There is a new poll in the upper left corner. As usual I have a huge backlog of books, even after my vacation tear along with normally reading at least 2 books a week. Well, to clear a bit of space on my to-read shelves before the end of the year I'm putting up 6 giant sized reads. All are each around 500 pages or more. Some of these will just be big books while others might be omnibuses or complete series I own, but haven't read yet. My goal is to read the winner before the end of the year I decided to go with a very eclectic mix of mostly older across the genres I read. Once these are moved along it will allow me to neaten up my to-read shelves, which is now more of a to-read bookcase. Here are the choices:
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (656 total pages) - I've heard this called the smart-person's Da Vinci Code, which has been sitting on my shelf for at least 2 years since a friend highly recommend it. I read Eco's somewhat heady, but enjoyable The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana a few years back.
Three clever book editors, inspired by an extraordinary fable they heard years before, decide to have a little fun. Randomly feeding esoteric bits of knowledge into an incredible computer capable of inventing connections between all their entries, they think they are creating a long lazy game--until the game starts taking over.... Here is an incredible journey of thought and history, memory and fantasy, a tour de force as enthralling as anything Umberto Eco--or indeed anyone--has ever devised.
Age of Misrule (World's End, Darkest Hour, & Always Forever) by Mark Chadbourn (1350 total pages) Now that I have all three volumes it is taking up a lot of space and I keep hearing generally good things.
All over the country, the ancient gods of Celtic mythology are returning to the land from which they were banished millennia ago. Following in their footsteps are creatures of folklore: the Fabulous Beasts, shape-shifters and Night Walkers, and other, less wholesome beings. As they grow in power, so technology is swept away. It is myth and magic that now rule supreme in this new Dark Age: The Age of Misrule. The Eternal Conflict between the Light and Dark once again blackens the skies and blights the land. On one side stand the Tuatha de Danann, golden-skinned and beautiful; on the other are the Fomorii, monstrous devils hell-bent on destroying all human existence. But in times of trouble, come heroes. Five flawed humans, Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, are drawn together to search for the magical talismans which which to fight the powers of old. But time draws short and humanity looks set to be swept away ...
On Her Majesty's Occult Service (Omnibus edition of The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue) by Charles Stross (784 total pages) - This would be my first introduction to Stross's work and from what I've seen it would be a lot of fun.
Publisher's Weekly: "With often hilarious results, the author mixes the occult and the mundane, the truly weird and the petty. In "Atrocity," Bob, a low-level computer fix-it guy for the Laundry, a supersecret British agency that defends the world from occult happenings, finds himself promoted to fieldwork after he bravely saves the day during a routine demonstration gone awry. With his Palm, aka his Hand of Glory (a severed hand that, when ignited, renders the holder invisible), and his smarts, he saves the world from a powerful external force seeking to enter our universe to suck it dry. In "Jungle," Bob teams up with a cop, Josephine, to save the Laundry from a power monger who seeks to stage an internal coup by using zombies as her minions. Amid all the bizarre happenings are the everyday trappings of a British bureaucracy. Bob gets called on the carpet by his bosses because he requested backup during an emergency without first getting his supervisor's okay and filling out the requisite forms. Though the characters all tend to sound the same, and Stross resorts to lengthy summary explanations to dispel confusion, the world he creates is wonderful fun."
Cyteen (Omnibus of Cyteen: The Betrayal, The Rebirth, and The Vindication) by C.J. Cherryh (696 total pages) - I've heard this compared to Dune only it is supposed to be better and again this would be my first indoctrination into Cherryh's work..
Library Journal: "A brilliant young scientist rises to power on Cyteen, haunted by the knowledge that her predecessor and genetic duplicate died at the hands of one of her trusted advisors. Murder, politics, and genetic manipulation provide the framework for the latest Union-Alliance novel by the author of Downbelow Station. Cherryh's talent for intense, literate storytelling maintains interest throughout this long, complex novel."
Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls by Matt Ruff (496 total pages) - I know this is shy of the 500 page count, but I love Ruff and this has been hanging around for far too long. Ruff's Fool on the Hill is one of my all-time favorite reads, but this one seems to be more on the serious side.
"I suppose I should tell you about the house.... The house, along with the lake, the forest, and Coventry, are all in Andy Gage's head, or what would have been Andy Gage's head if he had lived. Andy Gage was horn in 1965 and murdered not long after by his stepfather ... It was no ordinary murder.. though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . . "
From the author of the cult classic Fool on the Hill comes a strange and moving story of self-discovery. Andy Gage was "born" just two years ago, called into being to serve as the public face of a multiple personality. While Andy deals with the outside world, more than a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside Andy's head, struggling to maintain an orderly co-existence: Aaron, the father figure, who makes the rules; Adam, the mischievous teenager, who breaks them; Jake, the frightened little boy; Aunt Sam, the artist; Seferis, the defender; and Gideon, the dark soul, who wants to get rid of Andy and the others and run things on his own.
Andrew's new coworker, Penny Driver, is also a multiple personality -- a fact that Penny is only partially aware of. When several of Penny's other souls ask Andy for help, Andy reluctantly agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy the stability of the house. Now Andy and Penny must work together to uncover a terrible secret that Andy has been keeping from himself....
This Alien Shore by C.S. Friedman (576 total pages) - Many people consider Friedman one of the modern masters of Sci-Fi, but I've yet to delve in. Maybe this will be the time.
In the first age of Earth's colonization of space, the FTL drive that powered the starships caused severe genetic damage in the colonists. Generations later, a new mutant race arises, one which can safely conduct people between the stars. But since they use their ability to tightly control all interstellar commerce, rival interests soon seek to break the monopoly. An when a lab-raised young woman narrowly escapes kidnapping, even as a rogue computer virus wreaks havoc on the interstellar "Net," she must flee into "alien shores", evading her pursuers while attempting to uncover the secrets of her own existence.
So there is a literary Thriller, a very strange Fantasy, a couple of Space Operas, an Epic Urban Fantasy series, and a humorous duo of Lovecraftian inspired spy novels. So what's it gonna be?
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