Reading A Book About A Visit To "The Future"

Once again I find myself facing the end of the month and not really knowing what I really want to blog about. I have plenty of long term ideas for somethings, but many of those take lots of planning or at least a bit more planning that I am willing to do in a short  period of time. I don't want to rush some of those ideas. A few have been sitting for a long time. I have 11 drafts for posts for this blog, I'm not sure about how many drafts I have for my trading card blog but it is probably quite a few more. Some of the abandoned drafts may stay abandoned. There have been a few times when I had a lingering abandoned draft for so long I lost total interest in it or it seemed to be so far outdated that I just deleted them.

I suppose that some of my problem with post subjects comes down to things that I feel comfortable with presenting to the entire world. Sort of what you decide to post on social media. I try to keep some things off it. I guess I should evaluate the things that I like or enjoy doing or reevaluate them.

Well I guess one thing I can talk about is a book that I am currently reading. I have stumbled with it a little probably due to the format and quite frankly some of the writing style, prose I think it is called, The Book is titled "Chronicles From The Future - The Amazing Story of Paul Amadeus Dienach (Based on his Diary Pages)" Edited by Achilleas Sirigos. The basic gist of the book is it is the "diary" of a man (a Swiss-Austrian teacher) from the 1920s in failing health slips into a year long coma and when he wakes up recalls that he had "lived" in the body of a man in the year 3906 while in his coma. Knowing that he doesn't have much more time to live he records his memories of "the future" in a diary, written in German, and then gives his diary to his favorite student George Papachatzis who translates it into Greek. It claims to be a true story about time travel. The "student" was a real person, however the existence of the "author" is a bit sketchy. The only references to the "author" are linked in someway to this book.

At any rate the book is somewhat interesting, but it has taken me a bit of an effort to plow through. At times the "future" reminds me of something like "A Brave New World" or "Logan's Run" with the culture of society and an emphasis on youth. In the future presented, which is a few hundred to maybe a thousand years post-nuclear war money and wealth is no longer a priority, Young adults after their formal schooling spend roughly 2 years working like crazy and then retire to appreciate the finer things in life. A few people work longer than the standard 2 years but the majority don't. Currently I am 32% through the book.

Some have criticized the book because of some more modern references to later technology. The reasoning for the modern references is in part due to the publishing "history". It appears that the first Greek translation wasn't published until after WWII and was only shared with the free masons or some similar group who decided to hide the book. Its first major publishing was the 1970s. It has only in more recent years been translated into English. So any claims of the events being factual are very suspect. I think most of it is to just give more mystery to the overall story.

Changes at Goodreads

 

Over at Goodreads they have decided to make some changes including getting rid of the "creative writing" section/ ability. A few years back when I used it frequently, well some-what frequently this would have annoyed me. Also if I had forgotten they were going to do it and didn't save any of my work in that section I would have been ticked. However I don't use it that often and all the writing I had over there I saved onto the cloud in my private Google Docs.

For lack of anything else here is a sample of one of the only 9 writings I had over at Goodreads. It was mostly gibberish and nonsense and a Stream of Consciousness exercise: 

I Say What?

OK it’s been a while since I've done any kind of writing here. I guess this will be more of a journal type thing than a regular attempt at something to be read. 

As I enter the stream, the stream of consciousness I attempt to write whatever pops into my mind. I will try not to edit it as it comes to me. Except to attempt to correct spelling errors when prompted that an error was made

So here we go again and again and again to write each and every word that comes to mind as it comes without thinking of how it sounds or if it makes any sense whatsoever. and we begin the begin benign. ACK that took some thinking of how to spell it, and the eventual having to use Google to spell it correctly. There is a sign of the times using a search engine, actually the website that is a search engine to find the proper spelling of a word rather than looking it up elsewhere. Well right now I don't have a dictionary handy so OK Google it is for spell checking. Blah, blah blah de blah blah. BLAH! So there!

