Author recommendation

[tugrik]

Back in the late 80s I was a much more avid reader than I am today. I'd spend far too many hours soaking up every kind of sci-fi, adventure or cyberpunk novel I could. This continued on for the better part of a decade, but something about moving out to California and getting into the tech industry started to rob me of my free book-reading time. The constant reading tapered down to a trickle by the mid-90s, going down to almost nothing by the time 2000 rolled around.

Since getting the Kindle my reading spiked for a while, then slowed back to a trickle soon thereafter. I keep having to remind myself how fun it is to read recreationally and not just tech-manuals for work (or, more often, online configuration guides). Back home the roomies and I just got around to reorganizing the big library shelves in the den and it was rather depressing just how few of the books on there were mine. This has caused me to make a conscious choice to seek out stuff I used to love and load it up on the Kindle, building a virtual library to replace the physical one I used to own.

Last night I was describing a favorite sci-fi book to an online friend, which led me to poke around the internet to see what the author was up to these days. Daniel Keys Moran wrote a whole series of books but only two of them -- Emerald Eyes and The Long Run -- ever really hit print in any quantity. I found out that he's got a blog that's actually being updated . Even more fun, he's put up most of his books for free download!

If you were only to pick one book from that collection to read, I'd suggest giving The Long Run a try. It's an incredibly fun story that any fan of Snowcrash would most likely enjoy. Just keep in mind that (having been written in 1989) it's rather pre-Internet... so expect it to sound a little silly in places to those of you who've always had the Internet in your lives. :)

Just spreadin' the eBook love around...

Comments

[dracosphynx.livejournal.com]

'The Long Run' was pretty darned cool. Trent the Uncatchable was a great character.

[gen.livejournal.com]

Oh! I remember him from his Boba Fett story in Star Wars. Then I found out that he wrote a script for DS9 that they didn't officially take, but then completely ripped off his idea.

(I think it was when O'Brien had done something in a planet, and was punished by being given memories of having been thrown into prison for years and eventually killing his cellmate out of hungry desperation and then snapping awake to find minutes had passed, and then having to cope with the guilt of having done what he did, even though it wasn't real.)

I really enjoyed how he wrote Boba Fett too. He used the most clever writing devices to make your mental picture box not look at his face, even though he didn't really go out of his way to hide it. And he portrayed the character as being very masculine without being letchy (Leia was given to him for a night while he was serving Jabba, and he let her wrap herself up in the sheet on his bed and admired her from a chair with his helmet in his lap, telling her that he wasn't going to rape her, but he wasn't going to send her out until morning unless he wanted to insult Jabba)

Thank you for linking to this!

[theassassinnox.livejournal.com]

Mmmm....books.

I've downloaded The Long Run.


Thank you!
(By the way, the ones I'm currently totally hooked on are "the Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher).

[skorzy.livejournal.com]

I remember reading "Emerald Eyes" many years ago, and.. thinking it was pretty good, but .. I can't remember if I read the "Long Run" or not. Funny? I don't remember reading something by Moran that could be considered comedy.

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

Fun -- not Funny. :) They're good bits of adventure and action along with the scifi elements.

[monoceroset.livejournal.com]

Snow Crash has fans? Why?

[graysoul.livejournal.com]

Just remember that Kindle's a little more virtual than regular virtual. Keep offsite backups...

[rbradakis.livejournal.com]

I heartily second this recommendation!