The GF book thread

[Stu Monty]

Originally Posted by Karl That's some serious holiday reading Stu. Did you not just fancy Where's Wally or something?

Haha. The John O'Farrell one didn't feel serious at all, I learn so much stuff but it was really a laugh a minute. Every page has another good gag on it.

I loved it though, sometimes you just get a real thirst for information and you can't get enough, that's how it felt. They were just superb books. The Klein one is more of an economic and social thesis than a book; so good; so, so good.

[Da Bitch]

I'm Watching You - Karen Rose excellent 600+ pages read 400 of them in one sitting!

Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein My friend gave me the book after she read it she didn't tell wether she liked it or not until I had read it, she thought it was okish (this comes from someone who thought the Secret Diary Of A Demented Housewife was brillant funny!! it wasn't, pile of tripe) while I thought it was a great read & thought provoking book.


Freakonmics - Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubiner, while I admit I didn't quite understand some of the satisics, it was quite enjoyable (chapters titles include Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?)

[Sutty13]

Originally Posted by Sutty13 The film's based on a novella by John W Campbell Jr. called Who goes there? The novelisation's based on the second version of the script written by Bill Lancaster. I read about it here and was interested by the description of the extra unfilmed scenes including Bennings, Childs and MacReady's pursuit of the infected huskies that escape from the base. I'm only about forty or so pages in so far, but Foster's got a nice easy style and I'm enjoying it so far. He wrote the first official sequel to Star Wars with Splinter of the Mind's Eye - one of the better Star Wars novels. Oh, and it only cost 1p from Amazon (admittedly the p&p was £2.50), so I can't complain.

Here's the bit about the huskies' escape...