Sigh heavy breath release. Back to the matter at hand or rather at mind. Getting a few distractions not sure if I can continue this exercise. Yeah No guess that is it for now. Big disappointment. Barely got anywhere. Heavy Sigh. 

Originally Drafted/ Updated 02 Aug 2019

Update: Books and Things

Update: Mid February to Very Late June 2016

I have made some progress since my last update. I was trying to catch up to my Goodreads "books read" list. Getting my Read in the Past page matched up to my GR list. I was also trying to keep that page looking OK. I haven't finished matching the lists up so that is part of the satisfaction factor. Actually the lack of satisfaction. After that it will need a few more tweaks before I am fully satisfied with it. Um OK so I stalled on this project.

In the background I was working on a few review kind of posts.

A "recent read" that is actually somewhat recent and I have a review of. A quick review posted on Goodreads shortly after I updated my profile there to reflect finishing that particular book. I probably should post it on this blog as well, but right now I am a bit lazy.

To Heaven and Back by Mary C. Neal:  May 2012 Waterbrook Press 222 pages ***

I don't remember what my main goal was when I first attempted to make this post back in mid-Feb. I let it sit till around April for a while and then tried to work on it in early May but we know hoe that didn't go.

Wow it has been a while since I've updated this post as well. Since that book that was semi-reviewed I have read five other books, but haven't "reviewed" them. I have a ton of books read in the last 3 or 4 years that I sort of want to review but haven't. I don't know if I ever will. OH well.

Editorial Note:
     Good I had this post in the drafting queue. I thought I was going to have to do a quick "State of the Blog" update post. I probably should do one since the year is half over already and I am nowhere near looking like my self appointed post quota will be met for the year for two years in a row now.

An Update of Sorts

A Book Update and Maybe More

(or Less)

I have been doing a little house cleaning here on this blog by updating somethings that were severely outdated. One of those was my reading list static page. I only had a link to my Goodreads booklist. I have beefed it up some with recent reads from the last few years. I still have more to go and since my online list says I have 472 books read and I know there are more books I have read that I haven't even logged in on the list. Many of those I have to make sure the correct edition is logged in. If I keep up with it eventually due to character limitations for pages (something like 1MB of data) whenever I reach that limit I will have to break the page up some. I know one thing would be to break off the Series that I have listed onto a series page, or if the series is big enough break off it's own page. Sort of what I have done with Charmed already but for now I have decided to keep the Charmed books on the overall list as well. For some I might just have an ongoing post rather than a static page devoted.

If I have reviewed a book I have linked to my review as posted on this blog, or wherever else whenever. For now I have the list alphabetical by author's last name (but shown first name first). After I have added to my satisfaction, or patience I might tweak the page to make things easier to read, like switching to showing last name first. Maybe I should do that anyway. Hmm.

It has also been a while (try years not just months) since I've posted a review, let alone actually written one. I've been planning on correcting that. 

Happy New Year 2015 to 2016

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

In a few hours we will go through the annual ritual of recognizing another full orbit of the Earth Around the Sun by changing the entire time keeping book on the wall (aka: Calendar). At this time of year many people make resolutions and vows to supposedly change their life for the better. Many more people will break those vows and many people like myself will not even attempt doing either. Well I do sort of have one, and it is blog related.

In a few days (maybe only hours if I put an effort into it) I will make my annual January "State of the Blog" post where I examine my posting history of the last 12 months, and see if I met my personal posting quota goal of a minimum of 32 posts in the year. I knew early on this past year of 2015 that I would fall short of that quota. I barely scratched the surface of posting the bare-bones minimal one post per month. I only have myself to blame for slacking off on that personal goal.

For other personal goals I reached my book reading goal that I keep track of on Goodreads of at least 20 books read. I read 21.3 as of right now I am 30% (page 114 of 378 pages) into book number 22, however I will not have it finished by year's end so the official tracking will only show 21 books and in a few days when I do finish this current book I am reading it will be tracked as my first book read in 2016. My personal tracking I mark the book as being read for both years since it is a transaction book. I started reading it about a week ago. Technically 2 or 3 weeks ago, but I re-read the first 15 pages or so that I had originally read to better keep refreshed on this book.

