Author |
Message |
|
bartist |
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:21 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
Carrie Vaughn is on my must read list now. Thanks, Syd.
Did anyone check out Century Rain? It has elements that I think film fans would really enjoy. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:23 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
(moved due to page break)
bartist wrote: I think my sigboth has purchased through Abebooks. She is unlikely to sell any, unless forced to do so on pain of death, so just purchases so far. Recently she sent me an unusual page from their website that you all might enjoy....
https://www.abebooks.com/books/weird/?cm_mmc=nl-_-nl-_-C190112-RNC-weirdbAWTRADE-_-b2img&abersp=1
Careful, this page is addictive.
On an earlier topic, Going Postal, I wondered if anyone else has noticed a strong resemblance between Mr. Pump and the acting AG, Matt Whitaker?
[/img] |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
carrobin |
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2019 6:36 pm |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
Fascinating (and hilarious). I've always wondered how to impress guests who use my bathroom--toilet paper origami would be perfect!
I clicked on that book of British seaweed because it has such a beautiful spine. And there were several of them, but the first two had no photo; the others were over $200. I wonder how well they're selling.
It makes me hopeful, though--there seem to be people out there who'll buy anything! (As joke gifts, if nothing else.)
P.S. I've put "Century Rain" on my list to look out for--maybe B&N will offer it on the discount Nook list, but not so far. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2019 12:00 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
For some reason, I was intrigued by The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
Syd |
Posted: Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:21 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12901
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
is reading Linda Nagata's The Red: First Light and really enjoying it, and I've ordered the second and third. Nagata did a series of nanotech and biotech novels 15-20 years ago, many of which I liked. My favorites were the haunting "Memory" and the brilliant and difficult "Vast," but she seems to have disappeared for a few years because her novels weren't selling well. First Light is a wonderfully cynical military novel in which the International Defense Contractors are looking for wars to get involved in to keep their stock holders happy, and if they can't find one, they're not about instigating one. By the way, this is supposed to be science fiction. Eventually we get into creating cyborg warriors, so this is sort of a blend of Catch-22, Platoon and The Six Million Dollar Man, written by one of my favorite writers in the business. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Thu Mar 21, 2019 7:56 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
Will look for Nagata. I've heard Alastair Reynolds rave about her, which had already piqued interest. Vast looks quite interesting, so might start there. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
knox |
Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 9:05 pm |
|
|
Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
|
Owen Egerton, "Everyone Says That at the End of the World," is some very funny apocalyptic sci-fi.
Definitely captures that Austin TX weirdness. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
Syd |
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2019 10:45 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12901
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
I'm reading N. K. Jemisin's collection "How Long 'Til Black Future Month," which suggests that it's a collection of stories about racism, which it isn't, and doesn't include the title essay, so I wish she'd entitled it something else. Still, an excellent collection, including three stories that were trial runs to the Dreamblood and Broken Earth series, and her forthcoming novel. The Dreamblood novella is better than either of the novels in that series, and is heartbreaking.
She has some failures (her Ursula K. Leguin pastiche), but she triumphs in the lesbian steampunk story, "The Effluent Engine," and has some amazingly romantic stories, such as "L'Alchemista" and "Cuisine de Memoires," which are beautifully written and about food, so she was apparently a starving artist.
I thought the best current writer in SF is Connie Willis, but she seems to be phasing out, so it's probably N. K. Jemisin. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Sun Feb 02, 2020 11:31 am |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
|
Back to top |
|
knox |
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2020 12:33 pm |
|
|
Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
|
It's rare that I favor a book from an author late in their career (Nabakov offers exceptions), but have to say I liked The Institute about as well as any King novel I've read.
While we're on sci-fi and close relative genres, I was reading "Sandkings" by George RR Martin, and it struck me the number of similarities to the classic "Microcosmic God," by Theodore Sturgeon. Wonder if that earlier story was an influence on Martin - seems like it would almost have to be. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 8:08 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
The horror of having the public library closed has been sinking in.
Yes, one can look up a title online and then pick it up from a drive-thru window, but it really isn't the same as roaming the stacks, lingering in the magazine room, perusing the new books racks, listening to local musicians who give free performances in the meeting room upstairs, chatting with friends you run into, watching children play, watching birds in the little aviary our main branch hosts, knowing homeless people have a safe, warm place to be during the day/early evening, taking a free yoga class, hearing regional authors speak, and generally enjoying a community center that is not dominated by illiterate red hat wearers. |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
carrobin |
Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2020 4:31 am |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
That's very like the way I feel about bookstores--as Paul Krugman once commented, I go to the internet for books I want but I go to bookstores for books I don't know I want. And bookstores have some of the same amenities that your library does. I seldom visit a library but I do have a card and I'm always planning to--as with so many other attractions in Manhattan that are causing me regret for my procrastination. |
|
|
Back to top |
|
bartist |
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2020 2:18 pm |
|
|
Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6954
Location: Black Hills
|
Krugman covers it succinctly.
Meanwhile, an author of the bizarre and often horrific says he's sorry people now feel like they're trapped in one of his novels....
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/08/829298135/stephen-king-is-sorry-you-feel-like-youre-stuck-in-a-stephen-king-novel
...personally I don't think it's quite that bad yet. Things are way better than, for example, the predicament in King's "Cell. "
"Cell" follows a New England artist struggling to reunite with his young son after a mysterious signal broadcast over the global cell phone network turns the majority of his fellow humans into mindless vicious animals. (insert twitter joke here) |
_________________ He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
|
Back to top |
|
carrobin |
Posted: Thu May 07, 2020 3:52 am |
|
|
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 7795
Location: NYC
|
Stephen King was Stephen Colbert's guest last night. Turns out he's almost as big a fan of "Lord of the Rings" as Colbert is. Both said Sam is their favorite character.
A few days ago, this article about the books visible behind some of the people who broadcast from their homes was in the NY Times--it's intriguing, and the comments by readers are fun to read. King's name comes up a lot.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/books/celebrity-bookshelves-tv-coronavirus.html |
|
|
Back to top |
|
Syd |
Posted: Sun May 10, 2020 10:45 pm |
|
|
Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12901
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
|
Just finished N. K Jemisin's new novel,"The City We Became," and though I didn't like the story that created this universe, I love this book. (Staten Island may not agree with me.) Jemisin is the best sf writer in the world. |
_________________ I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
|
Back to top |
|
|