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"The Meaning of Night: A Confession" by Michael Cox.
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Posted: |
Feb 11, 2007 - 12:41 PM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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For Thor: When I was reading HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, I loved the plot and characters; however, the author spent many pages detailing how to work a nuclear submarine, and I wasn't interested in so many details. As much as I liked THE TERROR, the author tended to go on and on and on with minute details about the ships' structures and other details that slowed down my reading. However, other readers may really enjoy those details. I see. A bit like what Michael Crichton often does, right? While I rarely have interest in all the technical and superficial details that certain authors dwell with, I actually PREFER books that spend a great deal of time on mood and atmosphere in general (where no or little "narrative" is going on). My own (unreleased) novels, for example, usually start off with long "poetic" descriptions of the setting before anything happens. It's all about getting the reader engrossed in the place and time to the extent that you can almost breathe the air and smell the flowers. THEN the action enters, and quite up-tempo too.
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After reading 'Lonesome Dove', I went to the next book of the series (to follow the characters in the first book chronologically, afterwards) that book is 'Dead Man's Walk' and it goes BACK in time to where the first books characters (then old) are teenagers and meet one another for the first time. Though not quite as good as 'Lonesome Dove', it was still quite a page turner with many, many exciting and vivid and violent events. You get to meet Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call and Clara all as teenagers. (We the readers know what's in store for them, but they don't, and this makes for a lively read!) Very worthwhile (Joan Hue check it out!) After 'Dead Man's Walk' I felt I needed something different and selected 'A Short History of the Dead'. A highly unusual novel about where people go to after they die. They go to a place (New York?) and continue there indefinately UNTILL the last person on earth who remembered them in their memories dies as well, then they move on to 'the next place'. But then suddenly all the people on Earth start to be die off in a rapidly spreading plague that is devestating this 'middle world's' occupants...... sounds unusual and it was. Sort of an 'On The Beach' for The Dead, if that makes any sense. Currently reading the 3rd novel in the 'Lonesome Dove' series - 'COMMANCHE MOON' and here, the Lonesome Dove characters are in their middle years, and feisty as ever. This book is nearly as long as Lonesome Dove was. It will not be finished here in New York but will be finished sometime after I move to Montana - which is probably fitting!
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Montana Dave wrote "...felt I needed something different and selected 'A Short History of the Dead'. A highly unusual novel about where people go to after they die. They go to a place (New York?) and continue there indefinately UNTILL the last person on earth who remembered them in their memories dies as well, then they move on to 'the next place'. But then suddenly all the people on Earth start to be die off in a rapidly spreading plague that is devestating this 'middle world's' occupants...... sounds unusual and it was. Sort of an 'On The Beach' for The Dead, if that makes any sense." This sounds very interesting. I'm putting it on my list. Thanks for the recommendation. Currently reading "Sweet Poison," by David Roberts, first in the Lord Edward Corinth/Verity Browne mystery series. 1930s setting -- Sayersesque, and fun.
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