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Post by relativetime on Jan 10, 2022 22:35:12 GMT
As of today, I have officially read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time, which is something I vowed to do ever since I watched the films on VHS when my parents finally decided I was old enough to see them. Perhaps now I should aim to beat my mom’s record for rereading them! Then again, looking at my ever growing backlog… maybe another time.
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Post by Digi on Jan 15, 2022 21:41:26 GMT
So far in 2022:
Redshirts by John Scalzi Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (semi-regular Tolkien re-read) Star Trek: Intellivore by Diane Duane The Conquest of Gaul (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) by Julius Caesar The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Dr Katie Mack
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,677
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Post by shutupbanks on Jan 15, 2022 23:54:02 GMT
So, I answered an ad on Facebook marketplace for a giveaway of three boxes of Star Trek books. It was near me so I asked if it was still free. The guy said yes so I went to pick them up.
He had three 35-litre plastic boxes (and a shopping bag) full of books. Just TOS, mind. Put it this way: all the Blish novelisation, the Adventures series from the 70s, all the Foster novelisations of the animated series, pretty much the entirety of the numbered Pocket Books series (the latest is 98 and there are 7 missing from that run), I don’t know how many unnumbered novels, novelisations from TMP up to Generations, all the Shatner-“authored” novels and a couple of Trek history books. All, as I said, TOS.
The guy also said that he was getting rid of them to make space for his prepping stuff… so I got a brief lecture on doomsday prepping as well.
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Post by grinch on Jan 16, 2022 13:38:24 GMT
So, I answered an ad on Facebook marketplace for a giveaway of three boxes of Star Trek books. It was near me so I asked if it was still free. The guy said yes so I went to pick them up. He had three 35-litre plastic boxes (and a shopping bag) full of books. Just TOS, mind. Put it this way: all the Blish novelisation, the Adventures series from the 70s, all the Foster novelisations of the animated series, pretty much the entirety of the numbered Pocket Books series (the latest is 98 and there are 7 missing from that run), I don’t know how many unnumbered novels, novelisations from TMP up to Generations, all the Shatner-“authored” novels and a couple of Trek history books. All, as I said, TOS. The guy also said that he was getting rid of them to make space for his prepping stuff… so I got a brief lecture on doomsday prepping as well. There is something wonderfully apt about a doomsday prepper getting rid of his collection of Star Trek books. A series which is known for its generally hopeful take on the future.
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Post by Digi on Jan 16, 2022 23:58:51 GMT
2022 reading, updated:
(finished on / book) 01/06 -- Redshirts by John Scalzi 01/08 -- Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (semi-regular Tolkien re-read) 01/09 -- Star Trek: Intellivore by Diane Duane 01/13 -- The Conquest of Gaul (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) by Julius Caesar 01/15 -- The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Dr Katie Mack 01/16 -- The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien (semi-regular Tolkien re-read)
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shutupbanks
Castellan
There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
Likes: 5,677
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Post by shutupbanks on Jan 17, 2022 0:30:56 GMT
So, I answered an ad on Facebook marketplace for a giveaway of three boxes of Star Trek books. It was near me so I asked if it was still free. The guy said yes so I went to pick them up. He had three 35-litre plastic boxes (and a shopping bag) full of books. Just TOS, mind. Put it this way: all the Blish novelisation, the Adventures series from the 70s, all the Foster novelisations of the animated series, pretty much the entirety of the numbered Pocket Books series (the latest is 98 and there are 7 missing from that run), I don’t know how many unnumbered novels, novelisations from TMP up to Generations, all the Shatner-“authored” novels and a couple of Trek history books. All, as I said, TOS. The guy also said that he was getting rid of them to make space for his prepping stuff… so I got a brief lecture on doomsday prepping as well. There is something wonderfully apt about a doomsday prepper getting rid of his collection of Star Trek books. A series which is known for its generally hopeful take on the future. Absolutely: if I was writing this as a story, that would be a moment to capture.
