Tassie Dave’s Comments (group member since Mar 27, 2011)

Tassie Dave’s comments from the The Sword and Laser group.

It has become a franchise now. There is even an Aussie version. "Real Housewives of Melbourne". Never watched it, but it's the same concept. Rich socialites with too much plastic surgery, fighting with other rich socialites.

I had a look and there was a "Real Housewives of the Aegean", sort of (it's on the Aegean Sea coast) ;-)
The Real Housewives of Athens

It is oddly formatted. Here is the list. I have separated them into 3 groups.

Those that we read for Sword and Laser (47 Books)

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Among Others by Jo Walton
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Dune by Frank Herbert
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Wool by Hugh Howey
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Other books by authors we read for S&L (16 Books)

2001: a Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
Foreigner by C. J. Cherryh
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

The rest (37 Books)

1984 by George Orwell
Blood Music by Greg Bear
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
H. P. Lovecraft: Tales by H. P. Lovecraft
Harry Potter and the Philosphers's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Riddle-Master by Patricia A. McKillip
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Lauren wrote: "They are attempting to collect five early editions of the book and link them together so that each version could be "read" alongside the others and you could easily see all the differences."

Too bad that wasn't done before we read it. It would have been a good version to read and discuss the differences.

Most myths have them as petty, terrible characters.

I can see the link to today's obsession with celebrity, and how "they", when too bright a light is shone on them, don't live up to the idealistic picture their fans have of them.

BTW most mythical scholars have Aiaia (Aeaea) on the western side of Greece, not the eastern. (Adriatic or Ionian Sea)

Real Housewives of the Mediterranean, perhaps ;-)

Side note: Anytime I see "Real Housewives" in any title, I know they are anything but. Not that I'd watch trashy "reality" TV shows like that.

I've read 70.

47 have been Sword and Laser book picks.

Trike wrote: "Except that the British version is a pun. "

Like (view spoiler)[what Thatcher did to the coal miners in Britain. It may be a double pun. (hide spoiler)]

Rick wrote: ""Municipal Darwinism"... :)"

I don't think this is a spoiler, but I will tag it anyway.

I Googled that to see what Reeve meant by the term and was amused, (and aghast), to see that in the book (view spoiler)[their god is called Thatcher (presumably after Margaret Thatcher).

Which probably means the US Municipal Darwinist god in this universe would be called Reagan ;-) (hide spoiler)]

Is life that busy that we need to rush through everything? :-?

Life is a lot more laid back and slower where I live ;-)

Never heard of it before this podcast, but "Mortal Engines" looks fun :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsFc...

Mark wrote: "But what about Mars, the Belt, not to mention Io, Ganymede and the rest of Jupiter's moons? ."

Nope not allowed. Earthers only ;-)

Shad wrote: "Former club pick A Darker Shade of Magic is the Tor.com free eBookclub book of the month. People from the US and Canada can download it for free through June 15."

People from anywhere on Earth can download it for free.

You just have to say you're from US or Canada

Anything faster than normal speed sounds weird to me :-?

Dara wrote: "Now reading Theft of Swords. I've been reading a lot of sci-fi this year so going back to a traditional swords and horses kind of story is nice. ."

Rob will be happy :-) Maybe it will still win March Madness one day.

BTW it is a great book. I enjoyed it.

Scott wrote: "Kind of like seeing the movie "Titanic"- the ship hitting a iceberg and sinking isn't a "spoiler" because you know that going in. "

Not everyone knew that ;-)

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/04/peop...

I know most of the myths around Circe fairly well and I don't mind that I know (mostly) what is going to happen.
The story is well told and enjoyable (unlike last month's pick) so knowing the outcome is not a problem.

You can't please everyone with spoilers. There are people that think all movie trailers are spoilers.

I have no problem with people referring to fiction as 'escape literature'.

For a lot of people that's what it is. I personally think some of it is more important than that. But we do use it to escape into another person's imagination for a short while.

or (for some) to escape a boring, mundane life.

Trike wrote: "Keith Urban does it, too, but in his case he shifts back and forth from his native Australian accent to a weird West Texas hybrid accent the longer he tours in America. "

Keith was a Kiwi before he moved to Australia. He does shift between a weird NZ/Aus/US accent to a more Southern US accent.

I'm impressed you can pick different Melbourne accents. My dad is Melbourne born and his western suburbs accent is different from the other suburbs. Though most people, (even aussies), can't pick it :-)

Adelaide people have a mild British/Aussie accent. Sydney people all sound like Hugh Jackman ;-)

Stephen wrote: "ha, when I go to visit you Tassie, I bet I be talking like an Aussie within the week."

We don't have accents. You do ;-)

I'm of course joking, but most Aussies have very mild "aussie" accents. No-one sounds like Steve Irwin :-? That was definitely an affectation for the cameras . I can pick up slight difference between regional areas that foreigners will miss. We don't all sound the same ;-)

I didn't hear any Aussie accent from Tom on the latest podcast after his very recent trip down under ;-)

I can understand picking up an accent, but Naomi is the only one on the Roci with a British accent :-?

I agree it is the writers showing Naomi trying to fit in better with her people on the Belter ship.

It was weird when she first spoke though.

What's with Naomi's accent?

She didn't have a belter accent on the Roci, but she does on the Belter ship. :-? Curious.

I'm not understanding the reasoning behind the change. If she naturally has a Belter accent, why not all the time?
Surely around her friends on the Roci she would be herself and not affect a fake Earthian accent.

Rhetorical Speculation. (I haven't read the books.) What's with the time stopping? Is the ring some sort of singularity (wormhole)?

and yeah. Yay for Amazon :-)