Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Snerk]

I'm disappointed to learn that there is no such newspaper called 'The Norway Enquirer'.

 

[Flying Pig]

Okay, since old blue eyes hasn't dropped in since...

I did not have a high opinion of it. The fundamental problem with discussing what happened at the beginning of the seventh century is the paucity, unreliability, and lateness of sources. All other issues flow from this difficulty. There are wildly differing narratives of those events that are almost equally plausible, purely because the sources are so difficult.

The book does not really account for this.

Now, in most general-reader historical publications, sources don't really come up. That's apparently what the publishing industry has decided what the average reader can handle, so. Unfortunately, that mission directly clashes with the nature of the book itself. The author claims to be shining light on a period of history that is often underserved, and the early seventh century is undoubtedly underserved both by general history and by academic scholars. But the main reason for this is that the sources suck, so there's only so far you can reasonably go. The author ignores these problems and constructs a narrative anyway. In addition, that publishing imprint tends to turn out works that are relatively short (often less than 200 pages), which is, again, well and good for the average reader and absolutely insufficient for the massive topic chosen (the last Roman-Iranian war and the birth of Islam).

The book makes for a decent story, but I never got the sense that it was history.

Is there one that does a better job?

 

[Dachs]

Is there one that does a better job?

Not really. Both topics are rarely viewed together save in the context of a monograph with much wider focus (and thus, lower resolution) or one with a much more granular focus.

There are any number of terrible books on the rise of Islam, and a few decent ones, but these don't really discuss the last Roman-Iranian war in any meaningful sense. There are a few good books of Iranian national history that discuss the eastern perspective on both the war and the Muslim conquests, but they're difficult to access, don't really discuss the west at all, and are often in poorly translated or untranslated Farsi. There are several monographs that deal with certain aspects of the Byzantine side of the war and of the Muslim conquests, but rarely both at the same time except for the big overarching textbooks that cover the entire thousand years of Byzantine history.

I honestly don't know as I would strongly recommend any single one of them to fulfill the task that the author of The War of the Three Gods set for himself. There's certainly need for a good overview there, but I don't think that the book fills that need.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Currently reading Justin Cronin's The Passage. It's been on my mental list of things to read since it was published, but it's such a headcrusher of a book - almost 800 pages for the hardcover edition, and it's the first book in a trilogy - that I kept putting it off. Amazon had the Kindle edition on sale recently, so I decided to take the plunge. I'm only a couple-hundred pages into it so far, but I'm enjoying the slow build. I think I remember that it's been optioned for a film, but that doesn't really mean anything. I think books get options picked up before they're even published now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

^^^ And tell us more about the book please.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Combat Leader's Field Guide, 14th edition, by Jeff Kirkham. US Army small unit tactics and soldiering protocols.

 

[Flying Pig]

Combat Leader's Field Guide, 14th edition, by Jeff Kirkham. US Army small unit tactics and soldiering protocols.

Any particular reason for the interest?

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

While I am interested in all fields of knowledge, military affairs is one of the areas I find particularly fascinating. Enough to justify a $30 impulse purchase at a bookstore.

 

[Arakhor]

I've just bought Mediaeval Mars: The Anthology, which is a collection of short stories set on a terraformed Mars after a collapse in civilisation has regressed the populace to mediaeval tech. "Magic" is provided by possession of artefacts from and/or practical knowledge of the lost technological era, in best Arthur C. Clark fashion, and light gravity and thick air provides for avian mounts.

 

[Zkribbler]

... thick air ...

 

[Arakhor]

I meant dense air, allowing Terran creatures to fly in the Martian atmosphere.

 

[Zkribbler]

It must have been written ages ago. Mars has a very thin atmosphere.

 

[Arakhor]

It was published last year. You clearly missed the part about Mars being terraformed by a super-advanced Earth, so it can have any consistently-applied atmosphere the stories demand.

 

[Cutlass]

So long as the science isn't that important.

 

[Takhisis]

Science-fiction, fictional science…

 

[EgonSpengler]

^^^ And tell us more about the book please.

It's a horror story. A little bit Stephen King, a little bit Michael Crichton, a little bit Clive Barker. It's set in the present, so there's a sci-fi thriller vibe to it. There's a prologue about a scientific expedition to Bolivia that meets a bloody end deep in the jungle. For about 200 pages, it takes its time telling us about its characters: A little girl abandoned by her mother; a recently-divorced FBI agent whose baby died; a wrongly-convicted death row inmate; a nun who's a survivor of the civil war in Sierra Leone. The characters and stories converge on a government research facility that's developing a cure for cancer that has something to do with our thymus, and their research results in human test subjects becoming monsters. At page 220-something, it looks like [stuff] is about the jump off. Level 4 subject containment breach; this facility is now in lockdown. Sirens. Lights going out. Gunfire. People getting ripped to bloody shreds. That's where I am right now.

It's well-written, which is important to me. That the story is a little bit cliche is alright. It's a "page turner", perfect for riding the train to work and for falling asleep at night.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wasn't expecting that ending!

On to Lost to the West: the Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's a horror story. A little bit Stephen King, a little bit Michael Crichton, a little bit Clive Barker. It's set in the present, so there's a sci-fi thriller vibe to it. There's a prologue about a scientific expedition to Bolivia that meets a bloody end deep in the jungle. For about 200 pages, it takes its time telling us about its characters: A little girl abandoned by her mother; a recently-divorced FBI agent whose baby died; a wrongly-convicted death row inmate; a nun who's a survivor of the civil war in Sierra Leone. The characters and stories converge on a government research facility that's developing a cure for cancer that has something to do with our thymus, and their research results in human test subjects becoming monsters. At page 220-something, it looks like [stuff] is about the jump off. Level 4 subject containment breach; this facility is now in lockdown. Sirens. Lights going out. Gunfire. People getting ripped to bloody shreds. That's where I am right now.

It's well-written, which is important to me. That the story is a little bit cliche is alright. It's a "page turner", perfect for riding the train to work and for falling asleep at night.

The Passage Thanks very much!

 

[JohannaK]

On to Lost to the West: the Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization.

Is there a secret Byzantine Empire nobody bothered to tell me about here?

 

[Arakhor]

It was the competent, non-backstabbing one!