So what are you reading now? Part 2
- Thread starter Rosalind
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Rakkety Tam , number 17 in the Redwall series. I have three more to read and I'll be up-to-date. I plan on reading some Trek novels next. Either that, or a couple of 'Phantom' books.
I'm a couple pages away from being done with TNES, and I've loved it. I'll probably have more detailed comments in the next day or two.
Once it's done Darkly Dreaming Dexter will take it's place.
Once it's done Darkly Dreaming Dexter will take it's place.
Just finished Ebola: Through the Eyes of the People by William Close.
It's a curious book. Close was one of the original medical team to respond to the 1976, but rather than writing from their point of view, as others have, he focuses on the lives of the victims and those around them (as the title implies). It uses fictional conversations with semi-fictional characters (some based on real people) and gives quite an interesting look at the lifestyle and customs in Zaire at the time.
I'm now reading A Lion's Tale by wrestler Chris Jericho. It's a bit crude, but reasonably interesting.
I've really lost track of Trek fiction lately. I don't even know who are the good authors or what books are best-regarded.
It's a curious book. Close was one of the original medical team to respond to the 1976, but rather than writing from their point of view, as others have, he focuses on the lives of the victims and those around them (as the title implies). It uses fictional conversations with semi-fictional characters (some based on real people) and gives quite an interesting look at the lifestyle and customs in Zaire at the time.
I'm now reading A Lion's Tale by wrestler Chris Jericho. It's a bit crude, but reasonably interesting.
I've really lost track of Trek fiction lately. I don't even know who are the good authors or what books are best-regarded.
A spot of nonfiction now- Angels Of Death, Inside The Bikers' Global Crime Empire by William Marsden & Julian Sher
School reads over the past few weeks have included The Lowell Offering: Writings by New England Mill Women (1840-1845) edited by Benita Eisler and Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. Right now I'm reading Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, in a Norton Critical Edition edited by one of my professors.
I also quickly zipped through The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum yesterday, which is good since I'm presenting a paper on it in a week at an academic conference in Kansas.
I've been trying to keep up with pleasure reading this semester, but it's been tough. I recently read Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives by David Sloan Wilson, an interesting read which applies evolutionary theory to a wide variety of areas, including crime, interpersonal relationships, politics, religion, and literature. Right now I am very slowly moving through The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Taken from Accounts by His Own Hand and Other Sundry Sources, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M. T. Anderson, and I also just started in on The Art of Darkness: Staging the Phillip Pullman Trilogy by Robert Butler, which is about how the National actually put on the His Dark Materials stageplay.
I also quickly zipped through The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum yesterday, which is good since I'm presenting a paper on it in a week at an academic conference in Kansas.
I've been trying to keep up with pleasure reading this semester, but it's been tough. I recently read Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives by David Sloan Wilson, an interesting read which applies evolutionary theory to a wide variety of areas, including crime, interpersonal relationships, politics, religion, and literature. Right now I am very slowly moving through The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Taken from Accounts by His Own Hand and Other Sundry Sources, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves by M. T. Anderson, and I also just started in on The Art of Darkness: Staging the Phillip Pullman Trilogy by Robert Butler, which is about how the National actually put on the His Dark Materials stageplay.
I read it today, and I thought it was pretty good. The ending(s) dragged on far too long, and the final twist wasn't much of a twist -- I was pretty sure I figured out the mysteries of Poppy & Scarlett early on -- but it was a quite passable pastiche of Fleming's style, and it kept me turning the pages. It was better than any of the Gardner or Benson Bonds I've read. I hope Faulks writes writes a few more of these.
I’m looking though the superb Art of Star Trek. I inflict semi-random thoughts thusly:
It looks like several old unused concepts have turned up years later: One of the unused V’Ger innards (on page 174) appears to have been recycled as the sinister spheres that formed the Expanse in season 4 of Enterprise, and the storyboard shot of V’Ger eclipsing the sun looks an awful lot like the first time we see the Nerada squeezing out the black hole in front of the Hobus star at the start of Star Trek XI. Also the unused saucer-separation from TMP showed up at the end of Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.
