The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare, which I haven't read since grade school, probably. Stumbled onto a nice copy at Goodwill the other day.
Doing a reread of some Alias novels. Recently Finished The Ghost (Brian Studler), Collateral Damage (Pierce Askegren) and now, Two of a Kind (Greg Cox).
Spiderman the darkest hours by Jim Butcher, Keith DeCandido and Christopher L. Bennett. I am only a few pages into the first story but i like that we follow an older Spiderman ( I guess late 20?) and not a teenager
I finished The IDIC Epidemic early this morning (couldn't sleep). I liked it better than its prequel, but still hit a couple "WTF?" moments where complications were introduced (IMHO) just to lengthen the book. A conversation on Reddit reminded me of A.C. Crispin's rejected Return to Yesterday manuscript that she was kind enough to send me before her passing, so I decided to read that next.
Pretty sure I've got most if not all of them (all from the same store too looking at the stickers on the back) Finished that one earlier, so now, it's The Good, The Bad and The Undead by Kim Harrison
i'm currently on Star Trek: Ex Machina by Christopher L Bennett. Probably the third time ive read it over the years, one of my favorites.
Just finished re-reading Uhura's Song. It speaks volumes that I often have trouble recalling even the most basic outlines of so many ST novels, even those to which I'd given one of my vanishingly rare "Excellent" ratings, sometimes only weeks after having read them, and yet I knew every last plot twist of this opus. It's one of those ST novels that fairly screams for sequels (and Kagan had proposed two of them, both of which were either among the first victims of Richard Arnold's policy of continuity suppression, or evidence that he wasn't the one who started it). It is truly a shame that in the post-RA era, she was never approached to finally write those sequels. I, for one, would like to read more about Tail-Kinker to-Ennien. And in light of this being Kagan's only published ST opus, it speaks volumes of her that no less of an author than John Ford almost certainly Tuckerized her as "Janeka," in How Much for Just the Planet.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on all three novels! By the time the Trek line would've been open to a sequel, Janet wasn't really interested in writing one.
I just finished the first story. I love it! Peter/Spiderman is greatly written, I love his humor and his look on everything. I wouldn't mind reading a chapter with only him and MJ just talking. And I am thinking about reading more books written by Jim Butcher Now I am going to start with the second story, written by a person called Keith R.A. DeCandido.....Hmm perhaps family of you
Starting on re-reading Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. It's been called the first English novel. Religious, and shamelessly moralistic and allegorical, yet not supernatural.
(Copy of review just posted to my personal Facebook page.) Just finished reading a few days ago Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Preston Neal Jones (2014). This mammoth book (672 pages in the print edition; I read the eBook version) has to be by far the most in-depth accounting of the making of the first Star Trek film (although there are others that I have also recently read, such as Star Trek: The Motion Picture: The Art and Visual Effects by Gene Kozicki (2020) and These Are the Voyages: Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek in the 1970s Volume 3, 1978-1980 by Marc Cushman (2020), plus quite a bit is also covered in The Fifty Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First Twenty-five Years by Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman (2016)). This is definitely the source for information on the subject recorded most closely to the time of the filming of the movie and its release in December 1979 as Jones did his research and conducted his interviews at that time, intending it to be released as a special double-sized issue of “Cinefantastique” magazine to come out along with (or soon after) the film’s release. It took too long for Jones to complete the project and so it missed coming out then, and also subsequent efforts to still release it as a Star Trek themed special issue of that magazine or as a book of its own didn’t bear fruit (until now). It is difficult to really rate a book like this as it very well much depends on the audience you are speaking to. For the casual Star Trek fan (or non fan), this is way too much information. It would completely overwhelm them and they would likely not make it very far into the book (especially due to the way it is organized, which I’ll get to in a moment). However, for the die-hard Star Trek fan, even though much of this information they are probably already at least somewhat familiar with—and, as I already said, has already been written of extensively in other books and also covered in various television documentaries like last year’s “The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek” series on The History Channel)—this is a proverbial gold mine of in-that-moment personal reflections on the creation of the film that in essence restarted the entire Star Trek franchise (leading not only to subsequent Star Trek films but also the spin-off television series, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, and all the ones that followed). Not just the obvious “big names”, like Star Trek creator and film producer Gene Roddenberry, director Robert Wise, script writer Harold Livingston, and cast members William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, etc, but also Paramount executives like Jeffrey Katzenberg, musical score composer Jerry Goldsmith, and loads of behind the scenes crew and visual effects and sound effects artists (way more than I can list here, but ones who worked both in conjunction with the film’s initial visual effects company, Robert Abel & Associate; Magicam, Gregory Jein, and Brick Price Movie Miniatures (responsible for the creation of the studio models of all of the starships like the brand new “refit” USS Enterprise, the Klingon ship, the spacedock, orbiting space stations, and elements of V’ger’s appearance), and the ones ultimately hired to take over the huge job of getting the film’s visual effects completed on time after the firing of Abel, Douglas Trumbull and John Dykstra (and their respective effects companies). This is also a great source for those interested in how films were created in the late 1970s, from the earliest stages like getting the film green lit and the script written and approved, through all parts of preproduction, to the actual filming with the director and the actors (including coordinating with on set special effects personnel to get what would later be needed to merge with visual effects