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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2021 10:01:01 GMT -6
Finally started Michael Moorcock's Elric series. I've read some of the novels years ago, but heard this collection was the best, going back to the originals as they were first printed in magazines. First chapter down and I'll say it is impressive so far. You're in for a treat. I enjoyed that saga from front to back and never noticed the drop in quality some people mention. I'll get into more of his stuff someday, if I can ever stop obsessing over Vance.
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 17, 2021 13:24:50 GMT -6
Finally started Michael Moorcock's Elric series. I've read some of the novels years ago, but heard this collection was the best, going back to the originals as they were first printed in magazines. First chapter down and I'll say it is impressive so far. Good to hear!
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 17, 2021 13:28:40 GMT -6
I am reading John Keats's narrative poem, "Endymion". His language is beautifully lush.
Keats died at age 25. I remember reading somewhere that his poetry is unequalled in the English language if you compare with it other poets' writings that they did only at age 25 or earlier. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wordsworth, etc. at age 25 were not the equals of Keats.
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 17, 2021 14:21:13 GMT -6
Dan Simmons' Hyperion series is based, in part, on Keats' work. "Hyperion" is another work by Keats, and the third book is titled "Endymion". I read this sci-fi series in the '90s & found it fascinating. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_Cantos
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2021 12:51:20 GMT -6
Whipped through the Penguin Classics Odyssey, another fine translation, and followed it up with Lyonesse book II: The Green pearl, which is as fantastic a Jack Vance story as I've read so far. (Kind of skipping back and forth between reading through that Greek classics read-list I found and growing my Jack Vance collection. When I finish one or the other, likely the Greeks collection first, I'll hop into reading Tony Bath's wargames writings and Peterson's Elusive Shift.)
So yeah, to give the Odyssey its due, I've always loved this story and its titular character, mostly because the man is basically a rogue and a bloodthirsty pillager, like the other Argives in Homer's sagas, and makes no bones about it, but he's got qualities you really identify with and you want him to overcome his trials and tribulations. When he finally gets home and slaughters the suitors in his great hall, it's as satisfying to read now as it was when I first read it decades ago in another translation. Always a pleasure to revisit an old classic, especially a newer edition. Not sure who I prefer between the Illiad's Achilles or Odysseus in this book. Both are fascinating anti-hero types. Reading through all this makes me sincerely wish more of the epic cycle of the Trojan War and its players had survived antiquity. The book I'm currently reading, The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Straus is shaping up to be a good companion piece for these two, thankfully.
Now, the Jack Vance book was really interesting, because its protagonist is similarly...not traditionally heroic. Prince Aillas gives me mixed feelings. He rudely inserts himself into Book I of this saga about halfway through and quickly falls in love with Suldrun, impregnates her, then basically replaces her as the hero of the saga, which felt a bit jarring and weird to me since Book I establishes her as the protagonist early on. He's a heroic and even-handed ruler in this book, but he seems to have this bizarre trait of falling in love with every woman he comes across and getting into big trouble over it. The antics of the various magicians are the real highlight for me, anyway. These types are generally a high point in fantasy for me, personally. Shimrod is a bit of an odd duckling who has his own problems with women, but Visbhume was a glorious bastard I loved to hate, and his pathetic fate along with that of his scheming master Tamurello actually made me laugh out loud. After all that buildup, Murgen (Merlin?) basically outsmarts him and gets him killed within a minute or two. Quintessentially Vance. It's why I love him.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2021 17:06:37 GMT -6
I finished The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Strauss and found it to be fun, informative and fairly up to date, having been published in 2006. He makes a fairly convincing argument that there was at least one historical Trojan war on the site modern archaeologists have identified as Troy, and makes the argument that the myths of Homer and other ancient Greek Epic writers are likely a compressed and flavorful account of multiple armed conflicts over decades or centuries. His usage of multiple fields of discipline from linguistics to botany to paint a picture of Homer's world and of the Troad of old was really well interwoven with his succinct and page-turning account of the mythic Trojan War. I've still got more books to read ahead of me than behind me in this little Greek studies project for this year, but I expect to burn through them by December. I'm making a brief detour now to read the last book of Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, Madouc.
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Post by angelicdoctor on May 6, 2021 11:49:00 GMT -6
Deep in the middle of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.