Originally Posted by Alan Dean Foster In the lingering darkness of the Antarctic winter, morning was reduced to an abstract remembrance of another world. Your body functioned according to a preset schedule, not badly confused natural urges. Come breakfast time you had to make do without the comforting arrival of a warming sunrise. Nauls did his best to compensate for its absence with a buffet of eggs, bacon, toast, jellies and butter, country-fried potatoes, and hot or cold cereal. The feast was necessary as well as welcome. Below sixty degrees latitude, calories vanished as fast as civilization. There were no fat researchers or workers at any of the many international stations scattered around the continent. Even if you'd been overweight all your life, a year's stay in Antarctica would melt away your surplus bulk. It was a phenomenon even the earliest explorers had noticed. The only ones who could keep weight on in Antarctica were the seals and whales. Most of the men and women who sojourned near the South Pole agreed there were easier ways to lose weight, however. The mess hall was a long, narrow room, not much wider than the access corridors that connected it to the rest of the camp. At the moment it was filling up with hungry, half-awake men. Copper intercepted Nauls as the cook was bringing in another load of toast and biscuits. The doctor slipped an innocuous-looking blue capsule onto the tray. Nauls studied it and smiled at the doc. "Hey, I already took my vitamins today." "It's not for you," Copper told him quietly. "Put this in Blair's juice before you take him his tray." "You still think he's dangerous?" "I hope not. But he needs more than one night to cool down, emotionally as well as physically. This'll help him to relax." He nudged the pill away from the toast. Nauls shrugged. "You're the doctor." He was just setting the tray down on the table after having pocketed the pill when Clark burst into the room. Everyone turned to stare at the dog handler. Conversation ceased. He was pale and out of breath. "The dogs ..." he gasped. Without elaborating or waiting for a response, he whirled and shot back down the hallway. "Shit, what now?" somebody muttered as eggs and coffee were abandoned. The kennel was empty. Dry dog food lay untouched in the metal trough. The big water can was full to the brim. There was no sign of any disturbance. At the far end of the kennel was the ingenious dog door. It led to a narrow ramp that rose to the surface. Clark used it to take the dogs outside when it was time to exercise them, so he wouldn't have to run them through a camp hallway. Wind whistled along the door's edges. Clark and Garry examined the latch, which normally held the door shut. It was carefully designed so that no dog could accidentally open it. "It's not broken?" The station manager spoke quietly as he fingered the insulated backing of the metal. "It's not." Clark tapped the latch. "This was wide open when I came in this morning. I know I latched it. I always check it before going to bed." Garry's gaze went to the ceiling. "Outside clothes. Let's get topside and have a look around." Daily duties were momentarily put aside as the men scrambled into heavy outer clothing. You could see outside, but just barely. Blowing snow obscured the harsh yellow glare that fell from the argon lamps ringing the compound. The snow was light and the dog tracks were clearly visible on the ground above the kennel. They led from the ramp straight out into the darkness. The men gathered around as Clark bent over them. "Three sets of paw prints," he announced, tracing them with his glove. "No question about that. All three of them took off together." MacReady stood nearby, writing with a gas-powered pen on a small pad. Copper was staring northwestward, into the last remnants of daylight, shielding his goggles from the blowing ice particles. "How long do you suppose they've been gone?" Clark pondered the question. "I haven't seen them since checking the latch last night. Could be as much as ten or twelve hours." MacReady looked up from his list. His face was grim as he followed Copper's gaze. "They couldn't have gotten far in this weather. Probably they had to stop soon after they left and hole up somewhere for the night." Several of the men turned uncertainly toward the pilot. "You're not thinking of going after them, are you?" Garry asked him. "I know I've pushed you a little hard about flying in bad weather lately, Mac, but ..." "Damn right I'm going after them," MacReady snapped, putting away the pen. "What in hell for?" Norris eyed the pilot as though MacReady were proposing an unnecessary trip to the seventh level of Dante's Inferno. Norris continued. "Even if Blair's right and one of them isn't ... isn't a dog anymore, they'll just die out there. There's no food, not even a solitary penguin. Not even a damn spider. They're over a thousand miles from anything but ice and rock." "Besides which," Palmer put in with unaccustomed lucidity, "the choppers aren't going to be ready for days, if ever." MacReady ignored them both and handed the list he'd been preparing to Bennings. "Get these things out of supply and meet me over by the snowmobiles." Garry stared at the pilot in disbelief. "You're not going to catch them in one of those with the head start they've got." "Like I said, they probably spent most of the night huddled somewhere for warmth. They're not bats, dammit. And we don't know that they've been gone the whole ten or twelve hours." He looked sharply at his assistant. "Palmer, how long would it take you to strap those big four-cylinder carburetors onto the bikes?" "What fo... oh, yeah, I get you." He smiled, relishing the opportunity. He'd always wanted to try that with the snowmobiles, but Garry and Mac had forbidden it. Now he'd have the chance. Not the same as monkeying with a Corvette block, but it'd be fun nonetheless. "Then get a move on," MacReady urged him. The younger man turned and jogged off toward the big maintenance barn. "Childs, you come with me. We got work