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this is the season at work in which i do a lot of zombie-brain tasks (think stuffing envelopes), so i can read by propping up my phone and occasionally booping the screen to turn the page  i've been making my way through eric flint's 1632/ring of fire series. basic premise is a small west virginian mining town got transported back to 1632 in the middle of germany and there's War and Politicking happening around them. but unlike a lot of these type of books ("what if some modern navy seals were with the brits in WWI?") it's not just a huge lovefest on guns and america and freedoms. there's a lot of focus on using their current stockpiles of coal and future tech (that they know will break down) to jumpstart an industrial base that's maybe a hundred years ahead of current tech, but still maintainable with current resources. they also quickly come to the conclusion that they can't just wall themselves off from the rest of europe, so they need to participate and while they don't have the power to make grand sweeping changes to improve everything, they can start off by making small changes where they can and try to build from there. as a small mining town they're very pro-union and mostly see dealing with the nobility & rulers as a necessary means to achieve their ends. also there's no weird underlying concept that the future folks are inherently smarter or better than any of the europe folks - the americans just have access to information that hasn't been discovered yet, and once that starts spreading they will lose their edge. there are several times where european powers will end up doing something like making a better gun than the americans, because they got some intel on gun manufacture and branched off in a different direction and the americans are caught on the back foot. i just really like that, throughout the series, it is a fundamental part of the fiction that any advantage the americans have is temporary, and the world will catch up with them quickly, so they need to focus on social change and achieve enough goodwill and/or political strength in all levels of society in order to make things be better for everyone. also it's really funny that a lot of the characters would probably have called themselves conservative in america but the actions they are taking are pretty dang socialist
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Oct 16, 2021 00:15
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 11:49 |
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i recently reread the belisarius books (last time i read them was in my teens, wanted to see how they held up). and the parts that are good are good, but there's a fair amount of yikes and oh jeez shut up (and a much lesser sin of ugh stop leaning on this catchphrase it sucks). every race/ethnicity has a few defining traits and are total exemplars of those traits at all times (good or bad). fortunately for the majority of them it's neutral-to-positive portrayals at least. 1632 itself is definitely the most boomer-dad fiction* of the ones i've read so far, and might be skippable if you find a decent summary of the actual plot events. the rest of the series (so far) is a lot more about the logistics and politics of trying to revolutionize 17th century europe and if you end up hating the novels but still enjoying the premise, there's tons of endorsed fan works (generally short stories or serials) published as the Grantville Gazette (Grantville is the name of the town that gets sent into the past) of the two series i definitely prefer 1632, it has a much better interesting stuff:boomer dad stuff ratio imo *(we have future guns!!! we shoot the bad guys, who are very bad, here is a scene where they do very bad things before we shoot them, let's linger on them being very bad so that the readers get real mad before we shoot them with our future guns)
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Oct 18, 2021 01:08
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i read charles stross' invisible sun which was the finale for a series and it was good!
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Mar 26, 2022 14:44
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rereading Slaughterhouse Five, it's good
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Apr 13, 2022 00:30
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rereading Anathem by Neal Stephenson for like the fifth or sixth time. it's good and fun, for me! probably also for other people! math monks yay
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May 6, 2022 13:12
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ToxicFrog posted:
100%. still one of my fav authors though lol
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May 10, 2022 04:04
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Finger Prince posted:I also read Master of Revels which is a sequel to Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O (without Neal Stephenson) and unfortunately nowhere near as good. The primary character gives a strong Mary Sue vibe, and everything about the story is just really really convenient. i hadn't heard of this sequel so i got really excited and then really unexcited over the course of this paragraph lol
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Jul 29, 2022 05:03
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Finger Prince posted:It sort of reads like, what if a huge Shakespeare nerd (who may or may not be a stand-in for the author, or someone they know) went back in time and met Will Shakespeare and foiled the plot of a meddling witch by using her powers of knowing everything about Shakespeare! , and also some other stuff happened that was tangentially related in other timelines but who cares, Shakespeare! And, like it wouldn't be so bad, but the whole way the character is introduced, is like oh no, the main character from the previous book has been removed from the plot! Well good thing his ultra cool theatre nerd kid sister showed up in town today with exactly the skillset required to instantly join the time travel gang, questioning literally nothing about the whole getup, to rescue big bro in Shakespearian times and stop the evil witch! wow that is, like, really far removed from the previous book and all the stuff that made it great. thanks for the heads up i will give it a pass!
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Jul 29, 2022 14:18
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just finished Command and Control and i am left with the thought: hahahaha how did we not all die in the cold war, several times over??
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Aug 27, 2022 03:12
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Buttchocks posted:Finished another chapter of Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz aka Elizabeth Peters, who in addition to being a very successful mystery writer, also had a PHD in Egyptology. It's about ancient Egyptian history and it's really interesting. I've been reading it for the past 7 years. It's not long, but I only pick it up once or twice a year when I take my car to the shop. I need new tires, btw. ooh, either my folks or my sister had a bunch of her Amelia Peabody mysteries, i should see if i can grab some next time i visit in those books a guy keeps almost saying "bloody" and then changing it to "blooming" which works fine out loud, but in text it's like "those blo-- blooming incompetents" and it just looks like he's stuttering
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Sep 4, 2022 04:10
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nice fat hog
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Sep 8, 2022 13:28
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Dr. Honked posted:i just got Ducks by Kate Beaton and it fuckin owns. it's extremely not cheerful but dang it's good that's the one about her time at the oilsands right? kate beaton fuckin rules she is a national treasure
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Sep 14, 2022 18:09
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cruft posted:I don't even know what category to put this one in: maybe science fantasy? your description was enough to make me grab it (yay library ebooks) and yes this rules that part near the beginning where two characters are discussing the possible origin of something and the conversation goes (incredibly minor spoilers from the first 10% of the book) "maybe it came from the moon?" "no, this is blue, the moon was white" so so good
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Sep 30, 2022 23:58
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biosterous posted:steerswoman i basically binged the rest of the book after writing this post, and then forgot about following up a+ book, would recommend, grabbing the rest of the series
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Oct 3, 2022 04:06
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some folks here mentioned The Black Company novels so i picked them up and i am enjoying them. finished the first set, working on the second set (books of the south) now
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Jan 9, 2023 18:02
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sounds like princess bride (the novel not the movie)
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Jan 10, 2023 16:07
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ToxicFrog posted:Kara Gillian series by Diana Rowland. rear end-penny posted:Termination Shock [...] Stephenson Finger Prince posted:guy gavriel cay's new book 'all the seas of the world'. catching up on the books thread is great because it gives me recommendations for stuff i will likely enjoy i've been reading the Battletech novels in in-universe chronology (list here) and they vary wildly in quality, which is what you'd expect for tabletop wargame tie-in novels
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Aug 24, 2023 17:58
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 11:49 |
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a lot of goons recommend Wolves on the Border but i haven't got to it yet the Grey Death trilogy is fun b-tier scifi
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Sep 3, 2023 16:47
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