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Post by berkley on May 4, 2017 0:42:29 GMT -5
The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches Maybe it takes a writer like Tosches to deal with a subject like Liston. If ever there were an enigma in the sport of boxing it was Liston. And Tosches is always more of a novelist than a historian. So if you have a fairly blank slate, you need a writer to fill in the holes. We do get what is known about Liston. And then we get the speculation. Tosches is convinced that Liston threw both his fights against Ali. I've always doubted that...but now I'm less sure. And Toshes is pretty sure that Liston O.D.'d rather than was murdered. I'm less convinced by his argument there (though intrigued by the idea that Joe Louis may have had something to do with the OD). This is an interesting and compelling read. It helps that this is Tosches writing, for him, with restraint. That makes it significantly more readable. It's a fascinating story. I've been a boxing fan from a fairly young age - back when it was a more mainstream sport I remember reading about the first Ali-Frazier fight in our local newspaper when I was 9 or 10 years old. So I've always lied reading about it too and used to buy a lot of boxing magazines back in the pre-internet days. One of the best was a UK publication called The Boxing News, which contained some of the best reporting on the sport around and would occasionally print an article that I think would rank with some of the best journalistic writing of any kind I've ever come across. One of those was about Sonny Liston. Up until then - I think this would have been the early 90s - I thought of him only as part of Ali's amazing story, but after reading this article I realised Liston was a fascinating character in his own right, and I think his own, much darker, story reads like a modern tragedy. I've never fully made up my mind to read the Tosches book because I have ambivalent feelings about him as a writer - on the one hand, he really is a very good writer who knows how to make his subject matter interesting to the reader, OTOH, I'm a bit leery of his penchant for indulging pet theories and, as Slam says, speculation. But I'll probably read this one eventually though, if only for lack of any other credible book about Liston. This also reminds me, I must try to find some of Tosches's fiction one of these days - his speculative tendencies might be more appropriate in that medium.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 4, 2017 7:35:02 GMT -5
Fourth Galaxy Reader HL Gold The title is a little misleading, in that most of the stories are near-future types that take place on Earth.. more like Twilight Zone fodder that anything Galactic. The title refers to Galaxy, the SF pulp digest edited by H. L. Gold. The Galaxy Reader was an annual paperback collection reprinting that year's best of.. material
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 4, 2017 11:59:15 GMT -5
The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches Maybe it takes a writer like Tosches to deal with a subject like Liston. If ever there were an enigma in the sport of boxing it was Liston. And Tosches is always more of a novelist than a historian. So if you have a fairly blank slate, you need a writer to fill in the holes. We do get what is known about Liston. And then we get the speculation. Tosches is convinced that Liston threw both his fights against Ali. I've always doubted that...but now I'm less sure. And Toshes is pretty sure that Liston O.D.'d rather than was murdered. I'm less convinced by his argument there (though intrigued by the idea that Joe Louis may have had something to do with the OD). This is an interesting and compelling read. It helps that this is Tosches writing, for him, with restraint. That makes it significantly more readable. It's a fascinating story. I've been a boxing fan from a fairly young age - back when it was a more mainstream sport I remember reading about the first Ali-Frazier fight in our local newspaper when I was 9 or 10 years old. So I've always lied reading about it too and used to buy a lot of boxing magazines back in the pre-internet days. One of the best was a UK publication called The Boxing News, which contained some of the best reporting on the sport around and would occasionally print an article that I think would rank with some of the best journalistic writing of any kind I've ever come across. One of those was about Sonny Liston. Up until then - I think this would have been the early 90s - I thought of him only as part of Ali's amazing story, but after reading this article I realised Liston was a fascinating character in his own right, and I think his own, much darker, story reads like a modern tragedy. I've never fully made up my mind to read the Tosches book because I have ambivalent feelings about him as a writer - on the one hand, he really is a very good writer who knows how to make his subject matter interesting to the reader, OTOH, I'm a bit leery of his penchant for indulging pet theories and, as Slam says, speculation. But I'll probably read this one eventually though, if only for lack of any other credible book about Liston. This also reminds me, I must try to find some of Tosches's fiction one of these days - his speculative tendencies might be more appropriate in that medium. I agree with you for the most part about Tosches. I think that the reason it works here is two-fold. Tosches honestly does rein himself in from his usual literary excesses. And Liston is such a blank slate that you really do need to add things in or there isn't any "there" there. And it starts from the get-go. Literally nobody knows or seemed to know when Liston was born. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting with my Dad in his recliner, my feet on the footrest between his, my butt hanging down in the gap between the seat and the footrest, watching boxing. The 70s had to be one of the best times ever for boxing, particularly the heavyweight division with Ali, Foreman, Frazier, Norton, Shavers and Holmes fighting. I was a big boxing fan up through college and the early part of Tyson's career. At some point, however, it just became really hard and expensive to follow the sport as everything became pay-per-view spectaculars.
