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just started the hobbit

spaceviking wrote:just started the hobbit

Good man.

I'm halfway trough "The book of Night with moon" (IIRC). What I like is the interesting perspective of the characters (who are cats, that is, real-world-like cats in New York).

Max Hastings' Warriors, which if you believe him was originally supposed to be a set of character studies about war and how it changes and is changed by the people who make it, an exploration of the differences; that turned into an exploration of the simliarities, as he started to pick up on how much his chosen subjects actually had in common. Mostly well but not exceptionally educated, often troublesome, far more often than not from damaged or broken homes, more often than not required to behave as if nothing was wrong, usually at one end or other of the family pecking order- first and last children are apparently more likely to go out and try to be heroes than middle- large slice of egomania, frequently rude, abusive and demanding, not easy to get along with. I mention this for writing purposes; military virtue seems to be a plant that grows most easily out of a damaged soul.


Chad Orzel, How to Teach Quantum Physics to your Dog; relatively painless explanation for non- physicists of what this 'quantum' business really means then, where it begins and more importantly where it ends, what it can and does do and what it cannot and doesn't. Another good one for writers, especially anyone interested in more than vaguely hard SF.

Mark Thomas, Extreme Rambling- basically, he spent quite a lot of last year walking along the Israeli- West Bank Border, along the line of the security barrier, interviewing people on both sides. This could start a lot of arguments I don't want to crap on this thread with, so the potted conclusions he comes to; the barrier is an act of economic warfare, it's too thin in most places to prevent a determined fanatic getting through. What it does do highly effectively is stop not-very-fanatical ordinary palestinians from getting to their places of work, or in many cases their own farms.
Quote from a Palestinian village chief- "In Palestine, the children are soldiers- in Israel, the soldiers are children."
Most of Israel is or claims to be embarrassed by the barrier, to the extent that they're all down on the coast looking the other way- unfortunately that leaves the facts on the ground in the hands of the ultra-Zionist fanatic nutcases determined to squeeze the Palestinians out by any means available.
As politicised as this all is, I'm not sure the word "true" is safe to apply here, but that is what the author came away from the situation thinking.

That, a splattering of historical crime fiction, comics, etc.

Just finished Abercrombie's The Heroes. Now, back to trying to force myself to trudge through the Prince of Nothing. I swear, Bakker's style is like the antithesis of good writing.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

"Cleopatra: A Life" by Stacy Schiff

Kyler wrote:"Cleopatra: A Life" by Stacy Schiff

I gave that to my aunt for Christmas; she's still working on it.

John Birmingham - Axis of Time; started the third and final book this week-end. After getting thoroughly disgusted of alternate-history by Eric Flint's Sue-mericans, I did enjoy a storyline in which time travelers mess up more things than they fix. On the other hand, I still wonder if my appreciation of the trilogy is because of its own merits, or is just an over-reaction to Flint; I'll know for sure when I read it again in a few years.

Rereading LOTR for the nth time. Amazing how much one forgets, and how much filler is in there that turns out to be incredibly important later.

Jawawithagun wrote:"Hell's Gate" by David Weber and Linda Evans and it's such a goddamn awful book.

*Shudder*, when I read the title it made me think of John Ringo's "Hell's Gate", the third in his Troy trilogy. Holy fuck, that book is the absolute gold standard on how to take a promising story line and completely ignore all details that made it interesting in the first place. That's the only reason I haven't deleted it from my memory yet.

Captain Spiro wrote:I'm working my way through The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin at the moment

Shouldn't that be On the Origin of Species?

That aside, I'm also in the process of reading Iain Banks' Culture series. Had just finished "Consider Phlebas" before plowing through Axis of Time, and will start "The Player of Games" when I finish with it; probably this week-end. So far I find it an excellent series, its hype is more than justified, and aside from the small-print date there's nothing to suggest "Consider Phlebas" was written way back in 1987; hard effect to get in SF.

StrikaAmaru wrote:.....That aside, I'm also in the process of reading Iain Banks' Culture series. Had just finished "Consider Phlebas" before plowing through Axis of Time, and will start "The Player of Games" when I finish with it; probably this week-end. So far I find it an excellent series, its hype is more than justified, and aside from the small-print date there's nothing to suggest "Consider Phlebas" was written way back in 1987; hard effect to get in SF.

I like your taste in books... (on a side note something my bookseller said to me right before giving me a its-so-large-that-must-be-illegal discount)

Currently finishing up Iain M Banks Surface Detail and Douglas F Hofstadter Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

When they're done there'll be William Gibson's Zero History, Iain Banks The Steep Approach To Garbadale, China Mieville The City & The City Ian Mcphedran Soldiers Without Borders (about ex Australian SAS troopers and what they do once they leave the ADF), The Diggers of Colditz about the 20 or so Australian pows in Colditz during WW2.