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Post by tombowings on May 6, 2021 11:53:30 GMT -6
Deep in the middle of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. I always get about that far before quitting. I absolutely love The Dying Earth, but I despise Cugul.
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Post by angelicdoctor on May 6, 2021 12:03:31 GMT -6
Deep in the middle of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. I always get about that far before quitting. I absolutely love The Dying Earth, but I despise Cugul. Fascinating. I just started listening to the Mutant Crawl Classics podcast, Glowburn. Seems that at least one the hosts loves that character. I have not yet gotten that far but based on this guy's enthusiasm, I was looking forward to meeting the character.
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Post by doublejig2 on May 6, 2021 12:37:57 GMT -6
I finished The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Strauss and found it to be fun, informative and fairly up to date, having been published in 2006. He makes a fairly convincing argument that there was at least one historical Trojan war on the site modern archaeologists have identified as Troy, and makes the argument that the myths of Homer and other ancient Greek Epic writers are likely a compressed and flavorful account of multiple armed conflicts over decades or centuries. His usage of multiple fields of discipline from linguistics to botany to paint a picture of Homer's world and of the Troad of old was really well interwoven with his succinct and page-turning account of the mythic Trojan War. I've still got more books to read ahead of me than behind me in this little Greek studies project for this year, but I expect to burn through them by December. I'm making a brief detour now to read the last book of Vance's Lyonesse trilogy, Madouc. If you are intent on reading the Peloponnesian War, you might consider Nemesis by David Stuttard as well. It is the tragic tale of Athens, Greece, featuring the rise and fall of its paragon, Alcibiades. Continued luck on your impressive study.
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Post by tombowings on May 6, 2021 12:47:57 GMT -6
I always get about that far before quitting. I absolutely love The Dying Earth, but I despise Cugul. Fascinating. I just started listening to the Mutant Crawl Classics podcast, Glowburn. Seems that at least one the hosts loves that character. I have not yet gotten that far but based on this guy's enthusiasm, I was looking forward to meeting the character. Many enjoy the character. If nothing else, he certainly isn't boring.
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Post by Falconer on May 6, 2021 13:47:08 GMT -6
I loved The Dying Earth and liked The Eyes of the Overworld, but couldn’t get interested in Cugel’s Saga. I would like to give Rhialto the Marvellous a shot.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2021 15:02:19 GMT -6
I loved The Dying Earth and liked The Eyes of the Overworld, but couldn’t get interested in Cugel’s Saga. I would like to give Rhialto the Marvellous a shot. Rhialto is like the voice of reason in a party of deranged murderhobo wizards, if that's a good selling point. He's a bastard, too, like Cugel, but with slightly more of a moral center and a sense of urgency for the action that moves the plot in his titular book, which his scatterbrained friends try their best to ignore or put off until later. It's a fun dynamic, I found. I enjoyed it a lot. Not as much as the Cugel stories, but very fine conclusion to the Dying Earth saga.
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Post by stevemitchell on May 9, 2021 14:47:00 GMT -6
Microcosm and Medium by Joseph P. Farrell. More wide-ranging high strangeness from Dr. Farrell, with an (eventual) slant on mind control methodologies and technologies.
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson. The best of Hodgson’s four novels, in my opinion, but you should still read the others!
Unsinkable by James Sullivan. An account of the U.S.S. Plunkett and its crew in World War II. This particular destroyer was present at all six of the Allied amphibious landings in the European Theater—North Africa, Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, Normandy, and Southern France. It was particularly noted for its heroic defense against wave after wave of Luftwaffe attacks at Anzio. A battle history, but also very much a people history.
Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King. Remember the old children’s song that goes: “Rachael, Rachel I've been thinking/What a glad world this would be/If the girls were all transported/Far across the Northern sea!” Well, here the Kings transport all the girls to the far side of the World Tree, leaving some very confused (and angry) men behind.
Tama of the Light Country by Ray Cummings. The first in a trilogy of short novels set partially on the planet Mercury. It’s more sword-and-planet adjacent than full sword-and-planet.
The Institute by Stephen King. Imagine Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, only run by psychopaths—allegedly in the best interests of the country. A gripping but downbeat tale.
