THE WINDS OF FATE (sequel to Steve Stirling’s time-travel novel TO TURN THE TIDE) is coming out in a few months, but the first two chapters are up on his main site. Fair warning: this is not going to be a sentimentalized version of the Roman Empire. These folks have yet to have their version of the Enlightenment. You Have Been Warned.
#commissionearned
Why Master and Commander? Well, let me put it this way: not all men think of the Roman Empire all the time. Sometimes we think instead about April of 1805, when Napoleon was master of Europe. Only the British Navy stood before him. Oceans were now battlefields.
Admittedly, Patrick O’Brian started the series before that particular point, but you gotta start at the beginning.
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It’s time. In the new year, I start with The Fellowship of the Ring, go through the entire trilogy, read The Hobbit, read the Silmarillion, and then find The Unfinished Tales, The Book of Lost Tales, and whatever other books I’ve got floating around here.
No reason. No plan. Just for the sake of doing it.
#commissionearned
I have a powerful urge to sit down and read me some JRR Tolkien and Terry Pratchett. No, I don’t know why I’m not doing that, right now. Maybe because I think I’d need to get some cocoa going, first, and it’s a bit late for that.
At any rate: Hogfather by Sir pTerry is excellent. But hopefully you knew that already. I just wish they’d stop saddling his books with such awful covers…
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I really need to get around to reading Jon Gabriel’s SINK THE RISING SUN. I should probably warn him: there are two book-related hobbies. There is buying books, and then there is reading books. Most of the people who do the second hobby also do the first one, only more enthusiastically.
Note that I say nothing bad about those people, and not just because I am one of them. After all, they plunk the money down, don’t they? Buying books is a lovely hobby, in that regard…
#commissionearned
Sink the Rising Sun‘s coming out next week, and Jon Gabriel’s an old internet buddy of mine*. Plus, it’s a WWII submarine warfare book. What’s not to like?
*Who has not given me an ARC or anything, not that I would’ve taken one anyway. Sales are important. Especially when it’s a first book.
#commissionearned
Lame? YES! Also necessary? …Also YES! It’s even legitimate: this was Thanksgiving week. I spent most of it either dealing with the aftermath of my cold, taking care of my eldest who was having one, or cooking. The FROZEN DREAMS & TINSEL RAIN Black Friday sale is the most interesting book-related thing from all week.
#commissionearned
This is a somewhat self-serving recommendation. Ken Hite’s THE DAY AFTER RAGNAROK is an alternate-history fantasy/horror guns-and-sorcery game set in a world still reeling from the manifestation, and prompt nuking, of the World-Serpent in 1945. (You can also get it here.)
And why is it potentially self-serving? …Well. Conversations have been had. They may or may not pan out. But it’s a really good game setting anyway!
#commissionearned
I’ve been meaning to read John Ringo and James Aidee’s Beyond the Ranges for a bit now, but only finally got around to it because I’m sick with a cold. It’s clearly the first book in a series about planetary colonization, with a healthy dose of mysterious precursors and the need for developing a functioning economy in the process. Started slow, but picked up. Check it out.
#commissionearned
This was not a great week for reading. However, Steve Stirling’s upcoming novel LORDS OF CREATION finally has a cover! …That’s just gonna have to do.
Oh, and read the first two in the series, too. They’re excellent.
#commissionearned
