September 2022 Reading Thread.

[hitmouse]

North Atlantic Seafood by Alan Davidson. An interesting hybrid of a zoology fauna, cultural history, and recipe book. Davidson was a fascinating and erudite man.

 

[Foxbat]

I'm still working my way through the book on the war of Spanish Succession and I'm learning quite a lot. All I knew about it previously was Blenheim and the capture of Gibralter.

 

[BAYLOR]

Glad to see you read Coleridge’s Rime, Baylor. Now please read his unfinished poem Christabel and let us know what you think. Does it remind you of any 20th-century writers?

I think I may have glimpsed Christabel it while paging though the book .

The interesting thing about Rime , is I could visualize what was being described . I couldn't quite do that will Popes Pastorals but still those were quite good .

 

[Extollager]

"Christabel" will be plenty visual, Baylor. : )

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I am almost done with Everything I Need to Know I Learned in the Twilight Zone: A Fifth-Dimension Guide to Life (2017) by Mark Dawidziak, a semi-tongue-in-cheek guide to the lessons of the various episodes of the original series.

 

[Dave Vicks]

Next Audible.com pick Either IT by Stephen King.Or THE TERROR by Dan Simmons.

 

[Elentarri]

Just started The Eight by Katherine Neville.

 

[Bick]

Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon

Rated this 4 stars out of 5 - quite good. A mining colony uncovers planetside the remains of an ancient alien civilization that had encountered our Xenomorphs. Really felt as though it belonged in the world of the original two Alien films. Good characterization, some very clever/spooky on-world scenes. Most of the action takes place in space, and is very well done. I'm becoming a fan of Lebbon's writing.

I got this and gave it a go, but it seemed wholly unoriginal to me - there was no invention or idea in the first 60 pages that wasn’t a direct copy of Alien or Aliens, and even the dialogue was taken directly from the alien films. No tension either. The introduction of Ripley was silly and didn’t work for me. Thinking about it, it was never going to be possible to have an ‘official’ book between the first two films that had Ripley in it, as it just makes no sense. Shame, but this will be a DNF. Never mind, on to something else.

 

[Vince W]

I got this and gave it a go, but it seemed wholly unoriginal to me - there was no invention or idea in the first 60 pages that wasn’t a direct copy of Alien or Aliens, and even the dialogue was taken directly from the alien films. No tension either. The introduction of Ripley was silly and didn’t work for me. Thinking about it, it was never going to be possible to have an ‘official’ book between the first two films that had Ripley in it, as it just makes no sense. Shame, but this will be a DNF. Never mind, on to something else.

I picked this one up at a charity shop to try but it sounds like I probably won’t enjoy it.

 

[Bick]

I picked this one up at a charity shop to try but it sounds like I probably won’t enjoy it.

No, perhaps not. The shoe-horning in of Ripley is just daft. Having her in the novel is entirely unnecessary, but if the publisher/rights owner insisted on that, then at least her inclusion should be based in a rational and clever plot, and not purely serendipity, that in the immensity of galactic space her drifting shuttle is the only spacecraft near enough to another alien-infested planet, LV178, to answer a call for help. And would a tiny, drifting, shuttle craft answer a distress beacon from an enormous mining craft? And if it could zoom off directly to a distress call after 37 years in space and has 92% fuel at that point, and has the AI required, why was it drifting in space all those years? Why didn't it just take Ripley back to Earth? The whole thing was so silly, I couldn't read a few pages beyond her appearance. She wakes in this novel after 37 years (a bit like the 57 year hypersleep in Aliens but it's 20 less, so it's different - clever see?), and she will have to go and fight aliens on a planet where there are lots, which is the last thing she wants to do, right? Oh wait, that's exactly the premise of Aliens, except in the film there was actually a rationale for her being there. Hmm.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

I got this and gave it a go, but it seemed wholly unoriginal to me - there was no invention or idea in the first 60 pages that wasn’t a direct copy of Alien or Aliens, and even the dialogue was taken directly from the alien films. No tension either.

Sorry to have recommended it - hope it didn't cost too much. I felt differently about the book; I guess there was something about the story that allowed me to suspend disbelief. I got past Ripley being in the novel, and so enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as good as Alien, of course, but what is; I thought it was an entertaining addition to the Alien universe, CC

 

[Vince W]

No, perhaps not. The shoe-horning in of Ripley is just daft. Having her in the novel is entirely unnecessary, but if the publisher/rights owner insisted on that, then at least her inclusion should be based in a rational and clever plot, and not purely serendipity, that in the immensity of galactic space her drifting shuttle is the only spacecraft near enough to another alien-infested planet, LV178, to answer a call for help. And would a tiny, drifting, shuttle craft answer a distress beacon from an enormous mining craft? And if it could zoom off directly to a distress call after 37 years in space and has 92% fuel at that point, and has the AI required, why was it drifting in space all those years? Why didn't it just take Ripley back to Earth? The whole thing was so silly, I couldn't read a few pages beyond her appearance. She wakes in this novel after 37 years (a bit like the 57 year hypersleep in Aliens but it's 20 less, so it's different - clever see?), and she will have to go and fight aliens on a planet where there are lots, which is the last thing she wants to do, right? Oh wait, that's exactly the premise of Aliens, except in the film there was actually a rationale for her being there. Hmm.

