Allotments 4 All
General => News => Topic started by: MikeB on August 19, 2005, 12:31:31
-
Hello All,
I don't actually have an allotment, I've got a 30' x 60' veg patch at the side of the house. Based in Harleston, Norfolk, but originally myself & OH from Camden Town in London. Interests are dog training, sailing reading S.F. and obviously gardening.
Regards
MikeB
-
Hello - not everyone on here has an allotment - quite a few have veggy patches of different sizes. I do have a large half plot in Lincoln. Welcome to A4A. Gardening and other interests welcome.
-
Hello and welcome :)
-
Welcome to the show.
Montanum
-
Welcome onboard Mike :)
-
Helooooooo
-
;D Your in goodhands here ;) ;D
-
Welcome you will enjoy your stay, pull up a chair ;D ;D ;D
-
Welcome Mike, wear seat belt at all times, crash helmet advisable and keep your arms at your side...... ;) Lottie ;D
-
Thanks to all for the welcome,
Regards
MikeB
-
SF, huh? what kinda authors are we talking here? (this could make an interesting off-topic topic)
you are lucky to have a garden attached to house that is big enough for veg growing. it is probably heresy to say this but i would swap a garden for my allotment any day :) alas, we live in a 1st floor flat so i am hanging onto my piece of (rented) soil for the time being ;D
-
I like a bit of Iain M Banks - as well as a bit of Iain Banks :)
-
Snap.
Took 'The Algebraist' away with me, for my holiday reading treat. Excellent tale... but still rate 'Consider Phlebas' and 'Use of Weapons', along with 'Player of Games' as my favourites. I think they were the first three SF books he wrote, too.
Peter F Hamilton spins a complex rolling yarn; Joe Haldeman's 'The Forever War' I've dipped into again and again, over the years; HG Wells; Leigh Brackett; Susan Matthews is brutal, uncompromising, uncomfortable, and powerful; and if you are at all interested in any of the following: Star Trek (Kirk & Co), Classic Cinema, Sci-Fi, comedy - and haven't read John M Ford's 'How Much For Just the Planet?'... then your sides have missed getting splitted - this was an unlikely gem recommended by the 'Good Book Guide', and, as usual, they were spot on.
Anyone else?
-
my absolute fav SF writer is polish author stanislav lem (solaris etc)
-
Somehow you guys have made me feel like apologizing. I'm afraid I drifted away from hard core science fiction into science fantasy about 10 years ago, mainly due to lack of published books in that genre. My favorite authors at present are David Eddings, Raymond Feist, Anne McCaffray and Terry Brooks, and of course for a good laugh Terry Pratchett.
Gadfium, I'll try the books you mentioned if my local library carries them, I'm afraid with the price of books nowadays I'm unwilling to buy on spec'.
Svea, I assume Solaris is in English?
Banks, I have read, but not for sometime, I believe I have some of their books on my shelf( unable to check at the moment as I am at work).
All the best
Regards
MikeB
-
yes, lem's books have been translated into just about every language :)
-
Hi
My two pennies worth...
Try the Arthurian triology by Bernard Cornwell (He wrote the Sharpe series)..they are...
1. The winter King
2. Enemy of God
3. Excaliber
A completely different perspective on this famous legendary character.
Derek
-
I'll try some of those as well; I read 'Solaris' years ago and enjoyed it. My main gripe about a lot of SF and fantasy (I enjoy both) is lack of characterisation, which often leads to shallowness. It's a question of finding the honourable exceptions, but I admit I haven't read much of either for years.
-
I have to agree with you MikeB. MY last serious bout of reading was the Sword of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind - about 10 books and still going!
-
Svea - I'll have to get hold of a copy of Solaris, knew the recent film was a remake of a Russian original, but not that they were both book-based.
MikeB - I found the same thing, especially with my favourite genre of adventure/thriller books... and eventually I drifted away from the bookshops, since the page counts kept increasing but the content diminishing. And at £6+ a try, it's an expensive let-down.
It's only recently that I've started uncovering some new authors whose work I can immerse myself in. But, looking back, it was a long, dry spell, with only a few stalwarts to get me through... Dick Francis (thriller), Terry Pratchett (fantasy), Patrick O'Brien (historical adventure), Ian Rankin (crime), Faye Kellerman (crime), Janet Evanovich (comedy crime), Lindsey Davies (historical adventure), Nevada Barr (crime/natural history), Ian Stewart (mathematical intrigue) ...
-
gadfium - i liked the films even though they somehow always lack when you know the book. but i thought the films were well executed, each in their own way. the book itslef will give more depth to the characters, and i thought the book was much more scary (about what was going on) than the films could portray....
-
Hi Derek
I've read all of Bernard Cornwall's books with the exception of the Arthurian Triology, I have a complete aversion to anything to do with King Arthur, totally childish, but it goes back to having to learn the poem Mort D'Arthur at school.
Yes I too like historical adventure but the majority of authors in this genre treat it as historical romance, I've nothing against historical romance I even have a friend who reads it etc. etc.
