The Quatermass Book Reading Marathon Blog: Taking the Fifth

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It is rather crowded in here. The useful information doesn't stick around long enough to be useful.




...So, I have insane aeroplane propellers to deal with. Great. I'll add them to the list.

(Yes, I was being funny)

A timeline of my response to this:

Ooo... Good. I love the whole series. Have you read any of his books before?

No. Partly because I heard that Sword of Truth had strong Objectivist themes, and, well, let's just say that I have an allergic reaction to Objectivist philosophy and Randy people, ever since I actually read Atlas Shrugged. However, I decided that I would give the first book, if nothing else, a shot. I'm a quarter of the way through it.

Personally, so far I think that Discworld and what I have read so far of A Song of Ice and Fire are much better series.

His books are very Randy. I'm enjoying The Colour Of Magic.

The later Discworld books are much better. I recommend (as do others) Guards! Guards! as a better starting point.

Okay Thank you, Quatermass. Aimless told me the same thing.

Book 14...

REVIEW: High Rise by JG Ballard


The influence of Doctor Who on my reading habits, while smaller than you might think, is still a significant one. One of my favourite stories from Sylvester McCoy's first year as the Doctor was Paradise Towers, an equally camp but dark story about an isolated apartment block in the future, where gangs of young girls run around chased by the officious Caretakers, while the last residents are doddery old women, some of whom had resorted to cannibalism. But Paradise Towers didn't exist in a vacuum. It was inspired by an earlier work, JG Ballard's novel, High Rise. So how would the original inspiration compare?

Forty storeys high, filled with every conceivable luxury ranging from swimming pools to supermarkets, from a restaurant to a school, the apartment block designed by Anthony Royal seems to be perfect. But as the residents gradually begin to discover, the apartment block, more or less by accident, seems designed to keep them in it. And despite their affluence, the tenants begin to degenerate, petty grievances escalating first into a bizarre class war using elevators and amenities as weapons, and then into sheer anarchy and violence...

High Rise has an intriguing concept behind it: that of a luxury apartment block that begins to isolate itself from the outside world, or rather, the tenants do. Ballard's work is relentlessly pessimistic, as the savage nature of humanity is exposed. If anything, this work is a little too dark. I wouldn't mind it so much, but it seems like nobody is really redeemed in this story. If written a little better, that wouldn't be a problem, and this doesn't make the story bad as much as just being depressing and of lower quality than it could have been.

The characters are what really drag the story down. Although they do have fleshed-out stories, they are written rather flatly in parts, and I wish they were (particuarly Dr Laing) a little more proactive against the chaos that erupts in the apartment block. As it is, they degenerate into at best sociopaths, and at worst, savages all too swiftly. And with so many people in the apartment block, I would have preferred either one viewpoint character (preferably Dr Laing) or more than just three. This is difficult, but as George RR Martin demonstrated with A Game of Thrones, not at all impossible, and, if done right, raises the tone immensely.

High Rise is still quite a decent work, and I'd recommend it to people who enjoyed, say, Fight Club, or other works that look into the insanity and savagery of humanity. It's a bleak work, maybe a bit too bleak, but it's a fine book regardless.



8.5/10


First words: Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.

Last words: Laing watched them contentedly, ready to welcome them to their new world.

The next book will probably be Wizard's First Rule. The next big book I intend to read is another Stephen King book, The Tommyknockers.

If you can finish that doorstop in a week, then I'm really gonna hate you.

Edit: Apparently it's not as long as I thought I remembered. 752 pages, according to Amazon, for the mass market edition. I thought it was more like 1100. Still, it certainly doesn't have 752 pages of plot, so it'll feel longer.

Keep in mind that I can take as long as I need to read a book. I need to finish one book a week. I can take two or three weeks to read The Tommyknockers as long as I finish other books in the meantime, and they are no more than a week apart.

And I could do it in a week, in theory. I finished 820 pages of Wizard's First Rule (which I am posting a review of shortly) in five days. Most of it was read yesterday and today. Of course, it took me a long time to read and finish It, though.

You know what? Just to piss you off, I will finish The Tommyknockers in a week.

Next review up soon...

Book 15...

REVIEW: Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind


From what I've heard, Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series is one of the most controversial fantasy series, given its Objectivist themes. Now, Objectivism has a lot to do with why I started these book-reading blogs in the first place, as I did a similar thing while reading Atlas Shrugged. So one wonders if Goodkind, a noted proponent of Objectivism, will make the same mistake as Ayn Rand did...

Richard Cypher, a woods guide in the magic-free Westlands, helps a mysterious woman, a stranger who seems capable of magic, and who is being pursued by assassins. Her name is Kahlan Amnell, and she is seeking one of the most powerful wizards, rumoured to be a resident of Westland. It is Richard's friend, eccentric old man and healer Zeddicus Z'ul Zorrander, aka Zedd, and it seems that Richard is the new Seeker, a warrior who wields the Sword of Truth. And none too soon, for the evil Darken Rahl is looking to extend his reach into the Westlands, and he is searching for a means of power over all creation...

