Reading Record 2022 - Uniquely Portable Magic - The Bear and Badger

Wookienopants

Raiziel wrote:

46. The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

I don’t really have to say much about this one, do I? This time I read from the new Folio limited edition, and boy those books are big and heavy. Very early on I took to putting a cushion on my lap and placing the book on top of that for the sake of comfort. I’m also reading the trilogy through in tandem with the Reader’s Companion by Hammond and Scull, which is absolutely massive and effectively doubling the amount of reading per book. It took my three days just to get to chapter one, for crying out loud! It’s interesting, but definitely only for the most ardent of fans. Anyway, it’s nice to be back in Middle-earth. Again.

I'm still working my way through Fellowship. Paused to read The Hobbit to my boys. Recently picked Fellowship back up again and yea, it's wonderful to be back in Middle Earth.

I'm due another rewatch of the trilogy soon

davyK

Fancy having a look at the reader's companion. I'm read LotR 3 times in my life. And it gets better each time. It makes me want to lie down in a forest.

Wookienopants

I bought the extended versions of the movies last night having realised I'd never seen them.
I just want to spend my afternoon laying in the shade in the garden reading more today.
The story just makes me feel at home.

Gremill

Wookienopants wrote:

I bought the extended versions of the movies last night having realised I'd never seen them.
I just want to spend my afternoon laying in the shade in the garden reading more today.
The story just makes me feel at home.

I can't watch the normal versions anymore. You're in for a treat.

Wookienopants

Indeed. Loving it so far. Managed the first half hour of Fellowship before falling asleep last night and it was just wonderful (should know by now not to start a film after 10pm)

Moot_Geeza

Loving Lancelot so far. I don't think I've ever read anything similar, knights and swords have always been more of an on-screen thing for me. Hooked.

Raiziel

Glad to hear it!

Moot_Geeza

Straight on to Camelot afterwards I reckon.

Wookienopants

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Straight on to Camelot afterwards I reckon.

It's just a model

Moot_Geeza

Ha, was in my head while posting.

acemuzzy

Ooh, classic muzz

Spoiler:

Raiziel

acemuzzy wrote:

Ooh, classic muzz

Spoiler:

Purchased 10 April 2021, who knew!

Which is probably about the time I read and recommended it.

davyK

Death's End completes the Three Body Problem series of books.

I was wary of reading this as I enjoyed the first two and would have been content with how the 2nd book ended. This isn't as good as the first two but you cannot criticise the scale and scope of Lui Cixin's imagination. It's still a decent read and I'm glad I read it.

It goes on a bit too long in some sections and it feels like padding, but I suspect it's the author's enthusiasm. He certainly paints epic pictures. Overall , it gets away with it. It certainly kept me reading and I didn't feel cheated at the end. Good stuff.

Also completed The Trial of Henry Kissinger by The Hitch.. Boy - Christopher does not miss. He hammers so many nails into his subject it's difficult to see how Kissinger could wriggle out. But of course he does - hiding behind a cloak of respectability. But if 10% of what Hitchens writes is true, the man is a criminal and killer. At the very least he has questions to answer under oath.

Fierce stuff. Hitchens can be hard to keep up with but it's worth the ticket price.

Raiziel

47. Tau Zero by Poul Anderson

This is a hard sci-fi novel that feels like a very close cousin to Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes, which was adapted into the very famous Charlton Heston ‘em up of the same name. In that story the ship carrying the astronauts spends half its journey to the target planet doing its best to approach light speed, and the second half slowing down. Due to the crazy idea of relativity, the closer a moving object gets to light speed, the more everything slows down for everyone on board the ship relative to the rest of the universe. So for the astronauts, time in the universe speeds up. Right…so…Tau Zero takes that idea and goes fucking mental with it…and I love it.

Fifty colonists set out to potentially colonise a planet in a nearby system, using much the same system of speeding up for the first half of the journey and slowing down in the second half, only something goes wrong and the crew find themselves unable to slow down. They keep getting closer and closer to light speed and meanwhile time is speeding up in the universe around them. Anderson doesn’t blink one bit in taking this concept to the absolute extreme, and I love him for it.

It’s bonkers, and I love it. This is sci-fi.

Gremill

That sounds great.

Raiziel

It’s bloody great, Grem. If you’re up some sci-fi that stretches the noggin, this might do it.

davyK

Sounds great. This idea gets some play in the latter part of Death's End but from a different angle. It also features in Interstellar of course

Will make a note of this one.

Wookienopants

Bought it on Kindle last night, it's only £2.99.

Finished the first chapter last night and it's pretty good so far. Like the premise.

yourfavouriteuncle

The newest Sedaris is another delight. I think there’s only ever been one mid-step released and he’s now firmly in (inter)national treasure. Plus he’ll pick all your rubbish up.

poprock

I remember reading Islands of Space when I was a kid, which I think was written in the 1930s or 40s? I think that was one of the earlier novels with a proper go at a ‘hard’ sci-fi take on how faster than light travel might work.

* Yep, just Googled it. 1931.

Raiziel

Tau Zero, which was written (I think) in 1970, never tries to bust the faster than light idea. I mean that’s traveling back in time, right? I don’t know. Anderson plays within the realms of Einstein’s relativity, and takes humans to it’s utter extemes.

davyK

Death's End plays with light speed travel in a very clever way. It actually may be how it is achieved. And its impact might actually be real too.

Don't want to spoil it though.

Raiziel

I hated Death’s End. Not quite as much as I hated The Dark Forest. But yeah, for me they are some properly awful books with good ideas buried inside them.

davyK

Yeah - I remember you saying that about Dark Forest in particular which I really liked.

I suppose having them written in Chinese originally will take some of the shine off the prose. I don't read sci-fi for that though, but the 3rd one was hard going at times.

Raiziel

When the protagonist in The Dark Forest goes on a weekend holiday with an imaginary girlfriend I was fucking out. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever read.

Gremill

Raiziel wrote:

It’s bloody great, Grem. If you’re up some sci-fi that stretches the noddin, this might do it.

Got it last night, like Wookster, for £3. I'm in the Dark Forest/Deaths End Love camp, but you're allowed to be wrong sometimes Raz - you make so many good recommendations.

I'll get to Tau Zaro next, once I finish The Ruins.

Raiziel

Ooh, The Ruins! One of my favourites of last year! Will you like it or won’t you? I think I’m two down on this one as Moot and his better half weren’t keen. I still think it’s great, and it’s generally well thought of.

As for those second two books in the Three-Body series, I am resolute. Awful, embarrassing nonsense.

Gremill

I'm enjoying it so far - it's written in quite an interesting way and knowing that something awful is coming is building the tension well.

Raiziel

There isn’t a lot of dialogue, is there. I’m reading The Vorrh by Brian Catling, which is in the same style. I’m not a fan, personally, but I really was carried along by Smith’s storytelling in The Ruins.

davyK

Raiziel wrote:

When the protagonist in The Dark Forest goes on a weekend holiday with an imaginary girlfriend I was fucking out. It was the stupidest thing I’d ever read.

Cant even remember that bit!!!

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