WHAT ARE YOU READING?

[Talie Helene]

I've just finished reading The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror #17 (2005), edited by Stephen Jones. Great stuff - makes me want to hunt down the entire series.

What did I think?

I thought Caitlin Kiernan's story 'La Peau Verte' showed an interesting voice, the tag-team story by China Mieville, Emma Birchman and Max Schaefer 'The Ball Room' was fun, and the Brian Lumley 'The Taint' surprised me in how engaging it was - I rarely enjoy Lovecraft-spin-off stuff, but this was an intimate, very domestic story, that unfolded... not in an unexpected direction, but - hmm - it was like hearing a piece of music composed in a well-worn style, but played REALLY well.

I like to alternate between reading short story anthologies, and novels. I can read non-fiction and fiction at the same time, but I don't like mixing up my fiction reading unless I'm working on an essay or critical thesis. (And then my reading is totally different anyway.)

I haven't decided what I'll crack the spine on next. Any suggestions?

What are you reading?

[Robert Stephenson]

Reading Vellum -- yawn

[Stephanie Gunn]

Currently reading Peter F Hamilton's "Reality Dysfunction", one of my rare forays (these days) into sci fi.

[Cameron Rogers]

Currently rereading William Gibson's Sprawl cycle (Neuromancer, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive.) I go back to them every now and then. Love them to death.

[Lee Battersby]

Just finished reading something like 120 shorts for the Katharine Susannah Prichard SF competition, so I've been washing the taste out of my mind with a couple of Tery Pratchett Discworld novels over the last couple of days. I'm partway through 'Nightwatch' at the moment, having just completed 'Men At Arms' and 'Carpe Jugulum'.

Next up, I have my eye on a biography of Samuel Pepys that's been sitting on my bookshelf for far too long without being touched, called "Samuel Pepys- The Unequalled Self' by Claire Tomalin.

[Lee Battersby]

Heh. I lied :) Started Chuck Palahniuk's "Rant" on the train into work this morning.

[JanW]

Last night I finished The Devil's Halo by Chris Fox. Wow! Contemporary thriller set in 2010 - answering the question: what would happen if GPS and other satellites were taken out of commission? Lots of spies, corruption, military goodies and baddies, and a selfless and smart couple: Terry and Maria Weston. This one is a real page turner.

I picked this up on a remainder table, but now I'll search out his first book, Luci in the Sky.

[Mark Farrugia]

I'm half way through John Everson's Needles and Sins. Its very good blend of short horror stories. All are very imaginative and well written, haven't come across one I haven’t liked yet and don’t expect to. Well worth the read.

[Mark Farrugia]

Just finshed reading the second Dark Tower comic series- "Long Road Home". The story and artwork are brilliant but what I really enjoyed with the "written up" sections at the end of each edition. These additions build on the Dark Tower mythos established in Stephen King's Dark Tower novels.

The graphic novel versionwill be realeased in a couple of months but unfortunatley I don't think the mythos sections at the end will be included, they weren't with the first series "Gunslinger Born."

[Trost]

I'm reading Plato's The Republic. It's not very dark, just the opposite in fact, extremely optmistic. A few good ideas in there but lots of bad ones too, like the repression of fiction that has a negative storyline or involves characters of immoral disposition. Thankfully for us, writers with roaming imaginations and a world of characters whether nice or nasty inhabiting our minds, Plato's impossible society remains impossible.