Tony’s Comments (group member since Dec 19, 2018)

Tony’s comments from the Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy group.

Welcome to the start of spooky month. I have finished another story in the Complete Stories of Oz compilation - only 4 to go. I have started X-Rated Bloodsuckers - the second in the Felix Gomez series, a humorous (and somewhat naughty) series about a vampire PI.

Andrea wrote: "But sometimes Canadian's luck out, like when the sale is a 0.99 one, I'm paying 99 cents CA while Americans are paying 99 cents US so I win on the currency conversion. Usually Canadians are paying ..."

Yeah, I get that too on the sales that do apply to Australia - 99 cents in Aussie money is only about 66 cents US.

Robin wrote: "There is one drawback and you may only get this if you are Brit?"

Yeah, Amazon offers a lot of sales on Kindle books which are US/UK only. It is highly annoying to the Aussies, Kiwis, and Canadians.

That said, it wouldn't be too hard to set up a spoof address in the US and use a VPN to appear to be in the US. If I didn't have way too many books already in my Kindle account, I might be tempted.

With the completion of One-Eyed Jacks, the 20th book in my Bingo card for this year, I have still only completed one row (row 4) and one column (column N), although almost every book from now on will complete another row or column, or both.

I'm 2/3rds of the way through my 1000+ page entry, although I have lost interest, so it will be a struggle to finish. I have a novel chosen for published in 2024, features an animal can be filled by almost any cozy mystery, and I have a wide choice in my ebook library for dystopian. I'm still not sure what to read for features a performer, but I expect it won't be too hard to find a fantasy that has a bard.

For some unknown reason, Goodreads has stopped sending me notifications of new messages on the message boards, so I found 17 unread messages here when I jumped on to make this post.

Audrey wrote: "Forever War was pretty good. And I think some of the Oz stories really suck, but no one believes me."

There is a definite drop in the quality of the stories after the first 4 or 5, and I am now finding them (after 9 or 10) to be quite repetitive - it's quite obvious that he was only churning them out for the money. However, I will persevere with them in order to complete my 1000+ page Bingo entry 😁 - and because it takes a lot to make me DNF a book 😝

I have finished One-Eyed Jacks, another strong entry in the Wild Cards series, which fills the Anthology slot in my Bingo.

I have finished reading The Forever War - I can't think of why I hadn't got around to reading it before. It is an excellent book, but does suffer from something many authors of the time seemed to get wrong - they overestimated the speed of advance in space technology and vastly underestimated the speed of advance in computing.

It fills the military SF slot in my Bingo, and I finally have a completed row.

I will continue reading through Complete Stories of Oz, although I must confess it's beginning to be a bit of a struggle - the quality of stories has dropped dramatically. I will also start One-Eyed Jacks, the 8th book in the Wild Cards series, which will fill the Anthology slot in my Bingo.

Audrey wrote: "I haven't even heard of that one."

Patrick White, the author of the Tree of Man, is a well-known Australian author - regarded as a bit of a literary treasure - so he was regularly inflicted on Australian high school students in the 70s - and may still be, for all I know - I have no idea what books are on the current high school curriculum.

Audrey wrote: "I had to read Crime and Punishment for school when I was 16 and was so bored. I'd probably have a better experience with it now."

I'll see your boredom with Crime and Punishment as a school read and raise with The Tree of Man as a school read 😝

I have finished the graphic novel The Legend of Bold Riley, which was a nice collection of stories heavily based in Indian mythology. It also fills the Female Leader slot in my Bingo.

I have started reading The Forever War

17 books completed and still no completed rows or columns, and I expect it won't be until the 20th book that I complete the first of them. Of the 8 books remaining, I have made choices for 5 of them. It would seem I'm still running a little behind the clock, but as I have read nearly 900 pages of my more than 1,000 pages choice, I feel that puts me pretty much on target - although my choice for that slot does have nearly 1,500 pages.

I have finished Little Green Men. It's a short novel, only about 170 pages, but highly recommended - especially if you enjoy films like Alien and The Thing (the John Carpenter version).

It also fills the Title Contains a Colour slot in my Bingo.

Continuing to work my way through Complete Stories of Oz. I have now read 9 of the 15 stories, although one of them was very short.

I have started Little Green Men

I have finished Wrath of N'Kai, which was a well-written Mythos horror story. I believe some of the characters are based on characters appearing in the Arkham Horror game, but I haven't played it, so I don't know. I think this was written originally as a standalone, but I see the author has recently released another 2 books with the same protagonist.

For a more gothic style fantasy, the Ravenloft novels from TSR are quite good.

Barbra Hambly, Guy Gavriel Kay, Patricia Kennealy, J.V. Jones, Katherine Kurtz and Raymond Feist (original trilogy) are all worth checking out. A few books in the Song of Ice and Fire were written in the 80s and 90s.

For cheesy stuff, try the Raven series by Richard Kirk, and there's the Kane series by Karl Edward Wagner.

I'm about halfway through Complete Stories of Oz - I have read 7 of the 15 stories.

I have started reading Wrath of N'Kai, one of a series of books based on the Arkham Horror boardgame, although I believe they are all standalone.

I have finished Wolves of the Northern Rift and I quite enjoyed it. It was a good mix of steampunk and fantasy.

Hi all, it's the beginning of September and the year is entering its final sprint to the finish line.

I'm about half way through Wolves of the Northern Rift. It has been excellent so far.

Michelle wrote: "Tony wrote: "I have started reading Wolves of the Northern Rift"

I read that back in 2017 and at that time I had enjoyed this series. I'm interested in your opinion because I no lo..."

I'm only 3 or 4 chapters in so far, but my initial impression is surprise that a book I considered was going to be primarily a fantasy has actually been very steampunk - which is by no means a bad thing.