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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 30, 2016 6:04:18 GMT -5
Sounds interesting.... I'm not super familiar with Victorian lit (outside Holmes) but mash ups like that are always fun. this was a weird one.... Rogue Dragon by Avram Davidson c. 1965 Avram Davidson is a good writer... he turns a nice phrase. Ideas, however, sometimes are lacking. This looked like a genre mashup at first.. with Earth as a Dragon Hunting ground in the far future, but what it was more than anything is a loose version of Alice in Wonderland, with Jon-Joras playing the part of Alice. Sadly, instead of cool mythical creatures, we get aliens that mind meld with Dragons and some generic poet thieves... interesting what he was trying to do, but it didn't quite work.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2016 9:06:26 GMT -5
*sigh* Started a 2011 horror novel from the library earlier this week & came across a reference to "Kubrik's astronaut" on the 16th line of the first page. Back in the good ol' days, authors & publishers made it at least a dozen pages before starting in with typos, misspellings, grammatical blunders, etc.
Then again, I should probably consider getting off my high horse, since just a couple of weeks ago we had to come up with something like $1,500 here at the office for the printing company to halt the binding process so we could switch out the cover of the quarterly (about to become biannual) magazine we publish. Lord only knows how many pairs eyes, for several weeks, overlooked the blurb referring to "War World II."
But, y'know, at least we spelled the words right.
I repeat -- *sigh*
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Post by brutalis on Nov 4, 2016 10:20:22 GMT -5
Finished books 3 and 4 in the Tour of the Merrimack: Sagittarius Command and Strength and Honor. This is a kind of "space opera" style military science fiction pitting two worlds/cultures (American/Earth vs Rome who have colonized on another world) in war against each other and including a 3rd alien force called the "Hive" comprised of bug/swarm creatures that eat anything and everything in sight and as you fight them they adapt and learn in the fighting.
These were all written in early 2000's but feel like old 50/60's science fiction. Minimal if simplistic style characterization with many of them seeming to be overtly stereotypical/classic cast the stories combine political/military/humor/science/religion and anything else Merluch feels like throwing in. The action and fights are fast and furious, the characters strong and humorous within the context of their archetypes and there is unique science and political and religious thoughts and ideas intermingling with gung ho marine action and the idea of an alien invasion force that adapts so quickly to modern weaponry that the best offense and defense used against them is to use swords and cut/hack them up into pieces.
The characters for the most part are enjoyable intelligent and fun. You will have to choose your own favorite(s) to like or hate as there are many to choose from. American and Roman characters alike prove to be "human" in their machinations and plots. Some of them like the story itself being simple, some complicated but in all a fun turn off your brain and enjoy the spectacle and fights. A more intelligent Starship Trooper's if you need something to compare it to.
This series was finished round 2009 but 2 more books in the series were written recently: The Ninth Circle in 2012 and most recently The Twice and Future Caesar. These continue from the original series but with some of the characters having moved up/down the world/military roles. Looking forward to reading these final 2 stories.
As a whole i can recommend the entire series if you don't take it too seriously and are willing to just ride along and have a blast in world where there is constant fighting and struggles with big Star Cruisers, lasers and swords and blood.
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Post by Calamas on Nov 4, 2016 11:43:39 GMT -5
. . . Lord only knows how many pairs eyes, for several weeks, overlooked the blurb referring to "War World II." But, y'know, at least we spelled the words right. I repeat -- *sigh* Actually, sir, I’m not that surprised. In my own experience, I often read what I expect to be there. That’s why I always reread my posts a couple of hours later, and inevitably the reason given for editing is “dropped word.” And while I’ve never flipped words like that I have substituted. For example, having grown up in Charlotte, NC, I originally read Steve Englehart as Steve Earnhardt. And Joe Staton as Joe Station. Of course it should be Station. That’s a cool name. Naturally I can’t say whether mine is a normal reaction--I’ve certainly never been accused of being normal--but I completely understand how your situation came to be.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2016 12:51:00 GMT -5
Yeah. After nearly two decades in the newspaper biz & a decade-plus online, I've learned that errors are more likely to go unnoticed in the most prominent formats, like headlines. Thing is, this time around we had someone on the floor look at nothing but headlines, & she still didn't catch it. The mind does indeed tend to see what it expects to see.
