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

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

Changed my settings - it's certainly an important setting for group mods. Pity there was no consultation before they made the change.

Michelle wrote: "Tony, how are you liking that book? I've considered reading it for years."

I'm not that far into it - maybe 10-15%. There are times when Lewis' satire is very cutting, but not all the time. I expect someone who doesn't have at least a moderate knowledge of Christianity would miss a lot - and I think there may be things I am missing that a scholar of Christianity would pick up.

I'm also reading The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil.

I have started Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell. The translation of the poem only occupies about a third of the book, the remainder is notes and commentary curated from Tolkien's papers by his son Christopher.

I have finished Sand, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Interesting to have an apocalyptic book that doesn't go into any detail of what type of apocalypse it was - so it was clearly generations earlier.

If you don't mind secondhand copies, the BookFinder website is an excellent resource for searching online - it scans almost all of the major online booksites, including Abebooks and eBay. It lists new copies as well.

https://www.bookfinder.com/

I used to get a calendar (or two) every year, but my choice of theme varied, depending on what I felt like at the time. Although Tolkien and underwater scenes made regular appearances. I haven't bothered the last few years though - all my appointments are in either Google calendar or Outlook calendar, and Facebook tells me when people have birthdays :)

I still have a lot of calendars stored in boxes in the garage.

Welcome Marius. You will find plenty of people here are happy to offer recommendations and to engage in discussion.

Michelle wrote: "Not only is grandchild #11 in the hopper, but our other daughter just told us that she's pregnant with #12!"

Congratulations!

I have seen books that mix two of those three - sci-fi and crime, sci-fi and fantasy, and fantasy and crime - but I can't think of one that mixes all three.

Jeff wrote: "I imagine there a discussion thread about Arthurian series, any pointers finding it?"

I don't think there is an Arthurian thread, at least not in this group. You are welcome to start one - I'm sure there will be a number of people who would contribute. If you're not sure of how to start a discussion thread, I'm happy to start one for you.

Jeff wrote: "I’ve just started another Arthurian series, The Crystal Cave, or should that be Merlin. really enjoying this book so far."

The Mary Stewart series? It's been a very long time since I read them, but my recollection of them is good.

Welcome here Jeff :)

I finished Crisis on Infinite Earths. I have read it before, including when it was first released as individual issues - this time I read it with the 50+ crossover issues. It adds a lot to the story, although getting the best order to read the crossovers in can be difficult, and it adds over 1000 pages of story of varying degrees of relevance.

Andrea wrote: "I recently rewatch Deep Space Nine (the other space station show that came out right at the same time as Babylon 5) and it was actually a lot darker and grittier than the other ST that came before it, but it still doesn't reach the level of B5, and while DS9 had an underlying storyline (fighting the Cardassians) the storyline in B5 was so deep, and took years to pay off. It was really something unique."

It seems clear to me that the writing on Babylon 5 had a clear effect on the writing of DS9. Up until then, Star Trek (both original and Next Gen) had pretty much pressed the reset button at the end of each episode (or 2 episodes for cliff-hangers) and left the universe as it was. DS9 did have an ongoing story arc and it was a lot darker than was expected from Star Trek.

Michelle wrote: "Martin, that's a problem that most of us share- it's a curse ;)"

Or a retirement plan :)

Martin, it is an easier read, but it also does a very good job of starting the world-building that Tolkien is renowned for.

I have started reading Sand.

Welcome Martin. As a suggestion, since you haven't read LotR before, it is worthwhile to read The Hobbit first.

I have finished the anthology Rogues. Martin and Dozois work well together as editors and have gathered another high quality collection of stories for this anthology. The stories included cover science fiction, fantasy, crime, historical fiction and even some psychological horror. There were none that I didn't enjoy and many that are short stories that fit within other series.

Endings to TV series can be odd, and often the producers are not in control of what happens. Babylon 5 (a ground-breaking show in many ways) had always been envisaged as a 5-year story by Straczynski, but he was told by the studio that it wasn't doing well enough and that season 4 would be the final, so he had to rush the finale into that season. Then the studio changed their mind and green-lighted the 5th season, but Straczynski no longer had his main story to tell, leaving the final season a bit of a shambles.