What books are you reading?

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Vent Noir
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Re: What books are you reading?

Finished Endsinger now, which did a great job of keeping me hooked. Now on to Damnation the final book of Jean Johnson's Theirs Not to Reason Why.
Vent Noir

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April 7, 1979: The first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam premieres. Fanboys declare Gundam "Ruined FOREVER".
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mcred23
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Re: What books are you reading?

Zeonista wrote:The Third World War and The Third World War: The Untold Story were the first books to take on the hypothetical NATO-WTO showdown in a dramatic format. As always where the European Allies are concerned, the Brits did it first and then the Yanks did it better. :) But without that book's success I am not sure if anyone would have put money down for The Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising. I first read them in the paperback format in my school days; the dramatic vignettes were the best, although the more abstract strategic situation got more interesting over the years. Hackett acknowledged the possibility of IRBMs and maybe even ICBMs flying, but decided to call it quits before the sore loser syndrome glazed Europe.

But what a difference a few years makes! When Hackett wrote his book NATO and the US Military had just begun to widely issue the first generation of guided munitions and deploy Challenger & Abrams tanks. Team Yankee picked up the scenario about last years of the Reagan presidency, and showed what might have happened on the sharp end of the ground war in the U.S. area of operations in West Germany. It was still a "best case" or "better case" scenario, but it took the Red Army's tactics into account, as well as the abundant training carried out by the U.S. Army to counter them.
Yeah, it's a pretty interesting subject, and I've always found the hypothetical NATO-Warsaw Pact stuff interesting (I blame playing Red Alert at a young age).

The Third World War: The Untold Story was good, mainly for reasons Zeonista stated but as I read it, one major flaw hit me: It's not merely an updated and expanded version of The Third World War: August 1985, which is what I thought it would be. It covers most of the same stuff and main points, but some elements of the story from the original are admittedly omitted or summarized (Such as the details of Birmingham, or an in depth look at the fighting in South Africa) to focus on things new to The Untold Story. I can't fault the book for my lack of knowledge, but now it makes me want to find a copy of that to get the 'full' story.

All that said, it is an excellent book, but with a few flaws. The vignettes Zeonista mentioned are generally excellent, while the back story stuff is sometimes a double edged sword. Sometimes the level of details that Hackett goes into (For example, the chapter on Ireland) do a great job of explaining the political situation to an amazing degree, but it almost simultaneously becomes quite dry and something of a drag to read, particularly when it felt like 20-odd pages on the Irish political scene were done just to lead to (In my own gross oversimplification :lol:) "Some aircraft are based there and they sunk some Ruskies on the second day of the war". That sort of line is toed throughout the book, particularly in the sections dealing with the side areas of the war, with mixed results (South Africa, Asia, and Scandinavia were interesting, the Middle East a bit less so, while the South American section felt mainly like a waste), but overall, I really enjoyed the book.

And really, reading it may have made me enjoy Team Yankee even more as a result. Team Yankee is excellent in that it's exactly what it says it is: the story of an American tank unit during Hackett's World War III scenario. It was well written and very entertaining, and I enjoyed it very much. Simple as that. 8)

So, with World War III finished, I'm shifting to another subject I have a multiple book backlog in: Star Wars. I'd picked up all five of the Tales From books, plus the new Tarkin novel when that came out. I'm holding off on Tarkin until I can watch all of the first season of Rebels (I know they aren't related, but whatever :)), so I'm going through the Tales books first. I'm not sure if there is supposed to be any prefered chronological order to them, so I'm going in publication order, starting with Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. So far, I've read the first two sections, about the cantina band (Which was funny) and Greedo (Who remains an idiot and Han shot first :twisted:) and enjoyed them. I still love me some ol' EU.
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Alexeon
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Re: What books are you reading?

I haven't been able to get back to my reading backlog in a little bit (or any other backlogs until just recently, actually) but I am technically in the process of reading the Toaru Majutsu no Index novels and the Gundam Sentinel novel. I also need to continue reading the Discworld books.
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SlowTurtle
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Re: What books are you reading?

Keeping this short so I can get to the awesomeness that is DUNE. I mean the movie was great in it's own right but my god the book blows it out of the water.
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Alexeon
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Re: What books are you reading?

I've been reading A Gentle Madness, a book about book-collecting. Its pretty interesting. I wonder how many of the old book collectors would be collecting gunpla and figures if they lived today...
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Dark Duel
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Re: What books are you reading?

Well, I recently read Michael Crichton's Prey, which is the usual don't-mess-with-technology-you-can't-control cautionary tale Crichton is so good at. In this particular instance, he tackles nanotechnology. Pretty fun read.
Right now I'm working on Tess Gerritsen's The Keepsake (the name ought to be familiar to fans of the tv show Rizzoli & Isles, as it's based on Gerritsen's characters/books). Only the second of her books that I've read, but it's looking like another great read so far.
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Vent Noir
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Re: What books are you reading?

The Red Queen, the seventh and final book of The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody, finally came out. The first one was released in 1987, when I was in primary school. That's twenty-eight frickin' years ago.

Game of Thrones fans have NOTHING on us Obernewtyn fans.

Now, Ms. Carmody, not to sound ungrateful, but can you please get around to putting out Book 3 of the Legendsong Saga?
Vent Noir

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April 7, 1979: The first episode of Mobile Suit Gundam premieres. Fanboys declare Gundam "Ruined FOREVER".
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