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Karsa Orlong

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Everything posted by Karsa Orlong

  1. Sooo you've got so much to watch but you'd rather watch 75 episodes of something you've already seen, rather than 10 episodes of something new? That makes a lot of sense
  2. Whatever you do, don't watch Westworld on your phone It deserves to be watched on the biggest screen possible I watched the first episode of Conviction. Saying 'it's better than you'd think' is correct, because I thought it would be 'absolute shite' . . . and it's only 'shite' Re The Expanse - why don't you cheat? Take the Netflix free 30 day trial, watch The Expanse (and Stranger Things!), and then cancel before the end of the trial I think so, yeah ETA: Forgot to mention I've been watching Planet Earth II. Marvellous.
  3. Completely agree. I'm actually quite sad that he's gone. So he wasn't very good, but he threw himself into it and really tried hard, and he was very entertaining. The show will seem quite empty without him, I think. Must admit I feel the opposite on this - it seems to be more formulaic now than ever, with the same features on the same day every week. It's being completely ruined for me by that dreadful Karen Hardy to the point where I have to record it and fast forward through her bits. Thankfully, now there are less contestants, she won't be on twice a week but, God, when she was it was awful.
  4. *waves* I keep meaning to get back to that! I've only read the first one, and found it quite disturbing.
  5. Looks like his good taste doesn't stretch to tv Wise decision! And that truly is the worst of them. I only watch it cos Dominic Purcell makes me laugh, and even his one-liners are wearing a bit thin now Yeah, totally. And there's more to come on Netflix. They really are overdoing it. All I want is season 3 of Daredevil. Thank goodness for Westworld and The Expanse
  6. Aw, I loved season 2, but yeah it was kind of jarring to have all those new characters at first. In the end I thought that was part of what made The Wire so special - each season is very different (okay, season 1 and season 3 are kind of similar) and focuses on a different aspect of life in the city: the criminals, the cops, the docks, the schools, the politics, the media. I just finished watching the first season of The Expanse (based on the James S A Corey novels) on Netflix. Loved it - a really slow-burner but easily the best space-based science fiction series since Battlestar Galactica. Up there alongside Stranger Things and Daredevil as my favourite show this year. Can't wait for season 2! I'm also watching Westworld, which is great, and the usual DC stuff - The Flash, Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, which is my favourite of the bunch at the moment (because it's light and fluffy and fun where everything else seems to be dark and miserable). I'm probably going to dump Legends of Tomorrow soon (cos it's utter pants, frankly), and possibly Arrow (cos the whole Dark/Felicity/nuclear missile thing was beyond stupid, even for Arrow). I stalled halfway through Luke Cage but I may get back to that soon.
  7. Must be weird for Ed, having people actually voting for him Well, I was backing Greg cos a) I like him and b) it's high time Nat won the thing. I thought Claudia's jive was dreadful, so kind of bemused by the judges comments. But hey ho. I like Danny but I find Oti incredibly irritating. So no. Ore gets on my nerves. So no. So I guess I'm now backing Louise by default, but I can't see her winning it. I miss Daisy. She officially has the sexiest voice on the planet
  8. Hey pops So the words that are leaping out at me there are 'adventure', 'series', 'space travel', 'different planets', and 'spaceships', which all make it a lot more specific. Has he read science fiction before, or would this be his first? Anyway, the book that got me hooked on SF when I was a teenager was Frank Herbert's Dune. I've read it four times now. It's got all those elements you mention, but it's really all about the first book, and I wouldn't particularly recommend reading beyond the initial trilogy. For something more recent there's James S. A. Corey's 'The Expanse' series, starting with Leviathan Wakes. It's kind of a retro space opera set totally in our own solar system where man has moved out to the other planets, and the subsequent war that develops (for spoilery reasons) between Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt. What I like about it is that it's focused on the characters rather than the science, and it's fun in that way. There's a tv series based on it now, too, which can be found on Netflix. It's got all the elements you mention although - weirdly, for a series called 'The Expanse' - containing it in our own solar system makes it less, ahem, expansive than others. Others with all those elements that might be worth having a look at: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge (two of my all-time faves, lost of action and weird aliens and mind-blowing ideas) House of Suns and Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (Chasm City is part of his 'Revelation Space' series and a good starting point) The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton (first in his 'Night's Dawn' trilogy) Anything by Neal Asher set in his Polity Universe (if he wants lots of action) And, of course, Iain M. Banks. There's all his 'Culture' novels, which are all stand-alones set in the same universe, but I'd also recommend some of his other SF novels, like The Algebraist.
