Just finished Dark Plagueis by James Luceno.
Enjoyed it too.
Enjoyed it too.
So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
Last night I got an e-book of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell from the Overdrive digital library app. I just started it last night, and the only thing that's kind of bugging me is the first part is written as a journal from a guy back in the either 1700s or 1800s so there have been a few words and phrases I'm not familiar with. It's not enough to ruin it for me or anything, but it did take a bit to get used to it.
That is a very good. Look how it ties all the stuff from the prequels together.
Made me read the remaining EU stories I didn’t get to.
Does anyone have actual novel-verse timespan dates for the following:
VOY: To Lose the Earth
PICARD: The Last Best Hope (Feb 11, 2020) Late 2300s?
TOS - The Higher Frontier - March 2020 - 5 year mission timeframe?
TOS - Agents of Influence - June 2020 - 5 year mission?
ABRAMSVERSE - The Unsettling Stars - Alt. 5 year mission?
VOY: To Lose the Earth
PICARD: The Last Best Hope (Feb 11, 2020) Late 2300s?
TOS - The Higher Frontier - March 2020 - 5 year mission timeframe?
TOS - Agents of Influence - June 2020 - 5 year mission?
ABRAMSVERSE - The Unsettling Stars - Alt. 5 year mission?
Also, currently listening to "Dead Endless" and reading Jack Reacher "Without Fail." My brother got me hooked on the Lee Child series.
No, it's set several years after Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Based on when the other Beyer Voyager novels start and end, I‘d guess this one starts in August or September 2382.
First two recreational reads of the year:
1) – LEARNED OPTIMISM by Martin EP Seligman
This was recommended to me as a difference to the usual “mindfulness” stuff that people keeping saying one should do, but which doesn’t work for me. Essentially Seligman had noted that removing negative feelings doesn’t cause a rise in positive feelings, because they need to be controlled separately, and aren’t just opposites on a set of scales. He also wanted to stem the burgeoning youth depression, because chemical therapy didn’t seem to work on children, and he didn’t want to be to doping up America’s kids. Which of course eventually did happen.
Anyway, so he came up with questionnaires to work out whether one could benefit from his techniques about the Pleasant Life (being OK with where you are), the Engaged Life (being the best you you can be), and the Meaningful Life (being the best person for others and wider society). And those bits in the middle of the book are relatively interesting – as well as a nice change from mindfulness – even if they don’t apply to all of us. In fact they seem to be aimed at younger adults starting families, which ain’t me. The book goes with pessimists always assuming disaster is their fault, and optimists that it’s always other people’s fault. In fact they tend to be a mixture, for me, anyway. and the second option, which he categorises as the optimistic one, is more a tell of the psychopath in The Psychopath Test. Hey, Psychologist-duel!
The biggest problem the book has as a book, though, is that at least a third of it is padded out to buggery with the history of the author’s career, and how positive and negative thinking has affected US politics and sports. None of which matters to me. So, really, it needs a cliff-notes bare-bones version very, very strongly.
2) – DAWN OF THE DUMB by Charlie Brooker
A gathering of his review columns from the mid Noughties, and a bit of a mixture. Broadly we clearly share similar opinions on TV, and a dim view of the masses who lap up lowest-common-denominator stuff, so I found myself nodding at a lot of his criticisms of reality tat, and glad to see his positive stuff about the likes of Dr Who – and even to be alerted to The Martians And Us, a BBC Four documentary about British SF which I probably saw but don’t remember, and so will have to look up on Youtube.
That said, his competition with himself to be imaginatively-swearily degrading towards the aforementioned lowest denomination actually gets pretty dull and tiresome when collected together in a book, and there’s something particularly vindictive about his categorisation of people who write in to Watchdog…. But generally I think it’s just a case of these reviews being meant to be taken in small, spaced-out doses rather than gobbled down as a mountain-sized unHappyMeal – and since I never watched any of the reality shows that make up about two-thirds of the subject matter, it comes across all foaming at the mouth about a bunch of incomprehensibly-worshipped nobodies I’ve never heard of and thus have no real interest in…
So, it works well in individual cases, but not as a book to be read in protracted sittings… For me, anyway.
1) – LEARNED OPTIMISM by Martin EP Seligman
This was recommended to me as a difference to the usual “mindfulness” stuff that people keeping saying one should do, but which doesn’t work for me. Essentially Seligman had noted that removing negative feelings doesn’t cause a rise in positive feelings, because they need to be controlled separately, and aren’t just opposites on a set of scales. He also wanted to stem the burgeoning youth depression, because chemical therapy didn’t seem to work on children, and he didn’t want to be to doping up America’s kids. Which of course eventually did happen.
