'Snort' I'll probably die and not have read the books in my to-read shelves. I don't have to-read stacks anymore; I have to-read shelves. 
So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
- Start date
I guess everyone has made it to the New Year now. I finished my readings for 2012 with "My Brother's Keeper" (Books 1 - 3) by Michael Jan Friedman (1999) and I see that they now are ST-TOS #85 - #87 and were a good read. I also did finish reading "Frivolities of Courtiers and Footprints of Philosophers" (translated by Pike from Policraticus) by John of Salisbury. For help during reading of this book I went through a copy of "The Eunuch" (translated by Colman) by Terence. Downloaded (uploaded?) a copy of "Only Superhuman" by Christopher L. Bennett recently and hope to get to it soon.
Finished David Mack's The Body Electric (interesting read). I enjoyed the Cold Equatiuons trilogy and look forward to Dave's next book. To start the year off I am going to give a Star Wars book a try, Heir To The Empire, by Timothy Zahn. I read somwhere online that it is considered the best sequel to the last three movie. Not sure if that is true though?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
^Heir to the Empire is the first book of Zahn's "Thrawn Trilogy," which was the beginning of the modern age of Star Wars tie-ins (before then they were intermittent and lacked the modern interconnectedness) and is generally well-regarded in fandom. Be aware that the three books tell a single really long story a la Lord of the Rings. Heir to the Empire is just the first act of the story and isn't a complete tale in itself. Parts 2 & 3 are Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.
Thanks for the info Chris. I was lucky to have recived the three novels for Christmas and I plan on reading them over the next few months. Don't worry my BBS friends, I have a few Trek books I'll read in between
I like Star Wars but I enjoy Star Trek much more
^ When the Thrawn trilogy came out, I was in high school and at the height of my SW obsession. The release of Heir to the Empire was a BIG DEAL. I don't know the specifics, but all the SW books I knew about were OLD (by a teenager's standards, anyway 
). My friends and I devoured each book as they came out. And they were AWESOME. The subsequent novels by other authors were less so, and I eventually lost interest. But I have reread that initial trilogy probably half a dozen times in the years since. They're a big sentimental favorite. 
I finally finished my reread of Paths of Disharmony and then read The Struggle Within. Now finally reading Plagues of Night.
). My friends and I devoured each book as they came out. And they were AWESOME. The subsequent novels by other authors were less so, and I eventually lost interest. But I have reread that initial trilogy probably half a dozen times in the years since. They're a big sentimental favorite. I finally finished my reread of Paths of Disharmony and then read The Struggle Within. Now finally reading Plagues of Night.
I actually never finished the Thrawn Trilogy. I read the frst two when they originally came out, and I was so frustrated with book 2 just stopping at a random point, not having any resolution of any kind but just breaking off and leaving me to wait a year for the conclusion, that I just walked away. (I had the same reaction to the supposedly-cowritten-by-Arthur-C.-Clarke-and-Gentry-Lee-but-really-almost-entirely-by-Lee Rama sequel trilogy, though that had the added problem of being thoroughly unpleasant and depressing.) Naturally that wouldn't be a problem for anyone reading it today, when it's easy to get all three parts. But it was those books that made me decide that if I ever did a trilogy, it would be a genuine trilogy, three complete stories that formed a larger arc, rather than just one really long book arbitrarily cut in three by page count. If you're going to do a work that way, then at least all the parts should come out within a month of each other.
Of course, I could always go back and read the whole thing now if I wanted to. But what I realized at the end of book 2 was that I just wasn't invested enough in Star Wars to be willing to bother with the third book, or with SW literature in general.
Of course, I could always go back and read the whole thing now if I wanted to. But what I realized at the end of book 2 was that I just wasn't invested enough in Star Wars to be willing to bother with the third book, or with SW literature in general.
I remember having a similar response to The Vampire Lestat ending on a cliffhanger, although I eventually read Queen of the Damned anyway . . ..
^It is amazing how many people took Dave's advice and read Immortal Coil. It was a good read and gave a nice backstory to Cold Equations (even though it came out first).
Yeah, Rama II was so much darker than Rendezvous with Rama that I've never been able to bring myself to move on to the third book, even though I own it.
I just finished A.C. Crispin's The Han Solo Trilogy Book 3: Rebel Dawn.
To celebrate 2013 being the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, I'm planning on reading one Doctor Who novel a month this year. January will be the First Doctor, February will be the Second Doctor, etc., etc., with a Christmas "Short Trips" anthology for December. I've just started Doctor Who: The Time Travellers by Simon Guerrier, featuring the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara.