The creator surname I misspelled for the longest time was Bob Oksner's -- for most of my life I've thought of him as "Oskner." I gather, from having mentioned it before a few years back on the old CBR Classics forum, that I'm far from alone.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 4, 2016 21:19:11 GMT -5
Conquest of Earth by Manly Banister c. 1957 Great cover, and what a name for a writer! Sadly, that's the best part. We get the man character as the best in of the 'Scarlet order of Man'.. were Men (note the caps) are a combination of Silver Age Superman and Professor X.. and then some. There insanely powerful Men sit and watch the alien Trisz literally suck the planet dry and supress the humans into a dark ages level culture. Our guy, Tor Kanay, is the best and brightest, and determined to change thing, only he's sworm not to ever hurt the Trisz until they find their home planet. (the Men can think themselves anywhere in the galaxy, so they're looking but somehow not finding it). Then there's a girl.. and it gets REALLY weird. I think the most notable part is this might be the earliest instance of using shorten/corrupted versions of real place names... Ka-Si (Kansas City) is next to Sai-Loo and need the Mis-ipi and Missou rivers.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 4, 2016 21:20:43 GMT -5
Finished books 3 and 4 in the Tour of the Merrimack: Sagittarius Command and Strength and Honor. This is a kind of "space opera" style military science fiction pitting two worlds/cultures (American/Earth vs Rome who have colonized on another world) in war against each other and including a 3rd alien force called the "Hive" comprised of bug/swarm creatures that eat anything and everything in sight and as you fight them they adapt and learn in the fighting. These were all written in early 2000's but feel like old 50/60's science fiction. Minimal if simplistic style characterization with many of them seeming to be overtly stereotypical/classic cast the stories combine political/military/humor/science/religion and anything else Merluch feels like throwing in. The action and fights are fast and furious, the characters strong and humorous within the context of their archetypes and there is unique science and political and religious thoughts and ideas intermingling with gung ho marine action and the idea of an alien invasion force that adapts so quickly to modern weaponry that the best offense and defense used against them is to use swords and cut/hack them up into pieces. The characters for the most part are enjoyable intelligent and fun. You will have to choose your own favorite(s) to like or hate as there are many to choose from. American and Roman characters alike prove to be "human" in their machinations and plots. Some of them like the story itself being simple, some complicated but in all a fun turn off your brain and enjoy the spectacle and fights. A more intelligent Starship Trooper's if you need something to compare it to. This series was finished round 2009 but 2 more books in the series were written recently: The Ninth Circle in 2012 and most recently The Twice and Future Caesar. These continue from the original series but with some of the characters having moved up/down the world/military roles. Looking forward to reading these final 2 stories. As a whole i can recommend the entire series if you don't take it too seriously and are willing to just ride along and have a blast in world where there is constant fighting and struggles with big Star Cruisers, lasers and swords and blood. That looks pretty interesting.. maybe after I finish with Safehold I'll check it out!
