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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 30, 2020 8:35:26 GMT -5
Sounds like a good one.. and the rare female writer in 1964, actually writing under her real name!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 1, 2021 12:02:43 GMT -5
Rube Waddell by Alan Levy
I had heard some small bits of stories about Waddell in other books, and was really looking forward to this one... the fun part of reading about the dead ball era is the crazy stuff that happened, and Waddell had far more than his fair share.
The book is chock full of such things, almost too much. My main complaint about the book is, while some authors give TOO much context, and turn the book into a story of the team, or the year... this on e actually lacked context in many ways. I found myself looking up stats and results quite a few times, where they were not given, or, in a couple instances, incorrect.
What an amazing story, though. Waddell was like an 8 year old that never grew up, just got bigger, and was seemingly an amazing physical specimen. One wonders what would have happened with Waddell in modern times.. would social media kept him more on the straight and narrow? Would he have been a LaBron like freak of nature with modern nutrition and training? Or would he have flamed out even sooner? A very interesting thing to contemplate indeed.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,597
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Post by Confessor on Jan 3, 2021 8:25:30 GMT -5
I know i've raised this before, but would anybody mind -- wildfire2099 especially -- if I updated the index on the first post? This thread is potentially such a great resource for members, but there's at least the last couple of years worth of reviews not listed and linked to on the index page (and therefore not easily accessible to members and random lurkers who may be interested). That's a real shame. I don't want to tread on anybody's toes though, but I'm happy to start steadily updating the index unless wildfire2099 would rather do it himself?
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Post by Rob Allen on Jan 3, 2021 12:19:29 GMT -5
I'd forgotten, if I ever knew, that there's an index in the first post.
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Post by berkley on Jan 3, 2021 21:55:18 GMT -5
Rube Waddell by Alan Levy I had heard some small bits of stories about Waddell in other books, and was really looking forward to this one... the fun part of reading about the dead ball era is the crazy stuff that happened, and Waddell had far more than his fair share. The book is chock full of such things, almost too much. My main complaint about the book is, while some authors give TOO much context, and turn the book into a story of the team, or the year... this on e actually lacked context in many ways. I found myself looking up stats and results quite a few times, where they were not given, or, in a couple instances, incorrect. What an amazing story, though. Waddell was like an 8 year old that never grew up, just got bigger, and was seemingly an amazing physical specimen. One wonders what would have happened with Waddell in modern times.. would social media kept him more on the straight and narrow? Would he have been a LaBron like freak of nature with modern nutrition and training? Or would he have flamed out even sooner? A very interesting thing to contemplate indeed.
First I ver heard of him but quite an unusual character, going by a look at the wikipedia article. I'm not a great baseball fan - I don't even know what the "dead ball era" rmeans - but I could see myself reading a book about this guy.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2021 23:05:12 GMT -5
Finished the first Imaro book (revised edition) by Charles R. Saunders The first book is in reality four novellas that form a continuous narrative rather than a true novel, and the last ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with Imaro out to rescue Tanisha. The revised edition eliminated one of the original novellas after its thematic and political content haunted Saunders after some of the genocidal wars on the African continent that occurred after he wrote it, and replaced with with an alternate tale detailing the meeting of Imaro and Tanisha. The new tale was called "Afua" and I quite liked it. I never read the original, so I don't know how it compares. I thought the first novella was a bit slow in developing, but it is an origin story and with a few exceptions (Dr. Strange for example) origin stories are often the worst story about a character because they often don't get interesting until the end when the hero emerges. This one wasn't a bad story, and there quite a few elements of it I liked, but it was slowly paced and that made it difficult ot get into the flow of the story and get some momentum. Once I got to the second novella (Afua) things picked up and I started to get immersed into the story more. I found I liked Imaro as a character much more as an adult than as a child or adolescent, but the events of the first story were absolutely necessary for the forging of Imaro's character and the audience's understanding of the character. But overall, I really liked Saunders style and prose. The pacing inthe later stories was much better, but that might be a product of the revisions done when he was a more experienced writer. If I had to sum up the book, it's sword and sorcery that draws on African folkore for its underpinnings rather than European or near-Eastern folklore. Saunders is clearly influenced by the likes of Howard and Burroughs, but in many ways he is the anti-Howard/anti-Burroughs when it comes to the portrayal of black characters and black tribal cultures. But above all that, it was just a well-written entertaining heroic fiction offering. I do not have any additional volumes, but I do plan on tracking down the next volume when I get the chance. -M
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 4, 2021 4:22:11 GMT -5
(...) The first book is in reality four novellas that form a continuous narrative rather than a true novel, and the last ends on a bit of a cliffhanger with Imaro out to rescue Tanisha. (...) Yeah, that's why I prefer the original edition: it ends with what is now the first section of the second book, which covers said rescue mission.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 4, 2021 15:18:06 GMT -5
I know i've raised this before, but would anybody mind -- wildfire2099 especially -- if I updated the index on the first post? This thread is potentially such a great resource for members, but there's at least the last couple of years worth of reviews not listed and linked to on the index page (and therefore not easily accessible to members and random lurkers who may be interested). That's a real shame. I don't want to tread on anybody's toes though, but I'm happy to start steadily updating the index unless wildfire2099 would rather do it himself? That's actually a good idea, and for what it's worth, I don't mind; there was a few times earlier this year, when I had some more free time, that I considered doing that myself and then forwarding the results (complete with links to posts/pages) to wildfire2099.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 4, 2021 15:48:08 GMT -5
The Mighty SwordsmenHans Stefan Santesson (editor), 1970 Found this venerable collection with its lovely Steranko cover, in damn good condition, in a used bookstore during a visit to the US in 2014. Paid about $5 for it if I recall correctly. And I finally got around to reading it over the weekend. All in all, it's a pretty solid collection of fantasy, sword & sorcery tales. The two weakest entries are by Lin Carter and Bjorn Nyberg, respectively featuring Thongor ("Keeper of the Emerald Flame") and Conan ("The People of the Summit"). They're not necessarily bad stories, just sort of standard fare. I think the two best written contributions are by Roger Zelazny, "The Bells of Shoredan," and Michael Moorcock's Elric story, "The Flame Bringers." The latter is my favorite in this collection. I found it really weird that John Brunner's story, "Break the Doors of Hell," was even included in this collection. It features his character Mazda, also known as the Traveler in Black; it's not a bad story by any means, but it's very somber and philosophical (seasoned with occasional bits of wry humor) and really doesn't fit with the rest of them - particularly since Mazda isn't a swordsman at all, and there's absolutely no swordplay of any kind in the story. The collection is anchored by Howard's Conan novella "Beyond the Black River," which I hadn't read since I was in my early teens and I zipped through the 12-book Conan paperbacks compiled and edited by Sprague de Camp and Carter. I hardly remembered it, and this time around I was struck by how much it's basically a 'pioneers vs. Indians' story dressed up as a Hyborian Age fantasy.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 4, 2021 16:36:30 GMT -5
EdoBosnar, I distinctly remember reading "Beyond the Black River" when I first started reading Conan in the late 60s. (It was in "Conan the Warrior.") It was like Conan meets James Fenimore Cooper, and I loved it. Still do. Oh, if you liked it, try "Wolves beyond the Border," which isn't really a Conan story, but is set among the Picts, aka native Americans. Another good one.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 4, 2021 17:12:07 GMT -5
EdoBosnar , I distinctly remember reading "Beyond the Black River" when I first started reading Conan in the late 60s. (It was in "Conan the Warrior.") It was like Conan meets James Fenimore Cooper, and I loved it. Still do. Oh, if you liked it, try "Wolves beyond the Border," which isn't really a Conan story, but is set among the Picts, aka native Americans. Another good one. Well, it certainly is an exciting story, and I guess I liked it, but with some serious misgivings, because I can't get past the stereotyped portrayal of the savage Picts, who are so obviously analogs for Native Americans. I have read "Wolves Beyond the Border" - as noted, I read those same Conan paperbacks you did - but as with the above story, I hardly remember it.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 4, 2021 17:21:30 GMT -5
EdoBosnar , I distinctly remember reading "Beyond the Black River" when I first started reading Conan in the late 60s. (It was in "Conan the Warrior.") It was like Conan meets James Fenimore Cooper, and I loved it. Still do. Oh, if you liked it, try "Wolves beyond the Border," which isn't really a Conan story, but is set among the Picts, aka native Americans. Another good one. Well, it certainly is an exciting story, and I guess I liked it, but with some serious misgivings, because I can't get past the stereotyped portrayal of the savage Picts, who are so obviously analogs for Native Americans. I have read "Wolves Beyond the Border" - as noted, I read those same Conan paperbacks you did - but as with the above story, I hardly remember it. Well, with Howard, you should know what you’re getting. It’s not like the stories were written two weeks ago. 😉
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 4, 2021 23:56:24 GMT -5
I know i've raised this before, but would anybody mind -- wildfire2099 especially -- if I updated the index on the first post? This thread is potentially such a great resource for members, but there's at least the last couple of years worth of reviews not listed and linked to on the index page (and therefore not easily accessible to members and random lurkers who may be interested). That's a real shame. I don't want to tread on anybody's toes though, but I'm happy to start steadily updating the index unless wildfire2099 would rather do it himself? I have been updating it now and then.... you'll not the (145) on the top.. that's the page I left off on. That's not TOO bad. By all means, feel free to update it, or reformat, or whatever. I like the idea of it being updated, but it's alot of effort that I found over the years I have limited attention span for .
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 5, 2021 0:02:18 GMT -5
Rube Waddell by Alan Levy I had heard some small bits of stories about Waddell in other books, and was really looking forward to this one... the fun part of reading about the dead ball era is the crazy stuff that happened, and Waddell had far more than his fair share. The book is chock full of such things, almost too much. My main complaint about the book is, while some authors give TOO much context, and turn the book into a story of the team, or the year... this on e actually lacked context in many ways. I found myself looking up stats and results quite a few times, where they were not given, or, in a couple instances, incorrect. What an amazing story, though. Waddell was like an 8 year old that never grew up, just got bigger, and was seemingly an amazing physical specimen. One wonders what would have happened with Waddell in modern times.. would social media kept him more on the straight and narrow? Would he have been a LaBron like freak of nature with modern nutrition and training? Or would he have flamed out even sooner? A very interesting thing to contemplate indeed.
First I ver heard of him but quite an unusual character, going by a look at the wikipedia article. I'm not a great baseball fan - I don't even know what the "dead ball era" rmeans - but I could see myself reading a book about this guy.
The 'deadball' era of baseball was generally from about the turn of the century, until Babe Ruth made people really like Home runs (so, 1920 or so). It started changing in 1911, when people though baseball was too low scoring and they made the balls tighter and thus easier to hit, so some people will say that was the real change. What I love about reading about stuff from the time is how free wheeling everything was... it's amazing to contemplate when one compares it to how organized professional sports are today. I mean, there were times where they would literally grab people out of the stands to play, or a coach would get annoyed at his players and put himself in the game. Never mind the literal fist fights with umpires, or gamblers shouting out odds in the stands during the game... it must have really been something to see.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 5, 2021 0:04:31 GMT -5
Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins
Of course if you're going to write a 'Blues Mystery' it's going to be about Robert Johnson. The main character is a strange one... an ex-football player who is also a blues professor at Tulane, who also just happens to be totally at ease with the blues culture of the Mississippi Delta.
It's a bit much.. especially when he breaks his arm half way through the book and still wins a bunch of fights afterwards. The story has several people chasing after a 3rd set of Robert Johnson recordings, and the mystery of his death. There's a fair bit of actual blues history in the book (at least the surface stuff matched what I know), but the rest is just a big convoluted mess of a plot.. maybe the author's favorite Robert Johnson conspiracy?
Not the worst mystery I've ever read, but definitely not an author or series I need to revisit.
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