h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I started Tales From The Mall yesterday. A mixture of anecdotes, fiction and facts about shopping malls. Really interesting.

Just started Michael Moorcock's "The Elric Saga".

It's been a long time since I've read any of the Elric stories and this is supposed to be a complete compilation.

I'm quite sure I haven't read them all yet.




In turn, given Elric interpreted as an Eldar chaos cultist, after the manner of the archetypology of the "Warhammer 40,000"/"World of Warcraft" war games and related sci-fi, I can't help thinking of a challenge: write or find a science fiction story that cannot be re-written as a "Warhammer 40,000"/"World of Warcraft" scenario.




Frank Herbert's "Dune" saga and its next generation expansions comes close, but ultimately, this is still the human universe, perhaps about 10,000 years from now, well short of the 40,000 CE dating of "Warhammer 40,000"/"World of Warcraft" cycle, and a human universe in which the "Eye of Terror" does not yet exist.

finished Truckers (Pratchett) and started Tony Hawks' One Hit Wonderland.

I'm nearly finished the second Game of Thrones book, enjoying it very much.

The first was incredibly similar to what they made the first series on telly like, the second seems to have veered a little away. I'm hoping it's not a trend as that's what put me off finishing the books that True Blood was based on.

Just got Pratchett's new 'World of Poo' from the library
compleat with strange looks from the staff.

Book report to follow!


~jwf~

Pastey,

The shows are a streamlined version of books that get very sprawling. Some characters are dropped, changed or amalgamated, but the story as a whole is spot on.

Plus the show does one thing much better. The ages. In the books, Ned is in his late thirties, Robb, Jon and Joffrey are all 15, and Danaerys is 13. Which makes her sex scenes very, very uncomfortable.

By aging them up in the show, everything's more plausible and less likely to get you on a sex offender's register.

It's not actually that long ago (in the grand scheme of things) that marriage was still done at an early age. Given that the book is set in a comparable era to what we'd think of as the Dark Ages, 12 and 13 year old brides would have been very common.

I'm not condoning it, and it's certainly not something I think we should go back to, but it's how it was. Plus back then people grew up a lot faster, they weren't as mollycoddled as they are now. Even your average Dickensian 13 year old would have had much more "street smarts" and knowledge of life than your 16/18 year old today.

Historically speaking, it's accurate. It's just jarring to modern tastes.

If anything, it makes Dany's predicament at the start of the book (child bride used as chattel and sold to a barbarian king to cement an alliance) even more dark - thus making her character growth even more striking.

>> Book report to follow! <<

I am savouring Pratchett's the World of Poo like a fine bon-bon.
A week into it and less than half way through; but I promised
a report and this is it.

Geoffrey is visiting his Grand-mama's stately home in Anhk-Morpork;
it's a classic Victorian setting with maids, cooks, gardeners and
other groundskeepers. The illustrations are classic and engrossing,
somewhere between Alice and Uncle Wiggly, with strange beasts
kept in Ventinari's menagerie including the Acrobatic Meerkats
and a visit to Sybil's dragon sanctuary.

A brilliant dalliance into a familiar world. The lesson seems to be
that in a whirled where monsters like Teatime can thrive there are
other 'normal folks' embracing life, other ways to see it, and a
scatological variety to fascinate the most curious mind.

Possibly my favourite Discworld book so far. The river stills flows
thick, the gargoyles still sit in wait for pigeons, the carriages
still wobble along the cobbles, but it is all seen through the
innocent eyes of young Geoffrey, poo collector.

Cannot recommend it highly enuff.


~jwf~

Just finished Michael Moorcock's "The Elric Saga" and Pearl S. Buck's "My Several Worlds".

Currently have just started David Maraniss's "Barack Obama, The Story",
a multigenerational study on Barack Obama's roots and upbringing, not a political biography.

Last read 'Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Book Store' by Robin Sloan and thoroughly enjoyed that.
Now reading 'Look to Windward' by Iain M Banks.

MC

Currently reading "Duels in the Sky - World War II Naval Aircraft in Combat" by Captain Eric M. Brown, RN.

Operational info in a test pilot's language.

Only You Can Save Mankind, by Terry Pratchett.

Genius.

And light relief from my current on-going read, A History of the North American Indians, which is easily the most depressing book I've ever read.

Mol

>> 'Mr Penumbra's 24 hour Book Store' by Robin Sloan <<

Yes, an excellent journey from Gutenberg to Google.
I'll say no more.

~jwf~

BTW: I've come to the end of Pratchett's World of Poo
and will likely just read it again. Most refreshing.
A whole new take on poo sticks!

Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indriðason. This is Scandi-crime, from Iceland.

started Are You Dave Gorman. Interestingly written.

James Potter and the Vault of Destinies by Norman Lippert. It's third in a series of HP "sequels"

I'll be interested what you think of that one. I liked the first two but that one annoyed me about a third of the way in and I gave up.

It's certainly not as gripping. I liked the first two also, and bought his Girl on the Dock which wasn't bad. This one just seems to be trying a little too hard, maybe? I'm only about a quarter of the way into it.

I kind of felt JK Rowling was running out of steam during the last one in the series (or maybe it was just me losing interest), so these other ones don't really tempt me, I have to admit.