Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?

Kurben

Reading The Whitechapel Conspiracy by Anne Perry. Quite OK. We'll see if it holds up until the end. Set in 1892. Our main character is Thomas Pitt, a Bow Street policeman that manages to convict one of the high and mighty in the society for murder and then faces an for him unexpected punishment. Serving as an undercover man working in whitechapel listening to conversations about possible anarchist or other revolusioneezing elements in the wing. What he actually finds is much nastier. Goood description of the setting. Jack the ripper is mentioned as those terrible murders 4 years ago. I read one other from Perry before that and that wasn't close to this. 

Kurben

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

BevVincent

Kurben said:

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

It's a really good vampire novel. Some of Martin's earlier works have been overshadowed by THRONES. His The Armageddon Rag is also worth checking out-rock and roll horror.

Grant87

Kurben said:

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

I read it a couple months ago and really liked it. It's one of the best vampire novels I've read.

Kurben

BevVincent said:

Kurben said:

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

It's a really good vampire novel. Some of Martin's earlier works have been overshadowed by THRONES. His The Armageddon Rag is also worth checking out-rock and roll horror.

Thank you! My introduction to Martin was Thrones and i'm a bit of two minds with that. I mean, i at least, find it difficult to give an opinion of a story that has no ending (and at the moment it does not look like were gonna get that ending). A story (seen from a book perspective) is hard to really judge if it doesn't have an ending. It can be a bad ending but there should be an ending. What there is is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some of it, especially the first books, are really great and then signs start to crop up that he is not quite sure where to go and then some parts feel a bit long. I think many bookseries (where the story goes directly into another book, not like the Tarzan books or the Narnia Books where each book is a separate story) gets weaker as they progress like Hunger Games or Gabaldons books or Auels. A trilogy you can often carry of but if gets more difficulties arise.

Hedda Gabler

Kurben said:

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

A few pages back, grant recommended it. Can’t remember if he elaborated on it. 

Hedda Gabler

Grant87 said:

Kurben said:

Any opinions on Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin?? Just picked it up cheap. Mississippi river steamers and vampires. Sounds fun anyway.

I read it a couple months ago and really liked it. It's one of the best vampire novels I've read.

Ooops, spoke too soon. i have it in my tbr pile from grants list. 

Hedda Gabler

Role Models — John Waters

John, john, john.   I have a very hard time with John. There is a fine line between art and trash and he embraces both. I think he’s smart and interesting, and I’d go to lunch with him, but he would dump my boring behind so fast. 

I could yammer on about his porno movies but
the one thing most telling about him to me is, you are not a friend if you allow someone you supposedly care about to eat actual dog shit for your ego.  That is about as sad as it gets when you exploit fragile friends. 

The chapter on Leslie Van Houten was absolutely worth picking this book off the free book cart. 

Hedda Gabler

Anyone read martha grimes? I have but it was so long ago, i can’t remember a thing about her writing. 

My library had about 10 hardcover Martha Grimes for free so I took them all. 

Hedda Gabler

Has anyone read Joe Hill’s The Pram? 

I champion Joe’s work but I very rarely know what’s happening in his writing world. 

He’s not the best marketer or promoter of his stories and that started waaay before the bebehs. I bet they are at an adorable age right now. 

GNTLGNT

Hedda Gabler said:

Has anyone read Joe Hill’s The Pram? 

I champion Joe’s work but I very rarely know what’s happening in his writing world. 

He’s not the best marketer or promoter of his stories and that started waaay before the bebehs. I bet they are at an adorable age right now. 

....I have not, figured I'd wait till it circled into a collection at some point...it was released as an Amazon Original as part of their Creature Feature collection....the way I keep track of anything he's futzing around with, is by going to his website and signing up for his sporadic "newsletter".....

Grant87

Hedda Gabler said:

Has anyone read Joe Hill’s The Pram? 

I champion Joe’s work but I very rarely know what’s happening in his writing world. 

He’s not the best marketer or promoter of his stories and that started waaay before the bebehs. I bet they are at an adorable age right now. 

Not yet. I have it on my Kindle account, though. I'll squeeze it in sometime before Halloween.

Hedda Gabler

Grant87 said:

Hedda Gabler said:

Has anyone read Joe Hill’s The Pram? 

