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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Sept 22, 2013 14:46:37 GMT
This month I am mostly reading Classic G.I. Joe Volumes 1-4.
Martin
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Post by legios on Sept 22, 2013 18:41:39 GMT
This month I am mostly reading Classic G.I. Joe Volumes 1-4. Nice. Been following a "Where I Read" thread of the early Joe stuff on another forum recently, and been tempted to pick up some of it digitally to refresh my acquaintance with the Joes. My recent comics reading has been "Avengers vs Thanos" - a trade that I received from our own Andy Turnbull for my birthday. Collecting a huge wodge of appearances by Thanos, up to the (at the time) final confrontation between him and Adam Warlock this is a superb brick of Cosmic goodness. As well as the Avengers and Warlock, Thanos and his minions face off against luminaries such as Captain Marvel, Spider-Man and The Thing. It actually contains the story which was my first introduction to Adam Warlock lo those many years ago. What strikes me as impressive is how well it all coheres together - there really does feel like a coherent story being told here of Thanos' developing determination to destroy all life as a gift to his beloved Death, and of the despair that haunts both himself and Adam Warlock (perhaps whilst I am getting myself an appointment with the GP, I should consider getting a retroactive one for Adam Warlock while I am at it). Fantastic, high-octane cosmic stuff. In parallel with this I am reading another birthday present. Mrs Ralph kindly bought me "The Forgotten Few", a book on the Polish airforce in WWII. Fascinating reading so far (I have just reached 1941 in its telling of events). The stories of the Polish AF's stand initial against the Luftwaffe - with a massive technological and organisational handicap - and their surprising success in that endeavour is quite astonishing. No less than the stories of how some of them managed to escape the fall of Poland and make their way to Britain and France to continue their fight (in one case via land to Spai, ship to Mexico and then overland through the US to Canada to take ship back to Britain!). <I have also learned that there is a local connection to the Polish AF that I wouldn't have expected - two of their highest scoring squadrons of the Battle of Britain were organized and initially trained just down the road from me at the old OTU at Grangemouth.>. A fascinating book, on a subject that I don't really know enough about - I am well informed regarding the Eagle Squadrons, but less so about the other national forces that found themselves based in Britain during those days. Karl |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 22, 2013 20:06:42 GMT
In parallel with this I am reading another birthday present. Mrs Ralph kindly bought me "The Forgotten Few", a book on the Polish airforce in WWII. I believe there was a large number of Polish airman stationed near Swindon during the war leading to a large Polish community in the town to this day |
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Sept 22, 2013 23:50:04 GMT
Ah, those early Joe volumes are great stuff. I am currently acquiring them yet another time in the form of IDW's Complete GI Joe hardcover line. I got as far as volume 9 of the TPBs and it is a bit variable at that point (though I know there are better patches to come).
Recently finished The Lightness of Being by Frank Wilczek, a nice overview of current thinking (well, at time of writing) in particle physics and the standard model and hopes for unifying it all. Definitely the clearest explanation I've read so far, even though I've probably forgotten half of it already. I felt like I understood it for a little while at least. And it's all quite nicely written.
Also Smiley's People which I had wanted to put off after finishing the previous volume a few months ago but just couldn't. Highly compelling stuff as usual with a great pay-off.
-Jim
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 23, 2013 19:19:21 GMT
On the first page back in 2007 I was starting to read the full Discworld series. I think I probably restarted at least once, probably around 2010 or 11 but last night I complete Snuff and finally finished or at least caught up. Now I'm awaiting Science of the Discworld 4 to reach paperback. Oh and I need to get A World of Poo! And theres some short stories I think.
I was surprised how little of his output for the last few years has been Discworld, I got Going Postal at a signing 9 or 10 years ago and expected there would be more than 6 books since then. 3 of them I hadn't read till the last few weeks.