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Post by DanBintheUnderworld on May 4, 2017 16:11:29 GMT -5
Fourth Galaxy Reader HL Gold The title is a little misleading, in that most of the stories are near-future types that take place on Earth.. more like Twilight Zone fodder that anything Galactic. The title refers to Galaxy, the SF pulp digest edited by H. L. Gold. The Galaxy Reader was an annual paperback collection reprinting that year's best of.. material Also sister mag (but generally considered, I'm sure, superior) to If.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 4, 2017 16:31:01 GMT -5
Summit Chase by Safir & Murphy (The Destroyer #8) Remo is sent to Africa to stop a coup that will lead to a safe-haven for criminals. I don't expect great literature from men's action series novels. I know they're junk. But this one is kind of dire even by those standards. We get the cliche of amnesia. We get rape of a female British agent. We get a lot of casual racism...yeah I know the time period. Pretty weak entry in the series.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 4, 2017 17:50:07 GMT -5
Fourth Galaxy Reader HL Gold The title is a little misleading, in that most of the stories are near-future types that take place on Earth.. more like Twilight Zone fodder that anything Galactic. The title refers to Galaxy, the SF pulp digest edited by H. L. Gold. The Galaxy Reader was an annual paperback collection reprinting that year's best of.. material Ahhh... I didn't realize that.. that makes sense!
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 4, 2017 18:29:52 GMT -5
My own opinion, mind you, but Galaxy was the premiere SF pulp digest during the 1950's. John W. Campbell's Astounding SF had that distinction all through the 1940's, moving SF away from juvenile space opera and introducing iconic authors like Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Sturgeon and others. But after 10 or so years on top, Campbell's rigid editorial policies started to seem quaint. He insisted that hard science drove the story and characterization need not be considered. Plus Campbell got caught up with L.Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and devoted many pages extolling that philosophy.
H.L.Gold right from the start in 1950 showcased that decades best authors including Ray Bradbury, Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Philip Dick and more. Gold looked for stories that showed how an SF idea affected society, good or bad. Sociology and psychology were part of the story. He allowed humor and satire as well. He kept the literary standards high. It wasn't too long that Galaxy was the #1 selling SF magazine. It's success enabled, as Dan mentioned, a sister magazine to be published titled IF
The Magazine of F & SF started in 1949. I consider that the 2nd best SF magazine of the 50's. Poor old Astounding-a lot of it's stable of authors left, not wanting to put up with Campbell's Scientology BS (which he later gave up himself). Astounding wound up changing it's name to Analog but never regained it's former standing
Galaxy bit the dust in 1980. If Magazine merged with Galaxy in 1974. Analog is still around. I think F & SF still exists but have not seen it for a few years. Isaac Asimov's magazine sells the most at 20,000 per issue
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 4, 2017 18:37:36 GMT -5
Asimov's magazine is still around?? I have some from the 90s I know, but I had no idea it was still around. I definitely got the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction a bit around then to in college... I remember buying some Michael Whalen dragons from an ad in it.
I bet those old mags from the 40s and 50s have some cool ads in them!
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Roquefort Raider
CCF Mod Squad
Modus omnibus in rebus
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 16, 2017 10:02:23 GMT -5
Edgar Rice Burroughs' The mad king is a "prisoner of Zenda"-type adventure following the classic Burroughs formula. Improbable coincidences abound, there's always a secret passage when you need one, and the villains are as vile and treacherous as the heroes are noble and brave. But it works! It's a real page turner!
