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So What Are you Reading?: Generations

Just started Anthony Horowitz's Sherlock Holmes: The House of Silk, also still reading Darth Plagueis which I am enjoying so far.
 
As I finished on the bonus making of GENERATIONS chapter at the end of the paperback, its noted that there were 2 scripts written the one we see onscreen, and one by Maurice Hurley. Berman is quotes as saying he wrote "a very good script, a great scipt"...which they were maybe going to use for Star tREk TNG 2 which didnt happen. So anyone kno what his film was going to be about? Off topic yeah i kno but im asking.
 
I am devouring Stephen King's "Dark Tower" saga. Yep, worth the hype. I'm now diving into Song of Susannah.
 
Currently reading Trust by Francis Fukuyama and earlier this year read The End of History and the Last Man by the same author (previously read two of his later books). Also completed four stories by Robert Louis Stevenson as an add on to "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" which was the last book that I read last year. As for ST: currently reading A Choice of Catastrophes by Michael Schuster & Steve Mollman. Must read more fiction!
 
^I read Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde myself just recently, as a followup to watching Steven Moffat's Jekyll miniseries. It was, I think, the first Stevenson I've read. There was some very nice, poetic writing in it, like that marvelous description of the London fog, but the story structure is very strange by modern standards, with pretty much all the interesting stuff happening off-camera and not being revealed until the viewpoint character reads some posthumous letters after the story is effectively over. I can understand why the stage and film adaptations generally didn't follow the novella's structure.
 
Just finished the last story in Vanguard: Declassified this morning. I loved the whole collection, but the last story was the best of the bunch. I knew what was coming with the fate of a certain character at the end, but I didn't how it happened so I was still rather surprised by how everything played. It was a very powerful scene. My Rating: 9.5/10
I started reading both "The Embrace of Cold Artifacts", in Myriad Universes: Shattered Light, and Knights of the Old Republic: Commencement.
 
I finished Typhon Pact: The Struggle Within last night. I'm now reading New Frontier: House of Cards. I read the first six or seven NF novels years ago, but never got any farther then that, so I'm going to try to catch up this year.
 
Started to read David Mack's Rise Like Lions. So far tonight read around 170 pages. Will read another chapter or two before bed.
 
I'm re-reading the Tos Lost years trilogy. I just finished Traitor winds by LA.Graf and startred Flag full of stars.
 
Finished Janet Evanovich's One for the Money, my wife is happy I caved and read it, I was surprised that it was a fast easy read that actually had some laugh out loud moments. Now my wife's next mission is to get us to the theater to see it lol.

Currently about halfway through the TNG ebook Slings and Arrows #1 : Sea of Trouble, been meaning to read this for awhile but I have not purchased the rest of the series so far so I might be doing myself a disservice.
 
I'm now toggling between the short stories in the Lives of Dax and No Limits. I definitely prefer longer novels but these are really nice.
 
I've also started on Darth Plagueis and thus far am loving it. (I did spent the first few chapters eagerly awaiting Palpatine's appearance. What can I say, as a character he's a very effective complete monster, even more so in this book.) Some very intriguing looks into both Sith philosophy and galactic politics and great characterizations make this a worthy addition to the star wars universe. (And I'm not even half way through yet...)

In part due to the discussion you and I had during our last meet, I went and got it, too. :) I enjoyed it, though I was amused to find that the one thing that put me off was the same thing I applaud when I encounter it in Trek novels - the continuity references. I got the impression that the novel was stringing together a lot of other plots and stories as a backdrop to its own, and I wasn't really familiar with many. It wasn't too much of a problem - the plot could be followed just fine so long as you know the films - but I think I would've found it a lot more meaningful had I understood the significance of all the references. As I say, it was amusing to feel what those Trek lit fans less committed than I might feel when reading a KRAD novel, for instance. The sense that you're missing out on a chunk of knowledge that isn't necessary but would enhance your enjoyment.

One thing I noticed intrigued me, though I think I'm probably wrong and this is another Lord Odo, so to speak (older references that have nothing to do with popular sci-fi that make us sci-fi fans think they might). Parts of Darth Plagueis' philosophy reminded me very strongly of the Shadows from Babylon Five (as a big B5 fan, such links come easily, though in this case very appropriate in places). Then I got to a speech of his where, in describing his plans and philosophies, he mentioned how his chaotic plans' sucess would be measured in "signs and portents". Okay, I know that's a biblical quote (though it seems the translation "signs and symbols" or "signs and wonders" is preferred, given my admittedly short internet search), and there were other bible references in the novel, particularly in the scene when Palpatine makes Palpatine pulp (long story), but given the philosophical context, and with my mind already having made Shadow connections, it gave me a bit of a jolt. Was that perhaps intended to reference the B5 episode that introduces the Shadows to the setting (which itself presumably draws inspiration from the Biblical quote)? Or is it just drawing on the same source, without the additional nod? I can clearly see why Isaiah 8 is relevant to Plagueis, but if the favoured translation is "symbols" or "wonders", as it seemed to be by far (only one of the listed variants used "portents"), then why use "portents"? Is this a bonus of sorts for sci-fi fans?
 
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^That's really reaching. There are plenty of prior sources that use that translation, such as the title of a P.G. Wodehouse story. When I Google for the phrase, I find nearly 800,000 hits, most of which have nothing to do with B5.

As a rule, if you see two recent works both using the same reference, it is far more likely that they're both drawing on a prior source than that one is referencing the other. Creativity is a branching process, spreading ever more outward. There are so many different creative works in modern times that the odds of any given two having direct, intentional links to one another are small, but they all draw on previous works, so the odds that they share a common link to something earlier are much greater.
 
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