Strontium Bitchings
Nov. 15th, 2009
12:35 pm - Recent genre TV
Recent genre stuff I've been watching on the telly...
MISFITS: Discovered this almost by accident on E4. Loved the first episode. Great performances, memorable characters, interesting premise. Not entirely sure what the hell the ‘superpower’ the black girl has got is supposed to be, but I shall be watching more of this.
FLASH FORWARD: Is okay, although I think I am missing a fair bit from not having seen the pilot episode. Most of the characters are interesting, though some of the soap opera stuff is beginning to pall. I’m gaming on Mondays, so I’ve been watching the Friday repeat. Or I was until C5 decided in their wisdom to move it from 22.00 to 23.00. I was just too tired to bother this week.
TRUE BLOOD: I never would have said I was prudish, but if they cram any more shagging and masturbation into True Blood, I may have to adopt it as a new mindset and change my name to Mary Whitehouse. It reminds me of reading Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear series – you are happily following the story then think "Oh god they’re shagging AGAIN! Can we skip a bit and get back to the plot please?" However, as the plot in True Blood isn’t that gripping and I only actually like one of the characters (Tera) I’m really only watching it because it’s on immediately before Generation Kill. Since that ends next week, my watching of True Blood will likely also cease. C4 are also packing the adverts in like there's no tomorrow. It takes from 22.00 to 00.40 to screen one episode of True Blood and one of Generation Kill. Thank the Lord for the mute button!
DEFYING GRAVITY: Exploring the solar system = interesting. Dealing with breakdowns and crises on the ship = interesting. Mysterious alien stuff = potentially interesting if they’d just pick up the pace a bit. Endless soap opera flashbacks about who had a relationship with who back during astronaut training = dull beyond belief. All the characters are bland and identikit. The only one who stands out is the Indian guy who was bumped from the mission due to Mysterious Alien Stuff Yet To Be Revealed, and he doesn’t get much screen time any more. I also note that whilst the blokes get to have flashbacks about all aspects of human existence - from manly heroic stuff on a disastrous mission to Mars, to drunken juvenile antics in a lap-dancing bar, to techy, geeky bonding stuff - the women get to flashback to interminable conversations about whether one of them should have an abortion. I say interminable because (a) the audience already know she DID have one, so there is no tension at all in these scenes, and (b) we’ve had to suffer several of these should I/shouldn't I conversations.
I’m sure the writers THINK they are giving said female character a trauma to angst about, the way several of the male characters angst about traumas in their past. But they are either too gutless or too witless to let her actually angst about The Actual Event, the ways the guys do. The guy who has hideous burns has a scene where you see the warzone and the explosion where he got them. The guy who had to make the decision to abandon crewmembers to their deaths gets to have nightmares about it. The woman who had the abortion flashbacks to conversations before it happened and hallucinates a baby crying months after it happens, so gets a tenth of the emotional impact of the blokes' scenes. The hallucinations are either (a) ‘cos she’s gone bonkers, or (b) because the Mysterious Alien Stuff has taken an anti-abortion stance. I’ll never find out which as I’ve given up on the series.
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coldOct. 18th, 2009
04:17 pm - So much for Lifelong Learning...
A friend at work mentioned the other days that he had started an evening course, and I thought "Hang on. I haven't had the Continuing Education prospectus from the Uni yet. Maybe its got lost in a postal strike..." So I went onto their website - and lo and behold, the Curse of Accreditation has finally hammered the last nail into the coffin of learning for the the love of learning.
There is no prospectus, because there are no courses. There are no courses because the government has withdrawn all funding for 'Level 0 courses' (that's the just for interest ones, the beginner level ones, and the I'd like to do a degree but I have to do the basics first ones. Also, they won't subsidise anyone who already has a qualification so, for instance, should me (a zoologist), Liz (a geologist) and Richard (a GP) decided to do today the part-time archaeology course that we did several years ago, then the Archaeology Dept would get no subsidy for teaching us.
From this I conclude that the government's policy on Lifelong Learning is:
a) Did we say lifelong? We were talking about the lifespan of a hamster, not of a human being.
b) Want to learn for the love of it? Tough luck.
c) Want to learn so that you can switch careers? Tough luck if you were foolish enough to get a qualification in your first career.
d) Want to learn? You'd better have oodles of dosh, because everything's about to get much more expensive... Oh no, wait a moment, it got so expensive so fast the courses aren't running at all.
e) All of the above.
Here is the University of Bristol Art's Faculty's explanation of the situation and here is a declaration by some of the Science Depts.
