Which book are you reading now? Volume XIV

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm 1/3 in and it is thankfully an unbiased take of the company's early history. I was a bit worried this would be a sycophantic love letter but the Eric Berger doesn't shy away from some of the awful working conditions the employees endured. He doesn't overplay them either - truth be told, the company was doing a lot of exciting things that no one else was even thinking about at the time. That alone kept a lot of employees hooked and many of them would have worked very long hours without being told to. Many of them even gave up lucrative careers in the government or big aerospace companies to join SpaceX so it's hard to say people were abused by working there. It was very rough though, and people were required to give up their lives effectively to work there - the book returns to the theme several times of how the majority of those early employees were young and childless.

That was a prime recruitment demographic for the company (whether intentional or not) due to their ability to work longer hours due to lack of family commitments. Then after the first few years, it seems a whole wave of people left as they began to marry and have kids. It's hard to say whether this was overall a net negative for the company - did the churn cause them to lose more productivity than they gained from pushing everyone so hard?

This was a good, unbiased book.

Tommorow I am riding my bike up to the library to pick up a copy of The Consuming Fire (book 2 of The Collapsing Empire space opera series). I'm stoked because this is the first time in almost exactly a year I've ridden my bicycle up there. Before Covid, I was up there 1 to 4 times a month and reading a lot and I want to get back into that.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I have just finished reading:

Death Cure

by

James Dashner

Copyright 2011, a grim dystopian Science-Fiction thriller.

It is one of a series that mixes elements from computer games,
with a plot line that may be regarded as falling perhaps halfway
between the current Coronavirus pandemic and a zombie like
apocalypse, with usual cast of youthful heroes and mad scientists.

There has been a solar flare that has trashed the earth's agriculture, and
a virus spread to reduce population numbers to what would be supportable;
has, needless to say, mutated into a devastating brain destroying plague.


Strangely enough the author managed a cheerful ending.

Albeit I expect he was under direct orders from the editor, publisher etc.

 

[Kyriakos]

Strangely enough the author managed a cheerful ending.

Albeit I expect he was under direct orders from the editor, publisher etc.

This is terrible.

He loved Big Brother.

 

[tjs282]

I have just finished reading:

Death Cure

by

James Dashner

That's the last of the Maze Runner books, right?

Yet another of those "YA" (= Young Apocalypse) book-series made fashionable for a while by the success of the Hunger Games?

I only read the first one. Netflix has all the movies, but I didn't bother with them, either.

 

[EnglishEdward]

That's the last of the Maze Runner books, right?

Yes, I rather think so; difficult to do a follow up after the happy ending.

I don't believe I have read the Hunger Games yet.

 

[Takhisis]

Olde classicks are beste. The voyages of Sinbad the Sailor.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Tigers in the Mud

Interesting that 7 T-34s drove past hes two Tigers and even after 2 of them were destroyed they couldnt figure out where the Tigers were
The poor vision of the T-34 is what saved them. The Tigers themselves also did struggle to see the T-34 because he only saw the first one drive behind him at very close range

Also Ottos Regiment commander was a coward like the one portrayed in Iron cross. Maybe that where the film maker got the idea from. Claimed to be helping leading a counter attack over the radio but no one could find him anywhere close to the front and then took credit for the regiments achievements.

 

[Josu]

Ended Danza de tinieblas by Eduardo Vaquerizo (dance of darkness)
The Steampunk and ucrony background is superb, however fails in the story which is simple and quite predictable.

Spoiler :

From the very first appearance of the jew people, I had clear that a steampunk golem will be entering in the scene.
It is also quite predictable that the main character was going to fell in love with Rebeca, and that there was something wrong with her

Starting Carl Sagan's The Cosmic Connection

 

[Kyriakos]

I was actually optimistic, when I saw the above ("Crab Canon", by Escher") that Hofstadter would finally present Goedel after 207 A4-sized pages in his "Goedel-Escher-Bach". But, of course, first he has to provide another Lewis-Carrollesque Achilles and the Tortoise prelude.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Picked this up from the library

Spoiler :

Turns out I read this last year right before the libraries closed down. Here's the crazy thing - I also accidentally read the first book in this series twice. Does this mean the books are actually bad because I can't even remember reading them?

I actually quite enjoy them - it's good space opera set in a future where humanity's star systems are linked with a hyperspace lane network. This network naturally re-aligns over time though the humans don't realize this. All of a sudden, another realignment begins to happen and the emperor of the galactic empire is trying to rush to help humanity overcome the looming catastrophe. There's lots of intrigue and it's written in a humerus, almost playful style.

Yesterday I biked 10 miles (16km, round trip) back to the library to pick up the third book of the trilogy:

Spoiler :

 

[EgonSpengler]

Picked this up from the library

Spoiler :

Turns out I read this last year right before the libraries closed down. Here's the crazy thing - I also accidentally read the first book in this series. Does this mean the books are actually bad because I can't even remember reading them?

I actually quite enjoy them - it's good space opera set in a future where humanity's star systems are linked with a hyperspace lane network. This network naturally re-aligns over time though the humans don't realize this. All of a sudden, another realignment begins to happen and the emperor of the galactic empire is trying to rush to help humanity overcome the looking catastrophe. There's lots of intrigue and it's written in a humerus, almost playful style.