I love the TOS matte-paintings. Although modern CGI Trek planets look lovely (Romulus in Nemesis, Vulcan in STXI) there’s something special about the classic hand-drawn ones.
I love the pic of the Death Star-style Enterprise approaching the Spacedock built into an asteroid. What did we get? A dumb floating super-mushroom. At least our Enterprise looked nicer.
The concept art of the Star Trek Kids TAS concept is surreal.
I’ve had a TMP action figure for years, yet only now do I see what it was based on: an Arcturian Clone. I’ve seen all 3 versions of TMP, and he’s not in any of them.
Judging by the TMP Enterprise cargo bay, maybe the STXI Enterprise Brewery would fit in a smaller ship after all (the shuttlebay and bridge-adjacent corridors still wouldn’t, though).
A few mislabelled pics in the STII section: The communicator shown is from STIII (the STII one was a HUGE ugly metal box). The ‘closed’ pic is actually a hand phaser.
Up close, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey model looks fantastic. TV doesn’t do it justice somehow.
You didn’t get a good enough look at Kruge’s dog on film either.
I love the wraparound-screen (with HUD) Excelsior bridge concept.
I love all the cool aliens over the years – especially the live-action Caitians in Star Trek IV! Still waiting on a return for Mr Arex…
The Star Trek V Rockman scene was actually filmed? Holy shit!
Close-up the Next-Gen tricorders look really cheap and nasty.
I always thought Next Gen had terrible outfits and horrible interior design.
I’ve always wondered why TNG never had the cool extra consoles at the sides of the bridge (as seen in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and Generations) normally. It turns out the reason is that they didn’t want to pay extras to staff them. Really.
Whoever came up with the TNG Romulan look (bowl cuts, stupid shoulder pads) should be shot.
The concept for Picard’s arm-loss in BoBW was far cooler than the version we saw.
I’ve always thought Voyager was the ugliest ship in Star Trek. Those atrophied little nacelles at the back were horrible. Why was the far-superior prototype (with real warp engines on runabout-style wings) rejected? And the less said about Voyager’s stupid chicken feet the better.
The first concept pic of (what would become) the Enterprise-D is far nicer than the final design.
I’ve never liked Okudagrams. Flat, dull, boring. I far prefer the new Star Trek’s swish blue animated screensavers.
A very enjoyable book. The forthcoming STXI art book should be interesting, as long as there’s more to it than the pics already released online.
It looks like several old unused concepts have turned up years later: One of the unused V’Ger innards (on page 174) appears to have been recycled as the sinister spheres that formed the Expanse in season 4 of Enterprise, and the storyboard shot of V’Ger eclipsing the sun looks an awful lot like the first time we see the Nerada squeezing out the black hole in front of the Hobus star at the start of Star Trek XI. Also the unused saucer-separation from TMP showed up at the end of Star Trek: Of Gods and Men.
I love the TOS matte-paintings. Although modern CGI Trek planets look lovely (Romulus in Nemesis, Vulcan in STXI) there’s something special about the classic hand-drawn ones.
I love the pic of the Death Star-style Enterprise approaching the Spacedock built into an asteroid. What did we get? A dumb floating super-mushroom. At least our Enterprise looked nicer.
The concept art of the Star Trek Kids TAS concept is surreal.
I’ve had a TMP action figure for years, yet only now do I see what it was based on: an Arcturian Clone. I’ve seen all 3 versions of TMP, and he’s not in any of them.
Judging by the TMP Enterprise cargo bay, maybe the STXI Enterprise Brewery would fit in a smaller ship after all (the shuttlebay and bridge-adjacent corridors still wouldn’t, though).
A few mislabelled pics in the STII section: The communicator shown is from STIII (the STII one was a HUGE ugly metal box). The ‘closed’ pic is actually a hand phaser.
Up close, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey model looks fantastic. TV doesn’t do it justice somehow.