Regards
MikeB
-
I hope that wasn't Malory's original epic in it's entirety! I enjoyed most of TH White's Arthur books years ago, but not the last one where he didn't have Malory to use as a basis. He wrote an interesting book about his adventures during a spell spent living in the woods trying, not very successfully, to train goshawks. I later discovered that he was actually hiding in fear of the IRA, but I don't know what he did to offend them.
-
Oooh an SF thread :)
My favourites are CJ Cherryh, Larry Niven (+/- Barnes, Pournelle etc), Asimov, Anne McCaffrey. I do love the Cherryh SF as she's very scientific and is someone who allows for relativistic ageing and proper timescales of journeys.
I tend to retreat into bookland in winter when I don't have to be at the lottie all the time!
Recently I've got into Catherine Asaro's universe though it's hard SF crossed with quite adult romance in parts! So if anyone wants to talk about her books we'd better shift to Watershed!
moonbells
-
Oh yes, at last, fellow SF readers ;D ;D ;D ;D
My favourite authors are
Gregory Benford (especially Timescape)
Isaac Asimov (I have the original I Robot stories in hardback!) Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, Greg Bear, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein (even though he's a MCP)
Frank Herbert, Bob Shaw (especially Slow Glass in Light of Other Days),
Patrick Moore (he wrote awful stuff but it was the first I read), Geoff Ryman (especially the Child Garden)
Clifford Simak (soft homely stuff, especially Way Station),
George R Stewart (especially Earth Abides)
A.E.Van Vogt ...... I could go on forever....
-
Oh yes, at last, fellow SF readers ;D ;D ;D ;D
My favourite authors are
Gregory Benford (especially Timescape)
Isaac Asimov (I have the original I Robot stories in hardback!) Ray Bradbury, Arthur C Clarke, Greg Bear, Poul Anderson, Robert Heinlein (even though he's a MCP)
Frank Herbert, Bob Shaw (especially Slow Glass in Light of Other Days),
Patrick Moore (he wrote awful stuff but it was the first I read), Geoff Ryman (especially the Child Garden)
Clifford Simak (soft homely stuff, especially Way Station),
George R Stewart (especially Earth Abides)
A.E.Van Vogt ...... I could go on forever....
Hmmm I should have added half of these to mine too! Greg Benford - definitely. I like hard SF best and I know what you mean about RAH being an MCP but some of his society comments were spot on. Simak - yes, gentle SF though still thought-provoking... just got my paws on some old paperbacks of his :)
Bob Shaw is also fun, though Orbitsville was the better of that series. Talking of old-fashioned MCP hard SF writers, I still like Doc Smith's Lensmen, even though he was almost worse than RAH! Though they'd be able to film those finally, I don't know if they'd dare! Not without seriously shredding the plot... I first read them at 13 which was quite an eye-opener!
moonbells (bit older than 13 these days)
-
Hi Moonells
Thanks for mentioning Doc Smith's Lensmen, I've been racking my brains ever since this topic was started trying to remember the first SF's I started reading, it was Doc Smith's. I was 17 and at sea (Royal Navy), had run out of my normal reading material (crime, spy, etc.) and read Doc Smith to pass the time, have been hooked ever since.
Regards
MikeB
-
The Lensmen were definitely the first real (non-kids) SF I read - were staying at a holiday cottage in Burnsall in the Yorkshire Dales and they had a bookcase... four of the seven books were in there and I read them in a week! Then spent a few more tracking down the other three at the local library!
I don't include things like the Star Wars novelisations in the real SF category - that's SciFi (and I read that at 10!). If anyone reading this doesn't know the distinction, SciFi, sometimes pronounced skiffy, is the slightly derogatory term used of populist media science fiction by readers of the more thought-provoking less 'talking squid' type of science fiction which is generally referred to as SF and often comprises sociological stories of how humans react to different species (aka cultures) or conflicts. Or even how aliens react to us (though that takes a very good author as they have to invent a completely different culture and mindset).
moonbells
-
I remember the Lensman books from when I was at university, though I don't think I'd be able to stomach them now.
-
Sorry, sort of butting in to this thread. But I thought I would suggest that you try Oryx & Crake by Margaret Atwood. A really enjoyable read set in the future. It was shortlisted for the Booker in 2003.
-
JennyM!! Read that book too!! Fascinating, but for life of me can't remember the author. If anyone does know, POST!!! I've just finished the first in the Triology by Philip Pullman, Northern Lights, had me transfixed!!! I'm also very partial to Dean Koontz, find some his stuff almost plausible, and some waaayyyyyyy out there, but keeps me out of trouble! Also love Anne Rice, read those one after the other, got fed up with me at library, so ended up ordering over net from them!! Love reading! Lottie ;D
-
Return to Isis by Jean Stewart?
-
Welcome MikeB
If you like dog training, we do dog sitting.
Check out our website !
;D
-
Nice site
Regards
MikeB
-
Ta very much. ;)