Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[WT Sharpe]

BTW, issybird, it's not the easiest thing in the world to shoot a video on a phone in one hand while Swyping with the other.

[CRussel]

That's pretty funny, Tom.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

BTW, issybird, it's not the easiest thing in the world to shoot a video on a phone in one hand while Swyping with the other.

FWIW, I mostly get Emma Bombed on Android, also.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I'll go further than Jon. Although the budget for special effects was only a nickle ninety-eight, the TV show nailed it. The actors had their roles down pat and the writing was so stellar (no pun intended) that the pitiful make-up and sets were easily overlooked. The big-budget Disney movie sucked. Marvin, especially, was a let-down on the big screen. He was cute. Marvin should not be presented as cute. In the TV show he was big, clunky, and looked perpetually depressed, which is how the Paranoid Android should look. I also didn't care for the liberties the movie took with the established story line.

Yes, the TV show did get it right where the movie just sucked.

BTW, have you listened to the radio series? As I'm sure you know, the radio series predated even the books.

Yes, I've heard the radio series. It's excellent. Better then the books in some ways. It's the way I'd love audiobooks to be done. I'd love full cast and full sound effects. A good example is the full cast version of Ender's Game.

[philandjan]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I'll go further than Jon. Although the budget for special effects was only a nickle ninety-eight, the TV show nailed it. The actors had their roles down pat and the writing was so stellar (no pun intended) that the pitiful make-up and sets were easily overlooked. The big-budget Disney movie sucked. Marvin, especially, was a let-down on the big screen. He was cute. Marvin should not be presented as cute. In the TV show he was big, clunky, and looked perpetually depressed, which is how the Paranoid Android should look. I also didn't care for the liberties the movie took with the established story line.

BTW, have you listened to the radio series? As I'm sure you know, the radio series predated even the books.

The radio show was my introduction and, showing my age, I even managed to record the programmes on to audio cassettes. That's when you could let your imagination conjure up the characters. Those cassettes almost got exhausted with the number of times I listened to them. Then along came CDs and I was bought the complete set as a present.

Unfortunately, I still make people cringe by going to the bar and slipping in a request for a pan-galactic gargle blaster in the middle of a list of drinks.

No matter how good or how faithful an adaptation is (even LOTR), it never manages to beat that original magic act performed by your brain.

So, I'm off to read some more Vogan poetry!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Gilded Cage a recent purchase.

Just too silly for me. Some people have real magical powers ('Skill'), but despite this British history was essentially the same up to Charles I, when he was deposed not by the common people lead by Oliver Cromwell, but by one of the 'Skilled', who then instituted rule by the Skilled or 'Equals'. (cf Peers).

Who then impose a mandatory 10-year servitude on the non-skilled, where they must work for the skilled for ten years of their lives as slaves.

But despite all this, British history essentially carries on as in our history, to the extent that the motorway network is similar, and even to such things as Gormley's "Angel of the North" statue.

And people have essentially 20th-Century British lives, with children at school, universities operating, everything essentially as at present, and you can choose when to undertake your ten years.

But the ten years are performed in hellish factory towns with no rights for the inhabitants, poor food, minimal health care, and brutality.

In short, it's complete rubbish. One or two of the characters were interesting, but not enough to outweigh the dreadful world-building and plotting.

It also ends on a cliff-hanger, but not even that can persuade me to get the rest in the series. Tosh.

Somehow it's a lot easier to write about something one doesn't like, than about books one's really liked!

Next up: 1635: The Wars for the Rhine. So far the usual flaws of the third-party books. Too many characters and viewpoints. The author may know exactly who all these people are and their relationships, but they need to make more of an effort to ensure that the reader does as well!

[astrangerhere]

Read Anton Checkhov's "Dreams" on my phone while I was away from my reader yesterday. Pulled it from AmericanLiterature.com's short story of the day link.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Started The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams, a free book I picked up somewhere. The reviews aren't promising but I am trying to clear out some of the freebies clogging up my device.