You didn’t get a good enough look at Kruge’s dog on film either.
I love the wraparound-screen (with HUD) Excelsior bridge concept.
I love all the cool aliens over the years – especially the live-action Caitians in Star Trek IV! Still waiting on a return for Mr Arex…
The Star Trek V Rockman scene was actually filmed? Holy shit!
Close-up the Next-Gen tricorders look really cheap and nasty.
I always thought Next Gen had terrible outfits and horrible interior design.
I’ve always wondered why TNG never had the cool extra consoles at the sides of the bridge (as seen in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and Generations) normally. It turns out the reason is that they didn’t want to pay extras to staff them. Really.
Whoever came up with the TNG Romulan look (bowl cuts, stupid shoulder pads) should be shot.
The concept for Picard’s arm-loss in BoBW was far cooler than the version we saw.
I’ve always thought Voyager was the ugliest ship in Star Trek. Those atrophied little nacelles at the back were horrible. Why was the far-superior prototype (with real warp engines on runabout-style wings) rejected? And the less said about Voyager’s stupid chicken feet the better.
The first concept pic of (what would become) the Enterprise-D is far nicer than the final design.
I’ve never liked Okudagrams. Flat, dull, boring. I far prefer the new Star Trek’s swish blue animated screensavers.
A very enjoyable book. The forthcoming STXI art book should be interesting, as long as there’s more to it than the pics already released online.
Picked up Unworthy today. Good start, lots of drama. Hope it continues.
Reading the fantastic Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison. He is the brother of Augusten Burroughs, author of Running with Scissors, and has at least as much writing talent.
It's a very insightful look at life through the eyes of someone with Asperger's Syndrome, and is both amusing and quite tragic.
Highly recommended.
It's a very insightful look at life through the eyes of someone with Asperger's Syndrome, and is both amusing and quite tragic.
Highly recommended.
Just finished Treason (took a while for the library to find me one), and started in on Unworthy. Never-ending Sacrifice was before that, with the new Star Wars book (Abyss, i think?) worked in as well.
Looking forward to the new S.M. Stirling book when i get through, that series (Island in the Sea of Time/Dies the Fire) is a favorite of mine.
Looking forward to the new S.M. Stirling book when i get through, that series (Island in the Sea of Time/Dies the Fire) is a favorite of mine.
I've been re-reading David Brin's Uplift novels -- and I started with the Contacting Aliens tie-in book that features illustrations of nearly all the dozens of aliens depicted or mentioned in the novels, which is very helpful for keeping them all straight (though I'm not sure I'd recommend it for newbies to start with, since it has some sizeable spoilers for at least a couple of the books).
The one thing that bugs me about Uplift is the species essentialism -- each Galactic race is treated as though it has one uniform, stereotyped culture and psychology, which is something that annoys me when it happens in Trek and other SF. On the other hand, Uplift may be the one SF universe where that makes sense. Since virtually every species in that universe was genetically uplifted to full sentience by some alien "patron" race, and is therefore something of an artificial, designed culture, it follows that they would develop in a rather uniform way. And the great conservatism of Galactic culture and its species-based caste system would tend to reinforce the narrow, stereotypical behavior of each species.
The one thing that bugs me about Uplift is the species essentialism -- each Galactic race is treated as though it has one uniform, stereotyped culture and psychology, which is something that annoys me when it happens in Trek and other SF. On the other hand, Uplift may be the one SF universe where that makes sense. Since virtually every species in that universe was genetically uplifted to full sentience by some alien "patron" race, and is therefore something of an artificial, designed culture, it follows that they would develop in a rather uniform way. And the great conservatism of Galactic culture and its species-based caste system would tend to reinforce the narrow, stereotypical behavior of each species.
Read Unworthy over a few hours yesterday and today, see my review in the relevant forum. Elsewhere, just reading the books in my sig.
I'm working my way through a few collections of 14th century English poetry, just to finish off my holiday reading/preparation for this year at university. Ah, term time, you come round so fast....
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