Amph What book are you reading right now?

No, for the simple reason I don't have them.

 

That makes sense.
And unfortunately, libraries tend to only have the full-length novels - at least the ones by me.

I'm going to start on Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams today

 

I started that one today.

There was something odd I just noticed in Red Harvest: a Zabrak Sith student. At least as recently as Deceived and Revan (granted, 300 years separated the two novels), only humans and Sith were considered citizens among the Sith Empire. I guess they started allowing aliens to be trained as Sith.

 

just read a book of interviews with Hal Ashby , fascinating career , his directing career defines the 70s in many ways , began in 1970 , made cult classic Harold and Maude , then The Last Detail , had a huge commercial hit with Shampoo , then Coming Home a brilliant anti Vietnam war movie , made a big budget flop Bound for Glory and ended the decade with Being There a critical and box office smash plus Oscars .

then everything he touched in the 80s fell apart , he died in '89 .

he was loved by actors but couldn't survive the rampant interfering of the studios when they started taking control again in the 80s .

 

Technogenesis by Syne Mitchell taking place in a VR connected world where a data miner becomes unconnected.

So I'm finished with The Gray Man series(until another one comes out early next year) and basically if you like Jason Bourne you'll like these, minus the brainwashing and memory loss.

 

I've been thinking about this since you've posted it.

What might have happened is the Emperor had secluded "pockets" where they could almost experiment and see how training very Force sensitive non-humans went. It would be rare cases though, with high sensitivities.

Or, you know...continuity errors



I finished Fatal Alliance and will move on to TOR: Annihilation later today.

 

Decided to read some known classics that I've never read or haven't in sometime.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

 

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka Volume 1 by Tohru Fujisawa

This is my first manga. I feel like I should have read some before now.

 

Wait Until Dark (1966) – Frederick Knott



So, this is the original play on which the classic film with Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin & Richard Crenna was based. It’s a cracker-jack play; if you’ve seen the movie, you know the play: the film follows the play slavishly with only a few things changed to be more cinematic. Anyway, its tale of three con-men menacing a blind girl in her apartment is nigh on to archetypal at this point, but it really, really works. The characters are all really wonderfully defined. Everyone loves Roat as a villain, but Mike is also a really great character, well-written with actual depth. The final act is perhaps not terrifically exciting as a read, but it makes for riveting theater. It’s a great play. 4 stars.

tl;dr – it’s no wonder a play this great inspired an equally great movie; riveting, thrilling theater with great, well-written parts and a crackerjack finale. 4 stars.

More Book Reviews!

 

Double Post!

 

Overwhelmed: How to Work, Love & Play When No One Has the Time (2015) – Brigid Schulte

This isn’t, before you roll your eyes, a self-help book. Schulte is a journalist and this book is her journalistic exploration of the current culture of extreme busyness that has sprung up in America over the last few decades. It’s a really fascinating, often enraging, book. Schulte digs into the culture of stress in a lot of powerful ways and then uses it as a springboard to talk about a lot of varied issues. A chapter on the impacts of stress on health is angering and drives home the point of the book: things HAVE to change, unless we all want to die. Continuing in this “stress bath” simply isn’t an option. Then, in a lengthy section about the relationship of the workplace to parenthood, Schulte marshals impressive data about the generally devastatingly bad state of child care and parental leave policies – in this section, she’s less theoretical than in others, talking explicitly about political and legal changes that need to happen. There’s a lengthy interview with Pat Buchanan about child care policies and it’s absolutely damning and absolutely withering. In the end, the book isn’t a self-help book, but many of the researchers she interviews have insightful things to say about finding ways to escape the overwhelming busyness and build a fulfilling life. Seinfeld has made it difficult to take the word “serenity” seriously, but at the end of the book, Schulte uses the small glimmers of hope and ideas that she’s found along her journey to point the way “toward time serenity.” It’s a noble goal and the ending of this book is genuinely emotionally moving; Schulte’s struggle is our collective struggle and her hope becomes our hope. This book doesn’t have a lot of answers; but it brings home the reality of the unsustainability of our current lifestyle and pushes the reader toward finding a way out of it, if for no other reason, because it WILL absolutely kill you. This is a book everyone in America should read. 4 stars.

tl;dr – journalist explores the origins, practices and effects of the modern culture of extreme busyness; not a self-help book, but it dares to imagine a way to time serenity. 4 stars.

More Book Reviews!

 

Darth Bane: Rule of Two

 

Old Republic: Annihilation

 

Just finished Fundamentals of Modern Police Impact Weapons and am starting the wonderfully titled Kill Or Get Killed when it arrives in the mail.

 

Secret Realms by Tom Cool. The blurb sounds like a post-cyberpunk version of Ender's Game where warriors raised in VR get their tactics used in the real world.

 

Serenity: Leaves on the Wind

 

Knight Errant

 

Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil

 

Master and Commander. Outstanding. The first of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books, it does an impeccable job of capturing the sense of seagoing life in the Napoleonic era. O'Brian has a deft hand with characterization, creating three memorable leads with strong personalities and interactions. I particularly enjoyed Dillon, whose personality is something of a mix of Aubrey's and Maturin's, but who keeps having personality conflicts with Aubrey that puts Maturin in the position of mediator. Dillon is a great, three-dimensional, flawed character who adds a strong dynamic to the growing friendship of Aubrey and Maturin. O'Brien has a nice eye for detail and understated prose that feels appropriate to the setting. The only slight drawback is that the pacing feels very odd, as there's no real throughline to the plot other than the developing interactions of these people. It's very episodic in nature, and O'Brian has a tendency to compound that by skipping about in the narrative. Frequently he'll cut out in the middle of action and go to hours or days later as something else is happening and the conclusion is filled in via recollection. It doesn't work too badly, because action sequences aren't really the point of the story, but it is awkward. Still, it's a great, vibrant, immersive story and I can't wait to get to the next novel. I've got a lot of Aubrey-Maturin to go and couldn't be more excited for it.

 

Havac, I read the whole series years ago and I'm just 3 books into rereading them all. If you've ever read any of the period accounts of naval action in that era, the writing style is very distinct. O'Brian captured that style beautifully.

You have a long way to go with these characters and their ups and downs. There may be times when you choose to go on to something else for a while, but I think you'll want to come back and finish them all eventually. The series wasn't finished when I started it so I often had to wait for the next book, and yet I was totally immersed again within the first page of each book, no matter how long I had been away.

Have you seen the movie? It's a different story, kind of pasted together from many of the books, which somehow does a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the series and the characters.

 

I adore the movie. I want to live in the alternate reality where it got a whole series of sequels.

 

Yeah, Russell Crowe was apparently totally up for sequels. So am I. That's a great movie. I'm actually kind of surprised that the BBC hasn't produced a Master and Commander radio series. They have a great track record of adapting classic novels into audio dramas and the Master and Commander novels seem like they would be a perfect fit for an on-going series of full cast dramatic readings.

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle comic books by IDW. Fantastic stuff.

 

Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

 

Legacy of the Jedi by Jude Watson