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

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

I don't think Daylight Savings was ever about "farmers like it" - it has always been a convenience for urban dwellers so they can have extra daylight when they get home from work. As I have always lived in cities, it is something that I have enjoyed, although as I have been working at home for 2 years now, it doesn't provide the same advantage. I do wish that in Australia it becomes country wide (whether continuing or not) rather than the current situation where each state decides if they want Daylight Savings or not. Australia during the summer has 5 time zones (instead of 3) and there are towns that sit on state borders where the time might differ by an hour depending on which side of the street you are standing on - although I do believe that in those towns, the town councils have made a decision to have a standard time throughout the town.

I have started reading The Einstein Prophecy, which I borrowed as part of my Amazon Prime membership. It starts as a fairly standard Dan Brown style "professor investigates things" story, but the blurb indicates there is likely to be some supernatural elements. The most unusual thing so far is that it's set in 1944.

I have finished The Reckoning: The Day Australia Fell. A well-written military thriller, but the required suspension of disbelief was a little high for me - how easily the Indonesian forces defeated the Australian forces, and America deciding not to honour the ANZAC treaty. Also, no explanation given as to why Indonesian invaded Australia.

Georgann wrote: "No one has mentioned one of my favorites which is the original Dragon Riders of Pern series by Ann McCaffrey."

It was heavily mentioned when we had the discussion of favourite sci-fi books and series. I think most people consider it to be sci-fi rather than fantasy.

I have started reading The Reckoning: The Day Australia Fell - a military thriller about an Indonesian invasion of Australia. I'm a few chapters in - like many books in this genre, the pace is pretty quick, but it does require some suspension of disbelief. It's fun so far.

I finished off the Oswald Bastable trilogy - The Nomad of Time, and the I read the very short, and quite funny, Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex - a humorous look at the physiological problems that might be encountered in a relationship between Superman and Lois.

NekroRider wrote: "So many new scams and weird gamings of the system these days as you guys have said and I hope this is not some new thing."

I actually had someone try the "I have bars of gold and I need your help to sell them" scam on me today. I was stunned that anybody would think that scam would work on anybody these days. I thought I must have gone through a timewarp to the late 90s 😂

I finished The Past Through Tomorrow. A chunky tome, but a excellent read. Heinlein's future history is more structured (and shows more pre-planning) than Asimov's, although Asimov's does cover a much greater timespan.

I am now starting The Steel Tsar, which is the final book in The Nomad of Time - the Oswald Bastable trilogy.

Michelle wrote: "Tony: no more posting of videos where Robin can see them!"

Agreed, it seems fraught with danger 😛

Robin wrote: "No, one more... The news report says the pitch is next door to a sewage farm, so that guy has probably met his Waterloo.☺ ( you may have to be a Brit to get that one) ... There won't be any more no..."

Us Colonials do get British humour as well. Monty Python was very popular here 😀

March is the start of autumn for us Antipodeans, but it is usually summer-like. Not this year - we are getting Biblical levels of rain - one area in Queensland has received more than its average annual rainfall in the last 3 days. And there is an amusing video of a football field that has got so much water that some is able to swim in it.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/sports-...

Jeff wrote: "Gary gygax wrote some novels, I remember owning one but never got around to reading before culling. I'll have to check if they were any good from the reviews on here"

Gary Gygax wrote novels the way he wrote D&D adventures - some really good ideas, but not necessarily the best writing. I find his novels set in the world of Greyhawk - his D&D campaign setting - easier to read than his Legendary Journey novels, probably because I really enjoy the Greyhawk setting, but I have no involvement with his Legendary Journeys work - which looks pseudo-Egyptian from the covers.

Hi Kalin, welcome to the group.

Starting a long-running series somewhere other than the first book can always be a bit challenging. Even if the author has taken care to try and make the books stand alone, there are always details of world-building from previous books that are assumed knowledge. This would be less of an issue in a series set in our world, but there is still some impact.

For me it's much the same as others have posted - at the top of the list is Tolkien. After him (in no particular order):

Moorcock
Barbara Hambly (particularly the Darwath series)
Raymond Feist's original trilogy (a lot of the other books are of variable quality)
Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry
MAR Barker's Tekumel books (for the world setting more than the writing)
The Dragon and the George (Gordon Dickson)
Three Hearts and Three Lions (Poul Anderson)

Jim wrote: "How are the RAH short stories now? I h..."

Heinlein is a good short story writer, and these were written between 1939 and 1949, when he was more into story than politics. There is evidence that some of the stories have been revised - as an example, Blowups Happen was written in 1940, but it describes the power of an atomic pile as "a thousand Hiroshimas", which is not a reference RAH could have made in 1940.

I finished Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and I am continuing with the second half of The Past Through Tomorrow.

I was going to say that I wasn't aware of that happening in Australia, but I did a Google search and found that it does happen, but not until next Spring. The counting period is Oct 17-23.

I doubt I will participate - in the 10 years I have lived in this apartment, I really haven't noticed a huge variation in the types of birds I can see from by balcony - there are more magpies in the spring, but the rest are city birds that appear year-round - pigeons, mynahs, ibises, galahs and crows.

My cat may have noticed more - she pays more attention to the birds than I do, but she is keeping her own counsel on this matter 😁

I have finished The Land Leviathan: A New Scientific Romance, the second book in the Oswald Bastable trilogy. Not as good as the first.

I have started Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

On the whole it's a valid criticism - most novels based on RPG settings aren't that good (and I've read a lot 😝). There are some exceptions and the original Dragonlance trilogy are very good. A lot of the Warhammer Fantasy and 40K are a step above the average gaming novel as well.