Decided upon Skulduggery Pleasant as the first new start of 2013... If they ever do a movie (SP himself would have to be CG), Matt Smith should do the voice...
I wouldn't say it's arbitrarily cut in three at all. Dark Force Rising ends on a particularly 'game changing' revelation.
^I don't remember anything beyond feeling annoyed that the story just cut off and left me with a year or more to wait. Even if there was a big revelation, it was still just the middle of one big story. I think if a series of books or movies or whatever are going to come out a year or more apart, then each one should have some kind of resolution. Even if there's a cliffhanger to set up the next installment, the major threads of the current one should be wrapped up so there's a sense of completion. (Since we're discussing the Star Wars franchise, The Empire Strikes Back is a perfect example. Its ending is a cliffhanger, but it's very much a climax and resolution to the events of that particular film, the conclusion of one phase of the story before it moves on to the next one.)
I was really looking forward to some unformatted time the last week and a half of December, but family tragedy on Xmess Eve put the kibosh on that. So, here's what I read in December:
12/03/2012 The Alternate Martians by A. Bertram Chandler
12/04/2012 Man Plus (audiobook) by Frederik Pohl
12/04/2012 The Way Down The Hill (audiobook - ss) by Tim Powers
12/10/2012 Star Trek Volume 1 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Stephen Molnar & Joe Phillips
12/10/2012 Star Trek Volume 2 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Joe Corroney & Joe Phillips
12/10/2012 The Sea Beasts by A. Bertram Chandler
12/15/2012 Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics Volume One: 1979-1981 (gn) by Warkentin, Harris, DiVono
12/18/2012 Frontier of the Dark by A. Bertram Chandler
12/20/2012 Red Mars (audiobook) by Kim Stanley Robinson
12/22/2012 Space: 1999: Aftershock and Awe (gn) by Various
12/23/2012 The Bitter Pill by A. Bertram Chandler
12/23/2012 Trio (gn) by John Byrne
12/24/2012 Star Trek Volume 3 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Stephen Molnar & Claudia Balboni
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 1 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 2 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 3 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/31/2012 Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf by Algis Budrys
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars is amazing. Green Mars is also wonderful (currently about midway through that one). I read Red Mars in the '90's, and remembered quite a bit. I thought I'd read Green Mars, but so far have remembered nothing, so maybe I never got around to it. I'm sure I never read Blue Mars, so its novelty won't be based on my deteriorating memory. Robinson has an immense talent for keeping the reader involved through really lengthy narratives. Brilliant. Diving into that immediately after listening to Man Plus was an interesting contrast. I'm a big fan of Fred Pohl, and remember Man Plus as seeming like a game-changer, when I read it at 19. It seems less revolutionary today -- but still enjoyable.
The graphic novel Elric: the Balance Lost wasn't really to my taste. Recent attempts to re-read Moorcock have been uniformly unsuccessful. Maybe I've simply outgrown the Albino Prince.
I did have fun going back through the first dozen issues of Star Trek Ongoing in trade format. It gets better as they go along, as the adaptations get further and further away from the episodes they "adapt." I also think I have some ideas where the new Star Trek movie may be headed, based on the "cookie crumbs" dropped in some of these issues.
I also loved reading the Star Trek Newspaper Comics. I've collected a bunch of the individual strips over the years, but never had them in a convenient format for reading. Fun stuff!
Byrne's Trio just felt like some superhero comics. Not nearly as mind-blowing as Next Men, but good, solid work.
The Space: 1999 gn was far better than I expected. Half of it ("Awe") was a "remastered" reprint of the original Charlton adaptation of "Breakaway". "Aftershock" was an all-original story basically covering the first decade of life on earth, post-"Breakaway." I'm looking forward to more Space: 1999 from these guys.
Four "new-to-me" novels by A. Bertram Chandler. They were fun. Frontier of the Dark is where to start, if you're unfamiliar with Chandler. The Bitter Pill surprised me by also ending up on Mars (SPOILERS!) The contrast with Robinson's Mars could not be more striking. Now if only they would publish Chandler's "Empress Irene" trilogy in e-format, I'd love to dive into those. Someone sent me a comment on my website (www.toddbehr.com - with fresh updates for the first time in over 5 years!) that I should include them (Empress of Outer Space, Space Mercenaries and Nebula Alert -- especially the third volume) in the John Grimes chronology on my Grimes Fan Page. So, now I wanna read them and see how they fit in! I have copies of the old Ace Doubles, but the print is too fine for my tired old eyes to read enjoyably.
