vel veeter – Page 65 – Cannonball Read 17

Heliconia Spring

Heliconia Spring by Brian Aldiss

May 31, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

A mix of Doris Lessing’s Canopus at Argos, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, and a medieval history, this very engaging and strange science fiction novel (and part one of three) takes place on the planet Heliconia. Heliconia is a planet in a two-star system where the two stars work in conjunction to create very long seasons. At the beginning of the novel, we are nearing the end of a hundreds-of-years winter where the main human-like society has been tightly cloistered against the weather. Our initial […]

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story — Et al

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story by John Freeman

Broken Glass by Arthur Miller

Agamemnon by Aeschyles

The Libation Bearers by Aeschyles

Eumenides by Aeschyles

Here We Are by Dorothy Parker

Still Alarm by George S Kaufman

May 31, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Penguin Book of Modern American Short Story – 4/5 Stars Its important to emphasize that this is a collection from about 1970 on, so while it’s “modern” it means contemporary and while it’s contemporary, it’s decidedly more recent than the normal break in American lit at WWII. This is important because it means that a lot of very well-known and established short-fiction writers like John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, John Updike, Flannery O’Connor, and Bernard Malamud are not considered. Otherwise it would seem to me […]

Grab Bag

Assassins of Thasalon by Lois McMaster Bujold

Knot of Shadows by Lois McMaster Bujold

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Basic Training by Kurt Vonnegut

The Ipcress File by Len Deighton

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

May 28, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Assassins of Thasalon – 3/5 Stars I fear I am starting to get some Penric-fatigue, and I hope it’s not Bujold fatigue as well. I have to say that the previous two entries in the series did little for me, and this one was more interesting, but won’t stay with me much longer. It’s also possible that’s where I’ve been all along with Penric, who is part of the World of the Five Gods, the world that Bujold has created that I care the least […]

Readings about Reading

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco

The Uses of Literature by Italo Calvino

The Western Canon by Harold Bloom

How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas Foster

Twenty Five Books that Shaped America by Thomas Foster

How to Read Noves like a Professor by Thomas Foster

Seduction and Betrayal by Elizabeth Hardwick

How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom

May 22, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods – 5/5 Stars One of the most exciting things to feel, for me at least, is when reading becomes not just an act of enjoying and engaging with a story or ideas, but an active hunt for meaning and understanding. I am a big proponent of doing the reading you want to do and mostly letting other people do the reading they want to do. Eco describes early in this collection of six lectures on reading (and specifically on […]

Sci Fi/Cosmic Horror by Peter Clines

14 by Peter Clines

The Fold by Peter Clines

Dead Moon by Peter Clines

Terminus by Peter Clines

Paradox Bound by Peter Clines

May 20, 2022 by vel veeter 1 Comment

14 4/5 I am reading the four books of the Threshold series and I am convinced of a few things. It would make a solid multi-season tv show, where there’s some good juicy roles here, there’s a lot of variety and suspense built into it, and there’s some solid connectivity between the books, but also distinction both in the plot and the storytelling. The books kind of already read like someone who tried to get a job as a screenwriter but then turned to novels. […]

Against the Day

Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon

May 13, 2022 by vel veeter 1 Comment

Gravity’s Rainbow is a truly difficult book to read, mostly because of the complex language that often clips itself off at various times, paragraphs that go on and on, and a self-referential style that is both dense and ambiguous. To say that this book is significantly easier to read is a way of saying that the language is much more fluent, recognizable, and less dense. That’s not to say that this book is in fact easy to read because while the language is more accessible, […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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