Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Dont you mean the day of??

Once youve read it Ive got the bbc series kicking around ......its brilliant :)

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Well spotted - but no I don't :) - I mean the sequel. Which is the Night of the Triffids.

I taped the BBC series earlier this year off UK Gold :)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...206870-3455637

Speaking of osbcure sequels - did you know there was a sequel to the novel of 'When Worlds Collide'

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

A Sequel?????? :shocked:

Its just not the same !!

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

No - but it was still a good book.

It was nice to see what happened to the characters - old and new :)

It is worth a read if you liked the original.

Next up... Foundation (asimov) which I've had for a LONG time - but never got round to reading.

(and YES - I know some people like the trashcan man ;) )

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Bah! Can't anyone stop these b*ggers who try to carry on with someone elses idea?All those damned Dune sequels and prequels written by other people.And Asimovs Foundation series.Get's on my tits this does.Also lay off the Blade runner 'sequels'.They are utter pap and follow on in the the style of the films not the original PKD Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep style.There is no one to touch the genius of PKD.

Sorry getting off my rant box now. :rant:

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Fair point, rather than a rant, I think. :)

I know the Wyndham estate gave permission for Simon Clark to produce this book, but it seems like cheating to me - have some of your own ideas Mr Clark :(

There should be a rule that only the original author can produce a sequel.

Having said that, one of the things that stopped me buying new SciFi (and Fantasy) books, was that they moved away from being self contained to becoming trilogies & beyond - Mission Earth anyone, a decology!!! Different stories within a 'world frame' set by an original story, Like Terry Pratchett, or the 'known space' stories by Larry Niven are ok - it's the ones where the story isn't finished until the last volume, I mean.

I still buy some, if I can get them second hand, Red/Blue/Green Mars, was a recent purchase, for example at 80p each ;)

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Allow me to insert a small spelling correction here. I have, at this very moment, a copy of volume 10 in my grubby mitt. On the back cover it is described as the grand finale of "The biggest science fiction dekalogy" ever written. A small footnote helpfully explains (presumably for the benefit of the linguistically challenged) that a dekalogy is a group of 10 volumes. Having ground to a halt after, IIRC, volume 2, I doubt if I'll ever get round to reading it.

Even Proust didn't reach 10 volumes with ÃÃâ€*’â‚ ¬ la recherche du temps perdu.

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

Thanks, now I can get on it!!

I agree *entirely*! The "prelude to Dune" stuff stinks and, in the worst Star Trek traditions, pi$$es all over the continuity of the series.

I never actually thought Foundation was that great, but it just got worse with time. Other "franchise" works based on Asimov's ideas are also cr@p.

Don't touch the Blade Runner "sequel" with a barge pole. Blade Runner 2 tries to square the circle between the book "Do Androids..." and the film and makes a *complete* pigs ear of the entire thing!

Ok, rant over. We now return you to your regularly scheduled flame throwing...!

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

I believe that's actually spelled "Drekology" (or, at least, should be!)

But I know what you mean. I see a new work by a new writer and it's billed as "Book one in the XYZ trilogy" and my response is "oh gods, here we go again, another lot of turgid pap churned out to make money" :(

Hear hear! If you haven't read him, may I recommend Allen Steele ("Clarke County, Space", "Lunar Descent" and "Orbital Decay" are three excellent works) he's well worthy of taking up the mantle of the "Hard SF" writers such as Clarke and Niven.

I tried that series recently and was frankly disappointed with it. I got about half way through Blue and just gave up. It seemed that Kim Stanley Robinson can write good technical stuff, but doesn't know how to put together a good story, eg he casually tosses away a line about a child being the n-th one born on Mars, but the *first* one, which should have been a *major* event, doesn't even get a mention!)

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

I just ordered Do androids dream of electric sheep - along with some other Books :- Martian Time-Slip - Ubik: Glen Runciter is dead - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - A Scanner Darkly. All in one volume, As I've never read do androids dream of electric sheep and I quite fancied it....

So I hope it's quite good, I hope the others are ok too.

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

PDK writes super intelligent literature that just happens to be SF.

Incog.:)

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

i just trudged through the stand complete and uncut by stephen king. great book though it seems to jump around in places.

have read every stephen king book and am onto james herbert now, must say though favourite book of all time is probably IT. ah the evil clown. the film version was utter pants though.......

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

The Stand's brilliant - I picked it up in a second hand shop for about six quid years ago and couldn't put it down (the mini-series was good as well :tu: )

IT's a great book - along with the first Poltergeist film, it put me off clowns for life :(

As for James Herbert, I'd recommend the later ones - Others, Once and Nobody True are really good, but his earlier stuffs worth reading as well.

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

The Foundation trilogy (not the later stuff) is something that you should read when you are young and new to SF. Don't forget that they were written in the first half of the 40s. I'd agree with you that they're not exactly one of the gems of English literature, but in their time they were some of the best SF available. One other thing; you quite often come across the claim that Asimov based the series on the fall of the Roman Empire. Yes, the basic premise, the unstoppable fall (due to historical circumstances) of a great empire and the emergence of barbarian successor states, is but the rest has a much vaguer connection. For example, it forgets that it was only the Western empire that fell; the Eastern empire survived for many more centuries. The other part that has a historical analogue is in, IIRC, Foundation and Empire where the last strong general is stopped because of jealousy on the part of the emperor. This brings to mind Justinian and Belisarius.

Re: What was the last book you read?
 

He also wrote some *very* strange stuff (allegedly chemically inspired!), but overall it's defintely good stuff and very thought provoking at times.