The Dying Earth Omnibus by Jack Vance
Hermsprong by Robert Bage
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Signs and Machines by Maurizio Lazzarato
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A Heinlein
This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald
Alien Embassy by Ian Watson
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
The Ice Schooner by Michael Moorcock
Crash by JG Ballard
Malevil by Robert Merle
War With the Newts by Karol Capek
Protector by Larry Niven
The Saints of Salvation by Peter F Hamilton
Fury by Henry Kuttner
The Inhabited Island by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Doctor is Sick by Anthony Burgess
Mindplayers by Pat Cadigan
A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne
Planetfall by Emma Newman
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Destiny's Road by Larry Niven
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
Fugue for a Darkening Island by Christopher Priest
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Moving the Mountain by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Sorrowland by Rivers Soloman
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Shall we get the not-great out the way first? The second Niven on this list was overlong, dull, and didn't add anything to the partially regressed space colony genre. It's here because I remember seeing it in bookshops in the late 90s and thought it might be worth a punt. Ho hum. Hermsprong and A Sentimental Journey were not up to the 18th century standards I've grown accustomed too, both of which committ the sin of boring the reader senseless.
On the great side, there are so many! Fury, Malevil, Mindplayers, Fugue for a Darkening Island are underappreciated SF classics that deserve wider readerships. I also enjoyed Soloman's Sorrowland, a queer decolonial condemnation of the United States. It attacks militarism and the racist exploitation of African Americans, and is one of the best novels from this decade I've read so far. And after taking an age, I finally finished Foucault's Discipline and Punish. This has been my most borrowed but never read library book of the last 20 years, and it's definitely stood the test of time. Not just because the analysis of disciplinary power still seems fresh (seeing as politics still operates with sovereigntist models). It's relevant: as our current forms of governance are breaking down, we have to pay attention to new efforts in this direction. Especially so when the UK is about to elect a government whose project amounts to the modernisation of the state.
If anything, the tbr pile has grown bigger during the month. Expect a few politics titles to crop up in three months time as I start working on stuff about the after effects of the general election. What have you been reading recently?
4 comments:
“The glass box” by J. Michael Straczynski. Really enjoyed it and a super quick read. You need to read the 2nd Wayfarers book!
Classic photo Phil, do you have a reference please?
Here is the image.
I have to say, I have always really struggled to read Foucault. Every paragraph needs at least three passes before I understand what the hell the fella is on about. Am quite relieved to read that it took you a few goes. Drove me mad to the point of giving up.
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