So What Are you Reading?: Generations

[hbquikcomjamesl]

At home, I'm into the second novella, Where Time Stands Still, in SCE: Creative Couplings.

On my lunch table at the office, I'm a little over halfway through the Summer 2025 issue of Westways (the member magazine of the Automobile Club of Southern California).

And I'm reviewing and revising the third quarter of my own novel-in-progress, reconciling the continuity issues, and making adjustments based on editorial feedback from the first quarter. By the time I get the editorial feedback on the second quarter, I'll have most likely also done the same for the final quarter

And hopefully, sometime this week, I'll finally have the time to see the series finale of DSC (until I got back from my vacation, I didn't realize that I hadn't gotten around to it, nor to seeing the bonus materials on the 4th volume of the Season 5 DVD set).

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Now a few chapters into The Art of the Deal, in Creative Couplings. And I'm starting to remember a few things about how it turns out.

And as mamzerim go, Rod Portlyn bears a more than passing resemblance to Trump.

*******

Thursday 6/26: Now moving on to SCE: Spin. Funny how a novella about a wealthy liar, cheat, land-grabber, and general sociopath, who will screw anybody to get ahead, is immediately followed by one titled "Spin."

Am I the only one here who is currently reading anything?

 

[JD]

I finished up Leia, Princess of Alderaan this afternoon and started ST:TNG: Slings & Arrows: Book 1: A Sea of Troubles by J. Steven York & Christina F. York.
The Leia book was pretty good, it was a origin story/coming of age story for Leia, and gave us some good stuff for her parents, and some more insights into the earlier days of the Rebellion. There was one thing that I wasn't sure if it would be considered an contradiction with Obi-Kenobi or if it was just something that didn't bring up. In the book Leia's mother Breha had an artificial heart and lungs that were put in after she had an accident as a kid that always glowing under her clothes, but I don't remember there being any sign of them in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Finished Spin, and now a chapter into the titular opus of the omnibus, Creative Couplings. I think "mamzer" (or to use the idiosyncratic spelling used in the SCE books, "momzer") may also show up here.

 

[DarthTimon]

I'm currently working my way through Sunbringer, part two of the Fallen Gods Trilogy. The first book was really good, and I'm enjoying this one too.

 

[Greg Cox]

Half Past Death by Sharon & James Brubaker. A cozy murdery mystery.

Plus, the final issue of the new MUMMY comic book miniseries. Apparently, the Invisible Man is up next.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Half Past Death

Sounds like it's later than you think.

Went down to the local B&N, to clear out one gift card and start using the next. Picked up a copy of Roland Allen's The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper. And I put in an order for a copy of The Star Trek Lower Decks Crew Handbook.

But before I get to either of those, I need to finish my current pass through the third quarter of my own opus: I've been told to expect editorial feedback on the second quarter next week, and I want to finish applying the lessons from the first quarter editorial feedback to the third quarter, and maybe even the fourth, before I start applying the second quarter feedback to anything.

And on my lunch break today, I read an article in the June 2025 Model Railroader, by a fellow who models in 3-rail O-scale (yes, there are still people doing that seriously). His layout isn't really designed for realistic operation so much as for idly watching trains run. Two observations: (1) You don't see a whole lot of 12-months-a-year print monthlies any more, but Model Railroader and the NMRA Magazine are still there; and (2) Model railroading is a big enough hobby to accommodate lots and lots of interests (so why the Hell haven't we seen the hobby anywhere in Star Trek [movies, TV, and prose TrekLit]?)

 

[Greg Cox]

(2) Model railroading is a big enough hobby to accommodate lots and lots of interests (so why the Hell haven't we seen the hobby anywhere in Star Trek [movies, TV, and prose TrekLit]?)

Because Gomez Addams (and Bruce Wayne) claimed dibs back in the 1960s?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Because Gomez Addams (and Bruce Wayne) claimed dibs back in the 1960s?

As it happens, I was at an open house this past Sunday, celebrating that the Los Angles Model Railroad Society now has their layout functional enough to run trains. And when a collision happened, somebody referred to it as "pulling a Gomez Addams."

I saw every single episode of the 1960s Batman series, and I don't recall ever seeing a model railroad layout.

I will note, however, that there was a Banacek movie (1x02, "Project Phoenix," in which Banacek (with the assistance of a woman engineer who was also a skilled machinist) uses (if I remember right) a 3-rail O-gauge "tinplate" layout as a visual aid to demonstrate how the titular automobile, and the flatcar to which it had been lashed, had been stolen out of a moving train without anybody noticing. Spoiler: it involved a winch hidden in a boxcar, a very long steel cable, and a "shoofly" switch that had been built, used, and destroyed in a single night.

 

[Guy1993]

I finished reading Star Wars The Last Jedi (not that one) by Micheal Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff. A very enjoyable end to the story of Jax, I-Five, Den Dhur and Laranath, it’s a really nice to a series that runs in parallel to the prequels and is effected by them but on a smaller slice of life scale.

 

[Greg Cox]

I saw every single episode of the 1960s Batman series, and I don't recall ever seeing a model railroad layout.

My mistake. I was remembering a scene where Bruce and Dick were playing with an elaborate model racetrack.