What Book Are You Reading? Issue.8

[Imperialmajesty]

I'm reading Cell by Stephen King and have Narz cast in my mental picture of the protagonist, for some reason

I read that too, its basically a cut down version of the Stand with cell phones, lol.

 

[Godwynn]

The Oxford History of Medieval Europe by George Holmes

 

[RedRalph]

I read that too, its basically a cut down version of the Stand with cell phones, lol.

Yeah there's a lot of The Stand in there but its still a great book IMO

 

[Imperialmajesty]

Yeah there's a lot of The Stand in there but its still a great book IMO

Great is a bit of a stretch, but it is a good read.

 

[Fr8monkey]

What If: A history book of alternate histories like:

*What if Columbus had landed in India after all?
*What if Hitler had not attacked Russia when he did?
*What if D-Day had been a failure?
*What if Sennacherib had pressed the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.?

Very compelling.

 

[Dachs]

Emphasis on the history, not so much on the alternate, sadly. (Or not so sadly.)

 

[Imperialmajesty]

Emphasis on the history, not so much on the alternate, sadly. (Or not so sadly.)

Why, I thought the What If books were very well done?

 

[Mowque]

Emphasis on the history, not so much on the alternate, sadly. (Or not so sadly.)

Some of them were ok. Stop being such a snob Dachs,

 

[Fr8monkey]

They go more into the actual history more than the alt. history; but still good.

 

[Dachs]

Why, I thought the What If books were very well done?

The historians who wrote the articles in them are just that - historians, and so spend a great deal of time propounding the background behind the whole thing and their own theses regarding a certain event, and a great deal less on the ramifications of the alteration of the event itself. And when they do attempt to look at the alternate part, they end up Doing It Wrong in many cases. For instance, the essay on Jesus escaping execution at the hands of Pilate, due to a change in the procurator's disposition or whatever it was - it does silly stuff, like assume Constantine the Great would even exist despite the world having changed centuries prior to his birth, or indeed that the remainder of Roman history would simply proceed as usual. Very little talk of butterflies at all, and butterflies are everything. There are a few gems that circumvent this, as I recall, but they are few and far between.

At least it's not as crummy as Turtledove.

Some of them were ok. Stop being such a snob Dachs,

Faugh.

A Victor, Not a Butcher was faster than I expected; to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, I'm reading Stephen Sears' Gettysburg (and watching the movie based on The Killer Angels) but staggered such that I get the events of the first day on July 1, the second day on July 2, and so forth. ^_^

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

What If: A history book of alternate histories like:

*What if Columbus had landed in India after all?
*What if Hitler had not attacked Russia when he did?
*What if D-Day had been a failure?
*What if Sennacherib had pressed the siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C.?

Very compelling.

I hate books like this.

 

[Phlegmak]

I recently finished reading Myths and Legends of India. 'Twas amusing.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Oh, I decided to read Trotsky's The History of the Russian Revolution. Its a good, long thousand pages, but I think I can finish it in a few weeks.

 

[Imperialmajesty]

The historians who wrote the articles in them are just that - historians, and so spend a great deal of time propounding the background behind the whole thing and their own theses regarding a certain event, and a great deal less on the ramifications of the alteration of the event itself. And when they do attempt to look at the alternate part, they end up Doing It Wrong in many cases. For instance, the essay on Jesus escaping execution at the hands of Pilate, due to a change in the procurator's disposition or whatever it was - it does silly stuff, like assume Constantine the Great would even exist despite the world having changed centuries prior to his birth, or indeed that the remainder of Roman history would simply proceed as usual. Very little talk of butterflies at all, and butterflies are everything. There are a few gems that circumvent this, as I recall, but they are few and far between.

At least it's not as crummy as Turtledove.

Faugh.

A Victor, Not a Butcher was faster than I expected; to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, I'm reading Stephen Sears' Gettysburg (and watching the movie based on The Killer Angels) but staggered such that I get the events of the first day on July 1, the second day on July 2, and so forth. ^_^

Well, I always believed that one significant change in the past would irrevocably change the future course of events simply because of the potential change in times people might have sex. If Stalins parents had perhaps had sex a week later, would we have Stalin, even if brought up under the same circumstances as in our timeline?