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annoyedSep. 30th, 2009
09:33 pm - Twilight 2013 - or, Why are Americans Obsessed by the Monarchy?
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have bought the Twilight 2013 RPG. I love post apocalypse games, and have been playing, running and buying them since way back in the 1980s when Gamma World and Aftermath were on the go. I never played Twilight 2000 when it originally came out, but I got it when they reprinted it 5 or 6 years ago, and ran it then. It was a bit of a culture shock to realise how much of the mentality and ethos of the game was of my generation (raised on Cold War politics and the We’re All Gonna Die When The Nukes Fall mindset) and was alien to the students that were at Gamesoc when I ran it. For instance, there was this conversation:
ME: Here is a list of the countries in the Warsaw Pact.
STUDENT: What’s the Warsaw Pact?
ME: Eeeeek! You’re all so young!
So anyway, it was pretty much a given that I would eventually succumb and buy Twilight 2013, which is the updated version, with a new history that leads to the nukes flying in 2011 instead of 1996. Over the last week or so I have been reading my way though the background and rules, and I’m not entirely convinced that it is an improvement on the 80s game. Mainly because of the background.
( T2013 WTF: Cornwall, the King and cavalry charges )
Sep. 27th, 2009
04:21 pm - Browncoat Ceilidh and Post-apocalypse Housewives
I was at the Browncoat Ceilidh and Mini-Con here in Brizzol yesterday, which was very entertaining, even if the ceilidh bit was cancelled due to lack of appropriate music. Or musicians. I wasn't quite clear on that.
Anyway, some fun panels, a very nice GoH speech about types of hard SF by Alastair Reynolds, and a chance to chat to various people that I hadn't seen for aeons, as well as folk I'd never met before. Here's hoping that it becomes an annual event.
Meanwhile, in other news... I finally gave up waiting for the Twilight 2013 RPG to ever turn up in a games shop and ordered it sight unseen over t'interweb. I'm having a read through it now and it looks (thankfully) far, far less crunchy than the first edition (Twilight 2000) and has opened up character generation so that the players don't have to be military characters if they don't want to be.
That does make for more realism, but there is the potential for a certain amount of silliness creeping in. I could, for instance generate an accurate RPG character to represent The Cutoid (a.k.a. the hairy brother) - by taking the Student lifepath, followed by four repeats of the Slacker lifepath...! I'm not sure how useful a character that would be in roleplaying terms!
I'm also intrigued by the Homemaker lifepath. It's for housewives, househusbands or retired people. The intriguing bit is that you can buy the following skills as part of it - Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Deception and Intimidation. Agriculture I suppose you could pass off as doing a bit of gardening, and Animal Husbandry as looking after endless goldfish and hamsters for your kids, but I wouldn't expect anyone to develop great animal breeding skills doing the latter.
Deception, however, seems a bit off as a parental skill! Especially since this is the skill for telling lies, not the one for detecting your children's fibs. Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy don't quite seem to cover it. Meanwhile, Intimidation is defined in the rules as "gaining social dominance and eliciting compliance through implicit and explicit threats". Parents must be scary people in the world of Twilight 2013!
Sep. 17th, 2009
01:11 pm - Is it just me, or...?
The rest of the world apparently feels different to me about flowers and birds and food. Or, to be more precise, floral scents, birdsong and blisteringly hot food.
I loathe floral scents. I find the vast majority of them sickly and unappealing, which mean that most perfumes and air-fresheners make me go "bleugh!", rather than carol out "Oh how delightful!". In fact, perfumes tend to hit the back of my throat in a horrible astringent way that just boggles me that anyone can find them pleasant. A brief survey of all the scented candles around my house will reveal that they smell of food - cinamon, vanilla, maple syrup - and not of flowers. Yuck.
Birdsong just IS. It's not beautiful, it's not aesthetically pleasing. Nor is it unpleasant or painful. It is just tweety and twittery noises with no appeal to me. The cooing of a pigeon is far more interesting than the twittering of a skylark or nightingale. I've been watching footage where Sir David Attenborough waxes lyrical about the beauty of a nightingale's song. Sorry, but I just don't get it.
Food is meant to be tasted and enjoyed. So why do people like my mother (and many restaurants) insist on serving it at a temperature where the only sensation upon putting it in your mouth is pain? If the food is too hot for you to stick your fingers in - and fingers, after all, have nice tough skin - then it is too hot to put anywhere near delicate things like your tongue! I've lost count of the number of times that I've taken the skin off the roof of my mouth, or spent the whole of the next day guzzling water to soothe a scorched tongue. Do other people have cast iron mouths or something?
