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Post by wildfire2099 on May 2, 2014 22:07:22 GMT -5
A Fall of Moondust by Arthur Clarke (orginally 1962, read from the 1982 Pan(UK) paperback Terrible cover (just a generic space ship on a star field), which was sad)  Plot: Captain Pat Harris has an easy job, driving the tourist liner Selene over a sea of dust on the moon. When a one in a millenium event causes the boat to sink, it's a race against time to save him and the 22 passengers on board. The story has 3 separate lines, one the people on Selene , one the engineers trying to save them, and a third a reporter trying to anticipate the story. It's a little less 'hard' science than most Clarke stuff, but the portrayal of a group in a small place is very interesting, as was the main engineer character. The reporter bits were kinda a waste, IMO, but overall it's a fun story. Setting: Near future... around the 2040s (it's not specified exactly). As is generally the case, we've not done as well as this story anticipates, with colonies on the Moon and Mars at least. Oops: I don't think the currency, Sterling Dollars, will be happening any time soon. Kinda funny to have people signing insurance forms and the like, too. Not much along the line of computers. Very odd that several of the character new Morse Code well enough to use. Prophetic bits: The popular novel was a romance staring Issac Newton written by a 17 year old.. .seems like that could definitely happen. They also talked about a western revival, which totally happened a few years ago. Science: No idea if there is really a sea of dust on the moon, but, as is often the case, it sounded plausible 
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 2, 2014 22:13:58 GMT -5
Dr. Who: Revenge of the Judoon by Terrance Dicks
This is a 'BBC Books quick read', which is a neat concept... not-quite book length novels that I can imagine are sold at train stations and the like for the price of a magazine... I got this one as part of one of those box sets (from Hamilton Books, in fact) from the UK. It's (slightly) notable as the author was one of the more prolific of the Who authors back in the day.. this one is the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) with Martha Jones.
Cover: Not too exciting, and typical of the series... top half is a shot of the Doctor and Martha (as they appear on TV) in front of a generci start field.. bottom half features a Judoon (The bad guy of the story) in the desert (which does, in fact relate to the story).
Plot: A group called ironically called the Cosmic Peacemakers trick the Judoon(for those that don't know, the Judoon are mercenaries that have a very Klingon-like honor code. They had quite a few appearances during the Tennant era. Oh, and they look like humanoid Rhinos) into helping them take over turn of the century England... luckily the Doctor had popped in to show Martha the Scottish highlands, so he's on hand to save the day!
Anaylsis: You don't get too deep for 104 diaglogue heavy pages of 14 point font... pretty simple story. Dicks at least gets his history right... the good guys talk to Arthur Conan Doyle, Edward is king, there's a War of the Worlds Reference, etc. Perfectly good for what it is... a good 45 minute read to grab at the newsstand if you left your book at home. Certainly not winning any awards though.
Nerdy Nitpick: The setting is 1898-1899 (Doyle says the Stand is bugging him to bring Holmes back, and War of the Worlds is referred to as a current work), yet the local POV character (a retainer in Edward's castle) knows about the Wright Brothers? That's definnitely a bit off... maybe if the guy lived in the American South, but not someone in the Royal British court. It is close though, so I'll live with it.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on May 2, 2014 22:23:08 GMT -5
I seem to have been reading more book recently than comics, in the last year and a half or so. So I am going to share some recent reads I have done, and some I want to read still. Feel free to share, as I know we have a lot of readers of all kinds here.
Recent reads ..
The Restless Hands by Bruno Fischer ... I really enjoyed reading this book, and want to find more by him. The local library has none of his books, so it's going to be left to me find some in used book stores and sales. Which is funny since, I bought this and most of the books I will list at a library book sale. I really got into his characters and he had me guessing damn near to the end who the killer was. I would really like to get any of these in the Dell paperbacks, like this one was. I love the pulp fiction books especially with the artwork of those paper backs.
The Hills Beyond by Thomas Wolfe ... I never finished it. I duuno if I could ever read his books if they are all like this one. It's too slow or almost too detailed, or the subject just isn't what I thought it might be, but either way, I don't think I'll ever finish it.
While She Sleeps! by Ethel Lina White ... This book had a really slow start that kinda lost me for a while. I know I set it down for a couple of weeks, and then I started reading it again, I trugged through more and about 2/3 of the way through it started to pick up and really get some steam. I enjoyed the rest of the book. Now having read it, I could read it again, seeing that while slow, the details at the start of the book and work on fleshing out the character helps the ending have extra punch.
Nights of Love and Laughter by Henry Miller ... I enjoyed this book immensely! This was my first Miller book (though I own one part of the Rosy Crucifixion, Nexus) and started me with reading Tropic of Cancer and the intention to read Tropic of Capricorn as they are available at the library until I can get copies of the other two books to go along with Nexus. I still enjoyed this one more that Cancer. I think Miller's short stories are great. They have all the flair of a novel but not the length. Cancer, got me at times too where I seemed bored with it, but it picked up in other spots, and at the end I was satisfied with Cancer, just not the level of enjoyment I got from this book. It may have had to do some with being suggested Miller when stating my love for Bukowski's writing. They are similar in some ways but very opposite to me. Course there is no one like Bukowski when it comes to writing as far as I am concerned. Anyone read any of the Rosy Crucifixion to know if they absolutely need to be read in succession?
