Next Arcs: Honor Harrington/Eve & Aliens

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#1

Since we’ve locked down some dates, I thot I’d pass on our plans so those of you who like to be ahead of the game – picking up a book, getting on the list at the library for the movies, and so on – can do your thing.

Following the completion of the Harry Potter arc we’re doing a one-off podcast on the MMORPG Eve and the David Weber’s Honor Harrington book series. (Yes, these two relate. Really!) You don’t need to have played Eve or read the books to enjoy the podcast – we’ll see to that! – but if you’d like to jump in, we highly recommend picking up the first book in the Harrington series, On Basilisk Station. It’s a great, easy read – and so addictive we’d bet you’ll want to continue.

After that we’re heading into an Aliens arc with plans to cover at least the first three movies and likely some of AvP and the Predator series itself. The Aliens movies are, IMHO, hard-core sci-fi at its finest and something everyone should experience. The movies are readily available from a variety of sources, too. It should be a lot of fun.

We’re looking forward to both of these and hope you are, too!

#2

My darn Montreal library only has the book in French: “Honor Harrington: Mission Basilisc”. Maybe I’ll try to hack my way through it.

Yay, Alien! My bold prediction: Sean thinks Ripley is hot. :stuck_out_tongue:

#3

All I can say is…YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!

#4

Oddly enough, neither uni or public libraries around here have the book… Interlibrary Loan it is!

And another interesting fact: there’s another guy, David Weber, who writes stuff. But he writes on the Spanish frontier in North America. 18th century.

I don’t think they’re related :wink:

#5

Gol’durnit. Figures as soon as I sell my Aliens Quadrilogy set we do an Alien arc. I’ll just have to buy another one–thru the Amazon link, of course. :slight_smile:

#6

I’m reading On Basilisk Station right now - so far it’s a fun book. It is an easy read like Chuck said, and the kind of leisure reading I love in the summertime. As soon as other people get into it, we have to talk about how great Nimitz is!

#7

Sounds like I need to head to my local used book store…

Just the excuse I was looking for :slight_smile:

#8

With the exception of the most recent Honor Harrington book (that is still in hardcover as far as I know, so I don’t have it yet) my wife and I have loved all of the HH books! Chuck you and the rest of the gang will love this series! We even wear the forest green polo shirts that are monogrammed with the Harrington Steading crest!

My only slight criticism of the series is the quasi-military space battles that are pretty dry reading for me, but I’m good at scanning these sections fast enough so that I can just get the gist and move on to the rest of the stories. I think that the GWC-ers who like super-descriptive military battle description will enjoy these parts all the same!

My wife and I really look forward to the Honor Harrington episode(s) to come, and we also highly recommend the Miles Vorkosigan book series written by Lois McMaster Bujold!

#9

Just the first three? What about Resurrection? It’s Whedonverse!

Even if Joss has disavowed all responsibility for it. :stuck_out_tongue:

#10

What is it with Joss disavowing many of his previous projects?

#11

A person’s gotta eat.

Yeah. What’s up with that?

#12

What else has he disavowed?

Hmm…library to get a book instead of buying it. Now there is an idea. <glances at massive bookshelf to his right that is teetering precarious overstuffed with books>

#13

Several of them were “reworked” by the studios away from how he’d conceived them, the BtVS movie and Alien: Resurrection especially. In this case:

Screenwriter Joss Whedon was unhappy with the final product. When asked in 2005 how the film differed from the script he had written, Whedon responded:"It wasn’t a question of doing everything differently, although they changed the ending; it was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong. They said the lines…mostly…but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do. There’s actually a fascinating lesson in filmmaking, because everything that they did reflects back to the script or looks like something from the script, and people assume that, if I hated it, then they’d changed the script…but it wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script; it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable."from Wikipedia

#14

Casilda, thanks for the idea, I got On Basilisk Station on interlibrary loan and it’s awesome! I’ll save more detailed comments for the 'cast thread.

#15

I’m surprised not more people have found baen’s free library. It’s awesome, look at the other books from weber on there (there’s a couple more honorverse ones too).

Anyway, here’s On’s Basilisk’s Station, free to read online (with no drama) at baen’s website:

http://www.webscription.net/p-304-on-basilisk-station.aspx

Man I can’t wait! Anyone been reading the snippets for the new book, Torch of Freedom? It’s so cool! For those people up to date on the series, you can find the snippets collected at this site.

Oh! And I have to say I disagree with the battle sequences being boring; there is a lot of boring fluff, but you learn to skip that to the really good stuff; which is certainly much more exciting then any star trek battle sequence, though perhaps a bit gruesome.

This is so awesome!

Joe

#16

Now that I’ve enjoyed On Basilisk Station, I’ve found the entire series by other means (three letters, first and third are “P”).

I didn’t find the battle sequences boring, either. Weber is pretty good at setting up the technological rules of his universe and making the reader understaqnd them. Like Niven in that respect.

#17

I’ve just started The Honor of the Queen and I’m enjoying it just as much as Basilisk Station and his Bolo novels; Bolo and Old Soldiers (which is one of my all time favorite military sci-fi series). It reads quickly and I find myself not wanting to put it down.

#18

FY(a)I: There’s a thread dedicated to discussion of the first Honor Harrington book. :slight_smile:

#19

This will be sweet!

I am just finishing On Basilisk Station and I am glad I got into Eve before. It is very similar to the way space travel is in the Honorverse and gives you a much better comparison for distances, volumes and speeds (especially with the lack of metric use in America ;)).

#20

Soooo looking forward to the “Alien” arc! If memory serves, it was my first R-rated film. Every character was played by first-rate actors, esp. Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto and John Hurt (whose name I could never forget after his painful birth scene…lo mein would never be the same). Of course, Sigourney Weaver broke the mold for sci fi heroines.

Interesting that the ship names “Nostromo” and “Sulaco” (Aliens) share a link to a Joseph Conrad novel. He certainly was not one to celebrate the basic good in humanity.

H.R. Giger’s designs for the the xenomorph and the derelict are strong and distincitive. The blend of biological and mechanical form–with a twist of the sensual–is very much his signature. We also see his design in the “Species” films (which pale in comparison!).

The pre-CGI visual effects are beautiful. The Nostromo’s descent is still exciting and real.