The newest episode of the Positively Trek Book Club is up! Bruce and I discuss the Voyager miniseries Seven's Reckoning by Dave Baker with art by Angel Hernandez. Really enjoyed this series! Currently reading the Star Trek Online novel The Needs of the Many by Michael A. Martin (& Jake Sisko!). I've had this one on my shelf since its release but never got around to reading it!
I'm currently reading A Singular Destiny by Keith DeCandido. With the news of this Coda trilogy, it lit a fire under my ass to get back into finishing the post-Nemesis litverse.
Finished Revolution Trade by Charles Stross. Glad there are some more books though. Taking a break from that series to read The Strange Case of the Alchemists Daughter by Theodora Goss.
Well, I finished The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss and am now onto European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman. I enjoyed the first, and so far the second is good. I suspect some of the people here may pickup on references that I didn't at first glance. Spoiler: Spoilers It's mostly about the daughters and/or the female creations of certain other literary characters. I wasn't familiar with Rappaccini (Rappaccini's Daughter)at first, but was more familiar with Moreau, Jekyl and Hyde, Frankenstein and Van Helsing, though the latter is more for the second book. Other characters that will ring a bell are Ms Mina Murray, Renfield, Sherlock (and associates) and at the point of the book I'm on, Styria is getting a lot of mentions so I'm expecting someone else who's familiar. A doctor Raymond has been name dropped (Wasn't familiar - but The Great God Pan?). Looking at the way Dr Van Helsing has been mentioned so far, I expect he'll be one of the threats.
Just finished Ruth. About to start First Samuel. Spoiler: Spoiler Alert! Judges is not about jurisprudence, and Ruth has nothing to do with a certain recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice.
Jinn, I’m finally reading A Stitch in Time - thanks so much for the suggestion. Garak was always one of my favorite character’s and it has pulled me right with the background information of his upbringing.
I'm re-reading Star trek Enterprise Rosetta by Dave Stern. I really like the story take s place during season 4.There's alot of great story arcs for the Enterprise crew in this book.
I finished ST:VoY: A Pocket Full of Lies Friday night, and started reading Monstress Vol.2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu with art by Sana Takeda.
The Sinister Cas of the Mesmerizing Girl (Theodora Goss) and so far, it looks like the last of the series.
THE LOST WORLD by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I posted before about being surprised at the opening chapter having the narrator moaning about being friendzoned – and remember this was written in 1912 – by a woman who openly says she only wants to marry the reputation of a guy who’s done adventurous things (spoiler, at the end she’s married an accountant), and trying to be a reputation instead of a person is what motivates the narrator… It’s… Well, obviously it’s a very pro-Imperialist thing where the four white heroes continuously go on about the superiority of European white types, and even praise for Indians or the painfully-named Zambo is exceedingly nanny-knows-best. (This is somewhat more bearable in Professor Challenger’s case cos he, the most memorable character, lumps basically all of humanity into the category “offensive cowardly morons inferior to me”). Doyle seems a bit confused as to what plants and animals are native to South America, cos he has some that aren’t- this is acceptable within the lost world itself, where conditions are different than outside, but not at other times. It’s also odd that there’s an argument at all about creatures surviving from the age of dinosaurs when even at the time people knew crocodiles and sharks were around at the same time, and still around. Keeping the characters to four main figures helps make them all feel memorable, though obviously Challenger is the star – it’s astonishing that Brian Blessed has never played the role (that I know of), cos it’s made for him. All this aside, it does succeed in bringing out a feeling of going on an adventure into undiscovered regions, and the sequence when the narrator is chased through the dark by a hungry (probable) allosaurus is a clear standout. Between this and Jewel Of Seven Stars which I’ve been reading for work purposes (and thus won’t appear in these Recreational Reading posts) so soon after The Chimes, I’m now pretty desperate for something modern and snappy…
John Rhys-Davies played Challenger in a pair of 1992 TV movies (with David Warner as Summerlee). That's pretty close.
I’m reading A Time to Heal. I’ll be real with you guys, these “A Time to...” books have been rough. Some have been fine. Some have... not. But nine books? Lot of padding in this mini-series.
Brian Blessed played Professor Champion, a pretty obvious Challenger pastiche, in an episode of The Scarifyers. He was of course delightful.
I finished Demons by J.M. Dillard, a TOS possession story that also features Sarek, Amanda, and Vulcan as a primary setting. I liked this quite a bit, and my rating will fluctuate from 3 to 4 stars depending on the day and my mood. There is no dedicated thread for the book, so I'm curious if other TrekBBS members have any opinions, memories, or thoughts they would like to share about it. In the realm of Star Wars, I finished Solo Command, which is an amazing book. I'm in the middle of The Hand of Thrawn, a duology that will always hold a special place in my heart. The second volume has one of my few autographs from an author.
I got into all the Star Wars novels the year that Vision of the Future came out; that was maybe the first book of any kind that I anticipated that much. Was begging my parents to go to the bookstore as much as possible to see if it had made it onto shelves yet. And it actually exceeded my expectations, which is so rare... endings are hard. Truly great endings are to be cherished.