to do." MacReady put his arm around the big mechanic and the two strolled off into the snow, chatting animatedly. Slightly bewildered, the rest of the men watched them go. Ice and snow swirled around them. Garry shouted after the pilot. "What are you going to do when you catch up to them?" Bennings was reading the list MacReady had handed to him. "Holy shit," he muttered aloud. The station manager looked over at him, noticing the list. "What's that about?" Bennings handed it over. "Whatever he's planning to do, he isn't fucking around." Garry studied the list, then looked up and off to his left. But the two men were already out of sight, swallowed up by the darkness and blowing snow. ... The sun didn't actually rise this time of year in the southern polar regions. It just peeked hesitantly over the ice and spent a few hours crawling along the horizon until, seemingly exhausted by the effort, it vanished abruptly into the lingering night. The snowmobiles rumbled smoothly across the twilight landscape, their engines thrumming with unaccustomed extra horsepower thanks to Palmer's ministrations and the addition of the larger carburetors. Bennings piloted the one pulling the trailer while MacReady and Childs doubled up on the other. From time to time they stopped to check the trail. Snow whistled around them, but the flakes were tiny and stayed airborne more often than they settled to the ground. The dogs had been running hard and fast. Their paw prints were widely spaced. So far the tracks had remained visible. That couldn't last forever, they knew. Soon wind and snow would fill them in. It was a race to see which would give out first: the dogs or their tracks. MacReady took regular sightings through his binoculars, the three men rotating driving shifts. Now something dark and irregular showed against the ice ahead and slightly to their right. He tapped Childs on the back, keeping his balance on the passenger seat. "Something over there!" he shouted over the roar of the engine. "Over there!" He pointed several times to indicate direction. Childs nodded acknowledgment and angled the vehicle slightly to the right. Off to his left, Bennings swerved to match the new course. Soon you could see it without binoculars. The two snowmobiles slowed as they approached. It was surrounded by dog tracks. The prints were crowded and repetitive, signs of a short but intense struggle having disturbed the snow. The dark lump was the half-eaten remains of a husky. Its hind legs and lower body had been picked clean. Torn hide flapped loosely in the wind. The top half of the body, from the sternum up, was missing. MacReady turned a slow circle, searching first with his eyes and then through the binoculars. There was no sign of the missing part of the dog or of its two companions. "What is it?" Childs muttered, staring distastefully at the mangled husky. MacReady put the binoculars back in their case and walked out into the snow, following the line of still visible tracks. The line was narrower now. "Maybe dinner," he muttered. The dim horizon showed nothing but the faint light and a lowering sky. "Dogs don't eat each other." Bennings kicked at the frozen body. "I'm no expert like Clark, but I know that much. A dog would rather starve than eat its own kind." "I know," MacReady said softly. Childs moved away from the body and was turning a slow half-circle. "Where's the other half?" "Not around here," MacReady told him. "I checked with the binocs. Probably took it along with them." "For the next meal?" Childs spat into the snow. "I'd think so. See, that's what Garry wasn't figuring on. One dog couldn't make it a thousand miles. One dog living off one or two others ..." He let the obvious go unsaid. "Very convenient, having a steady food supply that travels with you on its own legs." He went over to the snowmobile trailer, flipped up the lid and removed a two-gallon can of gasoline. He unscrewed the cap, then glanced over at Bennings. "They're still moving in a straight line. Where are these tracks headed?" "Nowhere," the meteorologist insisted. "Just straight toward the ocean." "That's something, anyway." The pilot silently poured the contents of the can over the remains. The men stepped clear. MacReady pulled a crumpled piece of paper from a parka pocket and lit it with his lighter, tossing it toward the remains. The bone and skin caught instantly and burned with a steady flame in the steady wind. "Let's move." Some of the initial enthusiasm was seeping away from his companions. They'd already traveled a long way from the warmth and comfort of the outpost. Now the gnawed remains of the sled dog had again reminded them of just how deadly an adversary they were pursuing. "Maybe we ought to think this through again, Mac," Childs murmured half apologetically. He nodded toward the horizon. "They could be hours ahead of us." Bennings surveyed the feeble sun. "Gonna get dark soon, too. Supposed to be fifty below tonight." MacReady, straddling the snowmobile towing the supply trailer, ignored them both. "Turn back if you want to. I'm going after them." His companions exchanged an uncertain look, then started toward the machines. "He's crazy for wanting to go on with this," Childs muttered unhappily. "Yeah?" Bennings climbed onto the seat behind the mechanic. "Maybe not. Maybe we're the ones who are crazy for thinking of turning back." "Ah, shut up." Childs gunned the engine. Only a slight glow came from a sun the color of stale sherbet as the snowmobiles continued to follow the fading dog tracks. Quite unexpectedly, the trail changed direction. MacReady slowed to a stop. Childs and Bennings pulled up alongside him, their engines idling roughly. "What's wrong, Mac?" the mechanic asked. The pilot broke snow from his beard. The tracks had turned toward a ridge of low hills and snowcapped bluffs. It was very cold now. "They turn off that way." Childs rose in his seat and stared off in the indicated direction. "You think we can get in there?" "As long as it doesn't get too steep," MacReady told him. "You