You ready to jack in? Never read Neuromancer! Well, I'll be curious what you make of it. Meanwhile, I have yet another book to add to my list, thank you very much!
Kavan’s book sounds fascinating, and not unlike something you might pen! Glad to hear the clouds are lifting and you’re feeling some spaciousness within your creative sphere. Hoping this continues so we can be the beneficiaries of your brilliance.:)
Interesting, I finished reading Ice a few weeks ago. It is indeed a strange book, and one that's difficult to describe without running into all sorts of diminishing attempts (which inevitably you do). The minute I finished it, I immediately thought that I will read it again, in due course. The same thought I had when I finished Clarice Lispector's Near To The Wild Heart, for example. Although we're talking about two completely different universes. I appreciate your mention of the other titles within the Penguin Classics Science Fiction collection, which I am not familiar with and will definitely check out (especially Lovecraft's). I will also get the Strugatskys' book. You got me intrigued. I usually take book recommendations with a grain of salt, but your appreciation of Anna Kavan tells me all I need to know to go ahead and "trust" your taste (AND subscribe to your substack). :)
These books look so good. Thanks for telling us about your experience with them.
15 years! Happy moving anniversary. I do find it odd the way the years away-from-home creep up on me as well. At one point, I was always 'coming back soon'...I'm not sure if that was the case with you? Years turn into almost decades, and then you wonder about the passing of time. When I was applying to jobs last autumn, the years were clear and frightening as I wrote them down on paper.
But it's also courageous and wonderful that you've been able to make yourself this life in Australia with all that you have there.
Shamefully I think I would have bought the Kavan book without even knowing what it was about because I love the cover so much (but now I've heard your take I'm getting it for more mature, intellectual reasons)
Neuromancer is great, although I have to read it again, it's been at least 20 years… I read almost all of Gibson’s books and I like his anarchist style.
Very interesting! I hadn’t heard of either of these books, but Roadside Picnic sounds intriguing to me. Also Neuromancer. I haven’t read that one yet either.
Australia. I’ve wanted to visit ever since doing a research paper about the country/continent in the fourth grade. Someday, I’ll come for a visit.
Ice sounds intriguing! I’ll have to add it to the list. Happy 15 years! Starting a new life is an incredible thing, and wild whether it was a deliberate choice or something fallen into, or both.
Thanks for the lovely mention, my friend. I read a Romanian translation of Roadside Picnic in college, and hated it, lol. Though now I think of it, I didn’t like most of the books from that collection, including The Man in the High Castle, so it’s very possible that the translations were to blame. I should perhaps try the English translations as well.
I most pleased to have officially recommended A Good Read! That Penguin Science Fiction series is full of them, in fact. (Great covers too, as with the SF Mastworks.) You have written a great summary of Ice; I hope people are encouraged to read it. You have also highlighted my two favourites.
I expect readers of serialised fiction here would enjoy the way The Hair Carpet Weavers is structured, with each chapter often being self-contained, from a unique character’s perspective, but linked in some way to the preceding chapter to tell an ever-expanding story. Superb.
We is (are) also brilliant. It is rather like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, but written a good couple of decades earlier, with a compelling delirious trajectory for the protagonist.
I have read a few others. There is even one by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, One Billion Years to the End of the World. The Cyberiad was rather amusing and really made me want to read Solaris—another link to Roadside Picnic and Stalker via Andrei Tarkovsky.
Thanks for the book recommendations, Nathan. I’ve not read either of them but will need to check them out
It’s a good time to read Neuromancer as it’s currently being adapted by Apple into a 10 part TV show. The book was huge when I was a teenager but, like yourself, never got around to reading it. Might give it a go 🤔
Hope you’re enjoying your weekend and I’m sure that guy from 15 years ago is still with you and proud of what you have achieved and become 👍🏼
This is the last day of our holiday in Sicily and I’m lying awake at 3.25am writing this as the couple in the hotel room next to us decided that tonight was a good time to play really loud music and then have a huge argument. I’m doing that British thing of tutting loudly and not calling reception like I should. I think I’m looking forward to going home. I’m meant to be up in 2 hours anyway so don’t think any more sleep is on the cards. I might try and do some writing 🤔🙄😆
You ready to jack in? Never read Neuromancer! Well, I'll be curious what you make of it. Meanwhile, I have yet another book to add to my list, thank you very much!
