Category: books

Jack Finney – Time and Again

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I downloaded this excellent book on the recommendation of none other than Stephen King. He feels it’s the best time travel novel he’s ever read.


Author Jack Finney (1911-1995) … penned two great, influential science-fiction novels: the 1955 alien invasion story “The Body Snatchers … and this 1970 subtle romance about time travel.

It’s a novel that many people hold close to their hearts, and like the movie “Somewhere in Time,” has the magic to allure you with the wonder of traveling back to a simpler time — 1880s New York in this case — and exploring in depth a world so unlike your own.

Finney, with meticulous detail and the support of numerous old photographs and drawings from the period (this is referred to as an “illustrated novel”) recreates New York in 1882, letting us and the main character, Si Morley, marvel as we walk over the old streets, see places where one day great skyscrapers will stand, gaze on a traffic jam of hansom cabs, discover the arm of the Statue of Liberty sitting in Madison Square awaiting the rest of its body, play old parlor games in a boarding house, and look at Fifth Avenue when it was a thin street of trees and apartments. …

Amazon review

Robert Redford had hoped to make a film of it. Has not happened, as yet.

Robert Sawyer – Triggers

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Robert J. Sawyer is my brother’s buddy, Nebula and Hugo award winning SciFi novelist.

His latest is called Triggers:

On the eve of a secret military operation, an assassin’s bullet strikes President Seth Jerrison. He is rushed to the hospital, where surgeons struggle to save his life.

At the same hospital, researcher Dr. Ranjip Singh is experimenting with a device that can erase traumatic memories.

Then a terrorist bomb detonates. In the operating room, the president suffers cardiac arrest. He has a near-death experience-but the memories that flash through Jerrison’s mind are not his memories.

It quickly becomes clear that the electromagnetic pulse generated by the bomb amplified and scrambled Dr. Singh’s equipment, allowing a random group of people to access one another’s minds. …

Amazon

A Sikh lead character.

And an all too plausible plot line — the USA deciding to take out nuclear power Pakistan.

A great read, as are all of Sawyer’s books.

If you’ve read none, I’d recommend starting with Wake.

On The Road – movie trailer

On By Rick McIn books, movies, travelLeave a comment

Alastair is looking forward to this new film, an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac classic.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

related – 11 Travel Books for Bums

I’m On The Road, myself, once again.

… OK, it’s the Hilton San Jose, California. But that’s a start. 🙂

North Korea – Camp 14

On By Rick McIn books, governmentLeave a comment

Here’s the argument – North Korea continues to brutalise its people and yet we do nothing

Shouldn’t we send in the Aircraft Carriers?

It worked so well for Vietnam and Iraq. … 😦

My opinion is that we should do everything non-violent to protest the brutality of North Korea. Gandhian resistance.

A new book brings this issue to the attention of the general public:

Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West.

North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did.

In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin’s life unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state.

Shin knew nothing of civilized existence-he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his own family. Through Harden’s harrowing narrative of Shin’s life and remarkable escape, he offers an unequaled inside account of one of the world’s darkest nations and a riveting tale of endurance, courage, and survival.

I Am A Pole And So Can You

On By Rick McIn books, humourLeave a comment

New children’s book by Steven Colbert.

“The sad thing is, I like it” – Maurice Sendak

“The perfect gift to give a child or grandchild for their high school or college graduation.

Also Father’s Day.

Also, other times.”

– Stephen Colbert

Tom Hanks narrates the audio. It arrives in stores May 8th.

Amazon

The Windup Girl – Paolo Bacigalupi

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On Warren’s recommendation, I bought an audio copy of this book, Winner of the 2010 Nebula Award for Best Novel.

… Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen’s Calorie Man in Thailand.

Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok’s street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history’s lost calories.

There, he encounters Emiko. Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman, but now abandoned to the streets of Bangkok.

Regarded as soulless beings by some, devils by others, New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe. …

The Windup Girl

Bio-engineered plagues?

Genetically modified, sterile crops?

Here’s a real news story dated April 21st, 2011:

Vietnam says it will ask for international help to find out what is causing a skin infection that has already killed 19 people. …

BBC – Vietnam seeks foreign help to beat mystery skin disease

Bacigalupi was inspired to write this book after living through the SARS scare in Asia.

Randy McCharles – Best Short Fiction

On By Rick McIn books, McCharles family1 Comment

Hey. My brother was nominated for a literary prize: an Aurora.

“The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Association (CSFFA)”

The Auroras – Canada’s Science Fiction & Fantasy Awards since 1980
About Us

2012 Prix Aurora Award Nominations

Best Short Fiction – English

title – “One Horrible Day” by Randy McCharles, The 2nd Circle, The 10th Circle Project

Looks like he’s also nominated in another category:

Best Fan Organizations. He’s the founder and chair of When Words Collide, the Fantasy Fiction convention hosted in Calgary.

And mentioned in yet another category:

Best Fan Publication
BCSFAzine,edited by Felicity Walker

Bourbon and Eggnog by Eileen Bell, Ryan McFadden, Billie Milholland and Randy McCharles, 10th Circle Project

related – My Mom and Dad were wed Friday the 13th, 1956. … 56yrs ago today.

Steven King – 11/22/63

On By Rick McIn books2 Comments

The #1 book right now.

11/22/63 is a novel by Stephen King about a time traveler who attempts to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy which occurred on November 22, 1963 (the date of the novel’s title). …

Although the novel contains science fiction and alternate history elements, the majority of it is historical fiction dealing with real-life events and people between 1958 and 1963. …

King’s a terrific story teller. But I can’t particularly recommend this over other pop fiction. I find his books too long.

Actually, the only other King novel I’ve read was Under the Dome.

I found it too long.

He seems a very cool guy, though.

101 Places Not to See Before You Die

On By Rick McIn books, humour, travelLeave a comment

Kate Zimmerman recommends:

… the 2010 book 101 Places Not to See Before You Die, by Catherine Price. Price says in her introduction that she wrote this amusing guide as an antidote to all the other advice out there re: primo activities.

Number one on her list of what not to see is Missoula, Montana’s Testicle Festival, where 15,000 people gather every year to munch on the bull calf testicles euphemistically known as “Rocky Mountain oysters.” Apparently the event also features a game called Bull—- Bingo, where somebody wins money every time a bull lays a turd down on a giant bingo card. There must be something wrong with me – this actually sounds like a good time. …

read more – And here’s me without even a bucket

testyfesty.com

Other winning entries include: “A Vomitorium”, or being stuck on “The Top of Mount Washington in A Snowstorm”, or landing on “Jupiter’s Worst Moon”

After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses

On By Rick McIn books, product endorsementsLeave a comment

… In an acknowledgment of the realities of the digital age — and of competition from the Web site Wikipedia — Encyclopaedia Britannica will focus primarily on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools. The last print version is the 32-volume 2010 edition, which weighs 129 pounds …

That costs $1,395. Wikipedia is free.

What’s next?

Britannica will still have an online version:

… “Britannica is going to be smaller. We cannot deal with every single cartoon character, we cannot deal with every love life of every celebrity. But we need to have an alternative where facts really matter. Britannica won’t be able to be as large, but it will always be factually correct.” …

That’s debatable. Most studies find Wikipedia nearly as accurate.

… About half a million households pay a $70 annual fee for the online subscription, which includes access to the full database of articles, videos, original documents and to the company’s mobile applications. …

full article

Congratulations Britannica, on staying alive.