Karsa Orlong
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Posts posted by Karsa Orlong
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I read enough of it to agree with that statement, Steve. It honestly didn't strike me as hard sci-fi in any case.
I didn't realise I'd classed it as hard SF
Everyone is affected differently, by different things. IOW, everyone has their own "buttons".
Do you mean the original, or the remake of The Thing? I liked both, although the second one was overboard I thought.
I'd watch the first one again, but not the second.
Side note: James Arness of Gunsmoke fame played the creature in the original.
Yeah, I've seen and enjoyed both, but the John Carpenter remake is a classic of the genre, imo, one of my favourite movies, seen it countless times, love it
I think science fiction as a whole is a funny creature. There are so many types of it that I don't think a person can say with finality that they do or don't like it.
I tend to like what I call "hard" science fiction. The Martian is a good example of that, and I consider most of Star Trek to be good examples of it as well. I loved both.
I tend not to care for "fantasy" science fiction, one that creates whole new worlds with names and creatures that certainly never came from Earth. Now, while Star Trek did contain many of these fantastic worlds, they were not the basis for the show. For me, it was the reaching out of the human race and the brotherhood of man that was the core of Star Trek.
Then there is apocalyptic and dystopian....and that can be science fiction, or not. I usually enjoy that as well.
Interesting, I've never considered Star Trek to be hard SF. You're right about the sub-genres, though - there are so many now, as with fantasy, too. I don't have a preference as far as SF is concerned - if a book's good I don't mind where it fits in - but there's all sorts of fantasy I shy away from. I think my previous preference for fantasy has disappeared completely over the last couple of years
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I actually have Electric Sheep on my tablet, I must get around to giving it a go!
I really enjoyed that one. Please don't expect it to be Blade Runner in book form, though
Noll, I've read I Am Legend, didn't much care for it. Just ok, IMO.
Heathen
If it's the Will Smith film you mean, it's the worst book to screen adaptation I've seen
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I might read I Am Legend.. I've seen the film and liked it, but I've read another Matheson (What Dreams May Come) and thought it was pretty awful - more like a thesis, going by the extensive bibliography!
Oh dear
I haven't read that one, and I don't think I will now! 
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Blimey. I'm getting quite good at spending other people's money
I hope you both like it -
We didn't stand on the pitch because I had a horrible experience at a Status Quo concert where I was right at the front of the stage and I had a panic attack because of all the pushing and I had to be lifted over the barrier.
Since then I haven't liked to stand at gigs. We had fantastic seats though - we were on the second tier of seating in the front row very close to the stage, so we had nobody in front of us.That's what I tend to do these days, too, cos I don't like being squashed, and I'm short. I make an exception for Rush, but that's all. When I saw them in Amsterdam a couple of years ago I was on the barrier in front of Alex and when Geddy came and stood in front of us the person behind me nearly knocked my head off
Oh, tell a lie, I was at the front for Threshold, too, but that was a small gig and generally an older audience, so it was fine
Did you go and see Quo with the original line-up last year? That was fun!
I didn't realise Rush were going to stop touring. Shame you'll have *only* seen them 28 times!
A friend of ours has seen Quo over 120 times. They wave to him from the stage now! 120 times??
Mind you, they tour every year at least twice, don't they Yeah, it looks like Rush are calling it a day. They're getting on a bit now - Neil suffers with tendonitis and Alex has arthritis in his fingers (not good for a guitarist!), so playing a three hour show every other night starts to be a bit impractical
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Is the breach kinda horror/monster-y too, or pure sci-fi? The synopsis on Goodreads makes it sound like it could go either way!
It's a thriller with an SF idea at its core, no monsters. Basically, it's about an artefact that's come through a doorway to another dimension that a bunch of scientists have opened in an Area 51-type facility deep beneath some place in Wyoming. It's completely bonkers but so much fun (well, I thought it was anyway!
). It's the first in a trilogy, if that makes any difference. Runner is the first in a series but it can be read on its own. No monsters in that one, either (just the human kind). -
`Funsies` sounds so much better than `reading for entertainment`.
Do you have a funzee onesie to complete the image?
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And I enjoyed the seven Harry Potter books when I read them. It's not so much about critical assessment or personal development as it is about respecting others differing opinions to the point of trying to understand why do they have a different opinion.
You do realise I was joking in my post up-thread, don't you? I thought I put enough smileys to make it clear . . .
Replay sounds really interesting, I definitely love the concept anyway!
It's full of surprises, too
Hee, I just recommended Patrick Lee to someone on another forum - I'm going to get someone else to read his books if it's the last thing I do 
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I've started reading Blake Crouch's Wayward Pines trilogy. I'm most of the way through the first book as of this morning, and plan to start watching the tv show too. Loving the book so far, even if I do take issue with a couple of small events.
Ooh, that's interesting - I've done it the opposite way around - I'm watching the tv show and considering reading the books
Oh dear, that doesn't sound good. I think Karsa also said that he struggled with this one a bit, and that the interaction between the two main characters was more forced.
I shall still read it, but only when it's cheaper. Yeah, I did find the humour a bit forced in that one, and I was starting to find the constant putting-down of March a bit irritating. I did think it improved quite a bit in the final stages, though
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Hey Steve - haha no worries, I hate when people dig at my favourite books too so I'll say nothing! Well... I'll say things in here coz it's a book blog, but I won't come knocking on the door in your thread going HEY YOU
I'll check out those titles, though I probably won't read the doorstop ones simply because I'm not really in the mood for big books this year.
