bobholly138 Posted January 25, 2020 Share Posted January 25, 2020 On 1/23/2020 at 10:29 AM, OSJ said: Seriously? You can look it up on the ISFDB and see the proposed contents and the disposition of stories. Over the years as it became really clear that there was no way that the book would ever be published, Harlan became really good about allowing reversal of rights even when he didn't need to. I know that I got to publish at least three stories from LDV thanks to his generosity, one, was probably the best thing that Richard Wilson ever wrote and that's some pretty high praise. I shall have to look it up. What is ISFDB? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted January 26, 2020 Share Posted January 26, 2020 The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. www.isfdb.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odessasteps Posted February 1, 2020 Share Posted February 1, 2020 RIP Mary Higgins Clark, age 92 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 2, 2020 Share Posted February 2, 2020 On 1/23/2020 at 9:31 AM, JLSigman said: Next up is the first three novellas in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series. Love these books. I know they're not for everyone, but I spent a couple years of my early adolescence looking for my Door, so... Also read Star Wars: Resistance Reborn and just... meh. The author introduced a bunch of new characters, then killed some of them, and I didn't care. It really didn't add anything to the overall story of the sequels. Got one more Wayward Children book (the library doesn't have the fifth one yet), then I think I'm'a give this collection of Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers a try. I had checked it out for Mom, but the text is just too small for her to manage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Campbell Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 I spent last Sunday (Royal Rumble Sunday) on the couch sick, but managed to finish up Tom Clancy's Without Remorse, ahead of the upcoming film. Ironically enough, it was twelve years later to the day (1/26/08) after ROH put on a show that they called Without Remorse. Now I'm working my way though the original Dracula novel, after watching the Netflix series, and being intrigued by the Cinnemassacre video that tried to determine the film version that's most faithful to the novel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 Now reading Terry Funk's book. It was written fifteen years ago, and all of his criticisms of the 'current' (ie 2005) WWE are still relevant today. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 5, 2020 Share Posted February 5, 2020 On 2/2/2020 at 8:49 AM, JLSigman said: ... I think I'm'a give this collection of Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy Sayers a try. I had checked it out for Mom, but the text is just too small for her to manage. Wow, this type is small. I may not make it through the collection. My bifocals are 4 years out of date and it is painful after a while to focus. Doesn't help that I've never been a huge Sayers/Christie/old British mystery fan. I'll see how I feel when I get through the first story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 8, 2020 Share Posted February 8, 2020 On 2/5/2020 at 10:10 AM, JLSigman said: Wow, this type is small. I may not make it through the collection. My bifocals are 4 years out of date and it is painful after a while to focus. Doesn't help that I've never been a huge Sayers/Christie/old British mystery fan. I'll see how I feel when I get through the first story. Yeah, I turned it back in. Mom spent most of her childhood overseas and in British run schools, so yeah she's big into those authors, but I'm not much of a mystery fan. Grabbed The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. I remember reading this several years ago and loving it, but then hit a bad depressive episode and never finished the series. Dad got me books 2 and 3 of the trilogy as a gift about 5 years ago and they've been collected dust on my shelf. Figured I would see if I actually like the whole story enough to keep them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contentious C Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 I think my ex-gf read at least that one. The titles of the books were so preposterous, we were both frankly disappointed there wasn't one called The Molecular Duchess. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuetsar Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Finished a biography of the Borgias by G.K. Meyer, a couple of days ago after reading it off and on for about six weeks. Since I have my own classroom now, I don't have nearly the reading time that I did as a sub. Weird format, in that he puts a background info chapter before each of the main chapters. Long story short on the Borgias, is that they seem to be almost character assassinated by their enemies. Lucretia was not the sexpot murderess that she is accused of being. Pope Alexander may have been overly enthusiastic in his nepotism, but nothing more than that. Cesare was a devious warlord, but not anymore than his contemporaries. Basically their enemies blackened their names far more than events indicated. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 On 2/8/2020 at 9:06 AM, JLSigman said: Grabbed The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. I remember reading this several years ago and loving it, but then hit a bad depressive episode and never finished the series. Dad got me books 2 and 3 of the trilogy as a gift about 5 years ago and they've been collected dust on my shelf. Figured I would see if I actually like the whole story enough to keep them. Quantum Thief is still very good. The Fractal Prince is not as good, the plot is starting to get lost in the unexplained bullshit. Don't use terms like jinni, ghul, and Secret Names and just leave it out there to be White Saviour-ed in the end. I'll finish the trilogy (The Causal Angel is on my desk), but this may be something where I actually only like the first book. Also coming up, I had gotten Mom a large print edition of The Starless Sea from the library, but she found it too confusing. Figure since I've got it and have been hearing good things about it, I'll read it before I turn it back in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 On 2/18/2020 at 8:55 AM, JLSigman said: Quantum Thief is still very good. The Fractal Prince is not as good, the plot is starting to get lost in the unexplained bullshit. Don't use terms like jinni, ghul, and Secret Names and just leave it out there to be White Saviour-ed in the end. I'll finish the trilogy (The Causal Angel is on my desk), but this may be something where I actually only like the first book. So we get a happy ending but along the way a lot of stuff just happens without explanation, and at this point in the books I want some meat to go with my