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What Are You Reading Right Now?



Aztec by Gary Jennings

Ive been looking to read this one for a long time, but I waited until a used bookstore at the mall near my place got a copy. Just started and so far its very good. I like the otherwordlyness of it and the historical accuracy.



Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist

Its a vampire book (and two movies were based out of it- the original Swedish one was great, so I didnt bother to watch the Hollywood remake) about a bullied young kid in Sweden who ends up meeting a "female" vampire. Reading this concurrently with Aztec. Both are good so far.
 

Greetings, PoS. :2wave:

Just ordered it! :kissy: They say I'll have it in two days.... :thumbs: I'm gonna miss the talking dog - I wonder what the dogs I "babysit" would say if they knew and could growl at me about it .... :mrgreen:
 
polgara said:
Greetings, PoS. :2wave:

Just ordered it! :kissy: They say I'll have it in two days.... :thumbs: I'm gonna miss the talking dog - I wonder what the dogs I "babysit" would say if they knew and could growl at me about it .... :mrgreen:
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Thanks, polgara! I hope you like it.
 
The Doomsday Machine - Daniel Ellsberg - Bloomsbury - 2017 - 420pp



Before Daniel Ellsberg became famous (or infamous depending on your viewpoint) for the Pentagon Papers about Vietnam, he worked for the RAND corporation and the US government as a nuclear war planner. When he copied the Pentagon Papers, he also copied all of his notes and documents (higher than Top Secret) relating to US nuclear war plans and targets. He wanted to release the Pentagon Papers first because people were dying there and it was more immediate. He intended to also release everything about nuclear war soon afterward, but circumstances conspired against it. Until 2017, 48 years later. Despite the passage of many decades, nothing really has changed. Ellsworth tells us that the US public still has no inkling how close the world was to Armageddon during the Cuba Missile Crisis. Back in the 1980's, RAND calculated that in a nuclear war with Russia and China, 640 million people would die in Russia/eastern Europe and China/Asia within two months. As if that number isn't horrible enough, this calculation was done before scientists and war planners became aware of the Nuclear Winter phenomenon. Although both the US and Russia have far fewer nuclear warheads today (3,000 total), Ellsworth calculates that 1,500 would be enough to trigger a Nuclear Winter. Every human on this planet would be dead within 6 months. Most from starvation. A sobering read.
 
I'm up to page 2 of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.
 
"So, Anyway..." John Cleese.

An autobiography, apparently the first of two intended parts. As you might expect, he keeps you laughing.
 
Im about 1/3 done with Aztec. Im really liking it so far. Keeps my interest throughout, which normally doesnt happen with huge books.

Also reading: Testament by David Morrell



Its about a writer who takes his family and goes on the run from a white supremacist group out to kill them all. An old thriller. The suspense is good so far, but I dont like the protagonist- he treats his family like crap, and the plot sometimes verges on being too unrealistic (the bad guys always seem to be everywhere, cops are completely incompetent, etc.), but its still very readable. I'll definitely finish it because Im getting good research material on wilderness survival.
 
Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life And Death of a Town Called Buczacz by Omer Bartov

 


A memoir from the (then) young Russian military conscript Arkady Babchenko about his time spent fighting in the Chechnya I (1995) and Chechnya II (1999) wars.
He brilliantly captures the fear, drudgery, chaos, and brutality of modern combat. This past week (30 May 2018) Mr. Babchenko was part of a Ukraine Security Service
(SBU) sting operation to catch Russian assassins operating in Ukraine. Two were captured.
 
"out of the depths"

Account of a survivor of the USS Indianapolis, abandoned (in part due to cover-up) for 4.5 days in shark-infested waters. Gripping, harrowing, etc., everything you would expect.

However he wouldn't shut the **** up about religion. About every other page contained a mini-sermon. I suppose turning to some belief that one lived because God is better than turning to drugs or suicide to deal with the inevitably severe trauma such an experience would inflict, but really....I don't want to hear about it.

(I also have to blink at the astounding dissonance involved in praising God for saving him, for asserting it was because of some plan, and then talking about seeing or hearing his buddies get ripped apart alive, then seeing their corpses/mostly-skeletons bobbing along in the currents with him. So you're good enough for his plan but they weren't? This isn't the religion forum, so I'll keep this brief: if there is a creator that intervened but once in the universe - but once - then I condemn that creator. A creator who intervenes but once necessarily fixes reality owing to their position (that is, if the creator is of biblical proportions: all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful. A decision to intervene is inextricably a decision not to intervene elsewhere. That would turn the universe into a game of barbie dolls no matter how "glorious" the purpose. The only just creator would be one that sparked the big bang with a true random seed (as opposed to imperfect ones we humans have come up for for various programs) and did.....nothing. Nothing, not once, no matter what happened. That would grant true free will and, from there, meaning).
 
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"Seven Roads to Hell; a screaming eagle at Bastogne" (Burgett).

Recently finished off some Pratchett (Comedy-fantasy): The Amazing Maurice (and something about mice), The Wee Free Men.
 
Finished Aztec- totally awesome book. One of the best Ive read in a long time. 10/10


Firefox by Craig Thomas- got a used copy for 18 cents so I bought it. Very straightforward and pretty much the same as the movie with Clint Eastwood. 7.5/10


The Lost World by Michael Crichton- read it for research purposes. So-so. 5/10


The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright- provides very good insight on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the events that led up to 9/11. Havent finished it yet, but its very good so far.
 


Explains Moscow's disinformation culture at home and the disinformation campaigns in America and Europe.

A must read.
 
Just finished "I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes. Not a bad spy/secret agent thriller. Currently reading "SJWs Always Lie" by Vox Day and "Mila 18" by Leon Uris.
 
NoMereRanger said:
Just finished "I Am Pilgrim" by Terry Hayes. Not a bad spy/secret agent thriller. Currently reading "SJWs Always Lie" by Vox Day and "Mila 18" by Leon Uris.
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I Am Pilgrim knocked me out. I have read it twice. Great book.

I bought the book a couple of years ago and devoured it. Immediately after I finished it I went on Amazon to see if there was a sequel. There was. It was soon to be finished and published within 6 months. I pre-ordered the 2nd book. Then, the publishing date was delayed 6 months. Then Amazon sent me a refund. Now it's been two years and no book. Sad, that.
 
“Path Between the Seas” McCullough’s tome about the Panama Canal.
 

conspiracy, man!!!
 
NoMereRanger said:
conspiracy, man!!!
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Hell, yeah. You can't trust anybody these days. It could be the sequel has been out for years and I'm on some kind of triple secret denial list and I'm being blocked from even knowing.

Seriously, my guess is that Hayes wasn't prepared for the success of I Am Pilgrim and didn't have much of anything ready to meet the large demand for a followup book. He research for I Am Pilgrim must have taken years. I'll continue to wait for next book no matter.
 
Just finished Seveneves



It's really good hard sci-fi. Definitely liked it a lot. Started reading Slow Regard for Silent Things



I've actually had the novella for some time, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it just yet. But now I am because Patrick Rothfuss is a punk ass son of a bitch the magnitude of George R.R. Martin and won't write the third god damned book in the Kingkiller Chronicles. Dick.
 
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