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Grand unified books thread

Started by Syt, March 16, 2009, 01:52:42 AM

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Maladict


grumbler

Quote from: Maladict on June 24, 2020, 10:22:06 AM
Ordered  :cool:

Weren't you supposed to post this in you B4 account?  :lol:
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

garbon

"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Maladict

Quote from: grumbler on June 24, 2020, 11:02:24 AM
Quote from: Maladict on June 24, 2020, 10:22:06 AM
Ordered  :cool:

Weren't you supposed to post this in you B4 account?  :lol:

That's the one for rock climbing posts. No, wait...


11B4V

Quote from: grumbler on June 24, 2020, 08:22:26 AM
Quote from: 11B4V on June 23, 2020, 10:33:43 PM
Grumbler you a navy guy. What's your recommendation on the book Six Frigates?

Great book. Popular history in the vein of Ryan or McCullough (not scholarly like, say, Wilmott) so very readable.  I didn't see any significant flaws, errors, or unreasonable conclusion.  Highly recommended.

Thank you
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

Tamas


Syt

Reading Jill Lepore's These Truths, a history of the USA. Good writing so far (about 1/4 in, ca. 1820), with a lot of room given to the slavery question in the settling, founding and growth of the young nation. Slightly confusing when references are made to Malthus and Richard Hakluyt.  :hmm:
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

viper37

Savage Earth.

A 5 book series about the last humans living a sheltered existence in the air, in a flying city, while the Earth has been overrun by vampires 150 years ago.

It has some nice action elements, but the universe isn't that original.  It's a post-apocalyptical setting and it reminds me a lot of The 100, BSG and The Walking Dead.
I like how they did the vampires though. For the most part, they are savage beasts only driven by their instinct to feed, whenever they find a human.

Humans send down patrols, the GMT (Ground Mission Team) from time to time to gather some supplies, like electronic components to repair the city.

The first 3 books deal with the rise of a populist leader in the city, you'd swear he is Trump from the way he acts, except he is intelligent (that being the scariest part ;) ). The next 2 (or maybe 3, I think it's 6 books total...) deal with the continuation of the story and other problems arising.

They have a huge, huge problem with grammar.  I don't think I've ever read a book with so many grammar and spelling mistakes.  Inverted or skipped letters, wrong or missing pronoun, wrong or missing article, it's like there's something wrong every 3-4 pages.  It kinda distract from the reading.

All in all, not so bad despite not being highly original, except in its treatment of vampires.  I guess every author dealing with supernatural creatures bring his/her own mythology in it.

On the plus side, there is no boring love triangle, so no Twilight/Vampire Diaries stuff here.  Action, non descriptive sex and some lingering mystery on what really caused the widespread vampiric infection.

***/5.
I don't do meditation.  I drink alcohol to relax, like normal people.

If Microsoft Excel decided to stop working overnight, the world would practically end.

jimmy olsen

Are the vampires immortal?

Otherwise, shouldn't they have starved to death since they overran humanity and the survivors retreated to their city in the sky
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Eddie Teach

Or they could feed on animals maybe.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Razgovory

I am rereading the Lord of the Rings.  I read these books back in when I was about 12.  Now that I'm an adult I can appreciate the books quite a bit more.  For instance, I didn't know much about the imagine past of rural England as a sixth grader which is what the Shire is based on.  One funny thing:  Frodo's annoying relations are the Sackville-Bagginses and they are occasionally refereed to as S-Bs.  As a kid I thought the hyphen was censoring the letter "O", sort of like "G-D Damnit".  So I was under the impression Frodo was calling is relatives "Sons of Bitches".  I had forgotten all about that weird interpretation.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

The Brain

^_^ Ah, Amazon...

Religion & Spirituality Books:
Hitler's Eastern Legions 1942–45

I miss Ed. :(
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Syt

#4213
I finished Ian Kershaw's Hitler biography. I picked it up as unabridged audio book which ran at about 44 hours. A fascinating read and quite exhaustive. Though he seems to have cribbed the parts about the last few days in the bunker from the movie Downfall. :P

As paperback the book has 1,072 pages; it's abridged from the two part biography which was about twice as long. Or a a third longer? Getting confused info. :P While this was very good, I don't feel an immediate need to rush and get the two part version, though. :P
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Admiral Yi

Finished Bring Up the Bodies and started back over again with Wolf Hall.  Much, much less confusing.