The Raid by John Buck ... A fictional story set in historical times about a man whose wife is kidnapped by Indians and Tories in 1779. Most of the historical references were lost to me until I did research. But the fictional part was very entertaining and engaging. Great book.
The Prisoner of Sex by Norman Mailer ... While I am not ashamed to admit that a lot of the contents of this book were beyond my comprehension and beyond anything I was alive to witness, I really enjoyed his books views. While they may be long past and maybe even scorned by now in our day in age, it was a great look at times past and the relationship between genders. I wouldn't mind reading more his work.
Reading I plan
Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller
Rosy Crucifixion by Henry Miller
More of Bruno Fischer
Beethoven: His Spiritual Development by JWN Sullivan (which I own just havent read yet)
Two books I've dipped into a little, but the writing is fictional and not necessary to read at once, I guess
Centuries of Meditations by Thomas Traherne (1927 reprint edition)
A History of Philosophy ny B.A.G Fuller (1950 reprint edition)
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 2, 2014 22:31:45 GMT -5
The Ganymede Takeover by Philip K. Dick and Ray Nelson (1967) My copy is the 1988 UK hardcover version. Cover Art: A black fighter craft flying over some farmland.. kinda a cool ship, but not breathtaking or anything. Only very vaguely connected to the story... they did mention some scout planes and bombers and such. Plot: The Worm-like hive society of Ganymede has taken over the Earth, the last pocket of resistant is the 'Negro Partisans' of Tennessee under the leader of Percy X. Meanwhile, Percy's college girlfriend gets mixed up in the sensory deprivation experiments of Dr, Balkani. A plantation boss named Gus accidently finds a lost UN cache of super weapons and loses them to Percy, but these weapons are so terrible they cause the users to become paranoid schizophrenics. The new Gany ruler in charge of Tennessee becomes a fan of Dr. Balkani, and becomes obsessed with it's secrets, leading him to leave the hive mind and help Earth break free. What I thought: After starting the book, I'm pretty sure I've read it before, long ago (or at least tried to). This is defniitely an acid trip on paper... it's really weird. There's alot of stuff about letting go of life to live it and things of that nature. It could be I just didn't get it totally, but that wasn't the sense I got, really it's just a product of the last 60s  There were a couple of weird interludes too... one that gave us a couple page history of jazz music, and one that spent a good 5 pages on early 20th century war plane models (Which one of the aliens collected). Setting: The story takes place around 2040 or so.. so 75 or so years in the future at the time of writing. Earth had been conquered some time ago, as the Ganymedeans were sending a civilian governor to replace the military one. There's no mention of other aliens, space travel, or anything of that nature. Tech: Not much past the 60s, really. They have Vidphones (including cellphone-like pocket ones), but not computers to speak of. Lots of basic services seem to be run by low level AI (the hotel rooms and taxis, for instance), but it's really more Jetson-like than anything. There's still Microfilm for archiving documents, and Dr. Balkani writes his findings using a typewriter. There were a few things, though... the 'hell weapon' that the book was focused on was a psychic device of some sort that put the entire world into sensory deprivation.. the lesser weapons were basically green lantern rings.. they made thoughts become real. Unfortunately, the illusions made didn't go away right away, which made the users kinda crazy. The good guys seemed to have whatever they needed to fix things.. including X-Men style Image Inducers, and Robot Doubles. Odds and ends: They mention that Unisex clothes replaced gender specific fashions 'in the 90s' which was pretty funny. Though, after thinking about it, that's not an unreasonable extension of the feminist movement. It cracked me up that the people do the research on the mind weapons were the "World Psychadelic Council".. very appropriate. He was right on with marajuana cigarettes and meth pills, though. Not so on with the UN as the ruling body of the Earth (though LOTS of 60s and 70s Sci-Fi went with that) It was also really funny that the aliens made their own money, and took the time to research and put cultural icons on the money (which the characters in world hated)...a fun little detail
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Post by Cei-U! on May 2, 2014 23:35:35 GMT -5
I don't have a lot of time for recreational reading because of my current writing assignment but I am slowly making my way through The Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club by Kim Newman, a gift from our pal Pol Rua while he was visiting last month. The title club is, of course, the government-within-a-government created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (himself a character in this volume) and originally headed by Sigerson Holmes, brother of Sherlock. Newman's stories are a rich blend of The X-Files, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Wold Newton cycle but with (mostly) original characters and with a puckish, ever-so-slightly subversive sense of humor. Fun, fun, fun (and the occasional scare)! It doesn't hurt either that Newton is a superlative wordsmith. My favorite story so far features Lon Chaney Jr., the Manson Family and the monstrous Sea People from H. P. Lovecaft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Pol warned me I'd want to read more once I got started and he was absolutely right.
