Which Book Are You Reading Now? Volume XII

[Takhisis]

On it being hacky:
Yes, I know the story about how Puzo was looking for something to write about and found this interesting topic.
Yes, I know he completely massacres the spelling of every other word in Italian/Sicilian, I can tell.
Yes, the films were a bit of a rewrite.
Yes, the descriptive sex scenes are unnecessary.
There's a bit of a time inconsistency with the sequence of Don Vito being shot.

It is a weird read, but it's worth reading nonetheless.

 

[tjs282]

This book is apparently a misplaced manuscript by Adams in which he takes a portion of the story line from Hitchhikers and does a crossover with the Doctor.

IIRC, it actually happened the other way round.

Adams was writing for the Beeb in the mid- to late 70s (tail-end of Tom Baker's run as the Doctor; he didn't write anything for Peter Davison's run from 1981-85*). He submitted a Who-script which included some new villains, the 'Krikkit-Men', but it got shot down by the show-runner(s) for being far too silly**, so instead he later recycled the idea into Life, The Universe and Everything, which was published in 1982 (and wasn't made into a radio serial until much later; the original radio series finished with what was later published as The Restaurant at the End of the Universe).

(Fact-checking myself, Wikipedia agrees)

*Davison was 'my' Doctor: I always felt a bit cheated that I was born about 5 years too late to see Baker in the role as well (the first ep I ever remember watching, aged about 6, was the last ep of the 'Logopolis' arc, where Baker fell off the radar tower and then regenerated into Davison)
**Like Daleks were sooo much more sensible... ("WE are the superior species! YOU will be extermin-... Oh hell, they've run upstairs!")

 

[BenitoChavez]

Spoiler Largish Book Cover :

I've been listening to the audio book of this (that counts as reading! right?). I finished Goldsworthy's book on Julius Caesar so Augustus seemed like the natural followup. It's super detailed and being unfamiliar with many of the Latin names and places has me going to the internet a lot to get some supplementary info to try to make sense of it all. Once I do make sense of it, it is a very interesting, dramatic, and chaotic history. Romans were nuts.

Spoiler Largish Book Cover :

I picked this up a while ago on my New Zealand trip. This is much more a broad strokes history book and not too terribly long at around 200 pages but I find that is perfect as an introduction to a country I didn't know much about.

 

[Arakhor]

I recently picked up the hardback version of Augustus, so I'm assuming you're recommending it?

 

[BenitoChavez]

I recently picked up the hardback version of Augustus, so I'm assuming you're recommending it?

I'm only a little bit of the way in but it seems to have the same style and level of detail as the Julius Caesar book which I enjoyed immensely. So based on that, yes I'm recommending it.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Every Molecule Tells a Story by Simon Cotton is a good review for me on introductory and organic chemistry. It talks about common molecules encountered in everyday life: applications, structures, chemistry, history, other trivia. Short but does not compromise on technical aspects.

 

[Takhisis]

Just got a translated copy of Ivan Bunin's The village.

 

[JollyRoger]

Wherein good ole JR takes on Chick Lit:

 

[yung.carl.jung]

been reading a lot lately. finished lolita and heart of dog. already onto a new stack.

this book made me completely paranoid and only served to intensify my fear of what's to come. it's so spot on it's like it was written yesterday. language is difficult and sometimes unnecessarily so. venturing into obscurantist territory.

Civilization and its Discontents for you anglos. Great book, extremely simple language, nicely structed. Freud is so much more sympathetic in his writing than I could have ever imagined. He reads like an old friend.

currently reading Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment and some more Thomas Pynchon.

 

[Kyriakos]

Heart of a dog "all of the 'gentlemen' have fled to Paris"

 

[EnglishEdward]

Finished last night:

Rule 34

by

Charles Stross

which stretched my understanding of perverse borderline criminality.

 

[cardgame]

I am greatly enjoying Artemis by Andy Weir (author of The Martian)

 

[BenitoChavez]

I am greatly enjoying Artemis by Andy Weir (author of The Martian)

I liked that book too but I believe @hobbsyoyo had a pretty strong negative opinion of it.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I thought it was ok at best. I wouldn't quite call the protagonist a Mary Sue but there wasn't a problem she could not fix in five minutes flat. The supporting cast was pretty flat and there were parts where the author veered in Ayn-esque lolbertarianism. At one point he kind of sorta made the case pedophilia was ok if the kiddo was down (I can't remember the details but I wrote it up here when I read it).

Stuff like that was a big turn off for me. His science was sound but his execution of the climax was laughably dumb but I won't spoil it.

It was an easy/fast read, I'll give it that.

 

[Kyriakos]

The devil and tom walker, by w. Irving.
I liked some of the descriptions, but didacticism takes away from it.

 

[cardgame]

the lolbertarianism is also definitely described as bad, though.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

the lolbertarianism is also definitely described as bad, though.

Eh not quite in my opinion. He didn't give it a glowing, uncritical view but the central thesis was that only lolbertarianism can get people living on the moon. It was as much a political thesis on how human space colonies should (and will) work as it was a technically-oriented thriller. That's how I read it anyways.


There is a bit right at the end I want to talk about. Let me know when you finish.

One other thing - it was almost impeccably good 'hard' science fiction. He didn't resort to any handwaiving of physics. The one thing he missed was how badly the moon would be polluted. At the rate they launched satellites to and from it, the moon would have a thin, highly toxic atmosphere - enough of one to cause serious problems. I have a book from NASA that breaks down how it happens that I could recommend if anyone's interested. They did a study on major moon bases to support giant space stations in the 70s and analyzed this problem.

 

[cardgame]

Oh, I've finished. You're right on that the MC is never particularly challenged, which is mildly annoying in retrospect, but the book on the whole is just a fun quick ride.

I would have appreciated more Martian style describing how her situation was FUBAR'd and what she had on hand to fix it, instead of just 'oh, I'll do this, and... done!' narration as it is happening, instead of side-explaining before time resumes. If that makes sense.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Spoiler :

The climax of the book where she has to open and close a bunch of valves to vent the habitat was laughably stupid. So much so I do not know why he wrote it that way when you compare it to all of his other technically-accurate action scenes.

The problem is that she was able to just look at a fluid schematic for a minute, understand it, memorize it and then act on it outside by turning valves and such. That's unbelievably stupid. Schematics almost never look anything like the actual plumbing. They are loaded with obscure symbols, they often invent new symbols that no one else uses and they are extremely complex and cover several sheets.

That whole extended scene in the book was nonsense. It's the equivalent of a hackerman scene in a movie and Weir should know better.

EDIT:

I said this before when I did my original write up but is worth repeating -

The Martian was ghost-written by hundreds of fans. He published it online piece by piece and incorporated a ton of feedback from his readers before it was picked up by a publisher. He wrote Artemis in seclusion and the book is worse for it, in my opinion.

 

[Cutlass]

Finished last night:

Rule 34

by

Charles Stross

which stretched my understanding of perverse borderline criminality.

Looking that up lead me to this...