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On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
Arthur C Clarke can have good style.
Cordwainer Smith's style is unique and mesmerising,
being based on oriental storytelling techniques.
I'd start with either "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
or "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell".
I read the latter as an early teenager, didn't
like it but the style was memorable. A decade
later I did understand it.
The former starts...
The story ranâhow did the story run? Everyone knew the reference to Helen
America and Mr. Grey-no-more, but no one knew exactly how it happened. Their
names were welded to the glittering timeless jewelry of romance. Sometimes they
were compared to Heloise and Abelard, whose story had been found among books in
a long-buried library. Other ages were to compare their life with the weird,
ugly-lovely story of the Go-Captain Taliano and the Lady Dolores Oh.
... and ends ...
Outsiders never knew the real end of the story.
...
His voice broke, but his features stayed calm. He had never before seen anyone
die so confident and so happy.
https://epdf.pub/queue/smith-cordwainer-the-lady-who-sailed-the-soul.html
On 2020-03-24 04:13, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
Arthur C Clarke can have good style.
Cordwainer Smith's style is unique and mesmerising,
being based on oriental storytelling techniques.
I'd start with either "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
or "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell".
I read the latter as an early teenager, didn't
like it but the style was memorable. A decade
later I did understand it.
The former starts...
The story ranâhow did the story run? Everyone knew the reference to Helen
America and Mr. Grey-no-more, but no one knew exactly how it happened. Their
names were welded to the glittering timeless jewelry of romance. Sometimes
they were compared to Heloise and Abelard, whose story had been found among
books in a long-buried library. Other ages were to compare their life with the
weird, ugly-lovely story of the Go-Captain Taliano and the Lady Dolores Oh.
.... and ends ...
Outsiders never knew the real end of the story.
....
His voice broke, but his features stayed calm. He had never before seen anyone
die so confident and so happy.
https://epdf.pub/queue/smith-cordwainer-the-lady-who-sailed-the-soul.html
Smith reminds me quite a lot of Lord Dunsany. Try out Tales of Three
Hemispheres, Wonder Tales, and The Charwoman's Shadow.
Someday I'm going to throw this computer away, and return
to paper books. I could do it, honest, but not today.
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:17:48 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:54:03 PM UTC-7, George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
John Zakour has an amusing series about a PI...
start with _The_Plutonium_Blonde_
or, for the thrifty, all those ER Burroughs John Carter of Mars
books are available for your favorite reader tablet.
Certainly the Nero Wolfe mysteries would keep someone off the streets
for a while. Read them in chronological order.
On 24/03/20 14:59, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 2020-03-24 04:13, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
Arthur C Clarke can have good style.
Cordwainer Smith's style is unique and mesmerising,
being based on oriental storytelling techniques.
I'd start with either "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
or "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell".
I read the latter as an early teenager, didn't
like it but the style was memorable. A decade
later I did understand it.
The former starts...
The story ranâhow did the story run? Everyone knew the reference to Helen
America and Mr. Grey-no-more, but no one knew exactly how it happened. Their
names were welded to the glittering timeless jewelry of romance. Sometimes
they were compared to Heloise and Abelard, whose story had been found among
books in a long-buried library. Other ages were to compare their life with the
weird, ugly-lovely story of the Go-Captain Taliano and the Lady Dolores Oh.
.... and ends ...
Outsiders never knew the real end of the story.
....
His voice broke, but his features stayed calm. He had never before seen anyone
die so confident and so happy.
https://epdf.pub/queue/smith-cordwainer-the-lady-who-sailed-the-soul.html
Smith reminds me quite a lot of Lord Dunsany. Try out Tales of Three
Hemispheres, Wonder Tales, and The Charwoman's Shadow.
Yes, he does, doesn't he.
Somewhere I have his complete short stories. I'm rather partial
to "Idle Days on the Yann".
Sometimes computers are addictive and disappointing, and you
can even take them on holiday without noticing it. Contrast
that with childhood holidays, where my personal luggage was
books I've been saving up for a couple of months; I read
them at least twice during a fortnight's skiing holiday.
Someday I'm going to throw this computer away, and return
to paper books. I could do it, honest, but not today.
On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 11:47:55 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner
wrote:
Someday I'm going to throw this computer away, and return
to paper books. I could do it, honest, but not today.
