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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 12, 2020 10:34:29 GMT -5
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz LeiberThis is the first volume in Leiber's adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Kinda. Sorta. But not really. Okay...for those of us who started reading their adventures in the 70s or later then this was the first volume and likely the first one we read at that time (it was for me). Leiber started writing the duo's adventures way back in the August 1939 issue of Unknown with the short story "Two Sought Adventure." Normally I try to read series in the order the author wrote them. So if I'm reading Hornblower or Sharpe I'm reading them as they were published not based on their internal chronology. The reason is two-fold. First I want to see the growth of the author. And that is the way that people in the past read them. Here I'm breaking that rule. Partly because, as predominantly short fiction, these stories are much harder to piece together in publishing chronology (though the internet makes it infinitely easier than it used to be). And partly because this is the way I read them way back when in junior high and high school. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are, at this point, probably Leiber's best known work. They are cornerstone sword & sorcery and their influence on Dungeons & Dragons cannot be overstated. Swords and Deviltry collects three of the later stories that bring the duo together...because nerds love an origin story. "The Snow Women," first appeared in the April 1970 issue of Fantastic. The story focuses on Fafhrd and the story behind his leaving the barbarian Northlands and heading to Lanhkmar. For all that fantasy of the time was pretty misogynistic and F&GM get lumped in the mix, the women of Fafhrd's tribe kept a tight rein on things and were generally pretty foreboding, if shrewish. It's a fun tale and the ending feels like it could have been pulled off by a clever D&D player trying to keep the DM on their toes. That said it probably read better if one was familiar with the character and taking a look back at their origins than as the opener. Leiber withdrew this one from consideration for the Hugo, almost certainly to avoid it directly competing with "Ill Met in Lanhkmar." The story also came in second in the Locus poll for short fiction. The second story, "The Unholy Grail," first appeared in the October 1962 issue of Fantastic Stories of Imagination. This one did for The Gray Mouser, what the previous story did for Fafhrd. We get a look at a young Mouse, a wizard's apprentice, who must avenge the death of his mentor and try to find his way in the world and balance between white and dark magic. Leiber was a well-known horror writer and this one borrows heavily from that eldritch tradition (as does Ill Met). The story was a Hugo finalist in 1963 for short fiction. "Ill Met in Lanhkmar" brings the duo together and shows us their first adventure as a team. The duo, ill-advisedly, take on the Thieves Guild in Lanhkmar, and the outcome is predictably dire. Saying a lot more would delve to far in to spoiler territory. But while one could certainly criticize the outcome in retrospect, you have to at least credit Leiber with a pretty harsh story for his best known protagonists. The story won both the Hugo and the Nebula for Best Novella. These stories represent Leiber as a fully formed writer. He had been publishing for thirty years and was equally adept at fantasy, horror and SF. I would venture that Leiber was most comfortably a horror writer (for all that he is probably now best known for his fantasy) and that bleeds through in to these stories. He was an admirer of Lovecraft and those influences still bleed through into his prose and his storylines, the latter to the good...the former, not so much. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser hold an interesting position in fantasy. Leiber isn't making any attempt to do the sort of high fantasy of Tolkein and the world-building in Nehwon is fly by the seat of your pants short story telling. They're frequently compared to Conan and other works of Robert E. Howard. And there's some fairness there. But Leiber sold to a better market than Howard (Weird Tales was one step above the shudders) and was a more worldly writer, even at the very start of his career. What they really represent is the translation of pure adventure to the pulps with the trappings of fantasy. And as such they were incredibly influential.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 14, 2020 20:42:59 GMT -5
I need to get those one of these days... I have a couple of a comic for it, but that's it. Radiant Dome (Perry Rhodan #2)by K.H Sheer This 2nd collection didn't quite move as smoothly as the 1st one... as is the nature of a periodic series like this, there is a more recapping than was needed. There were a couple points that jumped out at me that were a bit inconsistent For instance, The 2nd story is called the 'Third Power', after the West and the Asiatic Alliance, but now Russia and the East are being shown as an equal power.. meaning Perry is really the Fourth Power. Krest seems to have gone from just an alien with a bit more affinity to humans than most to the Archonides supergenius. I do love how the other aliens couldn't both to get away from their electronic devices to bother to save themselves. Quite the good warning for us. It's definitely still moving along nicely, though. I do wonder where Perry and his friends are getting food and water from, but that sort of thing just has to be let go sometimes in favor of keeping the story focused. The pace was a bit slow too.. the Radiant Dome gives us the world powers continuing to attempt to get at Perry and co. under the dome while they attack the alien ship on the moon. Then, in the 2nd story 'Twilight of the Gods', we get yet another attempt to get at Perry, while he goes abroad to get some volunteers and materials to help the Archonides start building the industry to create a new ship capable of getting them home. Like any good serial, the seeds of the next story are planted while this one continues, and we see a group of mutants, many of whom seem ready to side with Perry. One wonders if Stan Lee new about this series (though the timing isn't right for it to be anything but simply parallel development), as we get a telepath, a telekinetic, and a teleporter.. caused (naturally) by radiation.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 16, 2020 22:11:51 GMT -5
