Amph What book are you reading right now?

You should be fine. I think there's a few references to Rae Sloane, who was a major Imperial character in those novels, but otherwise nothing that would affect your enjoyment of the story.


White Wolf by David Gemmell

Just this one and Swords of Night and Day left of his Drenai novels for me to read now. They've had their ups and downs but in general they've been mostly great reads. So far White Wolf is one of them too.

 

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

Really enjoying it so far.

 

Just finished the Fires of Heaven. Going to take a break and read Master and Apprentice

 

Rereading The Crippled God. This Malazan redo plus ICE has taken me soooo much longer than I wanted. 2 1/2 years and I still have more books in total before I’m done.

 

I've been gradually reading all of A Song of Ice and Fire over the past four months, since finishing up graduate school back in May. Currently halfway through A Dance With Dragons.

My girlfriend, a huge fan of the films since childhood, is reading through the books for the first time too. I think she's in the first few chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban right now. Having finished up a re-read of the series earlier this year myself, it's fun to see the writing in each book mature with the characters, alongside their perspectives and world views. Hope you enjoy the rest.

 

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, by Lawrence James. James never gets much beyond an overview of the sweeping history of the staggeringly enormous, world-changing empire, but he does a fair job of laying out its general history and overall dynamics, and highlighting the way it shifted and changed over time, exploring the way Britons thought about it, and providing a few key insights. James is an unexceptional writer, but entertaining enough and pretty fair in examining the legacy of the empire, its flaws and its benefits.

 

Lone Star Planet (also published as A Planet for Texans) by Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire, listened to as a talking book from LibriVox, read by Mark Nelson.

It's about Stephen Silk who has been assigned to be the Solar League's new ambassador to the planet New Texas, where they herd gigantic super-cows (who don't look one bit like cows) using tanks and fighter jets. New Texas was created by Texans who migrated there and created a society based on the dream of old Texas and the Wild West, where he killing of a practicing politician can be considered justifiable homicide.

Silk finds out that it was the last part that was the reason why a new ambassador was needed and he is most likely being sent as a sacrifice lamb to give the Solar League a reason to intervene....


I really liked this book, it was fun with is satire of Texan culture/self-image and the main character was witty.

 

Physical:
Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement before Roe v. Wade
by Daniel K. Williams

Listening:
Perelandra
by C. S. Lewis

 

On the Kindle - Meg: Generations - the sixth in Steve Alten's Meg series. (The recent film was based on the first book).
Fiction - hoping to start SW Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire later this evening or tomorrow. (Depends on when I finish my current Warhammer 40K book).

 

Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger. Originally published as Lost Moon and retitled after the movie, this is less a personal memoir from Lovell — it’s in the third person and doesn’t get too deep into his head — and more an expert witness’s attempt to chronicle the whole incredible story of Apollo 13’s brush with disaster and the incredible efforts that went into saving it. It’s highly informative and does a great job of presenting the tricky science of spaceflight comprehensibly. The chatty prose style is more beach read than sober history tome, but it’s not a lightweight effort and it’s a really compelling read.

 

It is my understanding the author hated the film primarily as it showed conflict between engineers and astronauts where in reality they all worked together well.

 

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager (2019) – Ben Philippe

In this YA novel, we follow Norris Kaplan, a Black French Canadian high schooler who is thrown into utter confusion by his move from Canada to the blistering heat of Texas; well, at least it’s Austin, right? The book is witty and Philippe has a nice sarcastic tone. I would say this book is above average for its genre which is the high-school comedy/drama. Philippe is interested in trotting out all the high-school stereotypes: the weird stoner, the stupid jock, the vapid cheerleader, the artsy nerd, etc. and then subverting them by exploring them and having them turn out to be different than Norris at first thinks. That’s appreciated and he manages to make a couple of them genuinely come to life, like Madison, the cheerleader; her scenes with Norris really work surprisingly well as Philippe develops her and their relationship. But is this really necessary? No, but if your YA reader wants to read a book like this, then this is one you can basically feel comfortable with, because it won’t insult their intelligence as much as most of these books do. 2 ½ stars.

tl;dr – somewhat above average YA novel is a typical high-school novel with some tropes subverted and a bit more character development than usual; far from great, but not bad. 2 ½ stars.

 

How Canadian is it?

 

They lost me at the idea that anyone would move to Austin proper in this housing market, holy **** that's a lot of money.

 

@VadersLaMent



It was specifically this scene that was the issue. Lovell said that nothing even remotely like this happened and Ron Howard said that the purpose of this scene was to illustrate the underlying tension for the audience.

 

You by Caroline Kepnes

It was just made into a Netflix show. I haven't been this disturbed by a novel in a long long time. A little over halfway through.

 

Oh hell. I screwed up. I was thinking The Right Stuff.

 

Just finished Gone With the Wind and starting Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (talk about shift of topics).

E-book: just started re-reading Star Wars: Allegiance by Zahn.

Audiobook: Carrie by Stephen King

 

Scarlett would be intensely interested in the Wealth part, though.

 

When I come to think about it she fits as an example for Smith's books. So in a sense they are related.

Oooh, a fellow Wh40k fan, which one?

 

The Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight. I thought it was pretty good. It's told from the point of view of a group of Chaos Space Marines. I liked it. If you go there, it is kinda gruesome in places so not one to read while eating.

 

I am catching up with the Horus Heresy. I recommend Gaunt's Ghosts and the Ciaphas Cain books.

 

I've tried the Ghosts and Cain books - don't really care for them. I prefer the Space Marines. I like the Inquisitors as well - Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn books were the first ones I read. I've read some of the Horus books as well but the series has just dragged on.

 

I mean, the other characters call him "Canada" and he starts an ice hockey team. Honestly, I would say not very. I think Philippe is Canadian and there is a section where Norris goes back to Canada for a brief vacation, but it doesn't lean into the "Canadianness" of the character much. There's no slang to speak of; he basically speaks exactly like an American. And I can't recall many cultural references either.