Yesterday I biked 10 miles (16km, round trip) back to the library to pick up the third book of the trilogy:

Spoiler :

I think I've read most of Scalzi's books, but for some reason I couldn't get halfway through The Last Emperox. I'm not sure what happened, it was just a slog. If you're looking for more military sci-fi/space opera like Scalzi's, I recommend Walter John Williams' The Praxis.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Thanks for the recommendation @EgonSpengler!

 

[Takhisis]

Sei Shōnagon's The Pillow Book.

 

[Ajidica]

I was a busy beaver this weekend and got through two books.

By Way of Deception, by Victor Ostrovsky. Tell-all book by a disillusioned Mossad agent. Half the book is all about tradecraft, with a strong focus on how to make sure you are not being followed and approaching marks. While interesting, nothing too groundbreaking in it. It is interesting to note that, according to Ostrovsky, the Mossad relies heavily on Jewish nationals in whatever country they are operating on for informational, and at times operational, assistance. The second half of the book is Ostrovsky talking about how terrible and amoral is, with the Mossad abusing the fact it was exempt from any meaningful oversight. For Ostrovsky, this manifested in the Mossad trying to undermine the policies of the Israeli government, enriching themselves, and having an institutional disregard for any non-Israelis, even allies, when it came to information sharing.
Pretty obvious why the Israeli government tried to stop publication of the book. Ostrovsky obviously has an axe to grind, and I've heard his second book has some serious reliability problems. Big takeaway from the book is that spooks are going to be spooks and need to be subject to rigorous oversight. If you have an interest in spook stuff, worth a read. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

A Cruel and Shocking Act, by Philip Shennon. Examination of the Warren Commission with a focus on its staff lawyers, how they went about investigating the assassination of Kennedy. Some good stuff on how the FBI and CIA tried to hide a lot of information about Oswald's interactions with the FBI and his trip to Mexico. Wasn't previously aware James Angleton (CIA spycatcher) was involved in the CIA's side of cooperation with the Warren Commission. The book brought a lot of information I was unaware of about Oswald's Mexican trip. The book is very much not a rebuttal of alternate theories or a defense of the Warren Commission; but rather a history of how the report was written. The book is substantial doorstop, but Shennon keeps it moving along at a good pace and is quite readable. Solid recommendation.

 

[Josu]

Ended Carl Sagan's The Cosmic Connection, good book, but this was not the book I was looking for

Starting Chunk Kuo: The Middle Kingdom by David Wingrove

 

[Kyriakos]

Continuing Hofstadter's Goedel-Escher-Bach, now on page 360 (of 800).
It was so nice when Hofstadter finally went into Goedel's theorems, roughly 100 pages ago. But now he is apparently in this middle of another parenthesis (where he presents other notions to use as metaphors/isomorphisms later for Goedel stuff), and it may well last for the next 100 pages.
I am not too keen on the current mega-parenthesis. It is about the mind as a system similar to low and high levels of a formal system or a machine.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I have just finished reading:

Operation Fortitude

by

Joshua Levine

Copyright 2011

This is a history of how double agents were used by Britain
in WW2 to mislead the Germans by Strategic Deception.

Its gems include Edgar Hoover meeting the double agent
Popov who told him Japan planned to attack Pearl Harbour.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

The History of Libya by Bukola Oyeniyi is another of the Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations, covering the titular country from its prehistoric roots but focusing mainly on the 20th/21st centuries. Overly focuses on Gaddafi in a biased manner during his time in power, much to the book's detriment. The author says in the preface he wants to focus on a history mainly driven by the Libyan people's actions, but then talks about nobody but Gaddafi for several chapters. Libyans are apparently just politically apathetic (so Gaddafi had to put his cronies in power) for decades after independence, so it's kind of disorienting when the author finally talks about the opposition when the Arab Spring starts. A very biased image of Gaddafi as an empowering liberator of both Libyans and Africans is presented with a straight face even as instances of internal military control and territorial acquisition in Chad are described. Been really starting to question the quality of these Greenwood books in recent years.

 

[Bugfatty300]

lol

Gentlemen, I have read your article in the September issue of the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW entitled "Fresh Bait-'Ware Suckers," by Marion Wright, purporting to give a statement of the inability of the United States Navy to secure recruits. This article was evidently written by a woman, although the name "Marion" is occasionally used by the opposite sex. If a woman, she has no actual knowledge of what she writes, and if a man, he is willfully distorting facts.

I am not a commissioned officer of the navy. I did not receive my education at the "Snob Factory at Annapolis," as your article terms the United States Naval Academy. True, I am a petty officer (a little higher than a seaman) and what must be more damning of all in the eyes of the writer of your article, I am on recruiting duty in Pittsburg, Pa. I can, therefore, speak from the actual experience of an enlisted man of the life in the navy which you try to ridicule in your article.
---
Formerly the navy accepted nearly everything that came its way (even foreigners). Now we will not accept a man unless he is a citizen of the United States ... At the recruiting station at Pittsburg we have an average of six or eight applicants daily who fill out the application blanks. Usually there are about five others who come merely to inquire and receive booklets or information. Of these thirty-six or fifty-eight applicants weekly, we take in about six enlistments. The others are rejected because we take only the physically, mentally and morally perfect.
[International Socialist Review, October 1912 p.347]

 

[Synobun]

Last three 5-star books I've read:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevit

Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis