Mr. Burke's Reading List

ANALOG PLUS 50: Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1971 The eighth issue in my Analog Deep Dive. For anyone finding these reviews, my purpose is two-fold: enjoying some "classic" sci-fi, and looking for stories that I think could be adapted for TV broadcast since so much of what shows up on anthology shows is rough to awful. At some point, I'll stop numbering, but probably not until I do this for at least a year. If I do this for a year. Overall, an excellent issue, with many good stories. In this issue: The Editorial: "Final Blackout", by John. W. Campbell. John talks about what's known about black holes ... in 1971. Lots of great science here. Novelette: "The Lion Game" (Part One of Two) by James H. Schmitz, with an illustration by Kelly Freas, showing a woman sitting, chin in her hand, elbow on her knee, on the left side in the foreground. The background has what appears to be a long wall painting of ...

Superman Vol. 7: Bizarroverse (2018) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) When I picked up a blook on hold at the library recently, I strolled over to check out the graphic novels, which I haven't been able to do for a couple years now. I picked up two Superman titles. Unfortunately, it turned out that I'd read one of them already. This was the other one.

The Outposter, by Gordon R. Dickson (1972) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) My plan with my Analog deep dive was to read the serials later on, after I've gone through the magazines in which the parts appeared. It occured to me that with someone with Gordon R. Dickson (and possibly others, but I've read his work before), that the serial might have been made into a novel. It had been, and it was available at the public library in paperback (not as an ebook, alas). I thought this would be better than trying to read pdf files, and it was. In the future, the Earth is overcrowded and there is a lottery that sends people to Colony worlds. These worlds have "Outpost". manned by "Outposters" who are step above the colonists, who are, as far as Earth is concerned, disposable garbage. There is also a Navy that t...

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden (2017) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) This blog entry originally had the book's title incorrect. This has been corrected. This was a book group monthly pick. This is another debut novel and it makes me feel bad that I haven't written one of my own, but that's neither near nor there. The story takes place in the woods in 15th century Russia, near Moscow at the time of the Golden Horde. I had to remind myself a few times that this wasn't just a wood cabin in the woods because the father of the main character was a lord of sorts (a boyar). There was an entire village there, Lesnaya Zemlya. (There is a translation of this in the back of the book.) Pyotr Vladimirovich is married to Marina Ivanovna, who is the daughter of the Grand Princ of Moscow and a woman of...

While cleaning up my hard drive, I found files where I kept track of the books I read for a given year. Someone had given me the idea (back in the 90s, I believe) to open a text file, and add the name of the book I'd read. What follows below looks like an "end of the year" post made to a bulletin board somewhere. It's past my time on Usenet. Many of these may have appeared elsewhere in this blog, if not the entire post itself. I'll post these files one per month. It looks like 2005 was an old year. I don't remember even having some of these let alone reading them. Quite a few were library books, particularly the political ones, which were right next to the science fiction section at my local branch. 2005: The Year in Review Horseclans #1: The Coming of the Horseclans, Star Trek #29: Dreadnought, Diane Carey Big Trouble, Dave Barry At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, K....

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I wouldn't label this as a "reread" even though I read parts of it before. Back in high school, when I wasn't much of a reader, I thought a book of short stories would be a good choice. And what could be a better choice than Sherlock Holmes? I didn't read many of the stories, and the only one I remember anything about is "The Adventure of the Speckled Band". So that one is a reread, but the book itself is not. I revisited this book several times over the past few months, reading inbetween other books. First is "A Scandal in Bohemia" which finds Dr. Watson visiting his old friend Sherlock Holmes, who still resides at 221B Baker Street. It is the 20th of March, 1888. A man, who claims to be...