Anyway, so he came up with questionnaires to work out whether one could benefit from his techniques about the Pleasant Life (being OK with where you are), the Engaged Life (being the best you you can be), and the Meaningful Life (being the best person for others and wider society). And those bits in the middle of the book are relatively interesting – as well as a nice change from mindfulness – even if they don’t apply to all of us. In fact they seem to be aimed at younger adults starting families, which ain’t me. The book goes with pessimists always assuming disaster is their fault, and optimists that it’s always other people’s fault. In fact they tend to be a mixture, for me, anyway. and the second option, which he categorises as the optimistic one, is more a tell of the psychopath in The Psychopath Test. Hey, Psychologist-duel!
The biggest problem the book has as a book, though, is that at least a third of it is padded out to buggery with the history of the author’s career, and how positive and negative thinking has affected US politics and sports. None of which matters to me. So, really, it needs a cliff-notes bare-bones version very, very strongly.
2) – DAWN OF THE DUMB by Charlie Brooker
A gathering of his review columns from the mid Noughties, and a bit of a mixture. Broadly we clearly share similar opinions on TV, and a dim view of the masses who lap up lowest-common-denominator stuff, so I found myself nodding at a lot of his criticisms of reality tat, and glad to see his positive stuff about the likes of Dr Who – and even to be alerted to The Martians And Us, a BBC Four documentary about British SF which I probably saw but don’t remember, and so will have to look up on Youtube.
That said, his competition with himself to be imaginatively-swearily degrading towards the aforementioned lowest denomination actually gets pretty dull and tiresome when collected together in a book, and there’s something particularly vindictive about his categorisation of people who write in to Watchdog…. But generally I think it’s just a case of these reviews being meant to be taken in small, spaced-out doses rather than gobbled down as a mountain-sized unHappyMeal – and since I never watched any of the reality shows that make up about two-thirds of the subject matter, it comes across all foaming at the mouth about a bunch of incomprehensibly-worshipped nobodies I’ve never heard of and thus have no real interest in…
So, it works well in individual cases, but not as a book to be read in protracted sittings… For me, anyway.
Started Anno Dracula 1999 by Kim Newman this morning.
Yeah, that's a screwed-up definition of optimism. To me, optimism means believing that you have the power to make a positive difference in your life and others' -- and that requires recognizing that you have the responsibility for your mistakes as well, that outcomes are under your control rather than being the result of external circumstances. You can't believe you have the power to do good without accepting that you have the power to do harm as well, and that it's your choice which path to take.
I decided to start reading all the Star Trek e-books I've been buying up on sale. Make it a Star Trek year! Started reading Ghost Ship by Diane Carey which I read years and years ago.
Just finished Hearts and Minds. It was good to read about Mestral and the Aegis again. And Picard facing the consequences of his involvement in the Min Zife coup.....
The book had a certain Independence Day feel for me..... Quark is most likely not in danger of getting trouble with the DTI because of his Little Green Men adventure in Earth's past as he is not Starfleet....
The book had a certain Independence Day feel for me..... Quark is most likely not in danger of getting trouble with the DTI because of his Little Green Men adventure in Earth's past as he is not Starfleet....
At this point, I think the only people who know when exactly The Last Best Hope takes place are the people who work for Gallery Books. All we know at the moment is that it features characters introduced in Picard.
The Unsettling Stars was originally written after the first JJ Abrams book, so unless Alan Dean Foster went back a rewrote parts of it, it probably takes place before the five year mission, which didn't start until the end of Star Trek Into Darkness.
The latest Literary Treks is up: Literary Treks 294: Pulling the Strings, all about DS9: Hollow Men by Una McCormack.
I gave up on Cloud Atlas, I just didn't really like the writing style, and I just didn't find the characters or stories interesting enough to put up with it. One of the biggest things that bothered me is the first two parts of it are period stories, and I was constantly coming across a ton of words and phrases I wasn't familar with. I don't mind if that happens occasionally, but this was constant, and the writer seemed to assume his readers knew them, because I couldn't really even figure out from context what they meant. I'm pretty disappointed to, because I really enjoyed the movie and was looking forward to finally reading the book.
So I returned that and got The City & The City by China Mielville, and after only 4 pages I'm already enjoying it a lot more than Cloud Atlas.
So I returned that and got The City & The City by China Mielville, and after only 4 pages I'm already enjoying it a lot more than Cloud Atlas.
Just finished Anno Dracula 1999. I thought it was good, so now I'm waiting for the next
From that, I've gone on to Cuban Deep by Don Keith and George Wallace.
From that, I've gone on to Cuban Deep by Don Keith and George Wallace.
Just finished Anno Dracula 1999. I thought it was good, so now I'm waiting for the next
I've fallen behind in the Anno Dracula series. Need to do something about that.
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