Reply to: CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "A Hole in Space" by L. Niven.

Done: off to Oxfam with.

Next: "Flatlander" by L. Niven, being a concatenation of "The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton" and "The Patchwork Girl" with the short story "The woman in Del Ray crater" thrown in to sweeten it a bit: 3 tomes to meet Oxfam all in one go.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Convergent Series" by L. Niven. .

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "N-Space" by L. Niven. More Known Space stories.

Well "more" depends on how you define it: many of them are in the earlier books so can be skipped. "Passerby", the story of the Golden Man walking between the stars is a bit different. Took me ages to remember whence it came a few years ago, confused because there's a PKD "The Golden Man" short story too. .

Chunks of "The world of Ptavvs", "Mote in God's Eye", "Ring World", "A gift from earth", and "Protector" are added in to no great advantage other than making the book fatter, plus an unreadable set of essays, and some tedious stuff from other writers praising Niven. Could have saved a good 150 pages by leaving that dross out.

[WTFH]

Holiday reading was "Into the Hide", the autobiography of Gordon Buchanan.
A very enjoyable read.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Limits" by L. Niven. More short stories, some fantasy, some SF. The Draco Tavern ones are good: in particular "The Green Marauder"* where a billion year old alien remembers the Terran civilisation before the green scum poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen killing the natives.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "A Hole in Space" by L. Niven.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Tales of Known Space" by L. Niven.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Convergent Series" by L. Niven. There's more Draco Tavern tales in this one. No billion year old s though (the billion year old had spent much of the time near light speed so wasn't as old as all that, merely 10 million or so). Though there is one who's trying to live forever, but he's a mere 10k old.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Inconstant Moon" by L. Niven, this being the paperback version which omits half the stories in the hardback.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Tales of Known Space" by L. Niven.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Chocolate Wars" by Deborah Cadbury or how Kraft bought Cadbury and shut factories left right & centre. Fecking septics.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Inconstant Moon" by L. Niven, this being the paperback version which omits half the stories in the hardback.

[DoctorStrangelove]

I've got a lot of books I've read and kept for nostalgic reasons

This way madness lies: for some reason I've been looking at abandoned houses on FB and seeing so many mouldering books is upsetting.

Plus there're far too many books (and dvds) in here, not to mention all the obsolete electronic crap.

Anyone want two Racal RA17 receivers and a Murphy B40?

No?

Thought not.

Can't even get someone to take the 55kg of circuit diagrams & manuals. Ho hum.

[ladymuck]

I've got a lot of books I've read and kept for nostalgic reasons but I'm thinking maybe I should reread and then donate them. However there's stories like Clive Barker's Weaveworld and Raymond E Feist's Magician that I'm not sure I could part with.

I'm also having a hankering for a big Terry Pratchett reread but there's a lot of them, and I donated my collection many years ago, so maybe I'd be better off getting them as ebooks.

[Stevep42]

I’m reading The Night Circus at the moment, and I’m really enjoying it. The way Morgenstern describes the circus and the characters is so vivid that I find myself lingering on the pages, even when I only meant to read a little before bed. It’s one of those books that’s hard to put down once you get into it, but I like that, it’s a nice escape after a long day.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Neutron Star" by L. Niven.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Bye bye Beowulf Shaeffer. It's a looooong time since first we met. .

Next: "Limits" by L. Niven. More short stories, some fantasy, some SF. The Draco Tavern ones are good: in particular "The Green Marauder"* where a billion year old alien remembers the Terran civilisation before the green scum poisoned the atmosphere with oxygen killing the natives.


*This, of course, is the one I remember: the rest had vanished from memory as if they had never been. Remarkably like The Postman from Hiroshima who featured, as it transpired, in an Alfred Bester short story.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge" by H. Harrison (1970).

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Stainless Steel Rat wants you" by H. Harrison (1978).

Stalled.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Bicentennial Man" by I. Asimov. As it transpires, a fair few of these stories appeared in "The Complete Robot" and thusly may be skipped as being too familiar to bother with again*.

*Aside from that I probably have to look up which ones appeared where & when & any back references cause the positronic pathways to fuse a bit.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Not a stunningly inneresting collection it must be said. "Waterclap" was a bit prescient.

Next: "Neutron Star" by L. Niven.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Complete (or Compleat) Robot" by I. Asimov.

As it transpires a fair few of these stories appeared in "Nightfall I&II" so can be skipped as being much too familiar to bother with again.

The Susan Calvin stories seem to have stuck for the moment.

Interested to see a mention of her in "Robbie" which was written in 1940.

Then again "Liar" was written in 1941.

Done: off to Oxfam with it!

Next: "The Bicentennial Man" by I. Asimov. As it transpires, a fair few of these stories appeared in "The Complete Robot" and thusly may be skipped as being too familiar to bother with again*.

*Aside from that I probably have to look up which ones appeared where & when & any back references cause the positronic pathways to fuse a bit.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Stainless Steel Rat" by Harry Harrison (1961).

The birth of the .75 recoilless. .

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge" by H. Harrison (1970).