David A. Harding
Friday, 12 Nov 2004
I'm gonna start with the January/Febuary issue of Analog even though I didn't finish it yet. This is the 75th Anniversary issue of Astounding/Analog and what I've read so far has been excellent. The David Brin novelette was an awesome tale of first contact with the themes you would typically expect of Brin: smart hero, tough choices, superior races, long stretches of time and the human race hanging in the balance.
Schmit's edititorial was next on my list; Stanley got very personal, after all he's been editing Analog since before it's 50th anniversary. He talked about the history of Astounding, especially of the great John Campbell. Moving to the present he talked about what he had done for this anniversary issue, one thing that caught my eye was that the main story was written by Jack Williamson who has published stories in Astounding/Analog in _every_ one of it's eight decades! Wow.
I started reading the Williamson story, so far it's pretty good (it's a serial).
I filped through Asimov's (Analog and Asimov's generally arrive at my door together or a day apart) and read the Niven story. It was 'Ok', not great like his last story for Asimov's (a Beowulf Shaffer story, which IIRC was re-published in the latest volume of his Man-Kzin wars series)
In books:
I read the latest Bazell story from David Weber. I was disapointed, really. I can't tell if it's me or him that's changing (or both) but I haven't been enjoying his books as much as I used too.
I then read in succession both of the books in John Ringo's new series (I don't have a name for it, a.b.d-w calls it something like Fallen-Earth, I think) _There will be Dragons_ and _Emerald Sea_. The first was pretty good, the later was decent and not particullarly believable.
I was reading _Crown of Slaves_ by ??? but I've put it down for a bit while I catch up on my non-fiction reading (more on that in an upcoming blog). I would probably read less Baen if they weren't one of the only publishers that distribute non-DRM'd e-books.
Not fiction but a story regardless: I read Steven Levy's _Hackers_ and am very impressed, I'm amazed I managed to avoid reading it for so long.