I agree that putting Ripley in makes no sense. I may still give it a try but I’m going to put at the bottom of the pile for now.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

I guess I went into the book just looking for action, and entertainment; a light read that passed a few hours entertainingly. I wished when reading it that they hadn't of included Ripley, but they did, so I went with it. Sorry again, honestly, that I recommended it. I thought it was fun, but different horses...

 

[Vince W]

I guess I went into the book just looking for action, and entertainment; a light read that passed a few hours entertainingly. I wished when reading it that they hadn't of included Ripley, but they did, so I went with it. Sorry again, honestly, that I recommended it. I thought it was fun, but different horses...

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the book. I enjoyed a lot of the Alien books from the 90s and they aren’t exactly the greatest books.

 

[Bick]

Sorry to have recommended it - hope it didn't cost too much. I felt differently about the book; I guess there was something about the story that allowed me to suspend disbelief. I got past Ripley being in the novel, and so enjoyed it. It wasn't nearly as good as Alien, of course, but what is; I thought it was an entertaining addition to the Alien universe, CC

No need to apologise at all. Horses for courses, and all that, there's no right answer, just opinions. I think that, if it was read fast (or listened to, as I think you heard the audiobook?), and if you can get past certain plot issues, it could be fine for what it is and provide escapist entertainment, but I guess I was hoping for something new in the Alien universe and I didn't find it. And I tend to be bad at letting plot issues pass me by - I fixate and then I cannot enjoy the book so much.

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Yeah, I just feel bad if someone spent money on something I recommended, and then they hated it. I mean, even the best of these books is like a 1 star piece of *Literature*, even if they might be considered a 5 star SF book.

 

[Bick]

Yeah, I just feel bad if someone spent money on something I recommended, and then they hated it. I mean, even the best of these books is like a 1 star piece of *Literature*, even if they might be considered a 5 star SF book.

Yeah, but really, no worries. Most of us also have 'guilty pleasure' reads, where we excuse certain issues of writing or plot, because we just love the world, or the characters, perhaps from other books or films. It's an interesting idea for a thread, actually - guilty pleasure books you know deep down are not Chekhov or Henry James, but they just do it for you. For me, I guess I'd put Alan Dean Foster's work into this category. Not all his books are the same quality - he's written some really good SF (Relic was terrific), but also a few clunkers, really - but for some reason I can get through them all with enjoyment - he gets a pass from me, more or less whatever he writes. And I felt the same way about some old Star Wars tie-in books.

 

[Parson]

I just finished A Cross to Bear, A Jack Sheridan Mystery by Vince Vogel. This is an English Police Procedural/mystery and a pretty good one at that. It's main characters are a mostly pathetic human being whose also a very good detective, Jack Sheridan and an English Government hitman, whose well thought out and excellently carried out actions seem to go beyond all human moderation, Alex Dorring. There's lots of mystery, lots of characters and a story that keeps you reading. BUT I would not recommend this book at all. It slowly builds to more and more horrific violence. If I would have had any sense at all I would have quit. I can believe that a younger version of myself would have had nightmares about the scenes of unspeakable violence that were rendered. I am actually embarrassed to say that I finished it. What was I thinking anyway?

I ended my Amazon review Not Recommended. I submit this so that some of you can give this and I suspect the author's two series who are the main characters of this book, Alex Dorring and Jack Sheridan a rightfully deserved pass.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I have started The Magic Man and Other Science-Fantasy Stories (1965) by Charles Beaumont, collecting works from 1954 to 1960. There's a foreword by Ray Bradbury and an afterword by Richard Matheson, in tribute to the author. It's rather poignant to read Matheson statement's "How many writers at the age of 36 have managed to create such a body of work?" since Beaumont was already suffering from the rapid aging disease (Alzheimer's and/or Pick's and/or self-induced poisoning caused by massive doses of Bromo-Seltzer, the old formulation of which contained toxic substances) that killed him at age 38. By the time this book was published, Beaumont was doing little or no writing, and his author friends ghostwrote for him for The Twilight Zone and other markets.