[josemas]

That's the sort of mistake that many young artists would make so Alan Davis certainly has nothing to be ashamed of.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

The Great War: American Front- by Harry Turtledove  I've been meaning to get started on Turtledove's follow up series to his alternate history novel How Few Remain (which covered a period in America in the 1880s after the South had won the American Civil War).  This jumps ahead to WWI and has the Union and the Confederacy on opposite sides again with plenty of fighting taking place in North America from Canada in the north on down to the Mexican border area.  Looking forward to the continuation in the next volume.

Jack Magic: The Life and Art of Jack Kirby Volume Two- by Greg Theakston  Greg winds up his look at Kirby in this second volume which becomes more and more a personal memoir as he gets into it.  Covers the period from the early 1960s through Kirby's death in the 1990s.  Contains both some touching and some odd remembrances.

Curtains For Three- by Rex Stout  A fine collection of three Nero Wolfe novellas.  Seems to date to the early 1950s based on the few topical references dropped in the narratives.

Best

Joe

[Captain Audio]

I just dug out a book I received for Christmas some time ago. The Book is titled "Sea of Glory".
Its a non fiction historical account of an ambitious ocean spanning expedition of discovery undertaken by six vessels of the U S Navy in 1838 through 1842.

[narfstar]

I have not been able to force myself to read pure non-fiction except about comics. When it comes to history I love learning through historical fiction. I loved the Hornblower series and learned a lot

[josemas]

Sea of Glory sounds right up my alley.  I'll have to see if my local library has it.

Some recent reads-

The Steve Jobs Way: Leadership for a New Generation- by Jay Elliott  Thought I'd check this out while waiting for the Walter Isaacson bio on Jobs to become available (still a number of holds on it at the library). Elliott was a former V.P with Apple who was hired by and worked with Jobs for a number of years.  He offers some interesting insights into how and why Jobs operated the way he did during those years.

Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America- by Walter R. Borneman   Polk is a president who doesn't get written about much so I was pleasantly surprised to find this bio on him at the library.  He's somewhat controversial because of the war with Mexico that took place during his one term as president.  Borneman wisely stays away from modern takes on that aspect of his presidency although he does tackle how he was both criticized and praised at the time for it.

Darwin's Radio- by Greg Bear   I've only read a couple of Bear's books so far but both were interesting cutting edge sci-fi novels.  This one concerns mankind taking the next step in evolution.

Best

Joe

[paw broon]

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen.  Great read. Funny, entertaining and satirical as usual.

[josemas]

Red Square- by Martin Cruz Smith   It's the early 1990s and the Soviet Union is crumbling.  Arkady Renko has been called back to Moscow and been reinstated as an Inspector.  He soon learns though that the more things change the more they remain the same.

Theodore Rex- by Edmund Morris   The middle volume of Morris' trilogy on the life of Theodore Roosevelt does an admirable job of covering his years as president from its highs (brokering a peace between Russia and Japan) and its lows (his handling of the Brownsville Affair). 

The Railway Detective- by Edward Marston   Delightful Victorian era detective novel.  I look forward to reading more of the adventures of Inspector Colbeck.  Thanks for the recommendation on this one, Paw.

Best

Joe

[misappear]

Darwin's Radio was very satisfying. Sequel Darwin's Children likewise

-D

[josemas]

I'll check my local library to see if they carry have that sequel.

Thanks

Joe

[josemas]

Well even with the new job keeping me busy this past month or so I'm still doing plenty of reading but much of it has been of the technical manual variety ("The proper calibration of flame ionization units") and  I haven't had as much time for leisure reading.

Here's a few I squeezed in-

Indigo Slam- by Robert Crais  Another winner featuring Elvis Cole and Joe Pike.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter- by Jeffrey Lindsay   The book that the Showtime TV series Dexter is based on.  Much of the first season of the show is based on this novel.  Followed by several sequels.

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris- by David McCullough   Looks at various Americans who, during roughly 1825-1900, lived and studied in Paris.  Much of the advancements in such fields as medicine and art that they picked up in France they then brought back to America which helped their young growing country.

Best

Joe

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

Just started with The Deep Zone by James M. Tabor. A thriller/action/conspiracy type story about a mysterious epidemic that starts killing American soldiers in Afghanistan and then goes with a microbiology team searching for a cure in the deepest/biggest cave in the world in Mexico. Also has a traitor high in the Washington's ranks along with a assassin on the search team so it has pretty much it all.
This is the first book I've read by this author, so far so good.

Geo

[narfstar]

Sounds pretty good Geo. I have not read any  novels since the Hunger Games trilogy. I have read a lot of variety of comics from Comixology. Darn first issue free has got me to buy several. When it comes to prose I realized that I have read several short stories here and there. Lots of free stuff on the web. I can not get my wife to give digital books a real chance. I have been having a hard time keeping her in books since she retired. No waiting to ship digital and they don't take up so much space. But if she really loves a book/author she keeps them. If she just likes it she will trade it in. Since she wants to keep them she won't use the library.

[josemas]

Kiss Her Goodbye- by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins.  Collins does another seamless wrap up to one of Spillane's unfinished Mike Hammer novels.

