Tales of Time and Space

In middle school my Dad briefly held a part-time job at a motel, a Holiday Inn I think. It might have been just to earn Christmas money, because I wouldn't remember it at all if it wasn't for an employee Breakfast with Santa.

Here's what I recall about that event: I was disappointed as heck in the food, which was cereal and milk - I was used to Federation's grand pancake version.  

Secondly, I loved my gift.   In retrospect, I have to think my Dad put in a suggestion for me, because what middle schooler goes gaga over a paperback of Tales of Time and Space, compiled by editor Ross Olney?

I loved that story collection. That book became a sentimental favorite for me, and one story, Of Missing Persons by Jack Finney shook my world. 

If I still have my copy, it's boxed somewhere and MIA, but it will always linger in my memory. 

Found it!!

Just a day ago I asked about a science-fiction short story anthology I had as a kid, the title of which had been lost to me for decades. 

It took a reader on Sci-Fi Stack Exchange all of about twenty minutes to give me an answer. 

Beyond the Stars: Tales of Adventure in Time and Space not only included the only known excerpt from the original Star Wars novelization, it also had an excerpt from a Doctor Who novel, a fact I had completely forgotten but that roared back with full clarity once I saw the table of contents. It also had a weird combination of Star Wars cosplay and Battlestar Galactica Vipers on the cover!

I found a copy for under six bucks on Ebay (albeit with no cover photo) and ordered it on the spot. It'll be good to have it back "home" on my shelves. 

Star Wars Question

In my childhood I was gifted a hardcover sci-fi short story anthology that featured an excerpt from the novelization of Star Wars by George Lucas/Alan Dean Foster. As I recall, it was from their time on the Death Star, and it was illustrated with sketches that were either drawn a) by someone who'd never seen the movie or b) by someone really careful to avoid recreating the movie designs for legal reasons.

I mention that the book was hardcover, but as I recall the dark cover was oddly glossy.  For some reason now lost to my subconscious, I think the book may have been published in England. 

Does anyone know what this collection was called? Does anyone know where I can find a list of collections that were authorized to excerpt the novelization? 

Does it Ring a Bell?

Ok, I've long forgotten the name of a book I read and I need some help finding the title: 

I read this maybe 30 years ago. but to be safe lets say somewhere between 1986 and 1995, but probably right in the middle of that span. 

Science fiction paperback, average length. I don't recall anything about the cover. 

There are two planets, neither one Earth, existing in the same solar system; one might have actually been the moon of the other. 

One of the globes is filled with human colonists, the other with a race of bipedal deer-like creatures that are our equal in intelligence. The two sides go to war. At some point the protagonist becomes a POW and develops a quasi-friendship, or at least a mutual respect, with the warden. This was NOT a children's book; at one point a POW caught raping his fellow inmates is dispatched by the protagonist with the wardens approval. 

Any ideas?

Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera, the Czech novelist driven into exile in France in the '70's after being declared an enemy of the state, has died in Paris at age 94.

Kundera was eventually granted French citizenship and considered himself a French writer, but both his life and his work are intrinsically tied to his Communist homeland.  Here in the West he is perhaps best known for his novel “The Unbearable Lightness of Being," which was later made into a movie. 

My knowledge of him, however, comes from my collegiate focus on Central Europe. In at least one of my courses he was highlighted as an important voice of the Prague Spring, a short-lived era of relaxed authoritarianism and heightened freedom - all of which was snuffed out by the Soviet invasion of 1968. 

My memory is unclear, but I might have read his work "The Joke" at that time. 

RIP

Anne Perry

Anne Perry, the crime novelist who, as a teenager, helped murder her best friend's mother - a crime immortalized in the Kate Winslet movie Heavenly Creatures - has died at 84.

RIP

Thumbs up from R.L. Stine

goosebumps man responded -  YaYa

Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh

I will not deny that Otessa Moshfegh is a talented stylist capable of keen insight into a character's motivation.  But Lapvona is proof that alone is not enough to sustain a novel. 

In a fictional Medevial village Marek is the deformed son of incestuous rape, raised by an abusive stepfather to believe his mother has died.  The teenager commits a crime that, incredibly, elevates him to royal status, and in the aftermath the difficult life of the village begins to sour all the more. 

It sounds almost like a story when I summarize it. It is not.  It is a meandering, pointless snippet from the life of a thinly developed protagonist who, in turn, is surrounded by equally ill developed characters. These people exist in print only to allow the author to showcase rape, cannibalism, sexual abuse, and degradation.

It's not literary horror. What it WAS is a waste of my time. 

Pass.

