Woodgrain it is.

GKC

This may be more than you ever wanted to know about it:
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/original.html

Oh, my no, and thank you. I like knowing stuff, especially the stuff in the last section.

Now if I can find the box. For years I knew where it was stored. Now, not so much.

But, from the info on the boxes, it's first alpha or 1st beta. Teh 1st booklet is 1-3, from the cover.


Hmmmmm. Hope I didn't give it to my daughter.

GKC

You have the wood grain box?! A collectible item indeed! I might be umm...interested if you are willing to part with it...ahem...

I have been playing AD&D now off and on again since the early 80s. I have recently introduced the game to my children and we are having a blast. I have another related sci-fi roleplaying game in my possession called Star Frontiers, also released by Gary Gygax's TSR. I have been inspired to finally start reading the suggested material on the interior of the back cover. Among those authors suggested are the following:

Poul Anderson
Isaac Asimov
Piers Anthony
Arthur C. Clarke
Robert Heinlein
Frank Herbert
Larry Niven
Andre Norton
Jack Vance
Roger Zelazny

If it weren't for tabletop RPGs in my youth, I might not have been much of a reader in my later years.

What do you folks think of the above list of authors with respect to the topic?

I'll have to find the thing, before I decide what to do with it. But it does date from around 1974-75. Bought it when I lived south of LA and had discovered comic shops.

All the authors listed are among my favorites and were prominent in my forming my tastes for science fiction. Herbert and Anthony being least so.

GKC

Would anyone recommend any of these books?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/cultu ... ovels.html

I'm now looking for good Crime Sci-fi novels but when it comes to new Sci-fi I never know if I'm going to pick up something that offends either God, The Church or puts down religion.

Given your strictures, I'd hesitate to recommend anything on the list, esp. since I've only read one of them (CAVES OF STEEL, which I liked, also its companion NAKED SUN). Mieville I don't read, the Chabon I own (he's a friend of a friend) but haven't looked at.

Otherwise, I'm no use at all.

I do like the Lord D'Arcy books, by Randall Garrett, not mentioned, as well as Butcher, McCrumb and Bester, mentioned at the bottom. I'm sure there are others in this sub-genre that I've read, but nothing comes to mind.

GKC

I read Altered Carbon's got a good storyline and actually revolves around the death of Catholics. (A distant cousin go Gibson's Cibata universe of techno-crime.) However it is very pornographic, takes places in brothels and even skipping a lot of the gross stuff, its still something that took me a while to get rid of mentally.

If detective sfiction is your thing, I highly recommend Gibson's works, all mysteries. Cyberpunk: world lured by lawless technological consumerism and organized crime. Johnny Mnemonic of course, Mona Lisa Overdrive but specially Burning Chrome.

Caves of Steel is pretty good as are all of that trilogy: Classic retrofitted future with film noir tendencies.

There is definitely nothing offensive about The Caves of Steel (culturally, it is a product of its time), but as the series moves on, it gets less and less inoffensive (if that makes sense?).

I just picked up Hardwired by Jon Williams. It was on a clearance table, got it really cheap. Anyone ever read this? I like Cyber Punk type stuff.

I've read something from each one except Norton and Vance. I think Piers Anthony is the only one I did not really care for (I've read a couple of his fantasy works and one of his sci-fi - the first volume of Bio of a Space Tyrant). A few years ago I definitely would have listed Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, and Niven among my faves, but now I'm not so sure.

As I recall, in his sf, Anthony had a predilection for mucus.

Norton and Vance are superb.

GKC

Sounds interesting, will put it on my list.
Look up The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalpa.
Cyber Punk with 70's dystopianism......

Other reccommends: Vurt and Snow Crash (Love Hiro Protagonist)

I have made a decision. I like you, friend.

I bought A Talent for War and finished it in a day, so it definitely kept me interested. I will have to read it again, though, before I can decide where it ought to be ranked. Plus I'm sure that there is something I missed the first time around (I read The Lord of the Rings about once per year and every time I read it I discover something I had missed before -- granted there are 1300 pages in the edition I have, HM hardcovers).

GKC, what do you think of David Weber's Honorverse collaborations with Eric Flint? I started reading Crown of Slaves some time ago and had a lot of difficulty in getting through it. I don't mind intrigue but it seems unduly focused on the sex lives of the characters, who is seducing whom, etc. In fact I had trouble recognizing Weber at all in the work -- even different terms are used for some concepts (for example, the term "contra-grav" is used rather than Weber's usual term, "counter-grav"). I don't mean to nitpick, of course -- for me it is just evidence that Weber had little to do with the book except provide Flint with some ideas.

I am a fanatic on all the Honorverse, and certainly accept the portions that Flint contributed as canonical. I am also quite grateful to Flint for causing David to extend the time line by at least two books, past the point he had decided to make the climax, in order to accommodate stuff that Eric had written, that messed up his planned schedule. I just bought RISING THUNDER, and have only one more book before Something Awful Happens.

I note the difference in style and emphasis, in CROWN OF SLAVES and TORCH OF FREEDOM, emphasis on certain characters, MANPOWER, the Ballroom, etc. Doesn't bother me at all. I am caught in the flow, and highly unlikely to catch contra or counter. Memory isn't that good. But it is as likely that Eric gives David ideas as the other way. Certainly he did, when he forced the time line shift.

My wife, more the extremist on Honor than I am, makes no distinction between Weber and Flint, reads all, demands more.

Haven't read any real SF for a while. Preston's IMPACT and Green's THE SPY WHO HAUNTED ME don't really qualify. Awaiting Jack's latest, done with Mike Resnick, due shortly. Prior to that, maybe Wolfe's HOME FIRES was latest. Or one of Kratmann's.

Hope in the end your final judgement on TALENT FOR WAR is positive. Then go on to read of my daughter's exploits in saving the world in MOONFALL.

GKC

Oh, I am not saying they're not canonical. I'm saying that what I've read of them simply isn't good.


Oh, right, absolutely. I just noticed not only the difference in emphasis but also the difference in style. I am not always a big fan of Weber's style, as I think I mentioned before; I think he needs a good editor (e.g., we needn't be told that hot chocolate, Honor's beverage of choice, is "a sweet, thick beverage" -- we either know what it is or can look it up in the dictionary). But he tells good stories, so I can get past that.

Crown of Slaves is on a whole other level. I mean, one of the protagonists spends a chapter basically watching a television show. I got through that, only to run into the long, drawn-out nonsense about sex, seduction, etc., etc.


Definitely positive, don't know how much though.

This is Catholic Sci-fi, but I just finished Greybeard by Brian Aldiss. Fantastic 1960s Sci-Fi right there!

Just finished couple of beauts on my list: Directive 51 by Barnes and the Electric Church .....
Barnes was good, meaningful and a lot like Steven King in narrative style but Somers just had me laughing.... fun book, good clean fun.....

I'm off to read Mirror Shades Anthology in search of new stuff....
Do you ever get a book only to find that you've already read it but forgot....

Yeah.
His first book was THE best.
The rest are lackluster.....