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confusedSep. 15th, 2009
07:23 pm - Accidental death?
I have received some bumph from the bank, trying to tempt me to take out accidental death insurance. The offer is intriguing, but possibly not for the reasons they were hoping it was!
For instance, my cover apparently would include "winter sports, childbirth... and members of the armed forces". Doubtless they intend to mean that members of the armed forces can take out the insurance, but they way they phrase it makes them sound like a cause of death. Poor pregnant Matilda, she went on a snowboarding holiday and was shot by the SAS on mountain survival training..."
I'm also wondering what their definition of accidental death is, because it apparently happens to people over 70 more than it happens to the rest of us (they get less cover). But it doesn't happen to them while they are travelling on public transport, as the leaflet carefully stipulates they get the same amount of cover for that.
Perhaps members of the armed forces don't travel by bus? :-)
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amusedAug. 26th, 2009
09:54 am - To the self-absorbed 4x4 driver who almost ran me over this morning
Some words of advice:
1. DON'T park at bus stops. It forces the bus to stop away from the kerb and to disgorge its passengers into the road.
2. If you absolutely must park at a bus stop and force a bus to halt in the road, then do NOT pull away from the bus stop by first REVERSING two metres.
3. When reversing – whether at a bus stop or in any other situation – then USE YOUR BLOODY REAR VIEW MIRROR. It's not just there to check your make-up in, dear.
A side note on number 3 – I was not the first passenger off the bus, so the not-checking-the-mirror was obviously a Not At All situation, not an I Glanced Before You Stepped Off situation. Nor was I the last. So no behaviour by the large, obvious, twelve metre long, white, pink and purple bus could have given you cause to believe that it was finished with disembarking passengers.
And whatever tearing hurry you were in (so that you didn't feel the need to check your rear view mirror) did you a fat lot of good, because I overtook you – on foot – about ten metres from the bus stop, where you were stuck at the lights. You didn't notice me glaring or gesticulating at you. Possibly because you were busy talking to yourself. Or singing along to the radio. Or – dare I suggest it – gabbling away on your hands-free mobile phone?
Arsehole.
Fortunately for you, my reflexes were on tip top condition this morning, and I dodged. Also fortunately for you, I didn't think of throwing my rucksac at your car until you'd pulled out of throwing range.
Jul. 21st, 2009
08:36 pm - The Kraken Wakes
The BBC has recently been repeating their 80s version of Day of the Triffids, which probably means that the new version will imminently be arriving on our screens. And that reminded me of my re-reading of The Kraken Wakes a couple of months ago, and how it is a book just crying out to be made into a BBC series. For starters it is a good, old fashioned, British end-of-the-world tale, which has tons and tons of potential for updating and, of course, our new-fangled, modern CGI and effects could make stonkingly good 'sea tanks', meteor showers and flooded cities.
( Here are the reasons )
Jul. 4th, 2009
06:07 pm - The end of an era...?
My brother was in town this weekend and wanted to go to Forbidden Planet, so while we were there I picked up my comics standing order. However, having come home and dumped the comics on top of the 'to read' pile, it only reinforced the nagging doubts as to why I am still buying the things. Y'see, the comic part of the 'to read' pile is roughly a 3 month backlog, judging by the number of 2000ADs in the heap. Therefore I haven't been possessed by the need to read any newly purchased comics since before Easter. I still enjoy a lot of them when I do read them, but if I have a spare hour and the choice of reading a book, reading some comics or watching the telly, the comics seem to lose out every time.
I've also been eyeing up the various comic boxes about the house - all twenty one of them. Big, space-eating boxes that contain thousands of comics which I haven't re-read in years. Some I've never re-read at all. I am increasing possessed by an urge to get rid of the whole bloody lot!
I think the old comics are rapidly dwindling on what Talis describes as "their emotional half-life". Whereby a possession goes from 'I can't live without this' to 'this can go on a shelf out of the way' and finally to 'why am I still keeping this?'. I've got rid of 3 or 4 boxes of comics via the Comics Expo in 2007 and 2008, and I'm no longer keeping series that I rate as only okay, but I'm now getting twitchy even about those. After all, if I'm suddenly possessed by an urge to re-read anything five years from now, buying the graphic novel is always an option.
The comics that are left in those twenty one boxes still have enough emotional half-life that I don't want to put them out for the recycling. I'd prefer to give them to someone who might read and enjoy them. But selling them on ebay seems like far too much hard work. I may have to organise a 'looting and pillaging' day for the comic collectors I know in Bristol - come and take away anything you want from my boxes.
