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What book is everyone reading at the moment? Part 2.

Centauri Dreams by Paul Gilster. It describes the challenges we face sending an unmanned probe to a nearby star and how we could overcome them. It's from 2004 so it's a little outdated but still a good read.
 
So I've finished The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Very good read! Definitely gonna try some of his other work as well.

Next up, Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich.
 
I just finished a novella by Charles Stross, "Escape From Yokai Land". It's part of the Laundry Files stories, and is told from Bob Howard's point of view.

A fun story, like most of the books in the Laundry Files, but pretty short.

I've just started "Neuromancer" by William Gisbson. I've heard a lot about Gibson but never read any. I'm a couple of chapters in and enjoying it. I also got the two following books "Count Zero" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive". The three books make up "The Sprawl Trilogy". Looks to be fun.
 
Lennart Hyland said:
So I've finished The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead. Very good read! Definitely gonna try some of his other work as well.

Next up, Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich.
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Bull Mountain was nothing for me. Too rough and tough and too much violence. Stereotypical characters with no depth. Thank god it was quite short and an easy read.

Have been listening to some military history podcasts lately and it got me inspired to read about The Battle Of Poltava 1709 by Swedish historian Peter Englund
 
I finished "Neuromancer" by William Gibson. I enjoyed it and was impressed by the world building.

But also I thought there were needless complications. For example, there was one fairly major character who I thought could (and probably should) have been omitted. They weren't needed for the plot, and it seems like they were only included as an example of cool tech.

But overall, pretty good. I'm starting Count Zero now, which is the second book in the series.
 
London After Dark by Robert Fabian, for some research.
Ye gods he was a bigot....
 
JimOfAllTrades said:
I finished "Neuromancer" by William Gibson. I enjoyed it and was impressed by the world building.

But also I thought there were needless complications. For example, there was one fairly major character who I thought could (and probably should) have been omitted. They weren't needed for the plot, and it seems like they were only included as an example of cool tech.

But overall, pretty good. I'm starting Count Zero now, which is the second book in the series.
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I finished Count Zero a couple of days ago and liked it more than Neuromancer. Very enjoyable.

It takes place in the same universe as Neuromancer but a few years later, and is three stories that seem initially more or less independent but come together over the course of the book. For me the writing was tighter and the stories were more interesting, especially as the connections became apparent and they come together. Also another pretty amazing job of worldbuilding.

I've started the last book in the series, "Mona Lisa Overdrive".
 
And I've finished Battle of Poltava by swedish historian Peter Englund. Very interesting read but at the same time horrifying with the battle that ended Swedens time as European great power.

This type of book that goes into great detail of a specific battle was new to me but I very much enjoyed it. Probably gonna get some about Napoleons great battles.

Now I'm reading How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Promised a co-worker that I will give it a try.
 
Finished Mona Lisa Overdrive. Feeling very much the same about it as the previous two books in the series. Impressive world building, characters fleshed out, a plot that comes together nicely at the end. Similar to the first book Nueromancer, I did think there were some unneeded parts, but I guess others may feel differently.

All in all I liked the series, but honestly I didn't think they quite lived up to expectations. But 25 years of hearing about them may have primed me for something different, and maybe I was just expecting the wrong thing. Still worth the read.
 
I've just started the Uplift series by David Brin. First in line is Sundiver. I'm looking forward to these, two of my brothers have spoken highly of them.
 
Lennart Hyland said:
Now I'm reading How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Promised a co-worker that I will give it a try.
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Finished this and it was a fairly decent book. Tomorrow I'm gonna start with By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire by Ian Worthington. Can't wait!
 
Two books
Anthem: Rush in the '70s (just finished)
Martin Popoff

From the beginnings to the first three "concept" albums.

Here, they are recording 18 minute songs near the end. Click tracks (for tempo) were not used, as the songs were not in 4/4 or a regular rhythm. Only the drummer could read drum charts but he never made those. The three instruments and their parts were in their heads, but certainly a lot of the tune was somewhat spontaneous. The question arises: if the tape was lost in the recording process, how much could the recreate? The keyboard part was overdubbed, but sometimes that and the drums were the main thing on, with an acoustic guitar decorating it.

