HMTP Synchronization Problem

Wolfe's AN EVIL GUEST is not due to be released until September 22nd. This presents a good problem. Our meeting will be on the 20th and we are supposed to begin reading GUEST immediately afterward. Somehow we have managed to gain time on the schedule, and are now about a month ahead! This never happens. We also have another consideration: Morgan's THE STEEL REMAINS will not be released until January. Since this release date is out of our control, this prevents us from simply shifting the HMTP downward. Also, the Morgan book is part of a carefully planned PAY PAUL scheme designed to buy precious time needed to read an unusually weighty tome. So, to preserve the PAY PAUL scheme, we need to keep THE GLORY AND THE DREAM sequence intact. I propose that we pull down a book, or books, scheduled later than THE GLORY AND THE DREAM to compensate for the current synchronization problem. We also have the option of adding a completely new book to the list to fill the open space.

John Keay THE GREAT ARC

I did a little advance reading since I am still waiting for the Wolfe book to arrive. I finished John Keay's THE GREAT ARC, The Dramatic Tale of How India Was Mapped and Everest Named. This is a short (172 pages) book but fascinating, hearkening back to the days of the still expanding British empire. To India Englishmen would go to make their reputation. Some like Langton and Everest found their life's work. Keay tells of the incredible dangers, mostly from malaria, that these intrepid surveyors encountered and had to overcome to complete the task. The Great Trigonometrical Survey took the best years of Langton and Everest and the lives on hundreds of others, but in the end the India sub-continent was charted; ready for the machinations of bureaucracy the British Empire would soon subject it to. A fine read.

Roll Off IRON MAN

Films that have extra scenes after the credits have finished rolling. I call this feature a ROLL OFF. Wikipedia calls these "Post-credit scenes," or "Stingers" or "Tags." There is a sire devoted to these called MovieStinger.com.

IRON MAN
After the credits Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D.) appears to announce to Ironman that there is a group of super-heroes fighting evil, called the Avenger Initiave, which he can now join.

A L I E N S
Sound of a facehugger scratching accross the floor of Ripley's escape shuttle.

BLADE TRINITY
Blade racing away in his black charger and a final credit: "Word."

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN
The monkey steals a coin from the chest and becomes a skeleton in the moonlight, proving the curse is still in effect.

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN 2
The monkey.

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN 3
This has a great Roll-off of Elizabeth and her almost ten year-old son waiting for Will Turner to sail back into their lives after his stint as captain of the Flying Dutchman. They wait for the green flash of sunset to confirm his return from the dead. Pan to Elizabeth as green lights up her face, and her smile.

CONSTANTINE
Constantine at the grave of his sidekick, Chas. As he deposits his cigarette lighter on the tombstone, Chas resurrects as an angel, leaving John determined to make the cut this time around.

STEALTH
Pan down to the smouldering remains of Eddie to see the his eye light up.

Varley on Audio

Varley's site announce that several of his books; TITAN, WAZARD, DEMON, OPHIUCHI HOTLINE; are being recorded as audio-books.

Anne Holmberg

Writing that last review reminded me that the Fictionados were once honored to have a real writer amongst us. Anne Holmberg once participated in the group during the late 1990's. She is a published author of many Romance novels. She publishes under the pen name Anne Avery. I haven't heard from her for years. The last I heard she was moving to Hawaii for a hardship tour of duty. I always regret that we never read any of her Futuristics when she was part of our group. It was an opportunity lost. I always thought she was mining us for the mainstream-SF-reader's viewpoint to broaden her audience. Sadly, our tastes then were too narrow to even forray into the romance side of SF.

Anne, I pray you are doing well.

Larry Niven & Brenda Cooper BUILDING HARLEQUIN'S MOON

After reading Varley's ROLLING THUNDER I was supposed to read Wolfe's AN EVIL GUEST but it has not yet arrived. I thought I would try the new Niven which has been sitting around for a while. The premise of world-building and the planned direction of an entire society toward the single end of manufacturing fuel for their grounded starship sounded like a great idea. I could not get past page 30. The stilted prose and wooden characters of the first section prevented me from continuing with the story. I know that Niven can do culture upheaval because his A GIFT FROM EARTH is solid. File this with Niven's only other bomb, SATURN'S RACE. This book doesn't even have the pull of a Harlequin romance for me. Unreadable. OPTCS 11111

Varley ROLLING THUNDER

I just finished reading ROLLING THUNDER by John Varley. Film at eleven.

