Subject: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 115, Issue 7

From: Andreas Johansson <andreas.havok at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 08:52:23 +0000

> I bump Craigs recommendation!, great start for "Southern Reach" trilogy.
>
> "Jagannath" by Karin Tidbeck is a short story collection, in summary it's
> new weird in nordic countries setting (mostly, not all), very fresh,
> disturbing, and yet sweet sometimes. Also the stories originally written in
> swedish Karin translated herself, that impressed me very much.
>
> Glad to see Karin getting some international attention! I loved that
collection, and I really hope her debut novel Amatka will be translated
soon enough - it's a surrealist dystopia, somehow inspired by both Vilhelm
Moberg's classic (if you're Swedish at least) novels about the hardship of
Swedish immigrants in USA in the 19th century, the dystopia of Fahrenheit
451 and We (mind control, re-write history etc), but drifting away into
complete surrealism - a lovely authorship in its early stages! I'd
encourage more people to check her out: http://karintidbeck.com/

Myself I've just started on Peace, for a second time - can't say that I'm
making much of it after merely 30-40 pages but I'm sure it will unfold into
something spectacular, as Wolfe always does... a recent book sale landed
the Latro omnibus on my shelves alongside some nice Surrealists (Jarry,
Burroughs, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning) so I have way, way too
much to read. Finished Alastair Reynolds' last opus some day ago, On the
Steel Breeze, the 2nd part of his new trilogy Poseidon's Children. Carved
out asteroids as generation ships, personalities divided into
triplicates or invested in artilects - some slight Wolfean inspiration
perhaps? Reynolds' characterizations and narrative structures are slowly
growing better and more complex, but it's still clear that he's a hard SF
writer to the core - chapters reading like spaceship manuals, long chunks
of prose explaining the movements of celestial bodies... lovely in one
sense, but after delving deep into Wolfe & Philip K Dick I feel an urge for
SF that doesn't depend on actually _explaining_ the tech stuff to feel
plausible. Which is exactly why I had to pause reading Peter F Hamilton's
monster-brick of an epic The Reality Dysfunction (1200+ pages!).

Hope this message comes out allright, this is my second time posting on the
list so pardon any mistakes :)

yrs
Andreas
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