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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 26 October 2012 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | 1
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52) "Life, the Universe, and Everything" by Douglas Adams
This book, for the most part, is virgin territory for Adams in that it doesn't borrow (too heavily) from his radio show work. It does, however, borrow extremely heavily from a plot he had worked on for a Doctor Who episode.
Unfortunately, this time around the further adventures of Arthur Dent just aren't as funny as before. This might be because the clever dialogue and exposition hadn't been worked out in advance; don't know.
I seem to remember the next book was pretty good, so I plunge ahead.
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Gundars Berzins
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 March 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1564
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| Posted: 26 October 2012 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | 2
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Carte Blanche.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 28 October 2012 at 9:49am | IP Logged | 3
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The "new" James Bond book? What did you think?
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 28 October 2012 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | 4
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53) "From Russia With Love" by Ian Fleming, read by Simon Vance
The Russians decide to embarrass Britain by taking out one of the UK's spies and soiling his reputation, and pick Bond, who has been involved in a number of cases that had involved and/or hurt the USSR.
The first third of the book is taken up with detailing the plan the Russians put in place, with how they are going to entice and kill Bond. I had wished they would hurry up and get to Bond already, but it was good to get some background on the villains of the piece, even if they remained pretty two-dimensional.
We also finally get some more international flavor to these books: up until now the books pretty much stick to one location, but in this book we get Russia, Turkey, and brief stops in the UK and France.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 29 October 2012 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 5
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54) "The Last Dragonslayer" by Jasper Fforde
A teenage talent manager for a company of magicians gets caught up in a prophesy that foretells the death of the world's last known dragon. Comedic situations ensue.
Fforde is one of my favorite writers for comedy, but juvenile fantasy is not his forte. Much too much talking, very little action, and what action there is is dependent on it setting up another humorous scene. This works fine in the police procedural/sci-fi/fantasy books he normally writes, but not this time.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 30 October 2012 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | 6
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55) "Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan
A young man desperate for a job stumbles across an opening at a quirky bookstore, whose main customers borrow obscure and arcane volumes at all hours of the night; all of this leads the man on a quest for the meaning of the books, and immortality itself.
The book reminds me a lot of the earlier work of Neal Stephenson and Lev Grossman: young man caught in strange situation has to find the hidden meaning behind the story, tho in this case the story is straight narrative and not science fiction / fantasy. Enjoyable, tho I was hoping for something a little more evocative.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | 7
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Just finished ELMER GANTRY, and may have lost another favorite movie. So many liberties are taken with the story and characters, NONE of which can be justified by the old "a movie is not a book" excuse. It will be nearly impossible to watch the movie now, without thinking "Why did they change that? Who is this character? Where is that character? Why are so many represented in name only?"
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | 8
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Been working my way through my collection of Frank L. Packard books that I had yet to read: The White Moll, Tiger Claws, The Red Ledger.
Packard's books in general and his Gray Seal novels in particular heavily influenced the pulp writers, especially Walter Gibson, the chief author of The Shadow pulps. Can also see quite a bit of similarities to the works of Johnston McCully, the creator of Zorro and a host of masked rogue heroes. Despite being a hundred years old, the stories are still very readable and enjoyable.
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Derek Cavin
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Joined: 03 June 2005
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | 9
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American Solider - General Tommy Franks
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Brian Burnham
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 7:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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The Panther - Nelson DeMille
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Jesus Garcia
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 April 2007
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | 11
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Been reading the entire pulp Doc Savage Opus. Currently at 160/181. When I'm done with that, I'm starting on Matt Helm which is about 30 or so books. Then, the entire Shadow pulp series or about 340 or so novels. That might take me a couple of years. And all that is for escapism; for work I still have to read my IT books. There I'm on the ITIL V3 Intro book.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17700
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| Posted: 31 October 2012 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | 12
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BREADCRUMBS
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