Karsa Orlong

There's a spider somewhere in this room - a big fat one. I saw it last night, crawling across the ceiling (why do they always go places I can't reach??) and then it went behind the shelves I have my dvds on. So I climbed on a chair to reach the top shelf and started moving dvds to try and find it, and it had disappeared! This room is no longer mine, it is now called Shelob's Lair It would be typical if it has crawled inside the Return of the King dvd box

You heard it here first

Ooh, good call, they are fantastic books!

GO SABINE!!!!!!!!!

Bye bye Laura Uh oh - Sabine made Williams angry

Sabine or Laura, Laura or Sabine - who to watch? Yes, I am supposed to be working

It's not that important to the overall story, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, but there are artists' interpretations around, such as this one ETA: And yes, the start does take a bit to get your head around the concepts (I said exactly the same as you when I reviewed it a couple of years ago)

The ones I've read so far have been great fun! Fortunately, a friend of mine has them all and is lending them to me

To quote from Wikipedia: "As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction. By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Terry Carr and Damon Knight were using sci-fi to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction, and around 1978, Susan Wood and others introduced the pronunciation "skiffy". Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers". David Langford's monthly fanzine Ansible includes a regular section "As Others See Us" which offers numerous examples of "sci-fi" being used in a pejorative sense by people outside the genre."

Season 1 and 2 are great! Season 3 . . . not so much I'm very envious of you getting to see episodes such as The City on the Edge of Forever, The Devil in the Dark, Space Seed, Mirror Mirror et al for the first time

Nah, I was only joking - I don't take it that seriously although - as VF knows - the term 'sci-fi' is one that feels, to me, quite dismissive of the genre as a whole, like "oh it's just sci-fi". Harlan Ellison gets a lot more annoyed about this than I do

You'll need a lot of books to fill that time, given how long it's likely to take him to finish The Winds of Winter Do you mean that you'd like to read historical fiction as well as fantasy? My favourites are Erikson and Abercrombie, but I'm not sure they'll contain enough kings/queens/courtly goings on for your liking so, in addition to those already mentioned, I'll throw in: Guy Gavriel Kay's historical fantasy novels meet your criteria in a lot of ways, although they're largely based on European history - have a look at 'A Song for Arbonne', 'Tigana', or the two-part 'Sarantine Mosaic' Robin Hobb's 'Farseer' trilogy and Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' trilogy (not among my favourites but, again, they seem to meet your criteria) Alternatively, you might get some ideas from: http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/ http://bestfantasybooks.com/best-fantasy-series.php

I'm currently 26% of the way through Neal Asher's The Technician

Too bloody right!

<<moves it further down list>> Nah, priority at the moment is getting the TBR list down, so it will be the last one from the plan that I read, I expect

Crikey, I hope you like them!

Yeah, my patience wore pretty thin with that one. Thankfully it was pretty short Haven't quite decided what to read from the plan next. It's looking like Neal Asher's The Technician at the moment <<ponders>>

Yes, I do - it was a Christmas present last year

Book #36: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne From Amazon: Written almost a century before the daring flights of the astronauts, Jules Verne’s prophetic novel of man’s race to the stars is a classic adventure tale enlivened by broad satire and scientific acumen. When the members of the elite Baltimore Gun Club find themselves lacking any urgent assignments at the close of the Civil War, their president, Impey Barbicane, proposes that they build a gun big enough to launch a rocket to the moon. A story of rip-roaring action, humor, and wild imagination, From the Earth to the Moon is as uncanny in its accuracy and as filled with authentic detail and startling immediacy as Verne’s timeless masterpieces 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days. Thoughts: I guess, with a book written so long ago (1865), you have to get into the right frame of mind and admire it for the vision it had at the time, and I continue to have a problem doing so when reading Verne. I found that his omniscient writing style in this story left me at a distance from the characters and their actions. His way of talking directly to the reader, rather than getting inside the characters' heads, is something I always find uninvolving, no matter who the author is. Also, this story is so absorbed with facts and figures and explaining the methods used to achieve the ends, that it becomes more like reading a textbook rather than a novel. It's all very interesting, for sure, but I've read a fair amount of hard SF and have found none of it as dry and remote as this. As such, Barbicane never really came alive for me - he's just a hook on which to hang the detail. I found it impossible to get a handle on him as a character and his secretary Maston, whilst more likeable, seems nothing more than an hyper-active child on a sugar rush. It wasn't until two thirds of the way through the book that, finally, a decent character entered the fray and I did, at that point, start to find the whole enterprise more likeable. It occurs to me that I also found Wells's The First Men in the Moon disappointing as well, so the fault is probably with me. Perhaps, because I have been so interested in the Apollo era since I was a kid, I find it harder to switch off and go along with the outlandish descriptions of a satellite we now know so much more about. Generally, though, I much prefer Wells's approach of character, action and adventure over sterile numbers and facts. I greatly admire Verne's vision, but not so much the execution. I think that, at the end of the day, perhaps Verne just isn't for me. This book is followed by a sequel, Around the Moon, which I will read sooner or later. 3/10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7_xeGuLd48

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-fmg23UXk

It doesn't really matter as they are stand alone stories. Consider Phlebas is okay, but it's fairly ordinary in comparison to The Player of Games, imo

First Henman Hill, then Murray Mound, now Robson Green