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Post by Calamas on Nov 6, 2016 13:12:42 GMT -5
RECENTLY FINISHED:Chosen Prey by John SanfordThere is one drawback to being a master of your craft, of having the ability to create fascinating characters and situations, and build suspense, and make the routine seem interesting. What happens when you don’t carry it all the way through to the conclusion of the book? What happens when the last fifty pages read as if they’d been plotted by someone else? Those superior skills turn against you. Disappointment is magnified because enhanced expectations are not met. There are two major problems with the ending to Chosen Prey. The more important one involves the woman intended to be his final victim, whom we meet at the same time as the killer, early in the novel. James Qatar has already decided to kill her when a chance remark intrigues him enough to spare her. She continues to play a significant role throughout the story and yet, as events wind down and Qatar slips his surveillance with the intention of killing her, their confrontation happens “off-screen.” {Spoiler: Click to show} We’ve already witnessed him kill twice, one of whom was his mother; in neither case is the reader as intimately connected as we are to this character. We have to know what both killer and victim are thinking and feeling. Nothing is gained in terms of suspense or drama by withholding this scene. A lot is lost in terms of satisfaction. The second problem is lessened because it is preceded by the breach of faith recounted above. It still stands out. Essentially, the surprise twist is not much of a surprise. {Spoiler: Click to show}The character in questions was always going to do something. Initial speculation included blowing the arrest or killing the suspect whether he surrenders or not--something along those lines. So once the “something” actually does happen, there is no other candidate. That Sanford can draw a character so deftly {Spoiler: Click to show}that his mild instability is obvious to us but not to those around him is, I repeat, a considerable skill. Skill is a double-edged sword in Chosen Prey. I enjoyed most of the trip, I always enjoy the company, but disappointment remains. Rare disappointment; say one--maybe two--out of the twelve Davenport novels I’ve read to date. Not disappointment enough to keep me from recommending the novel based on its other strengths. But bear in mind that I’m a big fan and I fully expect a return to form next time out. Every Dead Thing by John ConnollyThis book in paperback form looked and felt big for a detective novel; 467 pages as it turned out. Well, I thought, I’d probably read as many successful books of this size as not, and the fans that like this series really like it. Why not? Turns out Every Dead Thing is actually two novels. Not two concurrent stories, as often happens with the genre, but two consecutive cases--with a few through lines and back references to tie it together. Upon finishing the first “novel,” I suspected we were being given a hard, real world conclusion up front because there had been a couple of mild psychic and metaphysical touches introduced along the way, and I thought perhaps these mystic influences might end up playing a role in the second finale; maybe this was a way of changing the ground rules without cheating the reader. I was wrong in that regard. We never completely left the hardboiled world to which we were introduced. We first meet New York City Police detective Charlie Parker as he stumbles home after another night of drinking, which in turn was preceded by another fight with his wife. Through a drunken haze he discovers her body, and that of his 7-year-old daughter, both brutally murdered and mutilated. About a half a year later, after absolutely no progress in finding the killer, Parker has left the Department and now chases bail jumpers for a lowlife bondsman, mostly to keep active since he had stopped drinking out of guilt. A shootout on the street sets the book on several journeys. Not just the obvious journey: the first case, where incidental involvement leads Parker to being asked to find a missing woman. We also learn, through some of the failed attempts at tracking down his family’s killer, how he’d fallen so far. And how he’d gotten to the point where we initially met him, both good times and bad. And, of course, the second half of the book with the actual tracking of the killer once some solid leads surface in New Orleans. But the overreaching journey is Charlie Parker’s climb from the depths of despair. It starts with growing concern for the missing woman’s safety and concludes with literally facing his demon. Two consecutive cases, two separate conclusions; one over-arching journey. It’s a journey well worth following. However . . . Warning: There are some graphically disturbing images in this book. They are not described in gruesome detail but they are gruesome nonetheless. Upon finishing Every Dead Thing, it felt like a 4-and-a-half Star book to me. The problem is, I can’t say why. It’s just a feeling. And yet I couldn’t stop reading. By definition that’s a 5-Star book, right? For once ambivalence is not a bad thing.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2016 9:44:00 GMT -5
Connolly's first three novels are the only ones of his I've read. I liked them well enough, & the fourth one started off decently, but for some reason it just didn't hold my attention. I'll have to climb back on that horse at some point. Most striking thing I remember about Every Dead Thing is that much of the following -- And, of course, the second half of the book with the actual tracking of the killer once some solid leads surface in New Orleans. -- occurs in Slidell, the across-Lake-Pontchartrain suburb where I lived & worked for the (now-defunct) for a year & a half back at the end of the '80s.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 13, 2016 12:27:12 GMT -5
Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz When my wife was reading this, she thought I'd like it. That happens on occasion... more often than not it's some book I'm not allowed to all a romance novel (which generally has a romance as a central plot point) that has some manner of science fiction or history in it that strikes her. This book, though, with it's striking cover and cool illuminations, I decided to give a shot. It seems like it would be a fun, quick fairy tale like story, and it's always good to do what your wife wants, right? To my surprise, it's actually a brilliantly researched meshing of a whole lot of middle age stories and legends into a brilliant story about 3 unlikely friends and their dog. The writer managed to use Joan of Arc without making it obvious he was doing so until 2/3 of the way through the story, even! The best part is, by having a framing sequence for most of the story, one can't really know for sure if these three children are REALLY doing miracles, or if they're just tales.. from the visions that could be simple astute observations, to William's martial escapades, to Jacob's healing.. all COULD be miracles, or they could be extraordinary kids doing great things in the real world. This book was clearly a book the author thoroughly enjoyed writing, and I can't imaging anyone not thoroughly enjoying reading it.
