MobileRead Forums - MobileRead March 2016 Book Club Nominations

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I will nominate The Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith which was mentioned in a fairly recent post (either the "what are you reading" thread or the "recommend a book from the library" thread). I know virtually nothing about it beyond what is in the blurb but it sounds interesting.

Available in the library in a PRC format (Kindle compatible) by BenG and converted to ePub format by WT Sharpe. I think that hits the major format needs.

Quote:

Thorne Smith's rapid-fire dialogue, brilliant sense of the absurd, and literary aplomb put him in the same category as the beloved P. G. Wodehouse. The Night Life of the Gods--the madcap story of a scientist who instigates a nocturnal spree with the Greek gods--is arguably his most sparkling comedic achievement.

Hunter Hawk has a knack for annoying his ultrarespectable relatives. He likes to experiment and he particularly likes to experiment with explosives. His garage-cum-laboratory is a veritable minefield, replete with evil-smelling clouds of vapor through which various bits of wreckage and mysteriously bubbling test tubes are occasionally visible.
With the help of Megaera, a fetching nine-hundred-year-old lady leprechaun he meets one night in the woods, he masters the art (if not the timing) of transforming statues into people. And when he practices his new witchery in the stately halls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art - setting Bacchus, Mercury, Neptune, Diana, Hebe, Apollo, and Perseus loose on the unsuspecting citizenry of Prohibition-era New York - the stage is set for Thorne Smith at his most devilish and delightful.

Born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892, educated at Dartmouth, THORNE SMITH was an early cohort of Dorothy Parker's. He achieved literary success in 1926 with the publication of Topper and went on to publish nine novels in the next eight years. He earned a passionate following among both critics and readers before his death, at the age of forty-two, in 1934.

I will third Starfish since it is a much more recent book than many of the other books in the library. I know some people want a more modern option and I enjoyed the one other Peter Watts' book I have tried (Blindsight).

I second Night Life of the Gods.

I nominate Music of the Spheres by Margaret Wander Bonanno. This Star Trek novel features the original cast and takes place just after the events in the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

Kindle: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12979
ePub: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=177182

Quote:

From wikiw: The Home of Fandom:

Margaret Wander Bonanno (born 7 February 1950; age 66) is a science fiction author from New York, with over twenty novels to her credit, including several set in the Star Trek universe. These include Dwellers in the Crucible, Strangers from the Sky, and Catalyst of Sorrows.

She rose to the spotlight of Star Trek apocrypha when her novel Strangers from the Sky made the Time bestsellers list in 1985. But the story that gave her more fame in Trek circles was what would follow.

She is also credited with writing Probe, though in her words it is "not her novel." She was contracted by Paramount to write a novel she called Music of the Spheres, based on the Whale Probe of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. However, due to the undesired intervention of an editor at Paramount, the story was nearly completely re-written without her consent, and they refused to remove her name from the project.

After the unpleasant experience, she focused on projects other than Star Trek novels, such as the science fiction book Saturn's Child co-written with Nichelle Nichols.

She was interviewed for the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (Special Edition) DVD, hosting the special features section entitled "Vulcan Primer," in which she explains a brief history of the Vulcans and why they are so popular among fans.

From The m0vie blog:

Music of the Spheres is something of a legend in Star Trek circles. It’s not quite a ghost story, spoken of in hushed whispers. Indeed, author Margaret Wander Bonanno has made the manuscript available to interested fans via her website, and has used it to raise money for a variety of worth causes. She’s documented the difficult story of how her original novel warped in Probe in a wonderfully wry and insightful essay, offering a glimpse at the inner workings of Pocket Book and Paramount towards the end of the eighties.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dazrin (Post 3265679)

This has been nominated before and never quite received enough votes to win, but I've read it and if I had any votes left, would give one to it. Love this book, and love Thorne Smith.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe (Post 3265702)

I'll second this.

I'll third Under The Red Robe

I've read all of them except the Star Trek one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BenG (Post 3265747)

I've read all of them except the Star Trek one.

I figured you'd read The Crock of Gold, since you uploaded it. :)

But the Star Trek novel is flatly impossible, as you have to have seen the movie, if I understand this correctly. :D

Crock of Gold and Starfish are so far the only ones that interest me. I need to spend a bit of time poking through the library list and see what I can turn up.

I third The Phantom of the Opera.

I'll third Night Life of the Gods.

I've done additional conversions to ePub and Kindle formats of the books that have been fully nominated. As of this writing, all the books that have been fully nominated are now available in both Kindle and ePub formats (see post #1).