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

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

If you are a Scott Sigler fan then you can get Earthcore for $1.49
**** This deal is US only #boo# :-( ****

https://www.amazon.com/EARTHCORE-Scot...

I can highly recommend this book. I've been eagerly waiting for a sequel for this (supposedly soon)

also Scott has the first book in his "Galactic Football League" series The Rookie available for FREE
*** this does seem to be available to everyone ***
It is a sci-fi sport YA book about American football played at a galactic level by humans and aliens. It was fun.

Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/ROOKIE-Galacti...

Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...

iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-...

I quite often get into friendly pronunciation arguments on forums.

Recently in a homophone discussion I argued, correctly, that bored, board, bawd and baud are homophones.

Others argued that bored & board are of each other only, and bawd and baud are of each other only.

Somehow these people vocalise the "R" in both bored & board , which is weird and as one of those words is my surname I should know how to pronounce it ;-)

John (Taloni) wrote: "....What is up with the Roci being renamed the "Pinus Contorta?."

"If you like Pinus Contorta, and getting caught in the rain
If you´re not into yoga, if you have half a brain
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape
Roci's the love that you´ve looked for, ride with her, and escape"

;-)

Iain wrote: "Does that make Jar-Jar the hero 😂 "

That's a movie that needs to be made.

Who wouldn't want a J.J.Abrams directed 'Jar Jar Binks' movie?

Trike wrote: "Yeah, a lot of “forced to read in school” stuff here as well as popular garbage. 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight? It makes me root for the apocalypse."

I never expect much out of popularly chosen books. Most people have shit taste in books ;-)
Except for Sword and Laser members :-)

Ed wrote: "And why is it all fiction? Doesn't anybody read non-fiction?"

That would be a worst list.

It would be full of BS self-help books and religious texts (Bible, Quran, Torah)

8 Sword and Laser picks and another 2 by authors we've read.

A very eclectic bunch of books. Which makes sense if it covers the whole population. A few I've never heard of. But overall, it's the sort of list I'd expect in a list like this.

I'd have had Huckleberry Finn instead of Tom Sawyer for the Mark Twain pick personally.

Charles wrote: "These flash sales annoy me and make me scratch my head, why charge $10 to $15 for an ebook just to slash the price every once in a while to $0.99 to $4.99. Doing so under values the price of the book and just makes readers wait (and hoping) for a sale."

Most people who want to: read a book, see a movie, play a video game etc want it straight away and will pay full price.

Sales are for the people who don't mind waiting, are on the fence about it, can't afford full price etc.

They are 2 very different groups.

I actually think eBooks today, even at full price are a bargain. I was paying $20+ for paper backs over 20 years ago. (Living in a remote community and having to buy books via mail order or at a drastic mark up wasn't cheap)

Mark wrote: "Found this pronunciation guide for the Odyssey

http://www.wfbschools.com/faculty/psi..."

They went with Ay-ay-uh for Aeaea :-?
I've always known it as Ay-ee-ah, and prefer it that way.

They have some strange pronunciations:

Scylla = Skill-uh, instead of Sill-ah
Poseidon = Po-sigh-uh-den, instead of Po-sigh-den
Charybdis = Chuh-rib-dis, instead of Cah-rib-dis

Trike wrote: "Tassie Dave wrote: "Aeaea "

Named by the person who discovered it while simultaneously stepping on a sharp rock."

Obviously ;-)

Sean wrote: "It's Kir-kay, just like it's Ki-ker-o and Kai-zar."

How do you say Celtic? I prefer the hard C - Keltic to the soft c - seltic.

Phil wrote: "I'm familiar with the character from reading but I don't think I've ever seen a movie or tv show with her in it."

My favourite was the 1954 movie Ullysses with Kirk Douglas as Ullysses

Silvana Mangano as Circe



That movie was on high rotation on my local TV station during the 60s and early 70s. I loved it as a kid :-)

The 1997 TV mini series The Odyssey was good with Armand Assante as Odysseus and the lovely Bernadette Peters as Circe



There have been several other adaptations over the years, but they are the 2 that I remember the best

This wikipedia page lists a few other shows and literature she has been a character in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circe_i...