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Post by Prince Hal on Nov 14, 2016 16:44:48 GMT -5
*sigh* Started a 2011 horror novel from the library earlier this week & came across a reference to "Kubrik's astronaut" on the 16th line of the first page. Back in the good ol' days, authors & publishers made it at least a dozen pages before starting in with typos, misspellings, grammatical blunders, etc. Then again, I should probably consider getting off my high horse, since just a couple of weeks ago we had to come up with something like $1,500 here at the office for the printing company to halt the binding process so we could switch out the cover of the quarterly (about to become biannual) magazine we publish. Lord only knows how many pairs eyes, for several weeks, overlooked the blurb referring to "War World II." But, y'know, at least we spelled the words right. I repeat -- *sigh* A favorite typo story. The cast: An insufferable bully of a know-it-all, narcissistic (I know, overused, but applicable here) a$$hat for whom I worked almost 40 yeras ago. Me, a perennial pain in his overly sensitive a$$.
The situation: He had squirreled himself away for days working on a promotional booklet for our fine institution, having turned down all offers of help on proofreading from a number of us. I had not offered. Late one afternoon, he was bursting with pride when all 2500 copies were delivered and no one to show them to. Except me, b/c I was still there. He calls me in, hands me one of the booklets, flipped open the slick, classy cover and leafed through the parchment-weight classy pages, and then went back to the front of the booklet to read it. I started with the "Forward." Expensive paper, photos throughout, a slick cove and a "Forward." It was not our motto. Pretending this was a mock-up or a test copy to proof, I said, "Good thing you didn't have all these printed." "What? What? They were printed. I have 2500 of them in the closet." "Oh." "What do you mean, 'Oh'?" "Well, there's a typo on the first page. In fact, it's the first word. You have 'Forward, f-o-r-w-a-r-d.'" "Right!" "I think you may have meant 'Foreword, f-o-re-w-or-d,' as in a 'word' or passage written before the main text." "Yes, that's right, a forward." "Okay, fine, maybe you're right, but I'm pretty sure that 'forward' is a direction; 'foreword' is a piece that precedes the main text." I could see the early signs of a crack in his ego. He grabbed the dictionary from the shelf behind his desk. (The desk was a Type-A, OCD delight: A stack of yellow legal pads stood next to a row of eight or so Eberhard-Faber #2's sharpened to points so fine they'd have made a Jivaro's array of poison darts look like a batch of old Crayolas.) He looked. I smiled as I saw him come face-to-face with his hubris. It was not pretty, that expression, but I liked it. I walked out wondering how he would explain his little mistake to the Board of Trustees. No doubt he lied, blamed it on someone else and/or just had the printer fix the error and rerun the booklets and had him combine the bills. That's how the system works for insufferable bullies and know-it-all, narcissistic a$$hats. But for one brief moment then, and every time I retell that story, I smile.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 14, 2016 20:03:29 GMT -5
The Best of Cordwainer Smith by Cordwainer Smith. This is one of those books that I decided to read to fill in a blind-spot in my classic SF. The only Smith work I had previously read was The Ballad of Lost C'Mell, which found its way into into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volume for novellas (though it's a pretty short novella). This book has probably roughly a third of his short story output, all in his Instrumentality of Mankind series of stories. And every one of the stories is quite good. That said, I think I might have been better off reading them sporadically, rather than reading the entire book. It's not that the plots were similar. But there is an aesthetic to Smith's writing that made them seem more similar than they actually are. I have the entirety of Smith's work in the NESFA collection. I'm kind of glad that I didn't start there. I will definitely move on to it. But I will probably take more time with it and just read a couple of stories at time.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Nov 14, 2016 23:53:50 GMT -5
