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Favorite Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books, Movies and Games!
- Thread starter blange3
- Start date
blange3 said:
Thanks I have been busy with work and home improvement projects.
As for WoW yeah I would say it’s worth the cost even to just solo. I spent the better part of 3 months day and night just to level up to 40. I teamed up with people here and there to complete the harder missions but for the most part I was solo. I never really joined a guild or went into the tournament arena. To me it is worth the monthly cost to me to have a never-ending RPG type game. I will try to level this druid up to 60-70 and then make a new toon and start again. I’m sure it would move faster if I went full tilt and went for the best weapons and armor but you would need to team up more to get them.
I was going to start playing again but to be honest it’s been 4+ months and I almost forget all the rules and moves I was used to. It will probably take me a week to catch back up to just normal play. I have the burning crusade but I never loaded it. I barely explored 60% of the world as is. I figured if I want to keep the druid going I could add BC and continue to explore.
There are a lot of cool people in the game that are willing to help a noob like me. Anytime people wanted to team up I just warned them that I am new and for the most part they are all helpful and cool with that. I know what you mean about game addicts and time. That’s why I took a break. Some of my friends are heavy players and like you I have no time for that.
JohnS_323 said:
I liked it a lot John!
Some Dune similarities. Women in charge, but he is an exception. The whole weapon master training, feint within a feint within a feint thing goes on between Paul and Gurney in Dune.
Love the moral dilemas. I'm trying to get back to Exile for a couple of hours tonight. I'm catching up on some work at the moment, I had to take some personal time this afternoon.
Hey guys, I was looking into reading the book Foundation. I was realy into based on the short summaries. But when i looked at a longer review of it, it sounded to me like nothing happens and the story is slow and open ended. Is there alot of plot in the first book, or is it a book that practicaly demads you read the sequel. I dont mind hearing a few spoilers.
Subliminal
NJRC Member
I'm rereading the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony right now.
ocmsolidsnake said:
Assuming you are talking about the Isaac Asimov's Foundation, it is one of the most important, famous and fundamental work in Science Fiction. It received both critical and fan praises and awards. Of course, personal tastes could not be discussed, but that set aside, book in itself is not boring, slow or without anything happening. As for the open ended, you have to understand, that while the book could be read independently, it is never intended as such. It has allways been considered the part of a Foundation Trilogy : "Foundation", "Foundation and Empire", and "Second Foundation". While all three books are based on previously published short stories, the whole trilogy was worked into very elegant, consistent, rounded and very engaging story. The reason you have to read it whole (same way you had to read Dune) is that the stories in the book take place at certain periods and stages during 1000 years of change of the populated galaxy. They start with the degradation and fall of existing Galactic Empire, through the emergence of a new Empire that encompasses the whole populated Galaxy.
Foundation trilogy was written at the beginning of 50's, and stood as independent story for next 30 years. At the beginning of 80's, its huge popularity has prompted Asimov to write a second set of Foundation books. In those, he started by writing about the events after those in Foundation Trilogy, but then in some books he wrote about the vents that preceded the Trilogy. At the same time, in these new books, he started establishing links to the events and characters from another series of books that he wrote independently over the time - the Robot series. The Robot series books (most prominently "I Robot" and then "Caves of Steel" and "The Naked Sun"), if you haven't had a chance to read them, are also considered one of the most fundamental works in SF, equally, if not more popular then Foundation. In his final books, he completely merges those two bodies of work (Foundation and Robots series) together with some books from another series of his books - the Empire series. (yes I know :
, but you have to remember that this amazing guy has written or contributed to 500 !!! books)So, in the end, Foundation is definitively a good book to read, but DO NOT stop there. Read the whole Trilogy. Then you can stop there, or continue to read more then 10 other books that are related to it. If you choose to do that I would strongly suggest you to read them in the order they were written, rather then in the chronological order of the events. That way you could see how his ideas are developing and maturing. I listed some of the these books t the beginning of this thread.
Final note: The initial stories were written in the 40's and books in 50's, plus they were influenced by the Gibbon's Rise and Fall of Roman Empire, so the sociopolitical causalities are a bit naive, but it is a Science Fiction, after all
. On the other hand the advances in Neural networks,Fractal and Chaos theory in the 80's, prompting some research in formalisation and computational modeling and simulation of social behavior which sounds eery close the fundamental premise of the Foundation books. While the Asimov's writing style is very much criticised, the ideas behind the stories are highly regarded and forcing readers for serious examination. ENJOY IT !!! Hey John and Phyl, Dark Elf Trilogy concludes tonight.
I really liked it, and yes John, I did get a homily idea! One of Drizzt's journal excerpts near the end of Sojourn caught my attention.
So what's the next trilogy? Although I think I might revisit Dune while this is still fresh in my mind. A think Salvatore 'borrowed' rather heavily. But then again, memories are suspect.
It's great when you know you will make new friends everyday! Who did you say you were again? ???
I really liked it, and yes John, I did get a homily idea! One of Drizzt's journal excerpts near the end of Sojourn caught my attention.
So what's the next trilogy? Although I think I might revisit Dune while this is still fresh in my mind. A think Salvatore 'borrowed' rather heavily. But then again, memories are suspect.
It's great when you know you will make new friends everyday! Who did you say you were again? ???
blange3 said:Looks like somone likes Foundation! ;D
I read the trilogy, I liked it and I stopped there. The reason I stopped is I read it in the 70's!
I'll probably read it again as I don't remember a lot of it. After all, I've been hiding my own Easter eggs for a few years now!
Yes i liked the original Trilogy lot, but as you have said, I read it in 70's in elementary school. Then In 80's (HS, coledge), I read absolutely every SF book i could get my hands on. At the time I was more intersted at scientific ideas and scientific imagination, and was paying a little attention to style or depth of writing. Only with maturing in reading with some other literature, and reading of new wave of SF like Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson I become critical of Asimov's style and analysis of society :, so that I don't see the Asimov's (or his contemporaries) books in the same light as before. Dune is another example of magnificently brilliant the original trilogy was and then sequels becoming harder to read, though in this particular case trying to figure out what was the point of him writing them.blange3 said:
If you are into trilogies, and if you haven't read them already, I would strongly recommend William Gibson's trilogy: "Neuromancer", "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive", and Stanley Kim Robinson's : "Red Mars","Green Mars" and "Blue Mars" . Superb style of writing (virtually every single of S.K. Robinson's books getting Hugos and Nebulas, as well as Neuromancer), and content much more mature, virtually revitalizing the SF writing.
Other series that are immediately coming to my mind and I have found intersting and would recommend to avid SF readers (which would have probably already read them anyway 8) ) would be Pohl's Heechee, Niven's Ringworld, Haldeman's Forever War, Le Guin's Earthsea, O.S. card's Ender , ...
Well, I could go like this forever ... (all the way to J. Vern's The Mysterious Island which was probably the first attempt at SF trilogy ;D )
Alright, so, this is where I ask the terrible questions of true geek points.
Who has been to DragonCon and who is going in, what is it, a week, two weeks?
And (since I can't go to that this year), who will be heading up to Tuxedo for NYRF?
Who has been to DragonCon and who is going in, what is it, a week, two weeks?
And (since I can't go to that this year), who will be heading up to Tuxedo for NYRF?