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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2020 23:28:18 GMT -5
Finished up one of the Lee Falk Phantom prose novels this morning, The Slave Market of Mucar... All of the books form this series that I have read have been fun little adventures. Nothing spectacular, but fun reds and enjoyable Phantom adventures. If you are a fan of the Phantom, you should like these, and if you are unfamiliar with the character, each novel, including this one, has enough of the basics to give a reader a sense of who and what the Phantom is and serve as a good intro to the character. -M
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Post by berkley on Mar 1, 2020 23:44:32 GMT -5
Snuff Fiction by Robert RankinIt's been a while since I've read any Rankin. I went on a tear reading his stuff some time back and then drifted in to other things. I decided to take up where I'd left off and...maybe it wasn't the best place. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with the book. It's just not up with the best of Rankin's work. The book is premised on the lead-up to the turn of the millennium and the Millennium Bug. To that end we follow the life of Edwin, the biographer of The Doveston, who goes from being an urchin in post-war Brentford to being one of the movers and the shakers in the world as the millennium wans. Story is never Rankin's strongest suit, but it takes more of a back-seat here as we really get a series of events leading to the ending. Unfortunately what Rankin is best at, running gags, run characters, general wackiness, just never quite pans out here. It was nice to see the cameo's by Pooley and O'Malley and Archroy. And it was nice to see Norman Hartnell get some serious time. But that wasn't enough to make this more than middling Rankin. Probably worth it if you're a fan. But passable and very definitely not the place to start.
By the time I get around to starting on Rankin you'l probably have read them all, so I'll be able to scan through your reviews to see which ones to skip. Of course, if I end up really liking the first one a lot I'll likely take a chance even the lesser books eventually.
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Post by berkley on Mar 1, 2020 23:47:47 GMT -5
Finished up one of the Lee Falk Phantom prose novels this morning, The Slave Market of Mucar... All of the books form this series that I have read have been fun little adventures. Nothing spectacular, but fun reds and enjoyable Phantom adventures. If you are a fan of the Phantom, you should like these, and if you are unfamiliar with the character, each novel, including this one, has enough of the basics to give a reader a sense of who and what the Phantom is and serve as a good intro to the character. -M Any idea who the cover artist was? Looks pretty good, from this online image.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2020 23:57:41 GMT -5
Finished up one of the Lee Falk Phantom prose novels this morning, The Slave Market of Mucar... All of the books form this series that I have read have been fun little adventures. Nothing spectacular, but fun reds and enjoyable Phantom adventures. If you are a fan of the Phantom, you should like these, and if you are unfamiliar with the character, each novel, including this one, has enough of the basics to give a reader a sense of who and what the Phantom is and serve as a good intro to the character. -M Any idea who the cover artist was? Looks pretty good, from this online image. According to wikipedia (and I will let you determine how much to trust their info's reliability), the cover artist on the Avon Phantom novels was George Wilson, who had worked on Us Phantom comic books previously. Some of the series were done by ghostwriters, not Falk, and this one wiki attributes to Basil Copper. -M
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Post by berkley on Mar 2, 2020 0:06:03 GMT -5
Any idea who the cover artist was? Looks pretty good, from this online image. According to wikipedia (and I will let you determine how much to trust their info's reliability), the cover artist on the Avon Phantom novels was George Wilson, who had worked on Us Phantom comic books previously. Some of the series were done by ghostwriters, not Falk, and this one wiki attributes to Basil Copper. -M I haven't read anything of his yet but Basil Copper has an interesting resumé - a lot of genre stuff, Lovecraftian horror, Solar Pons books, and what's been described as a Chandler-pastiche detective series. Another guy I want to check out one of these days.