Books Update: February 2013

FEBRUARY 2013

This is a bit outdated, it was in my posting queue and I wanted to clean out the queue. I still need to review this book by the way.

Well my first book of the month (and as it turns out only book o' the month) I got from a giveaway at Goodreads.com it is the second time I've won a giveaway there out of the 80some I have entered. Jesus Was A Time Traveler by D.J. Gelner. An interesting concept that I've been toying with writing a story about a time traveler going back to the time of Jesus and trying to prove he existed.

This book tells of a time traveler who makes his own time machine and goes back to first century Judea and meeting "Jesus" and learns he is really a grad student turned time traveler that claims that history is fixed and immutable.

This book is a fun read. It has many references to Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation almost to the point as being overdone. An interesting concept in it is that time travelers have adopted the "Vulcan Live Long And Prosper" hand salute as a code for time travelers to recognize each other as a fellow time traveler.

I will do a proper review of this book later on this blog as well as at Goodreads.

Book Update: July and August 2012

July & August 2012

OK like my last "update" this one is coming many months too late, but only about 6 months late this time not 11. I got just a few books from the summer months, with the exception of one or two books from the MLB Insiders Club, this wraps up the books I had gotten in 2012. I will try to keep up with this stuff THIS Year to avoid having to do another post or two like this come 2014. I already have about 5 coming in from Ebay in the next few days to weeks.

ON to the books all of which I got from dealers at Ebay:

First up we have a book that I got for several reasons that should be pretty obvious because it is from a series I have a lot of books from. Doctor Who: Paradox Lost by George Mann. I first heard about this book from a Doctor Who group at GoodReads where I keep track of my book collection. It sounded fun since it was one of those Doctor Who adventures that went back and forth between a couple of time periods.

Doctor Who: Paradox Lost

By George Mann

Like most of the Doctor Who books it is a very fun read. This one gets its excitement from having to solve a modern/future paradox by traveling almost 1,000 years into the past. It keeps mentioning "one thousand years" but technically the span is only 879 years. It has a Sherlock Holmes Mystery feel to it with a bit of a goth horror mixed of course with the modern Doctor (number 11) with "The Ponds" flair.

Next up another Doctor Who book surprise surprise. This one called Doctor Who: Judgement of the Judoon by Colin Brake.

Doctor Who: Judgement of the Judoon

by Colin Brake

This Doctor Who book is a solo adventure of the Tenth Doctor. It has a sort of film noir feel to it with a little bit of comic flair added to the slight Doctor Who taste. He meets a character that would have made a wonderful companion had this been a regular episode or the book series publishers wanted an ongoing companion. I'm not sure how they decide that for the books. Judging (pardon the pun) by the title I thought if would be more of a courtroom drama sort of, but I'm glad it wasn't exactly the way I had invisioned it would be. It was a bit cooler and wasn't stuck with just the Judoon. The actual story is sad in some ways but I won't get into that here right now. I may save some of that for my official review of it. (Whenever that will happen since I'm behind right now with 32 books to review)

My third book from July was one for a sci-fi reading club at Goodreads. Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson.

Snow Crash

By Neil Stephenson

This book I was mixed on most of the story I really liked the concept of it but the author's use of foul language was a little much and in many places not needed. Originally published in the early 1990s it is one of those just a few years into the future type of books. The world is owned by corporations and instead of countries everything is companies and their franchises that act like countries, even public services like the police and the US Government are independently owned companies/countries. Cyberspace is huge business and other than these franchise zones it is the place to be. The anti-hero of the story is a mixed-raced 20something who has a hard time holding regular jobs but is an expert swordsman and is one of the "grandfather" hackers of the cyberspace world. He stumbles upon this drug called "Snow Crash" which is a drug in the real world made from tainted blood and in the Cyberworld a computer virus aimed to take out hackers. Part of the cyberspace experience is to be "jacked in" which like many other stories of this kind involves a computer chip and a type of USB port surgically installed in the neck. There is a subculture of these jacked in people who are more cyborg than human and they tend to be associated with the bad guys in this tale. If it were not for the language used by almost all the characters I would have enjoyed this book a bit more.

