Have any of you read any of the Vorkosigan Series? I just finished the last published book... Probably my favorite sci-fi along with Alan Dean Foster's Pip and Flinx.
I found them to be a great series from beginning to the latest.
Some can be a little silly in places as it is a very human series
with romance and humour mixed with Imperial politics and
interstellar intrigue and war and family politics as well.
I am glad you like ADF. Somebody has to I guess.
The Pip and Flinx series had its ups and downs. I mostly enjoyed Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory "Up the universe!" Did you read the series? The final book was a huge letdown. :(
No I did not read it because I was so totally scarred by "Splinter of the Mind's Eye"
that I have been in some kind of therapy ever since. I could never pick up another
one of his books without going into convulsions and compulsively drinking a case
of cheap beer in one sitting.
Somehow I missed that Star Wars book. I started at Thrawn...I can't remember how far I got. Pip and Flinx is a good adventure series...but the ending is pretty anti-climactic.
Can't say I am surprised. Whatever you do just don't read the one I mentioned.
I have read one of the compendiums (Miles, Myth & Mayhem).
I got three of the books on audio when there was a big sale from audible.com. The audio versions of the books were very well done.
They are a fun, light reading. She uses outlandish coincidences as plot devices, but the books are enjoyable
I forgive her the outlandish plot devices since some of the
stories are "mysteries". I think it is kind of hard to set a
SF mystery in a time and place unfamiliar to the reader without
fudging things a bit since we can't always second guess an
unknown world.
I thought Splinter of the Mind's Eye was decent enough. It was written right after the original SW and was intended as the basis for a low-budget sequel if SW failed at the box office. A lot of it doesn't fit with canon established by the sequels, but it's an interesting story in it's own right. I read it when it was first released, so there was no other Star Wars material to contradict.
There were a number of Del Rey SW paperbacks done in the late 70s and early 80s. Some of them were quite good. There were a couple focused on Han Solo that I really enjoyed.
I must have been unlucky and just got the bad ones.
The Lando Calrissian novels from back then were dreadful. The others not so bad. To me, most of the modern SW novels are junk. I'm not a fan at all of the Zahn stuff, but I know that a lot of people love his SW novels.
PS - Sorry, don't mean to hijack this thread. I'll move along.
Until I got into "real" science fiction (that is...non established TV/movie based novels) I thought the Star Wars books were great. However, having read the Vorkosigan saga, Pip and Flinx, Enders Game, Hyperion, etc. I see how how silly most of the Trek and Wars based books were.
Still fun though, but more like light reading. "Beer and pretzels" sci-fi. :)
I used to read all the Trek books. Most of them are terrible too. However, there are several written by Diane Duane that are excellent - The Wounded Sky, My Enemy My Ally, The Romulan Way, Spock's World, and Doctor's Orders. I still own them and reread them every few years.
Short story "Space Weed". There were some SW things by, I think, Brian Daly?
That kinda ended up tacked to the sh*house wall.