Thursday 1 December 2011

Of Crucibles and Landfalls

Darkover Landfall
November has seen an overindugence in classic Science Fiction on my part. I blame the Kindle. Who could resist, for example, revisiting MZB's Darkover for the first time in twenty years, now delivered in a crisp liquid ink format?

Books

The Crucible of Christianity. Jonathan Hill.
The Magic of Reality. Richard Dawkins.
A Wretched Man: A Novel of Paul the Apostle. Obie Holmann.
Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World. John Shelby Spong.
Darkover Landfall. Marion Zimmer Bradley.
The Masks of Time. Robert Silverberg.
The Web of Worlds. Harry Harrison & Katherine MacLean
Non-Stop. Brian Aldiss.

Viewing

Super 8
Downton Abbey, series 2
Earth 2 (the 1990s sci-fi series)
Christianity: A History. Channel 4 series.

Not included, as it's a reference book, is the newly released Chambers Dictionary. The 12th edition was launched this year, and its a brilliant contrast to the often stodgy offerings from Collins and Oxford that dominate the market in Her Majesty's Dominions. This is the dictionary for word lovers and word game afficionados. Philip Pullman and Melvyn Bragg both recommend it - what more could one say?

1 comment:

  1. Please allow me to enable your Kindle attachment. :-) I picked up quite a few Science Fiction titles here. GoodReads has an unsorted listing that has some real gems, too, although you have to pick over the free downloads for browsing purpose, unless you know the exact title you're looking for.

    The bulk of my SF downloads are on another SD card (I have a Kobo not a Kindle), as I am currently still working my way through A History of the True Religion, and Two Babylons, and my current daily reading Bible is the 1917 JPS...I have been really drawn to reading Jeremiah and Ezekiel, lately, and I think it may be time for a reread of Phillips' Four Prophets.

    When I was at the Feast in England, a couple members got together for cards and to watch the latest episode of Downton Abbey one night --- I've watched it off and on, on PBS here...imagine my shock when I realized they were already up to WWI! Ha ha.

    Did you download Earth 2, or buy the DVDs? I think the show had a fairly good premise, but be forewarned, the show never got picked up, so it leaves a lot of loose threads hanging.

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