Reading anything?

[3mnkids]

Incarceron~ Catherine Fisher.. so far im really liking it.



And..

Attila~ William Napier.. Its interesting.

[lester1/2jr]

I'm listening to the quran in english!  so far it's very old testamenty

[Hammock Rider]

[Newt]

David Bowie: Living on the Brink by George Tremlett.  I'm only 35 pages in, but it looks good.

Also picked up biographies of George Takei, Richard Burton, Gene Roddenberry and Hume Cronin, as well as a couple of cartons-worth of assorted SF, fantasy and other interesting stuff, so I am set for a while.  Got to love the indoor yard sales this time of year!

[BoyScoutKevin]

Yes.

"The James Bond Omnibus: vol 001."

If you are looking for an adaptation of the films, you'll be disappointed, but if you're looking for an adaptation of the novels and stories, you'll be appointed. Since it is a graphic adaptation of the novels and stories and not the films.

All the novels and stories are there.

vol. 001 has "Casino Royale," "Live and Let Die," "Moonraker," "Diamonds are Forever," "From Russia with Love," "Dr. No," "Goldfinger," "From a View to a Kill," "For Your Eyes Only," "Thunderball," and "Risco."

vol. 002, which will be published this year, has "The Man with the Golden Gun," "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," "You Only Live Twice," "The Living Daylights," "Octop***y," and "The Spy Who Loved Me."

I can remember reading "From Russia with Love" in the comic section of the local paper and thinking how closely it followed the book.

If the good news is how closely they follow the books, the bad news is that it is an extremely dated series, and the graphics don't help any.

It is a series based on the politics and social mores of the '50's and '60's, when the books were written, or, at least, the politics and social mores filtered through the likes and dislikes of Ian Fleming, the author.

And being a man of his time and background, his dislikes are long and alphabetical, While he does like individuals of certain races, just on principle he seems to dislike . . .

Albanians, Bulgarians, the Chinese, Cubans, Germans, the Japanese, Koreans, Russians, and blacks from any country.

And he has mixed feelings for Italians, Gypsies, the French, and Americans. His mixed feelings toward Americans come out clearer in the books than they do in the graphic adaptations of the books.

The only people he seems to like wholeheartedly are Turks and Canadians.

Next time: the "Alex Rider" series.

[Sister Grace]

Aldous Huxley- Brave New World.
I had just finished his Doors of Perception. Brave New World is good and one of him more well-known works, but i'm not enjoying it as much as Doors of Perception. Still good food for the soul....

[lester1/2jr]

I've decided to put my lecture things i listen to here because I cannot figure out where to put them


http://bit.ly/6Vj3fG


^this was good.  "economics for high school students."  granted I'm 35 and have read most of the works of these authors but it was still fun, especially robert murphy and Jeff tucker.

It doesn't give you any theory, just shows in geneal guys who call themsevles economists look at the world.

[Joe the Destroyer]

Still struggling through Son of a Witch.  The only thing keeping me from shutting the book and starting another one is that my fiancee wants to talk about this one, as she read it and has no one to talk with about it.  It feels to me like Gregory Maguire is far too in love with his language and voice.  He spends far too much time dwelling on events and minor details that most writers would either underscore or leave out all together.  I understand that there's supposed to be some kind of metaphor or allegory behind even the blandest scenes, but dammit Greg, you're not Ralph Ellison. 

Hopefully I can finish this torture device within a week or so and start my next book, Soon To Be a Major Motion Picture.  It's got promise.  Every review I've read for it has been a good one. 

[AndyC]

More than halfway through Evil Eye. It was kind of moving along at a nice pace and then hit with a couple of serious action chapters. I don't want to spoil it for anybody who might want to read the book, but it was pretty wild. I'll just say the book has two separate crazies - a paranoid psychotic who sees police as living skeletons in uniforms, and a sociopath out to avenge some as-yet-unrevealed injustice. Both are interested in killing a lot of cops in one go. The psychotic just made his play in a suitably crazy yet unexpected manner.

Apart from that, the book is about one of the regulars getting framed for his mother's murder, which is somehow connected to everything. I don't know why Michael Slade (or rather Jay Clarke and partners) is so hard on his heroes, but this is the fifth Special X book and at least four members of his elite team of cops have lost at least one person close to them in a really horrible manner. One of them also finished the last two books by getting shot and stabbed, respectively.

And each Slade book usually has some kind of subtext, and Evil Eye deals with racism and political correctness. It came out in 1993, when PC had really gotten out of hand, and it's written against a backdrop of the Rodney King beating and LA riot, the end of apartheid, and white cops getting crucified for shooting black suspects, along with flashbacks to the Anglo-Zulu war, which has something to do with the events of the story.

