What are you reading ?

Book one of the Wild Card series was completed during lunch today. This is the newer version, which came out I think about eleven years ago, with a few more extra stories than the prior had.

I always get a bit choked up when I see who owns the copyrights now to Zelazny's works. That man died far too early.

I'm still on book two of the Wild Card series, the stories are tightening up and moving into the nuances that we'll enjoy for the next dozen or so novels. This particular book sees an ancient, space-faring menace setting it's eyes on earth, and some of Dr. Tachyon's relatives showing up in our solar system.

I finished off the second volume of the Wild Card books, Aces High this morning. From there I grabbed book three, Jokers Wild, which continues the story of the Astronomer seeking revenge on those that thwarted him in the prior book. This series always impressed me with how these folks, rather than bending existing characters to their will and changing them, created their own universe to do with as they would. It's a strange and very interesting world!

I finished Raven One. Not a very good book. The plot is average, the language is poor and there are many mistakes, but there are some interesting descriptions of the operations on an aircraft carrier.

To fans of aviation: watch a documentary instead, or read "Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat" by Dan Hampton. Or if you're French, "Le grand cirque" by Pierre Clostermann.

Now onto something else, I'm contemplating the first book of The Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes by James Corey

I suggest giving the Expanse a try, man. I've only read the first three books, yet each was pretty good. I need to get back to that series!

"Into the Dark" of the "Star Wars High Republic" series is easily the craziest Star Wars book I've ever read, and I'm only halfway through it !

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I suggest giving the Expanse a try, man. I've only read the first three books, yet each was pretty good. I need to get back to that series!

I am! I've been tempted for a while since I saw the series was based on books.

And so it starts with a prologue on the Scopuli. I looked it up because secondary school was long ago, and this is the Latin word for "rocks" or "boulders" (plural). Always give Latin or Greek names to things, gives them more credibility

I've about thirty pages left in Jokers Wild, and have book four out and ready, which is entitled Aces Abroad. This volume has quite a few aces and other folk from the United States traveling around the world and seeing how the Wild Card virus was handled in several other countries.

And at some point I really need to get back to the Expanse!

It's probably best to alternate series rather than making a long pause. When I do that, not only I forget things and I lose the dynamic of the plot, but sometimes I simply don't get back to it. I made a long pause in A Song of Ice and Fire, never came back to it (which is probably for the best if it's never finished).

It's fine for series with more or less independent books of course. I'm grabbing every book C.J.Sansom writes for example, especially if they're in the Shardlake series, even if they're 2 to 4 years apart.

Maybe it's less of a problem for you.

I do it simply to make each series last just a little bit longer, similar to how I watch television shows. If I keep to just one, they're finished far too quickly for my liking, and then I've a void to fill.

It's true that during the time I read one book, you've probably read 15 or more
Surely changes the perspective.

A special issue of an archaeology magazine, this one is called : "Glacier Archaeology".
And since we have that climate change, time runs out. Glaciers melt far too fast.
The only positive there is, that artefacts and mummies resurface this way.

It's maddening in just our short life-spans to date, at how many glaciers have vanished from the earth, never to return. I recall visiting parks back in the nineties and marveling at what I saw, and yet I'd dread going there now, the thought of just how much it's all changed since then is beyond sad.

I've chugged through a few kindle books in the past week, right now I'm reading one called Pomegranate, a take on some of the Olympian gods, specifically how Hades might have rose to power. It's pretty intriguing, so far!

I finished the Pomegranate book yesterday, all it all it wasn't too bad, though I think maybe it's meant more as a light romance read than anything else. I did enjoy the slightly different take on the whole Greek mythology, that alone made for an interesting read. There was a good twist at the end that might have me going for the second book at some point, yet this morning I picked up book five of the Wild Card series, Down and Dirty. This one has a few underground mafioso-type factions squaring off, with nats, jokers, and aces either picking sides or trying to stay out of the line of fire!!

Finished Leviathan Wakes by James Corey, the first book of The Expanse series. I've really enjoyed it, I'll continue with the 2nd of the series.

The story is told from two alternating points of view, two main characters who don't always agree, so that makes it feel more real, gives more insight into why they act as they do.

I have the feeling that the author is probably not a physicist but actively got inputs from one. Many characteristics of life in space are briefly explained so the reader realizes it can be different than what we are used to, on a planet with atmosphere and gravity. Sometimes it's a bit off, like according too much importance to the Coriolis effect (qualitatively true but if you do the maths it's negligible, for ex). But most of the time it's very likely and I like this attention to detail.

Many readers probably wouldn't notice, but I've always found it distracting when an author invented something completely unrealistic to justify, for ex, artificial gravity. Or like movies in which you hear sound as a ship passes nearby.

I also like the life the author has brought to the universe. Belters have their language, their way to communicate with hands, their style of life and ways of thinking, which is not the same as Martians', or as Earthers'. This seems to have been well thought through, and not just made up while writing the story.

So there was a lot of effort to make it as believable as possible, and this background is introduced seamlessly into the narrative.

Makes me want to watch the series in parallel for a fresh comparison

Prairie and Plains Indiens
Change and Tradition
In both English and German language
ISBN 3-924590-83-4

I bought myself this book yesterday in the LWL Museum in Münster, Wesfalia.
Münster should be a name known, because it represents the final peace treaty after the 30 years of war.

This is actually my very first step into the *real* history of American Natives.
So far, I didn't have the chance to dig myself deeper into that, mostly because I simply didn't know which German-language book would present me their history in a serious way.

The book uses the term "Indians". It is from 2005. Now, people would rather use the term "American Natives". This shows, how much language has evolved, in more in favour of the American Natives.

Sadly I read that there was an exhibition about them in that museum. I write "sadly", because I never had the chance to visit it.

Yesterday, I was there, the first time in 30 ! years that I did it. I had been in Münster I think 4 or 5 times before, but I was never able to visit that museum, because it was either closed because of restructuring, or because it was Monday, and on Mondays it isn't open, or because I was bound by other events in the town (the notable mini star wars meeting "Dark Side Convention" there, for example, where several original Star Wars actors had been, I think that was somewhat around or before the year 2000).
The zoo around the corner there is very nice, I had been visiting that twice.

Kind of bad lack and stupidity on my side.

Germans have the problem of having a highly distorted image of the Amderican Natives. Which is mostly by so many people reading the novels of Karl May, who created that image. He invented the person of the "noble savage" named "Winnetou". Even Hitler was said to have read and liked these books.

The exhibition I never saw did a great part in turning heads into the right way.

The book I've begun reading now is kind of a summary of that exhibition and its follow-ups, and I'm eager to learn more about the *real* American Natives.

Since the book is in both German and English language, I think I can recommend it in general. Especially since it comes from a museum.

The authors of the Expanse queried many folks that are quite learned in some fields about how things might function in the near and distant future. Obviously some is entirely made up, yet I've viewed a few videos about how the authors and their respective team did exhaustive research. And thanks for reminding me that I must get back to this series, I've read through book three but no further.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The book I've begun reading now is kind of a summary of that exhibition and its follow-ups, and I'm eager to learn more about the *real* American Natives.

I'd recommend the book 1491, by Charles Mann. Seems to be published in German as Amerika vor Kolumbus: Die Geschichte eines unentdeckten Kontinents

Thank you.