Other hobbies?

Post by **nocturnalnerd** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 11:10 pm

marurun wrote:What? What are these "other hobbies"? Sedition! Nobody here is allowed to do anything but play video games. Jerks! How can you say you love video games and have other hobbies, too? That's like cheating on your 2nd secret wife you don't let your 1st wife know about because polygamy is illegal!

You have some issues there

Post by **Scooter** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 11:54 pm

philipofmacedon wrote:I love to read. Most of it is science and fantasy. Some of it is utter trash but I've been finding there's a lot of old quality stuff out there. Authors like Robert E. Howard, William Morris, Lord Dunsany, William MacDonald, Charles Williams, Zelazny, Philip K. Dick, Asimov, etc. I read real books as well. My maternal grandparents were Greek emigrants and this got me interested in the classical world at a young age. I think epic poetry is great; we should all read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, and Paradise Lost every few years.

Have you ever read anything by Robert Reed? He recently won a Nebula, he has been nominated numerous times over the past decade but never won until recently. He write hard science fiction. His short stuff will appear in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Asmimov's and he has quite a few novels. Bob happens to be a friend of mine so I always like to toot his horn a bit.

If you like real-life style murder mysteries, look up Alex Kava. She also is a friend of mine and her later stuff is pretty compelling.

Post by **marurun** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 10:45 am

Reed is quite good. I'm a long-time sci-fi fan. Fantasy lost my interest years ago (most of the stories were trite and not character-driven enough), but sci-fi has always stayed strong.

Post by **philipofmacedon** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:36 pm

Thanks for the info Scooter. I've never read any Reed, but I'll check him out.

Post by **Scooter** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:07 pm

philipofmacedon wrote:Thanks for the info Scooter. I've never read any Reed, but I'll check him out.

Black Milk is the best book by him that I've read.

Post by **Adderall** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:51 pm

I'm going to check him out too....

I read a lot of sci-fi... lately: greg bear, neil stephenson, and jack chalker

Post by **migo** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:23 am

In order of importance to me.

MMA, training, teaching and fighting.

Tabletop RPGs. I've got a huge stack of RPGs I haven't had the chance to play yet, reviewed a bunch, and have forayed into designing one.

Board games, knives, flashlights too, although I haven't gotten too far into them.

Post by **Jubal** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:59 am

Adderall wrote:I'm going to check him out too....

I read a lot of sci-fi... lately: greg bear, neil stephenson, and jack chalker

Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite authors

my fav authors would also include, Glen Cook, Steven Brust, George R. R. Martin, Philip K. Dick, Bruce Sterling, Jim Butcher, Kurt Vonnegut and a few others if I dig around. I like alot of old sci-fi 50's 60's stuff. I like cyberpunk. I like fantasy stuff but I am very picky about what I will read.

Post by **marurun** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 9:49 am

Bruce Sterling is pretty damn cool. I like David Brin, Nancy Kress, James Tiptree Jr. (pseud.), and Terry Bisson. I get most of my sci-fi fix not from novels anymore but from short stories and novellas via collections like Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction collections. I like my possible futures in small, bite-sized chunks.

Post by **fastbilly1** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:55 am

I have a friend who is a huge Gibson fan, and by that I got introduced to Sterling, good stuff. However I am trying to find copies of all of the Oz books. Only 100 or so to go...