The Watchers Out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. In 1945, Arkham House published an original novel entitled The Lurker at the Threshold by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. The authorial attribution was highly misleading—Derleth, who never collaborated with Lovecraft on any fiction during HPL’s lifetime, took two separate story ideas from Lovecraft’s working notes and papers, along with about 1,200 words of actual Lovecraft prose, and used them as the starting points for the book.
But the Lovecraft byline meant sales, so Derleth returned to the concept later, taking story germs from Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book—often no more than a sentence or two long—developing them into stories, and presenting them as “posthumous collaborations.” Seven of them were published in The Survivor and Others (Arkham House, 1957), while the rest appeared in subsequent Arkham House anthologies. This collection includes all of the HPL-Derleth tales, excluding only the novel-length Lurker.
(A bibliographic note: the original Arkham House edition of Watchers Out of Time did include The Lurker at the Threshold, but the subsequent paperback and e-book reprints have split the novel from the stories.)
The posthumous collaborations usually get a bad rap from Lovecraft fans, but I have to admit to liking them. Well, some of them, some of the time. For a generally negative look at these stories, you might shamble over to the Sentinel Hill Press website and check out the “Derleth Country” listings.
The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan. Another welcome Dover reprint of one of Brennan’s long out-of-print collections of fantasy and horror stories.
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2021 8:11:43 GMT -6
I finished Madouc. The titular heroine of that book was a delightful little imp in her own right. I think I enjoyed her the most out of all the main protagonists this series followed, possibly tied with Shimrod the magician. In a lot of ways, what she goes through in her story arc mirrors what Suldrun went through, but Madouc succeeds where the first princess failed. She escapes the oppression of the royal court, finds out her magical origins and gets a family in the end. At its core, this is what Madouc is about, but it also deals with the ultimate political and spiritual fate of the Elder Isles. I won't give anything away here, but the outcome of the war and the earth-changing magical antics that go on in this book at also highlights.
As for the trilogy overall, I find it interesting in that the protagonists of the three books seem to be more or less likeable people overall. Not perfect, but they do more good than harm. This is in stark contrast to The Dying Earth. The overall tone is also somewhat more optimistic than in the Alastor books I read last year. I'm looking forward to checking out the Demon Princes soon, but I'm dipping back into my Greek studies project for a bit whenever the next book arrives. I've ordered a copy from a third-party seller because it's no longer in print. Greek Epic Fragments by Martin. L. West. In the mean time I'm messing around reading back through some of the Lovecraft stories I enjoyed a few years ago.
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Post by geoffrey on May 17, 2021 11:44:14 GMT -6
Deep in the middle of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. I always get about that far before quitting. I absolutely love The Dying Earth, but I despise Cugul. I love Jack Vance's The Dying Earth. It is like a rare vintage of wine with a taste quite unlike any other. "Oh, good! There are three more books after The Dying Earth." Except that I didn't like any of the three. The fine vintage is tapped out.
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Post by geoffrey on May 24, 2021 16:22:19 GMT -6
For the first time in 20 years I am re-reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Today I acquired this particular publication thereof: www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=1213I am pretending that I am 12 years old again, and that I know nothing of Tolkien's writings beyond what I had read in The Hobbit. There are a total of 62 chapters in The Lord of the Rings. I plan on reading one chapter per day (ignoring the prologue and the appendices). I read the first chapter today, so I should read the last chapter on July 24.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 16:58:55 GMT -6
For the first time in 20 years I am re-reading Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Today I acquired this particular publication thereof: www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=1213I am pretending that I am 12 years old again, and that I know nothing of Tolkien's writings beyond what I had read in The Hobbit. There are a total of 62 chapters in The Lord of the Rings. I plan on reading one chapter per day (ignoring the prologue and the appendices). I read the first chapter today, so I should read the last chapter on July 24. Gave my copy to my niece for Christmas. The gift that keeps on giving.
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Post by Falconer on May 24, 2021 21:57:36 GMT -6
Cool! Today I started listening to the LotR BBC Radio Drama. Quite well done, although a little clunky at the beginning with too much backstory and flashbacks AND a framing story. Should be smooth sailing from Rivendell on. Prepping to run a game in Moria this weekend.
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Post by rsdean on May 25, 2021 10:01:19 GMT -6
I reread LotR in April. It’s the first time in years that I did the reread through in the same month, which I guess averaged out at about three chapters a day.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 2, 2021 10:57:29 GMT -6
Lately I've been listening to LotR, Hobbit, and Silmarillion on audiobook, just skipping around listening to parts that draw my interest.
