Book Thread 2018^H9

Thanks – I do wonder if I might have been a bit more positively disposed if I had gone in blind a few years ago rather than seeing various complaints and cherry-picked excerpts posted in the meantime, but who knows – there’s no way to put that ketchup back in the bottle.

Your choice, but a lot of that stuff does pay off in the later books.

Second book by Eames is out, Bloody Rose. Set in the same world. I dearly loved Kings of the Wyld. I have Bloody Rose but I’m holding off, saving it as a treat.

It gets worse, not better.

You know what kind of fantasy series I love? Ones that are already finished! Sounds like by the time it got to book five, everyone loved it even if book one might have been a bit rough around the edges. I’ll give this a go.

Ha! I love this sentiment.

Speaking of which. I read the Briar King when it came out. I liked it a lot, even though it was a short book. And then the sequel came out and I liked it even more. But then by the time the third book came out, I’d forgotten what the series was about. Has anyone read that series? Is it finished? Did it turn out well?

By Greg Keyes? Yes, and yes. It’s fucking great.

Thanks so much for mentioning this one. Loving it so far.

My pleasure, but you should be thanking @sharpe or @Mark_Asher, since their praise for it in this thread got me to pick it up in the first place.

Kings of the Wyld is one of the best genre books I’ve read in years. It’s the writing as much as the story. The writing is so good. The story is great too, and so is the concept – groups of fantasy fighters who are treated like rock band gods. The great fighting band Saga gets together again years later for one last tour – er, I mean one last adventure, to help the band’s lead, Golden Gabe, save his daughter Rose, who herself has grown and leads her own band. Bloody Rose is trapped in a besieged city, certain to fall. All Saga has to do is fight through a thousand miles of the Wyld Forest full of nothing but death in a hundred different forms and then defeat a vast army to save Rose.

It’s a fantastically well-written book IMO. Just loved it. I wish all the genre books I read were half as good as this.

Idly browsing on Amazon (yes, dangerous, I know) I noticed some books by Daniel Suarez (Daemon etc.) that looked interesting. I haven’t read anything by Suarez. Has anyone else tried these? Good, bad, indifferent?

I enjoyed Daemon when I read it a couple of years ago. Techno-thriller with a lot of augmented reality tech in it, so if you enjoy that kind of plot device then it’ll be right up your alley.

I read Daemon a long while back. My impression was that he was writing a script for a Syfy movie, but it got turned down so he made it into a novel. It’s super-over-melodramatic, with completely unrealistic technology, plot holes a mile wide, and moustache-twirling villains. But it’s still kinda fun. I never read anything else by him though.

I’ve not had a chance to read much the past month and a half, but since I’m travelling a bit this week I got some reading done. Finished The Peripheral by William Gibson. I really liked it, and it managed to not overstay it’s welcome. Interesting concept, but I can see how it might not feel satisfying for some readers.

I’m also 15% or so into La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman, and I have enjoyed it tremendously so far. Looks like it can deliver on my crazy expectations.

I grabbed this an an Audible Daily Deal at the end of last month:

It is pretty much as advertised in the title: A fast-moving, wryly-narrated history of England. They start with a brief overview of the British archipelago throughout the stone and bronze ages, but they really kick it off with the establishment of “England” by Edward. They then walk briskly through the ages to the mid-1990s.

As an American, my understanding of English/British history was that there were some Romans, then some Saxons, then some Vikings, then some Normans, a bunch of kings, and then English history kind of stopped for a while around 1600, briefly resumed for a few years around 1776, then stopped again until 1942. So this book nicely filled in the gaps in my knowledge. If you’re looking for an easy non-fiction palette-cleanser, this is a good option.

I grabbed that too when it was the daily deal. I’ve reached that period around 1600 when the military dissolved parliament and then brought it back. I have to admit, I had no idea that the history of England was so tumultuous. You hear about the East India Company and how the British Empire expanded so much during that period, taking over large portions of the World. I had no idea that at the time, they were a mess at home.

I am a few years late on this one, but I am in the midst of Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm Ravaged Hospital

It is the account of the five days following Katrina at a flooded hospital in New Orleans. It is a shocking and disheartening book, and highlights just how fragile civilized society can be. In a mere five days, there was a near complete breakdown of social structure in the hospital. It highlights the ineptitude of local, state and federal agencies… and most notably highlights the depths of corporate greed that contributed to the disaster and tried to cover it up after the fact.

By the end of the 5th day you actually have patients being euthanized while the evacuation is actually happening. Some of the patients who were euthanized might have needed it, others were alert and talking the morning of their death. In my opinion, the nurses and doctor who administered the meds to kill these people were in a state of tunnel vision on their choice, and had lost perspective on the situation - instead falling victim to panic, exhaustion and hopelessness.

Definitely a riveting read.

For some reason this reminds me of a great BBC documentary series available on YouTube, a history of the English language. It’s in six parts, an hour each, and excellent. Explains crazy things like why there are different words for food (beef, pork, etc) vs the animals from which the food comes (cow, pig, etc). The former words are all actually French words, which entered into English when French lords ruled the island; because in the normal course of events it was those French-speaking lords, not the English-speaking peasants, who got to eat those animals.

First episode is here:

I’m reading Fear: Trump in the White House. Its not as critical of Trump as I would have thought. It seems to be implying most everyone having mostly good intentions, even Trump (to some degree). Some of its scary, like tike the adults are steering a willful child to good goals, and feels like a mirror of the recent insider Op-ed.

I cant help if the WH actually liked to the book and decided to endorse it with ‘leaking’ a story the validates the theme of the book…

The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

After probably seeing the movie based on the book a dozen times (it is one of those that if I turn on the TV and it is on I must watch it), I finally broke down and got the book. The book itself is very interesting, containing more characters than the movie which combined several of the stories into fewer characters. There are also things in the movie which are not in the book, which leads one to assume that some movie characters were created to give some actors roles in the movie. The Richard Burton character is one that kind of bothers me, as the tory surrounding him actually veers from the facts in the book.

It is also easy to see parts of Saving Private Ryan in the book. At least the Omaha Beach segment.

Overall it is a good read and probably a must for anyone who studies WW2. I would give the book one dark mark though, there is no map of the battle field anywhere in the book. How can you have a book like this and not have a map?

I agree; I love maps. Every book should have a map, even cookbooks.