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In the last weeks, I´ve read Iain M. Banks for the first time, his SF novels Consider Phlebas and Feersum Endjinn, which were both a lot of fun with fleshed out SF worlds. The characters, especially in CP, didn´t really come to life and so it was no big loss when they died (sometimes a couple of times in a row). And FE had a character who wrote his part in phonetics, which was hard to read at first, but soon had its own charm (cyan for example was sighing). Banks is a wonderrful SF discovery and I´m looking forward to reading more.
I also read Scott Smith´s The Ruins, after some people on another forum praised the book´s horror qualities. It´s not scary at all, just bleak and dull. A couple of young people are trapped on a hill covered in vine and have to struggle to survive, facing all kinds of threats against their physical and mental health. Most of the characters behave in such an unresponsible way that it´s hard to feel sympathy, and the outcome is clear enough pretty soon and it´s only a question what stupid mistake they´ll do next. For example, one character lets himself fall down ca ten feet on top of broken glass for no good reason.
Yesterday, I´ve started Ian McEwan´s Atonement. An aspiring writer on another forum recommended to read it before/instead of seeing the movie. And I´ve enjoyed two of his other recommendations (Cloud Atlas, The Book of The New Sun), so I gave it a try. After seventy pages, nothing much has happened so far, it´s still in the introducing characters stage. People are rehearsing for a play, swimming in the pool, drinking punch and eating chocolate, but it´s still interesting to read, the characters are much more intriguing and alive than in CP, FE or TR. Where TR had me thinking "just get on with it", this novel has me enjoying the slow pace. There are two pages of the thoughts of a thirteen year old girl, and they are more fun to read than all the thoughts of the four main TR characters combined. |
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