So What Are you Reading?: Generations

Discussion in 'Trek Literature' started by captcalhoun, Dec 22, 2011.

  1. Ryva Brall

    Ryva Brall Commander Red Shirt

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    I just started reading A Stitch in Time. I'm not that far, but I kind of love it already. I'm pleasantly surprised and impressed by Andrew Robinson's writing. It's evident that he spent a lot of time getting into Garak's head and developing his character even further than what was seen on DS9. And he certainly has a vivid imagination. I love the way he describes Cardassian society, and how strange humans seem to him in comparison. I can practically hear Garak's voice in my head as I read. Well done, Mr. Robinson.
     
  2. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    ASIT is IMO an amazing story.
     
  3. Daddy Todd

    Daddy Todd Commodore Commodore

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    Kind of a strange month, with a big gap in the middle where I didn't read much at all.

    04/03/2013 Julio's Day (gn) by Gilbert Hernandez
    04/04/2013 Building New Worlds 1946-1959: The Carnell Era, Volume One by John Boston and Damien Broderick
    04/05/2013 Special Knowledge (na) by A. Bertram Chandler
    04/06/2013 The Deep Reaches of Space by A. Bertram Chandler
    04/09/2013 Star Trek Omnibus Vol. 1 (Marvel First Series) (gn) by Miscellaneous
    04/12/2013 Declare (audiobook) by Tim Powers
    04/13/2013 Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga (gn) by Mike W. Barr/Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagran
    04/13/2013 The Star-Pit (audio drama) by Samuel R. Delany
    04/13/2013 Richter 10 (audiobook) by Arthur C. Clarke and Mike McQuay (abandoned)
    04/17/2013 Gateway (audiobook) by Frederik Pohl
    04/17/2013 Star Trek: To Boldly Go (+ DC 7, DC 8, TSfS Adaptation) (gn) by Mike W. Barr/Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagran
    04/27/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 1: Change is Constant (gn) by Eastman, Waltz & Duncan
    04/27/2013 Marble Season (gn) by Gilbert Hernandez
    04/27/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 2: Enemies Old, Enemies New (gn) by Eastman, Waltz & Duncan
    04/27/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 3: Shadows of the Past (gn) by Eastman, Waltz & Duncan
    04/27/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series Vol. 1 (gn) by Various/Various
    04/30/2013 Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (audiobook) by Frederik Pohl
    04/30/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vol. 4: Sins of the Fathers (gn) by Eastman, Waltz & Kuhn
    04/30/2013 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Micro-Series Vol. 2 (gn) by Various/Various

    Started and (nearly) ended with new graphic novels by Gilbert Hernandez, the much-more-prolific of Los Bros. Hernandez. I marginally like Jaime's stuff better, byt Gilbert delivers a couple of truly amazing gn's this month. Julio's Day yanked tears out of my eyes at the end -- it's the story of a so-deeply-closeted gay man that he doesn't even acknowledge it to himself, and his 100 year life, spanning, essentially, the 20th century. Definitely worth reading. Beto's other gn was Marble Season, which follows the adventures of three comic-obsessed brothers through a few months of life in the early 1960's Any resemblance between the three brothers to Mario, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez is, of course, entirely coincidental. Liked this one, but if I had to pick one, I'd go with Julio's Day.

    Read the second volume of Boston and Broderick's re-read through the "Nova" magazines. This one covers the beginning of the John Carnell-edited New Worlds. Again, I learned a bunch of new names, saw where a bunch of award-winning stories were first published, and realized that if one story in each issue is outstanding, then the magazine is doing AMAZING. There were reams and reams of forgettable "yard-goods" published over the years; stories that nobody much liked at the time, from authors nobody remembered a nanosecond after they stopped writing. Kind of depressing, really. The third volume will cover the remainder of the Carnell-edited New Worlds, and short-lived Nova magazines like Science Fiction Adventures.

    Only a little Chandler this month -- both versions of a story originally published in 1946 (Special Knowledge) and later re-written in 1964 (The Deep Reaches of Space) as one of Chandler's first novels. The opening chapters of the novel were entirely new, and by far the best stuff in the book. Otherwise, it mostly reads like a Campbell-era Astounding novella uncomfortably padded into an early-psychedelic-era novel. Which is exactly what it is. Not worth tracking down either version, which are both pretty rare (the novel was never published in the States.)