Concidentally, it seems that Wilson painted at least one Perry Rhodan cover, as far as I can tell after a brief image search.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 2, 2020 9:26:01 GMT -5
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson This was a really hard book to rate... I liked it, but it could have been so much better. The concept is fantastic hard sci-fi, which uses that unique situation to give us a few excellent looks at the psychological reprocussions of events, but there was just too much focus on the relationship between the main characters for my liking. There was nothing new or exciting about those relationship, and quite frankly at times it seemed a waste, especially a few particular items. I feel like more time spent on the world at large, and less on the Lawton family, or even better, more about Mars, would have been most welcome. Then there's a storytelling... for reasons unknown, the author decided to spoil his own story with a non-linear set up.. switching back from the 'present' (where the Spin had been essentially resolved) and the lead up to it. I'm not big on caring about that sort of thing, but in this case it was really vexing. Not sure yet if I'll read the rest of the series... it seemed a pretty decent ending to me. I'm not sure I need to know more... I suppose it'd be nice to know what the motivation of the 'Hypotheticals' are, but I'm not sure I believe that'll be revealed, or that I"ll like the answer. We'll see. I am surprised! Spin is one of my all-time favourite SF novels! I didn't mind the soap-opera part, even if it did pale compared to the fantastic concepts developed in the book (enough for three novels, as far as I'm concerned). I suppose that Wilson wanted to have a human interest to complement the hard SF aspects (something that I found lacking in another brilliant high-concept novel, Neal Stephenson's Seveneves). The rest of the Spin series I found merely O.K., unfortunately, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone but a completist. The motivation (such as it is) of the Hypotheticals turns out to be sensible, but also a bit disappointing; as for the rest, no new and imagination-stretching concepts are introduced. It felt a bit like reading 2061: Odyssey three.On a different note, I can't wait to see your reviews of Perry Rhodan!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 2, 2020 23:22:01 GMT -5
Coming soon to this thread..... After the discussion in the other thread, I found a good ebay auction (26 books in the series, including the 1st 18) I'm excited! What other thread?
I've picked up 3 or 4 Perry Rhodan books over the last few years but haven't read any of them yet. I know RR here is a big fan.
Also have a copy of spin, but Robert Charles Wilson is one of many current SF writers I haven't tried yet. a lot of his books sound like they have interesting premises, though, so I'm looking forward to it.
It was one of the big, eternal ones... either 'ask a question about classic comics', or 'there I said it'.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 2, 2020 23:26:56 GMT -5
Spin by Robert Charles Wilson This was a really hard book to rate... I liked it, but it could have been so much better. The concept is fantastic hard sci-fi, which uses that unique situation to give us a few excellent looks at the psychological reprocussions of events, but there was just too much focus on the relationship between the main characters for my liking. There was nothing new or exciting about those relationship, and quite frankly at times it seemed a waste, especially a few particular items. I feel like more time spent on the world at large, and less on the Lawton family, or even better, more about Mars, would have been most welcome. Then there's a storytelling... for reasons unknown, the author decided to spoil his own story with a non-linear set up.. switching back from the 'present' (where the Spin had been essentially resolved) and the lead up to it. I'm not big on caring about that sort of thing, but in this case it was really vexing. Not sure yet if I'll read the rest of the series... it seemed a pretty decent ending to me. I'm not sure I need to know more... I suppose it'd be nice to know what the motivation of the 'Hypotheticals' are, but I'm not sure I believe that'll be revealed, or that I"ll like the answer. We'll see. I am surprised! Spin is one of my all-time favourite SF novels! I didn't mind the soap-opera part, even if it did pale compared to the fantastic concepts developed in the book (enough for three novels, as far as I'm concerned). I suppose that Wilson wanted to have a human interest to complement the hard SF aspects (something that I found lacking in another brilliant high-concept novel, Neal Stephenson's Seveneves). The rest of the Spin series I found merely O.K., unfortunately, and wouldn't recommend it to anyone but a completist. The motivation (such as it is) of the Hypotheticals turns out to be sensible, but also a bit disappointing; as for the rest, no new and imagination-stretching concepts are introduced. It felt a bit like reading 2061: Odyssey three.On a different note, I can't wait to see your reviews of Perry Rhodan! This is definitely a thing I find in myself as I get older... I definitely mark off for missed potential. I really wanted to know more about the Martians, and the ice probes, and what happened to them... never mind the drugs that 'reprogrammed' Jase.. that's crazy cool stuff!! And it all got mentioned in passing, while we got instead like 40 pages of driving cross country so Diane could get saved, when we already KNEW she was fine because of the 'current' chapters. It was very unique and gave me lots to chew on, I just which the author went into more of that stuff! I did read the summaries of the other two books... they seem more standard 'humans colonize the galaxy' stuff then any cool hard sci fi, but maybe I'll give'em a shot at some point. Definitely some Perry Rhodan first... hopefully the box will arrive next week!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 3, 2020 13:00:47 GMT -5
