Jungle fever

[threemonkeys]

The process of choosing a book to read can be a good indicator of mood for me. When things are good, then any book will do, but when I'm feeling blah about things then it becomes harder. I don't even want to contemplate the "I don't want to read anything" scenario. Anyway, it would seem that blah covers my mood at the moment because I looked at my to read shelf and despite any number of books that I was keen to read at the time of purchase there wasn't really much that said "pick me". In the end I chose Kalimantan by Lucius Shepard. It might seem an odd choice. Shepard leans toward writing hardish military science fiction in jungle settings with the sensibility of a horror writer. In this case this book, more novella than novel, is more like the setting of a Clark Ashton Smith story with drugs opening a doorway into a fantastic world. But the reason for choosing Shepard is simple - he has this lovely smooth, almost liquid, prose style. The words just flow into my mind without fuss or difficulty. Yet the writing isn't the simplistic thing that you might imagine - the description, action, plot structure all have enough complexity to make it interesting.

So what should I read next...