Amph What book are you reading right now?

Yes. I'm reading it right now. But I think it's only fair to acknowledge that 21 is just a fragment. If you want to talk about finality for the series, you really have to go with the last completed book.

 

Well, I finally did it. I finished the series, all 6500 pages of it. And I loved it. Patrick O'Brian passed away in the middle of writing his latest novel, with only two and a half chapters written but not yet revised. The resulting fragment, not yet titled by O'Brian at his death, was subsequently published several years after his death, under the simple, unassuming title 21 in America, and the rather more descriptive, but florid (and Stephen-shortchanging), The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey in Britain. The presentation is respectful, almost reverent, making sure it doesn't feel exploitative. There's a foreword from the editor, the presentation of O'Brian's revised typescript, only minimally edited, right down to its midsentence end, and then facsimile pages of O'Brian's handwritten notes and manuscript for the little bit that hadn't been typed up yet, followed by a laudatory afterword by critic Richard Snow. It's a very nice presentation of material that's ultimately of interest only to committed fans, and goes out of its way not to mess with O'Brian's work (perhaps too far -- while the facsimile pages are a very nice idea, O'Brian's handwriting is completely incomprehensible and I had to turn to an online transcript by a more dedicated fan to make any sense of the pages).

As for the material itself, it's clearly in the draft stages, with everything not quite set yet and the feeling that there's a little more fleshing-out to be done, as well as a few blips that would have eventually been caught in editing (my favorite being the mysterious reappearance of Wantage, the master's mate who died halfway through the last book). With O'Brian's books usually slow to start, with each beginning often a bit of an epilogue to the book before and a lot of setting-up and introducing of new elements and characters to do, it doesn't get into much in the way of events, but we do get to see Jack raise his flag as admiral; meet his illegitimate, black, Catholic son Sam again, now a papal nuncio, to Jack's touching pride; and reunite with his family as the whole crew comes out to go to the Cape with him. We also get some hints of what conflicts might have run through the book, with Jack and his commanding admiral not getting off on the right foot, and the presence of an arrogant army officer attempting to court Stephen's intended and already getting into a duel with him; certainly he would make more trouble later. It might not accomplish a great deal narratively, then, but it does offer a few last very significant treats for the dedicated reader, and I think it demonstrates that there continued to be a great deal of storytelling left in Jack and Stephen even without a war. The core of the books was never naval action -- they didn't rely on battles and cutting-out expeditions. The core was in experiencing the rich emotional lives of these beautifully-drawn characters, experiencing these fascinating historical times and ways of living through their eyes. You could just as well have books and books about Jack whipping squadrons into shape and disagreeing with his superiors, sitting on land managing his affairs and getting into trouble in society, Stephen managing delicate peacetime intrigues, hell, elderly Jack and Stephen back at home watching their children's careers, hunting, talking about life, going into London to see the concerts and have dinners and speak to the Royal Society. They're characters who just continue to work no matter what situation you put them in.

What tremendous, beautiful books. Months and months of reading, thousands of pages, and I'm terribly sorry to come to the end of them.

 

Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner.

 

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

 

The Hairdresser of Harare

 

I started reading Outlander, to see what all the buzz is about. So far I'm enjoying it.

 

I finally finished A Bridge Too Far, by Cornelius Ryan. It's an amazing story, thoroughly researched and well told. If you've seen the movie, you know the basics of the story, but as usual, even an epic-length film leaves out huge amounts of the true story. Strongly recommended.

 

A Night to Remember on my Kobo.

 

Song of Ice & Fire
Just finished Storm of Swords and started Feast for Crows

 

Well, then, I'm glad I started reading now that there's like 9 books out.

 

Battlefront:Twilight Company. I've heard enough good things about it to give it a look

 

The Force Unleashed II

 

Mark of Athena(Heroes of Olympus #3 by Rick Riordan)
Only 100 or so pages but this is just as good as the other stuff Riordan has done.

 

With Steppenwolf knocked out - and it's a fascinating novel, by the way, well worth a read if you've ever remotely thought of reading more Hesse than your schooling demanded of you - I've moved on to The Book of Lost Tales, Vol. I. It's exactly what I assumed it would be: clunky, early Tolkien. Perhaps predictably it's not nearly as well-written as Steppenwolf (even in translation!), but I'll get through it. I'm thinking Murakami for my next book because **** it.

The Great Hunt got a little weird towards the end because of some weird slave collar malarky that I'm hoping is confined to about six chapters of WTFery. I can forgive and forget, so in audiobooks I've moved on to The Dragon Reborn. I'm really enjoying these Wheel of Time books, warts and all, so no matter what slowdown I encounter in later titles I don't think I'll regret embarking on this dumb voyage. I should note that I'm not actually sure I would have the same opinion if I was reading them - the prose is the sort of by the numbers overly descriptive stuff I usually only excuse in nonfiction, and I think the audiobook format takes some of that edge off.

 

The Lando Calrissian Adventures

 

^ Good for you, old toaster!

 

Jackaby by William Ritter. It's good YA fantasy fun. Think a good Sherlockian pastiche filtered through JK Rowling and you kind of get the idea.

 

another shout out to "Er ist Wieder Da." The German satirical novel that begins with Adolf Hitler waking up on a park bench in 2011 Berlin, his Afrika Korps uniform reeking of gasoline.

 

That was released in the UK as Look Who's Back. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

The Maltese Falcon

 

Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero

 

I'm about halfway through Antoine St Exupery's Wind, Sand, and Stars. Holy purple prose, Batman! He's gone indigo!

 

Meeting Infinity was mediocre at best. A couple of the stories were pure gold though.

Moving on to The Ghost In The Shell volume 1 which is a collected version in American reading order. I did not check closely on these volumes but now I learn there is this volume 1, then a 1.5, then a 2.0. This is my first shot into this manga though I have seen the anime.

 

The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough. It was a quick read for me, and a good study of Wilbur and Orville's personalities. I found it a little light on the technical aspects of their works, but I'm an aviation tech head since way back.