I don't know if I prefer the older fantastical stuff or the newer satirical novels. I did enjoy most of the 2000 and later books especially the small ways that they increasingly tie together. It probably helps that the Vimes books have become my favourites over the last 10 years and makes a lot of appearances, seeing how differently he is portrayed in the non Vimes books is always fun.
I'm really looking forward to Science 4, I had hoped Folklore would be in the same format but its not, its just a companion type book and was frankly a bit pants for the first 200 pages, but it did get more interesting towards the end
Now to finish off the non discworld books.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 23, 2013 19:45:22 GMT
he's done a few more non discworld books but over that period of time he's reduced his output from 2 books a year to 1, presumably because he finds his illness limits the work he can do
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Post by legios on Sept 23, 2013 19:56:23 GMT
I believe there was a large number of Polish airman stationed near Swindon during the war leading to a large Polish community in the town to this day Wouldn't surprise me at all. Although they could also have been Polish-American - there was a huge contingent of Polish Americans enlisted enmasse in the USAAF. Karl |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Sept 23, 2013 20:36:23 GMT
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Post by Jaymz on Sept 23, 2013 22:07:46 GMT
On the first page back in 2007 I was starting to read the full Discworld series. I think I probably restarted at least once, probably around 2010 or 11 but last night I complete Snuff and finally finished or at least caught up. Now I'm awaiting Science of the Discworld 4 to reach paperback. Oh and I need to get A World of Poo! And theres some short stories I think. Yeah, make sure you grab "A Blink of the Screen" for his short stories. Has both Discworld and non-Discworld stuff in it. All quite fun, and if you enjoy "The High Meggas" it's a good lead into the Long Earth and Long War books he's done with Stephen Baxter. |
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Post by Bogatan on Sept 24, 2013 20:21:51 GMT
Thats the one I'm yet to read the Stephen Baxter ones too. But first to finish the Johnny books.
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 1, 2013 17:42:15 GMT
Really loving H.P. Lovecraft.
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Oct 1, 2013 22:06:20 GMT
Just finished my first reread in ten years of John Wyndham's The Chrysalids. Loved the book as a teenager and still brilliant stuff.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 1, 2013 22:29:37 GMT
Really loving H.P. Lovecraft. Martin I thought you might. Any particular highlights so far? Andy |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 2, 2013 5:32:21 GMT
Really loving H.P. Lovecraft. Martin I thought you might. Any particular highlights so far? Andy What you'd expect really... the interconnections between stories, bits and pieces of the larger picture as to what's lurking between dimensions waiting to return... all that signs and portents and dark conspiracy stuff from the best Babylon 5. Martin |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Oct 2, 2013 23:05:47 GMT
Have you read Herbert West: Reanimator yet?
Andy
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 3, 2013 5:54:43 GMT
Have you read Herbert West: Reanimator yet? Andy Yes, quite early on. I found it so-so. The ones that really grab me are the ones with abandoned underground cities not built by the hand of man, ancient texts in unknown hieroglyphs, and creatures showing themselves through dreams... that kind of thing - The Nameless City, The Call of Cthulhu, etc. Martin |
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Post by The Doctor on Oct 3, 2013 17:23:35 GMT
I tried to read Lovecraft, but I found his stories were all exactly the same, the prose was turgid and there was nothing remotely scary or unsettling about them. I've got more suspense in a Postman Pat tale. I just can't see why the internet spaffs all over him. And just the internet. No-one in Real Life ever seems to read his stuff!
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Oct 3, 2013 18:16:45 GMT
I tried to read Lovecraft, but I found his stories were all exactly the same, the prose was turgid and there was nothing remotely scary or unsettling about them. I've got more suspense in a Postman Pat tale. I just can't see why the internet spaffs all over him. And just the internet. No-one in Real Life ever seems to read his stuff! I think he does actually pre-date the Internet. And I hadn't heard of him till I found the book in a real-life bookshop. The only Internet knowledge I have is from this thread in this forum! Martin |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 26, 2013 20:57:49 GMT
Finished both volumes of Lovecraft, and he's certainly cemented himself as one of my favourite fiction writers. I really fell in love with the multi-layered world he creates through the inter-weaving of independent short stories. By far his best work in my opinion is 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath', which I would recommend to anyone. I have never read anything like it before.
