I broke down and read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I’d just assumed it would be too bleak for me. Well, it IS bleak, but it was good. I’m glad I read it.
I also finished Briarpatch by Tim Pratt. Interesting concept for a world, but the plot was kinda meh to me. I just wasn’t that interested in the characters. But if it’s a setup for a series, that could probably work.
During my recent Arizona trip, I finished Stephen C. Neff’s Justice in Blue and Gray, about legal issues (secession, slavery, blockades, seizure of property, habeas corpus, Sherman’s March to the Sea, etc.) in the Civil War. Dry but quite interesting.
I also just finished Joe Haldeman’s Old Twentieth, a sf novel about humans in the distant future on a looong starship voyage to colonize another planet. They spend a lot of their time in an ultra-advanced virtual reality system, which starts to malfunction… or does it? There are echoes of Star Trek’s Holodeck and The Matrix here, but Haldeman puts his own spin on it, and it’s a pretty engaging story. Next on my Haldeman list: The Accidental Time Machine.
I’m also now almost 300 pages into Ron Chernow’s Washington: A Life, and enjoying it. Although the author doesn’t break much new ground with this recent bio of the Father of His Country, he does show the human side of the great man (Washington’s love for his wife, earlier flirtations with older women, his sense of honor, zest for riches, occasional bad temper, love of cards, wine and the theatre) very engagingly.
A year or so ago, I put it down after 50 pages with nary a regret.
Great! I’m a big Haldeman fan (see above) and would be glad to recommend other books of his.
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Oxford History of the American People by Samuel Eliot Morison
Gospel of John (English Standard Version)
I finished Forever War last night and I really enjoyed it. You can tell he was a veteran. Even though I didn’t deploy nearly as long as those in the book, or even as long as my Army counterparts, when you get back home you do feel like things have passed you by, even when the time is only measured in months. It really is weird. And, despite the danger, you do start to feel at home over there.
He didn’t touch on PTSD at all throughout the book (it’s very possible I missed it). I wonder of it’s because when the book was written PTSD wasn’t really a thing.*
By that I mean it wasn’t really in the public consciousness.
Yes, there’s very little about PTSD in the book - Mandella’s growing disassociation from Earth is a far more important issue. Unless you want more, I’ll limit myself here to a single Haldeman recommendation: the short story “A Separate War” in his collection A Separate War and Other Stories. It’s about the Tauran War from Marygay’s perspective.
You’ll have to tell me how you liked The Accidental Time Machine. I’ve heard mixed things.
The Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett (re-reading),
Deader Homes and Gardens by Joan Hess, and
The Existential Jesus by John Carroll.
I’ve been pecking at How to Be a Person: The Stranger’s Guide to College, Sex, Intoxicants, Tacos, and Life Itself for a few days now. When I first brought it home from the library, I gave it to both kids and told them to scan the table of contents. Each child then absconded with the book for a few days. I wonder if they were reading the sex and drug chapters or the cooking and laundry stuff?
Will do. I like probably three-quarters of Haldeman’s stuff, but he’s not perfect.
Still plodding my way through At the Mountains of Madness. I’m not sure if I’ve read this one before, actually–I don’t remember a Lovecraft story that was essentially sympathetic to the Old Ones.
However, may put it down soon, as the new TPB of The Unwritten showed up on my doorstep on Wednesday. I’m getting a bit hazy on the story now, so I may start over from the beginning to get my bearings. Highly recommended series, by the way.
I’m a little over halfway through, and still loving it. Miéville’s really great at ramping up the tension. I’ve been reading it on the train and I’ve almost missed my stop a few times now because I was so engrossed.
I read his “Camouflage” several months ago. This was the first time I’ve read anything by Haldeman. I loved the main concept and the first half of the book, but you can kind of see the twist coming straight at you by the last half. The actual ending itself also seemed a little abrupt to me. Not tacked on, but just a bit abrupt.
I’m looking forward to eventually reading “The Forever War” though as I’ve heard such good things about it.
I just started re-reading **Lucifer’s Hammer **by Niven and Pournelle. I read it decades ago (it came out in 1977) and enjoyed it, and was kind of amused to notice how dated it seems now (A character dictates a memo on a Dictaphone, another worries that his 15 year-old son will want his own micro computer and a Black woman is described as having a strange hairdo called a corn roll. Yeah, roll).
Still, it’s a good yarn. I’m at the point where a collision with the comet is seeming more likely every day, and people are getting panicky. An emergency Apollo mission is sent up to have a look at the comet, as the space shuttles are still a good six years away.
Haven’t read Camouflage. Haldeman does sometimes have problems with his endings, though, it’s true.
The Forever War is excellent, but avoid the sequels. I would also (oh, all right, I’ll go ahead and do it) recommend Mindbridge, Tool of the Trade, All My Sins Remembered, The Hemingway Hoax and Worlds (also avoid its sequels). His short story colllections *Dealing in Futures, Infinite Dreams *and A Separate War and Other Stories are a little uneven, but far more good than bad.
Elendil’s Heir - we seem to have precisely the same taste in Joe Haldeman novels.
I seem to recall the rumour about some massive disagreement between Haldeman and his publisher over the sequel to ‘Worlds’, such that he ended ‘Worlds Away’ … in such a way as to leave it completely impossible that Earth Boy and Space Girl could ever get together again, thereby leaving it so there would be no sequel. I never did read the third.
I’ve read that book several times. I like the “disaster porn” and rebuilding parts, but the romance parts are not great. And it always seems dated to me to see black characters saying things like “Honky!” and “You dig?”
Re-reading William Manchester’s The Last Lion vol one then two (Biography of Winston Churchill). Recently found out that the third volume has been completed by another author. I was severely disappointed when I found out Manchester was to ill to complete the final book. Left us at his appointment as PM.
Thanks for the recommendations!
After reading about it from fellow Dopers; Johnathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Enjoying it very much.
I’m reading Faceless Killers, by Henning Mankell. It should come shrink-wrapped with a Paxil.
Thanks, Ministre - great minds and all that! Hadn’t heard that story. I read all three of the Worlds books, and the first was far and away the best of the bunch.
Súil Dubh, you’re more than welcome! Hope you love 'em as much as I do.