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

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

Robin wrote: "do American vets do that thing that a lot of UK vets do? When they come out of the office and call in the next 'patient,' as if they are calling in a child? If you don't know what I mean, they call out the pet's name and the family name ..."

I haven't noticed it here in Aus either, at least not in the city. When I take my cat to the vet, the vet just calls out her name, without Calder added on the end.

C.A. wrote: "[World building is unabashedly fantastic, as it most certainly spawns from the foundations of D&D. ."

White Plume Mountain is a classic D&D adventure from the early 80s and the novel is based on the adventure. It's set in the world of Greyhawk, which is Gary Gygax's original world setting for D&D.

Andrea wrote: "Hope Robots and Empire doesn't require having read Foundation/Empire first..."

It doesn't. The reading order is:

Robot short stories;
4 Robot novels;
3 Galactic Empire novels;
2 Foundation prequel novels;
5 Foundation novels.

Jim wrote: "I'm also not fond of it when authors suddenly decide to turn a perfectly good trilogy into a series by adding books decades later, either. Usually their style has changed enough that they lose what I liked about it. Most also get wordier, often by padding & repetition"

That was very noticeable in my reread of Asimov's future history series - on the whole, the books he wrote in the 50s were superior (and much shorter) than the additions he made in the 80s.

Yeah, it's really hard to find a stand-alone fantasy novel these days, and it's getting that way with sci-fi as well, although there are still more stand-alone sci-fi novels than fantasy novels.

Rereading can certainly be problematic - there are a lot of books I have fond memories of, but when rereading I haven't really enjoyed them. There are a few that I have reread often - The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings is top of that list. I no longer read it once a year, as I did in my 20s, but I still reread it every 4 or 5 years. The Lensmen series is another - I know the writing isn't great, and the science is bad (particularly since the author had a PhD in physics) but it's just fun. I liken it to the movie Independence Day - there are so many things wrong with it, not least of which is Jeff Goldblum being able to upload a killer virus from his Mac laptop - but it's just fun. The actors are clearly having a great time with a hokey script.

Hehe, that's true. The Poms would certainly not cope with 40+ degree days 😁

I love Doc Smith's Lensman series (while accepting that it's not great) and ERB's Barsoom series. I read a lot of Heinlein and Asimov and Norton when I was a teenager . Peter Hamilton writes great space opera, Stephen Baxter writes good hard SF, Kim Stanley Robinson is also good.

Summer has been very mild in Sydney as well. We've had no days over 40 - last summer we had 4 or 5 (including one of 46) and a lot less days over 50 than usual. Also a lot more rain. The last 3 or 4 days the temp has only got to 22 or 23 - this is not your typical Aussie summer.

One month down in 2022 already.

DS9 was interesting, and it had a change in format after the first couple of seasons, largely as a response to the success of Babylon 5 I believe. Next Gen was very much a show that pressed the rest button at the end of every episode - yes there were occasional 2 or 3-parters, usually at season's end - but even they pressed the rest button at the end of the story. That made it far more accessible to the casual viewer. Babylon 5 went down the path of having an ongoing storyline, which led to a dedicated fanbase, but made it a lot harder for the casual viewer. Of course, the ongonig story arc is a very common thing in these days of binging a whole season, but it was radical back in the 90s.

Lynn wrote: "Finished Dune as a re-read. Surprisingly more compressed timeline than I remembered with some characters departing the scene sooner than I recalled! Do I go on with the series? Unsure as yet."

Dune Messiah isn't great, but it is relatively short and is worth reading before Children of Dune, which is very good. I wouldn't bother with the second trilogy though.

I finished The War Lord Of The Air, the first book of the Oswald Bastable trilogy. It's proto-steampunk with a bit of alternate history and multiverse thrown in.

I have started The Past Through Tomorrow, which is the collection of Heinlein's Future History short stories, plus the novel Methuselah's Children

Michelle wrote: "Do you like Glen Cook? His military fantasy series of The Black Company is really good, and his writing is not as deep or ponderous as Gene Wolfe."

Glen Cook also wrote a series of fantasy novels featuring a P.I. which are fairly humorous and a pretty light read. The first one is Sweet Silver Blues, and there are 13 in the series, although they are all stand alone novels.

Hi Eric, welcome here. I don't think there's a group read on at the moment, but I am sure there are probably some people interested in a buddy read You can also check out the groups Bingo - there is a separate thread for it - and that should provide some inspiration for reading 😀

If I have the timing right, those books should be on sale now? If so, the sale seems to be US or US and UK only. On the Amazon AU site book one is $4.18 and book two is $6.98 - they are both free in KU however. Not complaining, just letting you know, and I don't expect there is anything you could do about it anyway 🙂

If it's a reboot, the I assume the characters will be the same, but with new actors. So we may still get G'Kar and Londo, but not with Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik - even though Jurasik is still with us, I think they will need a younger actor for the role. As long as whoever they choose can deliver the line "moon-faced assassin of joy" with the same panache 😁

Welcome Lisa. You'll find us a pretty friendly bunch.

have started reading The War Lord Of The Air, the first book in the Oswald Bastable trilogy by Michael Moorcock. While not one of his better known characters, Bastable is a manifestation of the Eternal Champion.

I have finished Savage City, the final novel in The Adventures Of Florin And Lorenzo. It's an enjoyable fantasy series, with the two main characters reminding me of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I would have been happy to see more novels in this series, but it doesn't seem likely the author will write any more about these two, as the last of the books was written in 2005.