The Best of Cordwainer Smith by Cordwainer Smith. This is one of those books that I decided to read to fill in a blind-spot in my classic SF. The only Smith work I had previously read was The Ballad of Lost C'Mell, which found its way into into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volume for novellas (though it's a pretty short novella). This book has probably roughly a third of his short story output, all in his Instrumentality of Mankind series of stories. And every one of the stories is quite good. That said, I think I might have been better off reading them sporadically, rather than reading the entire book. It's not that the plots were similar. But there is an aesthetic to Smith's writing that made them seem more similar than they actually are. I have the entirety of Smith's work in the NESFA collection. I'm kind of glad that I didn't start there. I will definitely move on to it. But I will probably take more time with it and just read a couple of stories at time. Besides The Ballad Of Lost C'Mell, I ran across Smith's short SF work in various anthologies, mostly in those fantastic best-of-the-year Great SF Stories by Isaac Asimov that covered 1939-1964. I know I read Smith's Scanner's Live In Vain, Game Of Rat & Dragon and maybe one or two others. He had a very distinct writing style, a bit more challenging than the simpler pulp-fiction method. Might be considered a somewhat missing link between standard SF and the 1960's New Wave style. Supposedly, many of his stories occurred in his fictional universe with it's own time-line. I did enjoy any stories I ran across of his.I do agree with Slam that he might be best read in smaller doses
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 15, 2016 0:16:28 GMT -5
The Best of Cordwainer Smith by Cordwainer Smith. This is one of those books that I decided to read to fill in a blind-spot in my classic SF. The only Smith work I had previously read was The Ballad of Lost C'Mell, which found its way into into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volume for novellas (though it's a pretty short novella). This book has probably roughly a third of his short story output, all in his Instrumentality of Mankind series of stories. And every one of the stories is quite good. That said, I think I might have been better off reading them sporadically, rather than reading the entire book. It's not that the plots were similar. But there is an aesthetic to Smith's writing that made them seem more similar than they actually are. I have the entirety of Smith's work in the NESFA collection. I'm kind of glad that I didn't start there. I will definitely move on to it. But I will probably take more time with it and just read a couple of stories at time. Besides The Ballad Of Lost C'Mell, I ran across Smith's short SF work in various anthologies, mostly in those fantastic best-of-the-year Great SF Stories by Isaac Asimov that covered 1939-1964. I know I read Smith's Scanner's Live In Vain, Game Of Rat & Dragon and maybe one or two others. He had a very distinct writing style, a bit more challenging than the simpler pulp-fiction method. Might be considered a somewhat missing link between standard SF and the 1960's New Wave style. Supposedly, many of his stories occurred in his fictional universe with it's own time-line. I did enjoy any stories I ran across of his.I do agree with Slam that he might be best read in smaller doses Good call on his being a link between Golden Age SF and the New Wave. I'd put him with P.J. Farmer in that area...with both of them getting their start in SF in the early 50s. And his style is definitely more literary than most of the G.A. SF. Much more interested in character than plot. Every story in the book was at least very good. I just am really thinking it would have read better over a longer period of time.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 15, 2016 21:44:36 GMT -5
Buried Caesars by Stuart Kaminsky. Toby Peters is looking for some paperwork that has been stolen from General Douglas MacArthur. The papers would definitely compromise MacArthur and possibly the war effort. Helping him out is Dashiell Hammett, former Pinkerton agent, best-selling author and a hopeful to get back into the army despite his age and physical condition. An okay entry into the Peters series...it's not by any means the best of the Peters books.
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