The Literature Thread

[Lex-Man]

So anything anyone would recommend to a fan of Douglas Addams and terry prachett

Have you read the Brentford trilogy by Robert Rankin?

First I’ve heard of it

https://www.goodreads.com/series/63025-brentford

[shy guy 64]

So anything anyone would recommend to a fan of Douglas Addams and terry prachett

Have you read the Brentford trilogy by Robert Rankin?

First I’ve heard of it

https://www.goodreads.com/series/63025-brentford

i'm not sure that's a trilogy

[Lex-Man]

So anything anyone would recommend to a fan of Douglas Addams and terry prachett

Have you read the Brentford trilogy by Robert Rankin?

First I’ve heard of it

https://www.goodreads.com/series/63025-brentford

i'm not sure that's a trilogy

When I started reading them they joked it was a trilogy in four parts. The they wrote more.

[shy guy 64]

So anything anyone would recommend to a fan of Douglas Addams and terry prachett

Have you read the Brentford trilogy by Robert Rankin?

First I’ve heard of it

https://www.goodreads.com/series/63025-brentford

i'm not sure that's a trilogy

When I started reading them they joked it was a trilogy in four parts. The they wrote more.

i think someone else made the same joke

[Frank]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was always referred to as a trilogy in five parts, too.

[shy guy 64]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was always referred to as a trilogy in five parts, too.

i thought that's what it was. thanks its been bugging me

[Yoshimi]

I'm on holiday at the moment and reading a great book that I thought a lot of you would enjoy. Without spoiling too much, the premise is "Over the course of three decades, the relationship between two friends, Sadie Green and Sam Masur, changes as they develop a Japanese-themed game that draws critical attention."



Have you read it? What did you think? I'm almost done, and have really enjoyed it.

[Squinty]

Haven't read it but I will stick it on the buy list on your recommendation.

Reading that Silo Trilogy. I'm nearly finished the first book. Decent enough, if a little reminiscent of Fallout.

[more heat than light]

Have you read it? What did you think? I'm almost done, and have really enjoyed it.

I very nearly picked that book up as part of my holiday reading. Decided on three others in the end, but will add it to the list for next time.

[ITSMILNER]

I'm on holiday at the moment and reading a great book that I thought a lot of you would enjoy. Without spoiling too much, the premise is "Over the course of three decades, the relationship between two friends, Sadie Green and Sam Masur, changes as they develop a Japanese-themed game that draws critical attention."



Have you read it? What did you think? I'm almost done, and have really enjoyed it.

I’ll be picking this up over the summer through work, sounds interesting, when I was in Waterstones the other week the lady behind the counter was trying to upsell it like crazy

[Dowbocop]

Haven't read it but I will stick it on the buy list on your recommendation.

Reading that Silo Trilogy. I'm nearly finished the first book. Decent enough, if a little reminiscent of Fallout.

I really enjoyed them. I read them about ten years ago and then when I played through the first Horizon game last year I got massive deja vu.

[Squinty]

It's taking me longer to read the second book. I'm 70% of the way through it now, hoping to get it done in the next few days.

It's decent enough, I'm going to say it's mostly me that's the issue here. My attention span has been not so great.

I feel it's weaker than the first, but not massively so. I just want to know what the craic is with the silo gone dark.

[ITSMILNER]

Can you not get a Kindle/ebook version of Jurassic Park? Wanted to replace a tatty physical copy with an ebook version but Amazon don’t appear to have one, only the sequel.

[Squinty]

Can you not get a Kindle/ebook version of Jurassic Park? Wanted to replace a tatty physical copy with an ebook version but Amazon don’t appear to have one, only the sequel.

Maybe some kind of licensing issue? It's not available on play store either.

I finished the Silo Trilogy (quite good overall). I decided to read Stig of the Dump, it was 99p, I remember it from school, I wanted to see if it held up for an adult reading it.

The end of the book is kinda gooseberry fool. I have no idea what he was doing with it.

[more heat than light]

Summer holiday reading. Excuse the long post.



This was one hell of a bleak book. Basically a series of stories centering around a global plague, and how humanity adapts and overcomes it. It feels particularly real given everything that happened with COVID recently, and a lot of it seemed entirely plausible. That said, the book reached an obvious (and excellent) conclusion about 3/4 of the way through, and then dragged on for no obvious reason, souring the experience a little. Still recommended.

8/10



Despite being one of those books labelled 'TikTok made me buy it!' ( ) this one had me intrigued by its premise. A future where animals have been wiped out and humans are raised for slaughter as food. This book was unrelentingly grim. Reading it actually made me feel unclean. I can't even decide whether I particularly enjoyed it (certainly the prose, translated from its original Spanish is nothing to write home about). But I don't think some of the images conjured up from this book will ever leave me.

7/10



I was a bit worried after reading Nagamatsu novel above that I'd be a bit 'short storied out' going into this. I needn't have worried. This was an utterly fantastic collection of sci-fi tales. Diverse in scope but all brilliantly realised, and beautifully written too. I have to give a special mention to the last story, 'Anxiety Is The Dizziness Of Freedom', which is one of the finest things I've ever read. Essential.

10/10

EDIT - For anyone curious, the shortest story in this collection 'What's Expected Of Us' (it's really short) is available to read free here.

https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

[ITSMILNER]

Can you not get a Kindle/ebook version of Jurassic Park? Wanted to replace a tatty physical copy with an ebook version but Amazon don’t appear to have one, only the sequel.

Maybe some kind of licensing issue? It's not available on play store either.

Yeah must be something like that, you can get it in Italian or Spanish just not English.

[Alvin Flummux]

I've been reading, well, listening to (it's basically the same), All Our Broken Idols, by Paul M. M. Cooper.



Two intertwined stories, one set in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014, the other in Nineveh, in the mid-600s BCE.

Phenomenally well written and researched, an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I'm not far from the end and I'm just blown away.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

I was a bit worried after reading Nagamatsu novel above that I'd be a bit 'short storied out' going into this. I needn't have worried. This was an utterly fantastic collection of sci-fi tales. Diverse in scope but all brilliantly realised, and beautifully written too. I have to give a special mention to the last story, 'Anxiety Is The Dizziness Of Freedom', which is one of the finest things I've ever read. Essential.

10/10

EDIT - For anyone curious, the shortest story in this collection 'What's Expected Of Us' (it's really short) is available to read free here.

https://www.nature.com/articles/436150a

Enjoyed that, so have just ordered the book on Amazon.

Is there a story about a dystopian consumerist future where you can order something on a device that knows more about you than you know yourself, and have a group of overworked, underpaid humans scramble to deliver it to you on the same day?

[more heat than light]

Enjoyed that, so have just ordered the book on Amazon.

Is there a story about a dystopian consumerist future where you can order something on a device that knows more about you than you know yourself, and have a group of overworked, underpaid humans scramble to deliver it to you on the same day?

Funnily enough I'm about to have a similar group of humans deliver that Gabrielle Zevin novel recommended earlier in the thread. Hope you love the Chiang book as much as I did.

[ITSMILNER]

Out of interest, how do you all read books, physical copies or do you tend to go for ebooks/audio?