Books discussion

[Blarumyrran]

Also be sure to check out that Sherlock Holmes campaign on 1.7 server, really good & unique one.

[Turuk]

Also be sure to check out that Sherlock Holmes campaign on 1.7 server, really good & unique one.

Clever indeed. I wonder if he did manage to find that scepter.

[HomerJ]

Also be sure to check out that Sherlock Holmes campaign on 1.7 server, really good & unique one.

Clever indeed. I wonder if he did manage to find that scepter.

Pardon me? Is this real or just a joke I don't get? I'm still sticking to the stable branch...

Crushmaster, you started with the wrong one then, Study in Scarlett tells about how Holmes and Watson met...


Greetz
HomerJ

[Blarumyrran]

Pardon me? Is this real or just a joke I don't get? I'm still sticking to the stable branch...

Hm its on stable server too, but the versions & campaign names are apparently different?

anyway, not a joke,

[HomerJ]

Pardon me? Is this real or just a joke I don't get? I'm still sticking to the stable branch...

Hm its on stable server too, but the versions & campaign names are apparently different?

anyway, not a joke,

Getting it immediately!


Greetz
HomerJ

[Turuk]

Getting it immediately!

Case of the Missing Scepter by TofuOgre, though I am sure you found it easily.

Would I ever joke with you?

[Crushmaster]

Pardon me? Is this real or just a joke I don't get? I'm still sticking to the stable branch...

Crushmaster, you started with the wrong one then, Study in Scarlett tells about how Holmes and Watson met...

Greetz
HomerJ

What I meant was that I read "A Study in Scarlet", the first story in the collection, and I am currently reading "The Sign of the Four", the second story in the collection. The latter story is when Sherlock's drug problems are mentioned.

Sorry for any confusion.
In Christ,
Crushmaster.

[TheGreatRings]

Hmm, I read a lot of the Sherlock Holmes stories a while back. I particularly recall one where he investigates the KKK.

Incidentally, the similarities between Sherlock and Spock from Star Trek are very evident (I seem to recall hearing that this was deliberate with Spock, but I'm not sure).

Right now, I'm checking out the Batman novel No Man's Land. I was never particularly interested in Batman before The Dark Knight came out, but I've been reading the comics and now this novel. It particularly interests me to see how certain elements from the comic character made it into the film, and how others were cut. The process of adapting a story from one medium to another really fascinates me.

[HomerJ]

Incidentally, the similarities between Sherlock and Spock from Star Trek are very evident (I seem to recall hearing that this was deliberate with Spock, but I'm not sure).

Which is even more true for Data in Star Trek The Next Generation, there are even a couple of episodes where he acts Holmes in a holodeck program.


Greetz
HomerJ

[Thanatos]

Just started Stanislaw Lem's "Fiasco", slowly completing my Lem-collection.

Update: I don't know if it's me or the book, but my impression is that this volume of Lem's works is the most boring one I read so far....

[Turuk]

Update: I don't know if it's me or the book, but my impression is that this volume of Lem's works is the most boring one I read so far....

Eh, I never got too into it either, though by that point I had read two of his other books that also dealt with his cynical view about human reaction to other species, and he does not really mix things up much at all.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Accademic.
Religion, Empire and Torture the case of Achaemenid Persia with post script on Abu Garib by Bruce Lincon Chicago University Press (-sorry, that was quite sloppy of me)
Published in 2007, it jumps on the anti-Bush, anti-war-on-terror bandwaggon by making implicit and explicit comparisons between America and Aechimenid Persia. Doesn't sound very promising does it?

Make no mistake.
This a decently researched and well written academic work. I found (appart from the gratuitous tables included for inscrutable purposes) the potentially boring accademic discourse more entertaining than many works of fiction I have read lately!
This is something to which I aspire in my own (admitteldy inferior) accademic writing.
Highly recomended.

[Thanatos]

Finally, after a weeklong struggle I finished this abomination of literature mentioned above...

I will start my holidays then with a classic graphic novel about some British holiday:

Remember, remember, the fifth of November, the gunpower treason and plot
I know of no reason, why the gunpower treason, should ever be forgot

That is I am just about to begin Alan Moore's "V for Vendetta".
Sorry me that I saw the movie before I read the original. Even on a quick scan the graphic novel seems to be a total different thing. Have to eradicate all those false images from my memory now...

[Ardent]

I've read The day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (I've also read "Web" and "Out of the deeps" by the same author) lately. So I decided to write a bit about those three books by him I've read.

'The day of the Triffids' (1951) is about a global catastrophy - due to unknown issues

Spoiler:

actually at the end of the book it is revealed that those where probably mass destruction weapons of a sort

, most of Earth inhabitants lose their sight. This would be a problem by itself, but more arise. Humans have

Spoiler:

probably as a part of genetic research

created plants - the so called 'Triffids' - which can move around even if slowly, use hearing to navigate and have poisonous venom. Also an uknown plague spreads through the world. Few people with working sight are trying to save their lifes and/or build a new society.
I like the book a lot - it shows a possible post-apocalyptic world where the morals and laws change and people have to change their views and adapt to the situation and survive.

I've read 'Out of the deeps' (1953) (also known as the kraken returns) several times, first tme when I was about ten years old. I liked it then - it had action, army desperately trying to fight the invading alien force, scientists trying to argue about the motivation and means the aliens have at their disposal, the flood of the world ...
When I read it about two or three years ago, this book really stroke me as a genius piece of work. It shows countries reacting to an unknown threat, the people believeing that everything gets better, because they want to, aliens melting ice in arctica to flood the world, newspaper laughing about a scientist explaining that the water has raised five inches or so ... and again the attempt to rebuild the society after wiping out the invaders.

'Web' (written 1969, published 1979) has also many things in common with the previous two. A party of colonists set asail to land on a tropical island to start an utopian society. Upon their arrival there is something fundamentally wrong with the island but they cannot quite find out what. The spiders have evolved on this island to a hive (just like the ants) and are overtaking the island. They are not intelligent as such, but have some nice evolutionary designs and humans are finding out soon, that intelligence doesn't have to give you an upper hand with a hive of spiders, adapted for various tasks.
This book is the darkest of all, and even if what I've written above may sound like a bad B horror movie, those are definitely 100 pages which are worth reading.

Currently I have started reading (apart of plenty of stuff for my studium) Catherine Merridale's 'Ivan's war - the red army 1939-1945'. If it is as good as it appears I'd be very happy (will comment on it in a couple of weeks when I've finished it). It tells stories of soviet troops fighting on the eastern (their western ) front in the world war 2. I've read some accounts of russian soldiers in 'Enemy at the gates-the battle for Stalingrad' by William Craig and plenty of stuff about German and US troops (some about Brittish also), but there is very little non-pathetic not heroically oriented about the life and day to day figting of soviet soldiers, which is from my point of view a pitty. I hope this book delivers just that.

[Thanatos]

'The day of the Triffids' (1951) is about a global catastrophy - due to unknown issues most of Earth inhabitants lose their sight. This would be a problem by itself, but more arise. Humans have created plants - the so called 'Triffids' - which can move around even if slowly, use hearing to navigate and have poisonous venom. Also an uknown plague spreads through the world. Few people with working sight are trying to save their lifes and/or build a new society.

This sounds familiar. ... I think I have seen the movie. But that was some years ago. Maybe I should give the book a try, when I got the time, although invasion scenarios are dealt with ad nauseam in sci-fi for my personal taste.