Race to the Bottom by Chris RhatiganAs co-publisher of All Due Respect Books, Rhatigan has been on the cutting edge of the internet driven part of the neo-noir world. I had not, to this point, read any of his writing but I'm glad that I finally did. I would call this an example of "slacker noir." Roy lives a very marginal life, working as a drone at a big box store, couch-surfing and drinking most of his little paycheck. In the best tradition of the likes of David Goodis, Roy gets himself involved in things he shouldn't and isn't smart enough to get himself out of it. This is a novella length work so much more description starts to get deep into spoiler territory. This is a great little read and it hearkens back to the days of paperback noir originals with an up-to-date feel. And I have a soft spot for anyone who describes Wal-Mart as being "filled with mouth-breathing jizz stains who loved Duck Dynasty." Give it a try. You'll probably be happy you did.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 17, 2020 17:13:13 GMT -5
Perry Rhodan #3 - Galactic Alarm by Kurt Mahr Often when I read stuff, I feel like the details that get taken for granted and things I want to read about... this book was a bit of a 'be careful what you wish for'. The first story 'Galactic Alarm' seems like someone said 'hey, where are the aliens'.. Perry and Reggie get another round of 'hypnotraining', which Thora doesn't approve of, so now they know everything the Arkonides know. Thora sets off an alarm that goes through 'Hyperspace' while Perry and company try to salvage some stuff from the bombed out wreck of the Arkonides ship. Never mind that they told us it was totally destroyed last time. Thora decides to continue to be a spoil sport and sets off a distress call, so aliens are going to come running. Apparently, instead of talking to said aliens, it's decided they just have to be obliterated, which happens with a minimum of fuss. Not surprisingly, the world powers are happy about this, so they all declare Perry Rhodan a hero and accept 'the Third Power' as a legitimate country (of 4 people and two aliens). Apparently, besides liking mutants, German writers also subscribe to the Marvel method of 'scientist' means you're good at everything... Dr Haggard (who is a doctor specializing in Leukemia) can also run an alien sensor suite (why he, who they practically kidnapped, and not the guy that was actually on the Stardust's crew was doing this is hard to say). The mutants we saw last time are also now on Perry side's, without alot of explanation as to why. In the 2nd story 'Mutant Corps', we get the story of the guy that The 3rd Power hires to make them money, a recently released stock market criminal that crashes the market on purpose to make billions so they can buy the Gobi desert area from the Asiatic alliance. We then go back to some of the mutants from 2 stories ago, and how they get recruited. There's also another alien that Allan Merchant finds (the world spymaster who has been secretly on Perry's side), they fight him by using Nightcra-- I mean, Tako (the teleporter) to pop into the ship with TNT and popping out. After causing all the trouble, Thora starts heading towards the obvious, and being the alien princess love interest, but otherwise there's very, very little character development.. each character is more a set of skills than a person. Not sure that ever changes, based on some stuff I've read on the internet. We'll see.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 20, 2020 17:00:12 GMT -5
Money Shot by Christa Faust
I think this one was trying just a bit too hard to be 'hard case'. One would expect it a bit when the star of the book is a former porn star, but it was a bit too much at times.
The 'case' was decent, but nothing too exciting... If this hadn't come in the lot, I wouldn't recommend going out of the way for it.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 20, 2020 18:34:33 GMT -5
Money Shot by Christa Faust I think this one was trying just a bit too hard to be 'hard case'. One would expect it a bit when the star of the book is a former porn star, but it was a bit too much at times. The 'case' was decent, but nothing too exciting... If this hadn't come in the lot, I wouldn't recommend going out of the way for it. It's been ten years since I've read it so I only vaguely remember it. But that's pretty standard Christa Faust.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 21, 2020 5:08:53 GMT -5
Money Shot by Christa Faust I think this one was trying just a bit too hard to be 'hard case'. One would expect it a bit when the star of the book is a former porn star, but it was a bit too much at times. The 'case' was decent, but nothing too exciting... If this hadn't come in the lot, I wouldn't recommend going out of the way for it. I found Money Shot a solid read, but yeah, nothing that knocked me out of my seat. However, I would suggest avoiding its sequel, Choke Hold - it's so over-the-top bleak.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Mar 22, 2020 23:08:40 GMT -5
It didn't impress me enough to run out and get the sequel for sure, but if I came across it at a library book sale (as unlikely as that is) I might grab it.
