Metal Reviews

Count Zero by William Gibson

I read Mona Lisa Overdrive before this book because I was drunk when my friend was taking the books off the shelf to lend me and for some reason the order he took them off the shelf in became synonymous with the order they should be read in.

Social Struggles in Archaic Rome- Edited by Kurt Raaflaub

re-reading Prince Caspian before the big day!

finished Jitterbug Perfume, it was good but got a little heavy on the semi-philosophy stuff towards the end. started reading Salman Rushdie's Shame.

Is that Kazuo Ishiguro? Im desperate to read Never Let Me Go at some point.

I've been wanting to read something of his besides essays. I'm curious if his work is westernized enough to be tolerable.

@Kazuo Ishiguro: I really disliked 'Never Let Me Go'. To me, it was bad soap-opera-esque teenage drama, without really drawing any actual emotion or interest from me.

I'm reading Nietzsche Twilight of the Idols now.

i'd say they are. i've read Midnight's Children and The Moor's Last Sigh and i don't know that much about Indian culture but i still really enjoyed them. i have to be in the right mood to read his books though or else his style will get really irritating

Finished:

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Beginning was a bit slow, but once Strange comes in it gets great and the ending was brilliant. Some of the best fantasy I've read yet...great, darker take on magic.

Now I want some nonfiction.

my friend lent me "The Prince" by Machiavelli and "Memória de Elefante" ("Elephant's Memory") by Portuguese author António Lobo Antunes.

doubting you've read the latter, has anyone read the former? Brahm, traptunderice? what do you guys think?

i started American Gods before i even left for Nottingham in February and i'm still not done with it. if it wasn't written ny Neil Gaiman i wouldn't even bother to read the ~150 pages left. so far it's been boring as hell, the Shadow character is everything but interesting, i still don't know wtf is going on and all the impossibilities that seemed so natural in Anansi Boys and even Neverwhere (which is based on a fucking tv show) seem outright forced in this one. also this is the author's preferred text, which means that all the previously edited literary wanking was put back on by Gaiman. books are edited for a reason, you know.

The Prince is beautiful in its ruthlessness. It's really simple and almost common sense now but you can see his wisdom being used in current politics. His ideas are probably the most easily recognizable in everyday life.

The Prince is a hilariously cynical romp through power politics. I love it, and like traptunderice says, you can recognize Machiavelli's principles constantly in modern politics. Best chapter is the "its better to be feared than loved."

I did like American Gods, but I'll grant that its kind of all over the place and that Shadow is a boring character. Still, I love Norse mythology, so I'm the type of a guy that'll eat into anything like that- I also thought it had a great ending, and something interesting to say about belief, so I'd press on if I were you. But Anansi Boys (the only other Gaiman I've read, besides some Sandman) is definitely better.

Next part of A Song of Ice and Fire. Steel and Snow, I think it's called.

thanks, guys. i'll definitely look into The Prince when the summer starts proper (i.e. after i'm done with these exams).

started "Elephant's Memory" and am already liking it. apparently it's easy to read but is better if read slowly (i guess maybe savoured rather than swallowed in one bite).

must.. finish... american gods...

I hope thats not the title of the book you're reading, because thats not exactly an A Song of Ice and Fire book.

Edit: Hmm, it appears you crazy UKers split book 3, A Song of Swords, into two books. I don't know why... Crafty bastards.

Heh, yes. Money!!!11

Raymond E. Feist - Darkwar Saga Part I - Flight of The Nighthawks

Pretty basic fantasy story with some politics thrown in, kind of reminds me of David Eddings writing, but lacks the interesting characters/dialogue that makes me enjoy eddings. Despite all that, I've only 30 pages left in it (out of 368) and I just started it 3 days ago. And thats pretty damn fast for me.

High-Rise by J.G. Ballard

Emile Zola - Germinal

Fuck that's awesome!

Awesome, awesome, awesome book! Absolute win, traptunderice.

I started reading The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon but found it kind of unreadable... Maybe I shall try again some time.

As it is I've nearly finished-

"Fast Boat to CHina: High-Tech Outsourcing and the Consequences of FreeTrade: Lessons from Shanghai" by Andrew Ross. Good overall, but boring in parts.

Shortly I shall start-

"General Idea of the Revolution in the 19th Century" by Proudhon. A classic of anarchist theory in which he argues for all societies existing institutions to be replaced by a Bank of Exchange whereby people are granted credit for any commodity according to how much work they have done. (I think, anyway... obviously I haven't read it yet)