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Currently The Defence of the Realm; the Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew, which, to be honest, reads like it could have been written at the very beginning of the period it covers, in the late Victorian era, either that or a very, very extended memo- which is what it essentially is; a progress report by the security services to the british public.

The tone is buoyant and even throughout, and really needs to be ignored in order to focus on and pick out the actual information.


In a lighter vein, just finished the 40k Shira Calpurnia omnibus, in which the central character is supposed to be a female senior officer of the Arbites, and behaves not particularly like a senior officer or for that matter like a female. The character could have ben sex- changed or neutered without it making a tiny bit of difference to the plot, and is very hands on, narrow focus- which arguably leads to her downfall.

Oh, just to add; his own ideas may be good, the plot summaries look interesting, but I cannot take David Brin seriously because of the, for me, SoD-breakingly corny names he gives his aliens. Even worse than Lucas. "Bubbacub", for instance? Of a species called the Pil?

Broomstick wrote:Perdido Street Station by China Mieville - wow, it's LOTS better than I thought it would be! Planning to read the other two in the same universe.

I love that series, though The Scar is definitely the outstanding volume.

Eleventh Century Remnant wrote:Currently The Defence of the Realm; the Authorised History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew, which, to be honest, reads like it could have been written at the very beginning of the period it covers, in the late Victorian era, either that or a very, very extended memo- which is what it essentially is; a progress report by the security services to the british public.

The tone is buoyant and even throughout, and really needs to be ignored in order to focus on and pick out the actual information.

How does it address the accusation by Peter Wright (former deputy director) that Roger Hollis (former director) was a Soviet spy?

In exactly the sort of tones that would be used to describe a relative that you had to have committed to psychiatric care, basically.

There are about two thirds of a column of references to Wright in the index, and none of them favourable; comments like "the most damaging conspiracy theorists in the history of the Security Service" (p.282), "Shorn of self- dramatization, Wright's celebrated claim in his disaffected memoirs to have 'bugged and burgled our way across london at the State's behest' is broadly true" (p.336),
"A series of conspiracy theorists, chief among them the maverick MI5 officer Peter Wright, succeeded in convincing themselves and many of their readers that [agent codename] ELLI was none other then Roger Hollis, who had been working as a soviet agent throughout the Gouzenko investigation.
In reality, probably no other senior MI5 officer during the Second World War had placed more emphasis on the continuing threat from Soviet espionage and the need to maintain comprehensive surveillance of the British Communist Party. The KGB found the Hollis conspiracy theory so bizarre that some of its foreign intelligence officers suspected that it derived from 'some mysterious, internal British intrigue'." (p.348)

There is more, a lot more in fact, but in essence Andrew describes Wright as a massive own goal for the Security Service, the resident chief paranoiac who managed to drag J.J Angleton and very nearly any working relationship with the CIA down the drain, and in effect may have done more damage with internal witch- hunts and paranoid ravings than would have been the case if Hollis really had been a Soviet spy. Agent ELLI was identified, incidentally, by the SIS agent and later Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky. It wasn't Hollis.

Yeah, having recently read Wright's autobiography it moves rapidly from being an interesting historical piece about the origins of Cold War technical intelligence and counter-intelligence to 2/3s of a book about how hard done by he was and the relative failings of everyone else.

Menschen wie Götter, the German translation of Sergej Snegow's Люди как Боги.

I'm reading Ian Morris's Why the West Rules . . . For Now. It's one of those "Grand Theory of History" books in the vein of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, but more detailed and with a different tack. Whereas Diamond compared people with various lucky breaks in terms of resources (i.e., crops, domesticable animals, etc) with those who didn't have them, Morris compares Chinese development with European development throughout most of the last 2-3,000 years (basically, two areas that had the same resources in many ways).

It's probably worth reading just for the history on China alone, which is very accessible and interesting. It's rather disheartening to realize how close the Chinese may have been towards industrialization in the 11th century CE before the Mongols and Jurchens messed them up for the next 200 years or so.

I'm not so certain on his thesis (which is a variation on the whole "geography was the determining factor" idea), but it's an interesting read so far.

Just started the Horus Heresy novel, 'The First Heretic' which is doing well so far.

Also working my way through the HM Dragons books as well. Finished Tongues of Serpants a few weeks back, and just bought Victory of Eagle. Wrong way round, I know, but the HMD novels are annoying to find

Fucking Dragons!

I'm supposed to be studying to be ready for finals, so of course I'm reading The Image of the City by Kevin Lynch and Cities of Tomorrow by Peter Hall.

