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| May 19, 2024
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 05-19-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]![]() Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(not sure if he's even wearing pants--it's from the recent Met Gala.) So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning? PIC NOTE This is another AI-generated photo from Adobe's collection of images. Although it's not perfect, I do like the composition of the image, as it shows a neat library that has an amazing view of the surrounding countryside. Now, if only there were some comfy chairs and cozy kitties in this image... RAY BRADBURY'S RULES FOR WRITERS A few weeks ago I posted Ernest Hemingway's advice to new writers. Here are some tips and tricks from another author (who may be cancelled soon...for *reasons*)
![]() SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER! NOTE: Through a strange moment of serendipity, Alice Cooper's "School's Out" was playing on my iTunes as I posted today's Sunday Morning Book Thread. Welp. School is officially over at the campus where I work. All of the commencement ceremonies are over, all the grades are turned in, and the students and faculty have both disappeared for the summer. That means it's time to celebrate by reading light, fluffy, trashy material for the next couple of months. Oh, who am I kidding? That's pretty much all I read these days. Nevertheless, I've read most of what I want to read on my "bucket" list and can now switch over to mindless entertainment. What I'm reading today- Starwars 100 objects. I would never presume to judge anyone for their reading habits. Here's what I have on tap for this summer:
As you can see, NONE OF THAT would be considered "highbrow" literature in any sense of the word. But for me, it's just good, clean fun. Seriously. Barely any sex or cursing or vulgarity whatsoever. Lots of violence, though... MORON RECOMMENDATIONS I got a book this week which I think I first heard about on this thread some months ago: Well, Doc, You're In! -- a collection of biographical essays about Freeman Dyson, edited by Daniel Kaiser and published by MIT. It's basically a biography of Dyson, but the different stages of his life are covered by different writers, many of whom knew him at the time. Fascinating guy, so the book's quite interesting. Comment: Freeman Dyson came up with a lot of interesting ideas, but perhaps his most famous is the "Dyson Sphere." Although Dyson didn't invent the concept, he did explore the ramifications of what such an object might do for a civilization. A Dyson sphere, in its simplest form, is a sphere that completely encloses a star, thus capturing 100% of the energy output of that star. It's been used in numerous science fiction stories, most famously in Larry Niven's Ringworld series, which uses a ring-variant of the Dyson sphere. Star Trek: The Next Generation used the complete Dyson sphere variant in one episode--where the crew of Enterprise-D also encounters the original Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott locked in stasis in a transporter buffer. Illegal Aliens by Nick Pollota and Phil Foglio has a story of a galactic civilization that finds a series of nested Dyson spheres, one within the other. The alien archeologists exploring the spheres give up trying to find the architects of the sphere, who are thought to be buried deep inside. Their reasoning is that they galaxy is full of enough amateur loonies. No one desired to meet professionals. Currently reading All of Our Sins by Yuval Kordov, the creator of the world of Dark Legacies, a post-post-apocalyptic sci-fi/dark fantasy world. It's the second book in the series, following The Hand of God. Comment: Sounds intriguing. I may have to check this out. Would God punish the remnants of humanity if we outright rejected the gift of life and tried to destroy ourselves? It's not so farfetched as one might think, as we have people right now on planet Earth that believe the Earth should be wiped clean of humanity, believing us to be a "disease" or "contamination." They seem hellbent on complete and total eradication of the human race. Yet, they never seem to be the ones to "lead the way" by offing themselves first. Instead, they want to be the last generation alive to die out naturally and turn out the lights. I've started reading- Comment: I've heard of this book (ok, movie), but have never read it myself. It has been adapted for the large and small screen more than once. According to the synopsis of the story I read, it's never made clear what caused the blindness or the carnivorous plants. At one point, the Triffids are being farmed because they produce useful resources, but then the blindness event happens and the plants get loose. Also, surviving a planetwide apocalypse is HARD. Most people will die in a matter of months as all preserved food resources run out. Setting up a farm from scratch take A LOT of work and know-how, even for the simplest