The Books/Reading Thread

[Einherjar86]

Just started reading Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It's part psychological thriller, part horror--twenty pages in, and it's already deeply unsettling.

Haven't posted an update in a while, so here goes:

I burned through Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things. It's a taut, well-written, intelligent, and utterly creepy book. I couldn't put it down. Characters behave strangely, which I'm always a fan of; and the setting and circumstances only serve to heighten the atmosphere. I'm usually not one for reading "thrillers," but Reid draws on horror tropes and conventions in an artful way. There are two things in the book I didn't care for, one being the anonymous dialogue interspersed through the narrative (felt heavy-handed) and the other being the conclusion (which felt unearned). That being said, the ending doesn't ruin the enjoyment of the page-turner. I wasn't reading with the hopes of a massive payoff anyway, so the ending wasn't a big letdown. Reading a book isn't always about finishing after all; sometimes it's about enjoying the ride.

I recently picked up a copy of Reid's second novel, Foe. We'll see how the sophomore effort fares.

I have a trip coming up, so in addition to Foe I'll also be diving into DeLillo's Mao II, VanderMeer's Borne (finally), and maybe this new collection I just purchased:

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

war of the spider-queen was awesome

 

[TageRyche]

I finished reading advance copies of the C.J. Box thriller The Bitterroots and Ellen Hart's Twisted At The Root. I liked both books and will be writing reviews of them for Mystery Scene magazine.

 

[CiG]

 

[TageRyche]

I finished the Maddie Day mystery Strangled Eggs and Ham. I loved it. And the author loved and shared my review of the book.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

i actually like the old-school detective novel trope where the surprise twist ending of the story is revealing that 2 of the characters were actually just 2 separate chroniclings of the actions of one person

@TageRyche
do any detective novels use this trope anymore??
it's actually a pretty awesome trope if it's well-done


surprisingly the most recent example of this that I've personally seen
was actually in a movie
the movie was Detective Picachu
this movie was clearly a "detective" movie and somehow actually managed to contain the trope i described above

Spoiler

the movie had Ryan Reynolds voicing Picachu the entire fucking movie and then the last second shows Ryan actually walking around as a human

the movie was not nearly as horrible as i thought a pokemon movie was going to be
and the content of the spoiler was actually amazingly really well-done

 

[TageRyche]

i actually like the old-school detective novel trope where the surprise twist ending of the story is revealing that 2 of the characters were actually just 2 separate chroniclings of the actions of one person

@TageRyche
do any detective novels use this trope anymore??
it's actually a pretty awesome trope if it's well-done

I can't think of any that I've read off the top of my head. The closest thing I can think of is the unreliable narrator. Where the reader isn't quite certain of the person narrating the story. It's a trend in the mystery fiction world as of late.

For me, I prefer my stories told in a linear fashion instead of all the game playing.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@TageRyche @Einherjar86 @Dak @CiG

the thing i was describing was done in a lot of books where the villain is a serial killer or serial rapist
where we see descriptions of the murders/rapes
and then the surprise twist ending is that the killer/rapist turns out to be a character that's had a lot of text describing their non-villainous behavior

i don't know how else to describe this
IIRC i think this trope was popular in the "detective" books that were published in the 1920s and 30s

 

[CiG]

IDGAF.

 

[Einherjar86]

i think this trope was popular in the "detective" books that were published in the 1920s and 30s

I think you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

IIRC i think this trope was popular in the "detective" books that were published in the 1920s and 30s

it was also used in one of the sword-of-truth novels
and a bunch of books written right before caller-ID was invented

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

did everyone just stop reading books??

 

[CiG]

 

[Einherjar86]

surprisingly the most recent example of this that I've personally seen
was actually in a movie
the movie was Detective Picachu
this movie was clearly a "detective" movie and somehow actually managed to contain the trope i described above

Spoiler

the movie had Ryan Reynolds voicing Picachu the entire fucking movie and then the last second shows Ryan actually walking around as a human

the movie was not nearly as horrible as i thought a pokemon movie was going to be
and the content of the spoiler was actually amazingly really well-done

and a bunch of books written right before caller-ID was invented

did everyone just stop reading books??

Yeah, that’s why no one’s responding to this slipstream of bullshit.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

i just really love this page

 

[TageRyche]

did everyone just stop reading books??

Nope, I'm continuing to read the various mysteries I like. I've joined a mystery book club at the local library and the book we read last month was by an author that I have an acquaintance with. When I let her know that we picked her book to read, she offered to Skype in to the meeting when we talked about the book.

I've also been reading some of the advance copies of books I've gotten either from the magazine to review or directly from the authors themselves.

I'm always reading something and take a book wherever I go.

 

[Slammed]

I don't take a book everywhere but I've always got a book or two on the go and between my wife and I we have a collection that takes up two rooms of double and triple stacked book shelves.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@Slammed @TageRyche
do some book reviews already

 

[TageRyche]

My review of Matthew Betley's Oath Of Honor.

My review of Maddie Day's Strangled Eggs and Ham.

I'm still waiting for the last three reviews I submitted to Mystery Scene magazine to go up.