Reviver by Seth Patrick

 

Junie finished reading this book earlier this year, after taking it off Lulu's bookshelf, and I picked up after getting hooked on the first few chapters.  So that means 3 of us have read it.

Unfortunately, those first chapters were a bait and switch. It began as a unique and terrifying premise - forensic artists can resurrect dead victims just long enough to coax the name of their killer, only now, something far darker wants to cross the divide into our world.  Aaaaand then it devolved into a run of the mill thriller novel, complete with unnecessary romance, hokey cliffhangers, yada yada. 

When I asked Junie her opinion of it, to see if it matched mine, she merely shrugged and said "It was a book."

I grade it a C.

Voyage on the Great Titanic

One of YaYa's self-described favorite books of her childhood. 

Davy Crockett by Stewart H. Holbrook

This was one of my favorite books as a kid. Part of the Landmark series of nonfiction, I checked it out again and again from the school library.

Two Books Junie Read

Junie can't stop raving about They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera.

On the other hand,  the book I  got her, The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan was apparently a disappointment - much like people who dislike my recommendations. Grrrr

Matlock's System by Reginald Hill

This is an early dystopian work by Reginald Hill, a writer best known for mystery novels. 

In the near future everyone in the UK has been fitted with a device that stops their heart at an age decided by the government, and based on the economic state of that year's budget. Does it sound morally wrong and ripe for abuse? Yes.  You know who thinks so too? Matlock, the former politician who thought it up and got it enacted,  but who now campaigns against it,  in near anonymity. 

But it seems like someone remembers Matlock after all,  because an awful lot of important people are suddenly looking for him . . .

I enjoyed the novel and think Hill did a good job of world- building,  and even 50 years after it's publication it has something to say about the state of our world. 

I recommend it. 

The Maid by Nita Prose

 

    The Maid has received extraordinary buzz, with reviewers and critics calling it a "Clue-like locked room mystery" and a "heartwarming journey of the spirit."

    Pfui.

    The novel is about Molly, an autistic or developmentally delayed maid at a posh hotel who discovers a murdered guest and becomes embroiled in the homicide investigation. 

  It kept my interest long enough to make me obliged to finish it, but in my opinion this one's all hype and no substance. 

    First off, the elephant in the room: Molly's condition is never explained. Is she autistic, delayed, or merely socially inept? You can argue it doesn't or shouldn't matter, but as its the central tenet of her character - and rest assured, Molly is the only character that even hints at being more than caricature - it would be helpful to understand her more. Especially when some of her actions are so oblivious as to defy explanation. 

 Then there's the little fact that there is no mystery here, with the murder being so understated and secondary that it barely moves the action. Annoyingly, despite Molly professing time and again to be a fan of Columbo, we not only don't start the proceedings with the murder, the entire thing is resolved in an epilogue - and then,  in a morally ambiguous fashion. 

And is this thing set in England, America, or some weird hybrid? Characters talk of "having a cuppa" and being a "solicitor" but then others mention being an undocumented worker from Mexico, while others talk in clear American dialect. 

Worst of all, WORST OF ALL, the author set a few scenes at an Olive Garden restaurant, and I swear her knowledge of the place comes from once - and only once -seeing a commercial about it. The characters (even OG servers) routinely talk of "salad and bread" - not breadsticks! and Molly blithely orders a "large pepperoni pizza and mozzarella sticks" to take home, like it's dang Pizza Hut. 

No no no. 

If you want to read it, spare yourself regret, and at least get it from a library. 

Will by Will Smith

The kind of book when you finish, you feel sad. I'll miss this one. It was a Christmas gift from Dan - -Lisa

We Keep the Dead Close by Betty Cooper

Day 7: I have accepted a challenge from Sandra G to post 12 books that I have read. One per day, no exceptions, no reviews, just the covers. The goal is to promote literacy and to create a good reading list.

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer

Day 12: I have accepted a challenge from Sandra M Gruszynski to post 12 books that I have read. One per day, no exceptions, no reviews, just the covers. The goal is to promote literacy and to create a good reading list.

Shiver by Allie Reynolds

Day 11: I have accepted a challenge from Sandra G to post 12 books that I have read. One per day, no exceptions, no reviews, just the covers. The goal is to promote literacy and to create a good reading list.

The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry

Day 10: I have accepted a challenge from Sandra G to post 12 books that I have read. One per day, no exceptions, no reviews, just the covers. The goal is to promote literacy and to create a good reading list.

The Quiet Boy by Ben H. Winters

Day 9: I have accepted a challenge from Sandra G o post 12 books that I have read. One per day, no exceptions, no reviews, just the covers. The goal is to promote literacy and to create a good reading list.