Active Member
Finished: “Warrior: Coupé” by Michael A. Stackpole, I really enjoyed the conclusion of that trilogy. Referenced the Gray Death saga and the cover depicted a scene from the novel (always nice). I'm really enjoying reading these now..... (also, the comics haven't arrived yet, so there's that)
Starting: “Heir To The Dragon” by Robert N. Charrette
Last edited by MrLobster; 07-07-2020 at 12:30 AM.
Active Member
I didn't find a Brandon Sanderson thread but I saw this on Kickstarter and it looks pretty dang cool. My brother in law is a big fan so we ordered it for Christmas 2021. You know, if we make it that far. Anyway. The tricky part is going to be asking him what his favorite order is and also making sure he doesn't find out about it.
Weird that the $200 version is either the book and a $10 gift card and nothing else or the book and all the extras but no $10 card.
Active Member
Finished: “Heir To The Dragon” by Robert N. Charrette; also good. References Wolves on the Border and the Warrior trilogy. Cover art depicts a scene from the novel (but not a very interesting one). References the saga of the Gray Death Legion as well.
Starting: “Lethal Heritage” by Michael A. Stackpole ... riiiight after a brief detour into 25 issues of Spawn.
Bite me
Mary Trump’s book
Administrator
I can't stop reading Remarque novels.
Just finished All Quiet on the Western Front, which was preceded in the last few months by Spark of Life, A Time to Live and a Time to Die, Shadows in Paradise
Last edited by fillow; 07-20-2020 at 03:21 PM.
Active Member
Finished: “Lethal Heritage” by Michael A. Stackpole … /now/ *that’s* a way to kick off a trilogy. Maybe I will go watch that BattleTech TV show after all… reference the saga of the Gray Death Legion and the Warrior trilogy. Cover depicts a tense scene in the book...
Starting: “Blood Legacy” by Michael A. Stackpole
Active Member
Reading a 800 page book about WWI. Queued are a 1200 page book about the Renaissance und two books about the Thirty Years War, about 800 pages each.
See you in 2028.
Active Member
Finished: “Blood Legacy” by Michael A. Stackpole … Very enjoyable and a quick pace. Cover depicts a scene from the novel. Oh those Clanners…
Starting: “Lost Destiny” by Michal A. Stackpole.
Active Member
Finished: “Lost Destiny” by Michal A. Stackpole. … the right things happened to the right people. Quite engaging.
Starting: “Way Of The Clans” by Robert Thurston
Active Member
Starting a re-read of Lovecraft Country since the series is out. I have a set of people I live with (you might even call them my wife and son) who don't like waiting for episodes so I'm not watching the series until it's over anyway so why not.
And since I'm here, I will also recommend one of his other books called "The Mirage".
I'm also listening to "Glory Road" from Heinlein.A mind-bending novel in which an alternate history of 9/11 and its aftermath uncovers startling truths about America and the Middle East
11/9/2001: Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners. They fly two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers.
The United Arab States declares a War on Terror. Arabian and Persian troops invade the Eastern Seaboard and establish a Green Zone in Washington, D.C. . . .
Man it has a dumb beginning. This book takes about two chapters to get started on anything other than minutia of the protagonist's life. And when you're thrust into situations he's always Johnny-on-the-spot with a literary reference (John Carter pops up a lot) and even at one point says "well I guess I'm in a story, I hope the author likes me" which is either really inside the baseball or on the nose about what this book actually is.
Active Member
Finished: “Way Of The Clans” by Robert Thurston … pretty sure (some names were really familiar and then the last 1/4 of the book was familiar as well, but I'm not 100% sure) this was the one BattleTech novel I read back in the early/mid 90s (there is the slim possibility that I've read one other but I'll know when get there). I liked it.
