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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2017 18:30:27 GMT -5
Finished The Churn. It was a short, but good novella that adds some great backstory to one of the characters from the novels. It’s been a while since I read anything in the series, so I decided to read this to ease my way back into the universe.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 29, 2017 23:44:41 GMT -5
I really need to read that at some point, so many series out there! This was a fun one: Divide and RuleL. Sprague De Camp My version is the 1964 Lancer pb with this awesome cover: Not actually a novel, but actually 2 novellas, with the vague connection of both being post-apocalyptic worlds with a feudal system. The first one really should have been some sort of comic book series drawn by Jack Kirby, so it gets alot of extra points for the creativity. Divide and Rule: The 2nd son of the Duke of Poughkeepsie gets his world turned upside down when he saves a girl that is with the super secret underground movement. Sounds pretty basic, right? The catch is the overlords are the 'hoppers', basically alien kangaroos that have magic helmets that make them sentient and conquered the planet in 1956. The book is set 350 years later, when the hoppers have spent generations telling humans they were ordained by God to be in control of the technology and make sure humans don't destroy each other. Super fun story, with some small hints of a message, and who doesn't love sentient alien kangaroos? The Stolen Dormouse: I'm not sure exactly how to summarize this one.. maybe if one thought of the an ugly cousin of Frederik Pohl's Space Merchants mixed with Romeo and Juliet. In this one, Corporations rule a feudalish society where business clans run, and a 'Sir' is a businessman, rather than a knight. But those damn Hawaiians won't get with the program and make and consume stuff, they're sitting on their island making new tech and enjoying the beach. A little disjointed, but fun.. I think I'd like it more if I hadn't read the other (superior) one right before. Definitely the best non-Conan stuff from De Camp I've read.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2017 19:36:19 GMT -5
I really need to read that at some point, so many series out there! True story.
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Post by berkley on Dec 4, 2017 2:14:44 GMT -5
Beyond by Theodore Sturgeon Boring cover, sadly. I'm a fan of the general design style of that era - what was it, late 50s, early 60s? - though you're right, this isn't a particularly great example. I like the lettering on the title, though.
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 4, 2017 11:06:03 GMT -5
Seeing the recent entry by wildfire2099 reminded me of another L. Sprague de Camp novel, The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, which I loved when I read it as a freshman in high school in 1968. Besotted with Conan, but having read everything that was in print in the Lancer series at that point, I was thrilled to find de Camp's name on this book... that a teacher had dropped off to the school library. I volunteered there occasionally and this time it paid off, because the librarian said I could borrow it before she processed it and put it into the stacks. Devoured it, as I recall. Other Conan-type characters I'd tried left me disappointed, but Bessas of Zariaspa filled the empty Conan niche nicely. Clearly very much like Conan in many ways -- moody, quick-tempered, a physical freak -- but he also reminds you of Robert E. Howard, too, a lover of poetry who was very much a momma's boy, too, which made for several good comic moments. Superb in medias res opening centering around someone about to die as painful a death as one can imagine. (It involves a long sharpened stake and a bodily opening.) I loved the way de Camp explained why Xerxes would have believed in the existence of dragons (He sends Bessas to retrieve one from Africa) and wove history of the Greeks and Persians into the story. I don't know if it would entertain me as much today, but I may give it a whirl. All I do know is that I loved it as a young fan of swords, sorcery and larger-than-life adventure.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 4, 2017 22:39:36 GMT -5
Beyond by Theodore Sturgeon Boring cover, sadly. I'm a fan of the general design style of that era - what was it, late 50s, early 60s? - though you're right, this isn't a particularly great example. I like the lettering on the title, though. Yeah, the lettering is cool.. I don't like the abstract ones though... give me a cool depiction of a key scene with the main character and I'm happy.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 4, 2017 22:40:52 GMT -5
Seeing the recent entry by wildfire2099 reminded me of another L. Sprague de Camp novel, The Dragon of the Ishtar Gate, which I loved when I read it as a freshman in high school in 1968. Besotted with Conan, but having read everything that was in print in the Lancer series at that point, I was thrilled to find de Camp's name on this book... that a teacher had dropped off to the school library. I volunteered there occasionally and this time it paid off, because the librarian said I could borrow it before she processed it and put it into the stacks. Devoured it, as I recall. Other Conan-type characters I'd tried left me disappointed, but Bessas of Zariaspa filled the empty Conan niche nicely. Clearly very much like Conan in many ways -- moody, quick-tempered, a physical freak -- but he also reminds you of Robert E. Howard, too, a lover of poetry who was very much a momma's boy, too, which made for several good comic moments. Superb in medias res opening centering around someone about to die as painful a death as one can imagine. (It involves a long sharpened stake and a bodily opening.) I loved the way de Camp explained why Xerxes would have believed in the existence of dragons (He sends Bessas to retrieve one from Africa) and wove history of the Greeks and Persians not the story. I don't know if it would entertain me as much today, but I may give it a whirl. All I do know is that I loved it as a young fan of swords, sorcery and larger-than-life adventure. That sounds fun.. I love when they mix fantasy into semi-real history... I'll have to keep my eyes open for that one.