I recently acquired Benchmarks, a volume of A.J. Budrys's book review columns from Galaxy magazine. It was cool reading contemporary reviews of Dune and Ringworld before they became legends. Budrys was a significant critic of SF in those days, and his opinions are always worthwhile. Currently finishing up his novel Michaelmas. Not as good as Who? but pretty damn good. Also have the first of three projected volumes collecting his F&SF columns from the mid-'70's to the early-'90's. Can't wait to get into that.
12/03/2012 The Alternate Martians by A. Bertram Chandler
12/04/2012 Man Plus (audiobook) by Frederik Pohl
12/04/2012 The Way Down The Hill (audiobook - ss) by Tim Powers
12/10/2012 Star Trek Volume 1 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Stephen Molnar & Joe Phillips
12/10/2012 Star Trek Volume 2 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Joe Corroney & Joe Phillips
12/10/2012 The Sea Beasts by A. Bertram Chandler
12/15/2012 Star Trek: The Newspaper Comics Volume One: 1979-1981 (gn) by Warkentin, Harris, DiVono
12/18/2012 Frontier of the Dark by A. Bertram Chandler
12/20/2012 Red Mars (audiobook) by Kim Stanley Robinson
12/22/2012 Space: 1999: Aftershock and Awe (gn) by Various
12/23/2012 The Bitter Pill by A. Bertram Chandler
12/23/2012 Trio (gn) by John Byrne
12/24/2012 Star Trek Volume 3 (gn) by Mike Johnson/Stephen Molnar & Claudia Balboni
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 1 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 2 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/25/2012 Elric: The Balance Lost Vol. 3 (gn) by Chris Roberson/Francesco Biagini
12/31/2012 Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf by Algis Budrys
Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars is amazing. Green Mars is also wonderful (currently about midway through that one). I read Red Mars in the '90's, and remembered quite a bit. I thought I'd read Green Mars, but so far have remembered nothing, so maybe I never got around to it. I'm sure I never read Blue Mars, so its novelty won't be based on my deteriorating memory. Robinson has an immense talent for keeping the reader involved through really lengthy narratives. Brilliant. Diving into that immediately after listening to Man Plus was an interesting contrast. I'm a big fan of Fred Pohl, and remember Man Plus as seeming like a game-changer, when I read it at 19. It seems less revolutionary today -- but still enjoyable.
The graphic novel Elric: the Balance Lost wasn't really to my taste. Recent attempts to re-read Moorcock have been uniformly unsuccessful. Maybe I've simply outgrown the Albino Prince.
I did have fun going back through the first dozen issues of Star Trek Ongoing in trade format. It gets better as they go along, as the adaptations get further and further away from the episodes they "adapt." I also think I have some ideas where the new Star Trek movie may be headed, based on the "cookie crumbs" dropped in some of these issues.
I also loved reading the Star Trek Newspaper Comics. I've collected a bunch of the individual strips over the years, but never had them in a convenient format for reading. Fun stuff!
Byrne's Trio just felt like some superhero comics. Not nearly as mind-blowing as Next Men, but good, solid work.
The Space: 1999 gn was far better than I expected. Half of it ("Awe") was a "remastered" reprint of the original Charlton adaptation of "Breakaway". "Aftershock" was an all-original story basically covering the first decade of life on earth, post-"Breakaway." I'm looking forward to more Space: 1999 from these guys.
Four "new-to-me" novels by A. Bertram Chandler. They were fun. Frontier of the Dark is where to start, if you're unfamiliar with Chandler. The Bitter Pill surprised me by also ending up on Mars (SPOILERS!) The contrast with Robinson's Mars could not be more striking. Now if only they would publish Chandler's "Empress Irene" trilogy in e-format, I'd love to dive into those. Someone sent me a comment on my website (www.toddbehr.com - with fresh updates for the first time in over 5 years!) that I should include them (Empress of Outer Space, Space Mercenaries and Nebula Alert -- especially the third volume) in the John Grimes chronology on my Grimes Fan Page. So, now I wanna read them and see how they fit in! I have copies of the old Ace Doubles, but the print is too fine for my tired old eyes to read enjoyably.
I recently acquired Benchmarks, a volume of A.J. Budrys's book review columns from Galaxy magazine. It was cool reading contemporary reviews of Dune and Ringworld before they became legends. Budrys was a significant critic of SF in those days, and his opinions are always worthwhile. Currently finishing up his novel Michaelmas. Not as good as Who? but pretty damn good. Also have the first of three projected volumes collecting his F&SF columns from the mid-'70's to the early-'90's. Can't wait to get into that.
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