Grand unified books thread

[The Brain]

Finished The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914. I was shocked to learn that Slavs are horrible, horrible people and responsible for WW1.

[Jacob]

The p. 45 game. There are two books in equal proximity.

"I've seen this happen not just with mobile teams but also with other small groups like those working in casual PC or on UDK"; and

"Chaos - the first thing to exist, in Hesiod's account of creation in the Theogony."

... not sure how to feel about that.

[crazy canuck]

From recounting the intricate details and controversies behind the peace treaty that ended the First World War, Margaret MacMillan, the award-winning historian and author of the international bestseller Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World, has moved back in time to consider the origins of "the war to end wars." Her new book, The War that Ended Peace: The Road to 1914, will be out this fall – in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the war next August.

The Chapters website has this being released on October 29th.

[Syt]

Finished The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914. I was shocked to learn that Slavs are horrible, horrible people and responsible for WW1.

I considered picking that one up. There were also two other topical books that looked interesting: one about the year 1914 in Vienna, before the war - how city life was on the eve of the fall of the Habsburg empire. And "From Sarajevo to Bad Ischl", which chronicles the month between the assassination of the Archduke and the declaration of war on Serbia.

[The Brain]

Finished The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914. I was shocked to learn that Slavs are horrible, horrible people and responsible for WW1.

I considered picking that one up. There were also two other topical books that looked interesting: one about the year 1914 in Vienna, before the war - how city life was on the eve of the fall of the Habsburg empire. And "From Sarajevo to Bad Ischl", which chronicles the month between the assassination of the Archduke and the declaration of war on Serbia.

Pick it up.

[jimmy olsen]

 

[Kleves]

Some enjoyable fantasy/sci-fi I've read recently:

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis:

It's 1939. The Nazis have supermen, the British have demons, and one perfectly normal man gets caught in between.

Raybould Marsh is a British secret agent in the early days of the Second World War, haunted by something strange he saw on a mission during the Spanish Civil War: a German woman with wires going into her head who looked at him as if she knew him.

When the Nazis start running missions with people who have unnatural abilities—a woman who can turn invisible, a man who can walk through walls, and the woman Marsh saw in Spain who can use her knowledge of the future to twist the present—Marsh is the man who has to face them. He rallies the secret warlocks of Britain to hold the impending invasion at bay. But magic always exacts a price. Eventually, the sacrifice necessary to defeat the enemy will be as terrible as outright loss would be.

Ravenor by Dan Abnett:
Sequel to Abnett's Warhammer 40k Eisenhorn novels about the Imperial Inquisition. The Ravenor books are darker, and you get more of the Imperium's dystopian flavor.

The Grim Company by Luke Scull:

The Gods are dead. The Magelord Salazar and his magically enhanced troops, the Augmentors, crush any dissent they find in the minds of the populace. On the other side of the Broken Sea, the White Lady plots the liberation of Dorminia, with her spymistresses, the Pale Women. Demons and abominations plague the Highlands.

The world is desperately in need of heroes. But what they get instead are a ragtag band of old warriors, a crippled Halfmage, two orphans and an oddly capable manservant: the Grim Company.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson:

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The Ten Thousand by Paul Kearney:

On the world of Kuf, the Macht are a mystery, a seldom-seen people of extraordinary ferocity and discipline whose prowess on the battlefield is the stuff of legend. For centuries they have remained within the remote fastnesses of the Harukush Mountains. In the world beyond, the teeming races and peoples of Kuf have been united within the bounds of the Asurian Empire, which rules the known world, and is invincible. The Great King of Asuria can call up whole nations to the battlefield.
His word is law.

But now the Great King¹s brother means to take the throne by force, and in order to do so he has sought out the legend. He hires ten thousand mercenary warriors of theMacht, and leads them into the heart of the Empire.

Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan:

Field Marshal Tamas' coup against his king sent corrupt aristocrats to the guillotine and brought bread to the starving. But it also provoked war with the Nine Nations, internal attacks by royalist fanatics, and the greedy to scramble for money and power by Tamas's supposed allies: the Church, workers unions, and mercenary forces.

Stretched to his limit, Tamas is relying heavily on his few remaining powder mages, including the embittered Taniel, a brilliant marksman who also happens to be his estranged son, and Adamat, a retired police inspector whose loyalty is being tested by blackmail.

Now, as attacks batter them from within and without, the credulous are whispering about omens of death and destruction. Just old peasant legends about the gods waking to walk the earth. No modern educated man believes that sort of thing. But they should...

[Queequeg]

Finished The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914. I was shocked to learn that Slavs are horrible, horrible people and responsible for WW1.

[Ed Anger]

Very horrible people.

[Eddie Teach]

True, but the CP were responsible.

[Ed Anger]

They were provoked by Slavs.

[garbon]

Finished The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to war in 1914. I was shocked to learn that Slavs are horrible, horrible people and responsible for WW1.

So far the Serbs sound pretty horrible.

[Queequeg]

Currently listening to The Guns of August.  Still think Austrians are to blame.

[Sheilbh]

Germans and Russians.

[Admiral Yi]

Russkies.