dusty corners. Well, not involuntarily, anyway In the Waterstones at Piccadilly it's on the first floor with all the other fiction, and takes up one corner of the floor (but it's not dark, or dusty). It doesn't compare with Forbidden Planet, but it's still good. You never know, you may get to see it soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 That's cool Kylie, need more shops like that. I have only been to forbidden planet once and it was awesome! And talking of reading challenges, I may have to bite a bigger chunk out of this list (I've read 33 off it so far): http://www.npr.org/2...n-fantasy-books Most of those are my wish and TBR list lol. I bet Malazan being at 81 annoys you some what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 I have only been to forbidden planet once and it was awesome! FP's great, I just wish I could get there more often. I bet Malazan being at 81 annoys you some what. Considering some of the stuff that's above it in the list, a little, yeah! I'm willing to bet most of the people who voted haven't read it, though. You can tell from some of the comments below it that a lot of people are miffed about some of the stuff that's made it in there I've decided I prefer this list <<snooty look>> http://bestfantasybo...ntasy-books.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timstar Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Lol I'm not surprised. I have seen that website before actually, some good lists on there... mostly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karsa Orlong Posted May 23, 2012 Author Share Posted May 23, 2012 Yeah, mostly. Would help if he didn't keep calling it 'Mazalan' though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vodkafan Posted May 23, 2012 Share Posted May 23, 2012 Hey Steve, I went to a 3-level bookshop in Sydney last night and noticed that the sci-fi/fantasy section, which has always been hidden away downstairs, has now been moved to the middle (main) floor. I thought of you and VF and Timstar and thought you'd all be pleased to know that the genre has been brought out into the open. Sounds like a new manager with a sci fi fetish good on him!! What replaced it in the dingy corner Kylie? Westerns? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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