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[paw broon]

Currently close to the end of Bertie's Guide to Life and Mothers by Alexander McCall Smith, the latest 44 Scotland St. novel.  Bertie is a great wee guy and has become quite the hero to many. The book is funny, sage, beautifully written and points are made.

[Captain Audio]

Found a site with some of the Professor Jameson series.
Was a good read.
I'd read one or two many years ago.
The Prof when old and near death becomes obessed with preserving his body for the ages.
He builds a spaceship solely to house his corpse, with instructions for launching it into a obit many thousands of miles from earth.

Millions of years later after all trace of mankind has vanished and earth is a dead world space farers find his corpse and transplant his reanimated brain into a robot body.
The aliens are also cyborgs, their race giving up reproduction for individual immortality.
He considers suicide but accepts his fate and joins them in exploring the universe.

[josemas]

Wow!  I had not thought of the Professor Jameson series in years!  No, make that decades.  I thought they were very cool when I read them as a kid.  I remember the paperbacks I read had covers by Gray Morrow.  Probably my first exposure to the artist.

Best

Joe

[Captain Audio]

Heres a link to the early version of the story.
http://thenostalgialeague.com/olmag/jones-the-jameson-satellite.html
Great art work.
Its in public domain but apparently the rest of the series is still under copyright.

Heres another story you might like.
"the Last American'' by John Ames Mitchell.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=7485

I had a reprint of this many many years ago with the original illustrations which were awesome.

There was a site with this story with illustrations intact years ago but I can't find it now.

[josemas]

Thanks for the links Cap.  Looking at the Gray Morrow cover there brought back more memories.  I guess I was nine or ten years old when I was reading these back in the 60s.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Two Americans: Truman, Eisenhower, and a Dangerous World by William Lee Miller  Compares and contrasts the lives of these two men who both ultimately became presidents.  Both come off about equally well in the final analysis despite Truman's very low ratings when he left office and Eisenhower's very high ratings.

Goodyear by Denise E. Bates and Sally Kiko  Goodyear is a community to the west of Phoenix that played an important part in the early farming community out here as well as in training pilots during WWII.

Flip: The Inside Story of TV's First Black Superstar by Kevin Cook.  Decent bio of the comedian who was hugely popular when I was young.  Nowadays I bet most people under 35 wouldn't even know who he was if you asked them.  Fame can be fleeting.

Early Phoenix by Kathleen Garcia   Covers the history of my "home town" up til the 1920s.  Lots of pictures of long gone buildings.

Best

Joe

[jimmm kelly]

These days I'm juggling a lot of different reading--including A STUDY IN SCARLET and a large book of stories by Stefan Zweig (I was turned on to Zweig by a movie review of THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL--I don't know if I'll see the movie, but I'm grateful to it for bringing Zweig to my attention).

On the internet, on Project Gutenberg, I'm reading an English translation of DIE BIENE MAJA UND IHRES ABENTEUER (THE ADVENTURES OF MAYA THE BEE) by Waldemar Bonsels. I'd never heard of Maya the Bee until last week.

Some might know her from her animated series. This was an anime produced in Japan in the '70s. It was dubbed into several languages and broadcast around the world. North American kids would have seen it in the early '80s, I think. The cartoon had a theme song that became very popular in its German form as sung by Karel Gott. It's that theme song that brought Die Biene Maja to my attention.

The original story isn't that long and I'll probably finish it soon. But it's not your typical children's story. Written in 1912, the story does anthropomorphize the insect world in some respects, but in other respects it is gives a realistic depiction of the natural world. I suspect that there's a political message behind the short novel, but I'll give that more thought after I've finished it.

In 1924, Wolfram Jungans created a live action feature based on the book--filming the natural world of bees and other insects. I've watched a bit of it, but I'll view the whole thing after I've read the story. You can find it on youtube.

The much more anthropomorphized cartoon version of Maya got her own German comic book, DIE BIENE MAJA, starting in 1976 and published for fifteen years by Bastel Verlag.

There was lots of other merchandise spun off from Maya the Bee, including a number of video games. Last year a new CGI cartoon series was broadcast in Germany--and a 3D movie is supposed to come out this year.

In 1963, Croatian composer Bruno Bjelinski wrote an opera. A revival was staged last summer in Villach, Austria, for the Karnten Sommer Musik Fest, featuring children as the bees.

[Captain Audio]

In 1924, Wolfram Jungans created a live action feature based on the book--filming the natural world of bees and other insects. I've watched a bit of it, but I'll view the whole thing after I've read the story. You can find it on youtube.