still with me?" Childs looked back at Bennings. The meteorologist nodded. "Hell, it's too late to turn back tonight anyway. Might as well keep going 'til we stop for sleep. We can argue about what to do tomorrow morning." "That's fair enough." MacReady resumed his seat and veered his machine toward the rocks. The terrain was more rugged than the pilot had supposed. High cliffs of solid ice rose from the little canyon they were exploring. Pressure ridging had been at work here in ancient times, as well as seismic forces. He felt like an ant crawling up a broken mirror. They'd been using the snowmobile's headlamps since they'd entered the canyon. The sun hardly supplied enough light to see your own feet. But at least the dog tracks stood out starkly. The shielding cliffs had protected them from the blowing snow. Bennings was uncomfortable in the maze. Out on the ice flats nothing could spring out at you, catch you by surprise. He wasn't in the mood for surprises. Not here. What am I doing here? he thought. I should be back in camp, taking anemometer readings, watching the barometer, figuring fronts and lows and plotting percentage drops in temperature gradients against old figures in manuals. Instead I'm freezing to death while we hunt a couple of dogs that maybe aren't dogs because their DNA has been altered by the invasion of something a hundred millennia old that got buried in the ice and dug up by a bunch of overeager, unsuspecting Norwegians who -- He blinked. The snowmobiles were slowing down. He tried to see around Childs' bulk. Dead ahead, caught in the light from the snowmobiles' headlamps, was a single husky. Bennings didn't know whether to feel frightened or gratified. The dog could have cared less. It sat in the middle of the little canyon, its back turned unconcernedly toward the approaching men, and munched contentedly on the upper half of the dog carcass they'd encountered out on the plain. The lack of fear or any other recognizable reaction made MacReady doubly cautious. He slowed his own vehicle and raised a hand. Childs and Bennings eased up alongside him. He pointed at their quarry. It was barely twenty yards away and still gave no sign that it was aware of their presence. "What d'you make of that?" "That's our runner, no question about that," Childs murmured. "It's finishing up its buddy, just like you said it would." MacReady carefully searched the canyon's rim, first the right side and then the left. Nothing could be seen among the crags. Nothing moved. "Why the hell's it just sitting there?" "Who gives a shit." Bennings was too cold for complex thinking. "Let's torch it and move on." "I'm not sure ..." MacReady began. Bennings interrupted him. "Don't go clever on me now, Mac. Either we finish this one now or I'm taking one of the mobiles and heading home." Childs was already unloading the torch and hooking it to the tank. MacReady shrugged, arming himself with a thermite bomb. When Childs was ready they started up the sides of the canyon, each hugging the cliff wall. Bennings stood on guard at the snowmobiles in case the dog might try running past them at the last minute. As Childs and MacReady approached, the dog continued to ignore them, seemingly content merely to chew its food. The mechanic's eyes roved the landscape, trying to see into the darkness beyond the animal, into the area out of reach of the snowmobiles' headlights. "Where's the other one, Mac? Where in hell's the other one?" MacReady shouted back toward the machines. "There's only the one of 'em here, Bennings! Keep a sharp eye out for the other one." The meteorologist yelled his understanding, took out a flashlight and began playing its beam over the rocks off to his right. MacReady spoke to the dog while trying to look four ways at once. His voice was tense, coaxing. "Where's your buddy, boy? Huh? You can tell us. Man's best friend, remember? Where'd your friend get to?" Not only didn't the animal react, it continued to ignore their approach. MacReady took out his own flashlight, uneasily playing it over crevices and possible hiding places in the cliff sides. Still nothing. "Screw this. Childs, let that thing fly. Don't let up until he's ashes. We'll find the other one later." Childs activated the nozzle. The tip of the torch sprang to life. Bennings' attention was on the cliff face when something clutched at his ankles. He looked down and barely had time to scream as his body was yanked below the surface. The flashlight went flying. In seconds only his head and shoulders showed above the ice. Childs and MacReady whirled at the sound of the scream, and rushed back toward their companion. Only his head was visible now. MacReady stumbled, snow stinging his face as he fell. Something made a noise behind him, and it wasn't the wind. He'd never heard anything quite like it. It was a crackling, a snapping of something that wasn't wood or plastic. It was organic. He thought of fried pigskins being crumbled in a child's hand. He rolled over. The dog was still facing away from him, but it was no longer eating. Its hair stuck straight up like the quills of a porcupine. As he stared it snarled a throaty, undoglike sound. It turned to face him. Its skin was splitting, the mouth ripping open as something inside struggled to emerge, like a butterfly bursting from its cocoon. Only there was nothing in the least attractive about the metamorphosis the husky was undergoing. "Childs!" The mechanic halted, his fingers tight on the torch, uncertain who to help first. Bennings was still in sight. In addition to his head he'd managed to get one arm out and was clawing frantically at the slick surface. Each time his shoulders started to emerge, something unseen would yank him back beneath the snow. Childs took a step toward MacReady, his attention torn between his two companions. The dog continued to change. It had grown larger and darker. Suddenly it leaped, though no dog could possibly jump twenty feet in that clinging snow. Childs reacted instinctively as the Thing attacked the fallen MacReady. He