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Reading Minds: The CoastGab Book Club

Started by PhantasticSanShiSan, October 23, 2008, 12:06:30 AM

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on December 03, 2013, 06:53:07 PM
I've never been impressed with Asimov's writing, but I'm not sure if that is his fault or the editor's fault. That was the standard back then. The plots are fairly unoriginal, many of them are just retold 1700's South Seas exploration stories. Just make the sailing ship into a starship...etc. And the robot stories are reskinned detective pulps. Didn't do much for me.

But he's an easy read.  I got both my kids started reading with Asimov.  Neither one was a big reader until I'd "introduced" them.   :)

onan

Quote from: Treading Water on December 03, 2013, 09:10:23 PM
But he's an easy read.  I got both my kids started reading with Asimov.  Neither one was a big reader until I'd "introduced" them.   :)

I read very little fiction. But I will take an Isaac Asimov over a Dan Brown, any day of the week.

Quote from: onan on December 03, 2013, 09:13:27 PM
I read very little fiction. But I will take an Isaac Asimov over a Dan Brown, any day of the week.

Very little fiction? How do you get fantasy in your life? Movies, Korean Dramas, webcomics?

Quote from: Treading Water on December 03, 2013, 09:10:23 PM
But he's an easy read.  I got both my kids started reading with Asimov.  Neither one was a big reader until I'd "introduced" them.   :)

The Norby stories?

Azimov's Foundation trilogy, Dune then Stranger in a Strange Land, then got into other books by Heinlein after "Stranger" , Clark, Niven, H.G.Wells, then after Science Fiction  I read autobiography OF A YOGI BY YOGANANDA AND THAT SET ME OFF ON READING ABOUT EVERY Hindu, yoga, Buddhist, Sufi AND EVERYTHING FROM THE Egyptian book of the Dead, Tibetan Book of the Dead, to every Guru around in the 70's-80's, Steiner, Gurdjieff, Vedas, then got into American Native spiritual matters: Sun Bear and others. Some of the concepts in Sci Fi books seemed to be influenced  from ancient concepts , certainly with Clark. sorry about suddenly going cap, but I am too tired to correct.

onan

Quote from: Unquenchable Angst on December 03, 2013, 09:39:53 PM
Azimov's Foundation trilogy, Dune then Stranger in a Strange Land, then got into other books by Heinlein after "Stranger" , Clark, Niven, H.G.Wells, then after Science Fiction  I read autobiography OF A YOGI BY YOGANANDA AND THAT SET ME OFF ON READING ABOUT EVERY Hindu, yoga, Buddhist, Sufi AND EVERYTHING FROM THE Egyptian book of the Dead, Tibetan Book of the Dead, to every Guru around in the 70's-80's, Steiner, Gurdjieff, Vedas, then got into American Native spiritual matters: Sun Bear and others. Some of the concepts in Sci Fi books seemed to be influenced  from ancient concepts , certainly with Clark. sorry about suddenly going cap, but I am too tired to correct.

You are always interesting to read caps or not.


Shadow Wolf

I just finished "Into the Darkness" by Doug Kelly

259 pages $0.99 A good price for a fairly entertaining read.

But like I've said before, I really do prefer a longer more complete story, series are o-kay as long as they do not end up being one book divided into three parts.

I would be somewhere in-between the two individuals below at a 3.5 to 4 star rating.
One thing I really did not like was the very beginning when the author felt he had to explain the science of a CME in the book forward. I think most people buying this type of a book know a little bit about EMP's and CME's.

Two Amazon reviews:
By LadyLJ57 Amazon Verified Purchase
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified PurchaseUnlike most solar flare end of the world books this was a simple story of a businessman who was away from home(by thousands of miles) when everything stopped. He wasn't a prepper or an ex-Seal or anything special, just a man who could keep thinking under pressure and was focused on getting back to his family.

The story line is fairly simple, the characters are not deeply complex, and the end of the world is not described in excruciating detail. This is a solid story written well that will keep you reading to the last page (btw which leaves it open to additional books). Towards the end there is a mystery that has me puzzled but other than that it was a wonderfully entertaining read with a creative solution for long distance travel without motorized vehicles. Buy it -- you will enjoy it.