I just finished the latest Wheel of Time book, Towers of Midnight, last night. It's pretty good, but not as good as Gathering Storm.

As it's Christmas, I'm wondering... should I check out Sir Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather" again for a Christmas re-reading?

Just started on "I shall wear midnight" so far I am really liking it. I was starting to think Terry was losing it with the last few novels, but it might just be because I was becoming so utterly fed up with A.M. that I wouldn't mind never reading another Ankh Morpork novel again. Goddamn it's nice with some classic rural discworld. And witches!

Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Darkness.

Patrick Degan wrote:Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Darkness.

That's an excellent book.

I'm reading Tim Wu's The Master Switch, about the rise of the telecommunications giants and the cycle of innovation in the communications sector. What I've read so far in it (the rise of the telephone and radio) has been excellent.

I'm also reading Adrian Tschaikovsky's Empire of Black and Gold. Pretty meh so far, although I may have been rather tired when I first started reading it. I'll give it another 40-50 pages, then decide whether or not to go on.

Currently reading The Pub Landlords Book of British Common Sense by Al Murray.

I only picked up Sagan's book a few days ago and am nearly halfway through it. By contrast, I started on Intruder In The Dust back in October and still haven't gotten through the first chapter, trying to slog my way through Faulkner's molasses-slow stream-of-consciousness prose, and it seems he never met a punctuation mark he ever liked.

Just finished The Road, just started Blood Meridian.

Deadly Choices: How the AntiVaccine Movement Threatens Us All by Paul Offit. I really liked his Austism's False Prophets, so I was very much looking forward this new one.

As soon as I get my kindle i plan to start the sherlock holmes series.

John Steinbeck's Cannery Row is one of my favorite books, but I've never read the sequel Sweet Thursday. I'm finally getting around to it.

I'm re-reading select chapters of All the Devils are Here on my Kindle. It's a very good book about the history of housing finance over the past 40 or so years, with a particular focus on the whole system of subprime-related finance.

I'm also re-reading Liberty's Crusade after a long break, on my Kindle. Easily the best of the Starcraft EU novels.

I've bought the e-book of The World of 2050, and plan to read it in a little while.

David Weber/Linda Evans' Hells Gate. Just finished it, actually. Not too bad, though I am and always will be more of a Starfire fan. Speaking of which, any idea if another Starfire is out? Last one I read was Insurrection.

Now that I think of it, I'll say that Crusade and In Death Ground are probably my favorites.

Charlie Brookers The Hell of It, the sequel to Dawn of the Dumb. I'm a huge fan of Brooker's work, and this, so far, hasn't been a disappointment. I really need to stop bursting out in laughter on the bus :/ I'm starting to get a reputation!

1491 by Charles Mann; it details the history of the American Indians prior to the landing of Columbus. It's very intriguing, and I'll have to do a bit of research afterwards to see if his conclusions are correct, but it does seem broadly accurate.

Since I last posted I've read:

The Sacred Vault by Andy MacDermott - which I don't recommend. Terrible attempt to do a Cussler/Reilly-esque archaeo-thriller.

Declare by Tim Powers - put this book on your to read list. Now move it to the top of your to read list. And then read it. An amazing occult/horror twist on early Cold War espionage. Imagine Laundry Files but fucking dark (without going to comical GRIMDARK) and without a trace of levity. Really remarkable.

Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov - seriously, I could never read Western fantasy again and I'd be happy as long as Russia keeps producing awesome fantasy authors.

The Wrecker by Clive Cussler - a solid enough romp. The new character and era is definitely a good change though.

SS-GB by Len Deighton - a classic bit of alt-hist by a master of the espionage genre.

Kraken by China Mieville - I'm torn on Mieville. The book is good have no doubt, but on the one hand it's a great bit of work and has some interesting characters and does interesting things with the setting. On the other, I feel like I want to read a Mieville book where it's just played straight - see what he can do without resorting to the fantastic.

I also hit up the first two Mass Effect novels (saving the third until I finish ME2). Mang. They were SHORT. I finished each one in a day of reading (1hr commuting and 1 hour of breaks and then a bit at night). They fill out the universe a bit, but it's very cookie-cutter stuff.

Over x-mas I re-read some Clancy (good airport and holiday fare), but found 3 WH40K omnibus on sale for 10 each. So I picked them up and mailed them home. I got the Inquisition War omnibus (ah, quality), The Saint and IIRC Hero of the Imperium. Looking forward to reading a bit of 40K after about 7 years off.

*edit* - I just realised that I never really finished giving my opinion on The Arcanum by Thomas Wheeler. It was pretty damn good. Put it on your lists, but as I said before, put Declare at the very top.