Ethan of Athos Lois McMaster Bujold
While this book is in the Vorkosigan universe, it's really nothing to do with the main story, so be warned that Miles is only passing mention (as is Cordelia's mom, in fact).
As side stories go, it's a good one, it shows us that the galaxy is a bit bigger than some of the main stories have made it seem, and here we get the story of a world of only men that is at the far end of the map (they get a transport once a year, it seems).
I think if I had read this sooner, I probably would have appreciated Quinn as a main character a bit more, but as it is I didn't remember her all that well. She was fine, but nothing particularly made her stand out.
Ethan isn't really anything to write home about, either.. really the strength of the story is the plot, and the philophy that it makes one think about.. which I always appreciate in my sci fi.
Really, Helda the crazy eco-cop was my favorite character.. I hope her mental health holiday gets her straightened out, but hey, if your only son ran off to a planet of all men to get away from your nagging, you probably deserve it.
Overall, a nice diversion of the main series, but I'm glad this has long since released.. if this was a new release I was waiting for I'd have been annoyed at the like of moving the story along.
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Post by berkley on Mar 23, 2020 3:20:57 GMT -5
Money Shot by Christa Faust I think this one was trying just a bit too hard to be 'hard case'. One would expect it a bit when the star of the book is a former porn star, but it was a bit too much at times. The 'case' was decent, but nothing too exciting... If this hadn't come in the lot, I wouldn't recommend going out of the way for it. I found Money Shot a solid read, but yeah, nothing that knocked me out of my seat. However, I would suggest avoiding its sequel, Choke Hold - it's so over-the-top bleak. I haven't read any Christa Faust but I remember a few years ago seeing Choke Hold advertised or reviewed somewhere online and feeling some interest due to the MMA angle. How was that aspect handled?
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Post by EdoBosnar on Mar 23, 2020 15:09:50 GMT -5
I found Money Shot a solid read, but yeah, nothing that knocked me out of my seat. However, I would suggest avoiding its sequel, Choke Hold - it's so over-the-top bleak. I haven't read any Christa Faust but I remember a few years ago seeing Choke Hold advertised or reviewed somewhere online and feeling some interest due to the MMA angle. How was that aspect handled?
The plot is driven by the main character, same one from Money Shot, trying to get an aspiring MMA fighter safely to an agent to hopefully launch his career ('safely' because both are being hunted by some contract killers - it's too complicated to explain in brief). Although a few of the characters are MMA fighters, that's not really the primary focus of the book. And like I said, it's really bleak and almost depressing.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2020 3:35:15 GMT -5
Finished Kim Newman's Anno Dracula... Newman's Dracula and Diogenes Club novels have been on the periphery of my radar for nearly two decades now, coming recommended by people I knew from various fandoms (comics, gaming, horror, etc) I was involved with over the years, yet one I never actually tracked down and read. I ran across a copy at a local used book store here blowing out stock at a dollar a book and picked up a copy about a week or so ago and finally decided now was the time to dive in. It had been a while since I had partook of a more modern prose novel as most of the prose stuff I have read over the last few years was from mid-20th century or earlier and it had been at least 6 months to a year since I read any fiction written later than that, and this, while more modern, is set in the Victorian area and has its roots in a lot of the pre-mid century stuff I had been partaking of. I enjoyed it, but I don't think I loved it (those who recommended it to me often tended to gush about it, and I know I am not inclined to gush over it). I need to process it a little more before I come to a final evaluation. There's a lot to like and recommend in it, but there were times I felt it dragged a little bit at times, there were some plot points that tended to come out of nowhere, while others were telegraphed beyond what foreshadowing should do so you were just waiting for them to happen/be revealed rather than anticipating them (which may have contributed to the sense of dragging pace at times). Overall though, I liked it. If one is a fan of Victorian area fiction, vampire tales (especially Stoker's Dracula), Ripper fiction, or Farmer or Moore's literary mash up style works, then I would recommend giving it a go. If those things do not appeal to you though, you may want to look elsewhere for something to read. There are more books in the series (I picked up I believe books 3 and 4 as well at the bookshop, but not #2), and I may check them out at some point, but I am not in a hurry to track down #2 at this time. If I run into a copy though, I would pick it up and give it a go. -M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 24, 2020 14:24:17 GMT -5
The General Danced at Dawn by George MacDonald FraserHaving finished up with Flashman I thought I'd give Fraser's McAuslin stories a go. Loosely based on Fraser's time as an officer in the post-WWII British army each book is a collection of humorous short stories. Overall this book was fine. It had its humorous moments. It was certainly a change of pace from Flashy. However, I think it may have been just a touch too Scottish for me. It's not that I got completely lost. But there was a lot going on both in language and in custom that was foreign to my experience and wasn't explained in a way that made it more accessible. I don't have to be spoon-fed my non-American cultures but it tended to bog down the progress, which might have been okay in a more serious work but is probably not as easy to forgive in a humor book. I didn't dislike the book. It was, overall, funny and an interesting read, particularly in comparison to Flashman. But it wasn't compelling enough that I'm going to hop on the next two volumes any time soon.
