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


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

Showing 941-960 of 1,069

Mar 12, 2020 12:06PM

45059 Andrea wrote: "I tried once to figure out what minimum set of books I needed to buy to cover all the available stories, and I, Robot wasn't one of them. But haven't tried yet figuring out the reading order!"

All the stories from both I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots are included in The Complete Robot plus a dozen or so other stories. I had thought that Robot Dreams and Robot Visions did the same only putting the stories in chronological (reading) order (as opposed to chronological (writing) order) but I'm not convinced they are actually in that order, and both those books include a lot of non-robot stories.

Reading order is always going to be difficult because a large number - probably most - of the stories were written as standalone, putting them into the same universe required a whole bunch of retrofitting.
Mar 12, 2020 03:01AM

45059 I finished Robot Dreams. It seems I have misinterpreted what I had read about the book, as I believed that this book, and the companion volume Robot Visions, provided all the robot short stories that lead into Asimov's Robot series.

In fact, only about half of the stories actually concern robots, and I note that there are a number of stories from I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots that don't appear in either of Robot Dreams or Robot Visions.

It would seem I will have to revert to the traditional path of reading Asimov's Robot series, which is to read I, Robot and then Bicentennial Man before the three novels.
Feb 24, 2020 05:55PM

45059 I'm about a third of the way through The Runes of the Earth and finding it a bit of a slog, although less so that the second Chronicles. So, I'm taking a break (again - I will eventually get through all 10 books :) ) and I'm starting on a reread of Asimov's Foundation series. While I have read them all before, I haven't read the Robot series, followed by the Empire series followed by the Foundation series, which is how Asimov retconned his future history.

It feels a bit strange to be starting the Robot series on a book other than I, Robot but Robot Dreams and Robot Visions gather all the Robot short stories and present them in their chronological order rather than the order he wrote them in, so I think that's a better fit for this project.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I'm currently reading Robot Dreams :)
Feb 11, 2020 04:24PM

45059 The Lensmen series is a couple of decades earlier than the 50s - they were originally published in Astounding or Amazing (I don't remember which) as serials throughout the 30s and early 40s. And you can ignore the 7th book in the series - it's set in the same universe, but it's not really related to the original 6 books. The series has copped a lot of flak for some of its less believable occurrences, but it was the runner-up (behind the Foundation series) for Best All-Time Series in the 1966 Hugos.
Feb 11, 2020 04:19PM

45059 I went to see Colour out of Space last night, so I have started rereading the Lovecraft short story to see how closely they followed the plot. The movie was pretty good.
Feb 11, 2020 04:14PM

45059 Not TV, but a movie. I went to see Colour out of Space (starring Nicholas Cage) last night. It is updated to modern times, and I quite enjoyed it. I have started rereading the Lovecraft short story to see how closely it follows the book.
Feb 09, 2020 04:52AM

45059 Talking about 2020 now - I have really enjoyed the first 3 episodes of Picard, I think the writing of the current series of Doctor Who is better than it has been for 3 or 4 seasons (at least) and The Mandalorian was great. While Arrow had its ups and downs over 8 seasons, I thought the series finale was excellent.
Feb 09, 2020 04:21AM

45059 Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell would also count, and could fill the slot for award-winning as well.
Feb 09, 2020 04:08AM

45059 I would think books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies would certainly count - and that started a huge number of similar books, such as Android Karenina. This also led to books like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter - I would think these would also count.
Feb 09, 2020 03:32AM

45059 A fair bit of American sci-fi from the 60s and earlier has a pretty optimistic tone, even if it goes through some conflict to get there. The Lensman series from 'Doc' Smith ends up in a utopia - even if it takes 6 books to get there :)
Feb 06, 2020 09:41PM

45059 I have started the first book of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - The Runes of the Earth. Hoping (but not really expecting) that this series will be less of a chore than the Second Chronicles.
Feb 06, 2020 04:06AM

45059 I finished The Second World War: WW2 - An Alternate History. Interesting premise but ultimately a disappointment - partially due to problems that should have been picked up in proof reading, but mostly due to internal consistency errors.
Feb 03, 2020 09:12PM

45059 I'm nearly finished The Second World War: WW2 - An Alternate History. The premise is interesting - what if FDR found out about the attack on Pearl Harbor and sent the Pacific fleet out to meet the Japanese. I don't agree with all of the assumptions the author makes, but I will see it through to the end.
45059 Norm017 wrote: "Thanks still having the problem of some things showing up as free on one version of Amazon that are not free on the local version of Amazon. It's a real pity."

