Recent Readings (and other literary talk)

[grodog]

I’m reading Shannon Chakraborty’s _City of Brass_ aloud to Heather before she crashes for the night, and have been reading her _River of Silver_ short-story outtakes from the full trilogy of novels on my own.

Thinking about starting to read The Expanse series, which I’ve heard good things about (I picked the books up last summer).

Allan.

[Ancalagon]

I'm in the midst of a Clark Ashton Smith collection. It's OK... but overly verbose and I'm not a fan of how some of the stories end abruptly, sometimes without resolution, or as if CAS was thinking "Oh shit! Times up and I have a deadline to meet with a publisher so here goes!"

Probably won't be exploring any more CAS after this.

[Necron 99]

I'm in the midst of a Clark Ashton Smith collection. It's OK... but overly verbose and I'm not a fan of how some of the stories end abruptly, sometimes without resolution, or as if CAS was thinking "Oh shit! Times up and I have a deadline to meet with a publisher so here goes!"

Probably won't be exploring any more CAS after this.

Haha, funny revelation concerning CAS. I tried reading some of his stuff earlier this year and likewise, found it to be, not good, at least in what I read. I also stopped reading any more and decided he's just not an author for me.

[grodog]

I’ve enjoyed most of the CAS I’ve read, but I’ve not read him as comprehensively as I have HPL.

Which CAS books did you guys read that let you down?

Haven’t started The Expanse, but I started in on Dashiell Hanmett’s _The Glass Key_. So far I like his prose less than Raymond Chandler—it may be more spare than Hemingway (whom I don’t particularly like), which is saying something….

Allan.

[Necron 99]

I’ve enjoyed most of the CAS I’ve read, but I’ve not read him as comprehensively as I have HPL.

Which CAS books did you guys read that let you down?

Haven’t started The Expanse, but I started in on Dashiell Hanmett’s _The Glass Key_. So far I like his prose less than Raymond Chandler—it may be more spare than Hemingway (whom I don’t particularly like), which is saying something….

Allan.

In looking to answer your question, I went back to look for the book that I started reading, it wasn't on my Kobo, so I dug into my book folder for my e-reader on my PC and found two different CAS books, however, when I opened both of them, neither one looked familiar, I browsed a couple of stories but none of those sounded familiar either.

So I'm thinking, maybe I was wrong and it was a different author I'm thinking of that I read and disliked. For some reason I had it in my head that it was Smith, but nothing is recognizable. Unless of course, I disliked the stories so much I put them out of my mind.

Anyhow, I may have to add the first book, The End of the Story, onto my reader and give it a run at some point to see how it pans out. Now I'm confused and wondering what it was I actually did read that I disliked.

[Ancalagon]

I’ve enjoyed most of the CAS I’ve read, but I’ve not read him as comprehensively as I have HPL.

Which CAS books did you guys read that let you down?

Haven’t started The Expanse, but I started in on Dashiell Hanmett’s _The Glass Key_. So far I like his prose less than Raymond Chandler—it may be more spare than Hemingway (whom I don’t particularly like), which is saying something….

Allan.

In looking to answer your question, I went back to look for the book that I started reading, it wasn't on my Kobo, so I dug into my book folder for my e-reader on my PC and found two different CAS books, however, when I opened both of them, neither one looked familiar, I browsed a couple of stories but none of those sounded familiar either.

So I'm thinking, maybe I was wrong and it was a different author I'm thinking of that I read and disliked. For some reason I had it in my head that it was Smith, but nothing is recognizable. Unless of course, I disliked the stories so much I put them out of my mind.

Anyhow, I may have to add the first book, The End of the Story, onto my reader and give it a run at some point to see how it pans out. Now I'm confused and wondering what it was I actually did read that I disliked.

I'm working my way through The End of the Story via Audiobook with a little over 3 hours to go.

[grodog]

So _The End of the Story_ presents CAS’ tales in chronological order, and flipping through its TOC, just few of his best pieces are in this first volume:

- The Abominations of Yondo
- The Last Incantation
- The Tale of Satanora Zeiros

So, I’m less surprised that they haven’t grabbed you guys on a first pass.

I can check the second book’s TOC if that would be useful?

Allan.