The book was way too short for any significant world building. It mostly focused on kids trying to get their dad back.
Last edited:
So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
I have the unhappy distinction of being around to see a number of magazines fold.
I saw Elementary Electronics turn into Science & Electronics, then Computers & Programming, before turning into just one more extinct magazine, all within a period of less than a year. I likewise watched Popular Electronics turn into Computers & Electronics only a couple months before it, too, went belly-up. I watched Popular Photography fold. While I don't think I was still subscribing to Starlog to the bitter end, I might have been for Science Digest.
Something about those of us who are into model trains keeps the relevant magazines cranking out a print issue every month though, along with more than one special issue per year.
I saw Elementary Electronics turn into Science & Electronics, then Computers & Programming, before turning into just one more extinct magazine, all within a period of less than a year. I likewise watched Popular Electronics turn into Computers & Electronics only a couple months before it, too, went belly-up. I watched Popular Photography fold. While I don't think I was still subscribing to Starlog to the bitter end, I might have been for Science Digest.
Something about those of us who are into model trains keeps the relevant magazines cranking out a print issue every month though, along with more than one special issue per year.
Reread: Star Trek: Vendetta (TNG)
Peter David used the Borg and the Doomsday Machine to frightening effect in this book.
Also reading:
What On Earth Have I Done? by Robert Fulghum (reads like a regular newspaper column and can occasionally provide some nice insights or humor)
The Incredible Winston Browne (not my usual fare, but I wanted a book set in Florida as part of my goal to read something set in every state)
Peter David used the Borg and the Doomsday Machine to frightening effect in this book.
Also reading:
What On Earth Have I Done? by Robert Fulghum (reads like a regular newspaper column and can occasionally provide some nice insights or humor)
The Incredible Winston Browne (not my usual fare, but I wanted a book set in Florida as part of my goal to read something set in every state)
Deuteronomy.
Last edited:
Half way through Club Dumas. I'll definitely finish it by the end of the month. It's so much better than the film The Ninth Gate, which is based off of it. I definitely recommend it. All of the great references to Dumas have been removed from the film. It really makes me want to binge read The Musketeers.
Of course, then I went down the rabbit hole with the author. He wrote a series about Captain Alatriste, which also spawned a Spanish film called Alatriste. I can't buy the film, but I did find it subtitled on YouTube. The sales of the DVDs look sketchy on Amazon.
Here's the trailer:
And Viggo is in it. This is right after LOTR series.
Looks like I might read a book or two from this series time permitting.
Of course, then I went down the rabbit hole with the author. He wrote a series about Captain Alatriste, which also spawned a Spanish film called Alatriste. I can't buy the film, but I did find it subtitled on YouTube. The sales of the DVDs look sketchy on Amazon.
Here's the trailer:
And Viggo is in it. This is right after LOTR series.
Looks like I might read a book or two from this series time permitting.
I recently finished reading The Fountains of Paradise by Arthur C. Clarke. The first quarter or so of this novel is a long narrative about Sri Lanka's King Kalidasa in the 5th century. This is very important to establish a sense of history, something the novel will play around with in the ending. It's interesting how having King Kalidasa and the forlorn days of humanity at the back of your head makes the final chapters so much more potent and penetrating. It gives a sense of distance in time, of human progress and the centuries engulfing individuals while humanity at large goes on. It makes you feel small, not through any diminishment of the individual person, but by making the reader realize the enormous human enterprise we all take part of it at some capacity.
Most of the novel, concerns itself with Vannevar Morgan, a quintessential "hero engineer" type of guy and his uphill battle (literally, at points) to build a space elevator, a massive cable anchored to the Earth's surface and extending into space that allows specialized vehicles to climb into orbit using electrical power. This system is designed to provide a much cheaper and more efficient alternative to traditional rockets for transporting people and cargo to the stars. The space elevator is the central concern of the novel. Where to build it? How to build it? How does it work? What materials would be used? What properties those materials need to have in order for a project like this to be feasible? These questions and many others take the bulk of the novel.
There is a surprising amount of politics to it as well, since the best spot to build the elevator happens to be at the top of the mountain Sri Kanda, where a Buddhist monastery is located. The monks oppose the building of the space elevator in their mountain and there is a conflict which Clarke explores in the framings of science versus religion.
I did not care much for this particular debate. I am sure everybody minimally informed about such matters has heard all the anti-religion arguments we get here. It is funny how even aliens show up in order to tell humans how religious faith is a collection of logical errors.
My favorite part is definitely the last act, where the space elevator is finally built, but like all technology, brings its own share of accidents. There is a catastrophic mechanical malfunction that leaves the elevator car stranded thousands of kilometers above the ground. To make matters worse, the life support systems begin to fail, and a severe storm is brewing at the base of the tower on Sri Kanda.
Morgan takes it upon himself to carry out the rescue. It is very tense, technically interesting and there is an emotional charge there that I really enjoyed.
Finally there is an epilogue, connecting the far future with the far past of humanity. Perhaps one of the most powerful images I have ever read in science fiction happens here. An alien emissary sitting on the ancient throne of King Kalidasa, talking to children about humanity's ancient past. It doesn't seem like much but one must go through the novels to witness all its lights finally culminating on this chapter.
These kids were not born on Earth, which is currently going through an Ice Age. There's a very powerful sense of "humanity has left its cradle" here, an idea that always concerned Clarke deeply, and you can see this concern popping up in pretty much all his novels. But beyond that, there is a sense of purpose that suddenly pervades human history when you connect those two points: the alien and the ruins of Kalidasa's throne room. Haunting and beautiful. In my opinion one of his best endings.