Thanks for the recommendations
No probs
In all cases I'd highly recommend trying the samples on Amazon first. I think/hope you might like Barrayar and/or Replay, though -
^^ I wasn't so keen on the trilogy, but I loved the stand-alone novels set in the same world (Best Served Cold, The Heroes, Red Country) and his in-progress 'Shattered Sea' trilogy is fab, so I must re-read those first three at some point and see how/if my opinion of them has changed
I'm currently 100 pages into The Hunt by Tim Lebbon
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Hi Noll, re your request for SF suggestions, I'm a bit worried about giving any after Heorot
These are a little off the beaten path and I've no idea if they would change anyone's mind about the genre, but they are some of my most cherished reads - so you're not allowed to say if you don't like them A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge - Review here.
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge - Review here.
^^ Both of these books are 700 - 800 pages long, so tough to recommend if you're uncertain, but they are my all-time faves, so . . .
There's an omnibus edition on Kindle if ever you're interested.Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold - review here. It's a sequel so you might want to take a look at the previous book, Shards of Honor, it's just nowhere near as good. These both lead in to the 'Vorkosigan Saga'.
The Breach or Runner by Patrick Lee Reviews here and here.
Replay by Ken Grimwood. Review here.
There's also I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, which I read before joining here so have not reviews, but they are both fabulous.
Hope this helps. If not, I'll . . . I'll . . . hide
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I started reading The Hunt this morning
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Congrats USA!
I couldn't stay up to watch it unfortunately, but I saw it was 2-0 after about five minutes, and I saw the goal from the halfway line on the news this morning -
They did!
Oh my goodness, I can't get over how good they were. I was slightly concerned they might not live up to expectation, but if anything they exceeded it. Corny as it sounds, last night's gig will stay with me forever. 
Hee, knew they'd finish with those - it's tradition!
Did you manage to get anywhere near the stage, or were you at the side? Have a great time at Rush.
(I know you will).I really, really hope so, cos it's looking increasingly likely that these two shows will be the final time I get to see them - the show in LA on 1st August looks like being their last
So I'll never make it to seeing them 30 times, I'll be stuck on 28 forever -
Haha - I've decided that Paul Kaye enjoys playing the same mad magic priest/prophet over and over......
Apart from when he was Vince in Mongrels . . .
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Also sorry Pontalba for taking over your thread!
Ha, that's what I was thinking!
I'll have a think and post a couple over in your thread, Noll -
Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds
2015 - Tachyon Publishing paperback - 192 pages
From the author of the Revelation Space series comes an interstellar adventure of war, identity, betrayal, and the preservation of civilization itself.
A vast conflict, one that has encompassed hundreds of worlds and solar systems, appears to be finally at an end. A conscripted soldier is beginning to consider her life after the war and the family she has left behind. But for Scur—and for humanity—peace is not to be.
On the brink of the ceasefire, Scur is captured by a renegade war criminal, and left for dead in the ruins of a bunker. She revives aboard a prisoner transport vessel. Something has gone terribly wrong with the ship.
Passengers—combatants from both sides of the war—are waking up from hibernation far too soon. Their memories, embedded in bullets, are the only links to a world which is no longer recognizable. And Scur will be reacquainted with her old enemy, but with much higher stakes than just her own life.Alastair Reynolds' latest novella is a briskly paced tale of betrayal and revenge, full of the twists and shocks for which he is renowned. Surprisingly, though, it's not as full of his big ideas as usual. The slow bullets of the title are data capsules stored within soldiers' bodies, detailing their military record and personal details. These play several different roles within the story, from being a method of torture and death, to a person's only link to their past when the systems around them start to fail, to their last great hope of somehow saving some of the data from those failing systems.
To Scur, the first-person narrator of the story, they are all of these things. When the story begins she is captured by an enemy and shot with a second slow bullet programmed to give her a lingering, painful death. The arrival of the Peacekeepers make the enemy flee but, as Scur tries to cut the bullet out of herself, she loses consciousness. When she wakes up she is on a strange ship in a strange system with hundreds of other people who find themselves in the same predicament. Unravelling the mystery of how and why she has come to be there, and how she and her shipmates are to survive, is what makes up the bulk of the story.
It's an enjoyable read but not Reynolds at his best. For all the complexities of the science and the plotlines, I always find Reynolds's style very engaging and easy to read, and that's still the case here. The characters here are okay without being particularly outstanding. Perhaps the only real disappointment for me was the mention of an alien race - the Sickening - who have caused various spoilery things to happen and then disappeared. They are never really revealed or explored in any depth, merely a plot device to move the story in a certain direction. I wanted to know more about them but sadly that was not to be.
However, the ending was a pleasing surprise, and Scur's final words were, I felt, poetic and memorable.
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Crikey, I didn't even know they were playing
Good to hear you had a great time, Janet, especially after waiting so long for the chance 
I saw them there a few years ago and they were great! Did they finish with Whole Lotta Rosie, Let There Be Rock, Highway to Hell and For Those About to Rock? My countdown is well and truly on, now. Only ten days till Rush in Calgary . . .
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I didn't think you'd enjoy it much, Noll
As far as SF is concerned, I wouldn't have pointed to it as a book to change somebody's mind about the genre -
Yay! Come on England!!
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I guess it depends on whether or not you're sensitive to the kind of things Ponts is. Have you seen movies like Aliens or The Thing? If so, did you like them? If you did, then it's a fair bet you'd like the book. If not . . .
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Oh dear. Sorry to hear that. I don't remember any of that in any detail, but I guess I'm more used to it from movies like The Thing and such
Your Book Activity - July 2015
in Past Book Logs
Posted
I'm about 200 pages through The Hunt now.