Grand unified books thread

[Agelastus]

#1 - Yes it was. Most of the other isles were free, but Tremalking was definitely occupied.

It wasn't as of the Amayar leaving to take the message to the other Isles. Nor was it occupied as of Logain's meeting with the wavemistresses prior to shipping food to Arad Doman (since they specifically mentioned only the difficulty the Amayar had in getting to the Aile Somera, not in getting off Tremalking.)

So when did the Seanchan conquer Tremalking? All that's left is doing it during the period when they were canonically consolidating following the arrival of the news of the civil war in Seanchan.

Give me chapter and verse prior to the final volume where it says Tremalking was conquered, please?

Hmm...I might have been thinking of Cantorin.  Sanderson likely was as well.

Cantorin in the Aile Somera, IIRC.

I might have to get back to looking for the "arrows" reference tomorrow. It appears I need to go out into the snow now.

[Ed Anger]

I buy my paperbacks at the bookstore, because I can't skeeve on the teenyboppers in the "Teen Paranormal Romance" section on Amazon.  Fuck the price.  It's an eye candy surcharge.

Mindy Kaling had a bit about this on her show. Like any real person she buys her books online, but goes to the store and pretends to be looking for books to check people out.

That's how Ed met his future wife, after all.  Cruising the "Young Adult" section.

Magazines actually.

[CountDeMoney]

I buy my paperbacks at the bookstore, because I can't skeeve on the teenyboppers in the "Teen Paranormal Romance" section on Amazon.  Fuck the price.  It's an eye candy surcharge.

Mindy Kaling had a bit about this on her show. Like any real person she buys her books online, but goes to the store and pretends to be looking for books to check people out.

That's how Ed met his future wife, after all.  Cruising the "Young Adult" section.

Magazines actually.

Tiger Beat.

[jimmy olsen]

Highlights

[Sheilbh]

My most recent read was River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh - the second in the trilogy after Sea of Poppies.

The action primarily takes place in Shanghai. It's interesting to see bits on the opium trade and wars from a different perspective than usual, but overall I thought the book a little more disjointed than what I had come to expect.

Haven't read it, but I wasn't terribly impressed with The Glass Palace. It seemed a bit predictable and very uneven. So far I've given the Opium Wars trilogy a miss.

[Ed Anger]

I buy my paperbacks at the bookstore, because I can't skeeve on the teenyboppers in the "Teen Paranormal Romance" section on Amazon.  Fuck the price.  It's an eye candy surcharge.

Mindy Kaling had a bit about this on her show. Like any real person she buys her books online, but goes to the store and pretends to be looking for books to check people out.

That's how Ed met his future wife, after all.  Cruising the "Young Adult" section.

Magazines actually.

Tiger Beat.

She still has her boy band posters.

[Jacob]

Haven't read it, but I wasn't terribly impressed with The Glass Palace. It seemed a bit predictable and very uneven. So far I've given the Opium Wars trilogy a miss.

I never got into the Glass Palace. I think I read the first two pages and decided that I didn't really care.

Sea of Poppies was interesting I thought, and it kept me engaged. The subject and setting is one where you almost always see things from the perspective of Brits serving their crown one way or another, so it's an interesting change of pace to see it from some other perspectives. I didn't find it particularly predictable.

By River of Smoke it got too disjointed, and he's a bit more moralizing as well, which I found disappointing. I think he spent too long researching and not enough time editing.

[Jacob]

My most recent read was River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh - the second in the trilogy after Sea of Poppies.

The action primarily takes place in Shanghai. It's interesting to see bits on the opium trade and wars from a different perspective than usual, but overall I thought the book a little more disjointed than what I had come to expect.

I quite liked Sea of Poppies but he's not very good at plotting, tries to pack too much in.

River of Smoke is downhill from that, alas. I'll still read the last one, just to see if he can pull it out of the fire.

[Admiral Yi]

What's the best book on D-Day + the campaign in Normandy? Same question for the Battle of the Bulge.

More of a "literary work" rather than a straight up comprehensive history, but I have a total mancrush on Keegan's "Six Armies at Normandy."  He gives like a little mini cultural/military history of the six nationalities that fought at Normandy (Krauts, Good Guys, Brits, Canucks, Polacks, Frogs) then feeds that into one signifcant part of the Normandy campaign that the country took part in.  For example Yanks are featured in the airborne landing.

When I was in high school I read Peter Eisenhower's book on the Bulge.  Very comprehensive.  Not light reading.  Maps are decent.

[Syt]

Anyone here familiar with Peter F. Hamilton?

He got recommended to me by a friend when I said I'm looking for decent sci-fi to read.

I started with Mindstar Rising. It's the first book of a three part series about a former elite soldier with telepathic enhancements who now works as private investigator.

I'm a quarter into the book, though, and I feel thoroughly bored.

I like the setting: England post-global warming, and after a socialist party has nearly ruined the country - it's now being rebuilt by conservatives and benevolent enterpreneurs. Yes, the book was published during the Blair years. Obvious political message aside, though, he does a good job of giving you a picture of how the country has changed.

