Karsa Orlong

Welcome Always good to see the late, great David Gemmell get a mention I'll heartily recommend Joe Abercrombie, too. He writes gritty heroic fantasy, kind of like Gemmell, but with added swearing You can try the start of his first book, The Blade Itself, here

Have you read any of these? The Time Machine by H. G. Wells The Saga of the Exiles by Julian May (starting with The Many-Colored Land) Replay by Ken Grimwood The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers All worth a look if you haven't already

848 pages? Is that all? It's a pamphlet! I wondered about this. How important do you think the charts are? Are they necessary? Oh I was really interested until you said that Great review, as usual

Looking at good ol' George, I'm guessing he's been using that cookbook more than he should have

Pretty much. Shameless is what it is.

I'm fine with either of them

Okay, GRRM's just taking the pee now http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Wit-Wisdom-Tyrion-Lannister/dp/0007532326/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0

Thanks Devi, that's definitely one I'd have a look at when it comes down in price

Yes, well played the Aussies The England batting collapses have made me feel all nostalgic This business over the sledging is just silly. It's all getting a bit precious One way to stop the media making a mountain out of a molehill - get rid of the stump microphones

I haven't seen that, no. Shall I sue them for stealing my idea? Assuming I can work out how they came up with it before I did $1.99, you can't lose, even if you hate it I like the end of the blurb the best: "Three men. One battle. No Heroes."

Not just you, Kylie, I've tried so many times to get into it and just can't I did watch it last night, though, and it was quite good fun after a cringe-inducing opening ten minutes or so

Yeah, all a bit of an anti-climax after last week, for me. I actually agreed with most of the judges' comments, for once, especially about Ashley's head position, and Susanna's cha cha, and about Sophie (sorry Claire!). Totally agree about the song choices, some very strange ones last night. I did vote for Natalie this week, thought she was the best of an average bunch. Btw, Claire, Kay introduced me to your Strictly website and I just wanted to say, it's brilliant!

I've not heard of a movie version, sorry - but yeah, whatever that film is about, go and watch it instead I don't think this can be the same story you're thinking of, as del Toro's going the tv route with this one

Book #68: The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan From Amazon: High-concept thriller with a supernatural edge from world-famous director, whose films include Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy. A plane lands at JFK and mysteriously ‘goes dark’, stopping in the middle of the runway for no apparent reason, all lights off, all doors sealed. The pilots cannot be raised. When the hatch above the wing finally clicks open, it soon becomes clear that everyone on board is dead – although there is no sign of any trauma or struggle. Ephraim Goodweather and his team from the Center for Disease Control must work quickly to establish the cause of this strange occurrence before panic spreads. The first thing they discover is that four of the victims are actually still alive. But that’s the only good news. And when all two hundred corpses disappear from various morgues around the city on the same night, things very rapidly get worse. Soon Eph and a small band of helpers will find themselves battling to protect not only their own loved ones, but the whole city, against an ancient threat to humanity. Thoughts: The first line of that blurb made me laugh: 'high concept'? Seriously? It's a blatant rip off, is what it is. Yes, this is a vampire story. Instead of the Demeter arriving at Whitby, we have an aircraft arriving in New York carrying a huge coffin containing, yes you guess it, earth. Instead of a Dutch vampire hunter called Van Helsing, we have a Polish survivor of the Holocaust now vampire hunter called Setrakian. Yes yes, heard it all before. There are a couple of spins on the vampire myth that managed to hold my interest, though. The modern setting and the protracted and somewhat slow first third of the novel sees the deaths on the aircraft being treated as a virus. "Is it SARS?" someone asks. There's a lot of medical detail - research has obviously been done. Once the proverbial really begins to hit the fan there are some genuinely scary sequences - the first truly scary moments I've read in a horror novel for a long time - and hints are dropped that this is the beginning of a war between two groups of Master vampires and one loner who has gone rogue. It also appears that the rogue has been aided by a human - but why? Hence the trilogy, I guess. So there's some genuine suspense and frights, but it soon tends towards repetition. It's established early on that the vampires' first point of call will be their family and friends. Several characters return to their various homes, find no-one about, and decide to go into the basement without the lights turned on. Very sensible. Even the main characters do this, when they know what's going on. The main characters also seem to have remarkable durability in extreme circumstances, which I felt seemed to undermine the deadliness of the vampires with everyone else. On the plus side, these vampires are nasty. They don't fall in love, or sparkle in sunlight or any of that tripe. They exist to feed, and they have a slightly different way of doing it. They also work together and hunt in packs (del Toro and Hogan seeming to tap into the current zombie fever). There is a relentlessness about them that I really liked. Ultimately, though, the repetition is wearing, the characters somewhat one-dimensional and uninvolving, and - once I found out it was a trilogy - knowing the story wasn't going to have a proper ending in this book made it seem to drag on and on. It's just under 500 pages long but it felt much, much longer to me. This was apparently first proposed as a tv series by del Toro and, when there were no takers, it was suggested that he turn it into a series of books. Since then there's also been a graphic novel adaptation, and a pilot episode in the works with a potential pick up for tv next year. I wonder about this, and the overall plot of the book. This rogue Master seems set on turning the whole world into vampires, because - once they are loose in the world - they just feed and feed, 'turning' each person they drain of blood. If that continues exponentially, their main source of food will soon be gone. Where does that get him? I suppose I could read on and find out, but I can't be bothered at the moment 5/10

Had to laugh - on Colin Murray's show on TalkSport, in response to the newspaper in Brisbane banning mention of Stuart Broad, he's taking nominations for an Aussie to be banned from his radio show. The leading contender at the moment is Madge Bishop

Interesting interview with Steven Moffatt on Radio 5 at the moment.

Oh hell yes!

Has he read The Heroes yet? I think he read Best Served Cold, didn't he? Newsflash: The Jack Vance Fan Club, aka the Royal Mail, has delivered Rush stuff. I know what I'm doing for the rest of this evening Tut, get your minds out of the gutter

Yay! Although I should probably advise that although it is a stand-alone story, some of the characters carry over from his previous books, so you will miss out on that side of things. It won't ruin it, you'll just lose some of that history, particularly with regards to one character They're probably all Jack Vance fans Noooo, not the film Rush, the band Rush

That was exactly my reaction, Tim. And some of the people complaining about it like GRRM, who's done far worse in his books. Double standards! Hope you enjoy the others

What is going on with the post at the moment? Privatising Royal Mail has obviously worked wonders. Not content with the delay on my Book Depository delivery a few weeks back, I recently had to wait 11 days from dispatch to delivery of an item from Amazon. So I pre-ordered the new Rush blu-ray and decided to pay extra for 1st class post (because obviously I have to have it NOW ) - it was sent out on Saturday with an expected delivery of yesterday, and it hasn't arrived yet I was all excited about watching it tonight as well

Brilliant show. Loved John Hannah in it.

Just make sure you don't buy this by mistake! Best Served Cold