On a book related note..

 

Darrell K. Sweete died. 1934-2011. While you might not recognise the name, he illustrated an amazing amount of sci-fi and fantasy books over the years.

 

Tor - Darrell K. Sweete

BREAK BREAK

 

GD, I've been listening to the biography of the spy known as Mata Hari. Apparently her husbnad was involved in this massive campaign in the Dutch East Indies I'd never heard of. Sounds fascinating. Plenty of mercenaries too. Maybe mix in that war with shreds of your original story as part retrospective? That way you'd get the civil war chaps, exploit your understanding, and bring in a really exotic flavour at the same time.

Ok I think you are on to something here. I was investigating if any conferderate veterans turned up in the French Foreign Legion, or the British Army following Approtimax but I like this idea too.

 

On a book note I'm now reading The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks. As many of you know it was the Barbary Coast campaign where the line in the Marine Corps hymn "To the shores of Tripoli" came from. Fascinating reading.

 

That does sound interesting. I will have to give it a go.

Now reading Walden by Thoreau. Not for nothing is it one of the most influential works of all time.

Now reading Walden by Thoreau. Not for nothing is it one of the most influential works of all time.

 

I visited Walden a few years back. Very beautiful place.

 

I'm reading through Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers. So far, it's exactly the same as the show.

Now reading Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero by Micheal Hingson. He is a blind man who worked on the 76th floor of the North Tower of the WTC on 9-11. His guide dog Roselle led him and a lot of other people out after the plane hit.

I need to get around to finishing Walden, I remember being hugely impressed with the author's intellect, modern writing has lost that level of insane descriptive detail, a falling leaf is now just a falling leaf, embellishment seems pretentious.

This just in: Brandon Sanderson Has Finished The Final WoT Book "A Memory of Light"

 

Once revisions are completed we can finally see how it all ends after almost 20 years. It should come out in 3Q this year.

I read the Hunger Games trilogy. It was better than expected, kind of like The Giver, but with a bit more teenage angst.

This just in: Brandon Sanderson Has Finished The Final WoT Book "A Memory of Light"

 

Once revisions are completed we can finally see how it all ends after almost 20 years. It should come out in 3Q this year.

 

Just enough time for a re-read

This just in: Brandon Sanderson Has Finished The Final WoT Book "A Memory of Light"

 

Once revisions are completed we can finally see how it all ends after almost 20 years. It should come out in 3Q this year.

 

friggin' finally

 

i hate leaving a series unfinished and i've struggled through the latter half of the series

 

let it end

This just in: Brandon Sanderson Has Finished The Final WoT Book "A Memory of Light"

 

Once revisions are completed we can finally see how it all ends after almost 20 years. It should come out in 3Q this year.

 

Just enough time for a re-read

 

I had that same thought. It's been years since I've looked at any of them other than the last one. I called Eye of the World on my Kindle last night and set out from Emonds Field once again... for the last time.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Sanderson finishing A song of ice and fire, too.

GRRM has posted an excerpt from TWOW. Spoilers obviously.

 

Reading the excerpt has confirmed my suspicions regarding a certain letter at the end of ADWD.

 

Also reading "A Conspiracy of Paper" by David Liss. It's a historical/mystery book centered around the first stock market crash. Pretty interesting so far.

Just started reading "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss on recommendation by... the world, or something. It'd be easier to list who didn't recommend it.

Just started reading "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss on recommendation by... the world, or something. It'd be easier to list who didn't recommend it.

 

my sister made me read it and the sequel too

 

it's... okay i guess

nothing special though. just the typical zomg main character is super fantastic mage and is a badass fighter at the same time

oh, and plays the lute like a boss

Yeah, it feels a little Mary Sue but the writing is pretty good and makes up for it, I feel. Thus far, anyway, but I'm not very far in.

I've been neglecting my Terry Pratchett books so this morning I read the first 50 pages of Making Money, I can tell I'm going to enjoy it, if only because the insane banking system of Ankh Morpork still makes more sense than our real world equivalent

Edited January 12, 201214 yr by WDeranged

My fresh copy of Skirmish - House Wars book 4 by Michelle West arrived.

 

Heh, so look at it this way, many years ago (we're talking a couple of decades) an author writes a duology. What was intended as a minor character (a 15/16 year old girl with some untrained seer-talents) in the first book expands, and becomes much more significant but you don't really find much more about them.

 

Approximately a decade or so later, the author then writes up a 6 book series (The Sun Sword series) which is set in the same world (and roughly 16 years after the events in the duology), and braids several storylines together, with the aforementioned minor character turning up (now a young 30 something, with some influence in a noble house) and having a quite extensive section throughout the story - again, seeming to support other events, but growing even more into a primary character with her own story arc. There seems to be a whole subplot to the Sun Sword series about how she might have to fight an "in-house political war" and assume control of it when her mentor dies - however that's always kept to the background of the primary story but its still pumped along.. then towards the end of the final book - boom. The character finds out her mentor dies, that its all coming to a head.. and she gets summoned back to the house in the middle of a war. The book continues with the war (which was the primary story) but never wraps up any of story of that character.

 

Jump forward another decade of real world time, and the author writes the first book in the House War - which is set about 5 years _before_ the original duology that started it all off, and is the story of a 10 year old orphan girl on the streets and who happens to have an erratic and untrained seer-talent... (yes, this time that minor character gets the lead role from the beginning rather then huge sections from books that she was just "supporting"...). The first three books cover how she goes from street orphan to being "adopted" as it were into the leading noble house of the empire - book 3 actually redoes a lot of the original duology, but from the girls point of view. And ends with her being around the 15/16 year age...

 

Book four starts ..and its the day after her mentor died. Picking up exactly where the girl teleported out of the war zone in the 6 book series...

 

I have to admit, if you enjoy braided storylines and fantasy stories it's worth the effort of actually following the books. But I do find it quirky just how it all grew out and developed over time.

Now reading "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" all five books in one collection. I don't know how I've avoided reading this on yet but it is a lot of fun.

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the western..."

Relfections On the French Revolution

Edmund Burke

 

This is a good book, if anyone wants to contrast Thomas Pain and the American revolution.

May have already mentioned this, but a friend of mine is writing a book on his father's experiences in a prisoner of war camp. To my enormous surprise and pleasure it's actually very good.

 

As a wordish side-salad I'm reading UK Eyes Alpha by Mark Urban. Published in 1998 it's a somewhat (but presumably not entirely) outdated look at the British Intelligence Services. I hoover up stuff like this, but I'm also curious to know what shape the services were in just before 9/11. The biggest point so far is that Sovbloc intelligencers rule the roost with carefree abandon. Every other area languishes!

Now reading True Spirit by Jessica Watson about her solo circumnavigation two years back. Also rereading The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan.

For the general interest value:

 

Game Over Man! - Tor Appreciates Military Fiction

 

For the month of January, Jim Killen, the buyer in charge of Barnes & Noble

Wot? No Ghosts?