Interesting live action spider film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUI2irVtKxQ

[mr_goldenage]

My reads of late since I've been confined to limited computer use and no physical activities to speak of I decided to revisit dead comic book series from the 1980's by independent publishers. First up was....

Silverwolf Comics books.... and there were a bunch. Grips, Edge, The Eradicators, Stech, just to name a few. All written by one person Kris Silver. This gave the book a cohesive if narrow minded direction and tone, which ultimately limited the whole line, not to mention stretched the writer and his resources to the point of bankrupting the whole enterprise. Some of the books had promise and some were terrible and others just run of the mill. But the end came and stories stopped midway through and without and ending. But all was not lost. Silver would re-emerge later with Greater Mercury Comics reviving and creating more characters (and most were quite derivative) to populate his universe. But again, being the only writer wityh so many titles going on proved to be the undoing once again. The only good thing was that some of the previous story lines ended up be tidied up. Others, not so much. Art wise, some really good to great artist got their start there. Tim Vigil, Ron Lim, and others. The pay (if any) was terrible but it was a chance to get published and get their art out there. Vigil would go on to do the notorious Faust series and related spin-off's, Lim had his own success story Rob Liefield...well you all know where he ended up. Kris Silver swears he will be back one day. Who knows. He had some good characters and a few interesting ideas. Too bad, another dead universe.
Next..... The Survivors and the Spectrum Universe.

RB over and out!

[paw broon]

Richard, you really are digging deep.  I was a Grips fan and still have the original issues. Well, 1, 2, 3 and a gold compilation of the set so I could have #4.   But I got rid of most of the other Silver Wolf and G.M. titles.  There was a Nightmaster title by Vigil, I think and seem to recall rather enjoying it.  In fact, I fancy having a look for it as I'm sure I kept a couple of issues.  G.M. versions of Grips were reasonably well done by other artists, I seem to remember and I bought them for a while.  Problem was, I was buying many of the other titles and some of them were terrible. 
At the time some of it was almost worth the effort but if I hadn't been involved in a comic shop, I would probably never have found them.  When Faust appeared, #1 seemed to get through customs but later on - trouble.  Despite that, some copies always turned up and they sold like hotcakes.
Now I remember, Vigil did a couple? of issues of The Badger for First.  A good day for me, being a Badger fan.

[narfstar]

You guys were reading some of the same stuff I was in the 80's. I agree with the comments on Silver's books. I also read Survivors and remember enjoying it at the time.

[mr_goldenage]

Well I only scratched the surface of both of Kris's lines. I have all but 3 of the Silverwolf books and all but 4 of the Greater Mercury books. I could probably go more in depth into them all, but I'm not sure that you all want a long discussion of all those books.

Just got through reading the Epsilion Wave 8 issue series by Independent/Elite Comics, next I'm starting Seadragon then onto Twighlight Avenger and Darkwolf. I've already finished the Spectrum Line and the Survivors series.....more on that later....nite all....

RB

[paw broon]

Twilight Avenger was really good and I still have the comics.  Right alongside them are the 1st. 4 issues of Vital Man (Budgie Press), another obscure goodie. 
Makes me wonder if a section for discussion of old, small press heroes and comics, could be fun. There were lot more than the ones mentioned.  But I get the feeling Richard will get to them soon enough.
I also found my copy of Skull Slayer.  So thanks to Richard for getting me off my bum and searching out these comics.

[narfstar]

I am making headway getting my comics organized. In the process I come across all those books like Seadragon and Twilight Avenger. I have not seen my Silverwolf/Greater Mercury comics yet but they will show up and bring a smile. I also have boxes with paperbacks among them. I have so much I have never read and yet I run into so much I want to re-read. All-Star Squadron would be great to re-read but there are so many. I have all the Phantom and Flash Gordon paperbacks that I really enjoyed. Never enough time.

[jimmm kelly]

Yesterday, among some other purchases, I bought a small book with the unpretentious title, LITTLE BOOK OF SUPER HEROES. Its smallness is one of the things that recommended it to me--since I can carry it around without a lot of bother, when I'm off doing other things.

I cannot bring myself to scribble in any of my books. I used to have to do this with texts in university, but since then it really bothers me if I annotate my books--or someone else does it to a book I have lent them.

With this book, I wish I didn't have that phobia--because it would be good to note every passage that gives me pause. Just a few pages into it, i found myself questioning a lot.

My apologies to Gent and Heatley (the authors) if you're on this board. It's not just this book--it's evey book about comics. When I was younger, i enjoyed reading these kind of books because I didn't know much. But now that I know something, I have problems with all the assumptions that pass as fact in all of the books about comics.

A lot of these books repeat the same lines. It would be refreshing if someone came at comics from a totally new perspective.

