So what are you reading this year 2021?
Khelon Testudo
Cleric of Stronmaus
Just finished reading Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary. Solid positive SF of the Hal Clement and Asimov school, where the problem and solution are based on logic and science, and the protagonist is basically a good person doing their best, depicted better than Asimov or Clement ever did. Much like The Martian before it.
trappedslider
Legend
checked out a couple from the library today:
Lord of Order by Brett Riley
and Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy
We'll see what if anything new this brings to the knowledge i already have.
Lord of Order by Brett Riley
Long after the destruction of all electronic technology, the Bright Crusade rules the world as a fundamentalist Christian theocracy. Gabriel Troy is Lord of Order for the New Orleans Principality. For years, he and his deputies have fought to keep their city safe from the attacks of the Crusade’s relentless enemies, the Troublers—heretical guerillas who reject the Crusade’s rule and the church’s strict doctrines. As their crowning achievement, Troy’s forces capture the Troublers’ local leader. The city has never been more secure.
Alarming intelligence leaks from Washington: Supreme Crusader Matthew Rook plans to enact a Purge—the mass annihilation of everyone deemed a threat to the Crusade. Rook orders his forces to round up all but the blindly loyal and march them to New Orleans. Once the prisoners have been chained inside, the Crusaders will wall off the city and destroy the levees. The resulting deluge, reenacting the Biblical deluge of Noah’s time and the city’s devastation during Hurricane Katrina, will kill everyone inside.
Forced to choose between the Crusade and the city he has sworn to protect, Troy and five other conflicted conspirators gird for battle, fully aware that the looming apocalypse will demand horrific choices, test their faith, and require them to join forces with their sworn enemies.
Alarming intelligence leaks from Washington: Supreme Crusader Matthew Rook plans to enact a Purge—the mass annihilation of everyone deemed a threat to the Crusade. Rook orders his forces to round up all but the blindly loyal and march them to New Orleans. Once the prisoners have been chained inside, the Crusaders will wall off the city and destroy the levees. The resulting deluge, reenacting the Biblical deluge of Noah’s time and the city’s devastation during Hurricane Katrina, will kill everyone inside.
Forced to choose between the Crusade and the city he has sworn to protect, Troy and five other conflicted conspirators gird for battle, fully aware that the looming apocalypse will demand horrific choices, test their faith, and require them to join forces with their sworn enemies.
and Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy
Nearly thirty years after the end of the Cold War, today’s world leaders are abandoning disarmament treaties, building up their nuclear arsenals, and exchanging threats of nuclear strikes. To survive this new atomic age, we must relearn the lessons of the most dangerous moment of the Cold War: the Cuban missile crisis.
Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons.
More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction.
Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.
Serhii Plokhy’s Nuclear Folly offers an international perspective on the crisis, tracing the tortuous decision-making that produced and then resolved it, which involved John Kennedy and his advisers, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and their commanders on the ground. In breathtaking detail, Plokhy vividly recounts the young JFK being played by the canny Khrushchev; the hotheaded Castro willing to defy the USSR and threatening to align himself with China; the Soviet troops on the ground clearing jungle foliage in the tropical heat, and desperately trying to conceal nuclear installations on Cuba, which were nonetheless easily spotted by U-2 spy planes; and the hair-raising near misses at sea that nearly caused a Soviet nuclear-armed submarine to fire its weapons.
More often than not, the Americans and Soviets misread each other, operated under false information, and came perilously close to nuclear catastrophe. Despite these errors, nuclear war was ultimately avoided for one central reason: fear, and the realization that any escalation on either the Soviets’ or the Americans’ part would lead to mutual destruction.
Drawing on a range of Soviet archival sources, including previously classified KGB documents, as well as White House tapes, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama and anxiety of those tense days, and provides a way for us to grapple with the problems posed in our present day.
We'll see what if anything new this brings to the knowledge i already have.
I finished Fear Nothing this morning, breezing through the last 100+ pages in one fell swoop - it was very good, probably the one I enjoyed most of the three Lisa Gardner novels I picked up. But since purchasing them, I had the opportunity to hit up the library book sale again and found three more of her novels, so I grabbed them up. Next up is The Killing Hour, about a series of killings involving two young women at a time - one of which has her body dumped almost immediately with a clue as to the whereabouts of the other, taunting the police to find her before she dies of exposure in the Georgia summer heat. This one was published back in 2003, a couple of years after The Third Victim, which was the first book of hers I read and enjoyed enough to add her to my list of authors whose books I'm automatically willing to give a shot. I discovered Jeffery Deaver's novels in the same way - inexpensive books purchased at the library book sale - and he's since become one of my favorite mystery/thriller writers; Lisa Gardner's a welcome addition to that list.
Johnathan
Johnathan
Khelon Testudo
Cleric of Stronmaus
Read Stephen King's "Later". Straightforward, well-written horror/thriller, with an ending that works. All in less than 250 pages - for King, that's a short story! I often find Kings larger works lose focus towards the end, and end unsatisfactorily. This was quite satisfactory.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
Finished A Fighting Man of Mars. I always forget just how much I love those Barsoom tales. Also, I wonder if cruel and spider-haunted Ghasta isn't part of the inspiration for the drow and Lolth:
"Upon it were painted in brilliant colors the most fantastic scenes that imagination might conceive. There were spiders with the heads of beautiful women, and women with the heads of spiders."
I read Cassandra Khaw's Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef. Quite enjoyed that. It felt way denser than it's 90-some pages, though it kept the pace up.
Now I'm re-reading Saberhagen's The First Book of Swords. I remember only liking it so-so years ago, but I hadn't read the Empire of the East series then, so I'm curious if that'll change my appreciation.
"Upon it were painted in brilliant colors the most fantastic scenes that imagination might conceive. There were spiders with the heads of beautiful women, and women with the heads of spiders."
I read Cassandra Khaw's Rupert Wong, Cannibal Chef. Quite enjoyed that. It felt way denser than it's 90-some pages, though it kept the pace up.
Now I'm re-reading Saberhagen's The First Book of Swords. I remember only liking it so-so years ago, but I hadn't read the Empire of the East series then, so I'm curious if that'll change my appreciation.
About half way thru....I can see why so many really like this book. The writing is very good.
KahlessNestor
Adventurer
Still reading Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson.
Still reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow.
Still reading Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore.
Finished reading Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How a Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine by David Edmonds and John Eidinow.
Still reading Turn Coat by Jim Butcher.
Still reading Emma by Jane Austen.
Still reading Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire.
Still reading The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray.
Still reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire.
Still reading The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor.
Still reading Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by Wizards of the Coast.
Still reading The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan.
Still reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.
Still reading Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.
Started reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Started reading The Immortal Game: A History of Chess by David Shenk.
Still reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow.
Still reading Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore.
Finished reading Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How a Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine by David Edmonds and John Eidinow.
Still reading Turn Coat by Jim Butcher.
Still reading Emma by Jane Austen.
Still reading Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire.
Still reading The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray.
Still reading Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire.
Still reading The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor.
Still reading Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by Wizards of the Coast.
Still reading The Burning Bridge by John Flanagan.
Still reading The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.
Still reading Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.
Started reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Started reading The Immortal Game: A History of Chess by David Shenk.
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