Stopped after 50 pages. Writing skill was very good but this turned out to be an epic fantasy with many characters and POVs. I do not do those.

I also deleted a few other titles - freebies - from my Kobo that I have no interest in reading. Feels good cleaning up!

Next, TBD, probably a purchased book I never got around to yet.

[HarryT]

Two books finished:

"The Painted Queen", by Elizabeth Peters and Joan Hess. The final book in the "Amelia Peabody" series left unfinished at the time of Elizabeth Peters' death in 2013, and completed by Joan Hess. Fixed feelings about this one: happy to read one final story about Amelia and her family, and it was a good story, but it didn't have the same "voice" to it (in parts at least) as the genuine article. There were also some mildly annoying "Americanisms" in what's supposed to be a British story (at one point Amelia looks out of her hotel window and sees "a man standing on the sidewalk". Sorry, but British people don't do "sidewalks") and small but annoying grammatical errors (eg "Do not panic if it takes me awhile to meet you" -> should be "a while", not "awhile"). Enjoyable, but perhaps only read if you're a fan of the series.

"Four Mums in a Boat": the story of four ordinary middle-aged Yorkshire women who decided to compete in a rowing race across the Atlantic. Well-written and enjoyable - I remember watching the news coverage of it at the time (early last year) and thinking "rather them than me", a view very much reinforced by reading the book! Highly recommended.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

small but annoying grammatical errors (eg "Do not panic if it takes me awhile to meet you" -> should be "a while", not "awhile")

Is it actually incorrect?

http://blog.dictionary.com/word-fact...le-and-awhile/

The Difference Between “A While” and “Awhile”

The noun phrase a while can and often does follow a preposition, such as for or in: “He said he would be home in a while.” The adverb awhile cannot follow a preposition, a rule that makes sense if you revisit the definition of the term and drop it into a sentence such as the one above: “He said he would be home in for a short time or period.” However, if we omit the preposition and rewrite it as “He said he would be home awhile,” the sentence works with a slightly altered meaning.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is it actually incorrect?

http://blog.dictionary.com/word-fact...le-and-awhile/

Yes, it is incorrect. The intended meaning here is "a short period of time", not "for or during a short period of time", and thus the correct one to use is the noun phrase "a while", not the adverb "awhile".

Eg "I waited awhile"

but:

"It took me a while to get there".

Lots of people (professional authors included!) get this wrong.

[CRussel]

"awhile"??!! Even if the author got it wrong, the editor should have caught that one! However, sidewalk for footpath (or, I suppose, pavement) is the sort of thing that even a fairly aware American writer would likely miss. And if the editor was also American, that would likely slip through.

I haven't gotten to the end of this series yet, but I suspect I'll go ahead and get this one as well. I do so like Amelia.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by CRussel

"awhile"??!! Even if the author got it wrong, the editor should have caught that one! However, sidewalk for footpath (or, I suppose, pavement) is the sort of thing that even a fairly aware American writer would likely miss. And if the editor was also American, that would likely slip through.

Pavement would be the normal British English word, although footpath would be OK, too. "Sidewalk" just isn't a British word.

[CRussel]

Oh, I agree, sidewalk is very much a NA word. NOT British English at all. Interestingly, it's one of those American English words that's mostly made it into Canadian English, though we often follow the UK word choices on many things. Or have our own unique Canadianisms. (My absolute favourite is "garburator" for garbage disposer. )

I read a lot of British novels, and I've become fairly 'bilingual'. I'd never question reading 'pavement' in a British book, but I doubt I would have caught the inappropriateness of sidewalk if you hadn't mentioned it, even though I suspect it was jarring for you when reading it.

[HarryT]

Yes . Obviously I'm used to seeing it in American novels, but it's just "wrong" when used by (supposedly) British characters. Elizabeth Peters was extremely good at making the Amelia Peabody books "feel" British, but I guess Joan Hess has less (if any) experience of doing so.