Maybe. But conspiracy theories are still out there and they are ripe. And some books that seem to think so. I don’t own any of these myself, of course. But this is just an indication that there is more where that one came from. I don’t want to nit pick but another one would say “what did indeed happen to the sound of the rest of the video?” “Why does Aldrin have to get so angry about it if he has nothing to disprove?” And another one about shadows. Apparently shadows are not supposed to exist on the moon - or Aldrin’s anyway - by some reason of science and space. The theory is that it’s done by some reason of weird stage-lighting also known as “Lights, Camera, Action”. A Reproduction. Plenty more people have been on the moon since then haven’t they? And they’ve got satellites out there and all the rest of it. I don’t know what’s going on. I only know that there’s a view coming from an audience on the other end. And other books where their ideas originate.
There's a lot about all this I haven't really heard much about, let alone think about. Perhaps because it was the US who actually traveled there (or not, depending on your view), so maybe it's something that is talked about more there than anywhere else. Certainly is an interesting subject, although I'll probably leave the books alone for the moment.
I am reading 'Demian Sideheart by Francesco Zingoni for the second time, it is one of the best books I have ever read. The book is about a castaway with amnesia who is stranded on a Polynesian Archipelago. He is taken up by the tribe living here and learns their ways (customs, traditions and language) while slowly regaining his memory. One night he has a vision of a woman, whom he knows will be his salvation. He is literally determined to trot the whole globe in order to find her. That's where his journey begins. https://www.amazon.ca/Demian-Sideheart-Francesco-Zingoni/dp/889054807X
I am reading 'the short stories of John Cheever' for the second time. I remember watching an interview with Ray Bradbury where he said all writers should read his stories, and I guess I took it to heart. I just...don't like many of them. I feel like it's kind of light and he's evasive about the core issues that trouble him. His journals are so much more interesting to me than this fiction about dullards in the suburbs experiencing rare moments of majesty. It all just seems so forced to me, I wish he had more of the grit and intensity of his actual fucked up real life in his stories. He could have been a totally different writer. Though he would not have made the New Yorker or won a pullitzer. I remember reading a quote by Geoff Dyer that nowadays, he likes writers' letters most, then their essays, and only finally their fiction. I have to say I feel the same way. I don't really get why I care about this New Yorker approved fiction when I've rarely read the magazine and when I have, I've found it full of works I found a bit too knowing and smug. I don't know. I started 'Some prefer nettles' by Tanizaki and THIS is a writer who does not hold back (unless you know, he is writing one of those other works of his where he does just that).
I like "The Swimmer" I think, mainly for the obscurity of the abstract writing. Moves through times with the suburban pools to bring together his story of the protagonist's path to self-destruction. He writes a lot of white suburbia stuff though, and it gets a bit old and super creepy at times. I don't mind the style though, just not a huge fan of Cheever's content.
I suppose I was a little too harsh and that says more about my mood at the time then this writer. Swimmer is great no doubt. Several others have stayed with me since the first read, and I admire those ones now more on a second read.I just don't like it when artists get too fanciful and cute and uh, whimsical. He has some brilliant stuff as well, to be fair. What exactly do you find super creepy about it?
I am reading Archenemies by Marissa Meyer, second book in the Renegades series. I'm enjoying the series so far! Renegades (first book in series) was very YA at the start but it got better as it went on. It's a pretty good take on 'grounded superheroes' in my opinion. It makes the black-and-white hero vs villain thing not so black and white. Just because people are superheroes doesn't make them right. But there is a side out there dedicated to helping people, and one that doesn't care about the civilian casualties. Also guns are still legitimately dangerous.
Just finished Kings of the Wyld. It basically does to fantasy and rock bands what Ready Player One did to VR and the 80's. The main character is the pragmatic but sensible veteran type, which is a soft spot for me (looking at you Logan Ninefingers.) That being said, it was pretty well written. The book had it's flaws but i'm glad I read it.
