Yes, the former. BtVOtD on DVD has GREAT background material. I’m friends with Dolly Read Martin on FB, by the way.
And there would be no Beyond if Jackie hadn’t written Valley.
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Right! I’ve never seen the VOtD, just Ebert’s film, which is a camp classic.
I should get around to watching it at some point.
Let us know how the book is. Seems like it would be interesting.
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It is! I’ve already read as much as I can find about Jackie herself and the circles she ran in. “Lovely Me” by Barbara Seamen is excellent reading.
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A Desolation called Peace just went on sale.
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25 years late to the party. Finally read Sabriel. Quite good, insofar as a middle-aged man writing a teen girl protagonist can be.
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Re-reading R. Austin Freeman’s Thorndyke stories and something jumped out at me.
His England of the late 19th/early 20th centuries is less white than most televised/movie Englands of the late 20th, early 21st.
They’re not perfect when it comes to racism (indeed, some is rather cringe-worthy by today’s standards), but Jewish, Black, Brown and Asian people exist. And they’re not just villians, servants or labourers, there’s also lawyers, academics… yet to go by later works, or what later or contemporary writers alleged, such people did not exist.
“It’s unrealistic to have an Indian lawyer in 1920s England!”
“Not on my account,” said Byramji. “I have only a few words to say and there is nothing secret about my business. May I introduce my kinsman, Mr. Khambata, a student of the Inner Temple?” Byramji’s companion bowed ceremoniously
One should note that the “Inner Temple” refers not to a place of worship, but the Law Courts. I highly doubt Freeman was being “woke”, but rather describing the world in which he lived.
Which was never as white as some people would like to believe.
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Gandhi was also trained at Inner Temple.
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I’m reading “The Moving Toy Store,” a murder mystery set in Oxford, by Edmund Crispin. It’s very funny and a neat mystery.
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Re-reading “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, about the Lincoln Cabinet and how it was formed, and what a MASTER at organization President Lincoln was, especially when dealing with a wide variety of personalities and characters.
Still the greatest POTUS ever, IMNSHO.
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I’ve discovered a delightful new scifi author: E.M.Foner. He’s written a couple of series, both set in the near-distant future as he envisions it.
The basic premise is that humanity has continued on the path we seem to be on now. Humans have ruined the earth, screwed up our global economy, and civilization is about to self-destruct.
Unknown to humans at that time, our galaxy does indeed contain other life, and one of the things it contains is a race of ancient beings, so long-lived as to be effectively immortal. They have evolved advanced technology, including sentient AIs. These beings are known to most other species as Makers.
One might think that these Makers would be the gods of the galaxy, but as it turns out, they don’t want the hassle. So one of the things they have done is create a new species of AIs, mechanical but very powerful, called the Stryx, and they basically run things. When a species achieves faster-than-light travel, the Stryx take note and pop over to their home system, and recruit them into the Stryx universe if they want to join. If they don’t, it’s all good, but they don’t get the benefits either. Play by the rules or go away.
Among the other things they do, is monitor advanced civilizations that haven’t yet mastered FTL travel. They don’t help, but they keep an eye out so they’ll know who’s who when FTL does happen. In humanity’s case, they felt the need to interfere.
What makes both of Foner’s series really interesting to me is that there’s no violence. None. No sex either. No wars. No invading space commandos. No space rays used in anger. It’s all about the characters and places.
It’s not funny, exactly, but the tone is extremely light-hearted, and there is no shortage of humor. That said, it’s not comedy. It looks at a lot of social problems and interaction between other species and humans, which is not always nice and can be complex.
There are quite a few books in the two series. Maybe 30 of them total? I quite enjoyed them. Both series are entirely available to Amazon Kindle Unlimited members.
And going down that rabbit hole led me to another, similar author, Jerry Boyd. I’m still working my way through his series, and I’ll post another review when I finish that one.
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Just the kind of sf I’m in the mood for. I’ve had about all the grim I can stand in one lifetime (though I am kind of looking forward to reading the last Expanse book).
On a friend’s recommendation, I read two of Edmund Crispen’s books featuring his Oxford professor/detective Gervase Fen, “The Moving Toyshop” and “Love Lies Bleeding.” Both were great fun, though I did have a hard time following the mystery (both depending on subtleties of who was where when), but then who cares when the background, characters, writing, and humor were all so enjoyable. I did have to look up words on practically every page, so I’m very glad I read it on Kindle where I could do so easily.
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Definitely try it! It’s odd but quite refreshing. Check out Jerry Boyd too, the Bob and Nikki series is a fun read.
I’ve been really off mysteries lately. I’ve been working on an homage to one of my favorite authors, but it seems like no matter what I do it keeps turning into a pastiche. Which would be fine, but it’s not what I want, and it annoys me. So as I’m wont to do, I’ve set it aside and am ignoring it. Early in the pandemic, did a deep dive into Sherlock Holmes pastiches but I quickly exhausted the good stuff, then the merely adequate, and then got bored with the really awful, and there’s a lot of that.
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Some years ago I read a couple of collections of Sherlock Holmes mysteries by someone who did a very good job. But I can easily imagine the bad stuff outweighs the good.
I really didn’t read the Crispen books for the mysteries. The background reminded me a bit of PG Wodehouse, though perhaps more serious and less out and out funny.
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Oh yeah, there are some very good ones. The Belanger brothers and Copeland are excellent, and faithful to the canon. Laurie R King expands the canon with her Mary Russell series. That’s a hard one, but as Letterman used to say, “if you accept the premise, you’ll enjoy the bit.” And they are just lovely. And August Derleth was one of the first, and probably the best, with his Solar Pons pastiches. (If you’re not familiar, he asked Conan Doyle’s permission to extend the canon, was refused, and did 'em anyway.)
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I really enjoyed the Mary Russel series!
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“Stilwell and the American Experience in China” by Barbara W. Tuchman.
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Just finished The City We Became by NK Jemison. Great stuff!
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I’ve read it before many times, but nothing wrong with reading it again! And the dispensary I go to is giving away Pride masks!
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I currently am addicted to Mick Herron’s slough house series. Recently picked up Mick Herron’s Nobody Walks from the liibrary. It’s set in the same universe, and a slow horse (J. K. Coe) is in this novel as a semi major character. But the tone is off. This is more grim than cynical and it surprised me.
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