Heart of Darkness

I can't say much about this that hasn't been said in a million high school book reviews over the years, but it was a weird read. Not much happens, the characters are all unlikable, and there's all kinds of unreliable narrating going on, but the main thing going for Conrad's Heart of Darkness is the ethereal, lyrical prose that creates a sense of dreamy otherworldiness. For such a short book, it took an awfully long time to read, due to the density of language it uses.

Mission of Gravity

I rarely delve into older science fiction, and I'm often rather unimpressed when I do - while there are often some interesting ideas in there, the characters and plots tend towards the flakey and unbelievable (well, more so than modern scifi). Mission of Gravity, written by Hal Clements in 1954, was a refreshing change. It deals with some interesting ideas (mostly, aliens that are basically intelligent centipedes, and a planet with huge gravity that is rotating very quickly which has lots of interesting physical effects), but the characters are also quite reasonable and not ridiculous. The plot wanders a bit (it was written to be serialised in magazines, so it's rather episodic), but retains a vague overall arc and comes together surprisingly well at the end. Overall, it was quite an enjoyable read, even though parts of it read a bit like a high school science lesson.