Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Monday Book Pick: It’s Always Darkest

Monday, February 27th, 2023

It’s Always Darkest by Frank Schildiner

This book is set in Philip Jose Farmer’s “Nine” universe. I really enjoyed this book, the main character, Langston Dupont, is a mirror universe version of The Shadow with an more Asian flavor, and is one of The Nine‘s candidates. He still makes use of twin .45 semi-automatic pistols and the echoing mocking laugh though. The very select pool of individuals who gain immortality (at least very, very slow aging) at the cost of being the complete servants of the nine member ruling council who have been influencing the fate of mankind for thousands of years. Dupont has turned against his masters after close to a century of service, including his childhood training. The author is a martial arts instructor, and writes really good fight scenes. Something I really appreciate. A fun read set in 1970s and added bonus, a fight scene featuring one of my favorite bladed weapons!

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Monday Book Pick: The Evil in Pemberley House

Monday, October 7th, 2013

The Evil in Pemberley House by Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert

Win Scott Eckert finishes an unpublished Farmer novel set deep in Farmer’s Wold Newton settings. Half the fun of this book is spotting all the references. Some are obvious, others require a Farmerphile, such as myself, to spot. Overall, a nice bit of pulp set in the early 70s. Patricia Clarke Wildman, the daughter of the Pulp Hero known as “Doc Savage”, is in a rough emotional spot, after the death of her parents, and her recent husband. Then she discovers that she is inheriting an English estate, made famous in the Jane Austin novel, “Pride and Prejudice.” Of course there is a ghost involved, and some shady characters among the living up to no good. With only minor spoilers, let me say that good mystery and spot of adventure is just what Patricia needed to get her out of her funk. She is her father’s daughter after all. Mild warning about the sex scenes. Very risque by 1970’s standards, but not so much today. Milder than what you would find in John Ringo’s Ghost series. A good read for the Farmer fan, but perhaps a bit too much ‘inside baseball’ references for someone not familiar with Farmer’s body of work.

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Monday Book Pick: Time’s Last Gift

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Time’s Last Gift by Philip Jose Farmer

This classic is back in print, so if you haven’t read it yet, go do so! In the not so far future from now, time travel is discovered. You can only travel backwards in time, and there is a limit of how far back you can go. So a team of scientist is sent back as far as possible, to the early days of Homo Sapiens. So far back, North Africa was lush plains and forests. Here is the plot twist, one of the team members is not quite what he presents himself as. He is in fact, much older than his other team members, since he been given the gift of immortality (or an extremely long life span) by a Witch Doctor he saved from a leopard in the African jungles he was born in. If you haven’t guessed who the tall gray eyed ringer is by now, you haven’t read enough Farmer.

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Monday Book Pick: The Mad Goblin

Monday, February 4th, 2013

The Mad Goblin by Philip Jose Farmer

I’m seeing a lot of Philip Jose Farmer’s work come back into print, which is a good thing. The Mad Goblin is one of two parallel sequels to A Feast Unknown. This one focuses on James “Doc” Caliban (yes, based on Doc Savage), half brother of the fellow Tarzan was based on. Both are former agents of “The Nine.” A group that discovered the secret to extremely prolonged life thirty thousand years ago and has ruled the Earth from behind the scenes since then. This is adventure pulp at its finest, with Farmer paying tribute to one of his favorite fictional characters.

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Monday Book Pick: The Dark Design

Monday, November 28th, 2011

The Dark Design by Philip Jose Farmer

The third book in his epic Riverworld Series.

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Sunday SciFi: NPR’s looking for the Top Five SciFi books

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

OK, not really, since they are lumping fantasy in as well.  So you have crap written by George R.R. Martin listed along really good SciFi.  Ya, I am biased here.  I am much more of a SciFi fan than a fantasy one, and perhaps GRRM may be able to be write decent Elf porn or whatever passes for mainstream fantasy these days, but his attempts at SciFi that I have read have been utter drek.

You can enter your top five books or series under comments for this NPR story on their quest for summer reading. Fair warning, you have to register to post.

The five I entered were:

  1. Space Viking – H. Beam Piper
  2. The Probability Broach – L. Neil Smith
  3. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress – Robert A. Heinlein
  4. To Your Scattered Bodies Go – Philip Jose Farmer
  5. The Mote in God’s Eye – Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven

This list could change on any given day by one or two entries.

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Monday Book Pick – Special Double Volume Edition: To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat

Monday, February 21st, 2011

To Your Scattered Bodies Go & The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip Jose Farmer

A double hit by one of my favorite authors. The first two books in his Riverworld series are back in print in a single volume. To Where Your Scatter Bodies Go was my book pick way back on 9/7/09, but I saw that it was back in print today. It’s worth the repeat, especially combined with The Fabulous Riverboat. This is one of the grand epics of Science Fiction and certainly worth the read to any student of the genre.

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Monday Book Pick: To Where Your Scatter Bodies Go

Monday, September 7th, 2009

To Where Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philp Jose Farmer

This is the first book in Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series, which includes a cast of everybody who was born and died from early proto-humans to 1985. We’re talking grand scale, epic Science Fiction here.

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Monday Book Pick: Two Hawks From Earth

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

Two Hawks From Earth, by Philp Jose Farmer

This classic alternate history/alternate reality book is back in print, which is a good thing. During WWII, Army Air Corps bomber pilot Roger Two Hawks bails out of his shot up bomber and lands in a different reality, one also experiencing a world spanning war.

Monday Book Pick Archive

Ya, I know. It’s Tuesday.

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