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Ooshie

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    Ooshie's Reading List 2013

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Ooshie

    The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks

     

    Synopsis - from Amazon

     

    The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh.  Jernau Morat Gurgeh.  The Player of Games.  Master of every board, computer and strategy.  Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game ... a  game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes Emperor.  Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life - and very possibly his death.

     

    This is the second in Culture series of books, which I started immediately on finishing the first.  If anyone has read the first book and not bothered going on to the second, think again!  It really is much, much better.  I was engaged from the start, and towards the end could hardly put the book down.  Thoroughly enjoyable.  :)

     

    I did get slightly led astray by

    the bracelet Gurgeh was given, I had expected it to play a much more significant part in the storyline, but if it did then I missed it!

       That, and the fact that sometimes I wished (even more so with the first book, actually) that the protagonists could be called things like Bob and Jim so that I could keep a proper track of who was who, are my only quibbles!

     

    I'm not quite sure why I have only given this 4.5/5, I might go back later and change it to 5/5.  Great book.  I have the short story collection in which a couple of the stories relate to the Culture, so I will finish the books I have on the go, read The State of the Art, and then download the next in the series.  Highly recommended.  Really.  Oh, you had got that already? :D

    pontalba's 2013 reading list

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    I read several of them but my OH had a massive brain haemorrhage when I was a bit of a way into the one that takes her to America I think, and for some reason I just couldn't pick up the book again. It has been 17 years though, so maybe I need to give it another try! :)

    Ooshie's Reading List 2013

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Nice to read your review of the book :). I liked the book though I was confused by a few things also. It's been a while since I read it, and I don't really remember much of what you'd put between spoiler tags so I'm afraid I can't help you there. Overall I gave the book 4 out of 5 stars and liked it enough to buy more Iain M. Banks books (glad I did, because I enjoyed ie. The Player Of Games than I did this one).

    Yeah, definitely not his best - in fact, it's quite ordinary and, as you say, gets bogged down in places - but some of what follows is great :smile:

     

    I did enjoy it enough to download The Player of Games, and got about 20% through that last night - liking it much better so far! :)

    Ooshie's Reading List 2013

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Ooshie


    Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

    Synopsis - from Amazon

    The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died, billions more were doomed. Moons, planets, the very stars themselves, faced destruction, cold-blooded, brutal, and worse, random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender.

    Within the cosmic conflict, an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world, a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals, lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture and the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza, the Changer, and his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries, human and machine, actually to find it, and with it their own destruction.

    Consider Phlebas - a space opera of stunning power and awesome imagination.

    I do enjoy science fiction, and have often vaguely thought about reading the Culture novels as I enjoy Iain Banks non-SF work a lot, but the reason I started this one was that I wanted to try and read something on a Kindle and this was the one on my son's Kindle that appealed to me most!

    I enjoyed the premise, and got to like quite a few of the characters, but for me there was a lot too much description in quite a few of the scenes. In a hard copy book it is quite easy to skim over excess description quickly while still following the storyline, but I couldn't seem to manage to do this in the same way on the Kindle and found myself longing for some bits to be over with. I also got a bit confused by something in the middle of the book

    (it seemed to me that the main character was waking from a dream type state or something and was then sent back)

    which I kept waiting to be expanded on but wasn't. It's quite possible that I just got this wrong - again, it's something that I would have flicked back to easily in an actual book and skimmed forward to find out where I had gone wrong, but couldn't do it in the same way at all on the Kindle. Oh, and my patient wait to Consider Phlebas as instructed was sadly wasted :blush2:

    In all, quite an enjoyable book, but I don't think I really like the Kindle. Although, it was so easy to read in bed that I think I will usually have a book on the go on it! :D

    Your Book Activity Jan 2013

    in General Book Discussions

    Posted

    My next read will be Phantom - Jo Nesbo. I'm so looking forward to it :smile:

     

    I bought Phantom the other day and am really looking forward to it, too :)

     

    I'm 130 pages into 11.22.63 by Stephen King and its absolutely brilliant so far. This is my first ever King novel and like his style!

     

    I have been a big Stephen King fan over the years but had gone off his stuff for a while, but I really liked 11/22/53 as well :)

    Ooshie's Reading List 2013

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted

    Thanks Ooshie, I've added this to my wish list. :)

     

    Hope you enjoy it when you finally get it, chaliepud :)

     

    Ooshie

    I haven't read that DuMaurier book,so I'm gonna have to track it down too. I liked her others that I read so much ! Good writer .

    and thank you for being my friend . :)

     

    You're very welcome, julie, thank you too :friends3: I hope you like The House on the Strand, it is a bit different to her other books due to the subject matter, but just as well written and enjoyable I think :)

    Ooshie's Reading List 2013

    in Past Book Logs

    Posted · Edited by Ooshie

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    The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

     

    Synopsis - from Amazon

     

    Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friend Professor Magnus Lane. During his stay he agrees to serve as a guinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in his biochemical researches.

     

    The effect of this drug is to transport Dick from the house at Kilmarth to the Cornwall of the 14th century. There, in the manor of Tywardreath, the domain of Sir Henry Champernoune, he witnesses intrigue, adultery and murder.

     

    As his time travelling increases, Dick resents more and more the days he must spend in the modern world, longing ever more fervently to get back into his world of centuries before . .

     

    This was one of my favourite books when I was a teenager and I was a bit nervous about reading it again in case I just didn't enjoy it as much. However, I needn't have worried, as I loved it! It has historical romance and political intrigue mixed in with time travel and 1960s England, and I found it a thoroughly gripping read. It is the first book this year that I have found hard to put down and really looked forward to getting back to. :)

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