OK so then for the Month of AUGUST I got  a lone book. This is an older pre ISBN book from the 1960s and Random House. The Story of Baseball by John M. Rosenburg (of course the only amazon links I could find were for revised versions from the 70s but it will do for demonstration purposes and for this blog). It is a big hardcover storybook designed for "young readers" pre-teen to teenagers, but can be enjoyed by those who like or love the sport of baseball. I haven't read it yet but will sometime.

The Story of Baseball

by John M. Rosenburg

Well there we go that was the books I had gotten about six months ago. I will try to keep my book updates more up-to-date than this one and the last one.

Book Update: February 2012 Books

FEBRUARY 2012
(Very very late)

I'm really really really beyond late with this one. Practically a full frakin year. I started this originally way back at the end of February 2012 for a beginning of March posting obviously that didn't happen. Partly because I am super backlogged on my doing book reviews and partly because I am extremely lazy at some things.  I wonder if I will ever get around to doing any more book reviews or reviews of anything. So here is the stack of dead wood I got way back in the month of February 2012.

Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside 

by Stephen Cole

First up is a book from the new series of Doctor Who from an author I already have a few DW books from. Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole features the 9th Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose Tyler (Billie Piper). This book was the book to read for September in the Sci-Fi Book Club I'm in at Goodreads.com. It is a very good story. I don't want to spoil anything but it features the return of a monster that made it's Doctor Who debut in Season One, well technically Season 27 or something but Season One for the current rebooted series. The story would have been a pretty exciting episode for the show. This series of the current Doctor fills the hunger for new Who episodes when the show is between seasons or during the mid-season breaks just as the classic "New Adventures of Doctor Who" series filled the hunger during the non-existent years.

Next we have the two books from the spin-off series of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. of course. Now with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. there were 23 novels printed in the US with only 16 printed in the UK in a different order with different covers but the same story on the inside. To mix things up a bit and to confuse things The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. only had two novels printed in the US but four printed in the UK, yet there were five different stories. The first US GFU book is the same story as the UK book 2 again with different cover (slight variation in style but same posed picture from star Stephanie Powers) where the US book 2 was not printed in the UK.

The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The Birds of a Feather Affair

 by Michael Avallone

The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: #2 The Blazing Affair

by Michael Avallone

Next up we have a book I got from the MLB Insiders Club. The 2012 Baseball America Almanac. Oddly the cover for this is slightly different from the one I saw online and the cover that my collection tracking site GoodReads has for it so I need to add it. This is the complete stats book that covers the previous season 2011. Since the Nationals did so well in 2012 I will need to get the 2013 Almanac when it is published. 

V Series

To Conquer The Throne

by Tim Sullivan

I am in the final stretch of my collection of the US printed V Books. Of the original series of books this book is the next to the last one to get To Conquer The Throne by Tim Sullivan.

I finished up my V Book Conquest with The Oregon Invasion by Jayne Tannehill. Now I have all the US published V books, someday I might try for the UK published versions.

From the Classical Literature aisle I picked up a second copy of Mark Twain - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.

First my original copy which is falling apart.

 Then we have the other version I plucked off of Ebay,

with the classic cover I'm more used to.

Then I found a copy of a book I have wanted for a long time. I have had the first book for ages and ages since it came out then this book I didn't know about until a few years after it was already very hard to find. Scroogie #2: Hello There, Ball! by Tug Mcgraw I think this was the book I got via the Barnes & Noble from an affiliate book seller. I forget how much I got it for but it was a bit high by my normal standards but I really wanted this book. This has the rest of the comic strips. I also in a fit of insanity bought an auction lot of Scroogie Comic strips clipped from the newspapers also from Ebayabout 70 or so total the seller claimed it was a "complete run" but it is only about half the run. Oh well.