Most of the novel, concerns itself with Vannevar Morgan, a quintessential "hero engineer" type of guy and his uphill battle (literally, at points) to build a space elevator, a massive cable anchored to the Earth's surface and extending into space that allows specialized vehicles to climb into orbit using electrical power. This system is designed to provide a much cheaper and more efficient alternative to traditional rockets for transporting people and cargo to the stars. The space elevator is the central concern of the novel. Where to build it? How to build it? How does it work? What materials would be used? What properties those materials need to have in order for a project like this to be feasible? These questions and many others take the bulk of the novel.
There is a surprising amount of politics to it as well, since the best spot to build the elevator happens to be at the top of the mountain Sri Kanda, where a Buddhist monastery is located. The monks oppose the building of the space elevator in their mountain and there is a conflict which Clarke explores in the framings of science versus religion.
I did not care much for this particular debate. I am sure everybody minimally informed about such matters has heard all the anti-religion arguments we get here. It is funny how even aliens show up in order to tell humans how religious faith is a collection of logical errors.
My favorite part is definitely the last act, where the space elevator is finally built, but like all technology, brings its own share of accidents. There is a catastrophic mechanical malfunction that leaves the elevator car stranded thousands of kilometers above the ground. To make matters worse, the life support systems begin to fail, and a severe storm is brewing at the base of the tower on Sri Kanda.
Morgan takes it upon himself to carry out the rescue. It is very tense, technically interesting and there is an emotional charge there that I really enjoyed.
Finally there is an epilogue, connecting the far future with the far past of humanity. Perhaps one of the most powerful images I have ever read in science fiction happens here. An alien emissary sitting on the ancient throne of King Kalidasa, talking to children about humanity's ancient past. It doesn't seem like much but one must go through the novels to witness all its lights finally culminating on this chapter.
These kids were not born on Earth, which is currently going through an Ice Age. There's a very powerful sense of "humanity has left its cradle" here, an idea that always concerned Clarke deeply, and you can see this concern popping up in pretty much all his novels. But beyond that, there is a sense of purpose that suddenly pervades human history when you connect those two points: the alien and the ruins of Kalidasa's throne room. Haunting and beautiful. In my opinion one of his best endings.
While the setting of The Fountains of Paradise is based on Sri Lanka, Clarke fictionalized it as Taprobane (an alternate historical name for the island) and moved it a few hundred kilometers south in order to put it on the Equator, so it would work as a space elevator terminal.
Is it any good?
Yes indeed. In the postface Clarke talks a good deal about the equator problem and some of the things he changed to get everything working for the novel. Good stuff!
Contra a lot of pulp aficionados, I remember being surprised by how, well, honestly terrible I though it was — especially compared to the Shadow and Avenger pulp novels of recently read, which were both a whole lot more atmospheric. I found Doc Savage bizarrely clunky by comparison, perhaps especially with the gang of one-dimensional comedy companions who are each the very top authorities in their specific fields, yet somehow have time to hang out at Doc’s place all day.
(And yet, ironically, I liked the rather faithful movie adaptation!)
Got that waiting to be read on my Kindle. There was also a novelization by Ramsey Campbell of the movie a few years back, which I haven't read yet. I've had a couple off and on periods with REH but I seem to be on again. I'm glad to see a full-length novel about Kane, but I'm still waiting for a full-length novel about Kull. Well, aside from Sean A. Moore's novelization of the Sorbo movie, which I also haven't read. Kull's not just a first draft of Conan, and the couple of short stories in the Heroic Legends series demonstrate that there are writers who get the difference between the characters and the kinds of stories REH used them in.
It still strikes me as a bit odd that in the 1970s and '80s there were original novels about lesser known REH characters like Bran Mak Morn, Black Vulmea, and Cormac Mac Art, but the characters who had at least had a few comics published about them back then, Kull and Kane, didn't get their shot.
The Shadow's by far my favourite, but I've enjoyed a few Avenger novels. Doc Savage... I read the first one in the late '70s and it didn't click. I reread it recently so I'd have fresher memories of the characters when I get around to reading Will Murray's Shadow/Doc Savage crossover novels. I still didn't like it. It felt much more kid-oriented, with the dumb comedy characters and Savage being too darn perfect.
Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction to a t. It wasn’t the nutty ideas (what pulp isn’t nutty ideas?), but the actual writing style.
I'll cop to editing that for Tor Books back in the day.
I haven't been eager to see the movie, due to Kevin Sorbo, but as I recall Sean A. Moore wrote a decent Conan novel or two for Tor, so I'll get around to reading the novel eventually.
Let it be noted that I worked on that book long before Sorbo turned into a right-wing crank.
He was just the dude from Hercules then.
Almost finished with Club Dumas. I'll finish it tomorrow.
What's interesting about the book is that the film adaptation cuts out half the book. There are two plots. The main one concerns the original manuscript of The Three Musketeers. The subplot concerns the Nine Doors. The book is most like the Michael Douglas film the Game.
What's interesting about the book is that the film adaptation cuts out half the book. There are two plots. The main one concerns the original manuscript of The Three Musketeers. The subplot concerns the Nine Doors. The book is most like the Michael Douglas film the Game.
I'm still struck by the coincidence that Kevin Sorbo was Dean Cain's runner-up for the role of Superman in Lois & Clark, and they both ended up following parallel career/ideological paths taking them about as far from Superman as you can get.
Similar threads
