In an insane attempt to read the entire litverse (only really dabbled in the past) I am using Thrawn’s amazing flowchart! Started with The Captain’s Oath as it seemed a nice place to start at the beginning of the original series. Man, what an incredible book! Raced through Leagcies, The Face of the Unknown and The Latter Fire and am now reading the list of TOS books noted as linking to the LITVERSE. Noted that the continuity with the TOS books is loose at best (ie the latter Fire has Chekov leave to explain his absence in TAS where as That Which Divides has him doing different rotations on the ship and still present in late 2269) Loving it so far - starting on Savage Trade next…
A STIR OF ECHOES by Richard Matheson, for probably the first time in 30 years. Was inspired by rewatching the movie version last night.
When I finished JJM's Rogue Elements, I said I wanted to re-read it immediately. I didn't (I re-read L'Engle's complete "kairos" novels instead, followed by Dr. McCormack's Spock "autobiography," and then Les Paul's actual [albeit assisted] autobiography), but I'm re-reading it now, and it's even funnier the second time.
I finished reading Direct Comments: Comic Book Creators in Their Own Words (2020) by Paul Kupperberg last night. A fun read for those familiar with comic books and the writers, artists, editors, and publishers of the 1970s and 1980s mostly. Kupperberg (a comic book writer himself since 1975 and also the authors several books including the DC Comics tie-in novel, JSA: Ragnarok) from 1988 to 1995 while on staff at DC had the duty of writing their monthly promotional newspaper, “Direct Currents”. In addition to blurbs about then upcoming issues and special projects, Kupperberg included an interview with a fellow comics professional conducted by himself in each issue (although in one issue he “interviewed” himself). Only part of each interview actually saw print in “Direct Currents”. Here in this book are the twenty-two edited and annotated full interview transcripts that still survive plus two bonus interviews done earlier by Kupperberg for other projects: an interview with Warren Publishing founder and publisher James (Jim) Warren that Kupperberg and Paul Levitz interviewed Warren for an issue of their fanzine “Etcetera” #4 (June 1971), and another interview Kupperberg and DC color artist Carl Gafford had with veteran comic book and newspaper comic strip artist Al Williamson in either 1972 or 1973 also for “Etcetera” but did not see print until July 1981 in “Comics Feature” #10. (Note: These two interviews are worth the price of the book all by themselves, especially the interview with Jim Warren! Not much information about what was then happening at Warren Publishing can be found in the interview but you can definitely know what the never afraid to speak his mind Warren really thought about Kupperberg and Levitz!) The “People at Work” Direct Currents interview subjects in this book are as follows (in the order they are presented in the book which is also the order they originally ran in the promo newsletter): Denny O’Neil, Kyle Baker, Kurt Schaffenberger, Paul Kupperberg, Mike Grell, Jerry Ordway, Walter Simonson, Keith Giffen, Ed Hannigan, Julie Schwartz, Adam Hughes, Brian Bolland, Pepe Moreno, Klaus Janson, John Costanza, Jerry Robinson, Tom Lyle, Chuck Dixon, Carmine Infantino, Jim Aparo, John Byrne, Lee Mars, and Dick Giordano. Again, these names may not be familiar to non comic book readers of the 1970s (some of them as early as the 1940s) through 1990s. However those who did read comics regularly during those decades should know who most if not all of these people are. Kupperberg also has an interesting introduction going over the various incarnations of DC’s promotional newsletters over the years, including before and after his time on “Direct Currents”. The profile interviews are fun light reads (most between five and ten pages long). For more in depth interviews I recommend hunting down the magazines and books published by TwoMorrows, which has become the gold standard of comics history publications. (This Direct Comments book is published by Buffalo Avenue Books.) I gave this book four out of five stars on GoodReads. David Y.
Ok, Savage Trade, is done - some parts of this I really liked: - expansion of the Excalbians beyond their monster of the week appearance in TOS - Kirk's relationship with Valek - some nice physics stuff in their too... On the other hand, I struggled with the 'human' Excalbians and felt the pirate sub-plot could have been an interesting story on its own, especially with the hint of the L'rah'hane and Hradrians being a major threat in the large gap between ENT and TOS. Hoping that gets revisited. Troublesome Minds next up and then No Time Like the Past to go and then I'll have finished the first flowchart 'block'
Wow…just read ‘Troublesome Minds’ over the last 24 hours. With the recent loss of the author I knew it would be an emotional read but what a beautiful work! The ending (which I won’t spoil for those who have not read this) left me breathless. I’ll let this one sit with me for today and then will be starting on “No Time Like the Past” by @Greg Cox tomorrow.
