I have a rather long list of things that I haven't read, but am always on the lookout for. Recently I ran across a battered collection of the first four Necroscopes. I picked them up for a song, and got ready to cross a few good reads off my list. The Necroscope series, by Brian Lumley has a large "cult" following. Necroscope fans are rabid, almost as bad as Ringworld geeks. For whatever reason, I just never had the chance to read any of the stories, even though they've been recommended to me many times. The Necroscope is Harry Keogh, a young Englishman who has a rather peculiar talent. He can speak to the dead. And I don't mean using a crystal ball and a silly gown. He can carry on a conversation with anyone who has ever died. In fact, that's one of the major metaphysical conjectures of the novel, that nothing happens after you die, you just sort of go on but without a body. Leaving that aside, Harry is able to learn from the dead, and he uses their expertise to teach himself self defense, languages, mathematics, etc... So, OK, a good concept, enough to draw me in for a good read. The problem is, it just isn't that good.

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I just started re-reading one of my all time favorite novels. Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
by Steven Pressfield, is an amazing novelization of the battle of Thermopylae. Definitely not Science Fiction or Fantasy, Gates is one of those rare books that pulls you in, makes you fall in love with the characters, and you'll read it over and over again just to spend more time with them. Told from the viewpoint of a survivor of the battle, Gates of Fire explores the lives, loves and passions of some of the 300 Spartan Knights who resisted Xerxes March on Greece in 480 BC. The same battle that inspired the movie 'The 300', it was quite possibly a turning point in the history of Western Civilization. Some might even say it was the beginning of the division between Western & Eastern Civilization. In any case, I leave it to you to do further research on the Battle itself, but for an amazing, emotional, inspiring read, I highly recommend Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
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I know, I know I haven't posted in, like, a month. Sorry, but I've been reading a lot. Plus Kindle: Amazon's 6" Wireless Reading Device came out recently, so I'm excited about that. Anyway, I recently picked up Darkness of the Light (The Hidden Earth Chronicles) by Peter David. And it Rocks! Peter David is a big name comic book writer, so he really knows how to toss around some heroic action, and in Darkness he really delivers.
The basic premise is that humanity is virtually extinct, having been wiped out by a group of aliens. The twist here is that the aliens are the monsters and legends from humanity's past, Minotaurs, Cyclops, Dragons, Mer-people, etc... Apparently they have all visited Earth in the deep past as scouts, and become part of human legend. They are actually exiled from their own planets and refer to the Earth as "The Damned World".
Now the thing that pisses me off is that Darkness was released as a Mass Market Paperback in 2007, that's over two years ago people. It's supposed to be part of a larger series called "The Hidden Earth", but I haven't been able to find the second installment. I can't believe that Tor (the publisher) would just kill a project that has this much merit, but I cannot find any information about it anywhere. Does anyone out there know anything about this? In any case, I'm looking forward to reading the next installment, if it ever happens.

I haven't been posting as often as I should be.  It's just that I've been on a rampage of reading lately.  After being introduced to David Gemmell's "Legend", I pretty much went Drenai crazy.  I read basically the whole saga, and man does it rock.  One of the very interesting things about the Drenai series in general, is the way Gemmell treats many of his protagonists.  A lot of them are older warriors, past their prime but still with plenty of drive.  And as any student of kung fu movies knows, old men have the skills and experience to whip the snot out of any young whippersnappers.  Still, in a few places, Gemmell almost manages to create something new in literature, a reverse bildungsroman.  If a bildungsroman is a youth's journey into manhood, then I guess a reverse bildungsroman would be a man's journey into innocence.  That's what happens often in Gemmell's universe, a hardened warrior sees how his actions have affected the world, and moves from cynicism back into innocence.  In any case, Gemmell's work, at least with the Drenai saga, is powerful and moving.  If you aren't reading it, you should be. 

OK, maybe not completely different, but I really have been ignoring the entire sub-genre of Fantasy. I tend to take a very phase oriented approach to what I read. I get on a hard science fiction kick and stay with it until something moves me in another direction. In any case, one of the reasons that I haven't posted much lately is that I've fallen in love. You heard me, in love, with some guys named Croaker, One-Eye, and Goblin, and a couple of ladies named Lady and Booboo.

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I love the Amazon Kindle. Of course, I don't actually have one. However, I have recently published a couple of Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter stories on the Amazon Kindle store. Sometime in the next few days, you will be able to purchase "A Princess of Mars" and "Gods of Mars" for your Kindle. Of course, you can get them for free from my download page. Hopefully, publishing these books to the Kindle will allow more readers to enjoy some of ERB's greatest work. As soon as they are "live" I will post a link to them.

UPDATE: "A Princess of Mars" & "Gods of Mars" for the Amazon Kindle is now available. View them here:
A Princess of Mars
The Gods of Mars

More to come...

Top ten lists are always cool, so I started thinking about the 10 Sci-Fi novels that have had the greatest impact on my personally. At first I thought that I might have trouble coming up with 10, but just the opposite ocurred. I actually had a hard time narrowing down the list. Do I include I, Robot but not The Caves of Steel? Does Neuromancer make the cut? In the end after thinking hard and long. I came up with 10 novels. This is my personal list, and yours may be different. I included novels without regard for content matter, author, or theme, and put in those that had the greatest effect on me personally. These novels made me think about myself, and my place in the Universe. They made me examine what kind of person I am and who I want to be. That's really the purpose of all "great" literature. It holds up a mirror, and allows us to examine what we see there in a different context. Who knows, if you haven't read some of these, then you might just find out something about yourself.

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Holy Lord, is Foundation an amazing piece of literature or what. Isaac Asimov is on my short list of greatest Sci-Fi authors of all time (although as a practicing scientist, he actually wrote much more non-fiction). However, I had never read his Foundation series. So to remedy this shortcoming, I recently downloaded the ebook, and I finished the first volume today. It's amazing! Foundation began as a series of stories in Astounding magazine in 1942. Given the state of technology at the time, Asimov's prescience is scary. Imagine a fully fleshed out Galactic Empire dependent on Nuclear Power and with a "heavy mineral" based economy; Now imagine some kid writing it in 1942!

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