Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[bfisher]

Currently reading "Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival" by Peter Stark. A great true-adventure story about the first attempt to settle the Columbia basin, just a few years after the Lewis and Clark expedition.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Oh, cool. I love stories about lost in the wilderness (whether it be the forest, an island, or space). I've enjoyed everything in that way from Robinson Crusoe and the Tarzan Books to A Brief History of the Dead and the movie Gravity. I'll have to look The Martian up.

You won't regret it. A great story of courage and resourcefullness.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by bfisher

You won't regret it. A great story of courage and resourcefullness.

I love the blurb from Amazon, which reads, in part:

...After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet....

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Oh, cool. I love stories about lost in the wilderness (whether it be the forest, an island, or space). I've enjoyed everything in that way from Robinson Crusoe and the Tarzan Books to A Brief History of the Dead and the movie Gravity. I'll have to look The Martian up.

If you liked Gravity, you'll be VERY pleased with The Martian

[Bilbo1967]

I did enjoy The Martian, but maybe not as much as some. I just couldn't get past the fact that he was just too ingenious. I know I should have been suspending my disbelief, but after about the fifth "horrible thing happens, Mark finds a way of getting around it" I was starting to get a bit bored of it. I guess it was fun finding out what the ingenious solutions were, but I'm not sure I'd ever believe one person would come up with them all.

[mewmartigan]

Just finished reading Mad Ship by Robin Hobb and a I am moving immediately into Ship of Destiny to finish the trilogy. Very good stuff.

(even got ship of destiny with part of my amazon ebook-price fixing refund)

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I did enjoy The Martian, but maybe not as much as some. I just couldn't get past the fact that he was just too ingenious. I know I should have been suspending my disbelief, but after about the fifth "horrible thing happens, Mark finds a way of getting around it" I was starting to get a bit bored of it. I guess it was fun finding out what the ingenious solutions were, but I'm not sure I'd ever believe one person would come up with them all.

If I over-thought it too much I would be concerned that more wasn't made of the danger from gamma radiation overdose from all those EVAs he made on the Martian surface protected by only his spacesuit. But hey, it's a story!

[Fbone]

Today, I completed Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell. Purchased last year from Kobo for 79 cents. Very engaging cozy murder mystery. The author displays tremendous skill crafting each sentence. Many synonymous sidebars along with its large vocabulary, including Latin, make this especially pleasing to those readers looking for something with a higher grade level than many typical of its genre. However, she did use a technique I find unpleasant in the final reveal.
Overall, it was well done. I consider it a good read whenever I have to grab my Latin dictionary off the shelf. Rated B [4 stars].

Next will be something in the Star Wars universe.

[bert501]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I want to hate this book! Based on the attitudes and musing of his main character, Conrad Stargard, Leo Frankowski seems to have been a misogynistic racist! (Women are bitches when they don't do as asked and American Blacks lack a sense of self worth). [Excuse Me!?!]

Yet, I'm halfway through the book, and the author's [insert expletive here] views aside, I am finding this story to be fascinating! The descriptions of daily living, the engineering challenges, even the simple science and mathematical lessons are all interesting. As much as I want slap Conrad upside his head, his unassuming knight routine is quite charming.

The time travel aspects have been kept in the background so far - addressed in interludes, cleverly and purposely pointing out the conceit presented throughout the book.

I agree with everything you said! This is one of my favorite books (and series) but I would like to shake some sense into Conrad at least once in every chapter. Lots of offensive things to skim over while appreciating the story crafting. Frankowski was an interesting guy but oh, my his views? philosophies? politics? yikes! A perfect example of an author I would not have wanted to meet or know but I do enjoy his books.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I want to hate this book! Based on the attitudes and musing of his main character, Conrad Stargard, Leo Frankowski seems to have been a misogynistic racist! (Women are bitches when they don't do as asked and American Blacks lack a sense of self worth). [Excuse Me!?!]

Yet, I'm halfway through the book, and the author's [insert expletive here] views aside, I am finding this story to be fascinating! The descriptions of daily living, the engineering challenges, even the simple science and mathematical lessons are all interesting. As much as I want slap Conrad upside his head, his unassuming knight routine is quite charming.

