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February 2018 Reads


Astromech

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14 hours ago, Astromech said:

:thumbsup:

Finished Mark Thompson's The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919. Interesting read. It's amazing how the Italian Supreme Command was so arrogant, obstinate, incompetent and cruel. Cadorna was a real piece of work.

If you like books of this sort, I would highly recommend Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. Takes a little while to get going, but holy moly, once it does...

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Finished up The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and really liked it.  Loved how succinct the writing is, because a lot of plot was crammed into 200 pages.  Started up the Fools Assassin and I just love these books.  Will be reading through this last series for the next couple of months, I'd guess, but it should be a lovely ride.

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8 hours ago, Peadar said:

If you like books of this sort, I would highly recommend Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. Takes a little while to get going, but holy moly, once it does...

I have it on my list. I'm sure it will feel out of place from what I've heard of it. Everything else I've read from this time period talks about the tragedy, horror and sheer lunacy of WWI, all anti-war novels and memoirs. Sounds like Junger relishes in the glory and honor of battle.

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53 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I have it on my list. I'm sure it will feel out of place from what I've heard of it. Everything else I've read from this time period talks about the tragedy, horror and sheer lunacy of WWI, all anti-war novels and memoirs. Sounds like Junger relishes in the glory and honor of battle.

He kinda liked it, for sure, but he is well aware of the horror too. He was an extraordinary individual over all, though. After you've read it, I advise you to look up the rest of his biography.

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I'll have to find a copy and read it along with All Quite on the Western Front and Alexander Watson's Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. I've been aiming towards matching up WWI history, memoirs and novels for the various theatres.

 

 I'm currently reading Gay and Laney Salisbury's The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men Against and Epidemic about the 1925 Alaskan serum run to combat a diphtheria outbreak in Nome, Alaska. I'm roughly a third through and am loving it so far.

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6 hours ago, aceluby said:

Finished up The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson and really liked it.  Loved how succinct the writing is, because a lot of plot was crammed into 200 pages.  Started up the Fools Assassin and I just love these books.  Will be reading through this last series for the next couple of months, I'd guess, but it should be a lovely ride.

Couple of months ^_^ my intentions were similarly long term (though it was a case of weeks not months for me). Sadly my resolve broke and I spent many a night telling myself “one more chapter” until the sun peeped up on the horizon. Good luck with your own efforts though ;) 

Finished Tyrant’s Law. These books are brilliant, and Geder...well he is such an incredible character, Abraham did a great job here. And the worldbuilding is something I find interesting too 

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14 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Couple of months ^_^ my intentions were similarly long term (though it was a case of weeks not months for me). Sadly my resolve broke and I spent many a night telling myself “one more chapter” until the sun peeped up on the horizon. Good luck with your own efforts though ;) 

Finished Tyrant’s Law. These books are brilliant, and Geder...well he is such an incredible character, Abraham did a great job here. And the worldbuilding is something I find interesting too 

Yeah, I did that with Tawny man and Rain Wilds, finished those 7 books in about a month.

Absolutely LOVE Dagger & the Coin.  One of my top 5 fantasy series.  

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Finished One Shot, #9 in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child.  Despite the plot being familiar from the Jack Reacher movie, I still enjoyed it and the book was considerably better than the movie. 

Now reading A Deepness In The Sky, a SF novel that was recommended in one of these threads. 

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On 2/18/2018 at 6:57 PM, unJon said:

I can see that. Though I appreciated the in text explanation of:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

9A editing out Mycroft’s madness for the first two books that were for public consumption, but not doing so for this third book that wasn’t for contemporary public consumption.

 

Heh, yeah, palmer is good with the the unreliable narrator stuff.

it did make me interested in actually reading philosophy, so that's a plus

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56 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I went and finished The Black Prism.  Is there a thread on this anywhere?  I thought this one was largely really bad.  There was one central plot element that was intriguing enough but everything else was weak.  One of the worst books I can recall reading.  

It was very popular here when it came out, though I'm in your camp, I don't think I made it even 100 pages before I quit.

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I picked up Les Misérables again. The writing is mostly very pretty, but spending fifty pages describing the battle of Waterloo when it's pretty much completely irrelevant to the rest of the story is a tad overzealous.

