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Books 12-16
Jan. 23rd, 2009 06:32 am12) the Spirit volume 14: this volume marks the return of Will Eisner to his creation after the war, and you can see the clear difference from the people who have been filling in for him. It's not up to the levels he will reach later, but it's deft clever artistic construction and storytelling are still better than the majority of the people standing on his shoulders today.
13) Spaceship Zero: an RPG I've been looking for for years, this is just as good as advertised. OK, so the mechanics are a little clunky, but I've seen worse. The the core concepts and the setting are just so damn sweet. As Ladegard pointed out, some of the spaceships have grills! and the ray guns look like damn ray guns, with radiator fins and places for lights to flash on their barrel! I particularly admire the author's attention to detail in getting the game to mirror the 1950's radio show and the hard-to-find 1970's german TV remake. OK, so it wasn't that difficult, since the authors made those up to, but the fact that they include an episode guide to the TV show which not only captures the 1970's post Star Wars Space Opera cheese (where most episodes take place on the ship because they have no money for location shooting) but also contains ideas so good I'm mining them for my USS Carter game.
14) Nation: Sir Terry's latest, it's a little slow to start (I think mostly because it's not Diskworld so I didn't have the background knowledge to ease immersion) but once it gets going it's wonderful. If this ends up being Pratchett's last book, it is a very worthy capstone to an amazing career. And I wonder why Atheists are spending their time pushing argumentative militants like Hitchens and Dawkins (or, in SF/F Pullman) when they could be handing out this book (and some of Terry's others) to show a more human and humane side to the questions being asked?
15) The Complete Concrete: (Reread) Collects the first 10 issues of Paul Chadwick's best known work. There are now 20+ years old and they still hold up very well. Well drawn characters having realistic adventures, the stories are of a solitary superhuman trying to live a adventurous-but-human life (he uses his superhuman strength and durability to swims the atlantic, climbs Everest, helps save a family farm, rescue trapped miners, build a bridge in Sri Lanka and other personal triumphs and small heroics). Best of all, this compilation is still in Chadwick's glorious original back and white - I've never liked the addition of color to the Concrete stories, even if Chadwick has personally assured me it's what he needed to do to keep the books in distribution after 1990. (It's true, I asked him at a convention once).
16) Selected Stories out of Things Will Never be the Same: A Howard Waldrop collection, I re-read about half of the stories in it last night when a passing fancy made me pull it off the shelf. Waldrop is an amazing writer, but while I can feel some sympathy for his putting artistic purity over commercial success, I sometimes wish he didn't. Knowing the author has broken 5 figures a year just twice in his career and is living in a fishing shack takes some of the fun out of the reading. John M. Ford had that same desire ( he never used the same voice or writing style whereas Waldrop swears he will never re-tell the same story) but seems to be a little bit better at it - or perhaps more willing to also take a day job.
13) Spaceship Zero: an RPG I've been looking for for years, this is just as good as advertised. OK, so the mechanics are a little clunky, but I've seen worse. The the core concepts and the setting are just so damn sweet. As Ladegard pointed out, some of the spaceships have grills! and the ray guns look like damn ray guns, with radiator fins and places for lights to flash on their barrel! I particularly admire the author's attention to detail in getting the game to mirror the 1950's radio show and the hard-to-find 1970's german TV remake. OK, so it wasn't that difficult, since the authors made those up to, but the fact that they include an episode guide to the TV show which not only captures the 1970's post Star Wars Space Opera cheese (where most episodes take place on the ship because they have no money for location shooting) but also contains ideas so good I'm mining them for my USS Carter game.
14) Nation: Sir Terry's latest, it's a little slow to start (I think mostly because it's not Diskworld so I didn't have the background knowledge to ease immersion) but once it gets going it's wonderful. If this ends up being Pratchett's last book, it is a very worthy capstone to an amazing career. And I wonder why Atheists are spending their time pushing argumentative militants like Hitchens and Dawkins (or, in SF/F Pullman) when they could be handing out this book (and some of Terry's others) to show a more human and humane side to the questions being asked?
15) The Complete Concrete: (Reread) Collects the first 10 issues of Paul Chadwick's best known work. There are now 20+ years old and they still hold up very well. Well drawn characters having realistic adventures, the stories are of a solitary superhuman trying to live a adventurous-but-human life (he uses his superhuman strength and durability to swims the atlantic, climbs Everest, helps save a family farm, rescue trapped miners, build a bridge in Sri Lanka and other personal triumphs and small heroics). Best of all, this compilation is still in Chadwick's glorious original back and white - I've never liked the addition of color to the Concrete stories, even if Chadwick has personally assured me it's what he needed to do to keep the books in distribution after 1990. (It's true, I asked him at a convention once).
16) Selected Stories out of Things Will Never be the Same: A Howard Waldrop collection, I re-read about half of the stories in it last night when a passing fancy made me pull it off the shelf. Waldrop is an amazing writer, but while I can feel some sympathy for his putting artistic purity over commercial success, I sometimes wish he didn't. Knowing the author has broken 5 figures a year just twice in his career and is living in a fishing shack takes some of the fun out of the reading. John M. Ford had that same desire ( he never used the same voice or writing style whereas Waldrop swears he will never re-tell the same story) but seems to be a little bit better at it - or perhaps more willing to also take a day job.
