Harvard Classics Checklist

[NatCh]

Heat death of the universe, maybe?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Shadow of Saganami isn't, strictly speaking, part of the Honor Harrington series, but only part of the Honerverse (rather like Crown of Slaves and the anthologies in that regard).

You're right! Time for some rearrangement of my disk .

I didn't find the last two books to be any less enjoyable, but I'd say that Mr. Weber might just agree with you since he seems to be taking some serious time off from writing the series. I do hope that he eventually returns to it (when he's confident that he can do it the way he wants to), there are some danglers I'd like to know more of before I "shuffle off this mortal coil."

Yes, I agree. Now he's made her a "Fleet Admiral" (or whatever) perhaps the options of where to go next are rather limited. Not too many promotions left beyond that . It was always the "ship to ship" battles that I found most enjoyable rather than the "big picture" that I suppose admirals have to deal with. Perhaps that's a reason I found the last couple of books to be slightly less enjoyable.

Still an absolutely terrific series!

[NatCh]

I can see that, yeah. It is moving more towards strategy and political ... stuff, and away from the tactical side. Kind of inevitable, I s'pose, but I like the "blowing stuff up" parts too. The sword fight in Flag in Exile was a really awesome scene, though -- even without explosions.

[JSWolf]

I do need to start converting when I get a chance to read.

[igorsk]

If you browse Baen Bar, you can find mentions that Weber does plan for at least five more Honorverse books and the story will shift to deal with the new threat (if you've read the last books, especially Shadow of Saganami/Crown of Slaves books you know what I mean). Apparently he's currently busy writing an Off Armageddon Reef book for Tor, and second books of the Sagnami/Crown spin-offs will be come before the next "mainline" book about Honor.

[kovidgoyal]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Yeah, that blows me away too, even though I think they noted it was a 'long' weekend -- it takes me several weeks to plow through the entire 10 book series, and I seem to read at a fairly fast clip (read Battlefield Earth's 1066 pages in 6 days, on the first run through). Fortunately for my ego, I've already been disabused of my speed-reading delusions by my wife, who thinks that Jane Eyre is a nice afternoon's diversion. And she's nothing to one of her professors who won't watch the Sense and Sensability screenplay because she can read it faster than the show runs.

People that read that fast don't really read, they scan. I know coz I do it too. There is a lot of redundant/useless information in any given book. This happens at several levels:
1) At the sentence level
2) At the paragraph level
3) At the block level (block = length of text dealing with a "single event")

Speed readers tend to develop the knack of not even seeing this redundant information, let alone processing it.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Apparently he's currently busy writing an Off Armageddon Reef book for Tor....

A second one, then? I knew he intended to continue the series, but I didn't realize he was already working on one.

I tend to spend most of my on-line time here, and focus on the e-reader thread over at the Bar, so I haven't been keeping up.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

People that read that fast don't really read, they scan. I know coz I do it too. There is a lot of redundant/useless information in any given book. This happens at several levels:
1) At the sentence level
2) At the paragraph level
3) At the block level (block = length of text dealing with a "single event")

Speed readers tend to develop the knack of not even seeing this redundant information, let alone processing it.

Oh I realize that a lot of the speed reading is done that way, but when you're talking about literature professors, they tend not to read their core material that way, unless they're refreshing their memories for a class discussion, etc. The lady who does Sense and Sensibility in less time than the screen play run, really does read it that fast. But then again, she's a particularly super-human example of the breed.

[kovidgoyal]

Actually now that I think of it, I can certainly read much faster than people can talk. I suspect the same is true for most people. So is it surprising that she can read a screenplay faster than it can be acted out?

[Bob Russell]

Some books, of very interest to me and with well-told stories, make me want to soak in every word.

But skim-ability is exactly what makes all the difference for me with a regular "fun" book. I hate those books that are "just for fun" and put critical information in unlikely locations amidst worthless wordiness. That makes me quickly lose interest because it forces me to read every sentence carefully, and the book had better be a great book and highly entertaining if I'm going to do that.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Actually now that I think of it, I can certainly read much faster than people can talk. I suspect the same is true for most people. So is it surprising that she can read a screenplay faster than it can be acted out?

She's not reading the screenplay, she's reading the original novel, which is considerably more involved.

[kovidgoyal]

Ah I see. Wow I'd be truly amazed if she could read every word os Sense and sensibility in two hours.

[NatCh]

Well, the screenplay in question is closer to 8~10 hours -- it's the Masterpiece Theater mini-series, but still. I think she tosses it off in an afternoon.

[kovidgoyal]

Much more reasonable. Average even ;-)

[NatCh]

Uh. Right. Sure.