At the same time, I enjoy quarreling in my mind with these books. That's now the fun for me in reading these texts--or I wouldn't bother with them. I still get a lot out of reading books about comics--just a different sort of thing from what I used to get out of such books.

[narfstar]

So not much to recommend it jimmm. Anyone remember Gen13. Well they had a paperback novel that I found a couple of weeks ago and read a couple days ago. It was a pretty good read.

[josemas]

Mesa- by Lisa A. Anderson, Alice C. Jung, Jared A. Smith and Thomas H. Wilson   Mesa is a city to the east of Phoenix that the LDS church played an important part in founding back in the later 19th century.  Today it is one of the biggest cities in the state.

Demolition Angel- by Robert Crais  The first Crais' novel I've read that didn't feature either Elvis Cole or Joe Pike.   Still pretty darn good.

The Wise Man's Fear: Kingkiller Chronicles Day Two- by Patrick Rothfuss  This guy writes so well that it is a real pleasure to read his books.

Old Tucson Studios- by Paul J. Lawton   A history of the film studio down near Tucson where many western movies and television shows have been filmed over the years.

Lifestyle Illustrations of the 60s- edited by Rian Hughes  I wish there was a bit more text about the artists and magazines they worked for but there sure are some great examples of the sort of illustrations that were prominent in women's magazines of that decade.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

The Last Dragonslayer- by Jasper Fforde   Fforde seems to be going for a younger audience with this book.  Still has much of his trademark humor.  I've heard that it is the first of a trilogy.

Joyland- by Stephen King   Basically this is a good coming of age story but because it's a King book there is mystery thrown in as well as a bit of spookiness.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much- by Allison Hoover Bartlett  Interesting look at a man obsessed with books and the lengths he goes to in order to possess them.

Tempe- by Shirley R. Blanton   Tempe  s just to the east of southeast Phoenix and is the home of Arizona State University.

The Good Nurse: The True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder- by Charles Graeber   The media dubbed Charles Cullen the "Angel of Death" when he was caught just over a decade ago.  he is suspected of killing around 400 people while working as a nurse in various medical facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania over the course of 16 years.  As bad as he was I found it just as frightening the way one medical institution after another seemed more interested in covering their asses than in properly investigating him thus enabling him to keep moving on to claim more victims. 

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

I just finished Blood Ransom by Lisa Harris. Excellent book lots of adventure in Africa. Lisa actually is/was a missionary in Africa and the authenticity comes through. I purchased the next book in the series and look forward to it. My wife is going to read Blood Ransom now.

I am catching up on some of my past Comixology digital purchased. I just read a very good graphic novel EONS.

I have a new favorite series. I got all five issues and look forward to the sixth of OUR SUPER MOM. If you like Love and Capes then you will love Our Super Mom. It is great.

[Coleoptere]

I've been reading Dune by Frank Herbert, Clash of Kings by GRRM, and Blessed by Cynthia Leticia Smith. The last one is because I'm pretty much into teen vampire fiction.

[paw broon]

Oh No!. teen vampire fiction.?  Not my cup of tea.  But then, I don't enjoy  vampire stuff of most sorts.  Apart from Godzilla, Gamera and certain other large monstery things, I'm not into monsters like zombies, mummies, werewolves.  The one exception is the Archie Afterlife series from Archie comics, which is really well done, with excellent art by Francisco Francavilla.
I read Dune yonks ago and it was a great read.
Currently enjoying some Agatha Christie on my new Nook.

[josemas]

The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People- by John Kelly   The potato blight of the 1840s and its effect on Europe and especially Ireland is detailed here.  Well researched.

Early Universal City- by Robert S. Birchard   A look at the first couple of decades of the film studio with emphasis on the silent era.  Lots of rare photos.

Whar Doesn't Kill Her by Max Allan Collins   Collins ventures into the Girl with a Dragon Tattoo territory with this one.  I guess sales will determine if he does any followups.

American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt by Daniel Rasmusson  Story of an early 18th century slave revolt in the New Orleans area and how its aftermath helped shape America's history.

Best

Joe

[mr_goldenage]

My latest read was City of Heroes 1st edition by blue King studio's. I found this 12 issue series much more satisfying than the later 2nd series.

Richard

[narfstar]

I just bought the first issue of Sherwood Texas at a local signing by the author. It is a re imagining of Robin Hood and pretty cool. Worth giving a try.

[jarrodmon]

Very interested in Steampunk these days, reading Gail Carriger and watching adaptations of the Discworld novels and thinking I should start reading those. Also reading Sherlock Holmes. Doing some great reading on this sight of the old Victorian Era fiction, if anyone has recommendations.