I would have assumed Circe was a fairly well known character from Greek legend :-?

It's always been Sir-See in every remake of the Ulysses/Odysseus legend that I've seen.

If you want some fun with pronunciation, try saying the name of the island she lives on in the Myth without looking it up ;-)

Aeaea

Rob wrote: "I find the participation pretty mind boggling. We had 1041 votes cast, when the average for March was 338. "

It is the 2nd biggest participation in a poll. It was only 9 votes behind the biggest we've had (1050 people), which was for the July 2013 book pick.
http://swordandlaser.wikia.com/wiki/R...

I'd say Veronica sending out a Group message helped get the word out :-)

Snow Crash hasn't aged well. It might have been revolutionary in 1992, but not now.

I wish I'd lemmed it. You roll your eyes when Hiro Protagonist is introduced and it goes downhill from there ;-)

Jessica wrote: "Justin Cronin's The Passage is being adapted for television. I was a bit nervous about how it would turn out, but Fox has released the official trailer and it looks pretty darn good!..."

I will reserve judgement. It looks like (from the trailer) they are only adapting the first third of Book 1.

Unless they realise that showing anything (view spoiler)[after the large time jump (90+ year) (hide spoiler)] would be a huge spoiler

Best case scenario. Some one else picks it up and continues it on to it's natural conclusion.

Worst case scenario. Some one else picks it up and they f*** it up.

Even Worse case scenario. Some one else picks it up and they finish the rest of the books in one short season.

Doomsday Scenario. It disappears never to be seen again.

"You can't take the sky from me"

Veronica wrote: "I believe the email writer's primary issue was that PKD diminishes the horrors the Japanese Empire unleashed in their occupations of the many Asian countries they invaded throughout history, and puts them in a more sympathetic light than the Nazis."

He does. I guess Nazis as the real evil plays better to US audiences. It does here too.

Which is strange as both our countries had territories bombed by only the Japanese and not the Germans :-?

Possibly spoilery for Season 2 of TMitHC (view spoiler)[I do think Season 2 does try and redress some of the imbalance between the Germans and Japanese depiction. (hide spoiler)]

Isak wrote: "Reminds me of a book series me and a childhood friend used to read (we took turns buying the books so I ended up with half a series), Tomorrow, When the War Began I can't remember that they ever specify the invading nation other than being Asian. It was very exotic and thrilling, a reread would probably not be a great Idea.."

John Marsden did want to keep the Asian country vague, but I have always thought that it was mostly likely meant to be Indonesia, given Australia and Indonesia had a long history of political turmoil during the Sukarno and Suharto regimes.

Did you know that it has been made into a movie and TV series?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1456941/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4716164/

The movie was ok. I never saw the TV series, but it never got great reviews.

Veronica wrote: "Received a letter than someone was disappointed in my question about Man in the High Castle, about whether Tom would prefer to live in the Pacific States or the Western Reich."

I do think they are being a bit precious. You asked a perfectly reasonable question about your country in a fictional universe.
Reading genre fiction is all about the "what ifs"

Since reading "The Man in the High Castle" and watching the TV show I have wondered what living in a Japanese controlled Australia would be like.
I was born in the year TMitHC was set (1962). Life would have been much different.

Iain wrote: "When The Crucible is one of the lighter books on the list you are in trouble."

Ouch. At least we got "Death of a Salesman" by him.

Though we did get a bit too much Shakespeare for my liking :-?
Booooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnngggg.

Iain wrote: "Being forced to read anything in High School seems to always destroy the ability to love an author .... Dickens, shudder."

It does depend on how it's presented. Many authors I read in high school, I went on and read for enjoyment. eg Steinbeck

Scott wrote: "Heck, nerds in the Star Wars universe probably play Rancors and Asteroids. "

or Dejarik

"Let the Wookie Win" ;-)