tasks. More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!) WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK: After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary. ![]() The Crimson Shadow Book 1 - The Sword of Bedwyr by R. A. Salvatore This is one of Salvatore's earlier works, coming out in 1995, approximately the same time he was working on his Legend of Drizzt stories. It's about a young warrior who teams up with a colorful halfling rogue to become an outlaw duo, stealing what they like and leaving a mysterious calling card behind them--the Crimson Shadow. Luthien quickly gets bored with all the thievery and decides to find a purpose in life. So now he is attempting to rally the people to rise up against the oppressive regime of King Greensparrow. This story features Salvatore's trademark action sequences that are entertaining to read, but really strain one's credibility to believe that they are plausible. Kind of like a modern day action movie. The characters are a bit flat. Luthien is a warrior but has little personality. Oliver had personality, but it's almost too over-the-top. He reminds me of the dwarven highwayman Casanunda from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, but isn't quite as outrageously funny. ![]() What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz I've been reading a lot of fantasy and science fiction lately, so I decided to a take a break and try some horror/suspense. I picked up this Dean Koontz book at a book sale recently and thought I'd give it a go. Turns out it's pretty good. I can see why Dean Koontz has sold a billion books (or however many). At its core, it's a ghost story--a tale about a vengeful evil spirit seeking to destroy all that is good in the world. He stalks the man who killed his first mortal incarnation, who is now all grown up with a family of his own. It's a genuinely creepy story, though, as we get to see how the killer's spirit perceives the world--people are just playthings to him, to be used and disposed of as he sees fit. The protagonist, by contrast, is a genuinely good police detective who loves his family and will do anything to protect them. John knows something supernatural is haunting his family and he even knows the true identity of the killer, but he struggles to accept the idea of ghosts and spirits intruding on his materialistic worldview of evil. The only other one of Koontz' novels I've read so far was Odd Thomas which was OK, but I think What the Night Knows is a better story overall. I will probably be reading more Dean Koontz in the future. Fortunately, the library in which I work (but do not work for) has numerous Dean Koontz novels available for checkout. ![]() Micro by Michael Crichton and Richard Preston This is the last book Michael Crichton was working on before he passed away in 2008. He didn't finish it, so Richard Preston (author of a great nonfiction book, The Hot Zone) was brought into complete the story. I think most of it is Crichton's work, though. The first 100 pages or so reads like it might have come from Jurassic Park in the setup of the main story. A group of graduate students in diverse fields are brought together by a mysterious wealthy benefactor who needs their services to solve certain problems on a top-secret project that will revolutionize science. Then the mid-plot twist occurs, which is pretty obvious when it happens, but also catches you a bit off-guard as it's happening. I won't spoil the details. What I find particularly entertaining is Crichton's attitude towards the environmental do-gooder movement. In his unfinished introduction, he says that today's modern environmental activists have no real clue how complex systems work or how nature functions out in the wild. They are force-fed a very specific viewpoint while in school. He also doesn't have any respect for useless degrees in college. The one graduate student who is "writing a thesis on scientific linguistic codes and paradigm transformation" is scorned by the other characters as a useless waste of oxygen and he does little to help out the team as they get bogged down in the main conflict. Overall, pretty good story, if predictable at times. Like Koontz, I will probably read more Michael Crichton in the future (have at least two others lined up in my TBR pile.) PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 05-12-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!) ![]() Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. The squirrel on this page may be larger than he appears. | Recent Comments
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Hobby Thread - Sept 7, 2024 [TRex]
Ace of Spades Pet Thread, September 7 Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Sept. 7 The "rules-based international order" vs. free speech? The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival Daily Tech News 7 September 2024 The Bric, The Brac, The Craic & All, Lets Call It An ONT TGIF Cafe The Week In Woke Dick Cheney Is Voting for Kamala Harris Search
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