Starting: “Bloodname” by Robert Thurston
oh god i made eye contact
I’ve never ventured into this thread before, but I just started “Juliet, Naked” by Nick Hornby. I absolutely adore “High Fidelity”, but other books of his I’ve hated, so I was ambiguous about reading this one. But I’ve been really tickled by it so far, as it’s centered around a music fanatic who posts to a message board of his favorite artist... anyone else here read this one?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Active Member
Nope. The only Hornby I've read were some of his McSweeney's books ("The Polysyllabic Spree", "Hosuekeeping vs. The Dirt" and "Shakespeare Wrote For Money").Originally Posted by magnolia
Active Member
Glory Road by Robert A. Heinlein
eh. If it gave itself over to more of a satire it would be better. it takes itself seriously in places that should (could) have been better if it were satire but it's so serious. It's so serious that there are places where you just hope and pray that it's not but it so is.
I'm pretty sure this is what Terry Goodkind read to come up with the characters in his Sword of Truth books.
Active Member
Finished “Bloodname” by Robert Thurston; I was wrong. It was this book that I had read previously. Much more familiar that “Way Of The Clans” (even the cover started to seem familiar, the yellow text on red)… still liked it.
Starting: “Falcon Guard” by Robert Thurston
Last edited by MrLobster; 08-31-2020 at 08:02 PM.
Active Member
Finished: “Falcon Guard” by Robert Thurston … it was interesting to see a Clan Jade Falcon perspective of the Inner Sphere invasion. I liked it.
Starting: “Wolf Pack” by Robert N. Charrette
Active Member
finished the Hunger Games prequel. It was not a good book. I honestly don't know who this book was written for. It's like A Phantom Menace all over again. My review from Goodreads:
If you like the other three books stay away from this. as bad as the ending to that series was, this one is like "what if I tried even less than I did on that one?" in execution. seriously, it's like the whole chapter from the last book where Katniss was all "the whole thing is taking place over there and I don't know what they're doing and I don't want to know either" so you the reader are completely left in the dark as to the denouement of the story, except in this one they speak around it and there are time gaps and it's just like "ok well that's a couple hundred pages, I think we're good here" and it's done in an info dump. what the actual fuck.
and the constant "here's a easter egg for you!" things were annoying. "Oh, hey, here's a tuber and guess what it's called Katniss! I don't like the name everyone else calls it so I'm going to use that one all the time." really? and they just happen to go to the same District that we already know from the OG series so that there is zero expansion on the world building?
I did have three stars but I've talked myself into two now. And I know if I get started on the whole "Snow's a good guy at heart, until he isn't" I'll bump it down to one. So I'm going to conveniently forget that, much like several characters in the book.
God, that info dump at the end was just too much. And since I was listening to the audio book the constant 'songs' that dude just read instead of even trying were such a chore. at least if I had been reading the book I could have skipped them! some of them were long too. wow.
she/her/hers
well, glad i was planning to avoid it. holy shit that sounds awful.
i feel like the hunger games and harry potter both have the same problem - terrible epilogue.
Active Member
Finished: “Wolf Pack” by Robert N. Charrette… quite the finish to this trilogy (even though it’s not consider one… all three books deal with Draconic Combine and the Wolf’s Dragoons).
Starting: “Natural Selection” by Michael A. Stackpole
Last edited by MrLobster; 09-17-2020 at 11:26 PM.
Throbbing Member
Great book. Roughly two-thirds of the way through. Some parts I need to read and re-read to get a handle on, but it’s endlessly fascinating.
Active Member
Finished: “Natural Selection” by Michael A. Stackpole … A nice continuation of the previous trilogy (Blood of Kerensky).
Starting: “The Finder” by Will Ferguson (just not quite yet, going to take a little break from my reading schedule and rest the brainmeats).
Active Member
Finished this today.
Here's the Goodreads link; also it's free with an Audible subscription.
If you have a kid, it's heart-breaking. If you're going to have a kid, it's heart-breaking. If you only have a sibling, it's heart-breaking. It's also pretty hilarious, so be fully prepared to laugh and then seconds later have tears in your eyes. It was a tough walk into work today with tears in my eyes and laughing at the same time. The chapter where he talks about getting his son ready to go at the end...Yeah, I just sat in the changing room and sobbed a bit. Really rough, but it is the best use of grief I've heard. Not sure how to recommend something like this, but it is a really good listen.