She gave it a 5 star rating
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Daniel E. Bertram Amazon Verified Purchase
Enjoyed the book, even though it was a bit too unrealistic in my opinion. No feelings exhibited during this individual's first kill as well as all of the subsequent ones.

He gave it a 3 star rating.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I added the Amazon reviews, because I do not write as well a review as some people on Amazon.

yumyumtree

Asimov wrote a lot of non-fiction. He was a versatile man.

Reportedly Autobiography of a Yogi was the only book that Steve Jobs had on an electronic device for his personal use.

I managed to get People Who Eat Darkness from the library and am reading it now. I usually have several books going simtaneously. I'm also reading Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse and The Wrecker by Robert Louis Stevenson.

You are probably aware of this, but Sun Bear(now deceased) was quite controversial to say the least, in Native American circles and elsewhere. I haven't read his books but Ive read about the controversy. There were also some criminal allegations, I guess. I lurk on another board called NAFPS which deals with practitioners, authors, etc who claim to be Indian but in fact are just exploiters. There are hundreds. I had no idea. I actually discovered this board while searching for background on one of Noorys more questionable guests.

onan

Quote from: yumyumtree on December 09, 2013, 01:59:46 PM
Asimov wrote a lot of non-fiction. He was a versatile man.

Yep, he did. He was actually partly responsible for my interest in psychiatry and physiology.

If I recall correctly, Asimov is the only writer to have authored a book in every category held by the Library of Congress.  I wonder about that though -- if it was sort of just a gimmick, like a baseball player playing every position in a single game.  I mean, can you really competently author books in religion, chemistry, history, sports, politics, medicine, etc.?  I think he wrote something like 400 books in his life, which is a staggering number -- that's ten a year for 40 years... an entire book from start to finish about every five weeks!

BobGrau

In a drug induced haze last night I appear to have bought The Futurians by Damon Knight


QuoteThe Futurian Society was founded in 1938 by thirteen science fiction fans; it never numbered more than twenty, including wives, girl friends and hangers-on; yet out of this small group came seven of the most famous names in science fiction: Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Damon Knight, Cyril Kornbluth, Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl and Donald A. Wollheim.
Brilliant, eccentric and poor, the Futurians invented their own subculture, with its communal dwellings, its folklore, songs and games, even its own mock religion. In later years many of them became influential novelists, editors, anthologists, literary agents and publishers.
The author has interviewed ten of the surviving Futurians and has traced down the widow of one member whose tragic fate was unknown until now. Drawing on correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, and amateur publications (including a collection of Futurian wall newspapers which had wound up in Australia), he has written a fascinating narrative of the early days of the Futurians, the feuds and lawsuits that divided them, and their later careers.

and Scientologist!: William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' by David S. Wills

QuoteScientology is largely overlooked in major texts about the life and work of William S. Burroughs, author of some of the most notorious literature of the 20th century. Its importance in the creation of the Cut-up Method and Burroughs’ view of language as a virus is undermined by the omission of details regarding his interest in the religion over the course of a decade â€" certainly the most creatively fertile period of his life. Instead, biographers and critics tend to focus on his other obsessions in the realm of fringe science, and on the period during the early 1970s when Burroughs left the religion and began a public crusade against it.
However, Burroughs’ involvement with L. Ron Hubbard’s organization was no fleeting interest; he was a fully-fledged member and even obtained the rank of ‘clear’ â€" a prestigious achievement for a Scientologist. Scientology ultimately inspired the plot, the structure, and various elements of some of Burroughs’ most important works, including The Soft Machine and The Wild Boys. His fascination was genuine, and his progress through the hierarchical structure of the Church signals a dedication that he would later downplay after being excommunicated in 1969.

Now, for the first time, his life and literature are reexamined in the light of newly uncovered information about Burroughs’ fascination with this ‘weird cult,’ as he once described it.

Good Times.

"Because the celebrity self is a sort of tulpa," he said.

"A what?"

"A projected thought-form. A term from Tibetan mysticism. The celebrity self has a life of its own. It can, under the right circumstances, indefinitely survive the death of its subject. That's what every Elvis sighting is about, literally."

- Spook Country, by William Gibson

www.calculatorcat.com/moon_phases/phasenow.php

maureen

Franz Fanon´s "The Wretched of the Earth"

Works of Shakespeare

Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

... for starters... or Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, etc)

FallenSeraph

ATM I'm reading â€"

-- "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief" by Lawrence Wright

-- "The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder" by Charles Graeber

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.