  9. Watched the new version of The Jungle Book which I thought was surprisingly splendid (especially Idris Elba's Shere Khan, although I really didn't like what they did with King Louie). It's probably going to take a long time for me to get Scarlett Johansson singing 'Trust In Me' out of my head Finally got around to watching Interstellar. Bits of it I liked, bits of it were dreadful, and I spent most of the movie trying to decipher what Matthew McConaughey was saying
  10. I'd also highly recommend Tom Holland's Rubicon (the Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic) and, by the same author, Persian Fire, about the Greco-Persian Wars. If you're at all interested in the Tudors I really enjoyed Winter King by Thomas Penn, about Henry VII. If you're interested in the Napoleonic Wars there's Stephen Taylor's Commander and Storm & Conquest, plus John Sugden's massive (and I mean MASSIVE) two-part biography of Nelson, A Dream of Glory and The Sword of Albion, or Tim Clayton's Waterloo. For more recent times I really liked Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers (which was turned into the tv series) and A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin, which is about the Apollo missions, of course.
  11. That about sums it up I finished season 1 of Bosch. Pretty good. Now on season 4 of Ray Donovan, and playing catch-up with Episodes (started with season 4 and currently on season 2 ).
  12. Ha, I bought it anyway, even though I have no inclination to read it after the last one was such a let down I also got: The North Water by Ian McGuire - 99p The Charlie Parker Collection 1-4: Every Dead Thing, Dark Hollow, The Killing Kind, The White Road by John Connolly - £1.49 The Charlie Parker Collection 5-8: The Black Angel, The Unquiet, The Reapers, The Lovers by John Connolly - £1.49
  13. Thanks all No, I just got the first one on Kindle Yes, it has - it's like a weight off my shoulders, and I've just been reading when I feel like it, rather than trying to reach any goals Hasn't stopped me buying books, mind you, especially with the Kindle sales To wit, I've now started on John Connolly's Every Dead Thing
  14. Over the past few years, especially since joining this site and reading a lot more, I hadn't been playing as many games as I used to but, since XCOM 2 earlier in the year I've become addicted again, first to that, then to various others such as Stellaris, Crusader Kings II, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Invisible Inc, Galactic Civilizations III. I'm currently addicted to Amplitude's 'Endless' series, which stands at three games so far: Endless Space, Dungeon of the Endless, and Endless Legend. All three are brilliant games.