I have spoken to a few authors about that, and they all tell me that it's not something they have any control over - Amazon is in charge of all sales. And generally they will prioritise the biggest markets - so Amazon US will always have the sale, and Amazon UK will often have the sale. Amazon AU and Amazon CA get them much less often. I have even seen the situation where Australian authors are on sale in US but not in AU. I agree it's frustrating and I really don't understand why it is that way - I would have thought it would have been simpler to make the sale be across all platforms, but I guess that isn't how they are set up.
Jan 27, 2020 02:28AM

45059 Stratos wrote: "Just finished Tigana, wow what a read!!! Not a single page was boring or out of place. I was mesmerised by the narrative style and the switching between thrilling action scenes and pa..."

Is that the first book of his that you have read? If so, The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy is also very good. The Lions of Al-Rassan is not bad, but not as good as Tigana.
Jan 26, 2020 01:40AM

45059 I finally finished White Gold Wielder, the final book in the second Thomas Covenant series. Certainly better than the middle book of the trilogy, but I found the second trilogy more of a slog than the first. I will get around to the final, 4-book series, and I hope that, given the events at the end of the second trilogy, both Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery will be better people - but I suspect I may be disappointed. However, I will take a break and read something a bit lighter before I jump back into it.
Jan 17, 2020 06:57AM

45059 Milne's idea of what was suitable for children didn't always mesh with Disney's sensibilities :) And I have to say that I have always preferred the original illustrations to the Disney versions.

Also, the Christopher Robin movie that came out a while ago, is certainly worth watching for any Winnie the Pooh fan.
Jan 14, 2020 12:30PM

45059 I finished Fahrenheit 451 and will now continue with my much-interrupted reading of White Gold Wielder
Jan 14, 2020 07:19AM

45059 I have now finished and my thoughts about Bradburys predictive abilities didn't really change - with tech, he's average at best (but Bradbury didn't really focus on tech in his stories), with societal trends, he's far more insightful.

Ultimately, I'm not sure this book really counts as dystopian - the society as presented is certainly not one that I imagine anyone in this group would look forward to, but the ending, nuclear war notwithstanding, is somewhat upbeat. The ending of this book is certainly far more optimistic than either 1984 or Brave New World.

There seems to be a certain level of optimism among American sci-fi authors of the 50s and early 60s (reflecting, I expect, the general optimism of American society of the time) that is somewhat irrepressible. I notice this particularly in Heinlein (whom Bradbury reminds me of in certain passages in the final parts of the book) and Asimov.

My edition is the 50th anniversary edition, and it has both an introduction and an afterword written by Bradbury., which are interesting reading. In the afterword, Bradbury discusses his thought processes and the evolution of the book, and how he had trouble getting it published due to the rise of McCarthyism. I had not known that the original publication of the full novel was as a serial of three parts in early editions of Playboy magazine (which, no doubt, explains the division of the book into 3 longish chapters). Apparently Hefner was quite appreciative to Bradbury, as having a writer of his stature would have provided invaluable publicity to the new, and controversial, magazine.
Jan 11, 2020 01:23AM

45059 Andrea wrote: "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is actually a huge series. They were all free on GR itself so thought it might be fun to see what I missed as a kid, starting on The Marvelous Land of Oz...."

It always used to surprise customers in the bookstore I worked in to discover that there were a series of Oz books. They are all free on Project Gutenberg as well, along with all the rest of Baum's works.