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

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: Analog SFF, October 2011 by Dell Magazine Authors

A good episode. I liked the conclusion to the serial, and some of the other stories were fun too. And I got a letter in the letters column! I'm not really convinced by the answer to my letter. While I hadn't considered the effect of an unheated air supply, I think it's a very small heat effect compared to radiation loss.

Anyway, back to the Young Wizards series now, with the eighth book, Wizards at War by Diane Duane.

[orlok]

Currently reading I, Sniper by Stephen Hunter (an homage to I, Robot?), the sixth outing for Bob Lee Swagger. Now that Bob the Nailer is getting a bit crusty and long in the tooth, the emphasis is more on his investigative skills rather than action, though no doubt there will be some action in the denoument - there has been precious little in the first third of the book. Still enjoying it though.

[orlok]

After all the buzz about Ghost Story in the forum, I'm contemplating starting the Dresden Files series. I presume the advice would be to start from the beginning (duh!) and work my way through? I notice, though, that there seem to be additional titles that have appeared out of sequence (e.g. Restoration of Faith, which looks like a very short prequel, and a couple of others, which look more like short stories?).

Would you guys recommend reading them in order of the books' time-line position in the sequence, or in the order they were released (if that makes sense)? And do the short stories matter in terms of the overall series and reading experience?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Fbone

And it got worse. Very inaccurate historical fiction. Women did not wear hoop skirts and bonnets in 1775 Georgia colony. They didn't say "ok." Orphans were not treated so well either. The orphanage was run by Methodist nuns who kept boys and girls in the same dorm to the age of 17. They ate three fabulous meals each day while the townspeople starved. The book's character says there are no British in the Savannah area yet we know the colony was established by 114 colonists from Britain in 1733. Were there really pirates still around off the US coast in the 1770s?

The book was full of cliches and plot inconsistencies. The book received almost all 5-star reviews. Unexplainable.

I left off after 32 pages so maybe it got better but I wasn't going to go after it. The author's strength is in military (particularly naval) themes.
Also, the book was written for very young adults. One point of interest, this was the first time I saw the word "shew" used.

Hey, I wore a hoop skirt back then...

Yes there were pirates in the 1700s although their heyday may have been over. Shoot, we have them making quite a comeback in some parts of the world TODAY.

I believe bonnets came into popularity about 1800, but there was a mob cap that looked very bonnet-like in the late 1700s. I thought a lot of the hats in the earl 1700s looked bonnet-like myself--the straw hats before the mob caps had ties for under the chin. This is NOT to defend the author as I haven't read the book and could care less one way or the other--it's because time-period clothing interests me. And I have no idea what they wore in Georgia specifically; I'm merely commenting on the clothing of the period.

I did find this article (because I looked it up because, as I said, this sort of thing interests me):

http://www.ehow.com/info_8479937_bonnets-1700s.html

In short it says bonnets were becoming popular in the 1700s and of course talks about the bonnets of the wealthy class and so on. From what I read, it's safe to say bonnets were being worn then in Georgia and elsewhere, and that same goes for hoop skirts, although the exact fashion in larger cities was likely "panniers" which are also described as "side hoops."

I love bonnets/hats and parasols; it's one of those things that interests me.

"Okay" was recorded as early as 1815, according to a friend of mine...so it wouldn't be out of the question to be in use in 1775.

And so on.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by orlok

After all the buzz about Ghost Story in the forum, I'm contemplating starting the Dresden Files series. I presume the advice would be to start from the beginning (duh!) and work my way through? I notice, though, that there seem to be additional titles that have appeared out of sequence (e.g. Restoration of Faith, which looks like a very short prequel, and a couple of others, which look more like short stories?).

Would you guys recommend reading them in order of the books' time-line position in the sequence, or in the order they were released (if that makes sense)? And do the short stories matter in terms of the overall series and reading experience?

I wasn't too impressed with the first two Dresden. They're okay, but the important thing to note is that MANY people tell me they get MUCH, much better.

[DiapDealer]

My recommendation is to always read the books in a series in the order that their creator presented them to the world. They should have written their prequel(s) sooner if they wanted me to read it first.

