Yeah...I think it must be very difficult to write a satisfying ending. I've read so many bad to mediocre endings, and if Stephen King can't even pull it off, it must be hard.

Yes, same here. That's why I stopped reading King so many years ago and I still refuse to read anything else by Jodi Picoult.

NamelessFaceless wrote:Yes, same here. That's why I stopped reading King so many years ago and I still refuse to read anything else by Jodi Picoult.

Since then, I've read "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. It's a very good story. At first, I found it kind of shallow. But something told me to keep going. I found it very interesting.

I've just started re-reading "Time and Again" by Jack Finney, which is the most fascinating time travel story I've ever read (I'm on a time travel story kick right now). I've never seen such meticulous detail about a past time period. Usually, stories set in past times that were written far later don't feel authentic to me. The people and culture just seem a commentary on our own times more than what that culture may really have been (or the period is just used as a setting for action). But this is, to me, the Lord of the Rings of time travel stories in terms of attention to detail and authenticity.

I haven't read Jodi Picoult.

As to King, I think it was a no-win scenario in this case. Given the material, I think there would be people who loved the ending and people who hated it no matter what he did. In some respects, I compare it to the ending of "Watchmen", only in the sense that both were great stories but the endings, while perhaps profound, sort of leave me hanging with a feeling of, "That's it? That's how it ends? I feel so empty, almost like there was no conclusion."

With "Watchmen", I know it's because there's that feeling of "Ain't no good guys; ain't no bad guys". The "bad guy" was also the good guy because he only did what he had to do, albeit he maybe enjoyed it too much. With "11/22/63", it's more a
bittersweet, poignant ending but way too lacking for me compared to what I hoped the results would be. Yet, without giving things totally away, there's a suspicion all along that this might happen but the story is so good, you hope to not see it all thrown away at the end.

Double Post.

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A Rule Is To Break: A Child's Guide to Anarchy

What does it take to win the Hugo and Nebula and a bunch of other awards as a debut author ?



find out... Anne Beckie Ancillary Justice and two more novels in the trio. Very high praise for it and unique vision.

I'm reading a book called Yellow Crocus that I think must have appeared on my list because of an Amazon recommendation for great "new" authors. Blech.

It's very amateurish, no internal conflicts, one-dimensional characters, morally preachy about the evils of slavery, no question about who's right and who's wrong, but worst of all the freaking overt Christianity. So. Lame. And, of course, I can't stop reading something half-way through, although I think I can predict what's going to happen anyway.

At least I didn't pay for it. I was able to borrow it for free with Amazon Prime. The next book I borrow is going to be about a serial killer.

I had that pop up for me too. I was going to investigate it, but not now.

By the way, I'm reading Night After Night by Phil Rickman. I don't know if Merrily Watkins has made it over the pond yet, but he writes the books with her in them. Those are examples of how to write on religious themes without bashing the reader over the head with them. This book isn't a Merrily Watkins, but the same excellent writing is in evidence. He has such a distinctive but subtle voice. I'm only about 70 pages in but loving it already.

The Martian - Andy Weir.

I've recently read "I Knead my Mommy". It's too cute!

I'm reading Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum." It's awesome so far. I think I might have to start digging up stuff about the Templars. And it contains so much quotable material:

The history of logic consists of attempts to define an acceptable notion of moronism.

I absolutely love that book.

I have just read American Pastoral by Philip Roth. This is supposed to be his best work and the one that won him the Pulitzer Prize. And while it is an absolute corker of a novel I did find the ending rather lame. Now I always try to read novels with out anticipating the finale. However when the author is a literary giant then you expect some thing truly cataclysmic even if you are not consciously thinking of that as such. I read The Castle and Crime And Punishment and so yet again sadly disappointed by both because of the air of expectation. Given how they are universally regarded as classic fiction within the specific genre
In my experience it is the novels which do not have that about them which can be pleasantly surprising. And a case in point is the second novel by Joseph Heller called Something Happened. Now this is sadly not so well known as the spectacularly more famous cousin. But despite that it is still an awe some work in its own right. Because I was not expecting any thing wonderful of it. And I am glad to say that I not am turning into a total Philistine yet for I when I did read Nineteen Eighty Four I found it very satisfying in deed so some classic fiction I do appreciate. But when I did The Merchant Of Venice at school I thought that the most boring thing I had ever read. So mea culpa Will. I have your Hamlet instead which I think is much better ha ha ha ha

The Rolling Stones - Robert A. Heinlein (1952)

It's not about Mick and the boys but "The Stones, a family of "Loonies" (residents of the Moon, known as "Luna" in Latin), purchase and rebuild a used spaceship, and go sightseeing around the solar system."

Features Martian "flat cats" which were a precursor to Star Trek's "Tribbles":

Heinlein later credited the 1905 Ellis Parker Butler short story "Pigs is Pigs" with informing the flat cat incident. A similar concept and plotline appeared in the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles". According to screenwriter David Gerrold, the show's producers noticed similarities in the two stories and asked Heinlein for permission to use the idea.[2] Heinlein asked for an autographed copy of the script, but otherwise did not object, noting that both stories owed something to the Butler story "and possibly to Noah".[3]

Old school Science Fiction fun

I've never read anything by Robert Heinlein, but I know he's a favorite among libertarians. I think I have The Moon is a Harsh Mistress at home, waiting to be read.

For now, I'm reading An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreisel, on my Kindle. Modern Library ranked it #16 in its list of 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. I'm enjoying it, but I kind of wish I'd noticed it was 884 pages before I started. I'm gonna be here a while.

Yes I can easily believe he would be popular with libertarians. Not a big fan of all his political views myself, even when I was a youngster reading him for the first time. That said he was definitely one of the early influences on me and my attitudes to race, helping me from a know-nothing small-town kid towards becoming a hugely anti-racist teenager.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is probably my favourite of his novels, just ahead of (the original, abridged version of) Stranger in a Strange Land. My first paperback copy of Mistress was read so many times it started to fall apart and ended up just about being held together with tape.

Stranger in a Strange Land is great. I wasn't aware there were two versions....
Also fond of a short story of Heinleins - 'By his Bootstraps".

WIkipedia:

In 1989, Heinlein's widow, Virginia, renewed the copyright to Stranger and cancelled the existing publication contracts in accordance with the Copyright Act of 1976.[10] The 1991 version, retrieved from Heinlein's archives in the University of California, Santa Cruz, Special Collections Department by Virginia and published posthumously, which reproduces the original manuscript and restores all cuts. Both Heinlein's agent and his publisher (which had new senior editors) agreed that the uncut version was better: readers are used to longer books, and what was seen as objectionable in 1961 was no longer so thirty years later.[22]

I've only read the unabridged version once, the original several times. I remember the 91 version as being over-long with some boring parts. Possibly that was due to how familiar I was with the original? I should try re-reading the longer version again soon and see what I think now.

I remember the title By His Bootstraps but not the story. Shall have to re-read it. A time travel tale I think?

The Door Into Summer was another favourite, though the adult male / young girl relationship seems a bit dodgy in retrospect.

I'm going to have to re-read all of these now ...

Yes, Bootstraps was a Time travel thing- a while since I read it but it was a stand out story in the collection of Heinlein's that I read.

I read Stranger in a Strange Land back in the late 80's so imagine it was the older version....that's bugging me now!