My love affair with genre fiction has had another interruption in the form of Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. His style of characterization reminds me of Stephen King, but the rest is definitely his own. The plot is firmly set in surburbia and explores the lives of post-war Australians. Of course, the themes extend far beyond that, but so far I'm in the camp that views the character archs as a bit too consistently negative. It's good, but definitely not a classic in my opinion.
After hearing a lot about John Scalzi and Jo Walton (all good, as you can imagine), I decided to read some of their earlier books before delving into Old Man's War (since I loved The Forever War, this sounds right up my alley) and Farthing, respectively.
So far, Agent to the Stars by Scalzi is imaginative, funny and quite enjoyable; I definitely made the right choice here, although it does have that rough-around-the-edges feel that most first novels have. Quite forgivable though, since it's available for free on the internets. (
http://www.scalzi.com/agent/) Walton's Sulien trilogy comes with a recommendation from perhaps my favourite fantasy author, Robin Hobb, but I've only read twenty or so pages as of yet, so I'll be looking to fix that quite soon.
Witchfinder General said:
Packer's Lunch by Neil Chenoweth
So far it's an utterly enthralling and hilarious read.
I urge all Aussies to read this.
This has been on my horizon since it was released, but whenever I come close to purchasing it, the price puts me off.