Returning to finish off the H.G. Wells short stories now, and for light reading my boss has lent me 'Flashman'.
Martin
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Nov 26, 2013 23:09:44 GMT
I still have a few tales to get round from my Lovecraft book. Should get cracking at some point with that.
If you are of a mind Martin the next time we meet, I'll loan you some graphic novel adaptations of some of his stories. Some great work in there.
Andy
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Nov 27, 2013 7:01:34 GMT
If you are of a mind Martin the next time we meet, I'll loan you some graphic novel adaptations of some of his stories. Some great work in there. Okey-dokey, cheers Andy, I'll take a look at them. They have a lot to live up to however, compared to the images his words create in my head. Martin |
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Post by Jim on Nov 27, 2013 12:42:55 GMT
That's always the problem with Lovecraft adaptations, and why I'm glad every time the planned At the Mountains of Madness movie sinks back into production hell. That said, it is true that there are some pretty decent graphic novel adaptations.
I just finished reading Asimov's Foundation for the first time. Not hugely impressed to be honest, there are some decent ideas in there but I was never all that engaged and characterisation was poor (especially wrt female characters). Not going to be in a rush to read any further volumes.
-Jim
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Nov 27, 2013 22:59:39 GMT
If you are of a mind Martin the next time we meet, I'll loan you some graphic novel adaptations of some of his stories. Some great work in there. Okey-dokey, cheers Andy, I'll take a look at them. They have a lot to live up to however, compared to the images his words create in my head. Martin I have two anthologies which have several of the smaller stories and I N J Culbard's adaptation of At The Mountains of Madness. Well produced books, with the anthology your mileage may vary (although that's true of any anthology). There is also a splendid silent film adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society which is worth a view. Details can be found here - www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/Andy |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Nov 28, 2013 21:14:09 GMT
That's always the problem with Lovecraft adaptations, and why I'm glad every time the planned At the Mountains of Madness movie sinks back into production hell. That said, it is true that there are some pretty decent graphic novel adaptations. I just finished reading Asimov's Foundation for the first time. Not hugely impressed to be honest, there are some decent ideas in there but I was never all that engaged and characterisation was poor (especially wrt female characters). Not going to be in a rush to read any further volumes. -Jim They are products of their time unfortunately but some clever ideas in there. I agree though that the characterisation is poor. I usually find that one of Asimov's strengths over other hard sci-fi writings like Baxter or Clarke. The later volumes feel fresher and tell an interesting enough story but I've never felt an urge to reread them again. |
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Post by blueshift on Nov 28, 2013 21:35:16 GMT
That's always the problem with Lovecraft adaptations, and why I'm glad every time the planned At the Mountains of Madness movie sinks back into production hell. That said, it is true that there are some pretty decent graphic novel adaptations. I just finished reading Asimov's Foundation for the first time. Not hugely impressed to be honest, there are some decent ideas in there but I was never all that engaged and characterisation was poor (especially wrt female characters). Not going to be in a rush to read any further volumes. -Jim They are products of their time unfortunately but some clever ideas in there. I agree though that the characterisation is poor. I usually find that one of Asimov's strengths over other hard sci-fi writings like Baxter or Clarke. The later volumes feel fresher and tell an interesting enough story but I've never felt an urge to reread them again. I actually preferred the older ones. The newer ones felt more like fan-fiction, where he tried to tie all his different stories together and it turned out they all happened in the same universe, and then self-insert character Hari Seldon who is an aging scientist has lots and lots of sex with his girlfriend who is a ninja robot. |
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Nov 28, 2013 22:49:41 GMT
Agreed. I will happily reread the first three as they are significant pieces of writing in the genre, but not the later follow ups.