Then after that I need to have a serious cull of the books, and finally get around to chucking out the videos that I know I'm never going to bother replacing with DVDs...
Apr. 14th, 2009
02:51 pm - Eastercon LX 2009
Got back from Eastercon last night, knackered but happy. The hotel they picked for the venue was a very good choice - good space, friendly staff, cheap and plentiful bar food. The programme was packed with interesting stuff to go to (more on that below), and everything seemed very well organised.
The downside was that the hotel wasn't big enough to house us all... and the overflow hotels were either (a) very far away or (b) only 1.5 miles away, but it was down a dual carriageway and onto an industrial estate, so part of the route had no pavements or street lights! To counter this, the committee had helpfully organised a shuttle bus service. However, the timetable for that was more hope than reality, with the result that it took me almost 2 hours to get from con hotel to my hotel and back again when I decided to get rid of all the stuff I've bought in the dealers' room. As a result, I just stayed in the con hotel all day on the Sat and Sun, and lugged books, water bottles, etc about with me.
Favourite panels that I attended included:
Terraforming versus Pantropy i.e. do you adapt the planet to humans or the humans to the planet? A lively, informative and entertaining discussion - though it only just began to touch on the ethics of terraforming and the ethics of generation starships when it ran out of time. Topics for discussions next year, perhaps?
Who Watched the Watchmen? A debate on whether the movie was a good or bad adaptation of the comics. This was a vastly entertaining hour, as much for the vehemence with which the panel members disagreed with each other on just about everything, as for the actual discussion itself! :-)
Ricardo Pinto - book launch for The Third God This is the 3rd volume in the Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy and I've been waiting bloody ages for it to come out. It's fantasy, but it has no elves, dwarves, wizards and all the other fantasy tropes that drive me to distraction. Ricardo's talk was alternatively intense and amusing as he talked about the personal and publishing reasons for the book's delay (e.g. his house burned down), and the emotional and psychological paths he and the book have taken. I'm now dithering as to whether I should reread the first 2 volumes before I pounce on my copy of the 3rd.
Guest of Honour interview of Jon Courtenay Grimwood, and a reading by him I'd been recommended his books a while back, but only got off my arse to read one shortly before Eastercon. Bloody hell, it was brilliant! I shall be off to Borders to get some more come payday! His GoH spot and reading were both thoroughly enjoyable, and he kindly passed round his Kindle, so that those of us who had never handled a e-book before could get a good look at it.
Mar. 14th, 2009
03:50 pm - Gaming twinges
I've wanted to run the Battlestar Galactica RPG for aeons... and then I bought Summerland and was immediately seized with an urge to also run that... Needless to say, given that I'm running Bastet and playing in Stargate at the moment, there aren't really enough days in the week for running either of those to be feasible.
But I've been watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles on telly recently and I can feel the 'run something' twinges starting up again. A group of people get sent back from the future with a mission to complete and some pissed off terminators on their tail... hmm, ideal RPG scenario.
And then, following the success of Time Team & the Ancient Horrors game (which I adapted from one I played in at Stabcon), Jimbo suggested as a joke that I do a Bonekickers & the Ancient Horrors game. And bloody hell, but doesn't that have potential too? I can just see the Radio Times blurb: The cast and crew of Bonekickers have gathered to film a new episode of the archaeological drama series. And what do you know - their location scout has found them a REAL haunted castle to film in. What could possibly go wrong?
I obviously need to win the lottery and dedicate my life to gaming... :-)
Mar. 8th, 2009
12:39 pm - Another SF book meme (the Clarke Awards)
Below are the winners of the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction novels (from 1987 to 2008).
1) Look at the list, copy and paste it into your own journal.
2) Mark them as read it, intend to read it, hated it.
3) Feel free to say what you thought of them.
Black Man by Richard Morgan. Not my favourite of Mr Morgan’s books, but still a stonkingly good read.
Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Air by Geoff Ryman
Iron Council by China Mieville
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
The Separation by Christopher Priest
Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
Dreaming in Smoke by Tricia Sullivan
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh. Been meaning to read this for ages and never quite got around to it.
Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley. I keep forgetting how much I like Paul McAuley’s books. I must read more.
Fools by Pat Cadigan
Vurt by Jeff Noon
Body of Glass by Marge Piercy
Synners by Pat Cadigan
Take Back Plenty by Colin Greenland
The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman
Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack
The Sea and Summer by George Turner
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Not a great score... I've only read 7 of them.
Feb. 28th, 2009
12:00 pm - Continuing the 5 Things Meme
Below are my ramblings on 5 things from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
chris_maslen.
