Tag: The Haar

Top 5 Books I Read in 2023

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It’s that time of year again where I start reflecting on the past year’s reading endeavours and determine which among them were my favourites. As always, this isn’t about books that came out in 2023, just the ones that I enjoyed the most among all the books that I finished, listed in no particular order.

Surprisingly, I found this list a little more difficult to put together than normal, as somehow I didn’t really have the pool of books to pull from that I thought I did. Though I made a great effort to get a lot more comics read, I didn’t actually read much more novels than last year, and unfortunately I think there were a few more middling books than is usual for me. In any case, let’s get to this year’s list.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – October 25, 2023

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www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien 3 First-DraftI’ve made some pretty good progress in Alien 3 by Pat Cadigan; I only have a little over 100 pages left to read, so I’m really hopeful that I will have it done by Halloween. I must say, my enthusiasm for this book has mellowed the further I’ve gotten into it. I don’t actually think that I like the changes they’ve made to how the Xenomorph works, as its ability to infect others seems so effective that it feels arbitrary who does and who does not become infected. I was hoping it was more of an on-the-fly adaptation than such a dramatic change. It’s making me think this story had a huge influence on future projects like the film Prometheus too. I’ve also learned that this book is based on the first draft, which had more of an action tone, while the second draft felt more like Alien with only a few creatures; I really wish the novel followed the latter.

Recently Finished

WitchavenAs per my plans, I managed to read through the entirety of The Haar by David Sodergren on Monday. Unlike my last, fairly recent read-through of a book in one sitting, I liked this book a lot, though it didn’t end up being what I expected at all. This will perhaps sound cornier than the execution, but it was infinitely more of a “my monster boyfriend” type of story than I was expecting, though it includes some exceptionally grotesque descriptions of gore and takes itself appropriately seriously. It really resonated with me as a “folk” horror novel, and I really loved Muriel as a protagonist. Though it wasn’t as scary as I was hoping, if you look below the surface of the story as it unfolds it is potentially a lot darker than it lets on, making for something perhaps more ambiguous than you might at first realize. This book has passed as a test reading, at any rate, and I now plan to buy more of Sodergren’s books in the future.

Reading Next

For now, I don’t have many concrete plans. I’m strongly considering reading through a digital copy of the art book for the video game Scorn that came with my copy, since I’ve recently beaten the game, and I still want to read “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman before Halloween too, but I haven’t decided on a full novel yet.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – October 4, 2023

RyanLeave a comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Alien 3 First-DraftSince last week, I’ve started to read a couple of new books. First is Alien³ by Pat Cadigan (I don’t want to use the longer title that specifies what it is every time), one of the books I’ve chosen to read for the Halloween season. Right off the bat, I’m enjoying this a lot as an alternative third installment in the Alien film series, most especially because of a scene where a character behaves more sensibly in response to somebody getting a facehugger on their head than anybody else in the franchise; she essentially says “Damn, an alien ate Boris’s face,” and then shoots the facehugger and disposes of the man’s body through the airlock. I’m looking forward to seeing how this story develops.

on-a-sunbeamI also started reading On a Sunbeam, a graphic novel by Tillie Walden. I’ve had this book on my to-read list for a while now, though my interest hadn’t been piqued quite enough to actually pick up a copy. While I was picking something else up at the library a few weeks ago, I noticed they had a copy, so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to make myself read it. So far it’s been an interesting enough coming-of-age story, telling two plot lines about a young woman’s present working with a restoration crew and past at a boarding school. I really like the stylistic depiction of space structures and vehicles, such as many ships resembling large goldfish.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week.

Reading Next

WitchavenI actually have a lot of more immediate reading plans on the go right now for October. The next book I want to make sure I read is The Haar by David Sodergren; I’m really curious about this author and it’s short enough that I think I can squeeze it into my reading schedule this month if I spend my time right. I really love the cover too, so part of me weirdly needs it to be good to coincide with that. I also intend to finally read Tombs by Junji Ito, a story collection that I’ve owned for many months now. I’ve been tentatively planning to read it for a while now but haven’t felt motivated. Now, it is at least on theme with the season.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.