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Post by wildfire2099 on May 23, 2019 23:16:13 GMT -5
I see! I didn't realize there was a PC version. It seems to have worked, so I'll see how it goes. It seemed to give me $8 worth of credit randomly
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 25, 2019 9:24:35 GMT -5
I see! I didn't realize there was a PC version. It seems to have worked, so I'll see how it goes. It seemed to give me $8 worth of credit randomly Cool. Glad it’s working. I have a Kindle at home and an iPad at the office. I actually find it weird to read a paper book at this point.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 25, 2019 18:59:21 GMT -5
I see! I didn't realize there was a PC version. It seems to have worked, so I'll see how it goes. It seemed to give me $8 worth of credit randomly Cool. Glad it’s working. I have a Kindle at home and an iPad at the office. I actually find it weird to read a paper book at this point. I definitely greatly prefer paper, but this weekend in particular was the perfect time to check it out... we're at a soccer tourney for the weekend, so having a book queued up on the laptop while everyone else was sleeping was a beautiful thing, and I found it was a bad way to read at all. I think I'll definitely at least take advantage of the free stuff to grab some of those novella you've reviewed, and made a side story or two from series I like.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 26, 2019 6:44:24 GMT -5
Red Venus by Garnett Elliott My first book I've actually read on Kindle! Very exciting! This one tickled my fancy the most of those Slam has posted . Definitely a fun novella... Elliott writes it in the style of classic sci fi, with robots and rockets and ray guns, and the US battling the Communists. The twist is the Commies are clearly the good guys, and have better tech, and the main character is female. I had a few issues with the story though... like how if the trip takes 2 months, and the story mentioned she'd be on 3 longer ones, could Captain Gura possibly be 27? Was she a cosmonaut at 15? The other thing was the ease at with the Americans were ready to switch sides (though some were due to extenuating circumstances, certainly), but maybe that's my personal conceit. Definitely an intriguing retro-ish world set up that I hope will be explored further.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 26, 2019 12:52:52 GMT -5
Red Venus by Garnett Elliott My first book I've actually read on Kindle! Very exciting! This one tickled my fancy the most of those Slam has posted . Definitely a fun novella... Elliott writes it in the style of classic sci fi, with robots and rockets and ray guns, and the US battling the Communists. The twist is the Commies are clearly the good guys, and have better tech, and the main character is female. I had a few issues with the story though... like how if the trip takes 2 months, and the story mentioned she'd be on 3 longer ones, could Captain Gura possibly be 27? Was she a cosmonaut at 15? The other thing was the ease at with the Americans were ready to switch sides (though some were due to extenuating circumstances, certainly), but maybe that's my personal conceit. Definitely an intriguing retro-ish world set up that I hope will be explored further. I liked Red Venus, but didn’t love it. It was a fun bit of world-building, but the story had issues. My favorites by Elliott are “Dragon by the Bay” which is pure pulp adventure fun and “Scorched Noir” which is a great collection of noir short stories.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2019 19:56:33 GMT -5
DC did adaptations of the first 2 novels, but sadly Chaykin was not involved. Both were painted prestige format mini-series, done in the 90s I believe, but I haven't read them (I picked up a random issue or two out of bargain bins at shows, but don't have either series complete). -M I tracked down a copy of the first issue. I'll just say that I really wish Chaykin had adapted them. Alright Slam_Bradley if not Chaykin, how about Byron Preiss and Gray Morrow? I just stumbled across this at a Half Price Books in Columbus this afternoon, not quite an Amber adaptation, but part of it is Amber related and the rest is all Zelazny... and a couple of interior pages as a sample... it's not quite full comics, more along the lines of Gil Kane's Blackmark where it's prose and illustrations and sequential art all mixed together to tell a story (or in this case multiple stories) -M
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Post by EdoBosnar on May 27, 2019 4:00:02 GMT -5
Here's a few more samples from the Illustrated Zelazny book, in slightly better focus: Otherwise, I love all of those illustrated books that Preiss produced back in the late '70s and into the early '80s. I scored a surprisingly cheap copy (because it was falling apart) of the Illustrated Harlan Ellison last year: Haven't got around to actually reading it yet, but I've flipped through it a few times - it's a gorgeous book. And bringing back the discussion to Howard Chaykin, one thing I really wished had happened back in the late '70s or '80s is a series of graphic adaptations of old hard-boiled detective novels, by Hammett preferably, illustrated by Chaykin in the same format that Steranko did Chandler: Red Tide for Preiss' Fiction Illustrated series.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 27, 2019 17:35:09 GMT -5
I tracked down a copy of the first issue. I'll just say that I really wish Chaykin had adapted them. Alright Slam_Bradley if not Chaykin, how about Byron Preiss and Gray Morrow? I just stumbled across this at a Half Price Books in Columbus this afternoon, not quite an Amber adaptation, but part of it is Amber related and the rest is all Zelazny... and a couple of interior pages as a sample... it's not quite full comics, more along the lines of Gil Kane's Blackmark where it's prose and illustrations and sequential art all mixed together to tell a story (or in this case multiple stories) -M I'll have to look for that. I've never seen that particular book. I do have the one that Preiss and Chaykin did of The Stars My Destination.