-- and "The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2013"

Good books, all of them. The second one is fabulous, actually.

Chine

Quote from: maureen on December 18, 2013, 12:07:37 AM
Franz Fanon´s "The Wretched of the Earth"

Works of Shakespeare

Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

... for starters... or Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo, etc)

And if you like Larsson's series (own them all), another master Nordic writer of crime and espionage is Jo Nesbo. His series are brilliant. Absolutely rich and intelligent with a depth ... a cerebral meal of writing.

I decided to start Game of Thrones. Just picked up the first book. Haven't watched the series and won't til after the books. I refuse to compare and mix the creative mediums of novels vs filmmaking or television. They're each entitled to be held up as their own. As you can't compare craft of writing for the stage vs screenwriting.

In fact, I wrote film reviews on both Hunger Games Triligy and Girl With The Dragon Tattoo which I strongly confront this 'compare' mentality of creative mediums.

zeebo

Quote from: Chine on December 25, 2013, 10:56:11 PM
...I refuse to compare and mix the creative mediums of novels vs filmmaking or television. They're each entitled to be held up as their own...

This is good advice, if you can do it.  :)  These days I seem to avoid watching movies/series based on novels I've read and enjoyed.  Even productions that are good faith efforts with thoughtful adaptations and good casting etc. usually ultimately end up being frustrating to me. 

It's tough because part of me wants to see these worlds and characters come alive, but far too often I end up just missing what was lost, changed, or de-empahisized .  There are some exceptions, but generally I seem to be happier seeing totally original movies/series because I have no expectations and can enjoy the story through the medium it was written for.

Iterestingly I have several times been able to go the other direction, from series/movie to the books and that seems to often work pretty well as the former kind of piques my interest and the latter generally provides a deeper and more satisfying experience.

P.S. Hope you enjoy the GoT books.  I stalled out midway through the third book, but a couple members here have encouraged me to pick it up again and march onwards as they say it's definitely worth it.

Chine

Zeebo! My feisty squirrel friend!

True, true. It's difficult not to do son watching the film after reading the books. Caught myself, naturally, during Catching Fire.

I love the luxury of engaging my imagination while reading. Doing so, we create the world and flesh it out. Much more intimate than a screenwriter, director or dp doing so for us.

Yes...I'm going to give GoT a shot.


zeebo

Quote from: Chine on December 26, 2013, 04:14:57 PM
Zeebo! My feisty squirrel friend!

Good to see you posting lately Chine - had to come down from my tree and say hello. (Normally us squirrels do that by wiggling our noses but I don't know the correct emoticon for that.)


BobGrau

Quote from: BobGrau on December 09, 2013, 04:47:16 PM

Scientologist!: William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' by David S. Wills


Best Line: "I refuse to associate further with these scruffy people"

Great read. Burroughs for me has always been more interesting as a person than a creator of fiction, his life itself reads like the craziest dream you ever had. It was good to pick one particular thread (the S word*) and follow it down the decades as Burroughs first exposes himself to the virus, then charts his mental immune response through essays and interviews.
It's also interesting for the fact that the writer, while clearly respecting Burroughs, is by no means in awe of him or the proto-paranormal bs he liked to immerse himself in (as I myself tend to be).

PS also interesting glimpses into the world of the S word - turns out I've been instinctively "squirreling" certain S word techniques since approx. 5 years old!


*don't give em any more excuse to turn up here than strictly necessary

BobGrau

Quote from: BobGrau on December 09, 2013, 04:47:16 PM
The Futurians by Damon Knight


The Futurian Society was founded in 1938 by thirteen science fiction fans; it never numbered more than twenty, including wives, girl friends and hangers-on; yet out of this small group came seven of the most famous names in science fiction: Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Damon Knight, Cyril Kornbluth, Judith Merril, Frederik Pohl and Donald A. Wollheim.
Brilliant, eccentric and poor, the Futurians invented their own subculture, with its communal dwellings, its folklore, songs and games, even its own mock religion. In later years many of them became influential novelists, editors, anthologists, literary agents and publishers.
The author has interviewed ten of the surviving Futurians and has traced down the widow of one member whose tragic fate was unknown until now. Drawing on correspondence, unpublished manuscripts, and amateur publications (including a collection of Futurian wall newspapers which had wound up in Australia), he has written a fascinating narrative of the early days of the Futurians, the feuds and lawsuits that divided them, and their later careers.