As the piece was mixed and finalized it would come to be the song. Then they had to learn it from the recording to play it live.

Tubular Bells must have been similar to do, though it was broken up into 5 minute parts.
(Taking a week off to start Rush in the 80s.)
 
Lennart Hyland said:
And I've finished Battle of Poltava by swedish historian Peter Englund. Very interesting read but at the same time horrifying with the battle that ended Swedens time as European great power.

This type of book that goes into great detail of a specific battle was new to me but I very much enjoyed it. Probably gonna get some about Napoleons great battles.

Now I'm reading How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Promised a co-worker that I will give it a try.
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I have a slim volume, some 30 pages, on the Great Northern War.

"Finland" as part of Sweden had a small part:
In view of continued failure to check Russian consolidation, and with declining manpower, Sweden opted to blockade Saint Petersburg in 1705. In the summer of 1706, Swedish General Georg Johan Maidel crossed the Neva with 4,000 troops and defeated an opposing Russian force, but made no move on Saint Petersburg. Later in the autumn Peter I led an army of 20,000 men in an attempt to take the Swedish town and fortress of Viborg. However, bad roads proved impassable to his heavy siege guns. The troops, who arrived on 12 October, therefore had to abandon the siege after only a few days. On 12 May 1708, a Russian galley fleet made a lightning raid on Borgå and managed to return to Kronslot just one day before the Swedish battle fleet returned to the blockade, after being delayed by unfavourable winds. (the rest was a bit of a mess, see link)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_War
 
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Just finished: HEAT 2 by Michael Mann & Meg Gardner. I put off reading this one thinking it was a vanity project. I was wrong. This is a top-not crime thriller. If you like the movie you will like the book. If you love the movie, you'll love the book. Picks up a few hours after the movie ends, and follows Chris Shiherlis as he escapes L.A. From there we get a back story set in 1989 Chicago with Neil's crew working a score. Detective Hannah is a Chicago PD detective working to bust a crew who specialize in strong-arm home invasions. The two stories weave back and forth in a way that only Michael Mann can execute. Full-on top-drawer crime throughout.

Before that it was The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. If you're looking for some disturbing Native American-rooted horror, this one will do the job.
 
As some of you know I have schizophrenia, and four months ago I stopped taking any medication. I suffered three months of very unpleasant with drawl symptoms in the last three months of last year. But by January I had stabilized without the drug. Then I found my self stewing in my own juice and in my darkness It occurred to me I needed to put some information into my brain instead of letting it chew on itself.
It so happens I have a very extensive library of books I have collected all my life without hardly reading any of them. So I started reading some and I began with the Egyptian book of the dead. I was hoping it would be a spiritual guide book to occult mysteries, but having read it I can tell you it is just a long list of magic spells to protect the dead. I then moved on to the Tibetan book of the dead, which I also had in my library, and I started off hopeful that this book would contain the mysteries I was looking for. It seemed quite profound until I got to chapter eight. Then It descended into ludicrous completely obvious nonsense which beggar belief. It is all about the signs of approaching death and gives specific numbers of days or years you can live if you detect these signs. Chapter nine is even more ridiculous as it tells you how to perform rituals to stave off death when you see these signs. To give you an idea one of these rituals tells you to bark like a dog.
Then it says you should send for your spiritual teacher when death approaches. And the first thing you have to do is give him all your worldly goods to release your soul from earthy attachments. What is more the book tells you that you must seek a spiritual master to teach you and it takes years for him to teach you how to attain enlightenment. This directly contradicts the actual teachings of Buddha who said you can attain enlightenment in your self. It seems to me that Tibetan Buddhism is a confidence trick passed down from one generation of so called spiritual masters to the next to line their own pockets. I then read the actual teachings of Buddha who says the self and the immortal spirit does not exist. My experience of receiving evidential messages from my dead relatives makes me quite sure Buddha was wrong.

