|
Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 8, 2018 18:40:24 GMT
Hard Times finished. I can honestly say that is the most terrible novel I have ever read and I have read some pish in my time. Yet this was by Dickens, one of the greatest writers who ever lived! This hurts my head. A Tale of Two Cities, on the other hand, is a work of genius. Martin
|
|
|
Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 13, 2018 7:48:16 GMT
Slogging on with Phil's Iron Fist and nearing the end of that, but now I'm distracted by a pile of cheap DC Who's Who issues from the mid-1980s that I found in a shop on my travels last week. I am now learning about such wonderful C-list comic characters as Abra Kadabra, Alley-Kat-Abra, Amazo, Apokolips (sic), Balloon Buster, Bug-Eyed Bandit, Calendar Man, Captain Atom, Captain Boomerang, Captain Carrot, Captain Cold, Captain Comet, Captain Compass, Captain Fear, Captain Marvel, Captain Nazi, Captain Storm, Chlorophyll Kid, Colonel Computron, sixteen characters whose name begins with the word Doctor, etc.
Plus trying to work out the significance of two entries each for characters like Batman and Catwoman. I think the first entry may be the 'Golden Age' character who ends up being in 'Earth 2', or something like that. This series of several hundred character profiles with their individual histories apparently ran alongside 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'.
Martin
|
|
|
Post by legios on Mar 13, 2018 20:14:12 GMT
Plus trying to work out the significance of two entries each for characters like Batman and Catwoman. I think the first entry may be the 'Golden Age' character who ends up being in 'Earth 2', or something like that. This series of several hundred character profiles with their individual histories apparently ran alongside 'Crisis on Infinite Earths'. Martin Pretty much on the nose. It was DC's way of dealing with the ever increasing gap between when some of their heroes were born and the present. Rather than Marvel's "sliding timescale" approach. So for DC there had always been a Batman who had promoted War Bonds, it just wasn't the "current" Batman, whereas over at Marvel Reed Richards and Ben Grimm may be war veterans but which war they fought in changes every so often (and the amount of stuff that has to be squeezed into the period between when the Fantastic Four first appeared and "now" expands at a much greater rate than the gap between these two dates... :-) ) (Of course, in true British fashion 2000AD looks the same problem right in the face and just says "Yep, Dredd gets older. He deals with it, he's Dredd" :-)) Karl
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 13, 2018 20:18:36 GMT
Dredd's Brain in a Clone's body. You know it'll happen!
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 13, 2018 20:21:03 GMT
Slogging on with Phil's Iron Fist and nearing the end of that, Oh dear that doesn't sound good.... and you should be onto Claremont/Byrne by now.... but now I'm distracted by a pile of cheap DC Who's Who issues from the mid-1980s that I found in a shop on my travels last week. DC: I have money for a trade of this!
|
|
|
Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 14, 2018 6:52:55 GMT
DC: I have money for a trade of this! I've acquired 24 issues of the original DC Who's Who series in the last fortnight, and am missing 2 issues. Each contains 32 pages of character/team/headquarters profiles with no adverts. So we're talking about an 800-page trade there, easily. Martin
|
|
|
Post by legios on Mar 14, 2018 8:21:07 GMT
Very nice find Martin! I've only owned a couple of issues myself, but like Phil I would be tempted to spring for it if they did trades.
Karl
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Mar 23, 2018 14:49:32 GMT
I splurged on the (quite cheap for the page counts) four Planet of the Apes omnibus volumes that Titan put out of old 70's material along with their short story collection of new material set in the 60's/70's film and tv continuity. There is a new novel called DEATH ON THE PLANET OF THE APES about Taylor's adventures during BENEATH out in June, I see.
Anyway, I put them to one side and realised that between acquisitions in recent months and a pile of stuff from the library that I now have 26 books in the 'to read' pile...and a growing mountain of comics and comic collections.
Time to cut back for a bit...