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Post by Digi on Jan 28, 2022 2:21:10 GMT
Updated 2022 reading:
(finished on -- book) 01/06 -- Redshirts by John Scalzi 01/08 -- Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read) 01/09 -- Star Trek: Intellivore by Diane Duane (decided to do a Trek litverse read-through this year) 01/13 -- The Conquest of Gaul (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) by Julius Caesar 01/15 -- The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Dr Katie Mack 01/16 -- The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read) 01/17 -- The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read, bit of a cheat as I've been reading in jumps and starts) 01/18 -- Star Trek: Day of Honor: Ancient Blood by Diane Carey (Trek litverse) 01/22 -- From Cold War to Hot Peace by Ambassador Michael McFaul 01/24 -- Star Trek: Crossover by Michael Jan Friedman (Trek litverse) 01/25 -- Noor by Nnedi Okorafor 01/27 -- Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark 01/27 -- Star Trek: Do Comets Dream? by S.P. Somtow (Trek litverse)
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Post by tuigirl on Feb 15, 2022 10:11:05 GMT
The finale of the Invisible Library series- The Untold Story. As usual great characters, fantastic world building and lots of action. I love this mix of urban fantasy and steampunk. And the main characters, Irene, Kai, Vale, Silver and so on are on top of their game.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Feb 15, 2022 21:14:14 GMT
"Quantum of Nightmares" by Charles Stross. I'm not enjoying the New Management books quite as much as I did the Laundry Files, but it's still pretty good. Forget the Bond-inspired title, though, this is explicitly a Mary Poppins spoof. In fact, the nanny is consistently compared to Missy, throughout, and there's a fair few other Doctor Who reference scattered along the way.
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Post by Digi on Feb 18, 2022 16:11:53 GMT
Updated 2022 reading:
(finished on -- book) 01/06 -- Redshirts by John Scalzi 01/08 -- Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read) 01/09 -- Star Trek: Intellivore by Diane Duane (decided to do a Trek litverse read-through this year) 01/13 -- The Conquest of Gaul (Commentarii de Bello Gallico) by Julius Caesar 01/15 -- The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Dr Katie Mack 01/16 -- The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read) 01/17 -- The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (Tolkien re-read, bit of a cheat as I've been reading in jumps and starts) 01/18 -- Star Trek: Day of Honor: Ancient Blood by Diane Carey (Trek litverse) 01/22 -- From Cold War to Hot Peace by Ambassador Michael McFaul 01/24 -- Star Trek: Crossover by Michael Jan Friedman (Trek litverse) 01/25 -- Noor by Nnedi Okorafor 01/27 -- Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark 01/27 -- Star Trek: Do Comets Dream? by S.P. Somtow (Trek litverse) 01/28 -- Star Trek: Dujonian's Hoard by Michael Jan Friedman (Trek litverse) 01/31 -- Star Trek: Kahless by Michael Jan Friedman (Trek litverse) 02/05 -- Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhoarse 02/13 -- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover (re-read) 02/14 -- Star Trek: The Soldiers of Fear by Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Trek litverse) 02/18 -- Star Trek: Triangle by Peter David (Trek litverse)
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Post by tuigirl on Feb 18, 2022 18:04:05 GMT
Nora Kelly week! Yesterday, book 4 in the series (by Preston and Child) came out and to my horror I realized I have not read book 1 yet, I started at book 2. So now reading Thunderhead (blood and guts were promised) and then I can go straight to book 4 Diablo Mesa and hunt down some aliens around Roswell.