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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 25, 2020 9:17:56 GMT -5
Every couple of years I try to make up for my deficient education by reading a "classic" a month. I've never made it through the entire year, but I have finally gotten around to a lot of classic literature that everyone else claims to have had to read in school, things that have become cultural touchstones, so that we at least know about them even if we haven't read them. In past years, that's included things like Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Oliver Twist, The House of the Seven Gables, The Last of the Mohicans, Silas Marner, Heart of Darkness, The Awakening, The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, Uncle Tom's Cabin, a selection of Shakespeare plays and Vanity Fair. (Of those listed, there were only a couple that I didn't enjoy at all, and a few that were among the best reading pleasures I've ever had--I had no idea that 19th Century literature could be as hilariously funny as Vanity Fair!). This year, instead of "serious" classics, I'm delving into classics of popular reading; still old public domain material, but not the usual focus of scholarly study. In January, I read Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera. As a monster movie fan since the age of 11, I've always wanted to actually read this--I saw Chaney's silent version on the big screen in an art house at about 12 or 13. Turns out that Chaney's film was remarkably faithful, aside from the climax and the alteration/simplification of one supporting character. For February, I got around to H. G. Well's The Invisible Man, another one from my youthful monster movie fandom. Kind of meandering and lean on plot, but I was surprised that Wells presented a very well thought out description of the impractical consequences of invisibility. I've long maintained that most single superpowers (even flight or super-strength) would, in the real world, be either be useful only for something evil or unethical, or would most likely get you or someone else killed in a very short time. Invisibility, one of the most commonly wished-for powers, is both. For March, I'm moving away from the fantastic and reading Anne of Green Gables, something that I certainly never would have read at the age my female peers all read it. I'd enjoyed watching the recent Netflix series with my wife, and the book is quite a lot of fun. Anne's a delight for anyone with a lot of appreciation for imagination. I can see why so many young women were taken by this story and this character. On the slate for coming months, I'll be reading a well-known western, a classic detective story, and some other well-known genre fiction.
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Post by Prince Hal on Mar 25, 2020 10:13:44 GMT -5
Great idea here, MWGallaher! And an excellent syllabus! I haven't read all of the classics on your list, but I'd agree with your observation that just because they're old doesn't mean they're unenjoyable. In fact, the reason they're all classics is that they continue to shed light on the complexities of our lives today. I don't know if you have your genre titles chosen yet, but if you haven't, I'd certainly suggest Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry as your Western.
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Post by berkley on Mar 26, 2020 18:32:53 GMT -5
Great reading project, MW Gallaher, and would love to hear more details about the individual books you read! Not that I've been very good myself at posting here on the latest thing I happen to have finished. I do hope to get back to doing more of that, though.
I agree about The Invisible Man, having just re-read it myself a few months ago, along with some other Wells. The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau all impressed me as well with Wells's thoughtfulness and willingness to follow through some of the less obvious, or less flattering (to human nature) implications of his SF scenarios.
I just finished a 1983 novel by Graham Swift, Waterland, that I would describe as interesting rather than riveting. Well written, but in the end it didn't really take hold of my imagination or intellect or emotions the way one always hopes a book will do - though the question always remains whether that's a reflection on the book or on myself as a reader. I enjoyed it while I was reading it but didn't feel compelled to get back to it ASAP when I wasn't. I'll try another by Swift one of these days, though, probably his 1996 Booker prize-winning Last Orders.
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