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I'll second The Cold Commands.

I'm reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. It's been pretty solid so far. I'm also re-reading Robert Levine's Free Ride, about the digital piracy debate from perspectives of content providers (such as movie studios, publishers, etc). It's also a very interesting book, even if you don't agree with him. Lots of bits of information that I didn't know about.

after much lobbying by my friends and fellow murder readers here in the park I am trying to read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (Original Title "Men who Hate Women") and am having a hard time with the gratuitus, un-nessessary for plot, rapes of our supporting female protagonist....

Currently reading Ken Gormley's The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, which is a real eye-opener for me and has changed my conceptions of virtually that entire case.

Next up will be Jim Hines' Princess series, which I found out about on wiki.

Steve - would you expand a bit re: 'The Death of American Virtue?' Sounds interesting.

Kanastrous wrote:Steve - would you expand a bit re: 'The Death of American Virtue?' Sounds interesting.

It's basically an account of the entire OIC investigation into Clinton's Presidency and all the things attached to it, like Whitewater and the Paula Jones case. The author interviewed several involved persons, including Clinton and Starr, and even brings up material that was not publicly known at the time thanks to the related documents now being available.

I like Gormley's approach because he's carefully neutral and points out the mistakes and errors made on both sides, and furthermore demonstrates all the misconceptions and misjudgements and skewed perspectives that combined to turn the eventual Monicagate case into the fiasco it was. Neither principal is demonized.

It really is an excellent read.

A whole bunch of library books I had on hold have arrived, so I've got a full roster of books to read. They are Battle Royale, The Crippled God by Steven Erikson, Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer, and Supervolcano by Harry Turtledove.

I'll probably just skim through parts of Crippled God, since I've only read the series up to halfway through Midnight Tides (I've tried and failed to complete that book twice). Supervolcano will get a more thorough read, although my expectations aren't high (the Amazon reviews have been bad).

My friend has compiled a pretty good semi legal anthology of Stratfor articles on PDF form. So I am going to be working my way through that. I am also thinking about reading some Sherlock Holmes serials.

Guardsman Bass wrote:A whole bunch of library books I had on hold have arrived, so I've got a full roster of books to read. They are Battle Royale, The Crippled God by Steven Erikson, Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer, and Supervolcano by Harry Turtledove.

I'll probably just skim through parts of Crippled God, since I've only read the series up to halfway through Midnight Tides (I've tried and failed to complete that book twice). Supervolcano will get a more thorough read, although my expectations aren't high (the Amazon reviews have been bad).

Trust me, you won't be able to understand "The crippled god" without having read/skimmed most of books 9 (and partially .
Midnight tides is also the point where subsequent books are less consistant, and less good AFTER it. (MT itself is still V.good I think).

Urgent Christmas recommendation- The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures, Stephen Pile; the approximately three decades delayed sequel to The Return of Heroic Failures- which is also good but long out of print. Spectacular incompetence abounds on every page; wonderful.

I skimmed the ending of Crippled God, didn't really understand much of it (not surprisingly).

I also read part of Supervolcano by Turtledove, before skimming the rest of it - it was pretty terrible. Turtledove actually managed to make a story about a massively devastating super-volcano eruption out of Yellowstone dull, and it's because of the unlikeable, forgettable characters plus the poor job he does in driving home the impact of the eruption.

I started and finished Shoot by Douglas Fairbairn. It's pretty fucked up. I found it on my shelf after maybe 6-7 years? Pretty short read, and it flows well.

Guardsman Bass wrote:A whole bunch of library books I had on hold have arrived, so I've got a full roster of books to read. They are Battle Royale

the manga? badly translated by dark horse? qhich also ruined the trigun translation?

actually, i'm reading trigun now. the scanltion.

i <3 piracy XD

ComradeClaus wrote:

Guardsman Bass wrote:A whole bunch of library books I had on hold have arrived, so I've got a full roster of books to read. They are Battle Royale

the manga? badly translated by dark horse? qhich also ruined the trigun translation?

actually, i'm reading trigun now. the scanltion.

i <3 piracy XD

No, the original novel. Which I ended up skimming and putting down, because I couldn't get into it. I think the manga may have ruined it for me in terms of overall events and storyline (I read the manga first).

I'm reading Hiding the Elephant, a nonfiction history about stage magic. It's been very interesting so far.

Finished Jim Hines' Princess series. It was excellent. Now to pick something else to read. Freedom from Fear, an entry into the Oxford history of the US.... a WWI book.... hrm.

My copy of The Emperor's Knife by Mazarkis Williams has arrived, and I've been absorbed in reading. It's very enjoyable.

Guardsman Bass wrote: No, the original novel. Which I ended up skimming and putting down, because I couldn't get into it. I think the manga may have ruined it for me in terms of overall events and storyline (I read the manga first).

The translation of Battle Royale is awful. The sentence construction is all very Japanese, which simply does not flow well in English. It's quite a good story, but you have to fight through the terrible translation to get at it.


Anyway, just finished How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog by Chad Orzel. Now reading Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.

Singh is EXCELLENT. Try "The Code book" after that . (IT's even better!).


Now starting: "The Smartest guys in the Room: Enron", and WH40K: "Deliverance Lost".
Also read and finished "Aurelian" by Aaron Dembsky Bowden. (Which was Great. Bowden's the best author in 40K these days in my humble opinion.)

The Grim Squeaker wrote:Singh is EXCELLENT. Try "The Code book" after that . (IT's even better!).

I've already read that (and I saw the TV programs he made of them when they came out), and Trick or Treatment.

Just finished Batavia by Peter Fitzsimons, which was a great book that made me very afraid of ever being shipwrecked. Now starting David Marr's Panic and trying to grind through my economics textbook that arrived five weeks into my course. I think I'm going to be very sick of the word 'globalization' by this time next year.

Finished Neil Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion and beginning The Skinner. I've just started reading his stuff, but I'm digging his Polity novels. I'm also finishing up rereading The White Luck Warrior and starting on another go through of Caine Black Knife. God damn Bakker and Stover can write.

Fuck, Zahn releases a new Star Wars novel and I don't fucking know about it?! This lapse is unacceptable.

Currently reading the Conquerors trilogy by Tim Zahn. it was written in 1996 and to be honest it shows, a lot of the concepts are very dated and it had not aged well.

Just finished Game of Thrones last night. Exams and life kept on getting in the way, but I'm done with that book now. I also read Star Trek Mirror Universe: Rise Like Lions in the span of a night.

Last week i finished "Use of Weapons", another Culture novel. Not sure what to think about it, it was very different from "Consider Phlebas" or "Surface Detail". Critics are usually good, if not praising but i wasn't very impressed, although it had its moments. Seemed a lot like a deep character study of one of the protagonists. Maybe i should read it again some time later.

Number Theoretic wrote:Last week i finished "Use of Weapons", another Culture novel. Not sure what to think about it, it was very different from "Consider Phlebas" or "Surface Detail". Critics are usually good, if not praising but i wasn't very impressed, although it had its moments. Seemed a lot like a deep character study of one of the protagonists. Maybe i should read it again some time later.

Ummm... Because that's what it is? I think Use Of Weapons gets a lot of praise for two main reasons; its very unconventional approach to structure and the massive twist at the end.

For myself, I've been reading through my Admiral Hornblower omnibus; Flying Colours, The Commodore and Lord Hornblower. I was partway through Hornblower in the West Indies when my sister leant me Snuff to read before she goes back to uni on tuesday so I've been tackling that.