Tag: Sci-fi

I finished reading The Ladies of Mandrigyn last night and I have to give Ms. Hambly a bit of credit; she didn’t go with the more obvious of the 2 scenarios that I thought she was going to. In the end the book wasn’t all bad, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend anybody buy this book at the cover price; still it’s short and if you can find it for just $1-$2, then that’s probably worth it. Overall, I’ll give this book 2 out of 5 points.

I looked around the house some more and found that I did have 2 more sci-fi books from the last library book sale, huzzah! 🙂 So the next book I’m reading is an oldie, but a goodie; it’s Joe Haldeman’s Forever War. I’ve read this before –actually when I was going through my closet I found I’ve got multiple copies of it– and really enjoyed it. I’ll let you know how I feel about the book after I finish reading it again.

Though I should mention that reading Mr. Haldeman’s work has a slightly unreal feeling for me. Why? Because unlike most of the authors I read; I’ve actually met Mr. Haldeman and his wife. In my area, there is a local sci-fi club, called SFLIS that was founded in part by Mr. Haldeman back when he was attending the UofI. That group also started a sci-fi con in the area called ICON. When I moved into this area several years; I started going to ICON to meet the local geeks. After going to the con for a couple of years, I heard about it’s history and then realized 2 of the people that the con staff were always friendly with were in fact Joe & Gay Haldeman.

No, I’m not a slobbering-gooberhead fanboy but it still throws me for a bit of a loop when I meet/see the author of a book I really like. Anyhoo, I need to get back to work; so keep those pages turning.

I finished reading Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the 20th Century the other day. It’s a good, but not great collection. I say that because each story in the collection is a well written and enjoyable; however I realize now that I’m not particularly fond of short shorties or at least, not a random collection of short stories which is what the overall feel of this collection is. There’s no underlying theme to the stories that were selected and that really weaks the impact of each of the stories. Still, it’s filled with good stories by good authors; so I’ll give it 3 out of 5 points.

I’ve already started reading Elizabeth Peter’s The Golden One. To be honest, I started reading it the other day and just forgot to update my blog; so I’ve nearly finished it and I’m finding it to be highly enjoyable though I’m somewhat glad that it’s the last of Ms. Peter’s books that we have around the house. I like her characters and her writing style isn’t bad but I’ve just about had my fill of mysteries for now and I’ve got a bunch of used books from the last sale at our local library. That’s all for now; till next, happy page turning.

Ok, I might have misspelled that title but it should be close enough to give you an idea of what this musing is about. You see, I was sitting at my desk waiting for the program to finish processing some data (so I could double-check the results) when my mind started wondering and it occurred to me that we all have our own odd little sayings. Given that I haven’t anything better to do at the moment, as the computer is especially slow today); I figured that I’d share a few of mine with you. If the topic interests you, feel free to leave a few of your own sayings in the comments or post something on your blog.

  • “Just another day in paradise, wish I were there.”: I use this one alot at work when people ask me how I’m doing. It’s not that I hate my job or anything like that. It’s just that actually working for a living tends to get me down a bit. Ok, that sounds really pathetic… Ah screw it, when I was a kid there were basically 2 things that I wanted to do: be an astronaut and to have enough money to do whatever I want whenever I want. As neither one of those happened, I’m going to use them as my excuse for disliking working for a living. Don’t laugh at me too hard for my dislike of work, after all I actually do my job, rather than try to sponge my livelyhood off of the welfare system.
  • “Wassup, cheesewhiz”: To be perfectly honest, I only use this one on a particular friend of mine and neither of us remembers when or why I started it. We think there was some sort of story or incident that sparked it. The wassup is optional and may be randomly replaced with Hey, ya.
  • Raise your right hand in front of you with the middle 3 fingers extended and the palm facing you, “I’d tell you to read between the lines but I don’t think you’re that smart!” Then lower the outer 2 fingers, so only your middle finger is still extended. I use this when I’m annoyed with one of my friends and want to insult them. Ok, it’s not nice but then I never honestly claimed I was a nice guy.
  • “Soka”: This one I picked up from watching a lot of anime and I have a sneaky suspicion that I’m saying it wrong, misinterrpreting it or at least misspelling it; however from what I can tell, it basically means I understand. After watching all the anime that I have and reading the sort of Sci-Fi books I like; I would venture to say it’s similar to saying I grok you.

Well, my program just finished processing; so it’s time to get back to real work.