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Post by Kestrel on Feb 23, 2022 5:12:58 GMT
Nora Kelly week! Yesterday, book 4 in the series (by Preston and Child) came out and to my horror I realized I have not read book 1 yet, I started at book 2. So now reading Thunderhead (blood and guts were promised) and then I can go straight to book 4 Diablo Mesa and hunt down some aliens around Roswell. Ahahaha... I've done that a few times. IME I always feel something is a little off, but I ignore the feeling, then I finish the book and realize. "Oh." Never heard of this series (or author) before, but the premise sounds pretty interesting, and our tastes tend to align remarkably well, so I'll have to give 'em a shot. What would you say themtine if the book(s) is like? I am a bit anxious about the "Donner party" premise, though. Not really eager to read through graphic cannibalism, if that's there.
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Post by tuigirl on Feb 23, 2022 8:15:12 GMT
Nora Kelly week! Yesterday, book 4 in the series (by Preston and Child) came out and to my horror I realized I have not read book 1 yet, I started at book 2. So now reading Thunderhead (blood and guts were promised) and then I can go straight to book 4 Diablo Mesa and hunt down some aliens around Roswell. Ahahaha... I've done that a few times. IME I always feel something is a little off, but I ignore the feeling, then I finish the book and realize. "Oh." Never heard of this series (or author) before, but the premise sounds pretty interesting, and our tastes tend to align remarkably well, so I'll have to give 'em a shot. What would you say themtine if the book(s) is like? I am a bit anxious about the "Donner party" premise, though. Not really eager to read through graphic cannibalism, if that's there. The Nora Kelly books are part of the thriller universe that Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created. All of them are supernatural thrillers, where the protagonists hunt vampires, demons, skin walkers, crazy scientists.... you name it.
It all happens in the same version of the US (and world) and all the different characters go of and have their own adventures, but meet each other up in some of the books and check up an each other and help out each other. It is NOT high literature. It is the very definition of popcorn thriller literature.
The characters all start out as cardboard characters with the emotional range of a toaster and some of the plot is very extreme, unbelievable and ridiculous.
Think a good popcorn B movie.
However.
This has grown over the past 25 years and is now VERY amazing. There have been character developments! The plot lines are now pretty much up to Doctor Who standards.... I LOVE it.
One of the characters is actually one of my favorite badass female characters in fiction literature: Constance Greene. She is highly unstable, possibly clinically insane, "supernatural" (I will not spoil here) and 100% deadly and dangerous.
Nora Kelly is one of the archeologists and in her own series, she teams up with a fledgling FBI agent (Corrie) who became an FBI agent after her adventure with the main protagonist of the main series, Agent Pendergast, who is a rogue special case X-files FBI agent.
I can highly recommend these books. All of them are great in their own way.
You are already a Doctor Who fan, so you won't be confused or turned away by strange happenings, trips to other dimensions, aliens and monsters.
But be aware that the books go for grisly details and dismembering, there is a lot of blood and guts.
Just imagine this as the book version of a Sci-Fi B- movie with some splatter at the side. Fun with popcorn. Great escapism.
As a scientist, I frequently have to switch my brain off.
The very first book of the vast universe is "Relic". There had been a movie for this back in the day, but the movie has NOTHING in common with the book, for one, the main character, Agent Pendergast, does NOT even appear in the movie. So do not judge by the movie. As I said, it all starts out very cardboard, but it is actually quite amazing for what it is.
The authors are very fun, too. I have joined the newsletter and they share a lot of stuff. Best one is a story where they had been arrested by anti-terror police and had a major anti-terror action happening at the New York Botanical Gardens. Reason- they had been planning their new book (one of the amazing ones with Constance being badass) and were planning exactly where the terrorists were standing and acting in the Botanical Gardens.
People overheard the authors planning their (fictional) terror attack and called the police....
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Post by Kestrel on Feb 24, 2022 0:23:46 GMT
Sounds good! Media akin to "popcorn B-movies" is big selling point to me! I like media of all kinds, from pulp to classic. (If you ever see me talk about "real literature" or speak as though "literary fiction" were a real genre, that exists, please understand that I have been assassinated and replaced by a doppelgänger.) But when my health is poor, it's really the "popcorn" stuff I gravitate to. Anything else requires too much focus... and my health has been especially bad these past two months.
