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Matt Reed
Byrne Robotics Security
Robotmod
Joined: 16 April 2004
Posts: 36078
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| Posted: 08 March 2013 at 12:28pm | IP Logged | 1
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So far we've got John Ford punching Henry Fonda square in the face after the first day of shooting MISTER ROBERTS so I expect some interesting fireworks coming up!
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 10 March 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | 2
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93) "Octopussy" by Ian Fleming, read by Roger May
Final book in the James Bond ouvre, a collection of wide-ranging short stories: he acts as a sniper, tracks down a British soldier who stole Nazi gold, goes to an auction at Southby's, and wanders around New York City.
Definitely a downbeat to end the series, as was the final novel (Man with the Golden Gun), which were both published after Fleming's death. Overall the books are interesting, and at some points thrilling, but held to modern standards very slow, and held to the movies at times pretty lackluster. Only a couple of the books really have the far-ranging world travels of even the least of the movies; but I appreciate that the book Bond is much more of a secret agent, sent to take care of foreign intrigue and usually with a gun, than a guy who relies on gimmicks as in the movies. Also interesting to note that Bond often actually falls in love with the potential love interest (always singular in the books, as opposed to the multiple women thrust on him in the movies), tho the women are very rarely ever mentioned in subsequent books.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 14 March 2013 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | 3
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94) "Killing Floor" by Lee Child
An ex-soldier named Reacher, now a drifter wandering America, happens across what turns out to be a huge criminal operation that will cost the US billions, and he is the only one who can stop it.
Coincidences pile up against poorly thought out plot twists to make a muddle of the whole book, and nothing is ever done to try to resolve any of it. There were several major plot points that I figured out hundreds of pages early, that frankly would have been better if they played out the way I envisioned; because my versions explained away several of the coincidences and would have been better twists. (It's a fact: I'm a genius.) The fact that Reacher stumbles across this operation turns out to be the biggest coincidence in the book, which is never explained. As well, the criminals are shown to be cold-blooded killers early on; but when it would have been easy at the end of the book to kill several of the characters, which would have been devastating to Reacher, the killers wimp out.
Unless anyone can tell me the later books do better than this poorly written "thriller," I think I've just avoided another series of books.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133531
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| Posted: 15 March 2013 at 5:03am | IP Logged | 4
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THE GODFATHER, by Mario PuzoInspired by my recent "marathon" viewing of the three movies, I decided it was time to read the book. Interesting to note where it matches the films, where it is different, especially in the context of Puzo's involvement in the movies. Sonny Corleone, for instance, reads like a description of James Caan in the role. Fredo is someone else entirely. Short, fat Clemmenza, in the movie, is a giant of a man, solid as a rock in the book.
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Steven McCauley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 1431
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| Posted: 15 March 2013 at 7:25am | IP Logged | 5
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THE WAR THAT CAME EARLY: WEST & EAST by Harry Turtledove
Book Two in a series exploring what might have happened if Chamberlain hadn't signed the Munich Accord starting World War II a year early. I really like Turtledove's speculative fiction, ever since I read GUNS OF THE SOUTH.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 18 March 2013 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | 6
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No one available to convince me to give the Reacher books another try..?
Anyone..?
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 19 March 2013 at 8:29am | IP Logged | 7
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95) "Artemis Fowl 7: The Atlantis Complex" by Eoin Colfer, read by Nathaniel Parker
The semi-reformed teen-aged criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl develops not only extreme OCD but a split personality, just as he is trying to save the world and a mysterious UFO tries to kill him and his friends.
The asides and descriptions in this Fowl outing take on some of the characteristics of Douglas Adams' work, making Colfer less of a strange choice of continuing "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" series than I thought at the time. (Doesn't stop that addition to the series from being really bad, but less of a stretch than I thought at the time.) This book is also full of more ups and downs and mad-cap antics. Maybe my favorite of the series, tho there is enough unexplained backstory that it might be hard for the uninitiated to pick up from this point.
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Andrew Hess
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 9846
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| Posted: 20 March 2013 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | 8
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96) "Mostly Harmless" by Douglas Adams
Arthur Dent settles in to a sedentary life on a distant planet, having lost his true love; Trisha McMillan works to scoop other networks, while her alternate reality self Trillian drops a surprise on Arthur; and Ford Prefect tries to hoodwink the new corporation that now owns the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. And then everything ends.
This fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhikers Trilogy has none of what made Adams a great writer: witty repartee between characters, cutting insights into humanity, and strange asides that tied it all together. Dent has lost his outsider status, subbing as an Everyman trying to make sense of the universe, and he and Ford are barely in any situations together, which is when the original stories really clicked. Admittedly, the stories worked best on radio, but this is by far the least of the books.
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John Popa
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 March 2008
Posts: 4505
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| Posted: 21 March 2013 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | 9
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DARK PLACES by Gillian Flynn - Very appropriate title as it's a mystery that's at times deranged, with characters we feel bad for, but they're not really sympathetic. I like that element, I find it intriguing when the characters, even the protagonists, are unsavory. That being said, the resolution's not as exciting as the build. Flynn writes some great daggers of prose though along the way, though.
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Michael Hogan
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2064
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| Posted: 21 March 2013 at 1:15pm | IP Logged | 10
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THE THUNDER OF CAPTAINS, by Dan Lynch
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Shane Matlock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 August 2012
Location: United States
Posts: 1760
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| Posted: 22 March 2013 at 2:20am | IP Logged | 11
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Invisibles Monsters Remix by Chuck Palahniuk I picked up at the library. I was a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk's first four books, all of which were basically about identity (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Survivor, and Choke). It's been a while since I read the first Invisible Monsters and I thought I'd give it a go. So far I'm spending more time wondering what's different about it and the original than actually enjoying reading it. I'm not particularly fond of things like director's cuts of movies I've already seen or uncut versions of books I've already read because I always find myself trying to figure out what's different in this version and the original and not enjoying it as much as I would otherwise. But then, even though I enjoyed Invisible Monsters, it was my least favorite of his first four novels (Choke was my favorite) so maybe he felt like it needed another draft, thus the Remix.
Cool story. I once wrote Chuck Palahniuk a fan letter and he wrote back and sent a box of gag gifts including a Jesus night light, a temporary tattoo, a box of chocolate flavored cherries, and a necklace he hand made for me. He joked in the letter that Stephen King would not make me a necklace. The night I received the box of goodies from him he was on the Tonight show. It blew my mind that a best selling author that was on the freaking Tonight show, the guy who wrote Fight Club, cared that much about his fans. Very awesome.
Edited to show what was in the box Mr. Palahniuk sent me:
Edited by Shane Matlock on 22 March 2013 at 2:31am
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Daniel Beziz
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 August 2012
Location: France
Posts: 333
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| Posted: 22 March 2013 at 3:17am | IP Logged | 12
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Andrew said about KILLING FLOOR by Lee Childs : Unless anyone can tell me the later books do better than this poorly written "thriller," I think I've just avoided another series of books.
---------------------------------------------- That's exactly how I felt ! I even got so bored reading it I never finished it. I think I stopped after about 300 pages or so... That was the first Childs/Reacher I (tried to) read, and I have avoided the series since that.
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