I also finished Morning Star. This might be my favorite book in the Red Rising trilogy; the action and characters worked better for me than before. While I'm not really a fan of all of the choices the author made near the end, he's fantastic at creating those 'oh-shit-all-hope-is-lost' moments.

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23 hours ago, Triskele said:

I went and finished The Black Prism.  Is there a thread on this anywhere?  I thought this one was largely really bad.  There was one central plot element that was intriguing enough but everything else was weak.  One of the worst books I can recall reading.  

Oh I looove that one!! The series has weakened a little as it's gone on (typical unnecessary bloating of a fantasy series) but I still am eagerly awaiting the last book (alas not until 2019 I believe). No accounting for taste! :) 

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On 20/02/2018 at 11:00 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

Why did you abandon it then? Or is that a typo and supposed to say without much sadness?

I was sad because I had enjoyed the author's work to date so I had high expectations for The Dragon's Path. The book didn't live up to them. So I abandoned the series after that book.

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1 hour ago, Isis said:

I was sad because I had enjoyed the author's work to date so I had high expectations for The Dragon's Path. The book didn't live up to them. So I abandoned the series after that book.

It's been a little while since I read D&G but I remember that the first half of The Dragon's Path was a bit tough to get through. Things pick up around the halfway mark though and The King's Blood is better on every level.

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Finished Gay and Laney Salisbury's The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against and Epidemic. I always knew of the 1925 Nome serum run, mainly of Balto, but the actual story and details are riveting. Amazing what the runners and their dogs accomplished. Leonhard Seppala and his dog Togo are my new heroes. I also found the authors' slight digressions to discuss Alaskan Natives, Siberian Huskies, the history of Nome, etc. to be very interesting.

Now back to my WW1 reading with Eugene Rogan's The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East.

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13 hours ago, Isis said:

I was sad because I had enjoyed the author's work to date so I had high expectations for The Dragon's Path. The book didn't live up to them. So I abandoned the series after that book.

Similar for me.  I loved DA’s Long Price Quartet, but thought Dagger & Coin felt flat by comparison.  It wasn’t terrible, and I liked the idea of a series that didn’t lean on grimdark or winning through violence, plus the Venetian/Genoan-type setting was novel, but the prose lacked any sparkle, the self-inflicted antagonist felt contrived and the Machiavellian genius felt ordained-by-author rather than believable.  I think it’s genuinely difficult for authors to write scenarios where the protagonist outmaneuvers everyone, unless it’s in military tactics.  Most plausible outmaneuvering in business and finance is too arcane and lacking in drama to suit a broad audience. 

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8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I think it’s genuinely difficult for authors to write scenarios where the protagonist outmaneuvers everyone, unless it’s in military tactics.  Most plausible outmaneuvering in business and finance is too arcane and lacking in drama to suit a broad audience. 

This may be true but most fantasy and popular writing both on duels/individual fighting as well as military tactics seems also extremely cavalier about details and often plain unrealistic, unless directly modelled on some historical campaign or battle. (To be fair there were some actual historical events that almost feel like badly made up, like the siege of Antioch that inspired the 2n volume of Bakker's series.)

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2 hours ago, Jo498 said:

This may be true but most fantasy and popular writing both on duels/individual fighting as well as military tactics seems also extremely cavalier about details and often plain unrealistic, unless directly modelled on some historical campaign or battle. (To be fair there were some actual historical events that almost feel like badly made up, like the siege of Antioch that inspired the 2n volume of Bakker's series.)

There is the important caveat - the author's job is to make something appear realistic, even if it actually isn't. Something may or may not be accurate, but so long as the audience believes it to be accurate, the author is successful.

On the subject of protagonists outmanoeuvring everyone, I think the big danger is that you might end up with a Mary Sue or a Mary Sue de Ville - a protagonist who is simply warping reality. One could write business/financial scheming without going into arcane detail (the trick is to not provide context when our protagonist picks up the phone, and orders his broker to sell. The next week he's a millionaire). Then there's the point that dwelling on technicalities distracts from the human interactions - no-one watches court-room dramas for the law, they watch it for the drama.

 

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