Efcjake
Player Valuation: £80m
I've read both of these in the last two years and they are gripping.
Love it when there's a giant saga of stories that follow on from the first book.
The GOT Book Club
- Thread starter chicoazul
- Start date
Love it when there's a giant saga of stories that follow on from the first book.
Efcjake
Player Valuation: £80m
It's a collection of short stories isn't it? Blade Runner being based on one of them I thought.
Blade Runner is a stand alone novella and with it being so short, there`s loads in the film that isn`t in the novella.
In my opinion, it`s very similar to the novella Heart of Darkness, which is the template for Apocalypse Now.
Sand and the sequel, Across The Sand, by Hugh Howey, are really good reads - he wrote the Silo series of books too.
summerisle
The rain, it raineth every day
Thanks for the recommendations, now let's see which is the cheapest. 
I start my tradition today.
Ever year I read the Hogfather over Christmas.
Just makes me feel good.
The Christmas Carol is the best Christmas story ever but it is hardly light reading so make do with the Alistair Sim version of the film ever year.
Hope this week is as good as you could ever hope it could be.
Ever year I read the Hogfather over Christmas.
Just makes me feel good.
The Christmas Carol is the best Christmas story ever but it is hardly light reading so make do with the Alistair Sim version of the film ever year.
Hope this week is as good as you could ever hope it could be.
Good idea, haven't been on a Prattchet binge for agesI start my tradition today.
Ever year I read the Hogfather over Christmas.
Just makes me feel good.
The Christmas Carol is the best Christmas story ever but it is hardly light reading so make do with the Alistair Sim version of the film ever year.
Hope this week is as good as you could ever hope it could be.
tantavisiteler
Player Valuation: £5m
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
phenomenal book
phenomenal book
BigMick
Player Valuation: £20m
Two good but contrasting novels set in one of my favourite historical periods, the often overlooked British Mandate for Palestine. The Red Balcony, by the British/Jewish Jonathan Wilson is based on the unsolved murder of the prominent Jewish leader Haim Arlosoroff, a close aide of future Prime Minister Ben Gurion. The author skilfully blends fact with fiction, telling the story through the eyes of a fictional 'innocent abroad', Ivor Castle, a Britsh Jew who is employed as an assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of two men accused of the murder. He soon finds himself out of his depth, a pawn in others’ game.
Taut and fast-paced, the book presents a vivid depiction of the fraught and often chaotic Mandate period. Wilson was helped by coming across a book published only weeks after the end of the trial of the men accused of the murder, containing all the speeches and almost every aspect of the trial. This helped ensure a historical accuracy which was enhanced by his decision not to put words into the mouths of the historical characters, using only the speeches from the book.
The Parisian, too, provides a realistic and colourful portrait of the Mandate but, unlike The Red Balcony, it's a long book, reminiscent of a 19th or early 20th century novel - a slow read, a book to be wallowed in, but probably not for everyone. There are numerous digressions which have nothing to do with the main story but are mostly entertaining in their own right - a more commercially minded author would have saved some for follow-up novels. There are also regular untranslated uses of arabic and french phrases that some might find irritating - they add authentic colour to the story rather than contain anything vital to the plot.
The Parisian tells the story of Midhat Kamel, an Arab from Nablus who is sent to France for education during WW1 before returning to Nablus. Midhat is loosely based on Hammad’s own great-grandfather. The historical sweep covers a much longer period than The Red Balcony, including the Nebi Musa riots of 1920 - a key turning point of the book - and the start of the Great Arab Revolt in 1936 - that was the Arab name for it, today it would be called a Palestinian Intifada - and it's this aspect of the book that mainly impresses me: it's more accurate than several purported history books that I've read. Hammad achieved this by doing her own research, visiting the British government's Mandate archives, Israel's pre-state archives and, because the Arabs kept no records, interviewing Palestinians in the West Bank, either people who were there or their descendants.
A consistent pleasure of the book is its detailed evocation of this post-Ottoman world, a world in which Syria and Palestine do not represent entirely distinct places or identities. The result is a novel which, while it tells the story from the Arab point of view, humanises all sides and provides a nuanced portrait of the Mandate period. It's for that reason I would recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction and doesn't mind a long read.
Bishop Thumpety-Thump
Player Valuation: £20m
Decided to try some modern sci-fi so read Stephen Baxter’s Galaxias. Not sure what to make of it. Was a great concept but disappointing ending.
If anyone has any other suggestions for intelligent and relatively realistic sci-fi please let me know.
If anyone has any other suggestions for intelligent and relatively realistic sci-fi please let me know.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's 'Children of Time' series is great, if it's hard sci-fi you are looking for.
Children of Time, Children of Ruin & Children of Memory.
Children of Time Series by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Children of Time (Children of Time, #1), Children of Ruin (Children of Time, #2), Children of Memory (Children of Time, #3), Children of Strife (Childre...
www.goodreads.com
“The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.
Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?”
It follows both the few surviving people from post-apocalyptic Earth travelling on a failing generation ship to a planet, which was terraformed thousands of years previous by the people of pre-apocalyptic Earth. And it also follows the 'entities' that now control the planet.
Honestly, the second group is such a great great curve-ball, so I'll say no more and not spoil it for you.
Good advice. Just finished it, thanks for recommendation
Random lore, sorry, but - I have this as a high recommendation from a friend - Adrian Tchaikovsky was at the Bulgarian sci-fi book/media convention (in a random small town for some reason???) this year and this was the exact book they gave me as a "starter". I sadly couldn't go to the con itself, but apparently it was good!
Tony Hibbert's Wife
Player Valuation: £1.5m
They're really good and readable books. I also read his Architects books, which were also very good 'band of unlikely heroes on a space adventure' books.
After reading 6 books in the space of about 18 months I don't think I could read any more Tchaikovsky - his writing style that began as charming and cheerful started to irk me. In fact I read so much of his in such a short space of time that it put me off Sci-Fi completely for most of this year. I ended up reading Adam Bede, Silas Marner, Middlemarch, Sense & Sensibility, Persuasion, A Room With A View, Wuthering Heights, Brideshead Revisited and The Talented Mr Ripley, before returning to Sci Fi this month.
Baxter's stuff is full on pulp fiction. He really churns them out. Some amazing tech ideas, but often not fully realised, terrible characters who make bizarre decisions, things not hanging together particularly well. Of the ones I've read Raft was the best. Proxima and it's sequels were hyped but I thought Proxima was poor and the sequels were worse.
No problem mate...happy to oblige.