You Could Call It Murder- by Lawrence Block   Another of Block's early books brought back into print.  Nice pulpy flavor.

The Sea of Glory- by Nathaniel Philbrick  Interesting and well researched account of a 19th century American voyage of discovery that has been virtually forgotten today.

Best

Joe

[Captain Audio]

I was looking through a long ignored book case a couple of days ago, and found a book I'd read more than thirty years ago.
The title is simply "Titan", by John Varley.
Rather than being about the Saturnian moon Titan its about a vast artificial structure found orbiting Saturn in an odd eliptical orbit suggesting its from beyond our solar system.
The hardback copy I have has some startlingly fine illustrations, and the creature designs are very well thought out.
They could easily make a blockbuster movie based on this novel. Theres plenty of material there for a high quality miniseries for that matter.

[paw broon]

Geo.  The Deep Zone sounds like my sort of thing.
Captain, I love stories of strange, enigmatic deep space objects.
I've been reading the 44, Scotland Street novels by Alexander McCall Smith.  Stared with The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, then, The Importance of Being 7.  Next up will be Bertie Sings the Blues.  Smith  is a highly entertaining writer and his use of language is excellent.  Funny, odd little stories and Bertie is the hero for millions of us.  Linda has been raving about them.

[macsnafu]

Vintage Mystery & Detective Stories, edited by David Stuart Davies. 

A collection of mystery and detective short stories that are mostly pre-1920s.  A rather mixed bag of some classics and not-so-classic stories, including some well-known and not-so-well-known authors.  The editor also sneaked in a few of his own stories, modern stories of his own detective, but set in the Victorian Age.

[Menticide]

San Angelo Showdown by William W. Johnstone

I read a lot of westerns, but I seem to like the Johnstone ones the most. No offense intended to Grey or L'Amour...

[unclerobin@att.net]

Non-fiction for me, comics are enough out-there stuff as it is. I just got two books from the library here,one is more recent than the other; SWEETNESS: THE ENIGMATIC LIFE OF WALTER PAYTON, and SCHULZ AND PEANUTS: A BIOGRAPHY. The Payton book is 430 pages, and the Schulz book is 566 pages, that's just shy of 1,000 pages. THAT oughtta take a while!

[narfstar]

Of course reading and page count are relative to the time period published. Pick up a paperback from the '70s and the print per page will be much more than a current book. More pages means selling for more money for less actual product. I don't blame the publishers if the people are fooled or if they know exactly what they are getting.

[unclerobin@att.net]

- All the more reason I'm glad libraries are free!

[narfstar]

I look for the physical Library building to become a thing of the past. As we paper readers age out the digital generation will have no need. There is enough to read on Gutenberg.org alone to keep anyone busy till they die.

[moondood]

I'm kinda new to pulp reading, and I just started the first Toka novel..King of the Dinosaurs....from Fantastic Adventures 1945.

Kind of a Ka-Zar-Turok thing.  Savage man in a prehistoric world.

It's kinda klunky prose with the savages speaking almost in jive, so not sure how long I'll stick with it.

In addition to reading GA comics on my iPad, I tend to cycle through texts of Doc Savage, Tarzan, The Shadow and the Spider pulps.  Generally in publication order.  The Spider is my favorite.

And, as in the case of the Toka pulp, I'll often locate a pulp scan with an interesting-looking story and put it on my iPad.


Kurt Hathaway
khathawayart@gmail.com

[narfstar]

Well moondood can you tell if the Dell Toka comic was based on the pulp? What issues of Fantastic Adv carried the Toka feature?

[moondood]

Funny you ask, Narf.

I didn't read much Dell-Gold Key growing up...I was mostly a DC-Marvel guy, but thanks to efforts like those on this site, I'm exposed to all sorts of neat books.

I've recently read the first 4 issues of the Toka comic and I'd have to say the pulps don't seem to be related in any way.  2 characters in the pulp tales are Toka and Rok...I wondered if someone later combined those names to come up with Turok later.  It's possible that the comic series appropriated the name from the pulps, though.

The pulp Toka seems to be a caveman living in prehistoric times...like Tor, I guess.  The comics Toka is Incan, and though he's 400 years old, he lives in modern times--at least 1960's modern times.  Both "jungle" features, to be sure, but different. 

I read a few old Turok comics, too--and enjoy those.

Tarzan is my all-time favorite character, so I'm exploring various other characters of the same type.  Still gotta read me some Otis Adelbert Kline one'a these days.

The 3 pulp Tokas are:
Fantastic_Adventures_v07-04   Oct 1945____Toka 01__.cbz
Fantastic_Adventures_v08-01   Feb 1946___Toka 02__.cbz
Fantastic_Adventures_v09-08   Dec 1947__Toka 03__.cbz

The Toka author "Pelkie" is actually the FA editor Ray Palmer [yes, the Silver-Age Atom character was named after him].  I guess he thought it in bad taste to use his real name?

Looking forward to reading the Jongor novels, too.


Kurt Hathaway
khathawayart@gmail.com

[narfstar]

I read one Klein with Planet of Peril a John Carter rip-off. If it gives you a clue, it will probably be the last Klein that I read. Love the covers though