What are you reading?

lol when he said Grishaverse, I thought he was talking about some new project by John Grisham

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lol, okay I guess these books have been out for almost a decade now, Iā€™m a bit behind the times.

Iā€™m 100 pages into Children of Time and itā€™s terrific. I think I added it to my list after seeing your note here.

I was describing it last night to my wife and realized it sounded completely insane, but it works so far.

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Read the first Powder Mage book and it was very good, thanks.

Read ā€œThe Big Truck That Went Byā€ by Jonathan Katz, which is about the recent history of Haiti including the massive Earthquake, Cholera epidemic, the bungled relief, etc. Itā€™s not an easy read (in terms of upsetting content), I had to take a week break in the middle, but I knew nothing about Haiti and this book changed that.

Re reading The Things They Carried after someone here mentioned it

Itā€™s just so affecting

Finally got around to utopia avenue. Another solid book.

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Just such an outstanding book. Tim Oā€™Brien is a great, great writer but in 2020 ā€œVietnam vetā€ stories feel kind of dated in a way. Maybe more people should read them in light of all the Afghanistan vets that are coming home from a failed war now.

Iā€™ve read 5-6 of TO books. Liked them all

TTTC is my fav and prob my fav book ever

I do like count of MC and shadow of the wind a lot.

So many good books to read.

Borne: A Novel by Jeff VanderMeer

By the same author who did the Southern Reach trilogy. Set in a post apocalyptic city a scavenger finds a creature. I didnā€™t immediately take to this book. It just didnā€™t jive with me, but I got more and more into it. Itā€™s not quite up to the level of the first Southern Trilogy book, but by the end Iā€™d say I enjoyed it

Prime Meridian by Moreno-Garcia, Silvia

from the same author who did Mexican Gothic. A woman living a hard life in Mexico dreams of going to Mars. Set in the near future when Mars is colonized, but in reality the sci fi element of it plays no part in it. It could be any time and wanting to go to any far away place. Itā€™s well written and enjoyable. I like the novella length. Being a parent sometimes itā€™s hard to stay tuned in for 300+ pages, but a 70 page book works great.

Sadly Iā€™m not literary enough to spy an obvious quote. I liked a couple of lines in the book

There are only two stories and you know them well
A hero goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town

and looked it up and itā€™s a quote thatā€™s probably more familiar in literary writer circles. I liked it in any case

https://www.amazon.com/The-Only-Plane-in-Sky-audiobook/dp/B07QGGSS3S/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+only+plane+in+the+sky&qid=1630554096&sr=8-1

Suzzer asked for war and drama and this book fits into that category. Itā€™s an audiobook with actors retelling peopleā€™s stories about 9/11. The book starts on Monday evening and ends at midnight on Tuesday. I donā€™t have any real traumatic experiences with 9/11, but this audiobook had my pulse beating, some rapid breathing and a couple of tears. The stories were incredible in both good and bad ways. There are a couple of people whose stories they weave through the day, but mostly the events have self contained stories. The book slows down about midway through, which is to be expected, after the events of the morning the afternoon slowed down too. Another good thing, the book too doesnā€™t spend too much time on political officials, itā€™s mostly about the people who were there on the ground in the moment.

In any case Iā€™d recommend this for someone who wants a dramatic retelling of the day. Iā€™d warn you if you do have some trauma related to 9/11 this will bring it up again.

Iā€™m reading the Aeneid. I couldnā€™t help but think about January 6 when reading the account of the fall of Troy, especially the storming of Priamā€™s palace, in book 2.

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Reading ā€œproject hail maryā€ dunno why. I donā€™t read a lot of pop books but isnā€™t Weir like supposed to be the smart science guy?

I mean even eventually getting up to 94% of lightspeed it would take like 15-30 years min to go 10 lightyears with accel/decel right? Why does he keep thinking that he can do anything/people are still alive? It would take 30-60 years for anything to get back to earth and by then its an icicle.

Also heā€™s talking to some alien who doesnā€™t have eyes but uses echolocation to see thingsā€¦ but that wonā€™t work in space or through barriers, you need air, right? That doesnā€™t make sense at all.

Saw a trailer for the Wheel of Time tv series coming out and it inspired me to give the books another try. I read maybe 2/3 of the Eye of the World a few years ago and was enjoying it, but ended up getting distracted by something and just never picked it up again.

Iā€™m now about 1/3 in again. My impression so far is that this is just lord of the rings with different proper nouns, which isnā€™t necessarily a bad thing. Itā€™s good cozy reading. But also god damn these books are long.

Thatā€™s about right. Itā€™s bad Lord of the Rings that goes on forever. Which, you know, isnā€™t so bad.

If humans canā€™t accelerate faster than 9G, it looks like it would take ~a month to get to 90% of light speed. If we imagine they have that goo from The Expanse that lets them handle more Gs they could do it even faster.

Biggest problem is finding the energy to accelerate anything to 0.9c, because it takes exponentially more energy to get closer and closer to light speed.

Iā€™m a little further along and they say 13 years 1 way with their superfuel so that makes sense. Still donā€™t get the echolocation stuff though.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39863316-the-empire-s-ruin is the best fantasy book Iā€™ve read in a few years. You need to read the precursor series (which is also very good but not quite on this level), but itā€™s worth the commitment IMO.

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Finished this last night and it was really great. Thanks for the recommendation.

McBride took some creative liberty with geography, but itā€™s basically the housing project where he grew up in Red Hook. This church is right across the street and if you zoom in you can see Jesus.

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Read this a few weeks ago and it was great. The opening chapter with the Kettral mission in Dombang was amazing. I was a big fan if his previous trilogy even though the latter books get quite a bit of hate.

Youā€™ve probably read it already but the spin off book Skullsworn is excellent too.

Joe Ambercromieā€™s final book in the Age if Madness trilogy is out this week.

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Skullsworn Iā€™ve read; another great recommendation. Iā€™ve read a bunch of Abercrombieā€™s other books, but Age of Madness is still in queue. Thanks for the heads-up. Thatā€™s coming next, I suppose, as soon as I finish The Pariah (Covenant of Steel, #1) by Anthony Ryan | Goodreads and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir | Goodreads

Been looking forward to the last Age of Madness book. Itā€™s amazing how some of these guys can churn out - very good! - content.