    Audiobooks: Tim Powers's Declare, which isn't nearly as good being read aloud as reading it on an overnight coast-to-coast airline flight (which is how I last read it, some years ago.) If you've never read Declare, please do so immediately. And let me know what you think! I followed that with a radio adaptation of Delany's The Star-Pit, which was well done, but suffers from being so difficult to rewind and re-listen to the difficult bits. And there are ALWAYS difficult bits in any Delany text.

    Started listening to Richter 10, by Clarke and McQuay, but (for the first time since I started listening to audiobooks at the gym a couple of years ago) had to abandon it about a third of the way in. The sexism and racism were simply unbearable. Wow, is that one ever a complete turd!

    I replaced it with Fred Pohl's Heechee series, starting with Gateway. These are lots better.

    I was browsing through the library sale one Saturday morning, and ran across (for 50¢, so I had to buy it, even though I already have it) the DC trade paperback of Star Trek: The Mirror Universe Saga, which comprises issues 9-16 of the original DC Star Trek monthly, published in 1984-85. I remember loving every issue as they were published back in the day, and had a grand time re-reading them. So much so, that I read the equivalent of the first 8 issues of the run (in the To Boldly Go trade and as single issues of 7 & 8). Right in the middle comes the comics adaptation of ST III. which is exceptionally well done, and in some ways better than the movie -- the movie was apparently re-edited shortly before release, to start off with Kirk on the Enterprise; the comic (and the novelization, for that matter) start off with Saavik & David on the Grissom, then cuts to the Enterprise after the discovery of Spock's empty tube, then back to the Grissom, then to the Enterprise returning to Earth. The story makes a lot more sense in this order, IMHO.

    Many fans have disparaged the art of Tom Sutton & Ricardo Villagrán in these issues, but I'll have none of that. I think they were the perfect art team to portray that dynamic era of Star Trek, and Mike W. Barr was writing at the absolute top of his game. Later Star Trek comics have had more polished art, and more "in-canon" stories, but none have ever been as much fun to read on a month-to-month basis as these 16 issues (and the movie adaptation.) Truly, 1981-1986 was THE Golden Age of Star Trek.

    All in all, it was a grand re-read. These issues were published just before and just after the release of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and portray an era of Star Trek history we now "know" never happened, adventures set between TWoK and TSfS, and between TSfS and TVH. I don't care. These stories definitely happened in MY personal continuity.

    I finished the month getting caught up with IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot. Which I've been enjoying a lot more than I thought I would. I was never any kind of fan of the cartoons or comix 20 years ago; it was something my friend's kids would watch, like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. But I'm digging the new comics. Volume 5 of the trade paperback series was supposedly released today, so I should snag a copy on Saturday when I pick up my comics.

    Still reading the latest Darkover novel -- about 60% into it. I'm not really digging the Kierstelli thread, but the Gareth Elhalyn story is great fun, as it strongly echoes one of Marion's earliest novels, the proto-Darkover story The Door Through Space. Nice of Deborah J. Ross to bring Darkover full circle like that.

    Continuing to listen to Pohl's Heechee Rendezvous (which I may never have read before) and The Annals of the Heechee (which I KNOW I've never read). There are apparently no audiobooks of the last two books in the sequence, The Gateway Trip and The Boy Who Would Live Forever, so I'll have to do hard-reads of those. I'm also planning on finishing my listen of the (abridged) audiobooks of John Vornholt's Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Genesis Wave series. Halfway through the second of the four books, it's shaping up to be another long slog with minimal rewards. I'll chalk that up to the fact they're so savagely abridged, and not because they're simply dull, dull books. They ARE, on the other hand, dull, dull audiobooks.
     
  4. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    About 50 pages into Susan Wright's The Best and the Brightest which is labeled a TNG book for some reason but it seems to be more of a stand alone project. Its ok so far.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Mar 15, 2001
    ^It was labeled a TNG book because that would sell better. And it came out before there were a lot of standalone projects, so at the time, just calling it Star Trek would've made it seem like a TOS novel.
     
  6. Reanok

    Reanok Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I started reading Odyssey by Jack McDevitt a really interesting scifi mystery novel.
     
  7. Use of Time

    Use of Time Commodore Commodore

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    Gotcha. Its a decent book but for some reason it gives off this vibe that it belongs in the young adult section.
     
  8. Thrawn

    Thrawn Rear Admiral Premium Member

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    He's a little hit-or-miss, but when he hits, he's awesome.
     
