[Closed] Books

Have you ever tried any Tanith Lee?

No. I see my library only has four titles and something called Leowolf trilogy? Is it good?

I hadn't read any fiction books since years, probably since high school. With the first LOTR movie I read the LOTR, two years ago I reread The Hobbit and The Neverending Story. Then something I don't remember, then this year the Inkheart books.

I went to the library and got a lot:

Fiction:
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Nobody's Boy / Alone in the World - Hector Malot

I also got the two kids books that had something to do with Spinoza and Huygens.

Non-fiction:
Three books about André Kuipers, one with mostly photos of the mission and one is his diary, sort of, and tells his story of the mission and of his life (Droomvlucht, het verhaal van André Kuipers - Sander Koenen).
Betacanon, 50 things everyone should know about physics - Robbert Dijkgraaf

I'll start with the kids books, they look like it takes two evenings to finish them. Then I'm tempted to go for the André Kuipers book, it looks really good. And next week we will visit the NASA expo.

Hmmmm? I'm not sure if that's my thing or not but I think I'll give it a try at some point.

Talking of horror, I was wondering if you'd ever read any Ramsey Campbell, Martijn? ( I'm guessing yes you have )

You guessed...wisely.

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying Droomvlucht The Story of Astronaut André Kuipers a lot!

Reading about the launch made me think of how accurate and realistic Apollo 13 movie is, great movie. Had Horners The Launch in my head too while reading.


Also it was fun the read his story of moments I remember watching on TV. I watched a lot of press conferences and live streams and also the NASA live stream from launch day to docking day.

The huge amounts of training and training, years and years, is really impressive. And then all goes well, launch and docking, and then when they can finally relax a bit André realises how much knowledge and skills he has got after all those years and he will never use it.

Zahn has a few of his own books, but his fame is only due to the Thrawn Trilogy, which I read as a kid. Sadly, my brother borrowed one of the parts (the last one) and I don't have it anymore.

I've been a Tom Clancy fan for ages. I've read all the Jack Ryan books from Hunt for the Red October up to Teeth of the Tiger (Locked On and Threat Vector I ignored, because they were ghostwritten and anyway they are a loss of form, sadly).

Recently I happened upon (as a Kindle owner, it's much easier) two of my favorite books of the series in their original English. The first one needs a bit of explanation, the second one goes without saying as possibly the best novel alongside Clear and Present Danger and that one was made into a very average, if not in some aspects plain bad, movie.

The first novel is something that goes for ages with me. Back in 1995 a very odd computer game was released. Very odd, because of its roots, because of the used technique and because of the way it is played. The roots of the game is the series of Police Quest by Sierra On-Line, a kind of radical police procedural. Radical, because since the first game the whole game was not just a traffic cop becoming a detective and solving a crime (or rather series of crimes). To survive you had to stick to basic police procedures, which pissed many gamers off: You had to walk around your car to perform a check or else you'd get killed. You had to cuff a drunk driver from the backside (when he begs you to do it on the front) or else you'd get killed. You had to call for backup, leave the car ONLY when your backup arrives, prepare your gun, etc., or you'd get killed. A stakeout is something a police stakeout really is - waiting 5 minutes in total boredom until action happened and you'd have to react in 5 seconds to make necessary arrest. And so on. The game was created when a former cop dealing with a shooting incident that left him traumatized met with Sierra's boss. There were three sequels, the fourth prepared by Los Angeles' disgraced former Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates. The fifth was SWAT. It was an FMV game - filmed with proper cameras, using actors (Full Motion Video). It's weird, because the game is a sort of tactical shooter, which is hard to get into, because when you are in action (and before action you have to basically train your shit off, which is boring) you have about 2-3 seconds to do the right thing (without any hints!) or else you get killed or compromised. I loved the game and it started my huge interest and for some time passion in special operations/SWAT teams. This influenced a lot of things in my life, because based on this interest I watched The Rock (which has the main characters infiltrate Alcatraz with a SEAL team) and that's how my film music passion started.

Four years later, I started playing this game called Rainbow Six. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. While never having read a novel by that time, being some of a film geek already, I knew who he was and of course, who Jack Ryan was. So this game I really liked, I only found certain missions frustrating (having to infiltrate certain buildings undetected without being allowed to kill anyone) and because of them I wouldn't, well, finish. But the special operations geek was satisfied. Little did I know that Rainbow Six was also a Clancy novel (for those interested in the title: Rainbow is the name of the black counterterror team; Six is the designation of the commander of the team, Clancy's recurring John Clark, it's the second novel about him in the series). My parents bought me both volumes (it was released in two here) and I read it immediately and loved, having dreamed of making it into a movie for ages. John Woo voiced interest and was supposed to produce the film, but that makes me cringe. Woo is too stylized for this kind of operation and Clancy actually strives for realism. I've read it for like five times, but in English I actually liked it even more and found it more suspenseful.

