What are you reading?

[Miss Chicken]

I am reading ‘Prey’ by Michael Crichton which is the 5th by him I have read in the last couple of years. Any suggestions on which of his books I should read next?

I have read -
Sphere
Jurassic Park
Dragon’s Teeth
the Andromeda Strain

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Have you read his The Lost World: Jurassic Park, yet? If not, and you liked the first JP novel, I would highly recommend it. Despite him retconning Ian Malcolms off-page death mentioned at the end of JP.
Also, his Timeline brings his detailed pseudo science to the genre of time travel.

 

[Miss Chicken]

^^^ Doesn’t seem to be available as an audiobook and, because I have arthritis in my fingers, audiobooks are my prefer method of reading.

Are any of the following Crichton books good?

The Terminal Man
Next
Congo

 

[Kai "the spy"]

I'm afraid I haven't read those. Maybe someone else can chime in.

Just for the record, I found audio book releases for both Lost World and Timeline, but I assume you have Australian audible? Because there they don't have them (that is, they have the German audio book of Lost World, but I doubt that's helpful).

 

[Miss Chicken]

I am with Audible US because I joined before Audible Australia existed and I refused to swap over. bHowever there is a region block on me so if the book is not released in Australia than I cannot buy it from Audible US

I was a little annoyed that the German version of ‘The Lost World’ is available for Australians but the English version isn’t.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I personally didn't care for Next, as I felt it was a little too similar to Prey, which itself wasn't that great. Speaking of The Lost World, fun little tidbit. I have an Uncle who's been a fairly successful paleontologist and he was cited as one of Crichton's sources for that book.

Personally, I'm a big fan of The Andromeda Strain, and a few years ago, to celebrate 50 years since that story was released, a sequel was written, and it was a surprisingly good sequel and it was better than most of Crichton's latter stuff. The author they chose to write it did a great job with the tone and the voice of the book.

 

[kirk55555]

Getting back into some books, I used a service through my public library to listen to the audiobook of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Quin. It was a pretty entertaining book, a story about a boy who eventually becomes a wizard and has to fight a dark shadow that he accidentally created out of pride and hubris. Its a well written story, with pretty good characters and a cool world. I'm going on to the second book now, and will probably go through the whole series if it keeps the same quality.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I personally didn't care for Next, as I felt it was a little too similar to Prey, which itself wasn't that great. Speaking of The Lost World, fun little tidbit. I have an Uncle who's been a fairly successful paleontologist and he was cited as one of Crichton's sources for that book.

Personally, I'm a big fan of The Andromeda Strain, and a few years ago, to celebrate 50 years since that story was released, a sequel was written, and it was a surprisingly good sequel and it was better than most of Crichton's latter stuff. The author they chose to write it did a great job with the tone and the voice of the book.

I am half way through ‘The Andromeda Evolution’ and I am enjoying it.

I have also just started ‘A Zoologist Guide to the Galaxy’ which looks at how life might evolve on other planets.

 

[Australis]

I am reading ‘Prey’ by Michael Crichton which is the 5th by him I have read in the last couple of years. Any suggestions on which of his books I should read next?

I have read -
Sphere
Jurassic Park
Dragon’s Teeth
the Andromeda Strain

What Kai said.

After finishing the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson, I'm now rereading Howard Waldrop, short story writer. I have two of his books with me, Strange Things In Closeup and Night of the Cooters. To say he is offbeat is an understatement, but it's good stuff, if you know history especially. A favourite story of his is 'A Dozen Tough Jobes', retelling the Twelve Labours, if they were set in the Deep South during the Depression. Really good stuff. You can find some of his stories online if you rummage.

 

[JD]

Since I finished my last post, I read the individual digital issues of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, the first Hellboy miniseries, written by John Byrne with a story and art by Mike Mignola. After that I read the digital collected edition, Chew Vol. 3: Just Deserts, written by John Layman, with art by Rob Guillory. After that I started The Amazing Spider-Man: The Guantlet Complete Collection Vol. 2 written and drawn by a shit load of people I'm to lazy list here. After the first 2 issue arc I was getting kind of burned out on comics, since I had just read 12 issues of Power of the Dark Crystal, 4 issue of Hellboy, the Chew collection with 4 or 5 issue, and 2 Spider-Man issues. After that I decided to go back to prose, and I started Magic Rises by Ilona Andrews, the 6th book in the Kate Daniels series, one of my absolute favorite series. I'd taken a break from the series since 2018, and I'd forgotten just how much I love these books.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

A few years back, I bought an artbook, showing off fantasy illustrations by the great Boris Vallejo. One of the paintings really captured my imagination, and that was titled "Nubian Warrior":

(I put the black bar over some side boob I bet Google Ads would complain about, you can easily find the uncensored version looking for yourself online)

Now, the reason it stimulated me so much was the idea of Sword & Sorcery based on black African cultures and myths. I really hadn't encountered a lot of fantasy fiction based on such concepts. Most of the genre is based on European myths, there is some based on ancient Egyptian culture (mostly European and Euro-American horror fiction), with the closest maybe being the Arabian fairy tales and legends like Aladin or Sinbad.

So, I did some research, knowing Boris probably did the painting as a commissioned illustration. I'm still not a hundred percent sure about it, but I think now that it was most likely done for a series of African-based Sword & Sorcery stories around the hero Imaro, written by Charles R. Saunders. From what I found out in my research, this was exactly the kind of fiction I had imagined from the painting. Saunders was a black American writer and fantasy fan and enthusiast of African history and cultures, who created the character of Imaro and his world of Nyumbani in response to the racist stereotypes of black people used in fantasy fiction like Tarzan or Conan. Originally written as short stories published in fanzines of the 1970s, Saunders collected five of the stories for publishing as a novel simply titled "Imaro" for DAW Books in 1981, followed by two sequels, "The Quest for Cush" and "The Trail of Bohu".