08/25/08 Update:
This, the third installment of the series that began with RED THUNDER, is a continuation of the ODTAA method of plot construction that also drove book two, BLUE THUNDER. Not my cup of tea. I very much liked RED THUNDER, and you can read my glowing review if you drill down into this blog (or at Amazon.com), but I found that BLUE and ROLLING left me wanting the great characters of RED. Sadly the protagonist Manny, of RED, is pretty much out of the picture and we have to make do with his kids and grand-children in the later books. The books are still very readable as Varley maintains his knack for smooth flow and logical sentance construction. It seems to me that Varley has latched onto this "Mantle of Heinlein" thing in a big way and, subsequently, abandoned the "Varleyesque" components of his 8-WORLDS and GAEA stories. His latest efforts demonstrate a fixation upon the teenage fantasy of the Heinlein juveniles that never captured my imagination even when I was a teenager. I know from reading MAMMOTH that the Varley of old still lives on, and that he is fully capable of writing the type of SF that put him at the top of the field. I think he has grown tired of SF and wants to break-out into something else. Read his blog and you will find scarce SF on his personal reading list. Maybe next year when W is out of office he will spend a little less effort trying to make a political difference and be able to focus on writing that great-American SF novel again. Whatever he comes out with I'll read eagerly because few writers have the potential to thrill like Varley. ROLLING THUNDER however is little more than a page-turner.

ROLLING THUNDER OPTCS 55447

Sept. 20th Meeting Announced

We have tentatively planned the next meeting to be held on Spetember 20th. To be discussed will be Russ Humphery's STARLIGHT AND TIME and John Varley's ROLLING THUNDER.

HMTP Changes Implemented

I have just updated the HMTP with the revisions discussed in the August 9th meeting. There are several major changes:

1) All Tim Powers books are now on the list.
2) All Gene Wolfe novels are now on the list.
3) Sherlock Holmes now starts on March 2010 (at the expense of Samual Delaney's DHALGREN which was moved to July 2015).
4) Thomas P.M. Barnett's THE PENTAGON'S NEW MAP has been added.
5) Micheal Behe's THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION has been added on June of 2009.
6) Walt Brown's 8th edition of a IN THE BEGINNING was inserted on October 2009.
7) The HMTP now extends out to May 2117.

August 9th Meeting Results

The August 9th meeting was productive. Below is a summary of the decisions:

Agenda:
1) Tim Powers' DECLARE
[This is a great book showcasing Powers' knack for making the mundane seem creepy and the metaphysical regimented.]

2) Russell Humphreys STARLIGHT AND TIME
[We're glad someone out there has the brains to conceive of such a cosmology that both, fits with the Bible, and does not contradict the present understanding of the laws of physics. Bravo Humphreys!]

3) Is Powers an "important" author? If so, what next?
[Powers has demonstrated himself to be an important writer. Therefore, we shall be reading a lot more of his stuff starting with THREE DAYS TO NEVER then ON STRANGER TIDES.]

4) Preview of the Varley vs. Wolfe head-to-head contest.
[With the Varley book in hand this kicks off soon. Varley's last installment of the RED THUNDER series, RED LIGHTNING, was a bit of a let-down. I thought it was too juvenile. Maybe that was the intent, but it did not live up to the first installment. Wolfe's AN EVIL GUEST looks to be a return to the "difficult" Wolfe of old. I am anticipating it to be superb.]

5) Report-out on Wolfe's latest novels PIRATE FREEDOM and SOLDIER OF SIDON.
[Wolfe's PIRATE FREEDOM is tp be paired with Powers' ON STRANGER TIDES. This will be a matter-antimatter pairing of two seemingly similar pirate adventures.]

