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Grand unified books thread

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

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Berkut

Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?
"If you think this has a happy ending, then you haven't been paying attention."

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Darth Wagtaros

Quote from: Berkut on February 05, 2010, 01:27:22 PM
Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?
It is very entertaining. 
PDH!

Malthus

Quote from: Berkut on February 05, 2010, 01:27:22 PM
Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?

Yup. I thought it was enjoyable, but very silly, space opera.

It's a fun read, just park your brain at the door a bit. Also, I thought the ending was weak.

Dunno if you want any spoilers, so I'll not say more.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

The Brain

Quote from: Berkut on February 05, 2010, 01:27:22 PM
Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?

I was entertained.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Agelastus

Quote from: Berkut on February 05, 2010, 01:27:22 PM
Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?

Yes, although the giant deus-ex-machina ending is both satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time. I read them when they were first published here in the UK, even buying the last volume in hardcover. I REALLY want the extras Joshua Calvert was loaded with... ;)

Have you read his earlier Greg Mandel books? They are also very good, whereas his more recent books seem to be "going off the boil" in my opinion.
"Come grow old with me
The Best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made."

ulmont

Quote from: Malthus on February 05, 2010, 01:55:31 PM
Quote from: Berkut on February 05, 2010, 01:27:22 PM
Has anyone read Peter Hamilton's The Nights Dawn trilogy?

Yup. I thought it was enjoyable, but very silly, space opera.

It's a fun read, just park your brain at the door a bit. Also, I thought the ending was weak.

Dunno if you want any spoilers, so I'll not say more.

This.

Sheilbh

The wonderful 'Woman in White'  I can't recommend it enough to anyone who, even slightly, likes a Victorian novel.
Let's bomb Russia!

Scipio

Final Crisis.

What a pile of dog shit.
What I speak out of my mouth is the truth.  It burns like fire.
-Jose Canseco

There you go, giving a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck.
-Every cop, The Wire

"It is always good to be known for one's Krapp."
-John Hurt

Admiral Yi

I've read enough Howard Zinn now to figure out that he was an idiot.

Kleves

I'm looking for recommendations about:

-North Africa in World War II. Ideally, something that covers everything from the Italians getting their asses kicked in 1940, to the Italians getting their asses kicked in 1943.

-The Middle East/North Africa in World War I. Similarly, an overview would be ideal.
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Habbaku

#595
Quote from: Kleves on February 07, 2010, 10:34:32 PM
-The Middle East/North Africa in World War I. Similarly, an overview would be ideal.

"North Africa" in World War I didn't see much of note.  There was, mainly, the Senussi uprisings and some minor Egyptian revolts along with the two attempts by the Turks to force the Suez Canal (one achieving very limited success, the other turning out to be a giant waste of time).

For the Middle East side of things, however, I can recommend Ordered to Die by Edward J. Erickson.  It's written from the Turkish point of view and most of the sources are Turkish archives that the author was allowed access to.  The writing is not exactly stellar, but it's one of the few English works on pretty much everything concerning the Turkish armies of the period and even contains a bit of enlightening (and disheartening) information about their involvement in the Balkan Wars.  It is, however, rather expensive to purchase, but a good university library should have a copy.

A more accessible, popular and affordable work with not quite as much of the nitty-gritty would be A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin.  It is not only about the war, but also its aftereffects in the region and the effects on today.
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

Sheilbh

Kazantzakis's 'Freedom and Death'.  An incredible book that is joyous and life-affirming and makes me wish I were Cretan and hope that somehow I sire a wife so that one day I can look out around my table and say 'greetings children and grand-children'.  This is really very, very good.

Currently reading the next Palliser novel, 'Phineas Finn'. 
Let's bomb Russia!

Pat

Was prompted to read some Hobsbawm, as he was called a genuis by Sheilbh. I'm reading his book on nationalism parallell with Otto Bauer's "The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy" (which I am forced to read in english as my german isn't good enough and there is no swedish translation).

Capetan Mihali

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 12, 2010, 09:40:00 PM
Kazantzakis's 'Freedom and Death'.  An incredible book that is joyous and life-affirming and makes me wish I were Cretan and hope that somehow I sire a wife so that one day I can look out around my table and say 'greetings children and grand-children'.  This is really very, very good.

:)  The derivation of my Languish moniker, published in Greek as Καπετάν Μιχάλης, more or less Capetan Mihali.  Kazantzakis was a true philosopher and a fantastic writer, everything from Zorba to his brutal narratives of the Greek civil war.
"The internet's completely over. [...] The internet's like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can't be good for you."
-- Prince, 2010. (R.I.P.)

jimmy olsen

Quote from: Sheilbh on February 12, 2010, 09:40:00 PM
makes me wish I were Cretan and hope that somehow I sire a wife

I thought you were from England, not Alabama?
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.
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