My only regret in Life is having learned to read — if I hadn’t, I’d never have read this book (whatever you do, don’t read it!).
Depending upon which version you stumble upon, the Infinite Monkey Theorem states, variously, that, given an infinite amount of time ...
- a single monkey randomly bashing keys on a keyboard/typewriter
- an infinite number of monkeys randomly bashing keys on a keyboard/typewriter
... will, eventually produce William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
There’s are two subvariants of ‘2’ that I’ve encountered ...
- One of the monkeys produces it alone whilst the others produce gibberish.
- All the monkeys produce it between them — along with a lot of gibberish.
Any way you examine the proposition, however, I think it fairly safe to say that it’ll be quite a while before Hamlet is written.
In summation, therefore, what can I say about this book?
I can say “Five monkeys, two typewriters, ten minutes.”
Aaaaanyhow ….
That aside, I would recommend the following authors, in no particular order of preference.
Terry Pratchett
Albeit that the first two are execrable but essential for understanding what comes later, that the fourth hasn’t really stood the test of time but is where it started to pick up and that it’ll really only be from the eighth one on that you begin to see how good the series will eventually become, read all the Discworld novels (if you regret doing it at the end then you’re a no hoper anyway and should probably just stop reading anything at all).
There isn’t much finer writing than the start and end of The Fifth Elephant …
[Excerpt]
On a clear day, from the right vantage point on the Ramtops, a watcher could see a very long way across the plains. If it was high summer, they could count the columns of dust as the ox trains plodded on, at a top speed of two miles an hour, each pair pulling a train of two wagons carrying four tons apiece. Things took a long time to get anywhere, but when they did, there was certainly a lot of them. To the cities of the Circle Sea they carried raw material, and sometimes people who were off to seek their fortune and a fistful of diamonds. To the mountains they brought manufactured goods, rare things from across the oceans, and people who had found wisdom and a few scars. There was usually a day”s travelling between each convoy. They turned the landscape into an unrolled time machine. On a clear day you could see last Tuesday.
[…]
On a clear day, from the right vantage point on the Ramtops, a watcher could see a very long way across the plains. The dwarfs had harnessed mountain streams and built a staircase of locks that rose a mile up from the rolling grasslands, for the use of which they charged not just a pretty penny but a very handsome dollar. Barges were always ascending or descending, making their way down to the river Smarl and the cities of the plain. They carried coal, iron, fireclay, pig treacle and fat, the dull ingredients of the pudding of civilization. In the sharp, thin air they took several days to get out of sight. On a clear day, you could see next Wednesday.
Whatever you do, don’t watch the televised series — they’re awful.
Ray Bradbury
Just read everything he ever wrote, but most especially, Dandelion Wine, The Silver Locusts/The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes … plus everything else he ever wrote (all of it) — did I remember to say you should read everything he ever wrote … especially Dandelion Wine?
[Excerpt from Something Wicked This Way Comes]
Just after midnight.
Shuffling footsteps.
Along the empty street came the lightning-rod salesman, his leather valise swung almost empty in his baseball-mitt hand, his face at ease. He turned a corner and stopped.
Paper-soft white moths tapped at an empty store window, looking in.
And in the window, like a great coffin boat of star-coloured glass, beached on two saw horses lay a chunk of Alaska Snow Company ice chopped to a size great enough to flash in a giant’s ring.
And sealed in this ice was the most beautiful woman in the world.
The lightning-rod salesman’s smile faded.
In the reaming coldness of ice like someone fallen and slept in snow avalanches a thousand years, forever young, was this woman.
She was as fair as this morning and fresh as tomorrow’s flowers and lovely as any maid when a man shuts up his eyes and traps her, in cameo perfection, on the shell of his eyelids.
The lightning-rod salesman remembered to breathe.
Clive Barker
If you only manage to read two of his books then make them Weaveworld, Imajica, Gallilee, all five of the Abarat books and Cabal — ‘nuff said.
You could also try Sacrament and Coldheart Canyon, but they’re not essential reading.
Neil Gaiman
Neverwhere and American Gods — the latter of which is the closest thing I’ve read to Barker after Barker himself.
Christopher Fowler
Roofworld is not entirely dissimilar to Weaveworld and Neverwhere in its own way.
And you can’t go wrong with any of the Bryant and May stories — they’re nothing like Barker … just really good.
Also Psychoville — entirely unrelated to the television series, don’t be led astray.
Pat Cadigan
Absolutely everything, but at least Mindplayers, Synners and Fools.
Christopher Brookmyre
Absolutely everything … although, whatever you do, don’t read Pandaemonium until you’ve read a good few of the other novels first (preferably the twelve that come before it): it’s a work of genius, but you won’t appreciate that until you’ve read a lot of his other stuff beforehand— once you have then you’ll appreciate how amazingly he’s pastiched himself and, simultaneoulsly, combined it with the videogame Doom and The Da Vinci Code … in one glorious meta pastiche of his own writing.
George Alec Effinger
His Marid Audran stories were unique at the time and are still pretty much so for having been set in a future Middle East setting (and for dealing with transsexual prostitutes like they were ordinary human beings worthy of respect).
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
His Arabesk trilogy is the closest thing to Effinger’s work since Effinger himself.
Michael Marshall Smith
I’m never sure how I feel about his stuff — it starts off as science fiction but then always veers off into metaphysical realms of science fantasy-cum-horror.
It’s not that don’t enjoy it, but it’s always a bit of a headfuck when it happens.
Definitely give Spares a go though — it made me cry almost before the story had started.
Robert Rankin
I haven’t read all ten books in the Brentford Trilogy myself, but thoroughly enjoyed the first four and should probably get around to reading the others eventually — once Gutbloom pulls his finger out and finishes them that is!
Douglas Adams
Needless to say, everyone should read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant At the End of the Universe.
You should probably read all six books in the H2G2 trilogy but, tbh, the remaining four are pretty weak and the only need to do so is in order to keep up with everything everyone ever says about it all.
Other than that, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul are well worth reading and I actually think they’re better than the more famous H2G2 — my sister says that the television adaptation was surprisingly good despite being radically different to the books and Dirk being (unfathomably) cast as an American, but I haven’t seen it myself and can’t vouch for it.
Jack Womack
My observations re Womack can be found here …
If you want to get an idea of the sheer brutality of Womack’s thinking then read this …
Talk about dismissive … that’s just harsh — there’s minimalism … and then there’s Womack’s brutalism.
Right … that should do you for the next six months to a year — come back when you’re done and I’ll see what else I can find for you based upon which of the above you enjoyed and which you didn’t.
