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

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

G33z3r wrote: "Officially renewed for 3rd season."

That's excellent news, IMO, it's the best Star Trek on TV at the moment - although season 2 of Discovery was better than season 1. I was disappointed that season 2 of Orville was only 14 episodes though.

I finally finished The Moon Pool which took a ridiculously long time, mostly because work got stupidly busy, partly because I think could easily have been 25% shorter and still told the same story. I have started The Templars' Secret Island, which is strictly speaking non-fiction, but I find most of these types of books have a LOT of speculation in them :)

Andrea wrote: "R. wrote: "I also love the short classics - ...The Count of Monte Cristo...."

Paperback, Penguin Classics, 1276 pages

:)

Sorry, couldn't resist! "

Hehe Andrea, I was going to make a similar comment :)

I love The Three Musketeers and I have read it many times, but I have never been able to get through The Count of Monte Cristo despite trying 2 or 3 times.

Certainly pdf is not my preferred format for reading ebooks on a small screen such as a tablet or phone, although they are fine on my laptop.

For any ebooks I get through Amazon or Google play, I use the relevant reading app, but for ebooks from other sources, I use an app called Moon Reader. It handles epub, mobi and pdf formats equally well. There is a free version which works well and won't expire, but the full version only costs a few dollars.

Pierre wrote: "I am seriously pondering the purchase of an e-reader, of the Kindle variety. I am still investigating whether I would have the same restriction as with paper-based books."

If you have a tablet, or even a phone with a good sized screen, you don't really need a separate e-reader - the Kindle app is free. and there are plenty of good e-reader apps for epub versions (Kindle is mobi).

However, living in Australia, I have to order through Amazon AU and they have a smaller range of titles, and often don't offer the specials available in the US Amazon site. The same applies to physical books, they have to be ordered through the AU webstore, even if they are being shipped from the US.

I finished The Alleyman, the last book in the No Man's World: Omnibus. Despite a slow start, it's a good adventure yarn, although disappointing that the story ends on a cliffhanger and he hasn't written a sequel in the last 7 years. I have started The Moon Pool which will fill the pre-1950 slot in bingo.

I finished The Ironclad Prophecy on the last day of March and have started The Alleyman which is the final book in the No Man's World Omnibus. I only have a little over 100 pages left and there are still a lot of things to be resolved.

I had a light break and read Dazzler: The Movie which featured lovely artwork but I felt Jim Shooter's story didn't live up to his usual standards.

RJ wrote: "I started reading:


The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham


John Wyndham was one of the very few science fiction authors that ever made it on to school reading lists when I was in high school (mid 70s). He really is an excellent author.

I have finished Elementals: The Natural Order and have now started on the second book in the No Man's World trilogy - The Ironclad Prophecy

I finished Black Hand Gang, which is the first book in the No Man's World trilogy. I thought it started slowly, but the last third really lifted my interest in the book, so I will go on to the second book The Ironclad Prophecy. But before starting that, I'm taking a bit of a palette-cleansing break and reading Elementals: The Natural Order.

I finished The Runestaff which brings to an end the History of the Runestaff series. I have now started on Black Hand Gang which is the first book in the No Man's World series by Pat Kelleher - a series about a military unit taken from the trenches of the Western Front in World War One to an alien world.

Jim wrote: "While making the important author list, I came across Gardner Francis Fox who I usually think of as a S&S author of such treasures as Kothar of the Magic Sword, but..."

Gardner Fox was also a prolific writer of superhero comics in the early days of the Silver Age (late 50s through to late 60s), and wrote a lot of the most popular issues on title like the Justice League of America.

Continuing The History of the Runestaff series from Michael Moorcock, I've finished The Sword of the Dawn, and started the final volume - The Runestaff. After that, I'm not sure. I do plan to read the entire 10-volume Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson, but that's a big effort. Not because they're badly written - I think Donaldson is a very good author, but because Thomas Covenant is such a difficult protagonist to empathise with. I have read the first 6 when they were released, but I haven't read any of the last 4.

I've finished The Jewel in the Skull and gone on to the 2nd book in the History of the Runestaff series, The Mad God's Amulet. As a bit of light relief, I read Superman vs Wonder Woman

Andrea wrote: "I've never read Moorcock, definitely something I need to address one of these days. "

One's enjoyment of Moorcock can heavily depend on the entry point. Unless you really enjoy experimental writing, don't start with the Jerry Cornelius books. The Elric, Hawkmoon or Corum series are a better entry point, IMO.

Andrea wrote: "It had made me oddly happy that what was meant to last such a short time just kept on going and going and going. ... I'm strangely attached to the little guy!"

I think many people feel the same Andrea - it became a kind of little robotic hero.

I finished Robot Overlords and have now started rereading The History of the Runestaff by Michael Moorcock - part of his eternal champion series. It's 4 volumes starting with The Jewel in the Skull

I have read another couple of stories in the steampunk anthology I'm reading, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures, made some more progress in a few D&D adventures that I am running for various groups, and have just started Robot Overlords, based on the movie from a few years ago. A movie that I haven't seen and don't even recall noticing at the cinema, so either it was never released in Australia, or it's time in the cinema was really short.

I've finished The Last Unicorn and gone on to SS-GB. I think it could be argued that any alternate history could be counted as SF, but this book (as far as I have discovered so far) doesn't really have any SF or fantasy elements, so I don't think it counts :)

Barbara wrote: "Note: Another thread discusses the definition of hard and soft sci-fi. I'd call this trilogy soft sci-fi."

Fair enough. I think any story that has people with superpowers is definitely not hard sci-fi.