Cei-U!
I summon the pulpy goodmess!
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Post by Hoosier X on May 2, 2014 23:38:28 GMT -5
I've been reading about North Korea lately. I just finished a book titled The Two Koreas and now I've moved on to North Korea: Another Country by Bruce Cumings. Very interesting.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 3, 2014 0:58:50 GMT -5
I don't have a lot of time for recreational reading because of my current writing assignment but I am slowly making my way through The Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club by Kim Newman, a gift from our pal Pol Rua while he was visiting last month. The title club is, of course, the government-within-a-government created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (himself a character in this volume) and originally headed by Sigerson Holmes, brother of Sherlock. Newman's stories are a rich blend of The X-Files, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Wold Newton cycle but with (mostly) original characters and with a puckish, ever-so-slightly subversive sense of humor. Fun, fun, fun (and the occasional scare)! It doesn't hurt either that Newton is a superlative wordsmith. My favorite story so far features Lon Chaney Jr., the Manson Family and the monstrous Sea People from H. P. Lovecaft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Pol warned me I'd want to read more once I got started and he was absolutely right. Cei-U! I summon the pulpy goodmess! Love Kim Newman and the Diogenes Club in particular. Since you're reading that, I'll push Mysteries of the Diogenes Club up in my reading cycle and send it to you when I'm done. |
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Post by Nowhere Man on May 3, 2014 4:25:53 GMT -5
The last book I finished was The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective and I'm now reading The Stories of Ray Bradbury (Everyman's Library edition). I've read and own almost all of the Dell Rey Robert E. Howard library (I think the only ones I've yet to purchase are the horror stories collection and desert adventures collection). My only gripe with this series is that they repeat a few too many stories scattered between volumes. That being said, REH is my favorite short-story genre writer.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 3, 2014 6:30:25 GMT -5
I'm currently on a Elmore Leonard binch again. Just finished Rum Punch (and have Jackie Brown's DVD in my DVD player, but haven't watched it yet), now on Mr. Majestyk.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 3, 2014 7:38:46 GMT -5
Ok so I got throught the first 6 pages or so of the old thread last night. I should be able to finish over the weekend. Any comments or suggestions on the index/ recommendations posts?
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Post by Cei-U! on May 3, 2014 8:00:30 GMT -5
I don't have a lot of time for recreational reading because of my current writing assignment but I am slowly making my way through The Secret Files Of The Diogenes Club by Kim Newman, a gift from our pal Pol Rua while he was visiting last month. The title club is, of course, the government-within-a-government created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (himself a character in this volume) and originally headed by Sigerson Holmes, brother of Sherlock. Newman's stories are a rich blend of The X-Files, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the Wold Newton cycle but with (mostly) original characters and with a puckish, ever-so-slightly subversive sense of humor. Fun, fun, fun (and the occasional scare)! It doesn't hurt either that Newton is a superlative wordsmith. My favorite story so far features Lon Chaney Jr., the Manson Family and the monstrous Sea People from H. P. Lovecaft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." Pol warned me I'd want to read more once I got started and he was absolutely right. Cei-U! I summon the pulpy goodmess! Love Kim Newman and the Diogenes Club in particular. Since you're reading that, I'll push Mysteries of the Diogenes Club up in my reading cycle and send it to you when I'm done. I appreciate your kind offer, sir, but Pol gave me that one, too. It's on my nightstand awaiting its turn. Cei-U! I summon my summer reading list! |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,860
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Post by shaxper on May 3, 2014 8:20:53 GMT -5
As per the request of the key posters involved in each thread, I've consolidated the three threads discussing books folks have read into this one thread here.
Are we okay merging ALL book discussion here, or is it important to maintain the Sci-Fi flavor?
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Post by Jesse on May 3, 2014 8:39:10 GMT -5
 I'd like to recommend a few short stories from a collection I borrowed called The Fantastic Imagination 2. Admittedly I'm not a big fan of high fantasy and I'd rather read about spaceship & robots than swords & sorcery. That being said I still highly recommend a few of these shorts like George Mac Donald's The Golden Key and The Kith of the Elf-folk by Lord Dunsany. My favorite story of the bunch is from one of my favorite authors Ursula K. Le Guin called April in Paris. Its about magic and time travel, where people from different time periods meet in the same place and find common ground despite at first having trouble communicating with each other. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 3, 2014 11:49:02 GMT -5
As per the request of the key posters involved in each thread, I've consolidated the three threads discussing books folks have read into this one thread here. Are we okay merging ALL book discussion here, or is it important to maintain the Sci-Fi flavor? Fine with me. If it doesn't work, we can always separate them again. I'm sure it'll be fine |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on May 3, 2014 12:23:18 GMT -5
As per the request of the key posters involved in each thread, I've consolidated the three threads discussing books folks have read into this one thread here. Are we okay merging ALL book discussion here, or is it important to maintain the Sci-Fi flavor? I think it's the right way to go. Book discussion is sporadic enough that I don't think things will get lost. And personally I prefer less threads to dig through. |
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