Kavan’s book sounds fascinating, and not unlike something you might pen! Glad to hear the clouds are lifting and you’re feeling some spaciousness within your creative sphere. Hoping this continues so we can be the beneficiaries of your brilliance.:)
Interesting, I finished reading Ice a few weeks ago. It is indeed a strange book, and one that's difficult to describe without running into all sorts of diminishing attempts (which inevitably you do). The minute I finished it, I immediately thought that I will read it again, in due course. The same thought I had when I finished Clarice Lispector's Near To The Wild Heart, for example. Although we're talking about two completely different universes. I appreciate your mention of the other titles within the Penguin Classics Science Fiction collection, which I am not familiar with and will definitely check out (especially Lovecraft's). I will also get the Strugatskys' book. You got me intrigued. I usually take book recommendations with a grain of salt, but your appreciation of Anna Kavan tells me all I need to know to go ahead and "trust" your taste (AND subscribe to your substack). :)
These books look so good. Thanks for telling us about your experience with them.
15 years! Happy moving anniversary. I do find it odd the way the years away-from-home creep up on me as well. At one point, I was always 'coming back soon'...I'm not sure if that was the case with you? Years turn into almost decades, and then you wonder about the passing of time. When I was applying to jobs last autumn, the years were clear and frightening as I wrote them down on paper.
But it's also courageous and wonderful that you've been able to make yourself this life in Australia with all that you have there.
Love love love the interview. It's like two friends having a coffee break together.
Shamefully I think I would have bought the Kavan book without even knowing what it was about because I love the cover so much (but now I've heard your take I'm getting it for more mature, intellectual reasons)
Neuromancer is great, although I have to read it again, it's been at least 20 years… I read almost all of Gibson’s books and I like his anarchist style.
Have fun with “Neuromancer,” I found it to be a fast read, not as fun as “Dune” though I’m sure!
Great recs, Nathan - Anna Kavan's "Ice" is giving me serious "Left Hand of Darkness" vibes, including that cover, so that's a definite.
I’ve not read either of these books Nathan, but I have Ice on my kindle also so will be diving in!
Especially as your write up is slightly reminiscent of another author I love - he wrote something called The Sernox!
Time passes doesn’t it, too fast when we think of in years… this is our twentieth in France! Unreal….
Very interesting! I hadn’t heard of either of these books, but Roadside Picnic sounds intriguing to me. Also Neuromancer. I haven’t read that one yet either.
Australia. I’ve wanted to visit ever since doing a research paper about the country/continent in the fourth grade. Someday, I’ll come for a visit.
Ice sounds intriguing! I’ll have to add it to the list. Happy 15 years! Starting a new life is an incredible thing, and wild whether it was a deliberate choice or something fallen into, or both.
Thanks for the lovely mention, my friend. I read a Romanian translation of Roadside Picnic in college, and hated it, lol. Though now I think of it, I didn’t like most of the books from that collection, including The Man in the High Castle, so it’s very possible that the translations were to blame. I should perhaps try the English translations as well.
I most pleased to have officially recommended A Good Read! That Penguin Science Fiction series is full of them, in fact. (Great covers too, as with the SF Mastworks.) You have written a great summary of Ice; I hope people are encouraged to read it. You have also highlighted my two favourites.
I expect readers of serialised fiction here would enjoy the way The Hair Carpet Weavers is structured, with each chapter often being self-contained, from a unique character’s perspective, but linked in some way to the preceding chapter to tell an ever-expanding story. Superb.
We is (are) also brilliant. It is rather like Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, but written a good couple of decades earlier, with a compelling delirious trajectory for the protagonist.
I have read a few others. There is even one by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, One Billion Years to the End of the World. The Cyberiad was rather amusing and really made me want to read Solaris—another link to Roadside Picnic and Stalker via Andrei Tarkovsky.
Thanks for the book recommendations, Nathan. I’ve not read either of them but will need to check them out
It’s a good time to read Neuromancer as it’s currently being adapted by Apple into a 10 part TV show. The book was huge when I was a teenager but, like yourself, never got around to reading it. Might give it a go 🤔
Hope you’re enjoying your weekend and I’m sure that guy from 15 years ago is still with you and proud of what you have achieved and become 👍🏼
This is the last day of our holiday in Sicily and I’m lying awake at 3.25am writing this as the couple in the hotel room next to us decided that tonight was a good time to play really loud music and then have a huge argument. I’m doing that British thing of tutting loudly and not calling reception like I should. I think I’m looking forward to going home. I’m meant to be up in 2 hours anyway so don’t think any more sleep is on the cards. I might try and do some writing 🤔🙄😆