However, the plot is not really that interesting, and even the interesting bits are told, not shown. The protagonist is hired by an enterpreneur to sniff out a case of suspected industrial sabotage in one of the orbital factories. Using his intuitive and extrasensory abilities he quickly finds out that the production isn't faulty, but only recorded as such, and that someone skims it off to sell it. Anyways, a big deal is made out of it how he has a bad hunch about going to the station, and that his hunches are usually right etc. Also, he's never been in space and is nervous about it.

So you think, "Golly, this could make for an interesting story if he uncovers the plot, and the antagonist tries to keep it quiet, culminating in a dramatic, and hopefully inventive action scene that forces the hero to go to his limits nin the unfamiliar environment."

What happens in reality: he goes up there, adjusts immediately to moving about in near zero-g, and talks to the security chief.

The very next scene tells us through the other main character of the story that he has apprehended all the infiltrators. Err, ok. The hunch he had turned out to be that there was a second sabotage plot going on and we're told what it is. Next scene they apprehend the last guy of that second operation, remarking how he fortunately didn't give them nearly as much trouble as the other guy who went berserk.

Hero returns to Earth, there's a briefing about who was behind the whole scheme, how they discovered it and why. End of Act 1.

As said, about 1/4 into the book, and there's rarely been a moment when I've been drawn into the story - the protagonist has yet to be in a situation where his skills are seriously challenged and you wonder how/if he gets out of a bad situation (psychologically or physically). The tensest situation was at the beginning when he used his psychic abilities to quiet a hyperreligious father who wanted to take his sexy young daughter back to the commune. (Protagonist and girl end up being an item.) The story is interspersed with people travelling around (cross country trip, riding out, driving through a city) to dump exposition about the setting on us. The only really compelling character is the 17 year old heiress to her grandfather's corporation who is torn between the self doubt that comes with growing up, and the responsibility of running the company after his death.

So my question is: Are all his books like this? Or is this a one off?

[Gups]

Yep, I've read two books by Peter Hamilton - Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, two parts of the same story.

Set quite a long way into the future. people can regenerate etc and wormholes are used for travel. Ends up with humans fighting a batter for survival against another species.

They were OK. Plotting was fine and the description of the evolution of the enemy species (which took a solid 150 pages or so) was genuinely engrossing. The trouble with most sci-fi and fantasy is that they are poorly written. A lot of people don't care much about this (or don't know any better) but it buggers up my suspension of disbelief. Peter Hamilton is no exception. He's not a terrible writer but he's not very good either.

I usually end up sating any compulsion for sci-fi with Iain M Banks, who actually can write well.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I've read his Night's Dawn books. They weren't bad, but could get kinda bogged down in travelogues.

[Gups]

Just finishing Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker.

It's very good. On a par with the Goneaway World. Like Neal Stephenson with jokes. Not perfect (tendency to digress a bit too much and overcomplicate the plot) but very enjoyable and much more interesting than the likes of Gaiman and Aaronovitch.

Hope he progresses as a writer because he has the potential for greatness in his genre, just like his Dad.

[jimmy olsen]

Read the same ones as Gups, really liked them.

[Syt]

Yep, I've read two books by Peter Hamilton - Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, two parts of the same story.

Set quite a long way into the future. people can regenerate etc and wormholes are used for travel. Ends up with humans fighting a batter for survival against another species.

They were OK. Plotting was fine and the description of the evolution of the enemy species (which took a solid 150 pages or so) was genuinely engrossing. The trouble with most sci-fi and fantasy is that they are poorly written. A lot of people don't care much about this (or don't know any better) but it buggers up my suspension of disbelief. Peter Hamilton is no exception. He's not a terrible writer but he's not very good either.

I usually end up sating any compulsion for sci-fi with Iain M Banks, who actually can write well.

Thanks, Gups, I'll check out Banks instead.

Regarding the first bit of the book, it gave me a workout in "how to make this more interesting and dramatic"? What if the hero did not adjust to the weightlessness so easily? What if there was a suspicious accident on the flight up? What if when mindread the people he misread someone who was guilty over something else, leading to a wrongful arrest? Or if one saboteur could block or deflect his attempt because he was also enhanced? When the hero realizes his mistake he stops trusting his special abilities and doubts his own judgment.

Further, we are told that the work in the orbital factory is pretty shitty, even if you have a decent employer. What if the mood has been tense before he arrived? Now he's making arrests left and right - what will the workers say? What if it's framed (maybe by the antagonist, or by arresting an innocent) as a narc rooting out undesirables from the work staff? Could this trigger a striker or riot? How will this play out, considering firearms are forbidden on the station? Has someone smuggled one aboard, or built one up there? And how will the hero react to the situation, cast in self doubt, in the uncomfortable and unknown environment? Will he overcome the shortcomings and learn to trust not only his special powers?

Clichéed? Sure. But infinitely more appealing than just phoning in, "Job done! No problems!"



But I agree that a lot of published fantasy and sci-fi is written be hacks. A good story and setting and interesting characters can make up for a lot in that regard, though. Still, my favorite disappointment were the Mass Effect books. I loved the first two games (haven't played the third much yet), and got the books written by the writer of the games. I had to put the first book aside, because it was horrific to read in style and plot.