Maggers Wrote:My stuff just arrived! I got my hat, T-shirt and large mug. All very cool. The hat is adjustable, so it fits all. The ash grey t-shirt is great, nice and big and long...perfect to wear to bed! And the huge mug is just right for a GIGUNDO cup of java in the morning.

What, no thong to go with your Santa outfit? :o

Hello everyone. I am newly registered but have been out there for awhile and am really impressed with the forum. My username, as you can see, is dr_em2001, but you can all call me RJ. No, not Repairman Jack, it's actually been my nickname for years, thats just a coincidence. I really love all of FPW's books, but originally wasn't interested in the Repairman Jack series. I began with Mirage, Nightkill, Deeper Than the Marrow, and FPW quickly became one of my new favorites. So, I picked up the Keep and enjoyed the book immensely. After I finished it, I found out that it was part one of a cycle of books, and started reading. I had heard that the second AC was the first RJ book, and didn't really want to get into the RJ series, but after reading the Tomb, I was hooked. I havn't found The Touch yet, locally, but it doesn't really matter because I am addicted to RJ. I have read The Tomb, Legacies, Conspiracies, and All the Rage, plus I have Hosts on the shelf. I am happy to be here, and hope to see you guys around.

[Potential Spoilers]

The first compendium idea is one that I think I overheard being discussed at one of the G.U.'s

I can't remember exactly who asked it, maybe Marc, or Dave, or Lisa, or Susan, or Tony (one of the original core group), but I'm pretty sure one of them asked Paul if the Japanese Secret Society (with all of the self-maimed self-mutilated monks) in Black Wind was in any way connected to The Otherness, in that through the excision of different limbs etc., the monks were, in essence, physically making themselves look like the evil monsters contained in the otherness realm(s). I can't remember Paul's exact reply to this query/comment, but I think it was something positive.

The second point is more of a fanboy connection...

...In that it was a supposition of mine that if Black Wind is in the same reality as the Adversary Cycle, then the Japanese Katanas (swords) (which one character inherits from his Senseii), which seem to carry a racial memory in their make-up, might possibly have been forged using a small piece of Glaecken's original sword? Food for thought.

And on a final note, my recently rewritten and expanded short story "The Night Jaunt of F.P. Willenby" is now available for reading at http://www.astoundingtales.com

Please note that it is my homage to both H.P. Lovecraft and F. Paul Wilson.

Mike

***SPOILER ALERT***

**** GATEWAYS SPOILER ALERT****

*** SPOILER ALERT FOR GATEWAYS****






I just finished GATEWAYS for the first time. I loved it! I finished it and yelled "Thank you, Paul" out loud! FPW, did you hear it? Did you feel a psychic nudge around 9:00 PM on Sunday, Dec. 5?

I'm loving the incorporation of the chew wasps, a very NIGHTWORLD phenomenon, into the RJ novels. Makes me wonder if NIGHTWORLD will undergo any revisions to add references to RJ's adventures that hadn't existed, at least on the printed page, when NIGHTWORLD was first published.

Quote:My mistake, Kenji, I meant to say that I bought the movie, on DVD. I think I'm gonna watch it tonight, after I finish "Alien" for the millionth time. (Everyone in "Alien" looks so YOUNG! It was made 25 years ago!!)

Very coincidental. I watched it just last night on Bravo.

I'm hoping to check it out and went into this thread looking for feedback. From the trailers, I expected something that was going to jumble up themes with action, but from the reviews it's not going to do that, so I'll gosee.

flyboy707 Wrote:For those of us who flew them, I found them a NIGHTMARE. Serious controllability issues (which resulted in an additional huge amount of money being spent to make them stable) Constant engine flame-outs (or complete destruction of the engine that caused many losses of aircraft), avionics failures, defensive packages that were easily defeated, constant problems with the swept-wing (mechanically and the computer control), etc etc. NONE of these issues were because of the USAF maintenenace guys (very dedicated people, who were stuck working on something that was plagued with designed problems).

Up until just a few years ago, my basic Palm Pilot had more computing power than the entire package on-board one these monstrosities! An avionics and computer upgrade made them better, but I was already flying KC-135R refuelers by then. Baxx, could probably give you a better insight to the maintenance nightmare, but out of the 7 we had for our squadron, usually only 2 were flyable at any given time.

A HUGE waste of tax payer's money for a plane that the USAF ABSOLUTELY DID NOT WANT OR NEED. Politics...the senator that finally pushed them down our throats happened to be from the home-state that the initial B-1A and B-1B models were built.

I remember reading, many a long year ago, that the swing-wings on the F-111's just =did not work=. One wag commented that the only good thing about the F-111's was that the damnfool Russians went and copied it! Here's how piss-poor the design was: an aircraft designed as a fighter wound up as a strategic nuclear bomber... :eek: Thank God an admiral (forget his last name, his first name was Tom) went before Congress and testified, "Senator, there isn't enough thrust in Christendom to get that thing off a flight deck."

Maggers Wrote:I never miss a Preston/Childs book. They are uniformly great and my favorite was "Thunderhead," which does not seem to be anyone else's favorite. I haven't read "Brimstone" yet. But they are all entertaining yarns, and I think you'd like them a lot, Stacy.

Looks like I'm gonna have to check that message board, too, but I bet it's not as much fun as this one!

Are those books series books? Do I need to be aware of order, or can I just start reading? I'm excited to try a new author! It's always fun to find new good books.

Biggles Wrote:Don't authors (or their publishers) take steps to avoid stealing book titles?

First off, you can't copyright a title.

Second, the swipe is usually inadvertent.

I plead guilty with Nightworld -- I'd forgotten that years earlier Robert Bloch had written a novel called Night World.

BTW, Cussler's Black Wind has a completely different plot.

maxplay Wrote:.. They all seem to follow the same plot formula, but I'll probably finish them anyway (I'm kind of anal that way).

Yup, that's exactly what I do. I start them and then I finish them just because I feel I need to, without particularly loving the experience. And yes, the plots of his stuff are all very similar.