The second novel is the one with the botched film adaptation. Sum of All Fears. After developing a perfect and seemingly working Middle East peace plan, Jack Ryan, DDCI (Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, and CIA's Director of Intelligence) must battle political issues and fight for his own family after the new National Security Advisor goes length to destroy his life, just because she doesn't like him. What helps her plans is the fact that she just started an affair with the president himself. In the mean time with help of a German and an American terrorist, a few Arab terrorists, unhappy with Ryan's peace plan (which he didn't get credit for), devise a plan to deliver and set off a nuclear bomb in America. There is no space in this already overlong post to say what is wrong with the movie, but basically a lot. The novel, epic in proportions, having very precisely developed plot, is great and the technical detail is just mesmerizing. There is a full chapter, which describes the chain reaction that leads to the bomb's explosion in minute detail (3-4 pages of describing things that take 30 nanoseconds). Reading this in its original English was also a beauty. While I think I prefer the Polish translation of the bomb explosion chapter, in general, it was better to read it so.

Yeah, that's true. Though Patriot Games had too much of these threads and I actually find the film much better. The reasons behind Sean Miller's actions in the movie are much more clear-cut, poignant and understandable (going with the family theme of the movie perfectly, too) than the political statement ULA makes in the film.

Also, what's good is just making the terrorists kind of worse PIRA than PIRA rather than a fictional organization trying to find its way.

Clear and Present Danger, well, how the hell could they have killed Dan Murray off will always escape me.

What do you think of Clancy's politics? From what I know he's making a huge controversy at this time, because he's basically Tea Party in his views. Though, interestingly, he was protecting the Arabs (and was very critical of the Bush administration) right after 9/11, because Debt of Honor had a very similar scenario to what happened on that day.

Sum of All Fears has the great feeling of paranoia at the end, when Ryan is desperately trying to avoid a nuclear war. Good also that Clancy made a dramatic point of the two-man-rule. I wonder if the writers of Crimson Tide didn't take a page from the book there.

I finally bought an ebook reader. I decided against amazon's Kindle and choose the Tolino Shine instead. It's advertised by three German book chaines. I don't know if it is sold anywhere abroad, too. The system is much more open than the Kindle. Handling is a bit different from the Kindle, more touch screen, less knobs. The Display is just as good.
I downloaded some epub free files today to play around with (Haggard, Stoker, Doyle, May (German), Scott, Polidori and Mary Shelley). So far everything is fine.
I expect these type of device to evolve in the future. Maybe the ebook reader will merge with the pad. But I am not sure since the displays are rather different from each other.
I am a classic book worm and this will not replace any printed book. But it seems to be a nice supplement.

Volker

I got bought Stephen King's Doctor Sleep as a belated present for a favour I did a friend.

Anyone reading this one? Thor or Martijn maybe?

I haven't, no. Been on my list for a long time. I'd love to hear your report (without spoilers, please!).

I never even knew about the book until about a week ago, I guess?
I'll be sure to pick it up, though!

I wasn't sure where to ost this, so I'm sticking with a thread about books.

New book from film score sessions player Billy Mays:
Stories of the Road, the Studios, Sidemen & Singers: 55 Years in the Music Biz

Excerpts:





I can picture the commercial for it now:

"Hi, BILLY MAYS HERE here for my new book..."

Why is it that a publisher (Bean) publishes a series of omnibus volumes (A. Bertrand Chandler - The John Grimes Saga) in different sizes? Volumes II, III and V are 19,6 cm high, volume I and IV are 17,1 cm high. That looks redicolous on the shelf.
I had the same thing with the Culture sreries by Ian M. Banks (Orbit) those are three different sizes, no less: Small, smaller, very big, small again. In that order. What's the sense?

Volker

I am flicking through my recently acquired copy of Erik Heine's "Signs: A Film Score Guide", a recent addition to the excellent series of books in the Film Score Guides series ("Signs" is number 17 on the list).

And I was pleased to come across the following passage when the author is discussing the critical reception of the soundtrack's CD:

"The reviews of soundtrack CDs, particularly those that just involve score, are often limited to the online universe of blogs, often with reviews by people who listen almost exclusively to film scores, but not necessarily with the critical training that would be expected from a print publication. Multiple reviews can be found online for the soundtrack...the review at MainTitles.net (film music community) was originally published on December 29, 2010, over eight years after the soundtrack was released. Thomas Glorieux certainly praises the recording, making statements such as, "Signs above anything else is so brilliant, that with little Newton Howard [sic] can do so much." Certainly the writing is less acceptable than would be expected in a print publication."

Whilst I am very pleased that MainTitles.net (and Thomas) has made it into print (as has soundtrack.net, Filmtracks.com, Film Score Monthly and moviewave.net), I am struck by the very visible snobbishness of the author with regard to online vs print publications and, it seems to formal music training. The comments on Thomas' review has a note number associated with it and the note reads: "Thomas Glorieux...His profile on the website, which does not provide any credentials, can be viewed at..."

And, when talking about a review on Soundtrack.net (by Andrew Granade) Heine states, "[the review]...was written by Andrew Granade, currently Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, but a graduate student at the time of the review...Granade provides a much deeper review than often appears on a website such as this, but that is due to his scholarly background rather than listening almost exclusively to film scores."

I look forward to delving a bit deeper into the book!

Well done to MainTitles.net, and to Thomas in particular.