Raven

Hope you all have a great day! I plan to eat like Jabba the Hutt and drink like a Glaswegian who doesn't want to see the New Year! *burp*

Apt name!

Well, you are an American and they are speaking English, so it is understandable! (Just kidding!)

Article here: The Book People goes into administration I used to use them a lot about 10 to 15 years ago, but haven't ordered anything from them for several years now.

I've been enjoying His Dark Materials; it is the best adaptation I've seen for a long time.

I've just read the above post.

Oh, it was, but it wasn't an invented part of the story.

Do you know, I completely forgot about this program - haven't watched a single episode! I think I should take a look at iPlayer...

Precisely. I would go as far as to ask how arrogant does a screen writer have to be to completely re-write a story that has been in print and selling well for over a century? In the novel, the invasion is limited to Surrey, London and the surrounding area - there are no cylinders in other countries or other parts of the UK. The book does deal with Man being deposed as the dominate species and the way it is written it is clearly a parallel for the imperial expansion that happened under the British Empire (that wasn't added political correctness, despite what some commenters on social media may have thought). Climate change isn't a theme in the novel, however, and in my opinion it wasn't a good fit for this story (there are other science fiction stories that do climate change much better - The Kraken Wakes, by John Wyndham or The Drowned World, by JG Ballard, for example). If you have not read The War of the Worlds, do so, it is a very well written book!

Having re-watched Triffids this weekend (because I found I could for free on Amazon Prime) I would have to say that now I have seen the whole thing, War of the Worlds (WotW) was the poorer of the two adaptations. Where Triffids was a frenetic mess with a botched ending, it did largely stick to the plot of the book. WotW, for the most part, took elements of the book and worked it into another - inferior - story. I've no idea what the flash-forwards were in the series for, except to add a topical climate change sub-plot, but all they did for me was to remove any tension from the story - they actually managed to make a dull alien invasion story out of one of the best! One of the first comments I read from Peter Harness about the series was about how the story was being reimagined for a contemporary audience (or words to that effect). I had an uneasy feeling about how that was going to play out at the time, but I never expected the level of butchery managed here. At the end of the day I don't think they had the budget to do the story properly and they did what they could with what they had to work with, but overall I wish they hadn't bothered.

I'm tempted by Velocity Weapon.

No probs! There wasn't a link from the main page of Orbit's website that I could find, and searching Orbit books on Amazon just threw up everything they have ever published!

Where is this? I cannot see a way of buying books on Orbit's website.

For anyone who is interested in science fiction and who hasn't read it yet, the excellent The Player of Games by Iain M Banks is just 99p on the Kindle as part of Amazon's Cyber Monday sale. Also, Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama is also the same price.

Clive James It has been a long time coming, but I'm sad to hear that Clive James has died (for those who do not know, he was originally diagnosed with a terminal illness 10 years ago). As a presenter during the 80s and 90s he gave us a unique insight into the world he travelled and also through his Clive James on TV program but, for me, his writing - and in particular his autobiography Falling Towards England - was a joyous read. I'm genuinely sad to see him go.

Do you have a link? 2001 is 99p on Kindle, but Rosewater is still £6.49! ETA: Ignore the above, it is 99p, I was looking at the paperback price...

Well, two episodes in and I think I'm beginning to spot a trend - they seem to be avoiding effects shots as much as they can get away with, which makes me think they may have had a limited budget. This is supposition on my part of course, but the replacing of the Martian in the first episode with a spinning black orb and the lack of the Thunderchild in the second (amongst other scenes that are missing) makes me think His Dark Materials got all of the BBC's effects wonga. And next week it looks as though we'll be getting turn of the [last] century Alien. *Sigh*

My local Waterstones, despite their not listing it as being in stock on their website!

The latest novel, Lies Sleeping, is now 99p on the Kindle. Managed to pick up Action at a Distance yesterday, will be reading it shortly...

Eleanor Tomlinson's Amy probably is the most interesting character, which is mildly annoying as she wasn't in the book! (coincidently, there is a shot very early on when they do a close up of her smiling and it's been annoying me since I saw it who she reminded me of, but it's just clicked! Karen Gillian playing Amy Pond in Doctor Who has a very similar close up in her first story).

The alien fighting machines in the Tom Cruise version were very good, but the rest of the film was cobblers. Welding broken families and science fiction into a cohesive story used to be Spielberg's forte (Close Encounters, ET, Jurassic Part etc) but I think he got the balance wrong in this one; not enough aliens, far too much annoying Dad and family (it really didn't help that none of the characters were particularly likeable!) Back to last night and I'll save going into detail until I've seen the whole thing, but at this point I am struggling to see how they are going to fit the rest of the book into two hours, after spending a good deal of the first part setting up a relationship that isn't in the novel at all! Where they are at the moment feels like the end of the first part if the series were six episodes long, not three. I suspect this means that something is going to get cut/significantly shortened. The flash-forwards didn't work for me, either!

Well, that was painful...

None I can remember off the top of my head! I know I have seen some, however.

The first series of Sherlock was very good and - with the excerption of Hounds - series two was as well. After that, however, it got a little up it's own bottom and went down the pan. Series three was poor and the Christmas special they did after that was a joke. I cannot tell you about series four because I haven't watched it.

No, no typo! I'm talking about the Benedict Cumberbatch series Sherlock that was on a few years ago. Their take on HotB was... poor, to say the least. I watched the Brett version of it after writing the above and whilst I really like that series, I would have to say that their take on HotB was a pretty dry adaptation and very stilted in places. So, in summary, the best adaptation I think I have seen is the Rathbone one!