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Post by legios on Nov 29, 2013 18:48:27 GMT
In my view the worst mistake that Asimov made was tying the Foundation stuff to the Robot stories. They never felt thematically like they belonged together, in much the same way that Pebble in the Sky doesn't fit. The feel is wrong and they don't mesh properly.
I have a great fondness for the original novellas (which I first read collected as the first three books in early High School - the now-yellowing Panther printings of which are sitting on the living room shelfves still), I think in terms of "big picture" SF of the period they are amongst the best. Grand in scale, with a rise and fall of social forces (and I think they are part of the reason I leaned so much towards Social Psych when I did my degree course). I take the point about characterisation, but I think part of the reason it springs out is that they have endured to be read. I think that in their original context amongst the other magazine novellas of the era they are probably solidly, but uninspiredly, characterised. With the passage of time the sophistication of the field has increased and they do show their age more than a little on that score. Asimov's women are indeed noticeably thin as characters though - something he himself owned up, observing in one of his collections that he never really understood women terribly well.
Personally I have a lot of love for those first three books, but don't think he ever came close to equalling those with anything else he did in the setting. Every time he went back to the well it felt like he was drawing up less.
Karl
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Dec 17, 2013 6:53:25 GMT
Now reading Robert E. Howard's 'Complete Chronicles of Conan', and, by recommendation of my boss at work... 'Flashman' (coward, bounder and cad, the anti-Sharpe).
Martin
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Post by Fortmax2020 on Dec 17, 2013 16:56:50 GMT
I've just started on my first Iain M. Banks novel. Quite good so far.
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Post by legios on Dec 17, 2013 20:11:47 GMT
I'll be curious to hear what you think of the Conan stuff Martin. I invested a while earlier in the year (or possibly the end of last year) reading the Conan stories and his Solomon Kane material. I've just started on my first Iain M. Banks novel. Quite good so far. Which one? I have an on-again-off-again reaction to his stuff - it is all very well written and usually incredibly clever, but it doesn't always really resonate with me. My recent reading has included a couple of David Weber's "Honor Harrington" universe novels, "A Rising Thunder" and "Shadow of Freedom". For what started out as pretty much Hornblower in space (complete with a tech base that was specifically designed to allow for Napoleonic style naval warfare in space) this does feel like a series that has grown arms and legs all over the place. Whilst I've been able to keep pace with the tech changes that have raced through the last half-dozen books - we are now in an age of carrier warfare and ultra-long-range missiles, more the naval warfare of Tom Clancy than of Hornblower, just in space. What left me flummoxed was the sheer size of the casts of the books. I've been reading the series and most of its side-novels since...I was in my mid-twenties, and even I can't recall who everybody is without a score-card now. I'd hesitate to recommend anyone pick up any of the recent books as an introduction to the setting. Which is a shame, because the early novels were very accessible Mil-SF. I will probably stick with the series, but mainly because Weber maintains a sane release pace of a novel a year or thereabouts - meaning I can decompress between books - and that my library tends to get them in when the hardcovers come out so they aren't taking up actual shelf-space, which is now at a premium. I am also now working my way through Stuart McBride's "Close to the Bone", a police procedural set up in Aberdeen. I think half the reason I tend to gravitate to McBride's work more than I do that of Rankine is a sense of nostalgia - there is something fascinating about McBride's characters walking into my old academic department (although to my knowledge none of the staff when I was there put another member of staff into a headlock), or looking at cctv footage of a missing person using an ATM that I have used myself. There is also something distinctly "Aberdonian" about the whole book - a sort of fatalistic attitude that I do recognise from my time living up there, and a sense of the odd contrasts of the city. There is also a slight sense of the absurd - the book will seque neatly from the lead character moaning to himself about the Trading Standards folks biscuits to the almost-operaticly grim situation he is enmeshed in through owing the North-Easts' most powerful organised crime-figure a favour. It is grim, grim stuff in places, but in others it makes me chuckle. Pretty much what I hope for from British crime fiction really. Karl |
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