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Post by Falconer on Jun 2, 2021 12:47:19 GMT -6
I do that with Tolkien, too. Such a masterpiece of worldbuilding that sometimes you want to wander it freely.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2021 16:00:30 GMT -6
I'm about finished with one of those funny little tangential arms of the Greek Classics reading list I've been perusing. This one simply contains fragments of the missing Greek Epics such as the Little Iliad and Aethiopis. Editing and English translation by Martin L. West, published by Loeb Classical Library. It's interesting and a bit sad to see these little glimpses of poems completely lost to modern readers except for said fragments. We know they were very influential on later writings, in many cases, and it's frustrating that they're just gone. Perhaps someday more complete versions will be unearthed, if we're lucky. Kind of reminds me of the subject of lost films, especially from very early on in the silent era, when film preservation was practically non-existent. All we can do is wonder and speculate, because we'll never get to watch them. If there's something important to you, it's worth taking the effort to attempt to preserve!
Once I'm completely finished with this, I'm gonna go back and read some Conan stories. I've read all of Howard's Conan stories before, on Kindle, but I got a great physical compilation of them recently for...probably more money than I ought to be spending on books but who cares? It's freakin' Conan, man.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 6, 2021 9:30:03 GMT -6
Anybody ever read any of Paul Edwin Zimmer's "Dark Border" series?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2021 14:44:43 GMT -6
Anybody ever read any of Paul Edwin Zimmer's "Dark Border" series? Not yet but I have something else to add to "the list" now based on that cover art.
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Post by terje on Jun 8, 2021 8:36:05 GMT -6
A Season of Loathsome Miracles by Max Stanton (short story collection, weird fiction). Really good, some mindblowing narratives.
The Weird and the Eerie by Mark Fisher (essays on the aesthetics of the strange and the unknown). Very interesting and thought provoking.
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 12, 2021 10:12:48 GMT -6
Anybody ever read any of Paul Edwin Zimmer's "Dark Border" series? Not yet but I have something else to add to "the list" now based on that cover art. Paul Edwin Zimmer was Marion Zimmer Bradley's brother, he collaborated with her on several stories. He was one of the founding members of Creative Anachronism. I don't know why but Steve Jackson Games used that cover by Kirk Reinert on their GURPS Fantasy book, has nothing to do with Paul Zimmer's stories. Which is frustrating because it would be great to have a GURPS source book for his world setting. A print of the whole picture is available on Amazon, it is clearly done with Paul Zimmer's stories in mind. Every part of the picture can be explained with his stories.
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Post by doublejig2 on Jun 20, 2021 11:42:43 GMT -6
non fiction. The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain in the Middle Ages by M.M. Postan. It's kind of slow going, but the author is eminently learned, and most importantly, he defines the terms he uses. Really explains and connects feudalism, the manor, the village, villagers, trade, and guilds. Highly recommended!
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Post by Otto Harkaman on Jun 21, 2021 12:07:46 GMT -6
Elephants and Castles by Alfred Duggan About Demetrius I of Macedon son of Antigonus the One-eyed and the Wars of the Diadochi "Successors," the rival generals, families, and friends of Alexander the Great, who fought for control over his empire after his death in 323 BCE.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2021 12:55:57 GMT -6
I have mixed feelings about this Conan story compilation I just finished reading through the other day. On the one hand, it's great that there are so many affordable compilations of these classic stories being sold these days, but I'm very disappointed by the editing here. For reference, I was reading through a paperback published by The Castanea Group and found various typos in every single story which I know weren't mistakes from the original stories since I've read them before. It's a sloppy compilation, to be honest. The little black and white pencil drawings at the beginnings of the chapters were nice, and the cover art is solid. It's a good depiction of Conan as I envision him. It's just that the text wasn't looked over nearly stringently enough. It feels like they rushed this to get it on the shelves and make some name-brand-recognition money off it, and that's too bad.
On a brighter note, I'm reading through "The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles" as translated by Paul Roche and enjoying it immensely, and I'll stay quiet about the next book up on my list until after I've read it, but I've been gifted a free book by an online friend, which I've gladly agreed to read sooner rather than later to offer my thoughts. If you're interested in that, I'll talk more about it later.
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