Just tickles my balls!
I suddenly want to read this too.
Great book. Roughly two-thirds of the way through. Some parts I need to read and re-read to get a handle on, but it’s endlessly fascinating.
Throbbing Member
It’s so much fun. I have to restrict myself to only a bunch of pages per day, as some of the concepts are tough to get my head around, but if you’re a patient person I reckon you’ll dig it.
Active Member
Active Member
Finished: "Kitty Pryde and Wolverine" and I still like them. Took me 3 issues to remember why they are also kinda important to evolution of Kitty Pryde.
Starting: "Attack Surface" by Cory Doctorow...
Active Member
I just finished The City We Became by J.K. Jemisin. Fucking brilliant. Quoting my goodreads review:
any ideas why a video linked as a shortcut is put into the post as an embedded video?16 hours+ for the audiobook and only four days. That's a quiet indication that I couldn't put the, ah, headphones? down. The performance by Robin Miles is such that you feel the differences between the characters. And that third act surprise? that was aces.
I love this book. The way it shows people in power 'getting away with things' just by following the rules in place but also by letting those who need power not get it because they can't find anyone to enforce the rules? I feel that way frequently. And the way that people in power are allowed their...the word escapes me at the moment. But basically when you don't want to offend someone by telling them their idea is stupid and they're stupid for having it - legit stupid mind you, not just something you disagree with - so you don't say anything and then the idea is approved and acted upon? I feel that hard.
The same can be said of people with horrible opinions. The Borat movies show this to a degree where you have people in an awkward situation and just agreeing with him because he's the customer. Sure there's the possibility they're terrible people as well but also he just said he's going to buy $1k worth of stuff so yes sir, the sky <I>is</I> rather green today. This is most evident with the artists, especially manbun. The way the whole scene goes down with the social media posts and how they talk all the way up to the actionable line but dance around it? Polite society won't call anyone out on that because you can't just assume they mean the worst, they could be uninformed. They're never uninformed, they always know where the line is.
I saw a comic a few weeks ago - maybe it was a tweet? - anyway, the gist of it was there are two people arguing, left and right. The person on the right says "why don't you meet me in the middle? and the person on the left takes a step forward, because they want to be seen as ready to compromise. the person on the right takes a step backward and says "why don't you meet me in the middle?" The point being that the person on the left is so concerned with seeming nice and ready to work together that the person on the left will always bring them to their side eventually by all the damn compromises.
Also you can look into the names all you want, that's just where they were positioned. But if you're seeing it politically, well, maybe that's because that is also true.
The characters in the book are mostly fleshed out very well. I say mostly because there's a time or two when you're like "really?" Manbun for one, but then I'm not as online as a lot of people so maybe that's more truth than I'd like to admit.
Spoiler: I actually like how the entire group fails, it's a welcome change from happy ending books. The real world doesn't work that way, so why does most of fiction? I did however see the way out even while it was being set up, but all that was is me constantly running odds on storyline potentials while I'm reading, kind of like Queens and numbers.But it was well-earned in the story and didn't feel cheap.
In closing,
Active Member
Finished: "Attack Surface" by Cory Doctorow... holy shit good. A lot dude techbros should read it. Powerful ethics arguments.
Starting: “Ideal War” by Christopher Kubasik; back into BattleTech.
Flaccid Member
Reading a book called "Other Minds" currently that's mostly about the cognitive function of cephalopods and some other animals. It's absolutely fascinating.
Sent from my HRY-LX1 using Tapatalk
Active Member
Continuing my long term goal to replace my paperback with hardcover editions...
A Bruce Sterling fiction anthology... not familiar with him? Well, how about William Gibson? Know him? Well, they co-wrote one book together and aside from that, Sterling writes in the same sort of near-future that Gibson does.
Posting Permissions
Likes: 
Faceplams: 
Reply With Quote