6) Should we try to read all of Wolfe's novels? We are already trying to read all of his story collections. The list of Wolfe novels not read by the group: PIRATE FREEDOM, OPERATION ARES, THE DEVIL IN A FOREST, CASTLEVIEW, FREE LIVE FREE, PANDORA BY HOLLY HOLANDER. Three others, SOLDIER OF THE MIST, SOLDIER OF ARETE and SOLDIER OF SIDON are already on the list.
[Yes we should try to read all of Wolfe's novels. This will be necessary for bragging rights in the nursing home. Besides, Wolfe is an important author.]

7) Walt Brown's 8th edition. (see above post)
[This needs to be read because Brown has a slant on things that no one else is writing about. And since he has come out with a major revision, he must have something new to say. But Behe's THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION will be read first since it has critical information useful to anyone engaged in the creation-evolution debate.]

8) Is it time for Sherlock?
[Not yet, but it may creep down the HMTP anyway just to give a sense of inevitability. The Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett video portrayals of the great Holmes will soon be available to the group on DVD for those seeking a total-immersion Sherlock experience.]

9) There is a dearth of non-fiction books at the top of the HMTP. Thoughts, concerns?
[No worries mate. These books will naturally make their way onto the list as our interest piques. And we are very interested.]

10) Richard K. Morgan's THE STEEL REMAINS is out in the UK. (see above post)
[Since the HMTP is so densly packed in the next few months we could not get to this book immediately anyway. We will wait for the US edition in January. Plus, its cheaper. Bonus!]

The HMTP will be updated soon to reflect these decisions.

Book 'em Danno. Murder one..

Todd Mclaren reads THE IMMORTALISTS

As stated earlier, I intend to seek out the work of Todd Mclaren. His work performing ALTERED CARBON and BROKEN ANGELS was so stellar, I want to discover if Mclaren can elevate other books as he did those favorites of mine by Richard K. Morgan. The book THE IMMORTALISTS by David M. Friedman is a dual biography of Dr. Alexis Carrel and Charles Lindberg and is indeed made interesting by Mclaren's reading. As with the fiction books Mclaren again employs character accents for every quote. Each person gets his own voice. I cannot emphasize too strongly how much this enhances the listening experience.

This book is a revelation of a side of Charles Lindberg, of which I had no idea. Far more than the adventurer of his historical persona, Lindberg was a scientist studying the external animation of internal organs and political activist that was once enamoured with Nazi Germany, thinking it the salvation of Western Civilization. He later fought against the Third Reich, and came to see the West as the bane of human survival. He, too, came to have an understanding of mortality as superior to immortality. Nobel prize-winning, Dr. Alexis Carrel is included in the story because of his fundamental influence upon Lindberg, but the book primarilly concerns Lindberg.

I can recommend this book for its wide-ranging depiction of the famous Charles Lindberg and for Todd Mclaren's excellent reading.

The New Annotated DRACULA

The editor of the New Annoteted Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger, has done the same for Bram Stoker's DRACULA. It is due out in October 2008 for $26.37. I have two previous annotated versions of DRACULA and look forward to this edition. Each version puts a different slant on the material. I have come to admire the novel as a classic. In previous posts I have extolled the virtues of the audio-books version.

Richard Morgan THE STEEL REMAINS

STOP THE PRESSES

Richard (K.) Morgan's latest novel THE STEEL REMAINS has just been released in the UK, by Golancz. It will not be released until January 20, 2009 here in the US. Decision time. Do we read it soonest?
Factors:
1) The Golancz edition will be the true first edition and as such more collectable. We did not opt for the true first edition of THE BLACK MAN (THIRTEEN).
2) Shipping from the UK will be $20 for two copies. The total, again for two copies, will be $57.99.
3) Shipping from Amazon (US) would be free. The total for two copies here will be $34.32, a savings of $23.67 or 40%.

HMTP in Technicolor

I have begun to use color in the HMTP to designate different categories of books. At a glance, it is now immediately apparant what type of book you are looking at. This should help in planning future additions to the curricula. Note the old convention that the titles of fiction books are in COLOR and the non-fiction books are in BLACK. I have begun to deviate from this convention in some cases where the background color does not provide enough contrast with black to read easily. In general, if a book title does not have a background color the old convention will be vaild.