( Read more... )
hungryFeb. 19th, 2009
08:51 am - Bearer of Bad Tidings
For those that know them and haven't heard yet...
Fox is currently homeless and virtually possessionless. His upstair's neighbour's flat caught fire on Sun night. Fox and the downstairs neighbour are fine, but the upstairs guy was killed in the fire.
The flats are uninhabitable, so he is staying at the Morrises, and is trying to sort out somewhere to live. He's seeing a guy about another flat at the weekend. Pretty much everything he owns is fire, smoke or water damaged - he's a bit too spaced out by it all to properly assess the damage yet.
And other bad news - James' Dad has had a stroke. Prognosis looks good as it was a minor one, but Jimbo will be heading up north a lot to help out his Mum. And to add to his misery, he has caught the winter vomiting virus thing, so is at home being ill and infectious at the moment.
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anxiousFeb. 17th, 2009
07:43 pm - The 5 Things Meme
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.
These from pellegrina
1. Bradley
2. Silver hair
3. Eastercon
4. viala_qilarre
5. Bristol
( The elaborations )
Jan. 29th, 2009
06:03 pm - Genre book meme from pellegrina
Genre fiction book meme -
1) Look at the list, copy and paste it into your own journal.
2) House rules: read one or all of, intend to read, loved, hated.
3) Feel free to tell your friends what you thought of them.
In no particular order:
1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. [It says 'no particular order', but suspiciously LOTR is always at the top!]
2. The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
3. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien [Gave up less than 100 pages in]
4. Foundation series, Isaac Asimov [Audiobook of one of them]
5. Robot series, Isaac Asimov
6. Dune, Frank Herbert
7. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein [Gave up about a third of the way in].
8. Earthsea series, Ursula le Guin [The first three only]
9. Neuromancer, William Gibson
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham
12. A Book of the New Sun series, Gene Wolfe
13. Discworld series, Terry Pratchett [I've read about 10]
14. Sandman series, Neil Gaiman [So graphic novels are on this list too?]
15. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
16. Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey [Though everything from All the Weyrs of Pern onwards has been a bit pants...]
17. Interview with the Vampire series, Anne Rice [I managed the first three, then lost the will to live]
18. The Shining, Stephen King
19. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula le Guin
20. The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny [Nope, and never intend to, despite people going on and on and on about how great they are. Not gonna play the RPG either...]
21. 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke
22. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
23. Ringworld, Larry Niven
24. Elric of Melnibone series, Michael Moorcock [Read a couple of short stories - not impressed]
25. The Dying Earth series, Jack Vance
26. Lyonesse series, Jack Vance
27. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson [I've ranted before about how much I disliked the character and his actions]
28. A Song of Ice and Fire series, George R.R. Martin
29. The Worm Ourobouros, E.R. Eddison
30. Conan series, Robert E. Howard
31. Lankhmar series, Fritz Leiber
32. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
33. The Time Machine, H.G. Wells [So long ago I can barely remember...]
34. The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells
35. The War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells
36. Eon, Greg Bear
37. Book of the First Law series, Joe Abercrombie
38. Miss Marple stories, Agatha Christie
39. Hercule Poirot stories, Agatha Christie
40. Lord Peter Wimsey stories, Dorothy L. Sayers
41. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
42. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan [A book at school that I actually liked!]
43. Sherlock Holmes stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
44. Cthulhu Mythos, H.P. Lovecraft
45. Inspector Wexford stories, Ruth Rendell
46. Adam Dalgliesh stories, P.D. James
47. Philip Marlowe stories, Raymond Chandler
48. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
49. The Day of the Jackal, Frederick Forsyth [Only read Dogs of War by Forsythe]
50. The Fourth Protocol, Frederick Forsyth
51. Smiley series, John le Carre
52. Gentleman Bastard series, Scott Lynch
53. The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson
54. Watchmen series, Alan Moore
55. Maus, Art Spiegelman
56. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Miller [ALAN Miller??? The one I read was by FRANK Miller!]
57. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi [It's on my 'buy when the graphic novel pile has gone down and I'm not skint' list]
58. Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling [Managed the first, but it was too much a kiddie book for me]
59. Chrestomanci series, Diana Wynne-Jones
60. Ryhope Wood series, Robert Holdstock
61. Wilt series, Tom Sharpe
62. Riftwar Cycle, Raymond E. Feist
63. Temeraire series, Naomi Novik
64. Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
65. His Dark Materials series, Phillip Pullman [First as a book, the rest as plays on radio 4]
66. Dragonlance series, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman [Not a chance. I tried one of their SF books and it was excruciatingly awful]
67. Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer
68. The Night's Dawn trilogy, Peter F. Hamilton
69. Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer
70. Honor Harrington series, David Weber [I read the first half dozen or so - must work out which is next in the series]
71. Hannibal Lecter series, Thomas Harris
72. The Dark Tower series, Stephen King [Found the first one a bit dull, didn't read the rest]
73. It, Stephen King
74. The Rats series, James Herbert [From my mis-spent youth - our school library had several of these!]
75. Dirk Gently series, Douglas Adams
76. Jeeves and Wooster stories, P.G. Wodehouse
77. The da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
78. The Culture Series, Iain M. Banks [Tried one and struggled though it as I didn't care a jot about any of the characters]
79. The Duncton series, William Horwood
80. The Illuminatus! trilogy, Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
81. The Aberystwyth series, Malcom Pryce
82. Morse stories, Colin Dexter
83. Navajo Tribal Police stories, Tony Hillerman [Need to re-read these in order sometime!]
84. The Ipcress File, Len Deighton
85. Enigma, Robert Harris
86. Fatherland, Robert Harris
87. The Constant Gardener, John le Carre
88. The House of Cards trilogy, Michael Dobbs
89. The Dark is Rising saga, Susan Cooper
90. Psychotechnic League and Polesotechnic League series, Poul Anderson
91. Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
92. Star Wars: Thrawn trilogy, Timothy Zahn
93. Ender's Game series, Orson Scott Card
94. Gormenghast series, Meryvn Peake
95. Miles Vorkosigan saga, Lois McMaster Bujold
96. The Once and Future King, T.H. White
97. Fighting Fantasy books, Ian Livingston & Steve Jackson [I might have done - can't remember]
98. The Stainless Steel Rat series, Harry Harrison
99. The Lensman series, E.E. 'Doc' Smith
100. The Cadfael stories, Ellis Peters [Read a couple but they didn't grab me]
So the score on genre is FAR higher than the lit book list! :-)
05:30 pm - Literary book meme from pellegrina
The Big Read thinks the average adult has only read six of the top 100 books they've printed below.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) and my own special addition: red font for ones you only read part of (or only read part of a series)
1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6. The Bible - various authors. I read all of the New Testament, but got bogged down in Exodus when I tried to read the Old.
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman. Read the first, listened to the others as radio plays.
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. [Where's 15?]
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows– Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma – Jane Austen
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis Not sure why this isn't covered under item 33!
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne. I've read some of the Pooh books.
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens Got forced to read this at school and hated it. Never finished it.
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker. Tried to read it when I was a kid and gave up.
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray. Tried to read it when I was a kid and gave up.
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens. Another school 'read it to better yourself' book, but I actually liked this one!
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web – EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
I've read 17 of them, and partly read (or read the first in the series) another 7. I think I'll do better on the genre list! :-)
Dec. 31st, 2008
05:13 pm - Books Read in 2008
Here's the list of what I've read over the past year
FICTION
I finally finished the housebrick sized book that is Maia by Richard Adams (fantasy). Enjoyed it, but not as much as Shardik.
Ally by Karen Traviss (SF)
Judge by Karen Traviss (SF). The final volume in the series.
See Delphi and Die by Lindsey Davis (historical/crime)
Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis (historical/crime)
Destroyer by C.J. Cherryh (SF)
Pretender by C.J. Cherryh (SF)
Deliverer by C.J. Cherryh (SF)
Dead of Night by Brendan Dubois (thriller that is really alternative reality SF)
Resurrection Day by Brendan Dubois (thriller that is really alternative reality SF). Mr Dubois really likes nuking America in his books…!
Final Winter by Brendan Dubois (thriller). No nukes in this one.
Black Man by Richard Morgan (SF). Not as good as his Kovacs books, but still a stonking good read.
Jumper by Stephen Gould (SF). Re-read to remind myself how much I enjoyed it the first time around and to confirm that no way was I going to see the movie!
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams (SF). I really must read more Liz Williams.
Company of Glory by Edgar Pangborn (old and rather dated SF)
Speaking in Tongues by Ian MacDonald (SF short story collection)
Command Decision by Elizabeth Moon (SF)
Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon (SF)
Emotionally Weird by Kate Atkinson (mainstream/comedy)
The Alienist by Caleb Carr (historical/crime). Brilliant – gripping stuff and fascinating characters.
