Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Pharoah's Daughter and Other Tales by William Waldorf Astor as part of my pre-Tolkien fantasy fetish. So far, not too bad, though certainly not anything extraordinary. On the plus side, although for a while he was the richest man in America, at least this is not vanity press! And on the plus, side, while looking for some more info on the author and the book, I discovered that the version I have is the original printing and the cheapest copy I found online was $125...not bad for something like $5 at a used book store!!!

I'm reading Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Twentieth Century, an anthology of short stories edited by Orson Scott Card. I also picked up a couple of used paperbacks: China Miéville's Perdido Street Station and Dan Simmons's Summer of Night. I've never read any of Miéville's stuff, so I'm not sure what to expect, there.

In the next few days--perhaps over the weekend--I'll be starting The Mote in God's Eye, which a lot of SciFi buff informants tell me is the shiznit. I hope they're right.

ThirstyStirge wrote:In the next few days--perhaps over the weekend--I'll be starting The Mote in God's Eye, which a lot of SciFi buff informants tell me is the shiznit. I hope they're right.

I enjoyed that one.

Philotomy Jurament wrote:

ThirstyStirge wrote:In the next few days--perhaps over the weekend--I'll be starting The Mote in God's Eye, which a lot of SciFi buff informants tell me is the shiznit. I hope they're right.

I enjoyed that one.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Not in my SF top ten, but maybe top twenty.

Mythmere wrote:

Philotomy Jurament wrote:

ThirstyStirge wrote:In the next few days--perhaps over the weekend--I'll be starting The Mote in God's Eye, which a lot of SciFi buff informants tell me is the shiznit. I hope they're right.

I enjoyed that one.

Yeah, it's pretty good. Not in my SF top ten, but maybe top twenty.

Just out of curiosity, would you be amenable to giving your SF top 10/20? I've found a link of the top 50 or so SF/S&S/Fantasy books (here, another link), and am beginning the long journey of reading the ones I've not yet had opportunity to study.

Disclosure Statements
Inspection Reports
Loan Applications
Good Faith* Estimates
Elevation Certificates



Next on my list are Kevorkian's notes.







* my ass

Bran Mak Morn, The Last King by Robert E. Howard. If you are like me, you may have read all the Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane yarns by REH. Maybe a few other stories here and there, and some poetry as well. As far as BKM goes, I'd only read Worms of the Earth, I must admit. Now reading all the BKM tales, I am amazed at how well it completes Howard's conception of the Picts as a race that rose to prominence and then degenerated to savagery. It's very compelling, and I am quite enjoying it. Here we see Howard's much explored theme of barbarism vs. civilization at its finest, and a new appreciation of Conan stories that feature the Picts, such as Beyond the Black River.

Triplanetary, by E.E. "Doc" Smith.

Wrapping-up Rime Isles, again.

Two heros.
Chasing riches.
Chasing skirts.

Yeah, sometimes it IS enough. .

Ghul wrote:Bran Mak Morn, The Last King by Robert E. Howard. If you are like me, you may have read all the Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane yarns by REH. Maybe a few other stories here and there, and some poetry as well. As far as BKM goes, I'd only read Worms of the Earth, I must admit. Now reading all the BKM tales, I am amazed at how well it completes Howard's conception of the Picts as a race that rose to prominence and then degenerated to savagery. It's very compelling, and I am quite enjoying it. Here we see Howard's much explored theme of barbarism vs. civilization at its finest, and a new appreciation of Conan stories that feature the Picts, such as Beyond the Black River.

Excellent points, Jeff! I read Worms of the Earth years ago, and few other BMM stories there and there, but I hadn't read most of the others in that collection before. That's one of the many things I love about these REH collections

I'm currently reading A.E. Merrit for the first time, as well as a history of the Hanseatic League. Since I've been noodling on my redesign for Castle Greyhawk as part of running my Castle for Ethan and Henry, I'm going to delve back into some of my personal Greyhawk Archives soon, too.

Currently reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, which I'd seen a movie of years ago but never read prior to now. It's reminding me a lot of the first part of 'Salem's Lot and I'm overall enjoying it quite a bit, but Bradbury's prose has a tendency to go over the top with the adjectives:

Will opened his eyes and climbed and the rest was smooth, high, higher, fine, sweet, wondrous, done! They swung in and sat upon the sill, same size, same weight, colored same by the stars, and sat embraced once more with grand fine exhaustion, gasping on huge ingulped laughs which swept their bones together, and for fear of waking God, country, wife, Mom, and hell, they snug-clapped hands to each other's mouths, felt the vibrant warm hilarity fountained there, and sat one instant longer, eyes bright with each other and wet with love.

Almost every paragraph is like that, which is fine in a short story but gets a little tiresome extended to novel-length. Perhaps that's part of why Bradbury has written so few novels and so many stories.

But isn't Bradbury so amazing? I remember when he published One More For the Road earlier in the decade. I thought, "Okay, the guy is in his mid-80's. He must be calling it a career with this one." But no. He keeps writing, because it is what he is. Of his novels I've read Fahrenheit 451 (twice), Martian Chronicles, and Dandelion Wine. As I look at the Ray Bradbury Bibliography, I see that these were his first three novels. I wasn't aware of that. To this day, my favorite Bradbury is when he writes the short story, and he certainly deserves to be in the conversation for best short story writer. My all-time favorite is The Fog Horn, included in the collection, The Golden Apples of the Sun.

grodog wrote:... but I hadn't read most of the others in that collection before. That's one of the many things I love about these REH collections

I'm not ashamed to admit I have them all. Can't wait to get into El Borak. I may have read every Conan yarn three or four times (more if you include comics adaptations!), but it's still great to know there is a good amount of REH material I have yet to explore. Hope you're enjoying A. Merritt!

I just ordered the Lensman series. I'm in the mood for vast armies of planet-busting spaceships in a huge space-operatic backdrop.