Just finished Rogue Saucer. Really enjoyed it. The scene with the two saucers was nicely done. I wish we had an idea on who the Architect was though. Any other good numbered books out there to read?
Just finished re-reading JJM's Rogue Elements. Funnier the second time (except for a few parts of it got a bit tiresome the second time), and the epilogues were especially funny the second time.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. Set within the confines of Coopers Chase - an upmarket retirement community on the south coast of England - the Thursday Murder Club are a group of septuagenarian pensioners who meet to investigate cold cases and unsolved murders. Usually over tea and biscuits. When a dead body pops up on their doorstep, the gang - Joyce, Ron, Ibrahim and Elizabeth - are on the case. Just as soon as they've had another slice of Joyce's excellent lemon cake.
Good numbered books, off the top of my head: TOS: The Pandora Principle, Assignment: Eternity, Vulcan's Glory, The Captain's Daughter TNG: Masks, A Rock and a Hard Place, Q-In-Law DS9: The Siege, Fallen Heroes, Station Rage VOY: Marooned, Echoes ...and the four entries in the Invasion! miniseries admittedly vary in quality but all have something to recommend them, particularly the TOS and DS9 entries. If you don't mind books from the numbered era that technically don't have actual numbers on them: TOS: Strangers From the Sky, Federation TNG: Vendetta, Imzadi Q-Squared, Dark Mirror VOY: Captain's Table: Fire Ship (stands alone quite nicely)
TOS#79 Invasion Book 1: First Strike - enjoyed this one but diminishing returns on books 2,3&4. TNG#18 Q-in-Law - laugh out loud funny! DS9#2 The Siege - early novel that took an interesting direction. VOY#15 Echoes - parallel timelines and deals with something that occurred on the show but was glossed over in future eps. EDIT - @Thrawn beat me to it by 1 min - forgot about Dark Mirror - loved its take on the Mirror Universe
Thread duty: I am reading Star Trek: Cast No Shadow, Star Wars: Invincible, and The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) right now. The first and third are enjoyable, and the middle one offers the occasional morsel of goodness. For numbered books, the first one that came to mind was A Stitch in Time (DS9 #27). The Romulan Prize (TNG #26) is also a particular favorite of mine. Duane's TOS books are all great. Vulcan's Glory is a winner. The My Brother's Keeper trilogy and In the Name of Honor are worth checking out. The Double Helix (minus the third entry) is a great crossover series with the TNG label. The Q Continuum trilogy and Diplomatic Implausibility round out my TNG recommendations. The 34th Rule (DS9 #23) is a standout. I have read some Voyager numbered novels that were fine, but nothing approaches the Beyer books for quality that I have found.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE by Ian Fleming I’ve been trying to alternate male and female authors, so this isn’t the originally planned one, but recognising where they were going from it when I saw No Time To Die, I felt the need to check that I was right (and I was.) It’s far from my favourite Bond book – it feels more like a travelogue than a novel, and the novel elements feel like something intended to start a new series, but that got forced into continuing the popular existing one. Only Tiger Tanaka actually comes over with a voice, little happens beyond tourism anecdotes for the three quarters of it, Bond himself is reduced to a caricature of his grumpy side, and Blofeld is completely out of character from the previous two books – though to be fair, Fleming actually even has Bond notice that. It’s still worth being familiar with (and OHMSS) so you can see where they’ve been going with SPECTRE and No Time To Die, though, and spot the echoes and references.
I’m thinking of reading Dune. If I read the first three books, would that provide a good stopping point?
Dune itself is very self contained. Read the first novel, then decide if you want to explore more, either forward or backward. You could stop or pause after Children of Dune.
I only have read a couple of Bond books written by Ian Fleming, and found some of them rather dull. Are there many differences between the male and female Bond writers?