So I figured I had enough of seeking spiritual insights and decided to read a book on logic which I have in my library. I got as far as chapter two and had to give up when the chapter was about the ambiguity of words. I realized that I am basically semi literate and I had no hope of understanding logic until I embarked on what will have to be a lengthy study of the English language. It was the same as when I first tried to study electronic engineering and found I was completely out of my depth because I could not even do arithmetic. So I abandoned my engineering studies and went to night school doing math's for two years. After which I went back to engineering and eventually qualified and gained employment in that field.

So I started with my English language studies from a book I have on the subject and i am currently still trying to memorize the parts of speech. Realizing at this rate it will take me along time to master English and even longer before i can go back to the book on logic I searched my library for relevant intermediate material. I found quite a few very interesting books in my library that I have never read and started reading them.

I have just read the following books in the last couple of weeks.

Mental self help, by Edwin Ash.
The control of the mind, by Robert Thouless.

Now I am currently reading a book called, Clear thinking by R.W Jepson.
I have to say this last book is the best of them, and although my strategy is to read straight through my books, I have realized that some of them deserve extensive study. This last books is one of them and I am going to put it on a separate pile of books that i intend to read and re-read until I have absorbed them properly.
 
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Lennart Hyland said:
Finished this and it was a fairly decent book. Tomorrow I'm gonna start with By the Spear: Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire by Ian Worthington. Can't wait!
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Finishen By the Spear. Incredible story about Alexander the great and his father Philip. Didnt say much about what happened to the Macedonian Empire after Alexanders death but I enjoyed it very much. Didnt feel as pity for Alexander as I did for Napoleon.

Will probably take a break from war history now and read some good novel instead. Havet decided which one yet.
 
I've finished the first two books in David Brin's Uplift series.

The first three books in the series were written in the 1980s.

The first book is Sundiver, and was very different from what I expected. It's basically a murder mystery set against the background the humanity's early involvement with the advanced civilizations of the Five Galaxies and their politics, wars, and practice of "uplifting" pre-sentient species to full sentience. Just previous to encountering the alien civilizations, humanity had begun uplifting chimpanzees and dolphins and this gives them some automatic status among the vastly more advanced alien civilizations, but also engenders hate because they are seen as upstarts with no apparent patron species who uplifted them.

The main plot involves humans and a neo-chimp (uplifted chimpanzee) conducting scientific expeditions to the sun where living beings have been found. Along for the ride are several representatives of various alien races, some friendly, some not. Using a mixture of human and alien tech, the expedition explores and deals with murders and betrayals.

I liked this a lot. The mystery is well done, there's action, plot twists, and some good characters.

The second novel in the series is Startide Rising. Set quite a while after the previous book, it involves a Terran spaceship with a primarily dolphin crew and dolphin captain, a few humans, and one neo-chimp.

The voyage is a kind of shakedown cruise to see how well the dolphins do on a ship designed by dolphins and meant primarily for dolphins. Then they run into a group of huge abandoned spaceships which seem to be incredibly ancient and may be from the original race that started the civilizations of the universe and the practice of uplift. After learning of the find several alien species want to get the location and artifacts and keep them for themselves rather than sharing the knowledge.

The book details the Terrans trying to run, hide, and fight against the more advanced aliens.

As with the previous book, I really liked this. The characters are well done, there are twists and turns, and I've always been a sucker for the story of the underdogs against what may seem like some pretty long odds.

I've now started reading the third book, The Uplift War.
 
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Lennart Hyland said:
Finishen By the Spear. Incredible story about Alexander the great and his father Philip. Didnt say much about what happened to the Macedonian Empire after Alexanders death but I enjoyed it very much. Didnt feel as pity for Alexander as I did for Napoleon.

Will probably take a break from war history now and read some good novel instead. Havet decided which one yet.
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I decided that my next book will be A Time On Earth by Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg. Same Moberg who wrote the absolutely phenomenal The Emigrants novel series. And this one got a lot of praise as well so my expectations are high.
 
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