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Post by Mako on Sept 20, 2019 22:54:09 GMT -5
Finished reading through The Voices of Heaven. It was okay, but not anywhere near many of the other books I've been reading. How it was written was good and bad. It leaves lots of questions that get answered as you read along, which can be somewhat confusing at times as you wait to find out the answers. Though I figured out what was going on well before enough info really was given. Not a book I'd highly recommend, though.
The next book I just finished reading is one I found suggested by SC fans. The Old Man's War series, by John Scalzi. My local library had a used book sale last weekend and I went and bought the entire series of that, plus a few more of the Hammer's Slammers series. Old Man's War was perfect for what I'm wanting to read now. It's about the future of Earth expanding and colonizing other planets and fighting wars against alien races. Basically, they divide the population of Earth into the haves and the have-nots, and the populations of third world countries that are overpopulated are allowed to leave Earth to colonize the new planets, while the industrialized countries are not. The exception being that when they turn 75, at which time they are allowed to join the military to fight the aliens to protect and conquer planets. The military enhances them and makes them younger, giving them a new lease on life (not going to go into too much detail to ruin the story), and after a certain period of service they are allowed to colonize the new planets as well. They aren't allowed to ever return to Earth, though. Really enjoying this series and finding it hard to put the books down. The author is a huge fan of Robert Heinlen of Starship Troopers fame. If you liked that you will like this series, too.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Sept 21, 2019 18:12:43 GMT -5
Well, I've never read these books, but all the Hammer talk reminded me of this awesome book I read ages ago, called Lucifer's Hammer. I think it was written in the 70s by Larry Niven and another guy. Basically follows several people's lives as they live through a massive comet strike on Earth, and then participate in rebuilding civilization. I should probably read it again.
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Post by Tig on Sept 26, 2019 9:16:49 GMT -5
I finished Under the Dome and it was wonderful. Stephen King does his usual menagerie of interesting characters but multiplies it 10x as he populates an entire town with them. He creates a detailed, breathing town in Maine with the reader keeping track of almost every aspect of life it contains. Then he wrecks havoc on it. It's like the first time you played Sim City and spent hours building your town only to unleash the tornados. Some parts of it were a bit sketchy, like the action movie sequence at the climax where cars explode for no reason, bodies fly when they're shot, and he keeps referring to the magazine in an AK47 as a @#$% "clip". Drove me nuts. My biggest gripe were some of the characters he spent a lot of time differentiating from the rest of the town were all but lost after the climax, and other people you barely knew were suddenly front and center in the plot. It's a minor detail in the grand scheme of this 1000+ page opus. To say I was entertained is an understatement. I was enthralled and plowed through the book in days, a near impossible feat for someone who has reading issues like I do. He truly is a master of storytelling.
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Post by kingjimmy on Sept 26, 2019 11:04:34 GMT -5
I'm finally reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm only about a quarter of the way through, but so far, it's much more relevant to the present than I had expected - near prescient. It's also interesting how just about everything I've heard about it seems either to oversimplify or outright misrepresent its core messages. I'm liking it a lot more than I thought I would.
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Post by Tig on Nov 11, 2019 1:41:00 GMT -5
I've taken a break from reading. I got 60 pages into Pillars of the Earth and really got turned off by the writing. For starters, Ken Follet comes off as quite arrogant in his forward, talking about this being the best book he's written. Then, after a number of horrible events, there's a random sex scene that makes no sense. I hate stopping a book once I've started but if this book doesn't get it's act together I'll probably fling it into the trash.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 11, 2019 13:30:00 GMT -5
I am still reading Earth's Children series by Jean Auel. On book 5 now, Shelters of Stone, as the heroine and her dude have traveled back to pre-France and are prancing about Lasceaux caves. As I think Taibi mentioned, the later books do slow down significantly, but whatever, still want to finish the series off at this point.
I bought a few Greg Bear books on Amazon, will probably want to read those next, as I heard good things about him. Also got the Lucifer's Hammer book I mentioned earlier by Larry Niven. Been a long time since I read that.
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Post by Mako on Nov 12, 2019 1:24:01 GMT -5
Finished the Old Man's War series. Really enjoyed it, though since several of the books tell the story each from a different point of view it gets a little repetitive. Still, is exactly the type of book I'm wanting to read lately.