pudding. It's interesting, but I don't know if it'll hold up to any kind of scrutiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Execproducer Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 On 2/1/2020 at 9:49 AM, odessasteps said: RIP Mary Higgins Clark, age 92 I actually read one of her books (While My Pretty One Sleeps) at a point in my life where reading was as important as breathing and I had nothing else on hand. As I recall, it wasn't bad at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 On 2/12/2020 at 1:03 PM, Kuetsar said: Finished a biography of the Borgias by G.K. Meyer, a couple of days ago after reading it off and on for about six weeks. Since I have my own classroom now, I don't have nearly the reading time that I did as a sub. Weird format, in that he puts a background info chapter before each of the main chapters. Long story short on the Borgias, is that they seem to be almost character assassinated by their enemies. Lucretia was not the sexpot murderess that she is accused of being. Pope Alexander may have been overly enthusiastic in his nepotism, but nothing more than that. Cesare was a devious warlord, but not anymore than his contemporaries. Basically their enemies blackened their names far more than events indicated. History is written by the winners... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted February 23, 2020 Share Posted February 23, 2020 I’m reading True Indie by Don Coscarelli, writer/director of BEASTMASTER and the PHANTASM franchise. Really great stuff if you’re a fan or just interested in independent filmmaking in general. About half way through, and he spends a lot of time discussing how tricky it is to get funding and distribution, and peppers that with anecdotes and insights into the films. His style is very chatty, so be prepared for lots of exclamation points and “literally” being used to mean “figuratively.” 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 Not sure where else to put this, but there's a bunch of Star Wars books coming out later this year in a new slot of the timeline. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eivion Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 So basically the new EU to explain what came before? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 6 hours ago, Eivion said: So basically the new EU to explain what came before? It's only a couple hundred years before, so yeah, kinda. We've got the rebuilt Republic at the height of it's "goodness" (for some value thereof) before the Sith really show back up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 For some reason I started re-reading The Stand. Weird. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 On 2/18/2020 at 8:55 AM, JLSigman said: Also coming up, I had gotten Mom a large print edition of The Starless Sea from the library, but she found it too confusing. Figure since I've got it and have been hearing good things about it, I'll read it before I turn it back in. I'm gonna have to shelve this as "Did Not Finish", "Couldn't Get Into" and "Not what I'm Looking For Right Now". I'm not confused, I think I get what the author is trying to tell, I'm just.... I'm tired of "We don't have time to tell you what's going on!" flavor of adventuring right now. Give me your world building, damnit! Perhaps I'll try again another time. The library has been selling off some of their less popular books, and I've picked up several recent hardbacks for a quarter a piece. Got some Sherlock Holmes and Holmes-adjacent large print stuff for Mom, and both a couple of Star Wars books (the very good middle book of Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, as well as the novelization/prequel Battlefront II book) and some new fantasy by Thoraiya Dyer for me. I'll start with Inferno Squad, something in a universe I know as a palate cleanser. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 1 hour ago, JLSigman said: I'm gonna have to shelve this as "Did Not Finish", "Couldn't Get Into" and "Not what I'm Looking For Right Now". I'm not confused, I think I get what the author is trying to tell, I'm just.... I'm tired of "We don't have time to tell you what's going on!" flavor of adventuring right now. Give me your world building, damnit! Perhaps I'll try again another time. The library has been selling off some of their less popular books, and I've picked up several recent hardbacks for a quarter a piece. Got some Sherlock Holmes and Holmes-adjacent large print stuff for Mom, and both a couple of Star Wars books (the very good middle book of Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, as well as the novelization/prequel Battlefront II book) and some new fantasy by Thoraiya Dyer for me. I'll start with Inferno Squad, something in a universe I know as a palate cleanser. If you haven't read Tamsyn Muir's GIDEON THE NINTH, please do so stat, you will so dig it... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted February 29, 2020 Share Posted February 29, 2020 7 hours ago, OSJ said: If you haven't read Tamsyn Muir's GIDEON THE NINTH, please do so stat, you will so dig it... That is definitely in my "to get from the library someday" list, which is currently at 300 or so books according to Goodreads. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JLSigman Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 On 2/29/2020 at 9:00 AM, JLSigman said: I'll start with Inferno Squad, something in a universe I know as a palate cleanser. A forgettable look into how things work on the Imperial side, just post A New Hope. It's nothing more than empty calorie popcorn reading, not terrible but not worth reading again. I also read the first collection of Saladin Ahmed's run on Black Bolt through Hoopla, which doesn't have the other collection (ARG!) but does have his original Abbott comic collection (will get to that). The Black Bolt stuff was AMAZING, and even the art mostly worked for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobholly138 Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Started Crazy like a Fox about a week ago. Damn good book so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Control Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 22 hours ago, JLSigman said: A forgettable look into how things work on the Imperial side, just post A New Hope. It's nothing more than empty calorie popcorn reading, not terrible but not worth reading again. I also read the first collection of Saladin Ahmed's run on Black Bolt through Hoopla, which doesn't have the other collection (ARG!) but does have his original Abbott comic collection (will get to that). The Black Bolt stuff was AMAZING, and even the art mostly worked for me. That Ahmed-Black Bolt run was great. I’ve read maybe three comic series in the last few years and I’m lucky that was one of them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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