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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

some Mil SF. The Sharp End by David Drake. From 1993.

So far it's the expected action, although the first bit is just setting up the immediate background of the characters.

It was OK. Not as good as any of his other books I've read. I didn't get very involved with the characters.

Now for a collection from David Weber - Worlds of Weber a collection of his shorter works in his various series and universes.

[pilotbob]

Finished the MRBC's _The Mysterious Island_ by Jules Verne. Really good book... but it could be slow in parts where detailed descriptions of things they did to survive. However, most of it was very interesting.

Next... I think I'll read _The Machine Stops_ since I am told it is very short. After that, I expect I will start on the June MRBC selection.

BOb

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Finished the MRBC's _The Mysterious Island_ by Jules Verne. Really good book... but it could be slow in parts where detailed descriptions of things they did to survive. However, most of it was very interesting.

Next... I think I'll read _The Machine Stops_ since I am told it is very short. After that, I expect I will start on the June MRBC selection.

BOb

Wow, bud! You're behind the times!

I think you'll enjoy The Machine Stops; although if you read the entire Machine thread, it probably won't hold any surprises for you.

[ficbot]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Wow, bud! You're behind the times!

You'd get along great with my dad I am trying to talk him into getting an ebook reader, and he was very nervous that he would buy, say, a Kindle, and then learn that the Sony store was the only place to buy the books he wanted. And what books did he want? Dickens. He is very interested in re-reading all of his beloved childhood Dickens favs. And possibly Buchan. I told him that if those are what he wants to read, he does not need any store...

[nomesque]

I just finished reading Zoe Winters' Blood Lust trilogy - Kept, Claimed and Mated. I think I enjoy them so much because they have a bit of everything - paranormal, adventure?, relationships, sex. There's a plotline in them that's common to all three (ie, repeated in each book), but the story changes quite a lot from book to book. It's an odd, but endearing, combination of predestination and suspense

[shootingMaNs]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now for some Mil SF. The Sharp End by David Drake. From 1993.

So far it's the expected action, although the first bit is just setting up the immediate background of the characters.

I'll have to check that out. Love his Hammer's Slammers stuff.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by shootingMaNs

I'll have to check that out. Love his Hammer's Slammers stuff.

This is a story about a group of Hammer's Slammers. You do know that Baen are publishing the three volume "Complete Hammer's Slammers"?

http://www.webscription.net/p-1056-t...-volume-1.aspx
http://www.webscription.net/p-1110-t...-volume-2.aspx
http://www.webscription.net/p-1254-t...-volume-3.aspx

The third volume isn't out yet - it should be available (in ebook) in mid October. They are/will be also available as trade paperbacks. These are the general release versions of the hardbacks from Night Shade Books. (I have the very nice limited edition leather-bound hardbacks on my shelf, bought before Baen signed up to release them as well. But I'll probably only get around to reading them in ebook...)

[Latinandgreek]

I'm about halfway through "The Face in the Frost" (excellent), and about a fifth of the way through "The Book Thief" (Also excellent. I didn't expect I'd enjoy it nearly this much!)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Wow, bud! You're behind the times!

I think you'll enjoy The Machine Stops; although if you read the entire Machine thread, it probably won't hold any surprises for you.

I think his time-line is running backwards.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by ficbot

You'd get along great with my dad I am trying to talk him into getting an ebook reader, and he was very nervous that he would buy, say, a Kindle, and then learn that the Sony store was the only place to buy the books he wanted. And what books did he want? Dickens. He is very interested in re-reading all of his beloved childhood Dickens favs. And possibly Buchan. I told him that if those are what he wants to read, he does not need any store...

Exactly. Even though I'm a computer/software engineer and have followed the ebook development for the last couple of decades it wasn't until last year that I jumped in the deep end primarily due to the huge volume of classics available for free and in a standard format.

[ficbot]

KennyC., it's actually been kind of cute to watch my parents deal with all of this. I gave my mother the Kobo for a combined retirement/mother's day present, and every time we have talked since, she has mentioned she is using it and loves it. Periodically, she has offered a suggestion for something so basic that I marvel how she really thinks nobody has ever thought of it before. (booklights! for the ebook reader! what a thought!). And I think I kind of blew Dad's mind a little when I suggested that I could just magically pull off the internet the complete works of Dickens, Buchan, Poe, Twain and Shakespeare---for free---and without ten minutes effort----and stick them on a memory card he could carry around with him.

[neilmarr]

Hya Ficbot: It's reaction like that of your parents that makes me ask every time I see a poll that says 95% of readers prefer paper (another today) just how many of those polled actually understand the first thing about ebook reading. Results would be very, very different if ebook readers were asked which delivery system they preferred. It's like asking a chap on a stage coach from Edinburgh to London in the 18th Century whether he would prefer to fly through the air in a metal tube. Glad your folks are happy. Cheers. Neil

This reminds me. About a month ago a fellow diner at the one weekday breakfast spot in my town was asking me about my e-reader. Even after I told him it was a Sony he kept calling it a Kindle. So earlier this week he stopped by my table to tell me that he had purchased a reader (yes a Kindle) for his father who is in the local nursing home here. He said his father just loved it principally for the ability to set the type size to very large.

Anyway I just finished up the Raj Quartet last weekend. I was rather pleased that Merrick came to the sort of end he deserved, but the tragic fate of Ahmed Kasim not so. It was nice to get another perspective on that part of history (the end of British colonialism in India) other than the movie Gandhi. I like historical novels for that reason. It confirmed what I had always thought, that the film displayed an idealized version of history attributing the British departure entirely to Gandhi's campaign of peaceful resistance. World War II and the Indian Nationalist Movement's threats not to just remain neutral in the conflict, but to actively help the Japanese against the British, also has a fair amount to do with the British agreeing to depart.

So right now I am about midway through The Conspiracy by John Hersey. It's a little late, reading it almost eight years ago would have been better.

[Bluesman7]

Well, sorry to say that Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin just didn't do it for me.

Made it through the first third of the book before I decided it was time to move on.

C'est la vie...I think a little Dennis Lehane injection will wake me up and put me right.

[MelC]

Originally Posted by John F

Reading Dead in the Family. A little slow to start (all the recapping), but I'm enjoying it now.

Just finished it. Meh. Seems more and more like each of her books are just filler for some future story that never seems to get told. I am liking them less and less each one that comes out as opposed to the Dresden series which I am liking more and more.

Can't wait for Season 3 on HBO though.

Mel