Star Trek Titan-Over A Torrent Sea. Props to Chris Bennet for very well thought out and unique water planet and civilization. Also, props to his knack of spot on characterization and encyclopedic knowledge, Trek of yore.
SF/F Books: Chapter Two - What Are You Reading?
- Thread starter Neroon
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Never. I've been known to do something similar with other books.Is it bad that I went and bought the first four books again just because I wanted them all to have matching cover art?
Welcome to the OCD club. I think all sci-fi aficionados have it to some degree, lol. It's what makes us buy the fifth season of Babylon 5 even though it was sub-standard to the rest of the series. Or buy the remastered original Star Trek, even though we just bought the standard version. Or the extended/director's cut or anniversary edition of every other movie we already own. 
Finished Turn Coat half an hour ago. Guess I'll go back to reading TNG: Q&A now but, aside from New Frontier, Star Trek books really don't seem to be pulling me in lately.
Welcome to the OCD club. I think all sci-fi aficionados have it to some degree, lol. It's what makes us buy the fifth season of Babylon 5 even though it was sub-standard to the rest of the series. Or buy the remastered original Star Trek, even though we just bought the standard version. Or the extended/director's cut or anniversary edition of every other movie we already own.
I have 10 copies of LotR to illustrate that point.
I have to catch up to you, I've only got four.Welcome to the OCD club. I think all sci-fi aficionados have it to some degree, lol. It's what makes us buy the fifth season of Babylon 5 even though it was sub-standard to the rest of the series. Or buy the remastered original Star Trek, even though we just bought the standard version. Or the extended/director's cut or anniversary edition of every other movie we already own.
I have 10 copies of LotR to illustrate that point.
I finished Hogfather two weeks ago and read The Road by Cormac McCarthy last week.
Now, I'm about 30 pages into Terry Pratchett's Mort, and I must say, Discworld is quickly becoming one of my favorite series
Now, I'm about 30 pages into Terry Pratchett's Mort, and I must say, Discworld is quickly becoming one of my favorite series
Better late than never, here's a review I wrote up for my blog:
It's a little-known fact that after the New York Evening Journal and Boston Post ended their unauthorized reprints of The War of the Worlds (under the title Fighters from Mars), which changed the location of the story to their respective sites of publication, it was immediately followed by an equally unauthorized sequel, written by Serviss, the Journal's science correspondent. In this story, Earth strikes back against the Martians with the power of electricity, under the fearless leadership of Thomas Edison himself. It's more interesting than good, unfortunately. Robert Godwin, the editor of the only uncut collected edition, tries to defend it on the basis of its ideas, and admittedly it has some great/important ones (Serviss was the first person to use oxygen pills, spacesuits, asteroid mining, aliens building the pyramids, alien abductions, ship-to-ship combat in outer space, and disintegrator guns in fiction), but the plot itself is pretty terrible. The characters take forever to get going, and once they do, they keep on being side-tracked by irrelevancies. And their plan is nonexistent; only a hundred ships are sent to fight all of Mars, over half of which are lost. The humans only win through a convenient discovery of really stupid aqueduct construction. And of course, Serviss totally misses the point of Wells's novel. (Though admittedly, he might do this on purpose.) It should be a lot of fun, and large parts of it are, but not even ridiculously over-the-top electrical optimistic imperialism can sustain 250 pages of poor plot before it wears out its welcome.
Richard Morgan: Woken Furies
Ouch. Okay, that won't be one I pick up.
It's a fascinating curiosity (and I'm going to try to publish a paper on it) and a great insight into the late-19th-century American mindset... but yeah... its intrinsic value as a piece of writing isn't that great.
Be it known that I have finished The Dresden Files: Turn Coat and I thought it was an excellent book. I can see why it's #1 on the NY Times Best Seller List. It strikes me as appealing to the standard SFF crowd, but there's just enough of a straight up mystery that it will appeal to those who occasionally "dip" into the SFF, or those looking for something different. I think Butcher did enough recapping that new people could jump in, but it wasn't obtrusive to those of us who've been reading since book one.
