Norman S. Nopper

Saw the movie in the 70s; enjoyed the book on the 20s.

Revisado: 01-09-25

I was curious how the movie (1976) with Karen Black and Oliver Reed, differed from the book. By and large, the movie is faithful to the book, except . . . But, Mother is waiting for you. You’ll have to listen for yourself.

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Rama Revealed

Revisado: 06-27-22

We find God. She/He doesn’t apologize for the inconvenience. But the authors should have. I’ve now finished the entire Rama saga. I should have stopped with Rendezvous with Rama. That story was excellent. The sequels were only filler. Read them if you’re curious, or if you’ve run out of other - better - books to read. Otherwise, if you skip them, you won’t miss anything.

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Rama II begins weakly; end is stronger

Revisado: 06-08-22

Rendezvous with Rama dealt with “hard science”. The explorers docked with Rama and we accompanied them on their explorations, as the ship came to life. Rama II begins with uninteresting character backstories, interpersonal drama, conspiracies and crew member duplicity, eye-roll inducing romance scenes - generally those elements that are never science fiction writers’ strong suits. The last third of the book gets better, as part of the crew continue discovering the mysteries of the Rama spacecraft. Although I wasn’t blown away with Rama II, I will continue with Book III, The Garden of Rama, to see where the story goes.

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Forward the Foundation

Revisado: 08-07-21

The novel suffers the fate of many prequels - sections of the plot are forced or contrived to fit with the canon established in the earlier written stories. The original Foundation trilogy is a sci-fi Masterpiece. The prequels and sequels are "filler", and, in my view, do not add much to the story. Still, I rated the novel 3/5 because, hey, it's Asimov - the Legend in sci-fi.

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Foundation & Earth

Revisado: 07-28-21

Suggested alternate titles:
Foundation & Tedium. Plodding plot; too much pointless dialogue.
Foundation & Lolita. The subplot of Bliss and Pelorat creeped me out.
Foundation & Annie or Little Orphan Fallom.
The original Foundation books (Foundation, Foundation & Empire and Second Foundation) were masterpieces. Foundation's Edge was so-so.
Listen to (or read) this book only if you're curious about how the Foundation story ends (with a whimper). But be prepared to work to get through it.

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Revisado: 09-20-19

Narrator did an excellent job - reading the English. But his pronunciation of the German text . . . Bay-oh-backter?! It took more than a few moments before I realized he was trying to say Beobachter (observer). He should have been coached on German pronunciation. I ended up buying the text version so I could read the German text for myself. Regarding the content, the author Shirer did an admirable job of explaining the context - political, cultural, social, economic - of Hitler's rise, the decision making of the key players, the nature of Hitler's and his fellow travellers' murderous obsessions, and shedding light on several more questions where I had always wondered "what were they thinking?" I especially like the "you are there" feel to the book, as Shirer was an eyewitness to many of the happenings. Overall, I recommend the book, and this audio book.

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1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed

Revisado: 08-08-17

Provides a good synopsis of events during the Late Bronze Age, but fails to provide a satisfactory answer to the question of why a collapse happened, other than that it was inevitable. I would describe this book as a "pop history". If you want a more in-depth treatment of the topic, go to the source material that Cline cites.

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