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 10, 2018 22:51:10 GMT
Some economies need to be made so from next month I will be switching to subscriptions for regular periodicals. I shall miss my trips to the newsstand and I do like to support the local news agent but some pennies need to be trimmed.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Apr 11, 2018 8:27:35 GMT
I did that a while ago for magazines. The trick is not to do it all at once so the direct debits space out.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 11, 2018 8:46:14 GMT
That is the plan.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Apr 11, 2018 12:32:32 GMT
I was going to do it for the panini comics too, but then when I worked out what subbing to three of those would cost I got scared at my own spending and panicked.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 11, 2018 16:34:05 GMT
I will be dropping Paninivision Avengers and X-Men once Secret Empire is done. Sticking with Marvel Legends and MWOM.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 11, 2018 16:47:07 GMT
I splurged on the (quite cheap for the page counts) four Planet of the Apes omnibus volumes that Titan put out of old 70's material along with their short story collection of new material set in the 60's/70's film and tv continuity. There is a new novel called DEATH ON THE PLANET OF THE APES about Taylor's adventures during BENEATH out in June, I see. -Ralph Further research has shown that Titan appear to have hoovered up every 20th Century Fox franchise they could get their hands on. As well as POTA they also have omnibus reprint volumes, new short story collections and new novels for Predator, Aliens, Aliens V Predator and Independence Day. I can feel myself falling down a rabbit hole (avoiding ID of course). This is what happens when there are only 5 new Star Trek novels this year!!! -Ralph
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 19, 2018 8:32:15 GMT
I did that a while ago for magazines. The trick is not to do it all at once so the direct debits space out. I have followed your advice. DWM and 2000ad subbed this month. Next month I will sub for the two Paninivision Marvel title I am keeping. For other Paninivision I'll drop in and out depending on the stories. I've shifted to reading The Guardian newspaper online. Other publications such as Commando, Retro Gamer and New Scientist I just buy a few times a year. US comic single issues once in a blue moon. I notice I read far less print periodicals than I used to! -Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Apr 19, 2018 20:22:19 GMT
Retro Gamer! Cracking mag. One of my favourite monthly reads.
At times I wish I could cut back on the number of comics and magazines I read because it hampers the time I get to read books, but I don't really want to give any of them up!
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 19, 2018 22:25:12 GMT
Retro Gamer is a quality mag but more of a pick-up depending on what the cover story is.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 19, 2018 22:28:46 GMT
I have been reading WHY WE SLEEP by Matthew Walker which is over 300 pages of a sleep sciencologist chap telling us over and over and over how utterly fucked we are because sleep CONTROLS EVERYTHING RELATED TO HEALTH AND WELLBEING. Missed some sleep? Well you have damaged EVERYTHING in your life AND ALL HUMAN ACTIVITY AND HISTORY DEPENDS ON SLEEP and YOU CAN NEVER GET THE BENEFITS ERASED FROM THAT LOST SLEEP BACK. EVER.
SLEEP CONTROLS EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE.
EVERYTHING.
A very, very depressing one-note read. Took me a few weeks to power through the gloom!
At least I can get caught up on my comics now.
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Apr 20, 2018 7:59:51 GMT
Zzzzzzzzz.. huh.. zzzz... wha-??
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Apr 20, 2018 8:00:54 GMT
I am currently reading The Massacre of Mankind (a War of the Worlds official sequel) by Stephen Baxter. Not an author I usually get on well with but seems to be going ok this time.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 20, 2018 9:48:41 GMT
I usually get on well with that author's stuff but I was very disappointed with that book. I thought it was very poor. -Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Apr 20, 2018 11:27:50 GMT
Only up to chapter 6 so far so lots of room for it to take a dive still! I like the ideas in the other books by him I have read but have just never gotten along entirely with the actual writing of them.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 20, 2018 20:39:34 GMT
It just read like very poorly written Wells fan-fic to me but at least you're getting something out of it!
-Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Apr 20, 2018 22:06:44 GMT
For the moment anyway. Ulp.
Tried the first story in a Brian Aldiss short story collection before. Didn't get on with it so it shall go back to the library. A new author for me. I will give one of his full length novels a go sometime. Often I find I like an author in one length but not the other.
|
|
Jim
Thunderjet
Micromaster Backside Monitor
Now in glorious Ultra HD 4K
Posts: 4,615
|
Post by Jim on Apr 20, 2018 22:24:04 GMT
I have only read Non-Stop by Aldiss, and I didn't find it all that special really. It came highly recommended though, so clearly it does it for some people.
|
|
|
Post by Fortmax2020 on Apr 21, 2018 7:59:24 GMT
I think I have that one, Greybeard and Finches of Mars on the shelf to read. FoM is billed as his last sci-fi book so could be inserting to read from that perspective as he has been writing sci-fi for 50+ years.
|
|
|
Post by Andy Turnbull on Apr 21, 2018 10:18:33 GMT
The only War of the World sequel material I have enjoyed was Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and D'israeli. While the latter two stories in 2000ad were not quite as good. Scarlet Traces itself and The Great Game are well worth your time.
Andy
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Apr 21, 2018 16:23:07 GMT
Finches of Mars is alright. I read it when it came out and it's hovered over the 'to pass on' pile for a while. Kept it because it's signed. I remember thinking other authors would do the idea better.
|
|
|
Post by The Doctor on Apr 21, 2018 16:59:57 GMT
The only War of the World sequel material I have enjoyed was Scarlet Traces by Ian Edginton and D'israeli. While the latter two stories in 2000ad were not quite as good. Scarlet Traces itself and The Great Game are well worth your time. Andy I only know the 2000AD stories and they are very pretty but do nothing at all for me story-wise. -Ralph
|
|
|
Post by Andy Turnbull on Apr 21, 2018 17:28:30 GMT
They drift too far away from the original text with the advancement of time.
The first one is I think about ten years on, the second around about WW2 time so they feel more connected.
|
|