Next we have a book that is similar to a book I think I talked about months and months ago (or maybe not I'm too lazy to check my older posts) The Little Pun Book assembled (edited?) by Robert Margolin published by Peter Pauper Press.

Following the PUN theme I got two books that my family had ages and ages ago at least the second book. Both are picture books by a photographer Bruce A. McMillan they are Punography and Punography Too. Each is very short only about 30 pages or so. He shows a series of four photographs that show some kind of progression and visual representation of a pun. Some of them are cute, and some are just plain awful. There are even a few that make you say "Huh?"

That is it for my February books I also got 3 books in July and 1 in August. I think I will combine those two months when I get around to them.

Book Review: Death Drop By Sean Allen

" "He's onto us, Admiral!" Shouted Otto. "No real runner would steal cargo and go off course in the middle of a run - they'd never run again, not to mention the bounty put on their heads by the ringers in Trillis - It's HIM!" Malo grunted his agreement and flexed his fists in anger"

NOTE: This review may contain SPOILERS.

Death Drop by Sean Allen. I got my copy of this book from a giveaway at Goodreads by the author. (almost a year ago now) As it was a giveaway I really wanted to like this book a lot, however, I think it is just OK. I still liked it some just not as much as I was hoping I'd like it. This is the first book in a series called The D-Evolution. I was aware of that when I entered the giveaway, I think the series is planned to be a trilogy. This book sets up the series very well, but I will probably pass on the other books in the series.

First off my big disappointment was with the story synopsis that is on the back of the book (and used at Goodreads for the book's entry) described a character named Desmara, which I thought would be the main character,  but she doesn't appear until a few pages before page 150. She is really just one of an ensemble cast, which I don't mind I just wish my expectations hadn't had been set so high, or that the synopsis had concentrated more on the bigger plot arc of the story. I really enjoyed her as a character and she was one of the few characters I could relate to. She is also the only human of the main characters. Her story which is included in the synopsis is more the "B plot" of the book. The "A plot" is something entirely different, but is the story arc for the entire series.

A second disappointment with this book was at 560 pages it took me a long while to get through it and it was a little difficult to follow. It also dragged for me for the first 100 pages or so waiting for Desmara to make her entrance and to get her into the main plot. In some ways she reminded me of the title character of Aeon Flux (the MTV Liquid Television cartoon series I have yet to watch the movie even though I have the DVD) and a little of Lara Croft. The pace picked up for me about half-way through the book, then dragged a little more but picked back up and then when the end came. I was torn between being excited about what would happen in the next book or two and being disappointed that the book ended with such a cliffhanger to set up the next book. It didn't help that while the book was dragging for me I put it down for over a month before picking it back up.

I also had difficulty picturing all the different characters because they were so non-human, I'm partly a visual person, and their descriptions were a bit confusing. I think if some of them were a little easier to picture I might have liked this a bit more. OK yes there are some character drawings on the website for the book series (http://www.devolutionnovels.com ), but to be honest at the time I didn't think the website would have as much info such as character images on it (it might not have at the time I first checked it out). I also had forgotten there was a website for it until I finished the book. So I had to rely on my own imagination, like readers used to have to do all the time, and many of the characters are completely different from what I had imagined.

The book started off with two characters that are sort of a George and Lenny from "Of Mice and Men" so I thought it would be more of a sci-fi buddy adventure story. I was wrong they are part of an underdog rebellion that is fighting to save the entire universe from a super powerful being (mostly spiritual not physical?) that is hell bent on being the supreme emperor of the universe by destroying, controlling and or enslaving every species and race in the universe, and will most likely succeed. So instead of a buddy story I got an intergalactic revolution story. Cue up the opening theme from Star Wars.