In all fairness to the Jesus story, the author was a Christian author, and while what he wrote was technically blasphemous, it was a religious take on what might have happened, meaning it isn't exactly subject to the rigor of other articles, but even then he could have wrote a better article.


Turtledove, well, at least some of his books are entertaining. I particularly enjoyed Guns of the South and Timeline-191.

 

[Dragonlord]

Turtledove, well, at least some of his books are entertaining. I particularly enjoyed Guns of the South and Timeline-191.

Which one is the Timeline-191?

Turtledove is a very inconsistent author - some of his books I enjoyed hugely and like to reread them every so often, and many others, especially the newer ones, are just shallow junk that I regret wasting time on even once. They read like they're mass-produced, just churned out to fulfill a quota from the publisher.

I won't waste anyone's time mentioning the bad ones, but the ones I really, really like are:
The Guns of the South
The Worldwar series
The Colonization series

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Timeline 191 is the one where the South won the Civil War. It's the Great War series, the American Empire series, and the Settling Accounts series.

 

[Dachs]

Well, I always believed that one significant change in the past would irrevocably change the future course of events simply because of the potential change in times people might have sex. If Stalins parents had perhaps had sex a week later, would we have Stalin, even if brought up under the same circumstances as in our timeline?

That's the point.

Turtledove, well, at least some of his books are entertaining. I particularly enjoyed Guns of the South and Timeline-191.

Guns of the South at least is low on the gratuitous sex scenes.

I'd rather read althists that actually, you know, tell you what's going on instead of having extremely convenient almost fourth wall breaking bits where relatively unimportant characters get a partial overview of world events that isn't really enough to actually give much information but just enough to look bloody incongruous and weird in the middle of a battle scene. Raeg.

Since those are lacking, I mostly just read real history these days, with some fiction, some sports books, and some comic books for variety.

 

[GoodGame]

Just bought a copy of Penquin Classics "The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories" by Lovecraft. Should be fun, my first Lovecraft book.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I just bought several books at a used book store:

Thurman Arnold - The Folklore of Capitalism
Infantry in Vietnam: Small Unit Actions in the Early Days: 1965-66
Ernest Mandel - An Introduction to Marxist Political Theory
Oles M. Smolansky with Betta M. Smolansky - The USSR and Iraq: The Soviet Quest for Influence
John S. Reshestar, Jr. - The Soviet Polity: Government and Politics in the USSR

 

[Imperialmajesty]

That's the point.

Guns of the South at least is low on the gratuitous sex scenes.

I'd rather read althists that actually, you know, tell you what's going on instead of having extremely convenient almost fourth wall breaking bits where relatively unimportant characters get a partial overview of world events that isn't really enough to actually give much information but just enough to look bloody incongruous and weird in the middle of a battle scene. Raeg.

Since those are lacking, I mostly just read real history these days, with some fiction, some sports books, and some comic books for variety.

Crap, I thought I was the only one sick of Turtledove loading every frigging book with sex, and not just your average sex, gratuitous descriptions that make me look over my shoulder to ensure nobody is looking at what I am reading on that page, lol.

Anyway, if a history article is written in a thoughtful and thoroughly researched that makes a strong argument for a thesis, I couldn't care less about the religious inclination of the writer, I'm sure you feel the same way.

Anyway... I rarely read any history books, and wished I had the drive to do so. However, I am a voracious reader of science fiction and some historical fiction. I don't read as much Alternative History as I used to, I pretty much finished everything good that Turtledove wrote, and I just don't like SM Stirling's writing style. Eric Flint is good, and 1632 was a good read. The Axis of Time trilogy by Birmingham, along with Without Warning were excellent. I'm actually trying to begin to delve into history at the moment, I'm going to start with the Soviet Union, particularly Stalin.