Just finished The Last Battle. Whew. A real downer of a beginning, . . . Spoiler: . . . that just keeps getting worse until we enter the stable, and then . . . . . . a real surprise of an ending. Kind of like the ending of The Pilgrim's Progress. And a unique (but very Anglican, I would say) concept of the Afterlife. Hmm. It also reminds me of the ending of 2001, with Bowman living out his life in a matter of minutes, then being reborn as the Star-Child. Not to mention Chekhov's Guns going off all over the place (and you don't have to be a Russian literary giant with an MD to recognize Chekhov's Gun when you see one; a greenhorn ensign with a gift for navigation could do it). Now reading ADF's The Taste of Different Dimensions. Just finished the first of the stories in time to go pick up my car, after having sonar installed. And I'm expecting a copy of Heller's God Knows (a somewhat snarky retelling of the story of King David -- go figure) from an Alibris member bookseller any day now.
I finished up Amazing Spider-Man: The Gauntlet: The Complete Collection Vol. 1 last night, and started Ghost Story by Jim Butcher, the 13th The Dresden Files, earlier today.
THE HOUSE OF WHACKS by Matthew Branton This sounded like it should be right up my street- Neo-Noir Chicago in 1950, with Blacklisted movie makers turning to porn, pulp writers, mobsters seeking to invent modern commercialism, heists, Nazi gold, stunt artists, an all that Jazz. And just enough bits of it are. Unfortunately those bits are spaced out with great long ten-page woe-is-me backstories in train of thought from characters, and/or split up by the occasional “three months later”, which combine to make some frustration if you’re the kind of reader who either doesn’t go for that kind of lit genre, or, more crucially, has been lied to by the blurb which sells it as something else. There are bunch of bits where the in-character narrators’ (yeah, plural) mask slips and you can tell it’s written by a young British guy rather than any of the types of narrator he’s playing as, which is distracting. There are good scenes, some good exchanges, some good character moments – before they’re tent-pegged into the ground – and bonus points for good female characters too. But it just feels like could have been so much more if the author had waited another decade or so, especially with so much of it being about writers later in life.
I did a reread of Star Trek: The Lost Years by J.M. Dillard. The book has a lot going for it and helps bridge the characters from their places on the series to the first movie. What I did not remember is how much gross stuff the villain does to his victims. I liked how the "Unification" two-parter handled extreme Vulcan mental powers much better. Outside of Trek, I read the first chapter of A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. While I definitely would not want to attend the Scholomance (they make Hogwarts seem safe and balmy in comparison), I like the writing so far, and I want to know more.
Camping season has restarted so I'm again delving into my old Pocketbook Star Trek novels of the 1980s to reread (most of which I haven't read in 20 or more years). I figured I'd tackle the two novels Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath wrote for Pocketbooks, the first of which was The Prometheus Design. I was obviously not a fan of their Phoenix novels so my expectations are low (I did read this novel years ago but can't remember a thing about it. We'll see if this one is any better. This one is clearly a post-TMP novel (they referenced Spock's attempts to achieve Kolinahr and they refer to Kirk as an Admiral, who is currently 'acting captain'). It'll be interesting to read their take on the post-TMP world because the book came out in 1982 so there was no TWOK yet to give you any hints of where things would go next. But, knowing these two authors, as I said, not thinking this is gonna be one of the great novels in Star Trek history
Like The Fate of the Phoenix, it touches on some interesting philosophical ideas, but then fails to follow through.
Just finished ADF's The Taste of Other Dimensions. Very diverse collection. From a Santa Claus story to one involving a haunted slave-trading castle in Gabon, to the final piece, the only one that had not been published elsewhere, . . . Spoiler: . . . which involves . . . . . . zombies. And I don't mean the kind you serve in a tall glass. My copy of Heller's God Knows arrived yesterday. Turned out to be the second or third printing of the first commercial hardcover edition. With a somewhat beat-up dust jacket.
Captain's Blood by William Shatner. I'm rereading this novel that takes place after Nemesis the story with the Romulans reminds of some of the things shown in Picard Season one.It's a co-inicidince that they take place after the last TNG movie.With Romulan spies and intrigue.
Finished 1st to Die earlier by James Patterson. Now (and rather different) Shadow of the fox by Julie Kagawa
Now on page 32, almost 10% into Heller's God Knows. I correctly remembered how snarky it is (Heller's David repeatedly calls his son Solomon, in essence, an idiot, and has even less-kind things to say about Samson), but I'd forgotten how bawdy it is. Or how full of obvious anachronisms (like Yiddish, or references to Milton . . . or Hitler). And I wouldn't have recognized (much less gotten) most of the biblical in-jokes, the first time I read it. Thick book, but the paper is some of the heaviest book paper I've encountered in quite a while, at least in a commercially published novel, probably at least an 80-100 pound basis weight (equivalent to a 30-40 pound basis weight in bond paper)
I was just about to post here for the first time in awhile and say i've trying a slow go of reading the Trek novels in order. I got off to a great start with Entropy Effect and was thinking to myself I made a great decision... Then I got to Klingon Gambit, which was just dreadful.. then Covenant of the Crown, which I enjoyed but didn't love. Brings me to this novel, The Prometheus Design I wouldn't claim to be a trek expert or anything so I might have missed this when I watched TOS a few years ago, but I don't recall all this 'Vulcan mode' nonsense. its a total distraction for the book and it still would be if the show was like that every other word. I don't mind the conflict with Spock and Kirk, and the training sparring match early in the book is pretty fun but I feel like the authors do everything they can to get in their own way. its been a real slog to get through..
'Unknown Pleasures' by Peter Hook (Joy Division/New Order). Often hilarious, sometimes frustrating, ultimately very honest. Just like the author.
Plenty of books have invented new worldbuilding that wasn't in the shows, especially back in those days when there were so few episodes in comparison. Nothing wrong with that, in principle. (There was plenty of that in The Entropy Effect.) It's just that how they did it in The Prometheus Design was a particularly bad idea, less to do with Vulcans than with the authors' own desire to write borderline BDSM gay porn and have Kirk repeatedly dominated by hyperaggressive hypermales.
Now about 1/8 of the way into God Knows. Past the point where Heller's David snarks about how obtaining the Philistine foreskins that Saul demanded as the bride-price for Michal became much easier when he started killing the Philistines before circumcising them.
I tried doing that a little while back, read the books in order of release. I bowed out around book 5 the Prometheus design. I just couldn't get through that one. Alot of those books from the 80s are rough to get through. The more modern stuff by guys like Christopher Bennett, Greg Cox, and Dayton Ward, to name a few, just feel so much more like classic TOS.
Or 68 in the SFBC HC. Thanks, "Smiley." I'm delighted that I was right about it being Uhura, in TWS. Spoiler: In the plot, it was . . . . . . when Kirk and McCoy were discussing the odd experiences that the "vast majority" of the crew had, the first time K't'lk's inversion drive was activated. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has while TWS has It's almost verbatim, and DD even used the unusual device of two speakers alternating in the same paragraph, the same as Lewis. Clearly an open homage to Narnia, intended to be recognized (and indeed, it's hardly the only Narnian nod in the book).