The time travel aspects have been kept in the background so far - addressed in interludes, cleverly and purposely pointing out the conceit presented throughout the book.

Originally Posted by bert501

I agree with everything you said! This is one of my favorite books (and series) but I would like to shake some sense into Conrad at least once in every chapter. Lots of offensive things to skim over while appreciating the story crafting. Frankowski was an interesting guy but oh, my his views? philosophies? politics? yikes! A perfect example of an author I would not have wanted to meet or know but I do enjoy his books.

Yes. Although, I sometimes find it difficult to separate an author from their work. I'm glad I didn't know about his views ahead of time - I don't know that I would have read the book.

I finished this this evening and my post basically became my review over on GoodReads. I did end up liking the story as a whole, and gave this a rating of 3 (which for me equals "Its ok/ I liked it"). I do plan to continue the series, especially since my husband already owns the entire set.

[orangedotgreen]

This week I finished Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov and The Code Book by Simon Singh.

Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.

The book was written in 1999, so some parts of the last chapters are outdated, but the book is very interesting. The concerns for privacy are discussed as a worry for the future and it was interesting for me to see what the views were back then (I had my first computer in 1999 and had a dial-up connection 3 or 4 years later ).

Now I'm reading The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.

[Yapyap]

The last book I finished was Poppy Done to Death by Charlaine Harris, the final book in the Aurora Teagarden series. Enjoyable enough and on par with the rest of the series, but nothing particularly outstanding.

I'm currently reading The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani - not entirely sure yet how I feel about it (as far as the plot goes), but it's a fairly well written and at times very amusing middle grade book.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I did enjoy The Martian, but maybe not as much as some. I just couldn't get past the fact that he was just too ingenious. I know I should have been suspending my disbelief, but after about the fifth "horrible thing happens, Mark finds a way of getting around it" I was starting to get a bit bored of it. I guess it was fun finding out what the ingenious solutions were, but I'm not sure I'd ever believe one person would come up with them all.

I guess you've never been in the Peace Corps or lived the expat life in a Third World country. While our 'fixes' don't usually repair life-or-death problems, we're constantly working out ingenious solutions to every-day problem situations that would never arise were we still living back in the First World. Little things like figuring out how to make Italian sausages (because we couldn't buy them where we were living,) or filtering water and mud out of a bottle of gasoline bought in a jungle 'general store' because we're too far from a real gas station. A few days ago we helped a friend build a portable 'air conditioner' for his van, so that he could travel south with his dogs without too much heat build up when stopping. A Styrofoam cooler chest, two 3" PVC elbows leading out and a 12v-powered fan blowing in did the trick. A chestload of ice lasted almost 8 hours of constant cold air blowing out into the back of the van! He could leave the dogs in the van when he and the family got out for sight seeing or meals without worry that they'd be too hot! Yesterday another friend wanted help building a still to make distilled water for a hydrogen generator he's working on. It's hard to find a place that sells it here. Easy enough to rig up... Any moonshiner can tell ya how! Such is the life in Third World Countries... or Mars.


Stitchawl

[BelleZora]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

I did enjoy The Martian, but maybe not as much as some. I just couldn't get past the fact that he was just too ingenious. I know I should have been suspending my disbelief, but after about the fifth "horrible thing happens, Mark finds a way of getting around it" I was starting to get a bit bored of it. I guess it was fun finding out what the ingenious solutions were, but I'm not sure I'd ever believe one person would come up with them all.

My reaction was similar to Stitchawl's. After numerous backpacking trips and 4-wheel-drive backcountry adventures, I know that you either find a solution to problems (and there are always problems) or die feeling stupid. The problems require less ingenuity, perhaps, than survival on Mars - such as how to remove a fish hook from a shoulder without causing more damage or how to get the truck out of the sand or the ever-popular power and cooling problems, but they seem critical at the time. Need is the greatest catalyst for ingenuity.

[orlok]

I'm with both Stitchawl and BelleZora. These are astronauts, after all, and they have to be pretty damned near the top of the tree to get that job.