elements later on), through the long and oftentimes back breaking post production process (when most of the visual effects are created, the sound effects, the musical score, the sound mixing, and the editing), and, ultimately the rush to get everything done jn time to strike film prints for the premiere date and hundreds more to be shipped to theaters nationwide and worldwide. And *this* is the continual refrain throughout the book, about how the film’s release date of December 7, 1979, a date contractually agreed upon between Paramount Studios and hundreds of film exhibitors, was ironclad and could *not* be changed/extended to give them more time, regardless of all of the unexpected happenstances (such as the failure of Robert Abel’s company to produce any useable visual effects work after nearly a year of the film’s production schedule and the subsequent hiring of Trumbull and Dykstra with only a few months left). Much of the effects work done in a very short amount of time ended up turning out amazingly well considering the shortness of time given them and also the level of film visual effects technology at the time. However, there were many elements that the artists wished they could have just a bit more time to perfect or redo but could not due to the deadline. More importantly, the necessity to get hundreds of visual effects elements all completed right at the end of the film’s production schedule effected other elements such as Jerry Goldsmiths writing the score (because so much of the visual effects were still not completed), and, ultimately, the editing of the film. The chief complaint about Star Trek: The Motion Picture over the years, pretty much from when it first came out all the way to today, has been primarily about its slow pace and overly long visual effects sequences (in particular Kirk’s journey in a shuttlepod out to the new Enterprise near the start of the film and, later, the long journey into and through parts of the massive V’ger). Even the film’s director, cast, and other creators mostly agree with these criticisms, along with not enough actual clear looks at what V’ger really was supposed to look like, and also the lack of the personal interactions between the characters that made the original television series so enjoyable (aside from a few good Dr. McCoy moments in the film). However, according to all (including Robert Wise), the incredible time crunch they were under had a lot to do with these problems in the final cut if the film because they had no time to do any test audience screenings or to do a second pass on the cutting (editing) of the film. The first cut was finished literally with no time to spare, just in time to make the film prints for the premiere in Washington, D.C, and to ship out to the theaters across the country. All things considered, it’s amazing that Star Trek: The Motion Picture made its scheduled release date at all (many working on it felt it would be impossible at times) and that it came out as well as it did. Again, this is a must have book for many Star Trek fans. I give it five out of five stars on GoodReads. I must, however, say a bit about the book’s overall organization. While it takes you through the course of the film’s production pretty much chronologically (from the decision to make the film instead of a television series and what had already been done for the tv series prior to that through everything I’ve already talked about above), the actual interview remarks from each speaker are broken up and interspersed with each other through out the book. It can be a bit confusing, going from a remark by the director, then several paragraphs from a visual effects artist talking about moire patterns and matte paintings, to another visual effects artist, back to the director, then *another* visual effects artist, then an actor like DeForest Kelley, and so on. Not only is it difficult to maintain a consistent train of thought but at times one also loses track of just where they are in the overall film production timeline of events. And the second half of the book (where it gets into the bulk of the film’s post production visual effects work) gets at times *very* technical. I’m as big a geek about this sort of thing as just about anybody and even I had a hard time getting through some parts detailing difficulties they were having with those moire patterns, matte paintings, compositing of different effects like practical effects shot on the actual V’ger stage with the actors with power surge lightning effects needed in the backgrounds, etc. The difficulties caused by the tight deadlines, but also the limitations of the hardware they were using, which at times produced work not compatible with other elements needing to be merged all together in the same shot. And that whole sequence where Leonard Nimoy/Spock flies on his extravehicular jet pack through the inner workings of V’ger’s “brain”, all of the amazing lights and color patterns and digitized information given various forms, etc. Much of it I had to read through more than once to try to grasp just what they were saying. It all made for a very *long* read (after awhile I was only reading a few pages each night, which is why it took me six months to read it all. But, while at times a challenge to get through, I loved the overall experience and highly recommend this book. To certain people. Ones who are into Star Trek as heavily as I am. —David Young
Continuing my read-through of L. Frank Baum's non-Oz works. Just finished The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which is Baum's take on a backstory for Santa. Not Baum's best, in my opinion; everything works out for Mr. Claus just a little too easily. (There's only one real moment of conflict in the whole book, and Baum even follows it up with a paragraph apologizing for it.) Next up: Dot and Tot of Merryland.
I'm into Season 4 of my TNG rewatch, which means I get to do a reread of Dark Mirror by Diane Duane. While the story does have the Alternate Universe/Mirror Universe characters you would expect, the story itself is much more like The Wounded Sky.
I remember very much enjoying Dark Mirror when I read it soon after it first came out. I recall wishing we’d had the opportunity to see the mirror TNG characters on screen. (Those first few years of the Star Trek hardcover novels, I got mine via the Science Fiction Book Club, slightly different printings made exclusively for them.) —David Young
Earlier this week I borrowed the digital edition of Aquaman Vol. 3: Throne of Atlantis, written by Geoff Johns with art by Paul Pelletier and Ivan Reis from Hoopla and started reading it. I'm still very slowly working my way through The Wheel of Time: The Eye of The World, which I recently realized I've been reading since October. If you like urban fantasy, I highly recommend his The Dresden Files, it's a fantastic series.