If I did that, I would lose 80,618 E-books, or 317 GB
(341,400,413,682 bytes) of files. That would just leave me a
couple thousand printed books.
On 2020/03/24 8:11 a.m., jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:17:48 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:54:03 PM UTC-7, George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
John Zakour has an amusing series about a PI...
start with _The_Plutonium_Blonde_
or, for the thrifty, all those ER Burroughs John Carter of Mars
books are available for your favorite reader tablet.
Certainly the Nero Wolfe mysteries would keep someone off the streets
for a while. Read them in chronological order.
Those darn orchids!
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 09:33:06 -0700, John Robertson <spam@flippers.com
wrote:
On 2020/03/24 8:11 a.m., jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:17:48 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:54:03 PM UTC-7, George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
John Zakour has an amusing series about a PI...
start with _The_Plutonium_Blonde_
or, for the thrifty, all those ER Burroughs John Carter of Mars
books are available for your favorite reader tablet.
Certainly the Nero Wolfe mysteries would keep someone off the streets
for a while. Read them in chronological order.
Those darn orchids!
We have the Nero Wolfe Cookbook.
On 2020/03/24 10:59 a.m., jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 09:33:06 -0700, John Robertson <spam@flippers.com
wrote:
On 2020/03/24 8:11 a.m., jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:17:48 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:54:03 PM UTC-7, George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
John Zakour has an amusing series about a PI...
start with _The_Plutonium_Blonde_
or, for the thrifty, all those ER Burroughs John Carter of Mars
books are available for your favorite reader tablet.
Certainly the Nero Wolfe mysteries would keep someone off the streets
for a while. Read them in chronological order.
Those darn orchids!
We have the Nero Wolfe Cookbook.
https://www.nerowolfe.org/
Wolfe Pack...
John ;-#)#
On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
Arthur C Clarke can have good style.
Cordwainer Smith's style is unique and mesmerising,
being based on oriental storytelling techniques.
I'd start with either "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
or "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell".
I read the latter as an early teenager, didn't
like it but the style was memorable. A decade
later I did understand it.
The former starts...
The story ranâhow did the story run? Everyone knew the reference to
Helen America and Mr. Grey-no-more, but no one knew exactly how it
happened. Their names were welded to the glittering timeless jewelry of
romance. Sometimes they were compared to Heloise and Abelard, whose
story had been found among books in a long-buried library. Other ages
were to compare their life with the weird, ugly-lovely story of the
Go-Captain Taliano and the Lady Dolores Oh.
... and ends ...
Outsiders never knew the real end of the story.
...
His voice broke, but his features stayed calm. He had never before seen
anyone die so confident and so happy.
https://epdf.pub/queue/smith-cordwainer-the-lady-who-sailed-the-soul.html
On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 11:47:55 AM UTC-4, Tom Gardner wrote:
Someday I'm going to throw this computer away, and return to paper books. I
could do it, honest, but not today.
If I did that, I would lose 80,618 E-books, or 317 GB (341,400,413,682 bytes)
of files. That would just leave me a couple thousand printed books.
Thanks. If you like hard SF have you read anyOn 3/24/2020 10:13, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
Arthur C Clarke can have good style.
Clarke is very good indeed.
Asimov is probably the greatest ever, his "Foundation" series is just
superb.
Lem has written at least one masterpiece, "Solaris". I say that from the
viewpoint of the Bulgarian translation, not sure how it comes across
in English (I bought it in English many years ago but never got to it).
The brothers Strugatski have also written quite some great novels,
particularly the series about Maxim Camerer, others as well.
But these are well known and probably not a good suggestion, everybody
has read them long since. Somewhat like promoting Heller's "Catch 22",
LOL. (BTW the Bulgarian translation was very good, I enjoyed it even
more than the original text - probably because I read the English
version after I had read and re-read lots of times the Bulgarian
translation.)
And of course Vonnegut, he had a few very good novels - but I am
not sure I would enjoy them now that I am no longer in my 20-s.
A few years ago I stumbled across some newer sci-fi which was quite
readable - not in the Asimov/Clarke etc. class but I enjoyed it and
read it, "The Sky Lords" by John Brosnan.
