Raven

At least I got that it was for a supermarket!

French was the language used for diplomacy at the time.

I like the idea, but I have been a bit distracted with some moderation issues over the last day or so, so please don't take the lack of a thoughtful reply personally! (I'm only in the market for drive-by pithy posts as things stand!) So no change from usual, really...

The rain has cleared through, but it is still overcast. It's feeling a lot fresher though.

Had one last Sunday! (Zinfandel is another one I have on occasion). Don't ask me about vintages and estates, however, I usually go for something preferably a couple of years old and not too expensive!

Raining now, so I'm guessing that is the end of our summer.

Started reading Dune last night. Read for quite a while, so I was disappointed when my Kindle informed me I had only managed 5%...

I'm surprised I've not replied to this before. I usually have a bottle of red once a week, usually on a Sunday with a roast or pasta dish, and very occasionally a bottle of white (which I don't have very often because it goes down like lemonade!) Usually buy a Shiraz or Pinot Noir when I buy red, usually American or Australian. I'm more of a real ale drinker though.

Partially. I've only seen it the once, and wasn't giving the TV my full attention at the time!

Forum software causing a few problems with an edit - Yay! Two posts from Athena and Marie H below!

Yes, I saw that yesterday. I think it was for Morrisons, but I'm not sure!

One for Brian: Erebus, by Michael Palin is 99p on the Kindle this month. Interesting Times and The Shepherd's Crown are this month's discounted Terry Pratchett books.

There is (North Korea Journal).

I've not read the book - yet - but I have seen the David Lynch film and I would consider Dune to be Space Opera, something in a similar vein to Iain M. Banks Culture novels. A book that gains wider literary merit is never classified as science fiction; critics and publishers shy away from the term as if it is somehow unworthy, but The Handmaids Tale, The Drowned World, Station Eleven etc. all have strong science fiction concepts, even if you'll never find them in the science fiction section in Waterstone's. Oddly, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five seems to straddle the boundary in that regard; as I have seen it often in both the science fiction section and general literature (Fahrenheit 451 is probably another, but I'm struggling to think of many other books that cross the divide). I take it you've not seen The Wrath of Khan, then! Star Trek has a very loose military structure, which is leaned on when it serves a story line, but is quite often ignored when it comes to putting together a "saving the day" ending. The Wrath of Khan was probably as close as the franchise came to depicting a sea battle in space, with the exception of the original series story Balance of Terror.

I found that after having done three years of French at school, the year of Spanish I did was - despite my teachers at the time - and I can usually (as I said above) get the gist of other languages, such as Italian, when reading them as well. All three are derived from Latin, where English and German are not. I can recognise various Latin words, but context is often lost on me when they are placed in longer sentences.

His recent(ish) program on North Korea was very good, if you can track it down (might be on Amazon or Britbox; I'm sure I've seen it somewhere recently...).

Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee and Dune Messiah, by Frank Herbert are both 99p on the Kindle today. The first seven parts of Gareth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series are all 99p as well.

I was puzzling over that one as well!

And today is the turn of the John Wyndham classic, The Day of the Triffids (99p on the Kindle). If you've not read it, I can highly recommend it!

Another one I have on my Kindle. I will read it one day. Probably! Possibly?

Still, one of my favourite opening themes (that and Airwolf. And Space 1999. And Doctor Who. And... This could go on for a while...) The Adventures of Black Beauty Opening and Closing Theme 1972 - 1974 - YouTube And Judi Bowker... *sigh*

And to add to that, Iain M. Banks first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas is also 99p on the Kindle today - you have just over an hour to buy it!

Take a journey back through the mists of time, and there was a point in my reading history (around 30 years ago) when it was easy to say what a classic novel was - it was a book with a black spine, published by Penguin. It was a book that was written by Austin, Dickens, Homer, Cervantes or Hardy (amongst others) and the one thing the authors had in common were that they were dead (and had usually been so for a very long time). And then Penguin started throwing curve balls. H.G. Wells novels were all released under the Penguin Classics banner and he died, well, less than a century ago (he'd barely gone cold, when compared to Plato!) Then there is Penguin's Modern Classics range, featuring authors as diverse as Orwell, Capote and Joyce. Then there was the list I posted a link to the other week (Penguin Readers 100 Must-Read Classic Books - General Book Discussions - Book Club Forum) which included authors such as Jonathan Coe and Tolkien. So just what is a classic novel? Is it a traditional novel that has been appraised over time and earnt a certain status? Is it something considered to be of literary merit no matter when it was written? Is it just a label to help people classify a book? (is it all three?) What makes a classic novel for you?

Not sure how I missed this at the time, but thanks for taking the time to reply to my question. That's pretty much the way I've thought of science fiction over the years, but earlier this year we had a discussion about what constitutes space opera (as a genre) and that blurs the lines further. (If anyone is interested, that discussion followed on from a review I wrote of To Be Taught, if Fortunate by Becky Chambers here: http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/3119-ravens-reads/&do=findComment&comment=507248 - if you are still looking for a story with plausible science in it, this might be one for you, Kev). Before the space opera discussion I would have said the same as well. Swords and sorcery = fantasy, anything with technology = science fiction, but the lines aren't quite that distinct. Star Wars has both technology and magic, so where does that fall? Would I be right in saying that you have pulled back from your previous view, above, that science fiction needs to contain hard/plausible science? At its heart, science fiction is usually the exploration of an idea or a concept through a well developed story with good characterisation (you can probably get by with one of the latter two - a lot of famous science fiction is notoriously thin on characterisation, for example - but if you want a really good science fiction tale I think these days you really need to have all three). I also agree that science fiction stories are nearly always a reflection of the time, views and morals of the day when they were written, but I don't think their outlook always needs to be dystopian for a tale to work (though the majority do seem to be!)

Currently looking out of my living room window I can see a swathe of blue sky, but also a lot of grey cloud... Lots of heavy showers around, but I don't care as I have the week off and today has been ear marked for not going outside!