[Jim H]

I just bought and started reading the collection of Solomon Kane stories.  Pretty entertaining.  He's the other famous character Robert Howard, the creator of Conan, made in the 1920s.

[JaseSF]

The Voice From the Ether by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach (Amazing Stories July 1931)

A clever, original and terrifically twisted little tale of revenge. Earth receives its first communication with Mars and learns of a mad scientist's diabolical twisted plot of vengeance against his home Martian world. I was enthralled by this one which feels part sci-fi, part disaster epic. Lots of horrific details included too. Very, very good IMO...right up there with The Coming of the Ice and The Eternal Man.

[Joe the Destroyer]

I'm reading Soon to be a Major Motion Picture by Warren Dunford, and I realized before long that it's target audience is gay males (a gay mystery, no less).  It's not that I have a problem with homosexuality, but I feel out of place reading it. 

[BoyScoutKevin]

Yes.

"The Alex Rider" series by Anthony Horowitz.

Bond. James Bond, jr. But a Bond who can go where no adult Bond can go.

7 books in the series. Which I have not read.
The first three being converted into graphic novels. Which I have read.
The first one being made into a film. Which I have not seen.

Like the "Artemis Fowl" series there are scenes of high intensity in the series, which makes you wonder why Europeans seem to be better at writing such scenes than any American author writing for teens.

It is an apt comparison with "Artemis Fowl," even though the "Alex Rider" series is more violent, and the "Artemis Fowl" series comes across as being the more realistic. Even though that series is populated with centaurs, dwarfs, fairies, goblins, trolls, etc.

One similiarity between the two series is that just as I liked the second book in the "Artemis Fowl" series better than the first book, so I liked the second book in the "Alex Rider" series better than the first book. Maybe because the second book skips all the character introductions and gets right to the action. And the second book also has a more plausible villain than the first book.
 
If Ian Fleming was a man of his time and background and seemingly disliked everyone on principle, so Anthony Horowitz is a man of his time and background who seeminly likes everryone. Who does he like?

Russians
Germans
French
Dutch
Cubans
Canadians
blacks
And Americans, even though both national spy agencies are still at loggerheads. Though, there seems to be more coooperation between them than there was fifty to sixty years ago.

And who does he dislike, and Trevor is going to love this.

White South Africans
and for some strange reason Mexicans. There is a Mexican villain in one of the books, and a nasty piece of goods he is, too. Without any redeeming features of some of the other villains. And the author hates politicans, considering them all to be blowhards.

There is one similiarity between Fleming and Horowitz. Both see drugs as corrupting the children of England. But while Fleming saw a political motive behind it, Horowitz sees greed behind it. But both consider drugs as corrupting.

As I said, the first book in the series "Stormbreaker" was made into a film, which I have not see, but now wish I had. For even though the author produced the film, wrote the screenplay, and pikced the actor who appears as Alex, apparently something went wrong with the film. Before it went wrong, there were plans to turn all the books into film. Whether that is still true, I don't know. Or maybe the who series is going to get a reboot, as there is a film called "Storembreaker" coming out in 2011.

Nest time: "Queen and Country"

[AndyC]

Finished Evil Eye. Lots of action in the second half, and a couple of twists I honestly did not see coming. There's a big trial, which is filled with a lot of insight, as the author is an experienced criminal lawyer. The cop killing goes up another notch. Africa comes into the story more, and the history turns more toward European colonialism and all of the turmoil of the Twentieth Century as that period came to an end. Gave me a much better understanding of the politics in Trevor's part of the world.

And although nothing has been said specifically, I get the impression one of the recurring characters (the guy who has been shot, stabbed, lost his mother, son and fiancee, gotten romantically involved with a psycho, been framed for murder, developed epilepsy from his head wound, and had another love interest dropped down an elevator shaft, in addition to childhood abuse by an alcoholic father) might well have contracted AIDS from knifing an African mercenary who had done a little too much raping with his pillaging over the years. Can't remember if it's come up in the two or three later books I read out of order, but I imagine it will come into the next one if there's anything to it. I can't help but be reminded of the scene in Last Action Hero, when Slater meets Schwarzenegger and tells him "You've brought me nothing but pain." In spite of what Stan Lee would have us believe, if heroes could actually meet the people who create their adventures, instant hatred would be the most likely result.

Now, on to the next book, Primal Scream. It apparently ties up a loose end from the first book, Headhunter, that has been dangled in front of readers a number of times. Can't wait to read it, as Headhunter is definitely in the top two or three Slade books I've read so far.


If anybody wants to check out these books, the author's site is at http://specialx.net

[Joe the Destroyer]

I decided Soon to be a Major Motion Picture wasn't for me.  As such, I've started reading something else:



Now I can finally finish the trilogy.