And so I am back. I flew out to Oklahoma City recently, which I refer to – not lovingly – as the land of sameness for every house looks exactly the same, all the trees are incredibly tiny, and you’re lucky if there is a decent hill in sight, to help my grandparents and uncle pack up and move back to CT. A (roughly) 1,600 mile drive, five days, and four nights later… we are home! We were supposed to be back yesterday, but things don’t always go as you suspect and we didn’t quite make the daily mileage we had hoped for. I have to say that on the way I pretty much fell in love with the midwest, namely Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. There were hills and farmland and the pace of life was so much different than the northeast. I have tons of pictures, but, go figure, have not had a chance to get them off the camera. I also missed the chance to take a bunch of pictures I wanted to during the drive, because, well, I was driving a 26 foot long uhaul truck… for the first time. That started of as something of a scary experience, to say the least.
As for reading during my trip;
During my flights and time waiting in Detroit I was able to get through the majority of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers which I finished off in OKC. This is my first official science fiction read, I must say that I am not disappointed. I also read Third Degree by Greg Iles which was fantastic, I couldn’t put it down, except for when I was EXHAUSTED the night that we started the drive – can I just interject here that New Year’s Eve in a hotel in Joplin, MO with two over-protective dogs is not conducive to sleep. I read two free romance ebooks on my blackberry (since I don’t have an actual ereader) because I couldn’t decide which of the four unread hard-copy books I had with me I wanted to read. During the drive my uncle and I also listened to the Holidays on Ice audiobook by David Sedaris. It. Was. Amazing. To finish it of, we listened to parts of Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough and On the Road by Jack Kerouac (though I’ve read this before my uncle hasn’t so it was nice to listen to parts of it again).
Though I’ve enjoyed the drive through a part of the country that I don’t get to see everyday, I have to admit that it is good to be home. On that note, I hope everyone had a good New Year’s and I’ll be seeing ya.
Among Stories 
You certainly started off your SF reading well. How did you rate it next to the movie?
Thanks! I certainly enjoyed reading Starship… I have not yet seen the movie, but now that I’ve finished the book I’m planning to check out the film. With that, I’ll have to get back to you with my thoughts on movie vs. book.
I assume you’ve read and watched Starship Troopers?
I read Starship Troopers (and most of Heinlein’s other books) back in my late teens and early twenties. Most of them are pretty good, although his later works are a bit odd. The movie is, not to colour your interpretation too much, rather diferent than I remember the books being…. though maybe I should read it again at some point.
One of the unfortunates with books being made into movies is the fact that the film industry takes far too many liberties when making the films. At times you end up with a movie telling a completely different story than the book you read.
That being my observation and opinion, I try to go into movies based on books I read with low expectations. In time, I’m sure I’ll see the Starship Troopers movie and at this point I’ll just be taking it by ear…
Books and films definitely should be treated as two very separate things – especially when they use ‘inspred by’ [laughs]
Very much agreed!