Whats everyone reading?

[Hawkmumbler]

One of my New Years resolutions was to get back to reading more novels, and I'd like some recommendations. I'm going through a kinda Quatermass type sci-fi phase at the moment, so does anyone have any good starting points?

[dweezil2]

One of my New Years resolutions was to get back to reading more novels, and I'd like some recommendations. I'm going through a kinda Quatermass type sci-fi phase at the moment, so does anyone have any good starting points?

Read this a few years back, pretty thought provoking stuff!

https://g.co/kgs/wxFxm5

[Theblazeuk]

I read about 40 novels last year, but sadly not a single one fits the bill for Quatermass-style scifi. Which is shocking really as I would love to read something like that. Closest I can think was a comic, the sublime Injection by Mr Ellis. Perhaps the closest I can think of is something like Lovecraft Country, which owes a bit more to the eponymous author than Nigel Kneale, but executes the mysticism and occult science of the mythos excellently alongside exploring the oppressive, insidious force of racism in the US of the time.

My last run of books was the Ketty Jay series by Chris Wooding. Airship-piratey fun, nothing too weighty but moves along at a quick pace and does some great worldbuilding whilst telling a bunch of tense stories about a bunch of fairly wretched (but likeable) people. Comparisons to Firefly work well.

[Smith]

Im making my way thru Mignolaverse.Hellboy Wild Hunt was the best Hellboy volume so far.

[I, Cosh]

Well been wading through a load of Hellboys over the last month and ... I know he has big fans here... and it looks quite beautiful Mignola really is a stunningly good artist ... but I'm not getting on with it.

A while ago I got every Hellboy comic to date (think there have been about four since) in a Dark Horse sale and I broadly agree with your view. From some of the comments here it seems you miss a lot by not reading it alongside BPRD but I didn't so hey ho. The one thing I would say is that the Duncan Fegredo years are a cut above the rest. There are a couple of longer storylines where things actually happen and the art is sublime: the regular Mignola look is fine but it's not in the same league.

[Satanist]

I'm reading FROM HELL at the moment for the first time ever. 3 chapters done and lots to take in. For a comic Mr Moore sure fits in a lot of words 

[Mardroid]

I like the majority of Alan Moore stuff I've read, but I found From Hell a real trudge.

I liked the art, and the main plot/story itself was interesting, but there were long dialogue sequences [spoiler](particularly when the two fellas are driving that hanson or coach, through London taking the sites)[/spoiler] which really bored me.

The strange thing is, a lot what they spoke of should have been interesting to me. [spoiler]I'm usually interested in mystical stuff and the like.[/spoiler] But it just went on soooooo loooooonnnnngggg. It bored me silly, and I confess much of it went over my head.

[spoiler]And the in depth description of the prostitutes dissection was rather too graphic for my taste.[/spoiler]

I'm glad others like it. And as I said before, I really like the art. Those panels detailing parts of London are pretty amazing. And I want to see what others see in it, but perhaps due to my own lacking mental capacity, I guess I just didn't really get it.

[TordelBack]

The strange thing is, a lot what they spoke of should have been interesting to me. [spoiler]I'm usually interested in mystical stuff and the like.[/spoiler] But it just went on soooooo loooooonnnnngggg. It bored me silly, and I confess much of it went over my head.

Give over lad, I think most of us are more Netley than Gull when reading that chapter!  It definitely rewards re-reading, preferably with a map to hand, but I challenge anyone to take it all in on a single reading. Worth remembering that the whole mystical tour of London was in a single issue, and thus sat there for perusal, together with its section of the appendices, for months, rather than being just more pages in a very long book.

The extreme unpleasantness of the crime scene and autopsy sections is quite deliberate, not only because they represent almost all of the tiny handful of actual facts that exist about the events, but also as part of Moore's signature trick of creating a reader's proxy for an altered state of consciousness: I haven't read it in a while, but I still feel like I really was in that terrible room in Miller's Court, the stifling heat of the banked fire, the indignity of a human being reduced to offal on display. It places you not only in Gull's head, but in (the character) Abberline's, and in Moore's, and makes you utterly sick of the prurience and sensationalism that made these pathetic tragedies into an industry.

But you're not wrong to dislike it, and you're not wrong about the art.

[Dark Jimbo]

It doesn't sound like you were reading the notes, Mardroid, which may have been a mistake. Personally, I would read an average of three or four pages before  going to the appropriate note pages for context and explanation of what I'd just read - especially helpful with Gull and Netley's pyscho-geographic tour, which would have been borderline baffling without it in places!

[Apestrife]

Read a couple of Haruki Murakami books.

Norwegian Wood
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Sputnik Sweetheart
Kafka on the Shore
After Dark
1Q84 book 1, 2 ,3.
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
The Elephant Vanishes
Men Without Women
Underground
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Essentially every book that's been translated into Swedish. Like them all very much. While I've read them all before, reading them all again, one after another, them took me places. Also had an positive effect on me,  afterwards I'v found that I'v bettered myself in more than way. Discipline, health and what not. Strange that such dreamy strange books can have that effect

I'v also read Lee Child's Jack Reacher: Killing floor. Essentially about a can do no wrong giant man who's brilliant at anything he does,  who while hobo:ing some small town of M'urica stumbles across a bunch of utterly contrived situations which he solves with his near magical abilities. While I understand why some could like these books (and like it), I think -at least- the first lacks some serious self awareness and much needed irony. Book wasn't in my taste.

[Frank]

the whole mystical tour of London was in a single issue, and thus sat there for perusal, together with its section of the appendices, for months, rather than being just more pages in a very long book.

I would read an average of three or four pages before going to the appropriate note pages for context and explanation of what I'd just read

Dark TordelJimBack is correct. I don't own the collected From Hell, partly because I don't want to reinforce my bookshelves, but also because I think reading an individual issue, followed by the relevant appendices, is the funningest way to enjoy Alan's slasher porn masterpiece.

Whenever a new issue dropped, I used to look forward to reading the reference section as much as the fiction. You could interpret that as a criticism of the scribbles and balloons, but I think it's testament to Moore's dedication to (at that point) creating new reading experiences.

Reading From Hell without the appendices is like only reading the word balloons and not looking at the pictures.

[sheridan]

I'm reading FROM HELL at the moment for the first time ever. 3 chapters done and lots to take in. For a comic Mr Moore sure fits in a lot of words 

Do the collected editions have the appendices?

[Apestrife]

Reading From Hell without the appendices is like only reading the word balloons and not looking at the pictures.

While I'v never felt it to be that important (read it twice without it at first), I do think it's a great appendice. I also recommend the companion book to From hell.

But I do wish League of extraordinary gentlemen had something similar. A bit too steep at times, especially Century with the obscured characters which they "couldn't" use otherwise. A certain young wizard was a bit lost on me before I turned to google.

Do the collected editions have the appendices?

Yep. A great one. 40 or so pages.

[Tony Angelino]

Monkeybrain Press published a couple of books which detailed all the LOTG literary references, for the first two series anyway. A Blazing World and I forget the name of the other one.

[Apestrife]

Monkeybrain Press published a couple of books which detailed all the LOTG literary references, for the first two series anyway. A Blazing World and I forget the name of the other one.

I'v heard about those. Remember checking the author's annotation site for LoEG. 

The "blazing world" in Black dossier was btw lost on me as well haha.