What book are you reading at the moment? Part 2

[Kevin McCabe]

You're in for a treat there Kevin!
Im still on Jerusalem Commands

It's sure starting out hot TF.

Best ship battle since Consder Phlebas and that's just the first thirty pages.

[UncleDes]

Rereading "Winds of Limbo."

How did I think this was such a great book when I was 16? First half is all political shenigans and I'm just starting part 2.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

WoL was the first of Mike's books I read, Des. It was a few years before I read anything else by him. Couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

Of course, I know better now.

[Talisant]

Reading along in the Hitopadesa.

[Governor of Rowe Island]

Just finished the last of the Morresseys and it was intersting to see how the stories used third person perspective in a variety of different ways. I'm not sure how much he wrote before or between writing these, but it seemed he was developing his technique over the course of them.

Next up is A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Sorry, Rothgo.

You never know: I might hate it!

[Rothgo]

Next up is A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Sorry, Rothgo.

YouTube

[Governor of Rowe Island]

[David Mosley]

Rereading "Winds of Limbo."

How did I think this was such a great book when I was 16? First half is all political shenigans and I'm just starting part 2.

WoL was the first of Mike's books I read, Des. It was a few years before I read anything else by him. Couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

Of course, I know better now.

The Winds of Limbo (aka The Fireclown) is one of Mike's early 'copied' novels* being based on Benjamin Disraeli's Coningsby, which perhaps explains all the "political shenanigans" within.

FWIW, here's my review of TWoL from when I re-read it three years ago (almost to the day):

Although it's taken me a while to finish [The Winds of Limbo] - I generally managed to read a chapter every couple of nights - I did enjoy it a lot. I felt it had lots of similarities with The Shores of Death to some degree and again it struck me that really throughout the '60s, with the exception of the Elric novellas for Science Fantasy, Mike was probably best known as an SF author, with books and serials like the two aforementioned titles, The Sundered Worlds, the Kane novels (which, if they have elements of fantasy, are still essentially SF novels), The Wrecks of Time (albeit published as by James Colvin), The Ice Schooner, The Final Programme, A Cure for Cancer, The Black Corridor and the Hawkmoon tetralogy (which again - like the Kane novels - are basically SF with some trappings of fantasy woven within them). It's more in the '70s, it seems to seems to me, that the more fantasy orientatated novels of Elric and Corum really cemented Mike's reputation as a Fantasy novelist, although series like The Dancers at the End of Time also remain resolutely SF in nature.

Another thing I noted was Mike's tendancy to have significiant and important characters in his books who might be characterised as grotesques - Orlando Sharvis in The Shores of Death, Faustaff in The Wrecks of Time, and The Fireclown in The Winds of Limbo. Although Clovis Becker (ne Clovis Marca) and Alain von Bek (ne Alan Powys) are your more standard SF heroes in the former and latter tales, they are unavoidably upstaged by the larger-than-life Sharvis and Fireclown.

Of course, all three novels also form the collection The Roads Between The Worlds, which suggests that there are connections between the three titles. All three deal with the threat of the 'End Of The World As We Know It', and TWoL and TSoD specifically deal with the nature of Fear and politics. I suspect that both novels probably tie in with the period when Mike was involved in Liberal politics - or at least not many years after.

In summing up The Winds of Limbo, I would say it remains a book that is as relevant today in our post-9/11 world as it probably was in the post-Cuban Missile Crisis world it was originally published in.

A sterling 7/10

*The other being The Ice Schooner, based on Conrad's The Rescue.

[Guzzlecrank]

Speaking of classic SF, I've moved on to Fritz Leiber's Gather, Darkness! Ah, yes, the "epic struggle between science and magic"...

[Stephen_E_Andrews]

Neuromancer (again, at least the twelfth time, what a masterpiece).

A Game of Thrones ? I love it, myself, and I'm not known for my adoration of housebrick-sized sagas. As sharp as early Zelazny. If you don't dig Tryrion Lannister, you'll never admire any truly conflicted anti-hero...which considering that most of you lot love Elric, shouldn't be an issue.

[thingfish]

Good review that Dave!
Interesting thought on the Hawkmoons,i never thought of the sci-fi element before.
Been reading a book called Why Do People Hate America by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies whilst under mild sedation over the last couple of days and i dont know who im more angry at the subject or the authors!
Back on the Kernel soon i hope!

[Governor of Rowe Island]

...under mild sedation over the last couple of days ...

As opposed to your usual heavy sedation?

[thingfish]

Absolutely Gov,you have my card well marked!!

[Dead-Air]

I'm currently reading The Black Corridor by Mike. Perhaps the most undeniably "science fiction" book I've read by him. I like the experimental prose segments as a way of expressing space travel quite a lot.

[Wolfshead]

Finally opened up Gaiman's Complete Sandman, Vol. 1. Definitely not an easy book to read with a weak arm but we're finding ways.

herb