Time to find another book.
Time to find another book.
I think the last few Dresden Files books have got to no.1, and the last Codex Alera was high up too.
I've just started reading the first Remy Chandler book, A Kiss Before The Apocolypse, I picked it up thanks to reading the short in the Mean Streets anthology.
Nice. It's kind of weird to see series like those hitting so high, but normally I don't really pay attention to the NYT Bestseller list, so what do I know?
I actually went out and bought the hardcover of Princeps' Fury since I'd broken down and bought the hardcover of Turn Coat, but I've got a big comic TPB backlog at the moment, so I'm going to get through that before starting on Princeps.
Just finished The Valley-Westside War by Harry Turtledove. Part of his Crosstime Traffic series, it tells of a post-nuclear America and a fight between The Valley and the the Westside of LA. The entire plot hinges around Westsider interference in free trade over the former 405 freeway. Once again, Turtledove takes a great idea and demolishes it with repetitive, pedantic and, frankly, piss-poor writing. Sad, really, as his ideas are good but his writing style lacks originality and, dare I say it, skill. I was left scratching my head as to why I keep shoveling money into his wallet.
I've started listening to the audiobook of Frank Herbert's Dune. It's amazing, I've never heard an audiobook quite like it. There's a main narrator (Simon Vance, who always does an amazing job) and also voice actors who do the voices for the other characters. Unfortunately they aren't there all the time so there isn't total consistency, but it's not enough to ruin the experience. I look forward to bedtime every night when I can climb into the covers, plug my iPod into my ears, and be transported to Arrakis. I'm already contemplating getting the rest of the series.
I also want to check out some of Herbert's writings other than the Dune books; The Dragon In The Sea and The White Plague both look interesting. I also want to explore more in the "literary" classics of science-fiction, like Stranger In A Strange Land and Rendezvous With Rama which have both been on my list for a long time.
I also want to check out some of Herbert's writings other than the Dune books; The Dragon In The Sea and The White Plague both look interesting. I also want to explore more in the "literary" classics of science-fiction, like Stranger In A Strange Land and Rendezvous With Rama which have both been on my list for a long time.
^^Read the uncut version of Stranger if you can... The dividing line between "old Henlein" and "New Heinlein" happens in the middle of the book lol.
...and Rama is a lot of fun. I'm jealous, I wish I could read it again for the first time.
I also printed out the Gutenberg version of the American Edison WotW sequel, and I do plan on getting to it. I'm a big Wells fan and am interested in it for completeness' sake if nothing else. It sounds like it could be cool if approached w/the right attitude.
Speaking of Wells, have any of the rest of you folks read The Shape of Things to Come? I loved it, though it's not for all... it's written as a history book of the future, and I guess as an historian I can deal w/that better than some. Herbert George certainly had an eye for political trends.
There's an online version available here...
...and Rama is a lot of fun. I'm jealous, I wish I could read it again for the first time.
I also printed out the Gutenberg version of the American Edison WotW sequel, and I do plan on getting to it. I'm a big Wells fan and am interested in it for completeness' sake if nothing else. It sounds like it could be cool if approached w/the right attitude.
Speaking of Wells, have any of the rest of you folks read The Shape of Things to Come? I loved it, though it's not for all... it's written as a history book of the future, and I guess as an historian I can deal w/that better than some. Herbert George certainly had an eye for political trends.
There's an online version available here...
I loved Rendezvous With Rama! I agree with Klaus, the first time is the best.
Stranger was a strange one (ha) for me. I started reading it 20 years ago, in college. When it got to the churchy stuff I found that I got bored out of finishing it. But I picked it up again last year and loved it. I guess I had to be at the right stage of life to appreciate it.
Stranger was a strange one (ha) for me. I started reading it 20 years ago, in college. When it got to the churchy stuff I found that I got bored out of finishing it. But I picked it up again last year and loved it. I guess I had to be at the right stage of life to appreciate it.
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