And I almost forgot a little paperback that I came across with the two other militaria books: The Last Chance by Johannes Steinhoff.

All in all should keep me going for a week or two.

Just finished Graham Moore's The Sherlockian. Good fun for Holmes fans.

I'm now working on Gregory Maguire's Mirror Mirror.

The_Saint wrote:

StrikaAmaru wrote:.....That aside, I'm also in the process of reading Iain Banks' Culture series. Had just finished "Consider Phlebas" before plowing through Axis of Time, and will start "The Player of Games" when I finish with it; probably this week-end.

I like your taste in books... (on a side note something my bookseller said to me right before giving me a its-so-large-that-must-be-illegal discount)

Currently finishing up Iain M Banks Surface Detail

I just read Matter a few weeks ago (having started with Consider Phlebas), and I have been hoping to pick up The Player of Games and Excession. Unfortunately I'm having a tough time finding them (or any Cultureverse stuff) in the library system(s) available to me.

120 days of sodom; parts of it are definately disturbing but others remind me of loony tunes (the Marquis also had an unusual fixiation on the word "member").

Jake Adelstein, Tokyo Vice- twelve years as a gaijin reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun, a foreigner's- eye view of the ugly side of Japan, and this is the book that came out. Fascinating but not optimistic; Adelstein eventually got to the verge of burnout, tripped across a case that actually shocked him, and quit to become press officer of an international pressure group. Worth picking up.

Simon Winder, Germania- a popular history that does not deserve to be, as I have considerably less idea after reading it of what it was about than I did beforehand. Seems to be mostly a ramble through pre-Confederation of the Rhine Germany, and no coherence to it whatsoever.

Muno Melvin's english language biography of, and titled, Manstein; still digesting this one, actually.

I'm doing a re-read of A Song of Ice and Fire, all four books, before A Dance with Dragons comes out in July. I'm about one-third of the way through Game of Thrones, and greatly enjoying it.

Currently half way through Jonathan Green's 'Ulysses Quicksilver' omnibus, as I somehow managed to get into the series at the end of the series. Some grand steam-punk action, thats for sure.

I imagine I'm hardly the only one reading through A Song of Ice and Fire right now...

I'm on Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett having just finished I Shall Wear Midnight.

Before that was the middle book of the Blood Angels trilogy the first of several crap books that I picked up at a Border's clearance.. And before that was the first Splinter Cell tie-in novel. My god was that something. And I've got another one (Checkmate?) too from that sale.

Durant's 'Story of Philosophy.' Academic, old-school and dry like week-old turkey on month-old toast, but still just engaging enough to stick with.

Just finished "White Luck Warrior" (Excellent book, super recommended).
I've already re-read ASOIAF, and finished Abercrombie's "The heroes". I have a pile of books awaiting free time from neurobiology article reading. (I'm eyeing "Bad science", Toynbee's "A study of history" deluxe hardcover illustrated edition and "The 12 Caesars")

I finished A Game of Thrones an hour or two ago. I'd forgotten how excellent it was.

On to A Clash of Kings, my favorite book in the series aside from the Theon chapters.

Big Orange wrote:Book Hammond, unlike the cuddly movie Hammond with the variable Scottish accent, was a rather dishonest, callous and unlikable corporate slug who was going senile, only being moderately cantankerous about Lex and Tim being in mortal peril while casually slurping back ice cream. The park was a disaster mostly of his own making and when stalking about the ruined park after the dinosaur attacks, he slunk about blaming all the staff and guests for the park's failure, fell down a grassy hill, and then got devoured by chicken sized dinosaurs. Movie Hammond was even more opposite to book Hammond in The Lost World.

I recently reread the book, inspired by the earlier threads.

I love near the end how Hammond is terrified Malcolm will die -- not out of concern for the mathematician, but the belief that Malcolm's death will prove his argument was right all along and the park is doomed.

I finished Clash of Kings, and I'm now about one-third of the way through my re-read of A Storm of Swords. I can barely put it down, it's so fantastic. Even right now, I'm itching to go back to reading it.

Thank god the fifth book is finally coming out this summer, otherwise I'd feel the same disappointment I felt years ago when I found out that A Dance of Dragons was unfinished again.

EDIT: I finished A Storm of Swords. Good times, and on to A Feast for Crows!

Starting on the second book of the Dark Tower having just finished the first.

Wish I hadn't started these now though as I'd rather be working my way through a Song of Ice and Fire again now that the series has rekindled my interest and the upcoming book release but once I get started I like to go through an entire series.