Killing Time by Caleb Carr (bloody awful SF). I got this out of the library on the strength of having read The Alienist. Oh boy, I am SOOOOO glad I didn’t spend money on this insulting drivel – this is SF in the fine tradition of ‘all SF fans are morons who won’t care about the plot as long as there is a UFO and a nymphomaniac in a jumpsuit in it’. Gave up about 180 pages into it. This would have got my Worst Book of the Year award, if not for Ghost (see below).
Last and First Men by Olaf Stapleton (old but NOT dated SF) I’d never read this before – a huge and fascinating future history of mankind and their descendants.
Maxie’s Demon by Michael Scott Rohan (time travel fantasy).
Rat Run by Gerald Seymour (thriller)
Man in the Middle by Brian Haig (military/legal thriller) This never did come out in paperback, so I snapped and bought the hardback. Write more books Mr Haig!!!
Sixty Days and Counting by Kim Stanley Robinson (thriller). Thriller is a misnomer – it is really dull. AND it became obvious about page 70 that it was a sequel to another book, of which no mention was made on the cover or the blurb. I won’t be reading the prequel or sequel, if there is one.
Ill Wind by Kevin Anderson (SF). Post apocalypse technothriller... or rather, a 'watch the apocalypse happening' technothriller...
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (mainstream... crime... fantasy... all of the above?)
Days of Atonement by Walter Jon Williams (crime/SF). I’ve posted elsewhere about how much I was impressed by this book.
Meat by Joseph D’Lacey (horror... in a post-apocalypse setting). Again I’ve waxed lyrical about this one before now.
Hounhynm by Constance Campbell (fantasy). Bloody awful. Reads like bad fan fic. I gave up 11 chapters in.
Consider Phlebas by Iain Banks (SF). 'Read Iain (M) Banks' everyone kept telling me. 'If you like Richard Morgan and Ken McLeod you’ll love Iain Banks!' Well, nope. What they should have said was 'If you think Alastair Reynolds’ books are full of potentially gripping spectacles and vast canvases that have any interest or engagement leached out of them by being peopled by a bunch of unlikeable characters whom you don’t care an iota about - then you’ll dislike Iain Banks’ books too'.
Forever Free by Joe Haldeman (SF – definitely not about Joy Adamson reintroducing lions into the wild). Great start, meh ending.
Skallagrigg by William Horwood (mainstream). Fantastic. I’d seen a BBC adaptation of this years ago, but that didn’t even begin to touch on the multiple layers of story.
Game Night by Jonny Nexus (fantasy). A gaming related parody... the gods do a bit of role-playing. Scarily I think I have gamed with all of these people...
The Lonely Dead by Michael Marshall (thriller). Sequel to The Straw Men and just as good.
Blood of Angels by Michael Marshall (thriller). Third in The Straw Men trilogy. I’m hoping it’ll be a quadrilogy (if that’s a real word).
Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham (SF alternative history). This author is my find of the year, and his trilogy on a 2021 naval taskforce ending up in 1942 is riveting and with all the consequences beautifully thought through. I’ll be looking forward to whatever he writes next.
Designated Targets by John Birmingham (SF alternative history).
Final Impact by John Birmingham (SF alternative history).
Ghost by John Ringo (thriller). It had strong competition from Killing Time and Hounhymn but this is definitely the WORST READ OF THE YEAR, partly because of the in-your-face ultra-right politics, partly because of the misogyny and partly because I like his Posleen books so much this felt like a betrayal. I managed to stomach the whole of part one (about 200 pages) before I gave up. There is an utterly fantastic (but very long) review of the Ghost series here . NO JOHN RINGO, NO!
The Shades of Time and Memory by Storm Constantine (fantasy)
The Ghosts of Blood and Innocence by Storm Constantine (fantasy)
The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (SF). Interesting but ultimately disappointing, as it goes from the characters planning stuff to the aftermath of said stuff, missing out the ‘how they pulled it off’ bit that I was itching to read.
Wolf of the Plains by Conn Iggulden (historical). A chance pick up at the library. I shall be reading more in the series.
Survival by Julie Czerneda (SF)
People of the Nightland by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O’Neal Gear (historical… or more accurately a prehistorical). Not their best, but still a fine addition to the series.
The Margarets by Sheri Tepper (SF with fantasy elements).
Cat and Mouse by Harold Coyle (military thriller). Yay! Another Dixon book finally out in paperback.
Hominids by Robert Sawyer (SF). A lovely book, gripping and sweet by turns. I'll definitely be after the sequels.
Pandora’s Legion by Harold Coyle & Barrett Tillman (military thriller). Mostly good, but the turn of phrase used by the British characters jars a bit now and then. And it appears that it is not just George W, Bush who doesn’t realise that 'Paki' is an offensive term for Pakistanis...
And I’m about halfway through The Light Bearer by Donna Gillespie (historical). Gripping stuff and great characters – I'll be tracking down more by Ms Gillespie. The only quibble is that she seems to think there are antelopes and pumas in Iron Age Germany. At least I think she means a puma when she refers to 'the mountain cat' – she makes it clear that she doesn’t mean lynx or wildcat.
NON-FICTION
The Struggle For Europe by Chester Wilmot
Overlord by Max Hastings.
Feminism: A Very Short Introduction by Margaret Walters
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
What We Believe But Cannot Prove by John Brockman (ed.)
Seven Million Years by Douglas Palmer
British Cattle by Val Porter
The Future of Man by Sir Peter Medawar. Written in the 1950s and based on his BBC Reith lectures. It contains some bona fide hard facts on such things as the increase in the number of male babies born after both the world wars.
Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel Bennett
Dark Horses and Black Beauties by Melissa Holbrook Pierson
The Democratic Genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context by Sheenagh Pugh. Interesting stuff.
GRAPHIC NOVELS
DMZ 1: On the Ground by Brian Wood
DMZ 2: Body of a Journalist by Brian Wood
DMZ 3: Public Works by Brian Wood
The Falklands War by some French people whose names I forget. The translations are a bit stilted in places.
The Surrogates by Robert Venditti and Brett Weldell. Bloody fantastic!
Alice in Sunderland by Bryan Talbot. Part way through this at the moment...
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif){kind=small}
contemplativeDec. 19th, 2008
09:26 pm - Favourite books
Following on from pellegrina's book meme, here are my favourite books in various genres. It was going to be all Top Ten's but I was too determined to list all my favourites in SF, as most of them are far, far more beloved than even the top three fantasy. Exact rankings are subject to change, depending on what mood I'm in...
HISTORICAL AND PREHISTORICAL
1. The Visitant (and sequels) by Kathleen O'Neal Gear & Michael Gear
2. People of the Lakes by Kathleen O'Neal Gear & Michael Gear
3. The Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
4. The Eagle & The Raven by Pauline Gedge
5. Under the Eagle by Simon Scarrow
6. Mother Earth, Father Sky by Sue Harrison
7. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel (Many of the sequels suck, though)
8. The Morning River by Michael Gear
9. The Alienist by Caleb Carr
10. Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Scarborough
FANTASY
1. Surrender None by Elizabeth
2. The Horse Girl by Constance Ash
3. Metal Angel by Nancy Springer
4. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
5. The Necessary Beggar by Susan Palwick
6. Shardik by Richard Adams
7. Lion of Macedon by David Gemmell
8. The Heavenly Horse From the Outermost West by Mary Stanton
9. The Wolves of Time by William Horwood
10. The Ice is Coming by Patricia Wrightson
SCIENCE FICTION
1. Pride of Chanur by C.J. Cherryh
2. Rider at the Gate by C.J. Cherryh
3. The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold
4. Broken Angels by Richard Morgan
5. Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
6. Grass by Sheri Tepper
7. Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham
8. The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
9. The Chysalids by John Wyndham
10. City of Pearl by Karen Traviss
11. Santiago by Mike Resnick
12. Little Heroes by Norman Spindrad
13. When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
14. Once A Hero by Elizabeth Moon
15. Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear
16. A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo
17. Golden Witchbreed by Mary Gentle
18. Jumper by Stephen Gould
19. Chaga by Ian McDonald
20. Moonseed by Stephen Baxter
21. K'iln People by David Brin
22. The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld
23. Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre
24. West of Eden by Harry Harrison
25. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
contemplative08:49 pm - SF&F book meme from pellegrina
The top fifty SF & fantasy books (no idea who compiled the list).
Bold the ones you've read, strike the ones you hated, italicize the ones you couldn't get through. Asterisks for the ones you loved - more asterisks, more love. Plus signs for the ones you own.
Pellegrina's added rule: question mark if you can't remember if you read/own it...
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov. What do you do if you've only read one of the trilogy???
3. Dune, Frank Herbert**+
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin*
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson**+
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr*+
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov**
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett***+
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison+
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey***+
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R Donaldson Hey, I've been cured of leprosy, so it's okay to rape a woman as long as I angst about it afterwards!
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman**+
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams***+
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice+
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement*+
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon+
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith+
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute. Always meant to, never got around to it.
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, JRR Tolkien Managed about 60 pages.
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson. It's in the 'to read' pile as I type this..
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer
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