The bulk of the story involves the rebels, who have discovered a drug that makes beings immune to the psychic control of this would be universal emperor/demon, the problem is their resources are decreasing rapidly and their population dying off. Also the wanna-be uber emperor with his psychic powers usually knows about things way before they get anywhere near him, and he has some moles in the system that are trying to stop the flow of this drug for obvious reasons.

Oh and the main plot point with Desmara? She was a smuggler or as the book calls them "runners". Apparently in the universe of this book these runners compete against each other. So the more cargo you haul around and deliver to people the bigger and better your reputation. Desmara was the best in the business, although she hid her identity since she was a human, humans in this universe are thought to have been killed off by the super-uber emperor and thought to be extinct. If her humanness was discovered she would be killed. So her public persona was named "The Ghost" it was also believed that The Ghost was a male his specific species not known due to him not being seen. The fact that the Ghost was really a human female was inconceivable.

For more information on this book and The D-Evolution Series you can visit the website for it: http://www.devolutionnovels.com .

Death Drop by Sean Allen 2011 Vintage Six Media 560 pages. - **

Book Update: January 2012 Books

JANUARY 2012 BOOKS

I got a large number of books this month so I will not post individual covers for all of them. I got 3 of them from the Quality Paperback Book Club, 1 from Goodreads in the first giveaway that I won (I have entered many giveaways there but this was the first time I won one, it helped that the author was giving away 25 copies) and the rest from Ebay.

HARDY BOYS MYSTERIES: 

Many know that the author of these books Franklin W. Dixon was actually a group of authors for the publishing company, but that is a story that has been told before by others and can easily be found by a web search.These first four books I got from one seller on Ebay for and average of $3.00 a piece (some auctions and some fixed price I think) they were ordered in December and I think originally shipped in late December/early January but the post office failed to leave one of those little "orange" pick up slips. Fortunately you can still pick up packages showing you valid photo ID to prove you are who you say you are and you are authorized to pick up mail for your address. I got it 10 days after they had originally tried to deliver it.

USPS "Orange" pick-up slip

Hardy Boys #1 The Tower Treasure

So since I'm trying to rebuild my collection from my childhood, or at least some of the highlights I got the hardback copies of these books. They are the 1960s or early to mid 1970s versions at the newest. I don't plan on getting any newer printings unless the original publication was later for those later numbers. Anyway the Series library numbers I got are 1, 4, 15, 16. These editions are numbered only on the spine, later editions put the number on the front cover. Later still they added a "flashlight" banner to the top of the front cover. I found an excellent identification website The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page that can help you determine which edition you may have. It might not be perfect but it helped me tons.  Anyway the titles of what I got:

Hardy Boys #16 A Figure in Hiding

01 - The Tower Treasure

04 - The Missing Chums

15 - The Sinister Sign Post

16 - A Figure In Hiding

With the exception of "number one" I had previously owned the others, I even had two different editions of number 16.

Next I had gotten three books from QPB:

Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long, MD with Paul Perry
The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer 

The Vikings: A History by Robert Ferguson - When I first saw this book in the catalog I thought I already had it because I have a hardback edition of another book titled Vikings by Magnus Magnusson that has a similar cover.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E

Next I am building a library of television-tie-in books from a TV series I barely saw as a kid. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. which starred Robert Vaughn, David McCallum (who plays "Duckie" on NCIS), and Leo G. Carroll. The trick to this series is I also plan on getting the UK versions of some of the books which have a different numbering system and sadly didn't publish as many of them there. I am concentrating on getting the US editions first then perhaps as I can find them get the UK ones. There is an excellent website (from a guy in the UK that has a bunch of series listed on his home page) to see the covers of all these books The Man From UNCLE Books Gallery

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  (later printings listed it as #1 and titled "The Thousand Coffins Affair" this edition only has that title on the inside) by Michael Avallone

