The Reading Corner.

[gwillybj]

In "Virtual Reality Is Here. Can We Play With It?" http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=7885.0, the book Neuromancer is mentioned. I don't know if it's already been mentioned in this thread. It's a good read.

[Buster's Uncle]

The New Space Opera Edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan.

640 pages of smart, beguiling, absolutely top-drawer stuff.

...

The Enchanter Completed  A Tribute Anthology for L. Sprague de Camp  Edited by Harry Turtledove.

Started this mid-last week, and I'm 249 of 387 pages in...

[Buster's Uncle]

The Enchanter Completed  A Tribute Anthology for L. Sprague de Camp  Edited by Harry Turtledove.

Started this mid-last week, and I'm 249 of 387 pages in...

Good, solid stuff.  I was once insulted by de Camp.

...

The Ninth Galaxy Reader Edited by Frederik Pohl.  -From 1964, FWIW.

[Lord Avalon]

Sort of a "bad habit" of mine: I start a book, then start another book before finishing the previous one.

Most of the way through The Dreamthief's Daughter, by Michael Moorcock. (Maybe I've slowed down because I couldn't find the next book at home - I think it got boxed up and put in storage, and I have yet to go there and dig through a multitude of boxes to find it.)


Started The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian: The Original Adventures of the Greatest Sword and Sorcery Hero of All Time, by Robert E. Howard, first in a collection of Conan stories, in the order they were published (although some are versions published later - maybe they didn't have the original pulp mags?) and unedited/unembellished by others. I guess the others would mostly be L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, who arranged the stories chronologically and added their own "pastiches," and whose editions I read as a boy.

[Buster's Uncle]

Alternate Generals edited by Harry Turtledove.

Strongly recommended, at least to Rusty, who would love, love, LOVE all the excellent military battle yarns - many naval battles in a rather Hornbloweresque style.

Bumped for Rusty's attention.

[Rusty Edge]

Thanks, I've ordered some samples for my kindle. I'm starting a 2 week road trip to visit my parents tomorrow. I'll be reading more and online less.

[Guynemer]

Christopher Moore, of "Lamb" fame (and "Coyote Blue", "Sacre Bleu", "A Dirty Job", "Practical Demonkeeping", "Bloodsucking Fiends", etc.) has a new novel out, a sequel to "Fool".  "The Serpent of Venice" folds Othello and The Merchant of Venice into Pocket's story.

[Buster's Uncle]

The Ninth Galaxy Reader Edited by Frederik Pohl.  -From 1964, FWIW.

Solid 1964 stuff.  Recommended.

...

Return to Avalon  A Celebration of Marion Zimmer Bradley edited by Jennifer Roberson.  I'm actually about 2/3rds of the way through this one, due to not posting when I started.

[Buster's Uncle]

Return to Avalon  A Celebration of Marion Zimmer Bradley edited by Jennifer Roberson.  I'm actually about 2/3rds of the way through this one, due to not posting when I started.

If you like MZB, this is decent stuff in that style.

...

Psychlone by Greg Bear.  I wish I'd recognized it before I bought a second copy, but I don't remember how it ends, so...

[Buster's Uncle]

Psychlone by Greg Bear.  I wish I'd recognized it before I bought a second copy, but I don't remember how it ends, so...

I didn't like how it ended, and I still don't actually remember reading it before, but I recognized too many bits not to have,and think it was fairly recent the first time.  Recommended for no one but possibly Uno and fans of supernatural thrillers.  This was a very early Bear work - 1977 copyright, and I don't think he's old enough to have started much earlier - and he has become a much better writer over the years since.

...

Isaac Asimov's Valentines edited by Gardener Dozois and Sheila Williams.  Stories not by Asimov; one of those Asimov Presents deals he didn't even present, being long dead when it was assembled and published in 1999.

[Geo]

Psychlone by Greg Bear.  I wish I'd recognized it before I bought a second copy, but I don't remember how it ends, so...

I didn't like how it ended, and I still don't actually remember reading it before, but I recognized too many bits not to have,and think it was fairly recent the first time.  Recommended for no one but possibly Uno and fans of supernatural thrillers.  This was a very early Bear work - 1977 copyright, and I don't think he's old enough to have started much earlier - and he has become a much better writer over the years since.
[/quote]

Perhaps it started as a short story, and Bear later made a full-blown novel of it?
Something like Kevin O'Donnell's ORA:KEL.

[Buster's Uncle]

Possibly.  The parts about the cabin and the pig spirit seemed more familiar than the rest...

[Buster's Uncle]

Isaac Asimov's Valentines edited by Gardener Dozois and Sheila Williams.  Stories not by Asimov; one of those Asimov Presents deals he didn't even present, being long dead when it was assembled and published in 1999.

Good stuff.  Recommended.

...

Spock's World by Diane Duane.  On the strength of Duane's previous The Romulan Way, which was magnificent until a crap ending, and Valka's recommendation, Mylochka picked this up.  I keep falling asleep without making it many pages, sometimes less than one, but that reflects my current circumstances, not the quality of the work so far.

[Sensor Osden]

I'd like to recommend Barnaby Rogerson's 'The Last Crusaders' which takes in the chequered history of the various dynasties which ruled Morocco, the Barbary Corsairs, the Reconquista and the struggles of the Habsburgs at both ends of the Mediterranean with militant Islam.

A fascinating book.

Also the Wahloo/Sjowall detective stories which began in the 1960s and thus predate the current vogue for Nordic noir by quite a few decades...

It might count as one of the most remarkable writing collaborations in the history of publishing. A man and a woman, a couple, sit down every evening to write. Dinner is over, their children are in bed. She's never written a book before. He's a published author, but not with anything like this. They write in long hand, through the night if necessary. One chapter each. The following evening they swap chapters and type them up, editing each other as they go along. They don't argue, at least not about the words. These seem to flow naturally.

Ten years, 10 books. Each book 30 chapters, 300 chapters in all. Every one centred on the same group of middle-aged, mostly unprepossessing policemen in Stockholm's National Homicide Department. Often, very little happens. Sometimes for pages on end. What is more, each book is a Marxist critique of society. Their mission – or "the project" as the authors call it – is to hold up a mirror to social problems in 1960s Sweden.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/22/crime-thriller-maj-sjowall-sweden


One I read recently, Roslund/Hellstrom's 'The Beast', reminded me very much of the Martin Beck series.

[Buster's Uncle]

How do you read while merged with the worldmind?