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Post by snowfyre on Dec 4, 2017 18:15:25 GMT
( Hey folks - long time, no talk. Hope all of you are doing well. )
I read a book recently that I thought this group might really enjoy - and if any of you have the opportunity to read it, I'd love to know what you think. It's a mystery/detective story with an extraordinarily complex plot (or plots), multiple layers of potential meaning, rich with puzzles, imagery, and questions. The sort of thing I think the heretic community might get a lot of discussion mileage out of. Plus, it's very current - in terms of the relevance of cultural and political issues. The book is Gnomon, by Nick Harkaway. It's brand new - not officially released yet in the US, so I ordered it from a UK website. This review here seems about right, to me: intellectusspeculativus.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/gnomon-by-nick-harkaway/Anyway. I recommend it. And I'd be interested in your impressions if you read it (though any open discussion would need a spoiler warning, I think). I finished the book sometime last week, and I'm still puzzling over some things - thumbing back through, and turning the story over in my mind.
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Post by Melifeather on Dec 5, 2017 2:24:44 GMT
The cost via Amazon UK is roughly $25. Was the place you ordered from cheaper?
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Post by snowfyre on Dec 5, 2017 12:43:22 GMT
The cost via Amazon UK is roughly $25. Was the place you ordered from cheaper? Interesting. The price I see at Amazon UK is £10.49 ... which is about $15. I probably paid another 6 or 7 bucks for shipping — so yeah, it was about $25 total. (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gnomon-Nick-Harkaway/dp/1785151274) Actually, if you read e-books, this would be a good one to have in that format. At it looks like the U.S. release date is January 9th, on Kindle. (Many times, I found myself wishing I could search the text for recurring images, phrases, and topics... the weaving of themes, ideas, and storylines is hard to keep track of on first read.)
Full Disclosure: A few years ago, I read Tigerman... and it was very good. Not great. But good enough that I remained interested in the author. Then, last January or February, I saw this blog post by Harkway about Gnomon - a post worth reading, IMO - and I decided I had to read this book. (That blog post left me wondering if GRRM wrote his books in similar fashion. And I thought GRRM should take a lesson from Harkaway on how to finally let go and publish.) At the time, Gnomon's release date was October 2017. So I calendared it. Then it got pushed to November. And come November... when I was ready to read the book, it turned out the UK and US publication dates were different! And the US release was January. So I said "screw it," and just ordered from Amazon UK. So. No reason not to wait another month, and save a few bucks... unless, like me, you just have to have it right away. It's a challenging book, in some ways.
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Post by Melifeather on Dec 6, 2017 2:18:12 GMT
I am intrigued, just wondering if I want to spend $25 to order now from UK. I too like ebooks, and I think Amazon has deals where you can have both hard copy and a reduced rate ebook.
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Post by snowfyre on Dec 7, 2017 20:02:10 GMT
I am intrigued, just wondering if I want to spend $25 to order now from UK. Yeah, no rush - maybe wait for a deal. And I don't mean to overhype the book, either. I do have some critiques - it's not the easiest read, in some ways. And I'm pretty sure that, even now, I don't completely get it. But it's a book that invites the sort of picking-apart you find in online ASOIAF communities. I think it's intentionally designed for that treatment, and it may not be possible to fully understand the story without digging in that way. In fact, the whole thing can get rather "meta" at times: So anyway. Again: let me know if you do pick up a copy! I'd be interested in talking this one over. (And that goes not just for Melifeather. It's a forum-wide rec. Weasel Pie, Some Pig No Doubt, min, and freyfamilyreunion - I think each of you would get a kick out of this one. And I'd enjoy reading your thoughts.)
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Post by Weasel Pie on Dec 9, 2017 17:20:23 GMT
I'll keep an eye out in January for the ebook. I remember hearing about Nick Harkaway some years ago but have never read his work.
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