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Post by The Doctor on Aug 11, 2016 18:02:10 GMT
Nonono!!!
It just frustrates me that a festival about reading could do so many different kinds of things but every year the Book Festival is mostly: 'Pay £15 to see an author flog their new book at you for an hour, then go over there to buy it'.
However, I have managed to find ONE graphic novel launch. Gasp. Usually comics aren't featured.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Dec 4, 2016 0:22:30 GMT
Currently re-reading Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Really struck by how fresh the prose is. In stylistic terms and use of language it feels like it could have been written in 2016 rather than 1949.
Disturbingly, it also feels like it's commenting on the actual current year of 2016 in many, many ways.
Cracking read. It's good...or 'doubleplusgood'.
-Ralph
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Post by legios on Dec 4, 2016 10:40:51 GMT
Well, here in Airstrip One we have always been at war with Eastasia after all...
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Dec 4, 2016 19:10:42 GMT
They have never been our allies!
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on Dec 4, 2016 19:28:05 GMT
Are there any official versions of the Lensman books? All the versions on Amazon look like dodgy OCR scans
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Post by The Doctor on Dec 4, 2016 21:20:08 GMT
I think they are long out of print though pop up in Oxfam bookshops a lot.
-Ralph
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Dec 4, 2016 22:24:19 GMT
It's now in the Public Domain - hence loads of the dodgy OCR scans.
Andy
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Post by legios on Dec 4, 2016 22:31:53 GMT
Yeah, I think the last reprint of those was a while back unfortunately. (Some digging around whilst typing this suggests late last century, at the back end of the 90's.) However, the earlier printings seem to have been pretty big runs and they show up in secondhand bookshops a lot - the set of Lensman stuff I used to have actually came from Jumble Sales, but I've seen them in specialist secondhand bookshops a lot. (I always keep an eye open for 'Doc' Smith's stuff when I am exploring those sort of places) If you've got one of those reasonably close then they might be worth a look if you don't turn them up in charity shops.
Karl
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Post by The Doctor on Dec 26, 2016 22:09:23 GMT
After Nineteen Eighty-Four (Orwell's last novel), have now read Burmese Days (his first). Jings, that was a terrific novel. Must read more Orwell.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jan 27, 2017 21:15:57 GMT
And I have now read 'Keep the Aspidistras Flying'. Bit more of a curates egg. I couldn't stand the protagonist but some of the writing is just such high quality (there's a long patch about going on a bender that's almost literally delirious at times). Not a patch on his first or last novel though.
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Feb 5, 2017 18:15:38 GMT
This year I am mostly reading Mickey Spillane.
Martin
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 15, 2017 21:23:39 GMT
I'm reading 'The Massacre of Mankind', which is a sequel to 'The War of the Worlds by Stephen Baxter. Struggling with it. I have enjoyed some Baxter novels before, there are some neat touches, I can see exactly what the author is aiming it (which is not a bad idea) and it's not badly written but it's just not engaging me at all so far. I'm rooting for the Martians!
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Feb 15, 2017 23:06:36 GMT
Oh! I shall be reading that over half term next week. I like Baxter. His own sci fi reminds me of Clarke.
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 16, 2017 8:03:20 GMT
I want to like it! Hopefully it picks up in the second half.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 26, 2017 9:10:01 GMT
It did not. So boring. Completely devoid of tension.
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on Feb 26, 2017 14:22:03 GMT
I've been reading the 80's series Strikeforce Morituri, a chunk of it was uploaded to Marvel's Unlimited app last week. It is quite decent, surprised to not have heard of it before.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 26, 2017 17:00:33 GMT
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Post by legios on Feb 26, 2017 17:01:48 GMT
The initial run is very good. Had a nice doom-laden atmosphere - not so much "how will you survive" as "how will you die, and what will you achieve before you fall". Really liked it.
A little bit of it was printed in a UK Comic... "Spider-Man and Zoids" iirc, but I don't think we got much of it over here.
Karl
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Post by blueshift on Feb 26, 2017 17:06:23 GMT
Aha! I have read 1-13 so far, that's what they added last week. I like the app, it throws things at me that I'd never buy in a million years. I've also been enjoying reading all the old 50s horror comics that are on there. |
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Post by blueshift on Feb 26, 2017 17:36:47 GMT
What other stuff like this on the app should I be reading? Come on wise people, they have 20,000 comics on there now!
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Feb 26, 2017 18:49:18 GMT
Jim Valentino's Guardians of the Galaxy.
Cloak and Dagger.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 26, 2017 18:56:23 GMT
Strikeforce Morituri is pretty unique.
But other stuff you should read:
X-Men Giant Size 1, 94-280
Avengers 151-178, 227-290
Marvel Team Up 53-70, 75, 79, 117+
Alpha Flight 1-28 (29-60 too if they have it)
New Mutants 1-51
New X-Men 114-156
Iron Fist volume 4 (2004, Brubaker/Fraction)
Hawkeye volume 4 (2012, Fraction)
Vision volume 2 (2016) So good even Martin liked it!
Incredible Hulk 245-313
New X-Men vol 2 20-43
X-Force volume 3 (2004, Kyle/Yost)
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Post by blueshift on Feb 26, 2017 19:24:57 GMT
I've done the original X-Men and New Mutants, not the rest! Thank you sir!
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 26, 2017 21:24:15 GMT
What other stuff like this on the app should I be reading? Come on wise people, they have 20,000 comics on there now! XSE. -Ralph |
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Post by blueshift on Feb 26, 2017 21:56:30 GMT
What other stuff like this on the app should I be reading? Come on wise people, they have 20,000 comics on there now! XSE. -Ralph What does that stand for? |
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 26, 2017 21:58:39 GMT
Xavier's Security Enforcers.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Feb 26, 2017 21:59:02 GMT
Is Brute Force on there?
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 31, 2017 15:36:48 GMT
And I have now read 'Keep the Aspidistras Flying'. Bit more of a curates egg. I couldn't stand the protagonist but some of the writing is just such high quality (there's a long patch about going on a bender that's almost literally delirious at times). Not a patch on his first or last novel though. -Ralph Now working my way through Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London', a memoir which does what it says on the tin. Worryingly, despite being published in 1933 it also very much describes 2017... The more of Orwell I read the more I am impressed. -Ralph |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Mar 31, 2017 21:31:01 GMT
Have you started Professor Moriarty and the Hound of the D'urbevilles yet?
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 31, 2017 21:34:51 GMT
(...)
I forgot!
-Ralph
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