So... thank you for the very detailed description!
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Post by tuigirl on Feb 24, 2022 8:01:22 GMT
Sounds good! Media akin to "popcorn B-movies" is big selling point to me! I like media of all kinds, from pulp to classic. (If you ever see me talk about "real literature" or speak as though "literary fiction" were a real genre, that exists, please understand that I have been assassinated and replaced by a doppelgänger.) But when my health is poor, it's really the "popcorn" stuff I gravitate to. Anything else requires too much focus... and my health has been especially bad these past two months. So... thank you for the very detailed description! I am sorry to hear you are poorly. I hope you will feel better soon. And I hope I at least suggested some light distraction.
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Post by elkawho on Feb 24, 2022 17:38:41 GMT
There is no Anti-memetics Division. Thank you charlesuirdhein!!! Relentless, mind warping and very, very good.
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Post by newt5996 on Feb 24, 2022 20:15:36 GMT
I’ve been reading Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune on a friends recommendation. It’s a very contemplative book, not quite YA, not quite adult, but definitely something I’m quite enjoying.
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Post by fitzoliverj on Mar 3, 2022 20:35:16 GMT
"Slough House", which by coincidence turned out to be all about Vladimir Putin. OK, what's next on the cheerful get-away-from-bleak-reality reading list... oh, yes, arrived from Amazon today - "Star Trek Coda 3".
I think I might have to put that one on hold for *even* longer.
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Post by Kestrel on Mar 19, 2022 13:34:20 GMT
I finally got around to reading Ancillary Justice -- and I thought it was pretty great. If you like robot stories with lots of action and drama, and digressions about linguistics... it's the book for you.
And I use that noun carefully: this is very much a case where there's exactly one novel that the publisher decided to split up into multiple books to force a trilogy. So the story started in the first book doesn't resolve until the third, and even then... it's not much of a resolution.
I get why publishers do this, but as a reader it just makes me feel cheated. I loved Ancillary Justice, so I'm kind of bitter there isn't a single proper sequel/follow up to it's singular story despite there being three books. Imagine if they'd done that to Frank Herbert: instead of Messiah or Children, it was just three parts of the first novel cut apart.
Well, I guess given the recent movie, that won't require much imagination, but y'all know what I mean, I hope.
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Post by Digi on Mar 26, 2022 17:11:27 GMT
I have decided I am finally going to read the 007 books. Just Ian Fleming's books and short stories though, not the licensed ones from after his death.
Blew through Casino Royale yesterday (it's short) and really, really enjoyed it. The 2006 film did a fabulous job of taking various elements of the book and modernizing them, but I'm a fan of Cold War stuff in general so it was really enjoyable to me to re-experience the story in a totally different context. Bond on the page is a really fascinating character...not the suave charming globetrotter of the films, more cold and isolated--often not even particularly likeable, but still a fascinating character to read. I feel like how they've written Craig's Bond, at least in the Casino Royale movie, is strikingly close to the original text in a way that just wasn't the case with most of the previous Bond actor eras.
Have moved on to Live and Let Die now and holy crap. I thought the movie version of this was racist af, but it's got nothing on how racist the book is. I understand intellectually / in the abstract how the 1950s (when the book was published) are absolutely not the world that we live in today, but it's still pretty jarring to turn the page and see that the title of the next chapter along is '[N-word] Paradise,' and then to read entire pages of dialogue of a white Englishman writing what he imagines Black Americans to sound like (think of the most offensively stereotypical version of 'jive' you can think of). That said, I'm still enjoying how much more in tune the books are with the Cold War, as opposed to the films that often go off into flights of fancy. It's far clearer here how Mr Big is a Soviet agent, how the Brits and Americans both want him because he's the channel through which Soviet intelligence is financing much of their spy network in North America, the breakdown of American/British jurisdictions, etc. That is entirely my jam, and I'm enjoying it.
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