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill BrysonBryson's first travel book takes a look at his auto tour of the U.S. in 1987-88 following a decade of living in the U.K. Starting in his childhood home in Des Moines Bryson traveled through every major region of the the U.S. (the Pacific Northwest did get short shrift) focusing on small towns and tending to avoid big cities and obvious tourist areas. Bryson's stated purpose was to find the ideal American town...he failed. That failure, and I have no doubt Bryson knew this, happened because that town never existed outside of Hollywood productions, the fevered dreams of ad-men and the cover of the Saturday Evening Post. Thirty plus years on there are certainly things here that seem dated. Part of that is simply that the 80s sucked. Bryson spent a lot of time talking about food...or the difficulty of getting decent food. While I live in more than a bit of a food desert things are generally better now than they were then. There are plenty of small towns where you can find a decent restaurant or a brew-pub. The 80s, unfortunately, saw the push to generic, God-forsaken "casual dining" chains like Applebees, TGI Fridays and others of their ilk. It's my understanding that Bryson's style of travel writing has changed a bit since this book. I guess we'll see how that goes. I hope it's not a change for the worse, because overall I thought this was a highly entertaining and funny book. But then again, I no longer have to drive for miles and miles at the mercy of the local radio stations. Talk about uncivilized. I can't imagine how we survived.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 3, 2020 16:30:05 GMT -5
I read Lost Continent in the mid-1990s, so a few years after its publication, when it was not so dated, and I generally disliked it. My general impression is that he was driving around just tying to find things to complain about - yes, especially about food. I found his observations less witty than just kind of grating.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 3, 2020 16:34:33 GMT -5
I read Lost Continent in the mid-1990s, so a few years after its publication, when it was not so dated, and I generally disliked it. My general impression is that he was driving around just tying to find things to complain about - yes, especially about food. I found his observations less witty than just kind of grating. Food in the 80s was terrible. There was a lot to complain about. So was beer.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 5, 2020 22:05:20 GMT -5
Cetaganda Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Saga)
This series continues to impress me... why have I not read it before now. Cetaganda sends Miles and Ivan into action as 'diplomats', and Miles does his best James Bond impression... it's a combo of a mystery and a spy thriller, but the heart of the book is the exploration of Cetagandan society. They are one of the most unique 'bad guy' cultures I've ready about, with a lot of interesting layers.
In alot of cases, when the bad guys are interesting, it makes you want to root for them, but that's not the case hear... even while Miles is helping them, there's never that moment where you go 'have we been following the wrong side?'
No huge coincidences in this one.. just one small one that started the action.. and even that could be described at some point later. If I was going to complain, the main issue I had is Miles had it a bit too easy. Someone really should have notice him going James Bond without permission and at least tried to stop him, instead he just sorta talked his way into (or out of) every problem with ease.
Interestingly, while making a plot point of his physical handicap with the genetic=mad Cetgandians, at no point was there any sort of physical challenge that Miles had to overcome, which made sense for this particular story, but seems like it could get a little old over time.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 10, 2020 7:35:29 GMT -5
Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark
I wouldn't have thought that a book that's essentially a day in the life story about a cabbie in 80s Chicago would keep my interest, but it did.(it appears the author was actually a Chicago cabbie, so he was speaking from experience). Eddie Miles is a pretty engaging character, and it was nice to see that the author didn't try to make him into a private eye or anything, he was just a person that was trying to do the right thing.
I wonder if it was more a factor I wanted to finish it today so I could read Perry Rhodan, which I'm absurdly excited about.
