While waiting for the next Star Trek book, I just started a book on American history called Benedict Arnold and the Company of Heroes, about his unsuccessful invasion of Canada. I have been reading a great series of thrillers by Preston and Child, about FBI Special Agent Pendergast. My mother has just discovered a good Swedish mystery writer and so she is reading The Ice Princess.
I've put The Time Patrol aside temporarily while I read the current issues of Asimov's and Analog magazines. One of the stories in this month's Analog that I've read so far was quite quirky and I enjoyed it a great deal: "Plastic Thingy", by Mark Niemann-Ross. It's about a hardware store clerk who has to help a young woman find a red plastic thingy so that she can repair the spaceship that she's been living on. (Apparently its most important characteristic is that it has to be red, but she knows nothing else about it. And there's a sentient plant.) Now, if I can just find a store that stocks The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - I have a friend with a story in an upcoming issue, but I haven't been able to find it. I think I've been in seven or eight stores to look for it, and nobody seems to have it.
I've seen it in stock at the local B&N. Maybe yours can get it for you if they don't stock it regularly.
Alas, B&N doesn't exist in Canada. Chapters/Indigo is our largest bookstore chain. We used to have a few - Coles and W.H. Smith were the biggies, then Chapters and Indigo started up, Indigo bought Coles and WHS, then Chapters and Indigo merged. So now we have one chain and the occasional independent bookstore here and there. (There is still one Coles-branded store that I know of downtown, but it's in a mall under an office building and I've never seen them open on weekends.) The World's Biggest Bookstore, which I've posted about before and which closed a few months ago, was part of the Chapters/Indigo chain (it used to belong to Coles) and I used to see it on the shelf there, but obviously that's no longer an option. Though it occurs to me that if B&N stocks it, there's someone I know who lives in Buffalo and comes up to Toronto regularly for convention-related meetings. Maybe I'll see if he'd be willing to keep an eye out for it for me.
I'm reading...the websites for the transit systems in the cities for my upcoming trip (Toronto and Milwaukee).
What do you want to know about Toronto's system? I don't drive, so I take it frequently. And what I don't know, I can probably find out quickly. (I presume you're coming for a Jays game - the Skydome is within walking distance of Union station, at the south end of the north/south subway line. To get downtown from the airport, you take the 192 Airport Rocket bus from Pearson to Kipling subway station, at the extreme west end of the east/west line - which is about a 10-minute walk from where I live.)
^ My hotel is within walking distance to the stadium (not the one IN the stadium though ), but there are other places - like Eaton Centre - where I'd like to go, so I was just browsing on how to get there. Thanks for the offer though. Unfortunately the brand new rail system from the airport to the subway won't be ready until after I'm gone. Oh well, I got some Canadian money so I can take a cab.
A cab from the airport to downtown will probably cost you $50-60. And as far as the rail system from the airport to the subway - given the back-and-forth between the different levels of government, and the debates over funding, and whether we should be building a new subway line or an LRT line, it probably won't actually get built until after I'm gone.
Well, if all else fails, they do sell single issues at their website. What about cons? People sell recent issues of magazines at cons, don't they?
Have you tried the Kindle on Amazon? I just got "Analog" and another magazine from them...the Issac Azimov one. Maybe they have the one you're looking for, too. wait! They DO have it. I just ordered the current magazine from them.
It's already under construction (they started building it in 2011). Supposed to be done next year. Linky
I just finished All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, which was adapted into the film Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise.
That's probably the route I'll end up taking. It depends on the type of con and who they get for their Dealers' Room. At Toronto Trek/Polaris, we usually had Bakka/Phoenix as our book dealer - which, as I said earlier, doesn't seem to stock the magazines any more. (Though I really should ask a friend who works there to confirm that.) Same with Ad Astra. However, Polaris is no more, and Ad Astra was a few months ago. The next con in these parts (not counting the pro shows, which don't generally have booksellers in their Dealers' Rooms anyway) isn't until November, and I didn't have any travel plans until Dragoncon at Labour Day. I've actually been avoiding buying an e-reader, because I learned from the VHS/Beta and Blu Ray/HD DVD wars not to jump on one technology until it all shakes out and there are only one or two left standing. (Chapters/Indigo has one they sell called Kobo, and they sell a lot of e-books in that format. But I have no idea whether I'd be able to get a book in that format if, for example, I was in Atlanta and saw a book I wanted.) That said, I know that there's a free online Kindle reader (I use one at work for a reference book they ordered for me), so that's certainly a possible fallback - thanks for the heads-up. That's what they say, but I'm not holding my breath. They've been talking about this for years - it was supposed to be built something like 15 years ago, but the premier of Ontario at the time, Mike Harris, cancelled all but one of the new lines that were going to built (and had shovels already in the ground).
when I last posted i had started 14 by Peter Clines which ended up being a mystery/horror/sci-fi mix. I really enjoyed it. 4/5 After that I listened to Deep Storm by Lincoln Child, narrated by Scott Brick. Set in an undersea base, scientists claim that they have discovered the city of Atlantis. 5/5 Followed by Sun on Fire by Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson, narrated by Mikael Maramore. A man is murdered in the Icelandic Embassy in Berlin and Icelandic Inspectors Birkir and Gunnar are sent to investigate 4/5. Now I am listening to Ned Kelly: A Short Life By Ian Jones, narrated by Paul English. I have read several books about Kelly in the past but this books is better researched and more detailed than anything I have read before.