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Post by berkley on Dec 4, 2017 23:42:43 GMT -5
First I heard of de Camp's Ishtar Gate, and looking it up I see that he wrote 4 or 5 other novels they classify as historical fiction in his wiki bibliography. Actually, I haven't read much de Camp at all - any thoughts on which are his best books?
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 5, 2017 21:44:59 GMT -5
First I heard of de Camp's Ishtar Gate, and looking it up I see that he wrote 4 or 5 other novels they classify as historical fiction in his wiki bibliography. Actually, I haven't read much de Camp at all - any thoughts on which are his best books? I'm far from reading all of de Camp's work, but I'd definitely recommend Lest Darkness Fall. It's one of the early important steps in Alt-History. And a fun book.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 5, 2017 22:32:17 GMT -5
I grabbed this at random at the library... one doesn't see a whole lot of Muslim/Arabian fiction, I feel.
City of Brass by S.A Chakraborty
I'll say this.... the book is quite a page turner, and the author writes very well... the descriptions of her version of 18th century Egypt, and her city of Djinn, are fantastic. And unlike some 'atmospheric' books out there, there is most certainly action, and a plot.
I'm just not sure what it is. We are presented a city with warring... tribes, I guess? Ethnicities? It's not really clear. The main character, Nazri (who struck me as a female version of Aladdin at first, but turned out to be more interesting), is part of one, or maybe she isn't. There's also an underclass of half humans no one seems to like, but what allegory the author is going for isn't clear.
After taking far too long (but again, with nice writing) to get Nazri to this city, and introducing us to the ruling family, it looks like the story is going to be pretty standard fair. Until the end, where everything goes nuts. That can be a good thing, but the author spend too much time being mysterious, and not enough time explaining what's going on, and I'm left feeling sad the book had a nearly nonsensical ending.
I'd definitely recommend it if you like 'atmospherics', and the world building is quite intriguing, but the story just doesn't carry though.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2017 0:58:56 GMT -5
Just finished reading the 20th anniversary edition of William Gibson's Neuromancer: It's one of those books that I should have read a long time ago but never got around to. It first came on my radar when my roommate from university dragged me to go see the cyberpunk film Hardware (1990) and kept going on about Gibson and Neuromancer and cyberpunk in general, but the movie didn't resonate with me, my roommate annoyed me and I didn't think anything would come of this cyberspace thing and it would be a passing fad in sci-fi and never have any currency in reality (well you know there goes my credibility as a seer, but hey I may be blind but I really can't see the future that well ). The net result was I ignored the book for a long while. It came on my radar again when the Matrix dropped, but again I never got around to reading it, but I've spent a good chunk of this year finally reading or watching things that are stales in fields I enjoy that I never got around to, and so finally took the plunge on Neuromancer. Gibson's prose is masterful. He has a knack for phrasing and wordplay that is sheer poetry at times, and he crafted one of the best opening lines to a novel that I have read in along time... "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." But the joy of the book is that is touches on things that are so much more than the tropes of cyberpunk as it became popularized in the wake of this book. Part of my reluctance to read this had been my dislike for many of the tropes of cyberpunk as it evolved, my ignorant assumption was they stemmed from this book (in its perceived role as the grandaddy of cyberpubk), and I couldn't have been more wrong. Gibson addresses and confronts some ugly trends and possible futures that may have more relevancy in the throes of 2017 than they did when written in 1982-1983. Not the world of cyberspace or AI (though those still have cachet too) but the implied and alluded to events that created such a world, of corporations unchecked, of families of wealth acting above the constraints of government and being puppeteers of politicians and military figures shaping things that made the birth of such a world possible. Gibson doesn't spend verbiage detailing swaths of history or worldbuilding, but he alludes to events