I probably didn't need to know what each fare was as the book went along (made me want to start a spreadsheet), but maybe that was part of the ambience of the thing. It definitely fits with the 'Hard Case Crime' family, that's for sure. While I think the subject matter here isn't going to hold everyone's attention, it definitely made me want to check out other books by this author.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2020 23:40:59 GMT -5
so, one of our local (used) bookstores is transitioning away from used books to focus on occult/new age books, bookbinding and antique/rare/collectible books and is liquidating their stock of other books for $1 each. I made the trip out there this afternoon before work (it's just over the line in the next township on the same road my workplace is) to see what I could find, and came back with a box of 30 books and 3 vintage sci-fi mags for $33 plus sales tax. Mostly got stuff from the sci-fi and mystery rooms, including some Spenser books by Robert Parker, some Max Alan Collins stuff, a couple of Hard Case crime novels. a little Asimov, Bradbury, 3 of the Kim Newman Anno Dracula books, a handful of the Tom Sniegoski Remy Chandler books, a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs volumes I didn't have, a couple of sci-fi anthologies, a Fritz Lieber sci-fi novel I didn't have among others. The sci fi mags were the July 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, the November 1951 issue of Imagination Science Fiction and Fantasy, and the Dec 1970 issue of Fantastic Stories that sports a Michael Kaluta cover. I also found the novelization of the film Outlander and a Man From U.N.C.L.E. novelization/adaptation, and a copy of Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese OGN. It's not like I didn't already have an extensive to read pile already, but at a buck a book I couldn't pass up the opportunity to add to it. The Newman Anno Dracula books could move up near the top of the to read pile though, as they are stuff I have long been curious about but never explored before.
-M
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 12, 2020 7:56:54 GMT -5
Sad to have a store near you going out of business, but nothing like a good sale! Mags that old for a buck is fantastic! Enterprise Stardust (Perry Rhodan #1) by K.H Scheer Anyway, thanks to the magic of Ebay, I now have a bunch to read! I was surprised at the cover... the book trumpets how amazing Perry Rhodan ism and all he gets is a TINY head shot in the background? Sure, he's front and center on book #2, but still. I think the original cover makes more sense. I was expecting an Buck Rodgers-like episodic story with ray guns and silly technology, but in fact 'Enterprise Stardust' is this world's version of the first moon landing... apparently somehow we're going to go from there to alien empires in one guy's life? Seems crazy, but so far, they are actually documenting that journey, which I'm pretty excited to read about. A couple things of note, with this being a German writer... one thing that stuck out to me is the superlatives.. in most (American) sci-fi I read, the author points out how great new things are (like the rocket, the space suit, etc) but talking about how expensive it was, her it talks about how many experts were used to make it, and how superior it is. In fact, there isn't a single mention of money in the book (a bit of barter, but no cash). I also found it interesting that Germany is never mentioned... one of the minor support characters is German, but otherwise the main characters are all American... was that swapped for the translation? (seems unlikely, as it would effect the whole story alot) There are actually 2 Novella in the book. The first 'Enterprise Stardust', tells of the moonlanding, and the discovery of the blue guys on the cover (though they're not described as blue in the text). Perry and his crew come home with crazy new tech, and he decides to use to to attempt to create world peace. The 2nd novella 'The third Power', documents that attempt. I definitely wasn't expecting cold war politics in this one, but it's done really well, and has some really great socio-political points and commentary from Perry... we could have really used this guy in realy life. Granted, the alien tech is a bit ridiculously powerful (totally world breaking, actually), but part of the charm is that the main characters are just regular guys, and they use it poorly... their defenses are half practical jokes in alot of cases, it add a fallibility to the characters that really helps the story seem realistic (even i the face of the crazy tech). It's nice when an author doesn't take himself too seriously... at different points the characters refer to the tech in the book as impossible, one saying 'this isn't Superman in the funnies', and another actually saying 'what do you think this is, a scifi novel'... that had me laughing out loud... it fit in rather than being too fourth wall breaking, Excellent stuff overall, I'm excited to read more.
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