Now, my enthusiasm got a big damper when I realized the books are out of print. Even a new edition of the first two novels from 2009 is only available through the secondary market. Now, for E-Book enthusiasts, the series is available in that form. Personally, I never really got into E-Books, and currently don't even have a portable device on which to read them on.

Recently, I finally found an afordable copy of the 2009 version of the first novel:

and this week started reading it. And thus far, this is an amazing read. Saunders not only is capable of presenting his world in a fascinating way, but is also quite talented as to creating suspense and action prose. So much so that I'm now even more on the hunt for the other books in the series, as well as keeping an eye out for any other stories Saunders has written. And I'm kind of wondering why this series isn't a bigger deal. And I kind of decided I needed to spread the word, because this totally deserves to be a bigger deal.

At least, in its niche, Saunders has inspired a new subgenre of Sword & Soul fiction. Sadly, Saunders passed away last year.

 

[Ashu]

I've been on a banned, or formerly banned literature kick. Just finished We by Zamyatin and just starting Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

 

[JD]

A few years back, I bought an artbook, showing off fantasy illustrations by the great Boris Vallejo. One of the paintings really captured my imagination, and that was titled "Nubian Warrior":

(I put the black bar over some side boob I bet Google Ads would complain about, you can easily find the uncensored version looking for yourself online)

Now, the reason it stimulated me so much was the idea of Sword & Sorcery based on black African cultures and myths. I really hadn't encountered a lot of fantasy fiction based on such concepts. Most of the genre is based on European myths, there is some based on ancient Egyptian culture (mostly European and Euro-American horror fiction), with the closest maybe being the Arabian fairy tales and legends like Aladin or Sinbad.

So, I did some research, knowing Boris probably did the painting as a commissioned illustration. I'm still not a hundred percent sure about it, but I think now that it was most likely done for a series of African-based Sword & Sorcery stories around the hero Imaro, written by Charles R. Saunders. From what I found out in my research, this was exactly the kind of fiction I had imagined from the painting. Saunders was a black American writer and fantasy fan and enthusiast of African history and cultures, who created the character of Imaro and his world of Nyumbani in response to the racist stereotypes of black people used in fantasy fiction like Tarzan or Conan. Originally written as short stories published in fanzines of the 1970s, Saunders collected five of the stories for publishing as a novel simply titled "Imaro" for DAW Books in 1981, followed by two sequels, "The Quest for Cush" and "The Trail of Bohu".

Now, my enthusiasm got a big damper when I realized the books are out of print. Even a new edition of the first two novels from 2009 is only available through the secondary market. Now, for E-Book enthusiasts, the series is available in that form. Personally, I never really got into E-Books, and currently don't even have a portable device on which to read them on.

Recently, I finally found an afordable copy of the 2009 version of the first novel:

and this week started reading it. And thus far, this is an amazing read. Saunders not only is capable of presenting his world in a fascinating way, but is also quite talented as to creating suspense and action prose. So much so that I'm now even more on the hunt for the other books in the series, as well as keeping an eye out for any other stories Saunders has written. And I'm kind of wondering why this series isn't a bigger deal. And I kind of decided I needed to spread the word, because this totally deserves to be a bigger deal.

At least, in its niche, Saunders has inspired a new subgenre of Sword & Soul fiction. Sadly, Saunders passed away last year.

These sound interesting, I might have to check them out.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

These sound interesting, I might have to check them out.

Do, I'm pretty sure you won't regret it.

I originally wanted to include a small passage from the early Imaro story "Turkhana Knives" to give an impression of Saunders' writing, but forgot when I did that post.
To set the stage, Imaro has grown up among the tribe of his mother, the Ilyassai. He is now fourteen years old, and while ran after the cow he was tasked by his tribe to look after, he was ambushed by members of the rival tribe of the Turkhana. Though he manages to kill a couple of the Turkhana warriors, he eventually K.O.ed and awakens as a captive of his attackers, who are leading him and his cow Kulu back to their camp.

What the Turkhana had done to relieve Kulu from the pain of the flame ants' bites, Imaro did not know. But whatever it was, they had paid a price to subdue her. Blood reddened her horns, and one of the Turkhana walked with one arm dangling uselessly at his side. For a moment, pride surged through Imaro's heart. He knew what other tribes of the Tamburure said about the Ilyassai: Even their cattle are warriors.

Is that badass, or what?

 

[GalaxyClass]

I recently read Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour, it's new and his first book. Definitely, a book I'd recommend.

 

[JD]

OK, that was pretty cool.
In the last decade or so there have started to be a lot more fantasy books based on non-European cultures.

 

[Mrs. Silvercrest]

TV the book. Two people talk about and rate all the TV shows.

 

[J. Random Redshirt]

Tao: The Watercourse Way, by Alan Watts.

I rarely read a whole book cover-to-cover. The only other one I can think of during the past 10 years is Acting in Film, by Michael Caine (when I was an acting student... I did it as a hobby, not professionally).

I can recommend the above two books for anyone interested in taoism (daoism) or film acting.

 

[JD]

I set aside Wonder Woman: The Art and Making of the Film earlier this week, and read the digital version of Star Wars Vol. 5: Yoda's Secret War, written by Jason Aaron with art by Salvador Larroca. I finished that a yesterday morning, and started the digital version Monstress Vol. 3: Haven.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Reading The Evening and The Morning by Ken Follett, his prequel to Pillars of the Earth. So far, I think I'm liking it more than A Column of Fire.