Just recieved "war for the planet of the apes: revelations". But I am going to return the book. Because not long after finishing dawn of the planet of the apes: firestorm, I got the flu! I hope it is the normal flu but If I see one drop of blood, I am going to freak out!
. . . almost finished with Star Trek: The Book of Lists. I actually learned a thing or two, even being a devoted fan since the '70s.
Yesterday I finished VOY: String Theory Bk 3 Next up is DS9: Warpath To be followed by TNG: Resistance TNG: Q & A TNG: Before Dishonour
I just finished up the TNG story in ST: The Badlands. I feel pretty much the same way about this as I did the first, it's well written, but still kind of meh. We do get some fairly interesting one off guest characters, and an appearance from the Gul Ocett, but the story is just kind of boring, which is the same problem I had with the first one. There were enough interesting things in it to keep me reading, and to make me want to read the second book, but it that's about it. So it gets another 3/5 from me.
I'll shortly be finishing The Black Echo by Michael Connelly. One of my mates has been recommending this series for years and I've just got around to it.
"Barnabas Collins" by Marilyn Ross. One of the very first DARK SHADOWS novels, from way back when. (Stumbled onto a cheap copy at a used bookstore.)
I finished Star Trek: Enterprise: Rosetta by Dave Stern. Not bad but it felt too long. The Hoshi plot just felt like it was treading water for large portions of the book and I felt the Archer plot was kind of pointless. I'm now reading Star Trek: SCE: War Stories by Keith R.A. DeCandido.
I had quite a few of these in the (I think) late 60s or early 70s. For some reason they got imported into the UK a couple of decades before it aired on British tv.
I devoured the Dark Shadows tie-in novels as a kid. "Barnabas, Quentin, and the Sea Ghost," "Barnabas, Quentin and the Hidden Tomb," "Barnabas, Quentin, and the Grave Robbers," etc.
Big Finish have done great work with Dark Shadows. The first episode of Bloodlust is free this download on their site
"The Mummy Walks Among Us," a 1971 anthology of vintage mummy stories, published by Xerox of all people. Who knew they had a publishing arm back in the day?
The Empty Chair - a Romulan novel and follow up to My Enemy, My Ally, The romulan Way, Swordhunt aka Rihannsu- The Bloodwing voyages. Better versions of the Romulans than what TNG came up with.
Finished Sight Unseen (Titan) and Best Defense (Legacies). I'm going on now with Purgatory's Key. The characters involved in the Legacies Trilolgy are all well-written. They are alive in my mind's eye and I like their interactions. I'm usually not fond of Romulans but I liked the dynamics aboard the Velibor. The story picks up pace. Charakters like Sarek and Joanna stand out. I'm looking forward to reading how Kirk saves the day - again. And by means of teamwork. Several secondary characters got their moments to shine. It's not a Kirk centric trilogy and it's Star Trek at it's best.
THE NAVIGATOR by Clive Cussler & Paul Kemprecos. Some not-deep action and thrills from the NUMA Files. Not as good as the previous couple of entries in the series, as the authors are trying a bit too hard to find some new brain-melting knots to tie their macguffins together, and the villain is a one-note taking-the-piss level eccentric with a shark-jumping plan that makes zero sense whatsoever. But it was fun, good for travelling and sitting in waiting rooms. THE SHAKESPEARE NOTEBOOKS by Various A collection of short fiction and vignettes and cod-sonnets bringing Dr Who and Shakespeare together. More a book to dip into rather than a story to read, and of course highly variable. The Two/Jamie/Zoe version of Macbeth is by far the best thing in it (I'd be guessing this is Justin's work?), while the Doctor and Shakey working out The Tempest is fun to, as is Master Faustus, the digression to the works of Kit Marlowe.. Others are less good, either because of being just too small a fragment, or, frankly for trying too hard (the Sontarans trying to make a propaganda film of Horror Of Fang Rock would be a classic if not for the totally unnecessary bodging in of Vortis and the First Doctor)... Still fun to dip into here and there.
I just started The Good that Men Do by Mangel and Martin. I' looking forward to the post-series Enterprise novels.
Started reading Crisis on Centaurus. I seem to remember coming across a reference to Kirk owning a large stretch of land, but it seemed so strange to me, I couldn't get my head around it. I concluded that I just couldn't believe it, at the time. But, as I'm reading through 80's TOS novels in earnest, and this is something that is going to continue to pop up, I'm not going to exclude it because of an earlier prejudice. Reading is believing. I'm still in the early part of the book, but so far it's pretty entertaining. I can't decide if the emotional reactions of the crew to the aftermath of the New Athens tragedy is melodramatic, or somehow prescient of similar attacks that our own world would see later on. I can feel myself getting swept up in McCoy and Kirk's worry and heartache.
Crisis on Centaurus is entertaining, but I always had trouble with its portrayal of the 23rd-century Federation as pretty much identical to the 20th-century United States in its culture and practices, right down to American Express ATMs at the spaceport. I prefer a little more futurism in stories set in the future. I'd imagine it was more influenced by the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the then-pervasive fear of nuclear weapons destroying cities. Americans today somehow seem to think that our fears of terrorism post-9/11 are something unprecedented, but the threat of terrorism is minor compared to the threat of nuclear holocaust that earlier generations, including my own, grew up with. And of course terrorism has been a significant factor in global affairs -- and in the public's fears -- since at least the 1970s. So what this book did, combining the specter of a bomb that could destroy a whole city with the fear of terrorism, wasn't prescient, just building on threads that already existed in culture and fiction.
Started on The Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill. I finished The Panther by Nelson Demille earlier and enjoyed that.