I'm reading the novella Bonsai by Chilean author Alejandro Zumbra. It's my first venture into that country's literature, so this nice a light light book should be a good introduction.
You know that book i reeeeeeeally really didnt like??? .....im on book 3 now I'll call it my "potato chip" read. Bad for you, but you cant ever have just one. The ending of book 2 was better than the first book. Book was still terrible, but entertaining. And i find it better to rage over a book than recent things.... Also, i started an audiobook. I havent been in a mood for audiobooks, but the waitlist for the ebook is super long, so i figure id start the audio.
Reading Rama II Arthur C. Clarke now. Not sure if I read it as a kid... I remember some stuff from the first half, but nothing from the second half. It's good. Still kind of Dick and Jane, and the characterization--as opposed to being nonexistent in a lot of Clarke's work--is embarrassingly one-dimensional. But, whatevs... it's cheesy Sci-Fi. What cracks me up is how the old-timey sci-fi godfathers badly misread--or failed to anticipate--how communication might advance in the future. In Rama, which is a fifty kilometer long by sixteen thick hollow spaceship that passes by Sol every century or so, Clarke makes a big deal of the cosmonauts ability to increase their communication range by 20 kilometers. And it's a massive achievement for each cosmonaut to have their own radio built into their suit. Oh, the wonders of 2020!
Superheroes and supervillains-- not everyone has a superpower that gives them invulnerability after all. Though thinking about it the only gun fatality was a villain, but gun fatality. In a superhero story where the shooter and the person who got killed were both superpowered. There is just a feel in this book that, except for Certain Exceptions, yes guns will kill heroes.
Just started "Alien in the Family" (my potato chip read) last night. Started "Upright Women Wanted" (audio) a few minutes ago. And "Monster She Wrote: the women who pioneered horror & speculative fiction" is now available for me to checkout digitally. So im set for this month!
Thankfully, nobody else has published a similar work - at least not outside of obscure erotica websites and magazines. EDIT - If I'm wrong, please DO NOT TELL ME. Let me continue to pretend.....I miss my innocence..... Scott
I am reading the Muirwood Series by Jeff Wheeler. Similar style as my own writing, so its something I try to seek out just to have some comparison.
I finished book 3 in like 2 days, then moved on to book 4. I really tried... Made it to chapter like 12 (the chapters are really, annoyingly short, making the book have like 70-80 chapters) before i officially called it quits. I gave that series the last sliver of my patience. the other 12 books be damned.....
So I finished Clarke's Rama II and started on Rama Revealed. I got about ten pages into it and thought, wait a sec, this doesn't make any sense at all. Turns out that it was book 4 and not book 3. So I ordered Garden of Rama for like $6. Love those cheap sci-fi paperbacks! In the interim I cracked open The Porcupine by Julian Barnes, which I haven't read since it was assigned to me in one of my post-Communist reconstruction classes in college. It's an excellent novel about a fictional/unnamed former Eastern Bloc country (it's really Bulgaria, but, shhh... secret) where the former Communist strongman is put on trial by the new regime after the fall of the Soviet Bloc. The prosecutor is full of self-righteousness, but his country is actually doing worse since the Communists left power. There are food shortages, constant power outages, a vacuum being filled by the same former Commies under a different name, since, you know, those were the only people laying around that knew anything about governing. Meanwhile, the former president, who is about 80 or so, sits back and laughs at how the country went to shit as soon as he left power. "Shit" being relative of course, but market economies and democracy aren't light switch solutions. A very good analog for the struggle of idealism over pragmatism... and there was no one more pragmatic than the Soviet-style Communists. I highly recommend it. It's one of those super short books that you can knock in two sittings.
"Apt Pupil" by Stephen King. I saw the movie years ago, didn't realize that it was based on a Stephen King book. Was browsing in Chapters (FINALLY OPEN!!!!!) and bought it.....I can't put it down. So creepy and it discusses one of the most horrid chapters in human history....(the Holocaust). Scott
You have the Different Seasons collection where it was originally published with Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, The Body, and The Breathing Method?
