What have you been reading? - Book Discussion Thread

@danltns: FWIW if you'd still like something in the high fantasy vein, my favorite these days is Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, followed by her Tawny Man trilogy (which follows most of the same characters). Those books are astoundingly good.

Lord knows I have tried with Sandersons "Way of Kings" but God its stodgy.

Like, I can see that they're well written. The characters are interesting and I love Kalladin, but I've tried the audiobook and the paper copy now and I got bored at about the same place both times. It's just so bogged down with boring details. I wish I had the tenacity to read high fantasy like I did as a teen.

I've also read some of Pierce Brown's "Red Rising". The first book is an absolute masterpiece. I was hooked and absolutely couldn't put it down. Then when I got to the second book, I got to about chapter 14 and it just got boring. Too much political drama and non essential information.

The recent Twitter Acquisition got me to dust off The Great Gatsby for no reason in particular, I'm sure.

I read Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I really recommend it. It's very short (< 200 pages) and pretty engrossing. I went into it totally blind, knowing nothing about the story except that it was sci-fi and two movies had been made about it. It can be a bit dry at times, but this depends on your tastes. Personally, I really enjoyed the in-depth descriptions of the strange phenomena appearing on Solaris and all the scholarship around it. There's a lot of subtle or not-so-subtle satire on academia here that is enjoyable if you like that sort of thing. Ultimately, my take is that the book's theme is every human's search for meaning and understanding in a world where there may be none, with the planet Solaris standing in for everything we cannot understand in the universe - the mysteries of nature, God, and love in a world with so much happiness and tragedy. We always seem to get hints of some deeper truth, and yet always remain in ignorance.

Nitro The Rise and Fall of WCW by Guy Evans

I always been interested in WCW and this is the expanded edition with a forward by former WCW President Eric Bischoff and four additional chapters and programs from WCW Nitro and Thunder. Plus it was 40% off and I have the audiobook though wanted the expanded edition plus it has interviews from former WCW employees like Vince Russo, DDP, and others.

I am re-reading Red Storm Rising. Lets just get this out of teh way, Tom Clancy loved to make his military, FBI, CIA, and cop porn; his view of the world is always about American exceptionalism and certitude America is smart and honest which -of course- is stupid.

However the book was very prescient about why Russian (at that time the Soviet Union) would go to war. He nailed all the paranoid reasons why, all issue they would have, and all the reason why they would be over matched against western weapons. If Russia had a playbook for invading Ukraine in 2022 it seems liek it was lifted from Red Storm Rising.

RSR [Book Synopsis]
Poor economic oversight and planning (graft) cripple the Soviet Union's economy. After much deliberation, the Soviet Politburo decides to seize something economically worthwhile like oil…but it could have been anything grain, a port, or...a country they wanted. Knowing that the United States had pledged to defend the world like 'world police', the Soviets decide that neutralizing NATO is a necessary first step before its military operation can take place. To divert attention from the impending operation, the Politburo embarks upon an elaborate maskirovka to disguise both their predicament and their intentions [Does this sound familiar???]. The KGB then carries out a false flag operation that makes it look like western interference. [Again, do modern Russians just use Tom’s playbook for planning? In 2022 Russia went through Belarus to pretend it was that country attacking, they used their own forces to do false flag attacks back across the boarder into Belarus to make ist look like Ukrainians striated it....] The Politburo publicly denounces the West German government and calls for retaliation. The Soviets figure with West Germany neutralized and occupied, the United States would not move to rescue anyone else. Yadda, yadda yadda….it ends up the Russians are low on petroleum and fear famine if their farm industry shut down, so they have a tight time table to win. NATO is slow off the start and lose ground quickly in West Germany and Northern Europe. The key for NATO is attacking supply lines, and over time a Russian high ranking Generals get killed. [Again, this is how Ukraine is winning against Russia now] Lot’s of saber rattling and fear of nukes is mounted by the Soviets. when they start losing The end of the story is a Russian top general takes part in a coup d'etat, arresting the government ministers and establishing a troika to temporarily preside over the country. The new Soviet government then negotiates for a ceasefire with NATO to return to pre-war borders, effectively ending the conflict.

One of my absolute favorites has to be the Harry Potter series. I'm reading them in order and let me just say, it's been such a magical journey!