Ride Theory started reading California in depth by Jim Crain
Re-read.
Reviews and Comments
I like non-fiction.
Sometimes, I scroll through the "Random" feature of Project Gutenberg for unusual e-books, which I read on my hopelessly outdated Kindle.
The most frightening Twilight Zone episode is "Time Enough At Last," but fortunately, I take off my glasses to read.
@ridetheory@mastodon.social
This link opens in a pop-up window
Ride Theory reviewed Raffles by E. W. Hornung
First published in 1899, The Amateur Cracksman was the first collection of stories detailing the …
Delightful Inversion
5 stars
I love the Raffles stories. They're a delightful inversion of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with the gay subtext /nearly/ laid bare. Bunny, the Dr. Watson analog, is absolutely in love with Raffles, and expresses his shame as though it were purely a symptom of their life of crime, but modern readers will see right through that.
Ride Theory commented on The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr by E. T. A. Hoffmann
The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister …
Available on the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/tomcat-murr/mode/1up
Reread
Ride Theory rated Alice Through the Pillar-box and What She Found There: 4 stars
Ride Theory started reading Fish whistle by Daniel Pinkwater
Reread
Ride Theory rated Ill Tempered Clavichord: 5 stars
Ride Theory rated The Snouters: 5 stars
Ride Theory finished reading The Snouters by Harald Stumpke
An important work of cryptozoology, covering the diverse range of Snouters of the Hi-yi-yi archipelago, which was accidentally destroyed by secret atomic bomb testing in the 1940s. Includes anatomical drawings, footnotes and an extensive bibliography.
Ride Theory commented on The Snouters by Harald Stumpke
Available on the Internet Archive: archive.org/details/snoutersforml00stum/mode/2up
Ride Theory finished reading The Eye of the Needle by Ralph Rugoff
Reread
Ride Theory started reading The Eye of the Needle by Ralph Rugoff
Reread
Ride Theory reviewed Star Trek Log Five by Alan Dean Foster (Ballantine / science fiction -- 24532)
Adaptations of the Star Trek animated series episodes "The Ambergris Element", "The Pirates of Orion", …
Fun adaptions of pretty standard ST plots
4 stars
The first two stories are your basic "race-for-a-cure" tales (Kirk and Spock are transformed into water breathers in "The Ambergris Element", and Spock needs a rare drug in "Pirates of Orion") while the third is a ragtag-team-has-to-pull-together-to-save-the-galaxy yarn ("Jihad"). Nothing wrong with any of them, but nothing exceptional either. Foster uses a few pages at the beginning to flesh out the backstory of Lt. M'ress, the catlike communications officer, but it doesn't tie in with the stories. I get the distinct impression Foster got the scripts and didn't see the animation, since physical descriptions of alien races have very little in common with how they looked onscreen. I still love the Star Trek Fosterverse -- it's canon unto itself.
Ride Theory rated Star Trek Log Five: 4 stars
Star Trek Log Five by Alan Dean Foster (Ballantine / science fiction -- 24532)
Adaptations of the Star Trek animated series episodes "The Ambergris Element", "The Pirates of Orion", and "Jihad".
Ride Theory rated Songs from the gallows: 4 stars
Songs from the gallows by Christian Morgenstern, Walter W. Arndt
Poems translated by Walter Arndt.