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

[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).

[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).

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Revolt in 2100" by R. A. Heinlein. I think this is the last of the Future History short stories in my collection since I don't have "Universe".

Done! At long last! Off to Oxfam with it!.

Next: "Methuselah's Children (1958)" by R. A. Heinlein. Let's hope this one progresses more quickly than the last.

[NotAllThere]

Notre Dame de Paris (English translation). I may be some time!

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Doomsday Men" by P. D. Smith, being the story of Szilard, Teller, von Neuman, et al.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

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.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Doomsday Men" by P. D. Smith, being the story of Szilard, Teller, von Neuman, et al.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Included lots about gas warfare in WWI too, with Fritz Haber featuring quite a lot.

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

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Robots of Dawn" by I. Asimov. The third book in the Lije Baley/Daneel Olivaw cannon, and, aside from a short story, the last. £2.50 in 1985 and 477 pages to boot.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. It seemed loooong, being a joining up fixup tale between the Robots, Galactic Empire, and Foundation.

Next: "Robots and Empire" by I. Asimov. This one was 508 pages & £2.95. .

Stalled 100 pages in.

Still stalled.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: Confidence Man by Maggie Haberman. The life story up to 2021ish of the Orange Moron. A curiously easy read compared with some of my earlier tomes. I bought it about 6 weeks ago so it hasn't mouldered.

Done at last: off to Oxfam with it & good riddance: how that Orange Mother****er got elected again is a mystery wrapped in dollar bills from the chief autist. And a kid who came pretty close but not close enough. Ho hum.

Next: "Doomsday Men" by P. D. Smith, being the story of Szilard, Teller, von Neuman, et al.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Elephant to Hollywood" by Maurice Micklewhite.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. What a long career he had, retiring*, finally, in 2023.

Next: "... and a hard rain fell: a GI's true story of the war in Vietnam" by John Ketwig.

This has stalled about 30 pages in. .

*Rumours of him unretiring. .

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Naked Sun" by I. Asimov. Got to get my £9.99 value out of this one. NYPD's Lije Baley on Solaria.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Stalled a bit but I got there in the end.

Next: "The Robots of Dawn" by I. Asimov. The third book in the Lije Baley/Daneel Olivaw cannon, and, aside from a short story, the last. £2.50 in 1985 and 477 pages to boot.

Stone me, that's 40 years ago. Dunno why that should be more alarming than "The Caves of Steel" being 1952. Even odder is the concept of a world population of a mere 8 billion needing caves of steel to live in. But there you go. I suppose that 8 billion seemed a lot in 1952.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hiroshima: the world's bomb" by Andrew J. Rotter. This one was £17, not 80p.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Elephant to Hollywood" by Maurice Micklewhite.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The caves of steel" by I. Asimov. This cost 50p. In or around 1977. The recent purchase of "The Naked Sun", on the other hand, cost £9.99. Only 20x the price.

Done. Off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Naked Sun" by I. Asimov. Got to get my £9.99 value out of this one. NYPD's Lije Baley on Solaria.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hiroshima" by John Hersey: A Penguin Special: price (1958): 2/6d (12.5p), price to me (2nd hand): 80p.

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/wa...hiroshima-1946

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Apparently there's a post 1989 version with an additional "what happened next" chapter.

Next: "Hiroshima: the world's bomb" by Andrew J. Rotter. This one was £17, not 80p.

I'm often reminded of a chap by the name of Glyn who I worked with half a century ago.

He'd been a POW in Japan and was near Nagasaki when that went off.

In the 1970s Management had to hide him away when Japanese visited the plant.