02 - The Doomsday Affair by Harry Whittington
03 - The Copenhagen Affair by John Oram
04 - The Dagger Affair by David McDaniel
05 - The Mad Scientist Affair by John T. Phillifent
06 - The Vampire Affair by David McDaniel
07 - The Radioactive Camel Affair by Peter Leslie
08 - The Monster Wheel Affair by David McDaniel
09 - The Diving Dames Affair by Peter Leslie

The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Affair of the Goldrunners' Gold by Brandon Keith

The book I got as a freebie from the Goodreads giveaway by the author is a Sci-fi story Death Drop by Sean Allen. That is about all I know about it right now. I moved it to the top of my "to-be-read" list. When I am finished with it I will post a review there as soon as I can. Oh and it was signed "All my best" by the author..

 The last minute addition is just a small one, well a big one a big little one actually. Journey To The Center Of The Earth - The Fiery Foe by Paul S. Newman a "Big Little Book". When I was a kid my brother had a copy of this book. I'm not sure if he snagged it years ago upon move out of the family home or if my mom had put it into a giveaway box years later. I think it was the former. Anyway this copy I got from Ebay for $8 (the shipping was free) it is in very good condition but has that really musty old book smell. I might try that putting it in a plastic container with an unscented clothes dryer sheet to see if that trick works I don't want to try the kitty litter trick as I have no cats and would feel strange buying kitty litter. LOL.

Book Update: December 2011 Books

DECEMBER 2011 BOOKS

I got a bunch of books back in December pretty much all of them were through Ebay. I even got two editions of the same book (originally for the different covers). I noticed after I received the second one that in addition to the title being switched a bit there was a chapter that had been updated/changed with the second edition. So cool and all that for double dipping that one.

Doctor Who: The Stone Rose

As I mentioned last month (Book Update: November Books) this book Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner was on order and due to arrive in December which it did. I also mentioned that it is for the Sci-Fi Adventure Book Club I belong to at Goodreads. We start reading then discussing this book in March (September is another Doctor Who book).

Doctor Who Annual 1978

For who knows how many years World Distributors LTD has been cranking out hardcover annuals for Doctor Who. In the UK the tradition of Annuals for TV shows is very popular, even when shows end up getting cancelled after only one year (and thus one annual).

Doctor Who Annual 1981

Lookie another Doctor Who Annual from World Distributors LTD. This one I noticed is highlighted as an example of the different editions WD LTD publishes. They produce a local UK edition that gets branded with the year on the front cover and spine and also on the title page inside, plus a unit price is put in the corner on the title page. They also make an international version that doesn't have the unit price on the cover page and doesn't have the year printed on the outside cover. I noticed I have the international version.

Peter Pauper's Pun Book

Just a Pun little book published in 1962 edited by Robert Margolin. The Peter Pauper Press also printed another little Pun book I think with the title "The Liitle Pun Book" with a red cover I'm certain that my family had a copy of I think we also had a copy of this pun book as well, but I'm not 100% sure.

Between A Heart And A Rock Place

This is the autobiography of Pat Benatar. As a Benatar fan I had to get this. Somewhere I've got the only other two books on Pat Benatar that had been published. I'm not sure exactly where those are right now.

NCIS Series by Mel Odom

These next three books are part of a series of books that follow a team of NCIS agents. The series is not associated with the TV show in anyway. I do think that the show inspired the author Mel Odom to write these books. Odom apparently has military background and according to his bio on the back cover he has a background in forensic science. The books are published by Tyndale House Publisher's Inc. which specializes in Christian Fiction.

Paid In Blood (NCIS Series #1)

In this first NCIS book by Mel Odom we meet a team of NCIS agents who are based out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Most of the characters had military careers before transferring to NCIS. The team leader Will Coburn has to balance family problems with his workload. The team has to track down terrorists who are into smuggling not only drugs but nuclear weapons. This book does tend to get a bit preachy, more so than the second book in the series does so far (I'm about 40% though reading the second book at the time of posting this). I enjoyed this book even though it had nothing to do with the NCIS TV show. The only thing I didn't like about it seems to be a common complaint of it being a bit too preachy.

