I have read the first book of the Dresden files but didn't really liked it, but maybe I give it another try
It does take a little while to really get good, the third or fourth book was where it really took off for me.
Still in The Pilgrim's Progress. Just finished the introduction to Part 2. Editor's endnotes remark that where in Part 1, Bunyan sought to "disturb" the comfortable, in Part 2, he sought to comfort the "disturbed." (A rather obvious misquote of the old saw that the purpose of religion -- or of journalism, depending who you're talking to -- is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.") Then again, the editor -- in 2005 -- continued the long-discredited assertion that the Plymouth Colonists styled themselves as "The Pilgrims." From my own recollections, Part 1 is, in modern terms, "Christian exclusivist," while Part 2 is more "Christian inclusivist." Still haven't had time to listen to that ST audio drama I downloaded. Most likely this week.
I finished Spiderman the darkest hours. I love the three stories! They are written by three writers, Jim Butcher, Keith R. A. Decandido and Christopher L. Bennett. These are the first Spiderman novels I have read and love Peter/Spiderman's humor and that he is a experienced Spiderman and has mature problems. He is in a realistic and adult relationship with MJ. I wouldn't mind to have a Spiderman book were Peter and MJ just talk the whole evening and nothing happens, so interesting are these characters. In my head I pictured Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst about 10 years after Spiderman 3
Hmm. CLB and KRAD writing Spider-Man. Sounds interesting. I followed the newspaper strip for a short time, many years ago.
Be that as it may, I'm currently (having finished The Pilgrim's Progress) going through a few months worth of magazines and "disposable reading material" that I didn't have time to read during Lent. And I'll also soon start re-reading Tears of the Singers.
I’m reading TOS- Black Fire after about a year away from Trek novels (and Trek in general) Enjoying it while I do a TOS rewatch as well. As for the book, its a bit of a wild adventure that hardly ever seems to slow down once it gets going. I’m about a halfway through, hoping it has an exciting conclusion. I can’t really call it yet.
The Spider-Man comic strip, its last fifteen years or so, was so, so bad. The writer (ostensibly Stan the Man) would, at least once a year, stop a storyline for a month to retell Spidey's origin, and sometimes he'd do the same with a guest super-hero like Daredevil. The writer was also a Peter/MJ shipper; when the comics got rid of the marriage (has it really been almost fifteen years since that?), the comic strip did not. Mainly, it was boring; stories were paced languidly, cliffhangers were rarely dramatic.
Recently finished Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn. Now reading Thrawn: Alliances, The Life of the Mind by Christine Smallwood, The Flight from the Enchanter by Iris Murdoch, Tales from the Hinterland by Melissa Albert, the short stories of Elizabeth Bowen, and the Revised Critical Edition of the diary of Anne Frank.
Yesterday I finished the digital collection of the Star Wars comic miniseries Age of Republic, and after that I decided to get back to Trek, so I started The Original Series: Prime Directive by the Reeves-Stevenses. I'm about a chapter and a half into, and it's gotten off to an interesting start. I haven't watched TOS in a while, and I want to watch an episode or two to go along with the book. Are there any that go with it well, either because of story/character connections or just thematically?
It's at the end of the five-year mission, and it features the crew in very unusual situations. You might try "All Our Yesterdays" and "Turnabout Intruder." "The City on the Edge of Forever" is also pretty appropriate.
Reposting what I wrote in the What Are You Reading? thread over in the Miscellaneous section of the boards.
THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB by Richard Osman OK… Obviously you can ignore all the enthusiastic endorsements printed in the book bay assorted other celebs and tabloids- they print that stuff to persuade you to buy something written by somebody famous for something else. (And I have a long-standing problem with the industry now only giving decent book contracts to people already famous for something else instead to actual writers.) Does this mean the people who said to me that they hated it and gave up cos it was rubbish and boring are right? Well, no. What it is is… mild and harmlessly OK. Among other things. I’d expected snarky wit from him, but really just got the occasional faint smile. There’s also the occasional deep line, but they’re few and far between, and the padding doesn’t help. The actual plot is fair enough, and the main characters are fun enough that you can tell which of Osman’s mates is meant to play them. Everybody has a secret, though some of them are just tagged on as afterthoughts. There’s something lacking though, and that’s focus and pacing. The book mostly flows along nicely when reading it, but when you’ve put it down there’s no real urge to pick up again in a hurry. The main reason is because it’s about 150 pages too long, and there’s so much drifting along. The worst thing is that every time there’s about to a revelation it has a character going “there’s a revelation”, then switches to another, and another, each in a separate chapter, before getting round to actually giving whatever the revelation is. This is incredibly frustrating- it didn’t make want to find out what’s on the next page, it made me yell “get fucking on with it you cunt!” repeatedly. Especially in the “Joyce” first-person chapters, which seem to be less a viewpoint character and more a device for treading watcr while getting paid by the word. One of the glowing endorsements says Osman’s done a proper Agatha Christie- bullshit, Agatha would have done the whole damn thing in under 200 pages. Yeah, so… Not actually bad, Elizabeth’s a good (oviously Judi Dench) character, and the plot works, but far too long and too artificially slow. Basically, the ideal book for a long flight or train ride, where you won’t have to stop and therefore take days to get motivated to pick it up again. And disappointing on the snarky wit front.
Tears of the Singers, by Melinda Snodgrass. Undoubtedly, this was part of what led her to join the TNG staff. Obviously from before anybody had established Uhura's linguistic chops, and from a time when the general characterization of Klingons could be summed up with a remark David Gerrold once made (in his book, The Trouble with Tribbles, as I recall, when they replaced a rival corporation as the bad guys), to the effect that Klingons fart in airlocks. I will note that Chapter 5 took longer to get through than the first four chapters combined.