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Post by EdoBosnar on May 28, 2019 2:55:08 GMT -5
I'll have to look for that. I've never seen that particular book. I do have the one that Preiss and Chaykin did of The Stars My Destination. Is it the edition with the full story, or the one that only has about half of it? If it's the former, man I envy you. That's one of my Holy Grail books.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 28, 2019 7:36:26 GMT -5
I'll have to look for that. I've never seen that particular book. I do have the one that Preiss and Chaykin did of The Stars My Destination. Is it the edition with the full story, or the one that only has about half of it? If it's the former, man I envy you. That's one of my Holy Grail books. I’d have to dig it out to be sure. I suspect it is the latter.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 28, 2019 23:10:06 GMT -5
London Rules by Mick Herron
I feel like this one might have been a bit too much. Don't get me wrong, it's still a super fun spy romp, but the near-parody of Herron's writing goes a bit too far at times. He also tries just a bit too hard to get in pop culture references.. those seem smart and hip right now, but won't age well.
On the plus side, I love how the characters are developing, Shirley was the main focus of this book, and it was really interesting throughout the book (until the end, that is, which seemed to be a wink at the reader and an excuse to go back to status quo).
I do feel a little sad that former main character River has been reduced to wallpaper for the most part, but others have stepped up to fill the void nicely.
I definitely am ready to see where the big bombshell at the end leads... I suspect we don't have too many more visits to Slough House left before the series runs its course.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 31, 2019 11:57:57 GMT -5
Flashman's Lady by George MacDonald Fraser. Flashy is back with an adventure that takes place between the first half of Royal Flash and Flashman and the Mountain of Light. While the book is a single narrative and focuses heavily on Flashman and his relationship with his wife Elspeth it breaks down into essentially three parts. The first part finds Flash in London and getting involved as a cricket bowler where he meets Don Solomon a bit of a super-rich mystery man who takes quite a shine to Elspeth. The second part finds our couple in Singapore and Borneo along with The White Rajah, James Brooke, attempting to rescue a kidnapped Elspeth and fighting (reluctantly on Flashy's part as usual) south seas pirates. The final part has Flash and Elspeth on Madegascar with Flash as the slave of the mad queen Ranavalona. I re-read eight of the twelve Flashman novels a few years back and seven of the first nine before moving on to other things with a small bit of burnout. I missed this one as I didn't have access to it. I decided to give it a try and will move on in a bit to the final three books. This is good solid Flashman. He's his normal cowardly, lecherous, toadying self. It's a testament to Fraser's abilities as a writer that I know absolutely NOTHING about cricket but still found that portion of the book plenty interesting. Even better is that I didn't know a lot about James Brookes and even less about Madagascar in this time period. All other things being equal, I tend to like the Flashman tales in direct relationship to how little I know about the particular setting. Fraser's research and ability to convey setting appear to always be spot on. So if I don't know much about the setting or the particular battle then I'm learning as I'm enjoying Flashman's antics. By far my least favorite episodes are those set in the U.S. as I'm very familiar with most facets of U.S. history. This one is well recommended. Flash is in vintage form and the inclusion of more of Elspeth and even excerpts from her diaries help to flesh out her character.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 31, 2019 21:21:17 GMT -5
That's an awesome cover... I should get back to Flashman at some point.. so many books, so little time.
Captain's Nephew by Philip Allan
I hadn't read any naval fiction in a while, and this one caught my eye in my good reads feed... it was a bit long in coming (remarkably, there is no copy available in any library anywhere, or so said my local librarian who attempted to get a copy for me), so I had to actually pay full price from Amazon to purchase it.
It was well worth it. While there are certain things that are common to all naval fiction that are in full effect here, Allan starts his main character, Alexander Clay, as a 20-something first lieutenant, so no 2-3 books of being a bullied midshipman.. then a low lieutenant and a first prize command, etc. (There was a brief mention of such an adventure, but the one paragraph it contained was plenty).
The crew was extremely well developed, and had an 'upstairs/downstairs' feel, with every few chapters focusing on a group of 4 able seaman, rather than the main character and the command crew.
The book has a nice balance of action (both a ground battle to start the book and ship to ship combat to end it) and character development, and did a great job of both telling a complete story yet making one want to get to the next one again. While I have been trying to limit my purchases until I get more caught up on stuff I already have, this will probably end up being an exception.
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Post by berkley on May 31, 2019 22:00:13 GMT -5
Those Byron Preiss books look pretty good. I remember seeing some of the Weird Heroes series on the bookshop shelves in the late 70s but never actually got to the point of deciding to buy one. Same with George RR Martin's Wild Cards: they would attract me enough to pick them up and give them a look but for some reason I could never make up my mind to buy one and read it. Just recently I bought a couple instalments of the latter series, though I haven't read them yet, and I think I'll start keeping my eye out for Preiss books too.
Pretty sure I must have seen the Illustrated Zelazny advertised somewhere - in Heavy Metal, perhaps? I'd forgotten all about it until now. Yeah, I like Morrow's style and it looks good here, so that's another one I'll have to look for.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jun 8, 2019 7:17:03 GMT -5
Conan the Usurper By REH/De Camp This has what is my favorite non-Howard story, the treasure of Tranicos. It feels very 'pastiche', which it was according to the notes. I don't love how the Picts in this volume (not just this story, but all of them) get turned into Indians from a 50s Western with Aquilonia playing the roll of the 'Wild West' minus the six shooters. I appeciate 'Wolves beyond the Border' expanding the world.. I would assume Howard didn't finish it because the publisher wanted more Conan, not Conan-ish stories, but it sure is nice to see. I had forgotten 'Scarlet Citadel' exists.. it feels very much like a rough draft of 'Hour of the Dragon'.. which De Camp has put next in time... not sure if that was a well researched logical choice, or simply the fact that it's novel length... at least De Camp didn't shoe horn Thoth Amon in, as he did in alot of the other stories.
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