  15. I enjoyed Supergirl, it's light and fluffy. With so many other series trying to be dark and gritty I found it kind of refreshing Just recently I've been making my way through the first season of Bosch, which is pretty good. Anyone else watched Stranger Things? I've watched it over the past few days and it's proved to be a rather wonderful and unexpected delight. It's essentially a love letter to the science fiction/supernatural/horror movies of the 80s, complete with a gang of kids (like ET or The Goonies), mysterious government agencies, other things I won't spoil, and it's just about spot on. Think Steven Spielberg meets Stephen King via The X-Files and you get the idea
  16. Hello all, I'm fine, thank you for asking I've completely got out of the habit of keeping lists and writing reviews, so I have no idea how many books I've read this year, or even exactly what they were! Mainly ongoing series, so . . . Sharpe series - Bernard Cornwell (currently reading book 4, Sharpe's Trafalgar). Hornblower - C S Forester (currently up to book 3, Hornblower and the Hotspur) Foreigner series - C J Cherryh (currently up to book 7, Destroyer) Also made a start on Michael Connelly's Bosch series (just the first book so far) and Christian Cameron's Long War series (again, just the first book so far). and a few non-fiction books: Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic - by Tom Holland Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West - by Tom Holland Waterloo - by Tim Clayton I'm sure there are others, but I can't remember what they were
  17. Thanks I'd point him straight at Vernor Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep or A Deepness in the Sky) or Peter Watts (Blindsight). Job done Yeah! My reading has slowed down considerably in the past few months and I think it's a series I may have struggled with if I was intent on reading faster, but I'm taking my time over it and enjoying it all the more for it No, I haven't Janet. I think willoyd might have, though, if you wanted an opinion on it Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's punishable by death
  18. http://www.tor.com/2016/02/03/the-flash-supergirl-crossover-the-cw-cbs/
  19. A few brief reviews of books I've read in January: Invader (Foreigner Book #2) by C J Cherryh Brief recap: this science fiction series is about the descendants of a ship that got lost in space. Some of the crew settled on a planet, the rest went looking for a way home. Jump forward 200 years and humans and the indigenous species, the atevi, have been through a war and are now living in an uneasy peace. Bren Cameron is the sole human allowed onto the atevi mainland, where he serves as a translator. At the end of the first book something happened which blew the story wide open, so I was looking forward to getting back to it. Having made two attempts to read the first, I found this second book a much smoother, hugely enjoyable read. The pacing is sedate but the characterisation is outstanding. Seeing the atevi world through Bren's eyes alone means you share his fears and confusion completely. Brilliant book. Winterfair Gifts (Vorkosigan Saga Book #15) by Lois McMaster Bujold This is a novella and, thankfully, the last story in the Miles in Love omnibus. Weirdly, this one isn't particularly about Miles, but about one of his security guards instead. It was mercifully short. Hopefully now things will get back on track. Tarkin by James Luceno This was the first Star Wars novel I'd read in about 25 years. It probably wasn't a good place to dive back in, but it was £1.50 on Kindle, so . . . Giving background on how Tarkin rose through the Imperial ranks, forged a working relationship with Darth Vader and came to be one of the Emperor's favourites and in charge of the first Death Star. The characterisation is reasonable (I could hear Peter Cushing delivering the dialogue) but there was too much tell and not enough show for my liking. The Aylesford Skull by James P. Blaylock I don't read a lot of Steampunk, but I had my eye on this book a year or two ago because Blaylock was pronounced the 'master' of the genre. The book started out well enough, in its Victorian, almost Holmes-ian style. But then I noticed that there was a strange disconnect going on between what was happening and how his characters were reacting to it. This reached a nadir when the main character's son is kidnapped by his Moriarty-like arch enemy. The boy's mother's solution to this terrible situation? Go for a picnic. If it hadn't been on my Kindle, I would've thrown the book across the room at that point. Inheritor (Foreigner Book #3) by C J Cherryh Two books from the series read in January. I couldn't wait to get back to it. The series is written in sets of trilogies, so this is the final book in the first one. The story's opening out, more characters are coming to the fore, and events are accelerating (in a sedate way!) towards a space race of sorts, whilst factions on both the atevi mainland and the human island of Mospheira engage in subterfuge and assassination to prevent the other side's progress. Cherryh's got a knack of presenting a major revelation towards the end of each book that drives the story into new territory, and she does it again here. Book 4 already purchased. This is fast becoming one of my favourite science fiction series. Currently reading: Lieutenant Hornblower by C S Forester
  20. Yeah, not surprised - it was a bit of a mess. Second episode was much better.
  21. Most recently: The X Files mini series ep 1 Agent Carter 2x01 - yay, brilliant start to season 2 Daredevil 1x07 - enjoying this more and more DC's Legends of Tomorrow 1x01 - not bad The Flash 2x10 - fairly average ep Arrow 4x10 - yawn Star Wars: The Clone Wars 2x21 - great fun Star Wars: Rebels 2x10 Continuum 4x03
  22. Watched the first episode last night. Pretty by-the-numbers in terms of story but I didn't realise I'd missed it so much until the theme music started.
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