Karsa Orlong
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Posts posted by Karsa Orlong
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Just bought a novella, called Adrift on the Sea of Rains, for Kindle. It's by Ian Sales, who posts quite regularly over on SFF Chronicles, and it seems to be quite well received (plus I'm really interested in the Apollo era, so it instantly appealed). It's the first of four novellas called, unsurprisingly, the 'Apollo Quartet'
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I don't know how you take it all in, reading so fast. I don't even think my eyes could move that fast if I tried
Or, at least, my brain wouldn't be able to keep up 
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although Reacher does seem to have developed an almost supernatural ability to out-think his enemies.
Yeah, that's an element that gets really annoying in some of the books, especially in some of the later ones that I've read (although 61 Hours was a real - if brief - return to form, imo)
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Back when they were a proper rock band, none of that 80s hair metal nonsense <<snooty look>>
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Watched the first episode of the new Aaron Sorking show, The Newsroom, last night. 'Twas okay, quite amusing.
Also catching up with Supernatural season 7. Watched ep 14 last night, which was also quite amusing
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I have loads of books on my kindle and yet when deciding what to read next the tree books win.
Same here
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A couple of issues:
1) Your Iain M. Banks books are not in publication order
2) It looks like you have Star Wars prequels on your upper shelves, you'd better see to that before they rot the wood they are standing on.
That would involve touching them
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Right, that's it!
Steve, come and sit at the front, as you clearly cannot be trusted at the back of the classroom.
Yes, miss. Sorry, miss
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New Marillion
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The Police and so on
I reckon Sting's got enough money ... sorry, couldn't resist
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Bloody hell. Thought I might book to see The Dark Knight Rises in a bit of style on Friday, so went over to the Odeon Leicester Square to have a look - they want £22 for a ticket for the circle! And that's for the lunchtime screening
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Is that a Raven I see before me?
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Think this is a great song but it it SO like Pink Floyd, that the first time I heard it, I could have sworn it was them.
Yeah, it is very Floydy - so unlike their other stuff
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Very sad to hear about how Queensryche have imploded, they did some great stuff back in the day.
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I would be carefully because anyone can say there from bank
Exactly!
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Why is it that banks feel they can cold call you, then ask you security questions - the very thing they advise you to avoid
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Flicking through the channels and found Aliens was on, so naturally had to stop and watch it. Again.
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The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
You were quite right, Steve!
This was a great read, the Nesbo book I have enjoyed best so far.Glad you enjoyed it
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Book #48 : Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Blurb:
It's the week before Hallowe'en, and Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois. The siren song of the calliope entices all with promises of youth regained and dreams fulfilled ...
And as two boys trembling on the brink of manhood set out to explore the mysteries of the dark carnival's smoke, mazes and mirrors, they will also discover the true price of innermost wishes ...
Thoughts:
This is a simple tale, wonderfully told. In a lot of ways it felt to me like an ode to childhood, friendship, and also to childhood lost. The two main protagonists, Jim and Will, are 13-year-old boys who both dream of being older. Bradburys' writing borders on the poetic. I don't usually bother typing out quotes, but this time I will, because there were so many passages that I re-read just for the joy in the use of language, and the imagery that it conjured.
Like all boys, they never walked anywhere, but named a goal and lit for it, scissors and elbows. Nobody won. Nobody wanted to win. It was in their friendship they just wanted to run forever, shadow and shadow. Their hands slapped library doors together, their chests broke track tapes together, their tennis shoes beat parallel pony tracks over lawns, trimmed bushes, squirreled trees, no one losing, both winning, thus saving their friendship for other times of loss.Meanwhile, Will's father, Charles, worries that there are less years in front of him than there are behind, and dreams of lost years, and the fact that he has never really connected with his son.
Watching the boys vanish away, Charles Halloway suppressed a sudden urge to run with them, make the pack. He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the places that were never so secret again in life. Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this, so the sadness could not hurt.And then along comes the carnival, and Mr Cooger and Mr Dark, Mr Electrico and the Illustrated Man, and Jim and Will get sucked into a game of cat and mouse after they witness something they really shouldn't have. I'd say it's creepy, rather than scary, and the carousel is probably a not too subtle metaphor that gets rather hammered home, but Bradbury built atmosphere through wordplay rather than more conventional means, and I thought it really worked. If I have one complaint, it is just that I felt he didn't do quite enough with Jim's character, and why he wanted what he wanted. Sure there are hints there, such as when Jim becomes a peeping tom at the window of a young couple, but there doesn't seem to be much more to it.
Apart from that, it's a terrific read.
8/10
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Thanks
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The first time I knowingly heard Rush was in 1980 when The Spirit of Radio (not Spirit of the Radio, come on BBC!
) got in the UK charts and it was on Top of the Pops with Legs & Co dancing to it. Just found it on YouTube. Soooo funny -
Hanna. Quite enjoyed it
Steve's Bookshelf 2012
in Past Book Logs
Posted
... aaaand add to the TBR pile The Breach by Patrick Lee, first in a sf trilogy (the last part of which has now been published), recommended to me by a few peeps over on Malazan Empire. It's also got a recommendation from Lee Child on the cover. What's not to like?
http://www.patrickle....com/breach.php