  9. Reanok

    Reanok Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yes I agree this is only the second novel I started reading it's been really interesting to see how the mystery unfolds in this book. I really enjoyed Polaris.I hope to get more of his books from the libraray sometime.:)
     
  10. Cap'n Crunch

    Cap'n Crunch Captain Captain

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    I finished Leverage: The Zoo Job last night. I then read the Prologue from Federation: The First 150 Years, titled "Cochrane's Flight: 2063-2120." I'm planning on alternating each chapter between other things I read. Right now, I'm about to start IDW's Doctor Who comic, Autopia.
     
  11. Endgame

    Endgame Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Garrovick wrote something like:
    I've always thought Harry Mudd was a great character and I have been somewhat surprised that he hasn't shown up more in TrekLit over the years.

    Was there not a book that I seem to think I have but have not read called "Mudd's Enterprise"???

    As for reading, I am still reading "The Big Game" (DS9 #4) by Sandy Schofield (AKA Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1993); and, I just started reading "Modern Strategy" by Colin S. Gray (1999). Oh, and in between I managed to read the short "On Guerilla Warfare" by Mao Tse-tung (1937).

    Combining Mao's book with Freire's "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" could be interesting; but even if posting in an American context, people don't do revolution very well. Vanguards are worse. Revolution by the oppressed fringe would be a nightmare. Still, theory and practice hardly ever match.

    Oh, and I just finished viewing the first 8 episodes of DS9 Season 7. Still great fun.
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2013
  12. Daddy Todd

    Daddy Todd Commodore Commodore

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    The novelization of the two Harry Mudd episodes (expanded with a third, all-original tale) was initially published in 1978 with the title Mudd's Angels, a play on the then-sizzling-hot show Charlie's Angels. When the book was reprinted in the '90's, Charlie's Angels was a dim, slightly embarrassing memory for most book buyers, so the book was retitled Mudd's Enterprise, but the text remained the same.
     
  13. Garrovick

    Garrovick Commander Red Shirt

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    ^^ Right, that's why I didn't mention Mudd's Enterprise in my post. I don't really count it since it's just a reissue of Mudd's Angels, which I did mention.
     
  14. Starbreaker

    Starbreaker Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I just read the first four trade paperbacks for The Walking Dead. Now I'm on to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
     
  15. wahwahkits

    wahwahkits Commander Red Shirt

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    Just finished 'The Eternal Tide', the character stuff was brilliant but all the stuff about the Omega continuum was a confusing mess.
    Now currently reading 'X The Unknown' by Shaun Hutson
     
  16. Cap'n Crunch

    Cap'n Crunch Captain Captain

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    I read the Doctor Who comic, Autopia, the other day. I'm currently reading Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Stuff of Dreams.
     
  17. BritishSeaPower

    BritishSeaPower Captain Captain

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    I went out to C2E2 this past week and was able to get a little bit of reading on the plane.

    Finished Articles of the Federation which was really good. Lived up to its reputation. I wish there was more featuring these characters in a more "concentrated" way then just appearing in future stories. Is A Singular Destiny in the vein of AoF or a little different?

    Breezed through Doctor Who 50th Anniversary eBook: Roots of Evil. A little weak, not so much bad as it was boring and a little too straightforward. I enjoyed it a lot more than the first entry, but it's nowhere near as good as the Second and Third Doctor stories were.

    I very quickly made my way through Star Trek TNG: Resistance. It was pretty good all together, but it felt a little... shallow. The premise was strong, but the execution was a bit off. That said, there wasn't really enough story to get much farther beyond the page count. As well, the Enterprise felt really small in this story. We have laser focus on the main crew (Well, not really Geordi) but barely any characters are mentioned outside of the main group. Especially given the lack of Riker and Troi, the E-E feels empty. Maybe part of this is that Dillard was leery of fleshing out too much of the crew or instructed not to. Oh well, still pretty good.

    I started Titan: Orion's Hounds yesterday and I'm already 100 pages in. Really enjoying it. It's nice to have a book about exploration and science for once!
     
  18. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Mar 15, 2001
    Both. It's like AotF in that it features largely new characters dealing with the bigger political picture, and there is a fair amount of overlap with AotF characters, but there are differences as well.
     
  19. Kertrats47

    Kertrats47 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Finished up The Folded World by Jeff Mariotte, and just posted my review. Not bad!

    Currently (re-)reading Avatar, Book Two by S.D. Perry.
     
  20. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    Creepers, by David Morrell is a lovely little thriller that would make a great low-budget movie or TV movie. It's about urban explorers going into an abandoned hotel, and then... well, shit happens cos they're not the only ones. It really feels tense and claustrophobic. Good stuff.