Finished in 2003

Submitted by spoky on Thu, 05/29/2003 - 07:53
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  • The World's best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Nebula Award Stories Eleven - Edited by Ursula K. LeGuin

    Catch that Zeppelin! - by Fritz Leiber : This was a good little story but I didn't quite like the ending. It didn't quite work with my idea of alternate timelines.
    Spoiler: Highlight to view
    I thought it would have been better if main character stayed as himself in the alternate timeline instead of becoming Hitler
    , but still it was a good story.

    End Game - By Joe Haldeman : This was an excerpt from what I believe is the end of his novel The Forever War, it was quite good and I do believe that I will try and pick up a copy of the novel to see what the beginning was like.

    1975: The Year in Science Fiction, or Let's Hear It for the decline and Fall of the Science Fiction Empire! - By Peter Nicholls : This was an interesting essay, but I do not really know enough about the Science Fiction of the time (being -1 years old) to really judge the validity of the points raised.

    Home is the Hangman - Roger Zelazny : This was a great story. It is my favourite of the collection so far. I have never read any of Zelazny's work before so I think I may have to look into some of his other work.

    Child of All Ages - P. J. Plauger : I really liked this story but felt it was too short. i think the premise of a 2400 year old prepubescent girl could have easily been filled out into a longer story then it was.

    Pontential and Actuality in Science Fiction - Vonda N. McIntyre : This was an all right essay there was definitely truth in what she said, but I think most of her arguments would hold true (to a certain extent anyway) for any genre.

    Shatterday - Harlan Ellison : This was a good story

    San Diego Lightfoot Sue - Tom Reamy : I quite liked this one but I felt the amount of Science Fiction in it was quite low for it to be considered among the top science fiction stories of the year.

    Time Deer - Craig Strete : This was probably the only story in the collection that I just didn't like at all. I found it to be repetitive and boring.
  • The Mists of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Never has it taken me so long to read such a good book. I started this in August of 2002 and finished it July of 2003. i enjoyed every minute that I spent reading but for the last three or four years I have just not been able to but as much time into reading as I would have liked, but I think the short stories I started reading are helping me get back into things. Anyway TMOA was by far the best telling of Arthurian legends that I have read and the length of time it took me to finish it has absolutely no correlation to the quality of the novel.
  • Creating Computer Simulation Systems: An Introduction to High Level Architecture - Dr. Frederrick Kuhl et al.
    I got a bit more then half way through this. I finished all the technical bits and was starting in on the examples when I was sent to a course on HLA that pretty much used this book as a basis. So all the examples that I haven't yet reached in the book have already been covered by the course so I am going to put this one down half finished.
  • Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
    Finished this quite quickly while waiting in the airport and the subsequent flight to Montreal. I thought that this was a great story and I can easily understand how it got it's reputation.
  • Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
  • Beowulf - Translated by Michael Alexander
  • The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler
    This was a great book which I flew through in no time at all, thanks partly to Hurricane Juan. With only a few trees uprooted on our property and all but one of them falling into the wooded areas around the house, clean up for us was fairly quick and with no power at work for three days I had lots of time to get some reading done this week and a very good book to read.
  • Otherland: City of Golden Shadow - Tad Willams
Cloned From: 
Finished in 2002
professor10/03/2003


I can certainly recommend The Forever War by Joe Haldeman - one of my favourite books (top thirty). I also loved The Mists Of Avalon - anything about King Arthur, Greek mythology or Egyptology or the Roman emperors fascinates me.

I also have Roger Zelazny's &nbsp Lord of Light &nbsp and &nbsp This Immortal &nbsp both on my bookshelf yet to read - both have good reputations, but I've not read anything by him yet. I am going through (another) Sci-Fi phase at the moment.