I might try the outlaw of Torn next. Early Burroughs has a lot of energy, a lot of earnest enthusiasm.
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Post by berkley on May 16, 2017 12:29:25 GMT -5
I liked The Mad King a lot when I read it in an Ace paperback with a nice Boris Vallejo cover in the 70s. I now have an older copy with an even nicer, Frazetta, cover. Outlaw of Torn I don't think I've ever gotten around to reading, though I do have it around here somewhere.
I should be getting into some of the things that inspired these early ERB romances soon, not only The Prisoner of Zenda, but also some of Arthur Conan Doyle's historical fiction like The White Company. Looking forward to it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 16, 2017 12:54:55 GMT -5
I love both The Mad King and The Outlaw of Torn. Both would be up at the top of my favorite Burroughs books. Easily top ten and probably top five. As Ben said early Burroughs has a ton of energy and pure fun. And while he could fall into formula and it wasn't all golden (The Monster Men, The Eternal Savage) it wasn't nearly as formulaic as his later work.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 16, 2017 16:15:45 GMT -5
Red Venus by Garnett Elliot Nice little novelette by one of the better young multi-genre writers publishing today. This one is basically an old-fashioned space opera that finds The Soviet Union and the U.S. competing for power on a Venus that will support human life...if the indigenous flora and fauna doesn't kill them off. This one isn't an absolute win, like Dragon By the Bay was. But it's a nice quick read, assisted by the fact that the Soviets are the protagonists in this one...and the lead is a female cosmonaut.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 16, 2017 16:22:24 GMT -5
The Melting Clock by Stuart Kaminsky Hollywood's number one punching bag and private detective Toby Peters is hired by Salvador Dali to recover three painting and three Russian clocks. Of course people end up dead and Toby has to save his skin and his clients. Yeah, these are formula books. But Peters and his supporting cast are so likeable and Kaminsky knows his stuff so well that you just don't care.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 17, 2017 20:50:05 GMT -5
Swordsmen of the Sky edited by Donald A. Wollheim Nice Frazetta cover, too. The back cover of this one called out to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and it definitely delivers on giving one 'more' of that style.. not necessarily as good, though. Despite being published in the 60s, the stories are all much older... a couple of them probably are directly ERB riffs.. especially considering the authors. Swordsman of Lost Terra (Poul Anderson, 1951) - More Conan than ERB.. this could easily be a pastiche storyif one went through the trouble of changing the names and places, though there's nothing terribly remarkable about it to bother.. not his best work. People of the Crater (Andre Norton, 1947) - Notable because it's her first published work (originally under a male pen name), but nothing much to see.. the most interesting part is her vision of a 3rd World War from 1965-1970 that didn't go nuclear. An ex-fighter pilot goes on an Antarctic expedition and finds a crack in the Earth that leads to another civilization.. nothing of her later good world building, though. The Moon that Vanished (Leigh Brackett, 1948) - This one is definitely reminiscient of John Carter of Carson of Venus. The hero is alot less heroic to start, but he comes around. Pretty interesting version of the 'Be careful what you wish for' theme. A Vision of Venus (Otis Adelbert Kline, 1933) -- Quickie about a botanist on Venus that gets to save the princess.. the kicker is that a scientist on Earth is linked mentally with the Venusian and gets to see what he's doing. Kaldar, World of Antares (Edmond Hamilton (1933) -- A very direct copy of John Carter.. Merrick gets beamed to Antares, where he accidently becomes king of one race and helps them to fight the other. Higher tech than the Martians, but otherwise very similar. Pretty good for one though, and hey, they have light sabers, so that's always fun. Worth the quick read, but nothing too remarkable.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2017 18:31:58 GMT -5
I finished Stephen King and Richard Chizmar's Gwendy's Button Box. It was enjoyable, but maybe just a tad bit too short. A few more chapters might have actually made it a better book. I did love seeing some familiar names and places.
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