📖 What are people reading?

Eric said:
Spot on Simon Bisley did the cover.

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Kevin Walker did the internal illustrations and Stephen Tappin did the chapter title logos before each short story.
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Kevin Walker did go on to do a brilliant run on ABC Warriors in 2000AD, following on from Bisley and SMS. I really liked Walker's artwork in the Space Marine rulebook, really inspiring stuff. I didn't know Simon Bisley ever did any work for Workshop, that's a match made in heaven. I always regarded Nemesis/ABC Warriors as 40K adjacent especially in terms of themes, repressive, xenophobic human empire/magic/aliens/undead and demonic creatures and endless conflict/dystopia. Never really had this confirmed by any of the game designers though, perhaps it was just the general zeitgeist of the era.

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willlucv said:
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I'm reading this at the moment, having listened to the original version on Lewis Davies's Oldhammer Fiction Podcast.

I absolutely love the Dark Future setting and stories, especially Jack Yeovil's take on it. It tends to get characterised as Mad Max inspired, but the similarities are actually fairly superficial (I absolutely love the Mad Max films btw). Dark Future is all about gonzo Americana tropes turned up to eleven, combined with a hefty dose of cyberpunk, Cthulhu mythos and alternate history.
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There was, for about eighty years or so, a US 666 running from southeast Utah to northwest New Mexico by way of southwest Colorado. Drove on stretches of it a few times myself. Is that the theoretical setting? Makes me sad that it was renamed US 491, as it was one of the last official bits of US 66 after that route was retired.

Anyway, at the right time of year it's not too difficult to convince people some kind of apocalypse really has happened, as it's pretty sparsely populated and pretty darn dry out there. (Depending on who you ask, there really was one and people are still slowly recovering from it.)

Anyway, I'll have to look that up.
 
Fighelm said:
Just finished 'the book of swords' by Fred Saberhagen. On with three others now: 'A Canticle for Leibowitz' (1959) by Walter m Miller Jr, 'The Once and Future King' by TH White (1958) and 'The Left Hand of Darkness' (1969) by Ursula K Le Guin. A good literary spread of sword & sorcery fantasy, apocalyptic, dead tech, dystopian, Sci-fi, etc etc. Particularly like Ursula's rant in her intro on writers & extrapolative Sci Fi writing and predicting the future. Of its time I guess...
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Finished both 'Canticle..' & 'The Left Hand..'. Both surprised me in how great the story arcs were. Would recommend.

'Canticle' especially was well written, brilliant even. I found out about it a reference by James Maliszewski in his Grognadia blog. He recommends/reviews many good books, Lovecraft & Merrit being favourites. I sought it out to read.

Miller jnr was a Vietnam helicopter vet, a late Catholic convert. He patently struggled with the horrors of that war through to later life, a tortured soul you could say (& unfortunately for such a great talent, felt he had to end it by his own hand).

The book(s), in 3 parts, follow an overall story arc post-apocalypse far future to later star-reaching/planet seeding ending. Certain characters are referenced to in all three books despite massive time spans between. And 'Buzzards' (the American vultures) seem to be a spirit bird theme(!) available to pick humanity of its corporeal form after it's inevitable sins. It is intelligent, analogous, touching, satirical- surprisingly very humorous dialogue. You can tell he is cynical of the powerful, the illogical, religion, the unthinking and ignorant, bureaucracy, and political state hood. It's a subtle work of philosophy and he makes some very profound remarks. You could say he missed his real vocation, but there ever was a fine line between the soldier and the priest.

'The Left Hand' is very good, brilliant even. Having read her Earthsea series over again, it has a similar springboard where (you think) she takes a story then it immediately 'twangs' off somewhere unexpected with characters revealing themselves, plots and intrigues. It's analogous of first meetings in a loosely sci-fi setting, low tech cold world society being introduced to a wider federal universe by the 'author', a human ambassador. But the 'aliens' are humans, just historically adapted to be kind of ambisexual - neuter for periods of time, to be sexed in a period outside of 24 days in their month, swapping to female or male to suit 'Kemmer'. They can be both fathers and/or mothers in life. Strange concepts, totally leftfield, but it has some implications in the story as the first person 'author' considers, often on the hoof, how to navigate subtleties in Gethenian 'alien' politics and human preconcepts of male/female relations, culture and society, law, politics, and all on a frozen planet. It is a fantastic story.
 
Next up. First one, a 1994 print- 'George Orwell Essays'. I'd admit Eric Blair was a top writer. 'Homage to Catalonia' remains my favourite novel. Picked this slightly weighty tome for £2.99 in oxfam, near mint& looks unread, possibly sat on someone's shelf for +30years (original rrp £14.99!). Get in! #englishcooking + #saucypostcards

Second one, an 1981 Asimov collection with Chris Foss (British illustrator, less famously known for creating 'The Joy of Sex' book cover!). Reading the back, this: 'The Archangel Gabriel blows the Last Trump...' 🤔
 

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Oh come on.. surely Chris Foss is best known (atleast around here) for his work on Traveller. surely EVERYONE loves Traveller? (The game famous for allowing players to die during character creation).
 
ManicMan said:
Oh come on.. surely Chris Foss is best known (atleast around here) for his work on Traveller. surely EVERYONE loves Traveller? (The game famous for allowing players to die during character creation).
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:D Yes I know traveller, played it back in the day but never had a (new) character rolled up and die! (Being facetious...). We just weren't very good at earning credits,usually starved, blasted or hyper space jumped into something by mistake. Anyhow, see here James M's good article on rolling up and chancing it: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2025/04/traveller-distinctives-character.html
 
You could read The Time Machine ...

Once I finish Roots of England (and I'm on the last "place" now) I've already decided I shall re-read The Lord of the Rings for the first time since I was but a youngster discovering fantasy worlds (and wondering why the animation finished half way through). Hopefully I won't come out of it disliking the movies, 'cause I was thinking I might rewatch them this winter!

So it'll actually be my father's copy that I read originally and shall re-read:

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Although given the print size I will have to break out the reading glasses for this trip down memory lane :)
 
watched the pilot version of his one-shot "The Amazing screw-on head"? some of the minor changes and the expanding of it work really well. Of course, being that it keeps the art style, it never went to series.
 
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