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Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

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TordelBack

Quote from: House of Usher on 02 February, 2010, 09:58:03 PM
I envy Godpleton his reading matter, which sounds much more intellectually nourishing.

V?  I suppose it depends if it's the novelisation of the original mini-series, or just the follow-up.

House of Usher

"Juvenal? Well, I suppose it was quite childish, yeah."  :lol:
STRIKE !!!

TordelBack

I was saying uncomplimentary things about Kim Stanley Robinson upthread, but his interesting Fifty Degrees Below appears to be on Sky News at the moment.

HOO-HAA

THE SKIN PALACE by Jack O'Connell

Very cool stuff.

I actually had the pleasure of getting a couple of books signed by Jack, on his recent tour. Very nice guy.

I, Cosh

Quote from: TordelBack on 30 January, 2010, 03:15:27 PM
QuoteThat, in my opinion, is a great big stinker and no mistake. Did he not read it out loud first?
Kim Stanley Robinson doesn't write, he regurgitates, and  the more you read of him the more obvious this becomes.  Sometimes the stuff he regurgitates is interesting.   Sometimes it's just puke.
Well, yes, he does do that a lot, but there are occasional moments of lyricism buried amongst it. There's a bit in Antarctica where he's describing being out on the icecap which is quite lovely.

I've not read any of his recent climate change books. Does he still have that thing where everything will turn out fine if we just have a big scientific conference?

It seems I've been reading nothing but comics recently. Got the second Northlanders trade last week which was decent enough: not as good as the first but I'll probably still take a look at the next one. Then the library came through with the first volumes of Lucifer and Scalped. Lucifer is an agreeably nasty cove in places and you can't argue with Chris Weston's visions of Hell. Scalped I'm not sure about. It's a decent set-up but everyone in it's a prick. Why are so many Vertigo comics so brown?
We never really die.

Mike Gloady

Quote from: The Cosh on 07 February, 2010, 01:30:01 PM
Why are so many Vertigo comics so brown?
Because they pinched so many Twoth artists in the '90s?
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Roger Godpleton

Started Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I have vague premonitionary concerns that I am liable to find it spectacularly irritating.


BITCH.
He's only trying to be what following how his dreams make you wanna be, man!

The Doctor Alt 8

Just started reading "And Another thing..." Pt 6 of Douglas Adams Hitch Hikers Guide ... Hmmm
And the Fortean times magazine...


TordelBack

#968
Quote from: The Cosh on 07 February, 2010, 01:30:01 PM
Scalped I'm not sure about. It's a decent set-up but everyone in it's a prick.

Stick with it The Cosh, you get to see literally everyone's perspective eventually, and find out that while they are indeed all pricks, they're complex interesting pricks - even apparently random muscle has stories that are worth reading.

As to KSR, yeah, he has his moments - but he just seems to bury them under mounds of poorly disguised notes from stuff what he has just read.  The Climate Change/Science in the Capital books are okay with a pleasantly low-key style that at least acknowledges his note-taking approach. The second one in particular is interesting [spoiler]with escaped Zoo animals and the Washington homeless caught in a big freeze, the third one is a bit of a letdown.   He seems to have read a lot of Thoreau before writing the first two, and too much Buddhist literature before the third, and generally spends a lot of time pushing the benefits of outdoor life and adventure sports, but his basic point is that the sheer scale of the US military budget allows for the possibility of tackling climate change through diverting it into a science budget, and mass-producing Stirling engines and the like.  [/spoiler]  If you can stomach that, they're reasonable page turners.



Desiree

Just reading Naruto Shipuden latest comic release, I am new here and it seems it only view from member in this forums become fans of Japan Anime series

TordelBack

Sower of spam she may be, Desiree at least spares me the dishonour of yet another double-post...

Talking of KSR (well, I was), BoingBoing has a piece about a recent talk he gave, in part about the idea of 'Future Shock':

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/02/08/kim-stanley-robinson-4.html

FWIW, I don't agree with some of his points - the 'historical speed' of today is not faster than it was in the 20th C in any real way.  Would anyone that saw the changes in the world 1914 and 1924, or 1938 and 1948 really have experienced less change than those of us that lived from 2000 to 2010, be less able to cope with startling revelations of science? 

Bolt-01

Having 'finally' finished slogging through EMPYRION (which I found to be in real need of a good editing!) I'm now about to start MEGA-CITY Undercover that I got from the Rebellion table at Brum-con last October.

Sheesh!

Mike Gloady

Enjoy it - MCU is a fine little collection. 
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Mikey

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 February, 2010, 10:38:06 AM
FWIW, I don't agree with some of his points - the 'historical speed' of today is not faster than it was in the 20th C in any real way.  Would anyone that saw the changes in the world 1914 and 1924, or 1938 and 1948 really have experienced less change than those of us that lived from 2000 to 2010, be less able to cope with startling revelations of science? 

If you look at it from the perspective of the availability of information on any given event in the world and how quickly it can be accessed by quite a proportion of the world's population,and the ways howyou can access it, I think you could say we are going 'faster'. Fair enough - not much change from the late 20th C, but jeebus! it's a extremely different from when I was a nipper in the '70s & 80's.

Technological 'events' are surely more commonplace, aren't they?

M.
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.

Richmond Clements

I'm a couple of hundred pages into Under the Dome. Still at the 'you're making a lot of work for yourself here, Stevie' stage as he sets eveything up.
And even with that- he's already wrong footed me with a couple of arc that I assumed would play out through the rest of the book being resolved within a few pages.

Great stuff so far.