Stephen King has always seemed very straightforward in his style to me. He's generally conversational and down to earth, but he's also very honest about the horror he imagines, and he always manages to make it real and immediate, which is sometimes more important than wordsmithery, especially in a horror novel.
That said, I think he doesn't get enough credit for his skill, although I also agree he's a hack, if you define a hack as someone who will try almost anything, and write some workmanlike stuff as well as some more thoughtful pieces.
Okay, I have to read more. Here's what's on my nook, in any state of unreadness:
- A Game of Thrones (2/3 through)
- American Gods (not recently read)
- Iorich (3/4 read)
- Shikasta (not recently read)
- The Deeper Meaning of Liff (not recently read)
- Stiff (unstarted)
- Outlander (unstarted)
- Skeleton Crew (oh, long time ago)
- How To Live Safely In a Science FIctional Universe (unstarted)
- Guards! Guards! (unread)
- Neverwhere (not recently)
- World War Z (unstarted)
- Eccentric Glamour (it's crap--I don't know what I was thinking)
- The Mystery of Grace (1/5 through)
- The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole (1/2 through)
- LIttle Women (not recently(
- Dracula (1/2way through)
I dunno where to go next. Finish the Brust and the GRRM, I guess. Then what?
Well, I do in the sense that it's wish fulfillment to think you could even get an anarchy working. And yeah, it's a hard life they have, but it's clear that it does work, in many ways. Not in all ways, no
OK well to start with there are people (not me) who think anarchism could work. So basically you are saying you politically disagree with the premise of the book, which does not make it wish fulfillment. But the again the point is not merely when it is paradise or not. She is testing the idea to destruction. Start out by assuming an idea works at some level and see where it leads. That is NOT wish fulfillment, especially if the conclusion is 'not very well'.
Incidentally I think a lot people miss the craftsmanship that went to the dispossessed at level other than literary or moral philosophy. One of the things that I think LeGuin was well aware of is that every attempt at managing a complex industrial economy without markets has led to disaster. But LeGuin is trying to test how much freedom is really possible within an economy working on anarchist socialist lines. So to test that she has to make her economy work at some level.
OK but she does not just hand wave away the problem by making everything rose. Instead she puts her imaginary economy under siege, where food has to be produced by sustenance agriculture, where practically nothing is imported or exported, where there are few consumer goods. And so that simplies the economy to where a completely planned economy can work. The U.S. essentially ran as a planned economy in WWII. Give your economy a permanent state of emergency, and that is something a planning process can manage. It is when you seek something beyond bare bones survival that markets (or some equivalent) are needed. Note that Cuba survived for a long as a planned economy under the same circumstance. It did not work well, but a bare bones extremely poor society can manage under a planning regime. In fact such regimes manage emergencies better than capitalist economies the same size. Cuba manages Hurricanes and natural disasters better than the U.S. And that is not to say that the Cuban system is great. (In fact it looks like it may finally come to an end, though it looks to me like it may take the Chinese path of keeping one-party dictatorship, but restoring capitalism). So it is neither wish-fulfillment or even impossible for an "anarchist" society to "work" as some level. (Bear in mind that "anarchism" does not equal "no formal rule making" though in Le Guin's society those rules were enforced by violence, which is why I put "anarchism" in quotes.)
If you're looking for horror fiction, but not specifically novels, I'd suggest From Hell. And, hm. The Collector. Maybes: House of Leaves, Pop. 1280, either Land of Laughs or Child Across the Sky (it's been ages since I've read them).
It occurs to me that This Town Will Never Let Us Go would go on my personal list of best SF novels. Hm again. I may need to buy some copies to give as prezzies.
::takes mad notes for neverending list of awesome books recommended by Buffistas::
Oh, man, House of Leaves.
If you're looking for horror fiction, but not specifically novels, I'd suggest From Hell. And, hm. The Collector.
Thanks! I'm just starting to exploring graphic novels, so that's perfect.
Oh, man, House of Leaves.
I've never gotten around to reading that. I take it I should?
P-C's lj post about House of Leaves is pretty evocative of the book itself, so you can get a feel for what it's about and like: [link] It's not vampire-scary - it's "what the hell is real and what is not" scary. It was recommended to me by a first date who said he was scared to meditate for weeks after reading it, for fear of losing his sense of self.
Basically, it fucks with your head in a major way. So if you like that kind of thing, you may like the book. If not, you may @@.
Basically, it fucks with your head in a major way.
Jonathan Carroll does that for me. Especially his first two books Land of Laughs and The Voice of Our Shadow.
But also Jim Thompson the hard-boiled mystery writer. Because he writes first-person from the POV of people who are subtly revealed to be sociopaths.