[carld]

Originally Posted by orlok

Would you guys recommend reading them in order of the books' time-line position in the sequence, or in the order they were released (if that makes sense)? And do the short stories matter in terms of the overall series and reading experience?

I would say read the main books in order, and only then track down and read the various short stories. The shorts aren't vital to understanding anything in the main series, but they can be confusing and spoilerish if they deal with characters and plots you haven't encountered yet.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by carld

I...they can be confusing and spoilerish if they deal with characters and plots you haven't encountered yet.

Good point, and underlines what DiapDealer said about reading them in the sequence they were written .

[Crusader]

I've just finished reading and posted a review of George R.R. Martin's Dreamsongs. I wanted to explore some more of his work and this was just the ticket. The edition I have combined both volumes and contains 34 of his short fiction tales (novellas, short stories and teleplays) and covers his fantasy, horror and science fiction works (yes, he does sci-fi too!)

Definitely a must read for George R.R. Martin fans! I see only the the separate volumes are now available. The second one definitely contains the best work.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My recommendation is to always read the books in a series in the order that their creator presented them to the world. They should have written their prequel(s) sooner if they wanted me to read it first.

Agree!

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I just finished my 36th book for 2011, Terra Incognito by Ruth Downie. It is the second book, Medicus being the first. I got both of them for free or cheap in the "Free or Cheap for Kindle" threads.

They were really good, 5 stars. Ruso, the main character, is a doctor travelling with the 20th Legion in barbarian Britain in the year 118. He is presented with mysterious circumstances, a complicated relationship with his slave, and lots of details about daily life in Roman Britain.

The author, Ruth Downie, has done her research, but she says that she did not stick to true timelines. If something was interesting to her, it went into the story.

These books are funny, serious, educational, and very well written and edited. They get my highest recommendation.

Agree! I liked them, too. I think there are more, but they haven't shown up free or discounted yet.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Agree! I liked them, too. I think there are more, but they haven't shown up free or discounted yet.

According to Ruth Downie's Web site (http://rsdownie.co.uk/books/), there are four books altogether. But, owing international publishing peculiarities, they have different titles in different countries. Go figure

[Latinandgreek]

I just finished "The Wise Man's Fear". I can't wait for the conclusion of the Kingkiller Chronicles! Next up is "The Lake" by Banana Yoshimoto.

[WT Sharpe]

Yesterday I finished reading The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin, but as I had but minutes to make it to work on time, I didn't post it until today.

I became interested in reading Darwin's landmark work on emotions and how they are expressed through reading What the Face Reveals: Basic and Applied Studies of Spontaneous Expression Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), a collection of scientific papers on the subject by various researchers in the field edited by the renown Paul Ekman and L. Rosenberg. So many of the papers in that work referenced Darwin's book on the subject that my curiosity became overwhelming. Fortunately, just as Ekman's Unmasking the Face—written with a general audience in mind—was far more enjoyable to a layman such as myself than the the highly technical and specialist in the field oriented What the Face Reveals, so also The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin was a far more enjoyable reading experience than his On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. This is a remarkable work, and as its still frequent citation by contemporary scientists who study emotions and their expressions reveals, a work that has stood the test of time well.

Not all of the conclusions in the book have passed that test with equal success, however. Perhaps as interesting as all the things he got right are those few items where he missed the mark. He writes in one place, "Mr. Bartlett has observed wolves for me, and has given them carrion, but has never seen them roll on it. I have heard it remarked, and I believe it to be true, that the larger dogs, which are probably descended from wolves, do not so often roll in carrion as do smaller dogs, which are probably descended from jackals." We now know that all dogs descended from wolves, but in all fairness it must be remembered that Darwin didn't have access to our current knowledge of genetics.

Several of the terms used in the book were unfamiliar to me. One of these was sensorium, which is defined as "a part of the brain or the brain itself regarded as the seat of sensation." I felt would make an excellent name for an amusement park thrill ride, or even, as Dave Barry might say, a rock band.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Anyway, back to the Young Wizards series now, with the eighth book, Wizards at War by Diane Duane.

Which was splendid. I'm going to move directly onto A Wizard of Mars.