What are you reading?

Ben bought me a copy of this book for my 50th birthday last month & I finished it this morning. Its structure is really unusual as it's written in a chronological bullet-point format but it works for its intention which is to highlight every significant event in the building of what we know as heavy metal, starting at the earliest hints of darkness in music & ending with 1971 when Popoff claims the answer to his question had finally been undeniably confirmed. I'd suggest that Popoff's definition of what constitutes "metal music" is different to my own & I think that's driven by his age as he was involved with heavy music that was referred to as metal throughout the 1970's whereas I came to this music when there was more definition between rock & metal in the mid-to-late 1980's (although still not nearly as much definition as we understand today). For example, he talks about late 60's records by The Stooges, Blue Cheer & MC5 as being basically metal when I feel that is stretching the friendship by a considerable margin. At the end of the day though, he ends up coming to the same outcome as my own & it was interesting journey to get there. This book is worth a read for those of you who are interested in how this music came about.

Just re-reading Fahrenheit 451 and I am truly stunned at how prophetic it was. The inanity of a lot of modern entertainment and uncritical modes of thinking are predicted from almost 70 years ago.

I am about a quarter way through "The Mercy of Gods", the first installment of the new space opera series from James S.A. Corey, the writers behind "The Expanse". Similar themes of political intrigue and humanity under threat are playing out so far and it is very readable, so anyone who did enjoy the earlier series should be well-served here too.

I am about a quarter way through "The Mercy of Gods", the first installment of the new space opera series from James S.A. Corey, the writers behind "The Expanse". Similar themes of political intrigue and humanity under threat are playing out so far and it is very readable, so anyone who did enjoy the earlier series should be well-served here too.

What's a "space opera"?  I have a feeling the immature image in my head of people singing loudly in space suits is actually far away from the reality?

"Space opera" makes me think of some of Ayreon's albums.

"Space Opera" is the sub-genre of science fiction that deals with epic, galaxies-spanning stories and, usually, interstellar warfare between huge space-faring civilizations. This is as opposed to "hard science fiction" the feature of which is fictional stories which still sit within the realm of science fact, so usually no aspects which theoretical physics cannot justify. The Expanse or even Star Wars could be termed "space opera" and "The Martian" would be deemed "hard science fiction".

No singing is usually involved in either!