opened the flow to the torch. A stream of fire hit the dog-Thing in mid-leap. The violence of the blast knocked it head over heels backward, a flaming ball of fur. And something else. The animal was howling in pain, making a sound no dog ever made, a high-pitched screeching that reminded MacReady of fingernails dragging down a blackboard. He got to his knees and activated the thermite canister. Aiming as carefully as he could in the confusion and dim light, he heaved it past the snowmobiles. The force of the throw sent him sprawling again. The canister landed a foot short of the twisting, flaming dog-Thing and exploded. The smaller fire was suddenly enveloped in a blast of white flame. Childs turned and started toward Bennings. The ice beneath the meteorologist was heaving violently. MacReady scrambled to his feet and overtook the mechanic, grabbed him by his parka and tried to pull him back. "What's the matter?" Childs tried to shake the smaller man off. The pilot continued to pull at his friend. "Keep away! It'll get you too." "Damn it!" Childs was half-moaning, half-crying. He repeated the curse over and over. Suddenly Bennings' head finally vanished beneath the surface, his body jerked out of sight by something still unseen. The ice continued to ripple like boiling water. The activity moved around, coming toward the two men, then drifting away from them. Part of the unfortunate meteorologist's body popped into view and just as quickly was sucked beneath the surface again. MacReady and Childs watched for it to reappear, unable to aid their companion. "What are we going to do?" the frustrated Childs cried. He was trying to trace the course of the subsurface heaving with the tip of the torch. "How the fuck do I know?" Suddenly Bennings' head and shoulders exploded through the ice close to the snowmobiles. Something had him in an unbreakable grip, though in the distant glow from the headlamps they couldn't see what. To Childs it looked like the jaws of a dog, except that no dog that ever lived had a mouth that wide. Bennings' heavy outer clothes began to split, stretched to their limits as the flesh beneath burst its natural boundaries. The clutching jaws writhed, turning the body toward their center. A snake always turns its prey in order to swallow it head first, MacReady thought wildly. Bennings' face vanished into that fluid, shifting mouth. He turned and dashed for the snowmobile trailer, shouting back over his shoulder as he ran. "Torch them!" "But Bennings ...!" Childs started to protest. MacReady wouldn't have recognized his own voice. "Can't you see that he's gone? Do it ... while we've still got the chance to!" Bennings ... damn it, Bennings! Childs teeth ground against one another. Bennings is dead, man. That Thing is still alive. He activated the torch. The powerful stream of fire struck the indistinguishable mass of which Bennings was now a part. The hulking clump of dark flesh burst into flame and ice began to melt around it. A wailing screech filled the night air. MacReady was working like a madman at the snowmobile trailer, frantically removing can after can of gasoline and tossing them onto the ice. Something hard as steel thrust out of the ground. It had knobs and sharp projections and things like long, stiff hairs scattered across it. It just missed MacReady and went right through the fiberglass body of the trailer. MacReady threw himself to one side. The leg yanked itself clear of the splintered fiberglass and flailed around in search of something to grab. The pilot scrambled across the snow, uncapped a couple of cans and dumped their contents on that weaving, questing limb. Then he moved away and began pouring the rest onto the larger mass that Childs was melting out of the ice. The cans went up like small bombs, further immolating the convulsive, twitching abomination beneath the snow. Behind them, the other dog-Thing continued to burn. The continuous screeching and mewling echoed horribly off the walls of the little canyon, deafening the two frantic men. MacReady tossed the last can into the conflagration and clutched at Childs' arm. "That's enough, man." The mechanic did not seem to hear him. Glassy-eyed, Childs continued to play the fire stream over the already seething mass. Part of Bennings' burning skeleton showed through the flames. If the other Thing possessed a skeleton, MacReady couldn't make it out. The inferno that filled the canyon was almost too bright to look at. MacReady finally had to step around in front of the mechanic and grab the torch with both hands. "Childs, that's enough! We got it." The big man looked slowly down at him and blinked. "Yeah. Yeah, okay Mac." He shut off the flow to the torch. They stood there close together, their stunned faces awash with light from the dying flames. As the blaze began to subside, so did that damnable screeching. Soon it sounded far away, weak and unthreatening. It gave out entirely in a few minutes. The two fires continued to burn. MacReady and Childs waited until the last embers had turned dark. The pilot emptied a few more gallons of gas over the dark smudges staining the canyon floor and lit them. When they burnt themselves out there was nothing left to burn except ice and rock. The snowmobile trailer was ruined. That thrusting leg that had come so close to impaling MacReady had shattered not only the container but one of the supporting skis. MacReady unlatched it and they transferred the remaining supplies to the storage box mounted over the snowmobile's rear seat. Then they set off to retrace their path, speeding down the canyon back to the glacial plain and the frozen Antarctic night. It would have been more sensible to wait until morning. More sensible, yes, but neither man had any intention of spending a moment longer in that canyon, now occupied only by the ghosts of two gargoyles whose night-shrouded appearance would have put to shame any dozen visages haunting far distant Notre Dame. Macready and Childs preferred to take the chance of freezing to death out on the clean ice.