through the placement of artifacts in the backgrounds of scenes, in mostly unspoken regrets about past events characters have and the haunting echoes of memories that shape their current actions, of the scars and modifications that characters have that hidden maps of the roads they traveled revealing more below the surface than most are willing to see when looking at them. So much of it bubbling below the surface as subtext rather than the in-the-face style of worldbuilding we see in so many modern novels produced in the wake of the A Song of Fire and Ice series by Martin (which I like too, but the difference in approach-not content-between Gibson and someone like Martin is vast and can be staggering when trying to wrap your head around the juxtaposition of styles-many modern sci-fi series hearken to that overt Game of Thrones style now). It will take a couple of days for me to fully digest/process the book, but it was definitely worth the read and something I should have done long ago. -M PS for those not familiar with Hardware, here's the trailer...
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Post by Jesse on Dec 6, 2017 2:07:32 GMT -5
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythosby Lin Carter Here's an interesting one I read awhile ago and found again looking through some things. As far as the current mythos goes it might not exactly be up-to-date as it came out in 1972 but I would still recommend it to fans of H. P. Lovecraft. It's not really a biography but a look at the history of the Cthulhu Mythos how it came about and the writing circle that contributed to it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2017 2:19:17 GMT -5
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythosby Lin Carter Here's an interesting one I read awhile ago and found again looking through some things. As far as the current mythos goes it might not exactly be up-to-date as it came out in 1972 but I would still recommend it to fans of H. P. Lovecraft. It's not really a biography but a look at the history of the Cthulhu Mythos how it came about and the writing circle that contributed to it. This has been one of those holy grail paperbacks for me. I have been looking a copy since I read Carter's A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings for a term paper as a freshman in high school and have never come across one in the wild (I haven't checked online sellers, I'm too stubborn to give in I guess) -M
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Post by Prince Hal on Dec 6, 2017 9:45:35 GMT -5
First I heard of de Camp's Ishtar Gate, and looking it up I see that he wrote 4 or 5 other novels they classify as historical fiction in his wiki bibliography. Actually, I haven't read much de Camp at all - any thoughts on which are his best books? I haven't read any of his other historical novels, though most reviews I've seen are favorable. The only other things I've read by him are his Conan pastiches form the Lancer days.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2017 12:20:45 GMT -5
My first non-Conan de Camp stuff was the Reluctant King trilogy (Goblin Tower, Clocks or Iruz, and The Unbehaded King) which I sought out because the Goblin Tower was listed in Gary Gygax's list of suggested reading in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide (or the abridged list that came with the D&D Basic Set) and the title sounded cool, but was nothing like what I was expecting. Another de Camp offering I read early on was the Compleat Enchanter co-written with Fletcher Pratt which feature the magical misadventures of Harold Shea. I also encountered the short story The Owl and the Ape in high school, it was included in the Lin Carter edited anthology Kingdoms of Sorcery... which, along with its companion volume Realms of Wizardry served as my deep introduction to the world of heroic fantasy (aka sword and sorcery) beyond Conan (which along with LotR was my entry point into fantasy fiction), at least from Lin Carter's viewpoint. de Camp had an earlier anthology that had a similar purpose, which I only acquired much later, The Spell of Seven which included de Camp's novelette The Hungry Hercynian. I had a bunch of other de Camp stuff but never really delved into it much as it always seemed to get pushed down the to read pile farther and farther until eventually they got purged in prep for the move to Ohio. When it came to the Conan pastiche writers/editors, I preferred Lin Carter's non-Conan stuff to de Camp's, but like Karl Edward Wagner's stuff better than either of them. -M
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