Perhaps the worst thing of the time passing by is the fact one has
read all written books one could have enjoyed...
I also liked quite a lot Chandler and Hammet, but well - how many
times can one reread "The Long Goodbye" (I have surely lost the count
and have not reread it last 10 if not 20 years).
Dimiter
=====================================================> Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com
=====================================================> http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
Cordwainer Smith's style is unique and mesmerising,
being based on oriental storytelling techniques.
I'd start with either "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul"
or "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell".
I read the latter as an early teenager, didn't
like it but the style was memorable. A decade
later I did understand it.
The former starts...
The story ranâhow did the story run? Everyone knew the reference to
Helen America and Mr. Grey-no-more, but no one knew exactly how it
happened. Their names were welded to the glittering timeless jewelry of
romance. Sometimes they were compared to Heloise and Abelard, whose
story had been found among books in a long-buried library. Other ages
were to compare their life with the weird, ugly-lovely story of the
Go-Captain Taliano and the Lady Dolores Oh.
... and ends ...
Outsiders never knew the real end of the story.
...
His voice broke, but his features stayed calm. He had never before seen
anyone die so confident and so happy.
https://epdf.pub/queue/smith-cordwainer-the-lady-who-sailed-the-soul.html
On 24/03/20 02:39, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 21:05:18 -0400, Phil Hobbs
pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 2020-03-23 20:51, Tom Del Rosso wrote:
George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
Heinlein.
When I was a teenager, I'd have agreed with you there. Subsequently I
twigged to his, um, centrifugal religious and political views.
Restricting the franchise to veterans (Starship Trooper) might be
defensible in a society like ancient Sparta, but encouraging vigilante
justice (The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress) doesn't work anywhere.
And 'Stranger In A Strange Land' was apparently his attempt to retrieve
his bet with L. Ron Hubbard, who claimed quite correctly that he could
make more money starting a religion rather than writing science fiction.
Fortunately Heinlein failed, despite being a much better writer than
Hubbard.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
SF is a teenage thing. Most of it was/is very bad writing.
90% of everything is crap.
I just finished Night Witches by Bruce Myles, which was pretty good.
Mo doesn't usually like my kind of books, but I think she'll like that
one. Sort of an aerial combat chic flick. It would make a good movie.
Then by accident I spotted The Great Influenza on a bookshelf, by John
Barry. Thought we'd lost it. I'll read that again. It's about the
great 1918 flu, but has a much wider scope, a lot of background about
the history of science and medicine starting centuries B.C.
Barry wrote the wonderful Rising Tide, required reading for anyone who
lives near the Mississippi River.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGs2iLoDUYE
--
John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.
"Bunter", he said, "I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason"
On Tue, 24 Mar 2020 00:17:48 -0700 (PDT), whit3rd <whit3rd@gmail.com
wrote:
On Monday, March 23, 2020 at 3:54:03 PM UTC-7, George Herold wrote:
I'm reading trashy novels at bedtime mostly.
I'd be interested in 'good' trashy novel authors.
John Zakour has an amusing series about a PI...
start with _The_Plutonium_Blonde_
or, for the thrifty, all those ER Burroughs John Carter of Mars
books are available for your favorite reader tablet.
Certainly the Nero Wolfe mysteries would keep someone off the streets
for a while. Read them in chronological order.
George Herold wrote:
Yeah I've got a set of Alexander Dumas novels from my mum. They
are OK.
Did you ever read Around the World in 80 Days? Lots of fun. The
Mormon lecture on the train through Utah Territory is LOL funny.
Yeah I've got a set of Alexander Dumas novels from my mum. They are
OK.
On Tuesday, March 24, 2020 at 9:17:56 PM UTC-4, mpm wrote:
I've been binge-reading WW-II submarine (pacific theater).
Several are nothing more than gussy-up'd patrol reports, while others are mere testaments to some senior officer's ego.
A few however, seem to capture the true spirit and agony of those times.
There is a 15 volume set of books by Samuel Elliot Morison on the naval history of WWII Highly recommended
Dan
I've been binge-reading WW-II submarine (pacific theater).
Several are nothing more than gussy-up'd patrol reports, while others are mere testaments to some senior officer's ego.
A few however, seem to capture the true spirit and agony of those times.