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

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

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!

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

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

Originally Posted by BelleZora

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.

Originally Posted by 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.

Fair comments one and all. I was merely giving my honest opinion of the book alongside everybody else's.

Don't get me wrong though, I did enjoy the book; it reads well and cracks along at a fair pace. I suppose that he had to find a solution to every problem because if he didn't, that's it, game (and book) over.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading a short by Wen Spencer. Then I'll move on to the latest Robert Buettner.

The short was great, as was the Robert Buettner.

[EDIT: Yes, the Jo Walton was Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden. The Robert Buettner was Balance Point, the third (& last, I think) in his Orphan's Legacy series.]

I'll pick something currently on my reader this evening for my next read. Perhaps the second Gil Cunningham.

[EDIT: Actually, Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer. ]

[EDIT: Hey, Balance Point was my 60th title read this year!]

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

The short was great, as was the Robert Buettner.

I'll pick something currently on my reader this evening for my next read. Perhaps the second Gil Cunningham.

Which short, Pittsburgh Backyard and Garden? I did enjoy that one. Actually, I rather like her shorts in general.

ETA: you might want to edit that one again, Paul <G>

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Also, still reading The Curse of the Pharaohs, an Amelia Peabody mystery from Elizabeth Peters, read excellently by Barbara Rosenblat. I haven't had much time to listen lately, so this is going slowly. But not for lack of interest or enjoyment.

Finished. And I really enjoyed it. I quite like the character of Amelia Peabody. I'll likely read the next in the series as an eBook, though I have the Barbara Rosenblatt Audible version here as well. But I'm starting to back up on Audible books and don't have as much time to read them as I'd like. So I'll temporize with a bit of Fry and Laurie, oops, I mean Jeeves and Wooster. I've got Very Good, Jeeves on my iPhone right now, and a few days before the new CJ Cherryh Foreigner book is out.

Originally Posted by CRussel

Next up, The Outskirter's Secret, by Rosemary Kirstein. This is the second book in the Steerswoman series, featuring the Steerswoman Rowan and her friend Bel, a barbarian, Outskirter warrior. The first three of the books are now available DRM free from Amazon, with the fourth promised for next month.

Continuing The Outskirter's Secret, and very much enjoying it. It's cutting in to the time for my other active eBook, The Autistic Brain, by Temple Grandin.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished. And I really enjoyed it. I quite like the character of Amelia Peabody.

Just checked out the Amelia Peabody mysteries. They seem like quite entertaining reads. I'll have to give the first book a try some time.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Gazella

Just checked out the Amelia Peabody mysteries. They seem like quite entertaining reads. I'll have to give the first book a try some time.

Kobo has an Omnibus edition of the first four books in the series for a good price. AND it is couponable!

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Kobo has an Omnibus edition of the first four books in the series for a good price. AND it is couponable!

Thanks for letting me know!

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Kobo has an Omnibus edition of the first four books in the series for a good price. AND it is couponable!

They are also available through the library's Overdrive program.

[Penforhire]

Most of the way through Joe Hill's "Horns."

When I started I was very skeptical. I was thinking, a book about a guy named Ig who wakes up with horns on his head and some Devil powers is going to be lame. But this ride is at times funny, touching, deep, romantic, and sad. I'm not completely sure how it will end but I'm giving it a recommendation based on the 80-odd % I've read so far. It feels a little like "Stand By Me" meets "The Shining" (boyhood innocence combined with subtle supernatural horror).

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Fbone

They are also available through the library's Overdrive program.

Depends on the library, unfortunately. I always check my provincial library before I buy, but ended up buying it on Kobo. Though I have found other books by Elizabeth Peters on the BCLibraries download site.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Most of the way through Joe Hill's "Horns."



When I started I was very skeptical. I was thinking, a book about a guy named Ig who wakes up with horns on his head and some Devil powers is going to be lame. But this ride is at times funny, touching, deep, romantic, and sad. I'm not completely sure how it will end but I'm giving it a recommendation based on the 80-odd % I've read so far. It feels a little like "Stand By Me" meets "The Shining" (boyhood innocence combined with subtle supernatural horror).

He's Stephen King's son by the way.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Gazella

He's Stephen King's son by the way.

So why isn't he called "Joe King"? Is it a ploy to avoid bad puns along the lines of "only Joe King"?

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So why isn't he called "Joe King"? Is it a ploy to avoid bad puns along the lines of "only Joe King"?

He decided to write under a pseudonym.

Hill chose to use an abbreviated form of his given name (Joseph Hillstrom King) out of a desire to succeed based solely on his own merits rather than as the son of Stephen King.

How do you approach a career in horror when your dad is the most famous horror writer on Earth? That was the issue facing Joseph Hillstrom King, who feared that publishers would print anything he wrote just to cash in on his last name. So he chose to write under a pseudonym, Joe Hill, and was able to keep his identity secret for over a decade.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Gazella

He decided to write under a pseudonym.

Indeed. I also enjoyed NOS4A2 as well as Horns. His Locke & Key graphic novels are good, too.

Here is a cool NYT article about the King family business:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/ma...anted=all&_r=0

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

Indeed. I also enjoyed NOS4A2 as well as Horns. His Locke & Key graphic novels are good, too.



Here is a cool NYT article about the King family business:



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/ma...anted=all&_r=0

I haven't read any of his books though I'm planning on reading them. I do have the first volume of Locke & Key but haven't read it yet.