Blood Evidence (NCIS Series #2)

So far this second NCIS book is just as good as the first and it isn't as preachy as the first one was, but does have a little bit of the characters thanking God and praying for stuff. This time the team is involved in the reopening of a case of a murdered 16 year old girl whose mother is a Naval Officer and stepfather is now a big political figure on the rise. At the time of this posting I haven't finished reading this one yet.

Blood Lines (NCIS Series #3)

The third book in the NCIS series. I don't know much about the plot to this one yet I'll find out soon enough when I start reading it.

City Of The Dead (Seven Wonders Novel 2)

This is the second book in the Seven Wonders Series of books by T.L. Higley. This one takes place in ancient Egypt and centers around the main architect for the Great Pyramid of Giza. It is a first person narration which at first annoyed me some but I got used to it as I read through it. Even though I had heard this book is Christian Fiction it doesn't seem like it. The closest it seemed to get is when they talk about a group of people that are of the one and talk about one god. To me that didn't seem preachy but it could be considered a veil to Christianity, except that the time this story takes place these people would most likely be Jews.

The Hardy Boys And Nancy Drew

This is one of those "old" books by Scholastic Books Published in 1977 this book tells some of the behind the scenes of the television series of The Hardy Boys and the Nancy Drew Spin-Off Series.

Nancy Drew And The Hardy Boys

This is the same book as the book above except that the chapter on the actress playing Nancy Drew has been updated changed. It also has a different cover. It also was printed in 1977.

A Pound Of Paper: Confessions Of A Book Addict

This book by John Baxter is simply one man's journey of book collecting. I am currently only a little less than 20% though reading this book. It tends to get a bit slow, especially when he goes on a tangent about a certain author or a book seller or collector.

The Hardy Boys Detective Handbook

This is one I had as a kid and I'm pretty sure I read it at that time. It was one of the "hand-me-down" books from my brother(s). I recall they had 20some Hardy Boy books and when I started getting into them I added about 10 more or so to the collection. I think the originals from the collection went with my brother and his wife ages ago. I decided recently to try to rebuild a collection of them. More Hardy Boys fun for January. Anyway this book is more sort of a reference type book that tells how some aspects of police business is handled or was handled back in the late 50s early 60s. There have been a few updates over the years I think I also had the 1974 edition of this book at one time.

Book Update: November Books

NOVEMBER 2011 BOOKS

Not much this month. I did get another book from the MLB Insiders Club I have to double check to see the title I think it was "Greatest Rivalries" or something of that nature. I'm not really concerned about that right now. Anyway the bulk of what I got I found at decent prices on Ebay since I haven't been to a proper bookstore lately and the ones I've dashed in didn't have these books when I looked.

STAR TREK (2009)

First up the Novel version of the most recent Star Trek Movie (2009) by Alan Dean Foster. His adaptations of stories for films are usually pretty good. I hadn't planned on getting this book but it is the first book to read for a sci-fi book club I joined at goodreads.com. The schedule for this group as it stands right now seems to be that every other month we will read a book and discuss it while reading it. I think the wide birth of reading time is to give people time to pick up the next book to be discussed.

WAREHOUSE 13: A TOUCH OF FEVER

Next up is the first book based on the Sci-Fi Channel hit show Warehouse 13. Hopefully there will be many more books in this series. This one Warehouse 13: A Touch of Fever by Greg Cox sounds interesting but I'll find out when I read it if it is an exciting enough story to start a book series with. Who knows.

Incoming:

DOCTOR WHO: THE STONE ROSE

Speaking of "Who" this final one is a more recent Doctor Who book with the David Tennant Doctor (#10). Another book I'm getting via Ebay due to arrive in early December Doctor Who: The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner. It is the second book for my goodreads sci-fi book club which we don't start reading till March. I'm not sure if I can wait that long. The companion for this story is Rose Tyler.