[WaltonRed]

Anyone read Dynamo by Andy Dougan?

[Soleilrouge]

The sound and the fury - William Faulkner

Read it or die ignorant

[Guido]

Originally Posted by Soleilrouge The sound and the fury - William Faulkner Read it or die ignorant

Good call. Almost next on my 'to-read' pile of books. Just gotta finish Gormenghast first, which is unbelievably good (read Titus Groan in Florence in March, which hooked me in). Refreshing change from the usual Camus/Kafka/Proust studenty fodder and the Waterstones-recommended 'cult' books i've been swallowing over the past 2 years. Get em read.

[stringvest]

Originally Posted by Karl That's some serious holiday reading Stu. Did you not just fancy Where's Wally or something?

He knew exactly where he was.

[Da Pmantis]

Just finished a brilliant Sci Fi book 'Altered Carbon' - Richard K Morgan. Gritty cross between Blade Runner and the Black Dahlia with some interesting ideas and views of a distant future

[Stu Monty]

Originally Posted by stringvest He knew exactly where he was.

Yeah, I know the score.

...hang on.

[stringvest]

Originally Posted by Stu Monty Yeah, I know the score. ...hang on.

Just ordered your recommendations on Amazon. Btw I noticed on my credit card statement that they charged me £49 for joining their Amazon Prime service (essentially free delivery). Twats. I'm just one of the millions of apathetic mugs they will snare with this scheme because I was too stupid and lazy to opt out of it. Be careful.

[Dirk]

Stingvest: too rich to care. I like it.

[stringvest]

Originally Posted by Dirk Stingvest: too rich to c