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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack7" data-source="post: 5021872" data-attributes="member: 54707">We got new puppies, it's the holidays and so there's a lot of charity work, and I got some deadlines to meet. So not a lot of free time to read, and much of the free time I have is spent studying for my exams so I can rise in rank. I've always really liked the holidays, but at my age they're an incredibly time-consuming part of the year.Nevertheless I've tried to read and/or listen to some good materials.Non-FictionCrossing the Threshold of Hope - this time I listened to it on CD. It was like my third time reading the book and everytime I read it I notice something new and interesting, but listening to it I noticed all kinds of new stuff. The man was supremely well-educated, and a brilliant theologian.Just about finished Lost to the West. I not only highly recommend it, I highly recommend the <a href="http://www.12byzantinerulers.com/" target="_blank">podcasts</a>.The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior - A really interesting book so far about the time in 1502 when Leonardo Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia met and worked together. I'm not far in so far but it's good. Really good.FictionStrange Brew - This was a short story collection of "urban fantasy." Don't get me wrong, I really like Jim Butcher, but aside from his story, most of these tails (tales) stank on dry ice. I ditched it for Lint. The kind I found on my coat pocket.21 - Now this was really interesting. It was the last unfinished story of Captain Jack Aubrey (one of my all time favorite fictional characters). I had previously listened to it on CD, but this time I got a copy of the book. It was really fascinating because I was able to not only see O'Brian's rough draft for the story, and examine the copy in detail, but it also included a facsimile of the actual manuscript. You can tell a lot about the way a man thinks by looking at his manuscripts. Interestingly enough he handled the manuscript for this one much like I handle many of my fictional manuscripts (depending on the exact subject matter of the story - only his writing is harder to read cause I print), but in some ways his manuscript work method was very different from mine. It was fascinating to be able to examine that copy and that manuscript though. It gave me several new ideas about structure and form for a media project I'm working.Destroyer of Worlds - As a kid I read science fiction voraciously. Then later fantasy and other types of fiction. Then for over twenty years I couldn't stomach function at all. Slowly I forced myself to read fiction again, cause my wife and buddies wanted me to try my hand at fiction writing. So I read some of it. Slowly I actually got to liking some of it again. The last category I came back to though was science fiction. Now as a kid I liked Niven a lot. Recently I've read all his new Fleet of Worlds books. And I've liked them all. But this was by far the best. The story is about many things, but mainly about a Pak Protector, and his human corollary. And a really good story at that. As with Niven the titles almost always mean something other than they originally imply and as soon as I saw one of the planetary drives explode I knew what the title really meant. Still it was awfully good. Out of curiosity I looked up Niven on his website (after all it had been about three decades since I last read anything by or about the man) and was fascinated, but not shocked to learn that he had been an advisor to President Reagan on his original Star Wars Defense initiative. No doubt because of his extensive study, ideas, and theoretical knowledge on kinetic kill weapons. Which at the time, when ICBMs were all you really had to worry about in nuke delivery would have made very effective ballistic missile killers. Nowadays though with cruise missiles, stealth, some robotic aerial vehicles and drone types, and smuggled weapons of mass destruction kinetic kill weapons seem almost quaint, except as maybe a mass deterrent. Still you gotta give Niven credit for helping out where he could. I admire that.Bad Business - This is a Spenser book, and I gotta admit, probably he best case Spenser and Hawk have ever worked. It was so interesting and so confused that I really didn't figure out exactly what was happening, though I knew much earlier who was involved, the first time I read of the scrap-book and Hawk mentioned O'Mara's man, that Spenser actually got there only a little after I did. I highly recommend this case.LecturesI saw Freeman Dyson on a good little lecture/talk the other day called Nukes and Genomes. I think it was out of Stanford, can't remember. I like Dyson not only because he is a real scientist, but because he so often demolishes pop science, like Global Warming. He don't care much for Aristotle either. I've always meant to read Yates and always had other subject matter come up. Do you like his works?</blockquote>

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