fiction files redux discussion

Jim's new book has been released using the pseudonym James Conway. Apparently the publishers feel that fans of his Vonnegut-esque social satire wouldn't dig this economic thriller and vice versa.

I enjoyed the Futurist, loved Holy Water, and I must admit that The Last Trade doesn't sound like it would be my bag. I hope to start this later this week, and I'm betting Jim will be able to keep me engaged despite my feelings toward the subject matter. The question is, will I be engaged and entertained or will it bring out my inner Trotskyite and have me daydreaming about revolution? If he can pull off both, that would be a trick.

Neil, Don't know if you started it, but I read it recently and thoroughly enjoyed it as a summer thriller. The quick, short chapters that take you from Johannesburg to New York help build the tension but also have a cinematic effect of filling in gaps. Othmer achieves alot with brief, fast-paced writing. You're right there is LESS social satire, but just as writers like William Gibson have found themselves writing about the increasingly-unpredictable, unnavigatable present, a novel about the global economy is kind of its own satire.

totally agree with Hugh - pitch perfect thriller with great pacing

I think I'd better move this closer to the top of my stack.

I'm thinking the same thing Patty.

. . i couldn't put the fucker down . . . it actually sorta pissed me off, because i had a ton of shit to do that day . . .

Man, I am behind. I haven't read Holy Water yet!

Let's go Kerry! Catch up! :)

Holy Water is really fabulous. I think I liked it even better than the Futurist. I read it almost a year ago, and I still think about it all the time.

. . . it's meat night!

Holy Water is pretty damn good. The Last Trade was hard for me because I kept comparing it to JPO's other novels, but once I stopped doing that I enjoyed The Last Trade more.

Just finished it, loved it. There were a few things that I think are genre things that annoyed me (like explaining the meaning of a technical term more than once, or when different characters discover the same thing seperatly, going over the explanation of what they've discovered again.) Overall, I couldn't put it down.

Question for Conway and Evison, since I thought it was an odd coincidence. Was it just a coincidence that your newest novels both featured the death of a child?

. . . total coincidence . . . chalk it up to the zeitgeist . . . i just finished j.r. lennon's new book, and it also has the death of a child, and somebody else told me the other day about another new novel with the death of a child . . .