Been reading the Hammer's Slammers books I got now. A very gritty and realistic look at how mercenaries would likely operate in the future after humans have spread across the galaxy. Since the org I started in SC is a security/merc group, they also are right up my alley. Getting close to the end and so will be looking to take these to the used bookstore and see about stocking up on some more.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 18, 2019 11:39:37 GMT -5
Ok, I am off Earth's Children. I tried to give it a go, but the 5th book is just baaaad. Can't even imagine the 6th. There is almost no plot, and she writes pages and pages and pages about flower descriptions, people's behavior, and things that happened in previous books. It reads like a fairly dull Botany textbook. Still a great series overall, but as mentioned before, might be best to stop reading before finishing.
So I switched over to Greg Bear's series of novels set in The Way. Totally messed up right away, because the books were published Eon > Eternity > Legacy, but Legacy is a prequel, so I figured I would start with that, which apparently is the wrong way to go. But too late to switch now, already read like a fifth of it.
Fairly interesting so far, space and time travel, futuristic societies, a certain Hemingway feel in Legacy.
The books take place in the distant future (circa 2700 I think), as some people travel around space in a hollowed out asteroid, and they discovered ways to travel to distant points in the universe (space and time-wise) via this thing called The Way. So some of them (the Luddite, anti-technology types) snuck via The Way to some weird uninhabited planet, to establish an Amish paradise. The main character is sent after them, to explore the planet, but once there, you realize their idyllic dreams turned into civil war a few decades later, and now they are busy killing each other.
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Post by Tig on Nov 18, 2019 16:37:18 GMT -5
Ok, I am off Earth's Children. I tried to give it a go, but the 5th book is just baaaad. Can't even imagine the 6th. There is almost no plot, and she writes pages and pages and pages about flower descriptions, people's behavior, and things that happened in previous books. And yet I can't even land a publishing agent. *sigh*
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 19, 2019 10:52:24 GMT -5
Well, to be fair Jean Auel is an amazing writer, as shown by the first three books in the series. I just think when you end up writing a series of massive books (each book in the series is 700-1000 pages), you eventually run out of steam, in most cases. She took a break of many years between books five and six, and even so, the inspiration, muse, whatever was just not there when she came back. I think something similar happened to George R.R. Martin with A Song of Ice and Fire. The first three books are crack on paper, but then the books gradually worsen in quality, and now he is having trouble finishing it.
Anyways, hang in there. Try your best to get published, if it doesn't happen write that other book you mentioned. I think the steampunk setting is just a particularly difficult sell in literature, as opposed to games. So if you switch gears (no pun intended) to a different setting, things might get easier, although I am sure getting ANYTHING published is still a monumental task.
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Post by Mako on Nov 19, 2019 13:03:23 GMT -5
Yeah, like so many things I think it's just about getting your foot in the door. Once you get a book published then you are a 'legit' author, and they'll publish books that aren't as good quality because they can put "By the author of ..." on the cover. Especially if you have a book that sells well.
Speaking of which, the author of Hammer's Slammers had a little blurb he wrote in the one book I read talking about his struggles of getting published. I've noticed he and a lot of other Sci Fi authors got started by getting their stories published in a magazine first (in parts) where they start making contacts and getting known by the right people (and public), so maybe that is something you could check into if you haven't already?
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Post by Tig on Nov 19, 2019 13:38:37 GMT -5
Yeah I've looked at that. Also, I'm pursuing a publishing agent rather than going directly to publishers. Publishers won't even look at you if you haven't been in print before. Still...having trouble even doing that much.
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Post by Tig on Nov 22, 2019 15:01:32 GMT -5
I dropped Pillars of the Earth for now. I'll try again later. It's like reading Steinbeck for me: I just 100% do not care what's going on.
I picked up Stephen King's It. I've seen bother movies but the book adds so much more. Really enjoying it so far.
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Post by WickedCrustacean on Nov 22, 2019 15:10:08 GMT -5
You don't like Steinbeck? <gasps> East of Eden with you!
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Post by PegLegPete on Nov 22, 2019 23:14:29 GMT -5
Just finished reading two books, On Killing, which is a psychological look at battle/warfare and how and why soldiers do what they do and how it has evolved and changed over history. Very interesting books with lots of cool facts. Second book was Faces of Battle, which is the soldiers perspective of Agincort, Waterloo and Somme, the similarities and difference and raises a lot of good points that are commonly accepted but never really thought about. Henry the V ordered killing of the french prisoners, how did knights who were surrounded by weapons allow themselves to be killed by 200 archers, why did the archers kill and not the English knights...how it all went down really and why...super cool stuff just an example.
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