Timewaster's Guide Archive

According to John Scalzi the buy buttons are back at Amazon, but only for used books. I feel bad for the authors caught up in this. They are collateral damage in a dispute with 2 large companies. I would think most authors make the vast majority of their money off of selling books and not off of e-books.

Authors as popular as Brandon are fine, but TOR has alot of authors who don't sell alot of books.... This is lame.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/

No one likes Battlestar Galactica? And you guys are sci-fi/fantasy fans.

Thanks peter. I have wondered for a while that when people talk about all time gross they talk about domestic first and then maybe world wide. They act like domestic is more important.

I wonder if there is a total world wide gross. It is about how much money you make total.

I am surpised that Enders Game has not been made yet. I don't think the special effects require will be a problem. It is also the kind of movie that would appeal to kids and that is always a large audience.

Finding the right kids to play in this movie would be REALLY tough.

I don't know what I want. I'll know if I like it if i see it. I am a programmer and there are a couple of software blogs I like. I also read Paul Krugman's blog (nobel prize winning economist) even though I am not a liberal (he is a big time lefty)

Best:

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet: Takes place in the middle ages and it revolves around a village building a Cathedral. Follet is a mystery novelist and his historical novel is his most popular. If you like fantasy you will love this book. No it is not fantasy, but it is a period of time that Fantasy lovers like.

The Time Travellers Wife (I heard the movie sucked). The audio book presentation is outstanding. It has male and female performers. I am a guy and I do not read romance. So this is partial romance and alot of sci-fi. VERY well written.

Roma by Steven Saylor: Saylor is known for his mystery novels set in ancient Rome. This one is different. It is a series of vignettes that start in 1000 BC and then go to the rise of Octavian (the kid who won in HBO: Rome). This is the first novel I have seen where most of it takes place in very early rome. VERY good book.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman: This is 35 years old. I went through the sci-fi awards to look for an older book to read and picked this one. GREAT BOOK! GREAT BOOK! It is about a 3,000 year war. People travel close to the speed of light and that causes them to go forward in time (Einstein says this will happen).

The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman: This was light hearted and fun. A lazy graduate student too lazy to finish his PhD accidentally invents a time machine. However, he can't figure out how it works and keeps going forward in time in hopes that someone else will tell him how to get home. The best part is when he gets to a point where technology is at the point where everyone is rich. An artificial intelligence basically manages things. It is the anti-skynet. Instead of wanting to take over, it finds people so annoying it wants to go through time to get away from them. I laughed out loud at this.

I am reading the second Mistborn book by Brandon. I liked the first one.

Worst:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: This actually won the hugo award and the author won a pullitzer prize. I got bored and didn't finish it. This could be a taste issue. I don't like mysteries. I read it because the reviews were so good. I never finished it. It assumes that israel is not created and the jews move to Alaska.

It is a prequel to battlestar galactica. I do not like the whole "robots that look like people" thing since that has been done in the Matrix and the Terminator. I really like the way they use Sci-fi, but then make the world alot like Earth. I think it is interesting.