The story itself, while somewhat cliched and derivative, is still nonetheless, for the most part, a cracking good fantasy yarn. There are some interesting concepts at play, and there is, beneath the Objectivist fol-de-rol, an involving story. But there is Objectivist traits here, which seem to conflict with some of the themes expounded on morality. The moral and philosphical messages seem messy. Worse, there is a frankly gratuitious and disturbing couple of chapters that seem to be there purely to satisfy BDSM fetishists, and which are jarring compared to the rest of the novel.

The characters too are decent, but at times, especially with Richard, there seems to be some contradictions. Flawed they may be, but you want a little more consistency with them. And Darken Rahl and his lieutenant Demmin Nass seem to be there to provide a complete contrast to the heroes. Of course, by this point, the heroes are still, more or less, heroic (though I am told that changes later on in the series), and so the contrast is at least better than it was in Atlas Shrugged.

Overall, Wizard's First Rule was entertaining, and up to standard, but leaving aside the cliched and derivative bits, there are all too many things that are jarring to bring it to the level of, say, A Game of Thrones. A pity, and I am not sure whether I will continue with the series, if it continues to get more Randy.



8.5/10


First words: It was an odd-looking vine.

Last words: "Because she knows more about the underworld than anyone alive."

Actually, that would make me happy. Digesting such a long and lousy book in such a short period of time will hopefully turn you off of King forever and get you to start reading Richard Matheson, who's practically the same thing only without all the problems.

I'm trying to remember the fastest I've ever read a book. I've read a few novelizations (yes, I just criticized Stephen King and then admitted to reading novelizations) in a single day, but they usually feel more like screenplays than novels. I finished about 90% of Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die in a single day, but that's a pretty short book. I have bookmarks in about a dozen books right now, all of which I've been reading off and on for a month or more, but the last book I sat down to read pretty much straight through was a re-reading of Philip K. Dick's Ubik, which is only about 200 pages long but took me a week.

It nearly turned me off King forever. I mean, FFS, a sex scene between children. WTF, King? Okay, I read the synopsis on Wikipedia, I knew it was coming, but still, people claim that It is is masterpiece. BS. That's The Shining...

I'm only reading The Tommyknockers because I heard it was like Quatermass and the Pit. You have heard of Quatermass and the Pit, haven't you, Jory? And so far, I am enjoying it somewhat. 100 pages in, Gardener just got turfed out of the party for acting like an arse, though his anger was righteous.



Nothin' wrong with novelisations. For a long time, most of my reading material was Doctor Who novelisations. Especially of the good ones. There was a decent novelisation of a really good Doctor Who story called Frontios.

I've read three of PKD's books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, A Scanner Darkly, and The Man in the High Castle. My personal favourite was A Scanner Darkly.

I currently have Little Dorrit on hold, and I also have the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series ready to go. I'm also going to read The Bodysnatchers (the original inspiration behind Invasion of the Bodysnatchers) and The Raw Shark Texts.

I know I'm in the minority, but I found even The Shining to be mediocre. The only King I've read that I actually liked with few reservations was The Mist, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil, and a handful of short stories. "The Lawnmower Man" is my favorite. Such twisted, insane brilliance.



Er... Heard of, yes. I'll get around to it. I'll at least check out one of the movies whenever I start up my next "movie a day" topic.



For the most part, novelizations deserve their reputation as hack work, but there are certainly plenty of good ones. I don't know if you're familiar with the website trashfiction.co.uk, but you should be. Give it a look if you haven't.



Scanner is probably his best novel, but Ubik is my personal favorite. I would recommend reading it next if you enjoyed the three that you listed. Just be warned that the first third is slow going, but then again, the first 90% of High Castle is slow going.



Gah, I forgot I've also got The Body Snatchers on my to-read list. And The Day of the Triffids. And about a hundred others that I keep a list of on my computer. Some of them have been on that list for years.

I enjoyed The Shining because it was very much like those 'base under siege' stories that Doctor Who did so well in the sixties, and everything seemed encapsulated perfectly. It was one of only seven books in these blogs that got a perfect 10.



I was thinking of the original BBC serial, which is the best of the Quatermass serials. That's the version I watched, but I heard that the movie version was closer to the serial than the previous Quatermass adaptations. Here's the titles.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTx9bj2K7T0[/youtube]

I highly recommend it, but it's pretty slow-paced, especially by modern standards.



Never heard of it. But there are some novelisations that are good. The novelisation of Revenge of the Sith was damned fine, much better than the film (especially when it came to Anakin), and I could make a list of many a good Doctor Who novelisation. There are four that I particularly recommend. They are hard to get (try a second-hand bookshop or a charity book fair), but if you can get them, they're good. They are The Two Doctors by Robert Holmes, Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch, The Curse of Fenric by Ian Briggs, and Ghost Light by Marc Platt.



Isn't Ubik full of mind-f**kery? I mean, I've read House of Leaves and The Gone-Away World, so I'm no stranger to mindf**kery, but still...



Ah, yes, Day of the Triffids is also on my list. I read some Wyndham last time, including Chocky and The Kraken Wakes. I'll have to get The Midwich Cuckoos out again.