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Post by gothos on May 19, 2014 17:02:29 GMT -5
I miss the "books read" thread from the old boards, so here's a replacement for it.
In addition to rereading Farmer's OTHER LOG OF PHILEAS FOGG and Lovecraft's DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, which I reviewed on my blog OUROBOROS DREAMS, I finished Rodolfo Anaya's BLESS ME, ULTIMA, a child's eye view of strange events in an isolated town in New Mexico but entirely populated by Mexican-Americans. The "Ultima" of the title is a curandera with strange powers who takes an interest in the child-narrator. In contrast to many "magical realism" novels, there's an unambiguous good vs. evil plot in which Ultima must use her beneficent powers against a family of brujas. The novel would have benefitted from stronger characterization, but it's worth a read.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 17:36:47 GMT -5
We already have a book thread to replace it gothos, located here.... All Purpose Book Thread
I will leave this up for people to see until later tonight, then I am going to merge it into that thread. -M Thread merged as of 8PM EST |
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 19:03:16 GMT -5
bump because I merged another book thread into this one.....
-M
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Post by gothos on May 20, 2014 15:53:21 GMT -5
Gotcha.
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 21, 2014 16:49:38 GMT -5
I miss the "books read" thread from the old boards, so here's a replacement for it. In addition to rereading Farmer's OTHER LOG OF PHILEAS FOGG and Lovecraft's DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH, which I reviewed on my blog OUROBOROS DREAMS, I finished Rodolfo Anaya's BLESS ME, ULTIMA, a child's eye view of strange events in an isolated town in New Mexico but entirely populated by Mexican-Americans. The "Ultima" of the title is a curandera with strange powers who takes an interest in the child-narrator. In contrast to many "magical realism" novels, there's an unambiguous good vs. evil plot in which Ultima must use her beneficent powers against a family of brujas. The novel would have benefitted from stronger characterization, but it's worth a read. The Other Log of Phineas Fogg sounds interesting... is it like another trip he made, or an alternative version or the original? Today's book for me: The Synthetic Man(also called the Dreaming Jewels) by Theodore Sturgeon  Originally published 1950... mine is a very late printing (1967)... terrible cover, sadly. I was pretty psyched to read this, after I really enjoyed the Microcosmic God from the Sci-Fi Hall of Fame book... I wasn't disappointed. Horton was an orphan who was barely tolerated by his parents, until the day he got thrown out of school for eating ants (yeah, I don't get it either). A struggle ensuing, resulting in Horty running a way with Carnival midgets, and pretending to be a female midget in a freak show. As I type that, it sounds really terrible, but it totally made sense, I swear. The sci-fi part is very interesting, but is best to be read cold. There are aliens of a sort, and some stuff that was really ahead of it's time for 1950, IMO... an excellent read. |
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Post by gothos on May 21, 2014 16:56:50 GMT -5
Wildfire,
OTHER LOG is Farmer's alternate reading of events in AROUND THE WORLD, as well as his take on the true nature of Captain Nemo.
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Post by gothos on May 22, 2014 12:45:53 GMT -5
Last night I finished Robert Sheckley's short story collection Can You Feel Anything When I Do This?Sheckley is a classic SF favorite of mine. I considered him the pre-eminent SF humourist in the 60s and early 70s after Fredic Brown and CM Kornbluth past away. He's notable for these reasons: One of his early stories, The 7th Victimwas made into an Italian SF movie in the mid 60s called The 10th Victim starring marcello Mastroianni and ursula Andress. This story is also most likely the basis for Battle Royale and The Hunger GamesThe movie Freejack with Mick Jagger was based on his novel Immortality IncOne of the early SF writers who broke out into mainstream publications.Many Sheckley stories appeared in Playboy Esquire etc Was fiction editor for Omni Magazine for a few years Nominated multiple times for Hugos and Nebulas He passed away in 2005. If you like satirical SF you should check out his work  I knew about TENTH VICTIM's indebtedness to Sheckley but not about FREEJACK's. Years ago, I read James Gunn' s THE IMMORTALS, which TV very freely adapted into the short-lived series THE IMMORTAL. |
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Post by gothos on May 22, 2014 13:14:20 GMT -5
Caves of Steel is great... my favorite of the Robot books, and they're all good. I have the later one with the standardized trade dress, though... that cover is way cooler. The Transmet book is worth it? I sorta pictured it as a forum discussion about the comic in a book... I'll have to check it out if I come across it. It's the best of the Seq-Tart books I've read. I've read the Planetary, Watchmen and Legion volumes. Many of the essay writers have Lit backgrounds so the analysis is more indepth than you'll get on any forum post. Just to toot my own horn pointlessly, I wrote the essay on Rorschach's inconsistences in the WATCHMEN volume. I rec'd my free copy of the collection something like 2 yrs ago and still haven't read the rest of the essays. |
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Post by MDG on May 22, 2014 15:15:54 GMT -5
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 22, 2014 17:09:21 GMT -5
This is a bit of a digression, but I'm kinda aggravated about Starman because of that... despite the huge importance of history, it doesn't actually follow the Golden Age stories.. at all (at least the ones I read). It wouldn't be so bad if that wasn't the main draw of the series.
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Post by gothos on May 23, 2014 15:13:10 GMT -5
This is a bit of a digression, but I'm kinda aggravated about Starman because of that... despite the huge importance of history, it doesn't actually follow the Golden Age stories.. at all (at least the ones I read). It wouldn't be so bad if that wasn't the main draw of the series. Are you referring to the James Robinson STARMAN comics, or something else? Side-note: finished King's DOCTOR SLEEP? Much better than I expected, given my estimation of some of his other later works. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 23, 2014 15:23:08 GMT -5
Yes... the James Robinson Starman. So far, there's the fact that he actually got into a troll fight in the letter column with a guy that called him out on Starman always being in Opal City, when the Golden Age Adventure comics stuff says it's Gotham at least 3 times. Then there's the '1st meeting' with The Mist, who was a two bit crook in the golden age, but suddenly has a huge super science lab in the 40s according to Robinson. I little crisis/zero hour adjusting is fine, but when you're whole schtick is history, it's kinda annoying,
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 23, 2014 17:08:14 GMT -5
Whatdunits (1992)
Edited by Mike Resnick
Sorry but no cover image found to link to
18 original mystery SF short stories .Editor Resnick gave each author a short murder mystery plot and challenged them to solve the crime.Authors whose names I recognize include Pat Cadigan,Jack Haldeman,Michael Stackpole,Esther Friesner and Judith Tarr .Plots included alien diplomats murdered,a clone murdered,alien killed by chimpanzee and his planet demanding the monkey goes to trial,a detective and his robot assistant,a telepathic detective who knows who commited the crime but can't produce evidence for the court,murder by teleportation etc.
Some stories are humorous,some hard boiled.Nothing outstanding but more than half are entertaining.I'd recommend it as something you would read on and off,not consecutively.They are like little chocolate bon-bons,not to be ingested as a meal
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Post by Rob Allen on May 23, 2014 19:55:13 GMT -5
Is this the book, Ish?  Also, Well, so much for the dinner I was planning for tonight... |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on May 24, 2014 3:48:03 GMT -5
Is this the book, Ish? Also, Well, so much for the dinner I was planning for tonight... Thats the one Rob. Only Peg Bundy ate bon-bon meals |
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