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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 14 January 2013 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | 1
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76) "You Only Live Twice" by Ian Fleming, read by Robert Whitfield
Bond is sent on a diplomatic mission to Japan, only to find a deadly part of his past hidden amongst the bushes.
Just a couple of wild coincidences too many, this seems like a perfunctory story without much derring do. Tho, starting with a tense game of rock/paper/scissors and Bond having to create a haiku to prove his manhood added a bit of zest to the tale.
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Gary Olson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 11 September 2008
Location: Australia
Posts: 382
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| Posted: 17 January 2013 at 8:54pm | IP Logged | 2
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Aaron Smith, I love to see ERB's Tarzan novels with those great Adams covers. But it can work both ways! Tarzan And The Leopard Men has an Adams cover in the series of which you speak, and I agree with the late Philip Jose Farmer that that's the dullest of Burroughs' Greystoke books. On the other hand, Adams has a fabulous cover for Tarzan And The City Of Gold, a stand-out of the books. Tarzan looks just the way you might imagine him to.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 20 January 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | 3
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77) "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
A shipwreaked boy finds himself on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean surrounded by a menagerie of animals, which dwindles down to just him and a Bengal tiger.
Interesting thematically, this is an adventure story of the mind: we picture and imagine the terror and hunger that Pi goes thru while sitting and drifting across the ocean. However, there was a huge theme early on in the book, that has the teen-aged Pi going thru a testing of theologies, that never really plays out later on in the book.
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Ed Love
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 October 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2712
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| Posted: 20 January 2013 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | 4
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The Adams covers are my favorites of the Tarzan books. Thought he did a much better at capturing the spirit and energy of the books than any of the other cover artists.
Currently reading "The Green Archer" on Project Gutenberg. Written in 1928 by Edgar Wallace and filmed a couple of times, I conjectured that there was a probable link between the book and the golden-age comic book archers, leading to Green Arrow, Golden Arrow amongst others. Was a bit surprised to find even stronger evidence as the fourth chapter of the book is titled "The Green Arrow"! Apparently the Green Archer does more than dress in green, he also uses green arrows (and referred to as such as often as being just called arrows): green shafts and green fletching.
So far, it differs from the serial in several notable ways, among them the two main male heroes of the novel are combined into one character in the serial and the villain and his "sidekick" are physically completely different, down to the sidekick being described as Eurasian in the novel
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 21 January 2013 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | 5
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78) "Artemis Fowl 4: The Opal Deception" by Eoin Colfer, read by Nathaniel Parker
Having stolen a priceless Impressionist painting from a German bank, Artemis gets drawn into an evil plan by an evil pixie to destroy all of the elves, gnomes, and the underworld.
Who am I kidding? Even though my son got this for me to listen to, and he was indeed around for most of it, these books are fun in a very predictable manner, like an old sitcom or Parker novel: all of the usual characters are going to be brought out, things will go bad, but by the end our heros will have righted wrongs and such. Very much brain candy. Still waiting for Artemis to do something to prove his "criminal mastermind" cred, tho.
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Steven McCauley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1431
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| Posted: 22 January 2013 at 6:17am | IP Logged | 6
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Finally reading and enjoying A DANCE WITH DRAGONS. Not sure if I wasn't in the proper frame of mind the last time I tried to read this.
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Wallace Sellars
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 May 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 17700
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| Posted: 22 January 2013 at 8:16am | IP Logged | 7
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I read THE HANDLE this past weekend, and will likely begin THE RARE COIN
SCORE soon.
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Mike Purdy
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1448
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| Posted: 22 January 2013 at 8:49am | IP Logged | 8
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Im halfway through Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.
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Matthew Chartrand
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United States
Posts: 1358
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| Posted: 22 January 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | 9
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Nibbled To Death By Ducks. A mystery by Robert Campbell. Conquistador. A novel of alternate history by S.M. Stirling.
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Mike Purdy
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 April 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 1448
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| Posted: 25 January 2013 at 9:13am | IP Logged | 10
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The last 20 books I've read have been light and fluffy and fun. Now I'm tackling The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined by Steven Pinker. From amazon.ca: "Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?" I'm not far into it, but I find it to be very engaging and provoking. I wish I had someone to talk about it with!!
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Gil Dowling
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Joined: 03 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1087
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| Posted: 25 January 2013 at 9:32am | IP Logged | 11
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Almost finished with The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. I like his writing style and have his latest Red Country on tap for the next book to read. Might have to read his First Law Trilogy after all. I'd also like to pick up Warren Ellis' Gun Machine at some point.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 25 January 2013 at 9:59am | IP Logged | 12
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THE MONEYCHANGERS (1975)In the mood for some more Arthur Hailey soap, and found this one on Amazon, in hardcover, for $5 --- And $4.99 of that was shipping and handling! Really! This one is about the world of finance and banking. Finding myself nicely swept along, as usual. Amusing to see "big" numbers being thrown around. Great consternation when the main bank is found be be short the colossal sum of. . . $6000. Ah, the Seventies! Multiply everything by 10, I guess!
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