[Abyss]

Also also neglected to include Just Finished THE LAST ACTION HEROES: THE TRIUMPHS, FLOPS, AND FEUDS OF HOLLYWOOD'S KINGS OF CARNAGE, by Nick de Semlyen.

Another Spotify freebie that was reco'd bcs i read the Airplane retrospective... and if that was a fun deep dive, this was a crazy one... Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Norris, Van Damme, Ludgren, Chan, Willis, Segal... the book basically covers the late 70s thru early 90s period where these guys were churning out Big Hollywood actioners that were making bazillions of dollars (except when they weren't).

It more or less starts w Stallone's ROCKY and works its way to the EXPENDABLES movies, w profiles and history pieces on each of the action stars and some fairly in depth looks at how their careers crossed over, WAY more than i ever knew... like there were little things i was aware of like the Stallone-Ahnald rivalry or how Norris intro'd Van Damme, but details about how VD jumped Norris' home fence, begged to work out w him and almost died, how Stallone brought Chan back to America which still did not take to him, Ludgren's incredibly up/down/downer career (He-Man!), how Willis almost accidentally ended up in DIE HARD, or just how bugnuts insane Segal actually was fairly early on... it's a fun read that really captures the era. Worth a look/listen.

[Tiste Simeon]

 Abyss, on 16 September 2025 - 03:22 PM, said:

 Tiste Simeon, on 05 September 2025 - 05:14 PM, said:

I'm listening to Stone and Sky, the latest Rivers of London book and it's great! I know someone up thread was a little put out by the change in narrative as it flicks between Peter and Abigail, but after the first POV shift that is admittedly a little disjointed, I like it.

Abigail is a fun character with a great POV and is having a unique but linked adventure to what Peter is doing and I like the way they're tying together. The voice actor for Abigail is great, if not at the standard of Kobna Holdbrook Smith, but then I don't think anyone is so that's no great negative thing to my mind.

And on a personal note, having twin toddlers myself (though crikey they're nearly 4 so a bit older than those in the story) I found a lot of that side of things painfully, hilariously relatable!

In retrospect i should have moved to these ahead of Art of Legend to break up the 'young male chosen one' run. Am very looking fwd to reading this.

I finished it and it was fantastic. Kobna Holdbrook Smith is the GOAT

[Macros]

Don't get the love for Dan Brown, managed to finish the DaVinci code, just about crap book, the entire read felt like a smug 'I know things bullshit shtick from the author, an, at best, average thriller mystery with a bucket of smug mis understood history

[amphibian]

That damn camerlengo...

[Abyss]

Macros, on 17 September 2025 - 07:54 PM, said:

Don't get the love for Dan Brown, managed to finish the DaVinci code, just about crap book, the entire read felt like a smug 'I know things bullshit shtick from the author, an, at best, average thriller mystery with a bucket of smug mis understood history

He did an exceptionally effective job working some very basic but not widely known history lessons into a by the numbers thriller plot, turning it into a fast read that made people feel smarter for having read it. Marketing did the rest.

amphibian, on 17 September 2025 - 09:23 PM, said:

That damn camerlengo...

I dunno, you have to admire the guy for

Spoiler

basically trying to pass himself off as the modern bang-able Christ. It would have worked if Langdon wasn't a natural hang-gliding prodigy.

.

I enjoyed DA VINCI. I enjoyed ANGELS AND DEMONS more. I went back into his biblio and had a very uneven read, and nothing he wrote in the Langdon series after Da Vinci worked for me. Everyone i know who liked Brown has fallen out of love, more or less since THE LOST SYMBOL, i don't know many who hung around for INFERNO. I did almost enjoy the tv series but that fell apart badly about halfway through. Apparently Brown and Carlton Cruse have been hired to adapt SECRET as a tv series.


Over in actual reading ART OF LEGEND is just moving from strength to strength... Chu writes exceptional action scenes.


On the audiodrama front MIDNIGHT BURGER, about the accidental crew/staff/employees of a roadside diner that jumps between worlds and timelines is back, and after the way they ended last season along with spin-off WELCOME TO THE HORIZON i was VERY curious to see how they opened... spoiler... they nail it. Hard. Funny, heartfelt, tense, setting some absolutely glorious hooks for the rest of the season, the voice cast and fx are next level.

It's this perfect blend of DR WHO and SLIDERS and RED DWARF and CHEERS with the occasional dose of STAR TREK and also tacos, sentient plants, android ex-girlfriend assassins, and a pack of wolves in the pocket-world freezer, i cannot possibly recommend it highly enough esp. Three seasons plus two spinoffs (one self contained, one ongoing) that amount to roughly 100 hours of content for free, it's worth a try.