It's not exactly what you're looking for because it's not a book and it's actually set in 1920, but with so many flashbacks I still think Nikita Mikhalkov's Sunstroke is worth watching if you speak Russian or can get decent subtitles.
Which book are you reading now? Volume XIV
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Had to go into a charity shop today to pick up some Welsh Xmas cards which inevitably led to buying some 2ndhand books, Midnight Fugue by Reginald Hill and The Quarry by Iain Banks so I should be OK til Xmas 
Zkribbler
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Walter Mosley's Little Green.
I'm halfway through the novel, and we've finally found the title character.
No, we don't know why he's important. 
Synobun
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After loving the Dred Chronicles series by Ann Aguirre, I figured I would read the series that series is based on/in: the Sirantha Jax series. Surely they would be similar and I would love that one too?
Evidently, no. The writing style is a huge change, and it was extremely grating. The Sirantha Jax is written first person with incredibly close psychic distance, so the writing was sloppy and the thoughts themselves were irritating to deal with.
Evidently, no. The writing style is a huge change, and it was extremely grating. The Sirantha Jax is written first person with incredibly close psychic distance, so the writing was sloppy and the thoughts themselves were irritating to deal with.
tjs282
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Started reading The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan. Might be interesting reading for any keen Civ player (despite any "factual errors" that -- according to a Gurdiaan review I just found -- it apparently contains...)
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Starting Bernard Cornwell's War Lord, the last(!) in his Saxon Chronicles series.
hobbsyoyo
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Ben Bova has died, @Valka D'Ur.
RIP
RIP
Damn.
Well, he was over 80.
I almost got to meet him at a convention back in the '90s. He was supposed to be the GoH but had to cancel. His replacement was Edward Bryant, who had worked on projects with him. Bryant, as it turns out, co-wrote the tie-in novel for The Starlost (the Canadian SF show that hardly anyone will admit to watching, let alone liking, because it was... not very good and the production history reads like a list of "you know all the things you're not supposed to do when developing a science fiction show, not to mention pissing off Harlan Ellison and Ben Bova? Well we did them."
I had a conversation with Bryant, who explained that Bova had written the novel Starcrossed (novel about making an SF show with a monumentally stupid Canadian lead actor) as therapy after his experience on The Starlost... it's the only novel of his that I absolutely hated, because it's spiteful of a RL situation that happened and uses that to tar many more people than warranted. Mock the show's producers, fine, from what I understand of Bryant's explanation both to me and in his notes for the tie-in novel the producers were monumentally stupid. But to mock Canadian production values and actors in general is going too far. I get he was angry. But this is just spite, and while I suppose people can enjoy the novel if they don't know the story behind it, it's impossible for me.
That said... Bryant was a really nice, friendly person (and he likes cats!), he autographed the book (I never was able to get the co-author's autograph because that happened to be Harlan Ellison and the closest I ever came to meeting him was a very brief birthday greeting online a few years before he died). The Starlost tie-in novel was a good read, since it was based on how the series should have started, not how it ended up on TV.
So that was my experience of not-meeting Ben Bova but did meet someone who knew and worked with him and was willing to tell me the reason for Bova's worst book (worst in my opinion; others will have a different one, I'm sure).
Anyway... positive things. I still love the Grand Tour books, and have a couple on my Amazon wish list. It's a shame he never wrote a third Jupiter book. I'd have loved for Grant Archer to have made meaningful contact with the Leviathans so they could really communicate.
So... the Big Three went years ago, then Ray Bradbury, now Bova... I'm a member of Robert Silverberg's online group and every time I get an email notification from there I keep hoping it's not a death notice (Silverberg is also over 80). But the news from there is that two of his stories have been optioned and the current discussion is about artwork. Silverberg is alive and doing okay, posts on the group whenever someone asks a question of him or makes a comment he wants to answer, and mentioned a few months ago that the pandemic is like living in one of his own stories.
Thanks for letting me know.
Ajidica
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Didn't Ready Player One get re-reviewed a year or two ago and get savaged?
Finally getting started on Poul Anderson's Mother of Kings, a historical fiction novel set in Viking Age. It is one of this last books and so far it feels like it is a "let me tell you about all the fun stuff I learned researching the book", but Anderson has consistently been great with setting the vibe for the Viking Age, so I'm hopeful.
With all the more challenging stuff in my personal library... I'm reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (on Kindle) and copious amounts of HP fanfiction, having found several authors and works-in-progress I really like.
I also randomly picked up one of my Robin of Sherwood print 'zines and started reading it. For anyone here who ever watched the TV show, this story takes place after Jason Connery took over the role of Robin.*
*I'm blanking on whether there has been any other father-son acting family where both have played the same role; Sean Connery also played Robin Hood at one point, though in a movie, rather than a TV series.
I also randomly picked up one of my Robin of Sherwood print 'zines and started reading it. For anyone here who ever watched the TV show, this story takes place after Jason Connery took over the role of Robin.*
*I'm blanking on whether there has been any other father-son acting family where both have played the same role; Sean Connery also played Robin Hood at one point, though in a movie, rather than a TV series.
hobbsyoyo
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One can hope.
It was such an awful mess of the book and I can't understand why it appealled to anyone, even young adults (who are too young to pick up 90% of the incessant 80's references). It was good movie fodder (though I haven't seen the movie) but it failed as a book.
All the stuff they rip apart RP2 for doing is the same stuff he did in RP1.
I am so stoked for you and I can't wait to discuss it with you. I hope you like it.
PhroX
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It felt to me like the kind of book aimed at lonely, nerdy teenegers who wanted to feel like they were special - not that there's anything inherently wrong with that, I loved escapism when I was one of them - as written by, well, a lonely nerdy teenager. But yeah, it was full of references that such people wouldn't get. So, who was the target audience?
Synobun
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I thought the first book was fine. The movie was irredeemable garbage.
Can't for the life of me think of why a second book needed to be written. I might read it just out of morbid curiosity.
You don't talk to me anymore and cut me off from all expressions of friendship.
hobbsyoyo
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If I have, I am sorry!
EgonSpengler
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