Jazzmoose

I haven't tried Banks yet, so no. Today I've been reading Dick's Time Out of Joint. Pretty good stuff; it's one I missed in my PKD obsession phase. I've been slowly rebuilding my collection of his books, which is a heck of a lot easier today than it ever was in the past. Don't know how far I'll go with it, though; do I really need to read The Man Who Japed again? It's funny how Dick has gone from being tragically underrated to overrated in the last decade or so. I mean, surely even the most ardent Dick fan can admit that some of his work is just not that good.

I've been having a lot of problems like this with sf in recent years. 100 or 150 pp. into the book, the writer's imagination is dazzling but somehow it all runs together, whatever is or was at stake got lost in the phantasmagoria. It seemed like the only reason for the story's momentum was that the author had a contract to write a 600-page book. This has happened to me with China Mieville, CJ Cherryh, Neil Gaimon, Connie Willis, a.o. writers, plus I preferred a William Gibson short stories book to the novel I read. Although Little Brother by Cory Doctorow is now a favorite. For a few years late in the sf Golden Era I loved to read Astounding every month, until a barrage of Robert Silverberg cured me. Nearly all of my favorites date from the 1940s and '50s. Delaney, Zelazny, and the other stuff that true sf fans considered high literature bored me. Interestingly, in the late 1960s when I tried to order a book by my hero JG Ballard from an sf specialist store, the owner, a big SF FAN, angrily refused to sell such stuff. Since the 2 novels I wrote are at heart science fiction, please don't tell my opinions to any of today's true sf fans. That brings back memories of searching for The Atrocity Exhibition and getting a puzzled "why?" in return. Some of the authors you mention (Gaiman and Cherryh) I enjoy. Connie Willis I can't handle, due to my inability to suspend disbelief for time travel stories, but I can relate to your complaint. The only thing worse is trilogies. I try not to blame Tolkien, but it's difficult... I can relate to the Silverberg comments as well. Great editor, but as a writer, I'll pass. I think the stuff I enjoy the most is from the fifties. William Tenn and Robert Sheckley, the Kornbluth/Pohl pair ups, stuff like that. And I promise I'll pull Sundidos off the shelf soon!

Agreed. Well, except for Ellison; I think he's pretty much a waste of space, a man who's schtick became tiresome long ago. There was a lot of silliness involved in the "new wave". I'd compare it to the Sex Pistols in rock, as an interesting, if embarrassing, necessary step to get to what was next, but overrated on it's own. (Except for Effinger's What Entropy Means to Me; for some reason I love that book!) I remember a story by someone (I think it was Spinrad, another author I like) riffing on John Dos Passos (forgive if I'm spelling wrong) being praised as something amazing, and I just didn't get it. I might have been more impressed if Heinlein hadn't already done the same thing in Stranger in a Strange Land, but I guess he was too old guard to count. Silly, silly, silly...

Finished about half of Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and gave up. I just can't enjoy a plot that hinges entirely on some of the main characters being gullible idiots. I'd forgotten that Hugo and/or Nebula awards are not a guarantee...

Norton Buffalo Mark Ruffalo Janeane Garafalo

The Round Mound of Rebound Chocolate Thunder Chairman of the Boards

eeyore piglet tigger

Joe Bloe Gale Storm Hal o' the Wynd

Fearless Leader Boris Natasha

Silas Marner was the second book I never finished. First attempt was in the tenth grade, last attempt was about five years ago. I'm sure it's a very important book... (First book I never finished was Poe's The Gold Bug, but that's because I tried to read it when I was eight years old. It was an extremely frustrating experience.)

What a game...I'm exhausted!

Tuesday Weld Wednesday Addams Floyd Thursby

Okay, stop it already...I'll try Murakami! Now reading David Brin's Sundiver. It's good hard SF, but a bit hard to adjust to after Atwood.

Lowell George Dale Bozzio Jean Luc-Ponty Which reminds me; do you guys realize it's been over twenty years since Frank Zappa died? No wonder I'm falling apart! I'm f*****g OLD!

No kidding; I was expecting him to go completely batshit.

They looked like they were playing as badly as the first two games against the Sharks, yet the Rangers couldn't capitalize. I don't see their chances getting any better. That second game was awesome, though!

It'll be in my next Amazon order. She has certainly earned more space on the shelves!

Kevin Bacon Mia Hamm Miss Piggy

My experience as well. The old single blade design made me bleed almost every time. In those days everyone had a styptic pencil in their shaving kit. I welcome the "expense". Add me to the list. It's been thirty-five years since anyone asked me why I had bits of toilet paper stuck to my face, and I don't intend to ever go back. If by "new" you mean "stolen", yes, you can pick up blades cheap at flea markets.

Van Morrison Peter Lorre Clutch Cargo

Reminds me of when I was a kid and mom said no more books at the breakfast table. I had the Cap'n Crunch box memorized within a week...

Benjamin Grimm Johnny Storm Sue Richards

Had to come up with a winner after the last two, so I finally pulled The Handmaid's Tale of the shelf, not knowing if it was a guaranteed winner or just overrated. I'm about halfway through, and the chances of it being overrated have disappeared.

Interesting. I have an LP that uses a photo from the shoot with the leopards. Never played it; just picked it up for the cover photo.

It's a vacation week, so I managed to read a couple of books from the 'new' shelf, John Scalzi's Redshirts and John Varley's Rolling Thunder. Redshirts wasn't bad, but it wasn't up to the level of Scalzi's Old Man's War or its sequels. The fact that it won the Hugo says more about the Hugo than it does about the book. As for Rolling Thunder, only my respect for John Varley got me through the thing. It's bad. These books have something in common: they read like they're designed to appeal to The Fan rather than The Reader, if you get my drift.