Best Recurrent Phrase: "Love Pulps"

Damon Knight's short storys are wonderful and had a big influence on me as a kid, so I was glad to read this for that reason alone, but the subject itself (early scifi fandom) is a bit yawn for me.
But the whole Futurian thing was an intriguing non-druggy prototype of the later Merry Prankster-type loose commune/cult group of creative people sparking off each other. Also cool to read about that time period in New York (30s - 40s) thinking "ha, burroughs, kerouac and ginsberg were probably just down the street getting high at that point"

You mentioned the Merry Pranksters "sparking off each other"...  Having read The Electric KoolAid Acid Test, I sort of came away with the idea that there was not much true sparking (other than of joints)...  It sounds like they had loads of fun together, but I don't see just tons of creative work arising from their time together.  Am I missing some of the details?

BobGrau

Quote from: West of the Rockies on January 04, 2014, 06:43:42 PM
You mentioned the Merry Pranksters "sparking off each other"...  Having read The Electric KoolAid Acid Test, I sort of came away with the idea that there was not much true sparking (other than of joints)...  It sounds like they had loads of fun together, but I don't see just tons of creative work arising from their time together.  Am I missing some of the details?

Yeah, I stretched the metaphor a little. The 'Beats' might have been a better example in terms of actual stuff written down. I would say that the Pranksters were generally creative or at least imaginative but they were of course too loaded to bother doing it properly.

But there was/is a lot more to the Pranksters than Tom Wolfe's book. Ask Aldous.

I've seen Further once from some distance... it would be a hoot to spend a night on that old bus.  Is old Wavy Gravy still on the planet?  I'd love to hear Aldous share a few stories.

Finished Doom Patrol and picked up Morisson's paperback, Supergods. Interesting read so far.

BobGrau

Quote from: Agent : Orange on January 04, 2014, 09:15:58 PM
Finished Doom Patrol and picked up Morisson's paperback, Supergods. Interesting read so far.

I'm now reading Our sentence is up: seeing Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Patrick Meaney.
This stuff has been my bread and butter for a long time now, but if I have to read the word 'meta' one more time I'm going to start punching the walls of this panel.

Quote from: BobGrau on January 05, 2014, 03:42:18 PM
I'm now reading Our sentence is up: seeing Grant Morrison's The Invisibles by Patrick Meaney.
This stuff has been my bread and butter for a long time now, but if I have to read the word 'meta' one more time I'm going to start punching the walls of this panel.

Oh man the Invisibles was so good

BobGrau

Quote from: BobGrau on January 03, 2014, 07:25:41 PM
Best Recurrent Phrase: "Love Pulps"

Damon Knight's short storys are wonderful and had a big influence on me as a kid, so I was glad to read this for that reason alone, but the subject itself (early scifi fandom) is a bit yawn for me.
But the whole Futurian thing was an intriguing non-druggy prototype of the later Merry Prankster-type loose commune/cult group of creative people sparking off each other. Also cool to read about that time period in New York (30s - 40s) thinking "ha, burroughs, kerouac and ginsberg were probably just down the street getting high at that point"

Now I think about it, apart from the alcohol there probably were speedy-type drugs involved, judging by the 'wall newspapers'. This book was written in the mid-70s when a lot of the people involved still had careers and reputations to think about. But it still felt like a slightly more innocent version of a lot of the proto-Beat stuff that was happening around that time, just down the road.

Cynnie

My favorite book(s) as a kid were the amber cronicles by roger zelazney ..i just odered the complete series ( one big book ) and its as wonderful as i remembered ..why hasnt this been made into an amazing movie ?

Quote from: Cynnie on January 05, 2014, 05:06:18 PM
My favorite book(s) as a kid were the amber cronicles by roger zelazney ..i just odered the complete series ( one big book ) and its as wonderful as i remembered ..why hasnt this been made into an amazing movie ?

I don't think any Zelazny stuff has been turned into movies. Maybe the author wants to keep his work off the screen. I always thought it would at least make a cool scifi channel mini-series.
Check out Dilvish the Damned if you get a chance as well.

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