I champion Joe’s work but I very rarely know what’s happening in his writing world. 

He’s not the best marketer or promoter of his stories and that started waaay before the bebehs. I bet they are at an adorable age right now. 

Not yet. I have it on my Kindle account, though. I'll squeeze it in sometime before Halloween.

Let us know what you think. 

Hedda Gabler

I’m very interested in reading Charles Spencers’s book, A Very Private School. This bizarre practice of sending small children for someone else to raise so you can indulge your selfish needs makes me want to vomit. I recommend the 7-Up series that shows the barbarity of putting Little Lord of the Flies in charge of each other. It’s neglect and abuse. 

Kurben

Finished The Betrayal Of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan. Goes through the work of a group that formed in 2017-18 and worked for 5 years in the hope of answering the question of who it was that betrayed Anne Frank and her family and friends. Only two official attempts has been made to discover the person. One in 1948 that was very short (all in all only 9 pages long) and didn't even bother to interview all the relevant witnesses and one in 1963 that was more competent but had obvious limitations. And then of course a lot of books with theories of who and why. This team (a kind of cold case team put together with people from Europe, the US and Australia that are experienced investigators and experts in different areas) all theories put forward, digged through a lot of archives and also notes and letters kept in private if they gained access. Some theories i never heard of. They smashed many of them and in the end had a few they labeled unlikely and one they labeled most probable. It was a good catchup but i think the author could have put the chapters together in a more reader friendly way. A minor complaint though. Some interesting things i hadn't known beforehand among them the changed behavior of Otto Frank between the investigation in 1948 he was very helpful, interested and eager for answers. In 1963 he was the opposite. Such a change in behavior is interesting, it doesn't have to mean anything but it certainly needs an explanation. Other small things is interesting too.

Kurben

Read Dawn Of The Mammals series by Lou Cadle. Its four books (that i know of, probably more by now) Saber Tooth, Terror Crane, Hell Pig and Killer Pack. Its about a group of paleontology students and their teacher and their guide that go on an expedition and stumble through a timegate that take them back to the the Oligocen timeperiod (Saber Tooth) and when they try to get home again they turn up in Paleocen, Eocen and Pliocen. Entertaining and to the authors credit he has done some research about the animals in each period but it is more of a YA SF time travel story and never really reasonably tries, probably wisely, to explain the timegate that is the books premise. Buy it and you can reasonably enjoy the ride.

GNTLGNT

Hell Pig

...now I know what I'm calling my new band....

Kurben

GNTLGNT said:

Hell Pig

...now I know what I'm calling my new band....

Well, their real name is Entelodonts but Hell Pigs is kind of their nick name.

GNTLGNT

Kurben said:

GNTLGNT said:

Hell Pig

...now I know what I'm calling my new band....

Well, their real name is Entelodonts but Hell Pigs is kind of their nick name.

...gee, I wonder why??....more than a platter of bacon fer sure....

Kurben

GNTLGNT said:

Kurben said:

GNTLGNT said:

Hell Pig

...now I know what I'm calling my new band....

Well, their real name is Entelodonts but Hell Pigs is kind of their nick name.

...gee, I wonder why??....more than a platter of bacon fer sure....

Yeah but they really were closer related to hippos than true pigs. Also they were massive, about 750 kg (1650 pounds) and 2.1 meter in height (6.9 feet). And omnivorous so if they had encountered humans they probably wouldn't have minded a human snack now and then.

GNTLGNT

....same height as me, almost 6 times my weight.....yep, I'll skip the BLT fantasy.....

Kurben

Read Freehold by Michael Z. Williamsson. I've read decent books by him before but this was a little disappointing. I think he is influenced by Heinlein here (there are a lot of libertarianism in here that also is present in some of Heinleins books. But he isn't close to the storyteller Heinlein is and its far too long for whats in it and the beginning reads more like a travellogue than a sf story and rather quickly gets boring. It picks up after about a third of the book is read but nah... . Glad he has written better books after this and that i got to them first. If i had read this first i doubt i would have read more.

Kurben

That book made me want to read a Heinlein, the real deal instead of an imitation, so read Revolt In 2100. As almost always the storytelling is great. I'm not sure if it should be classified as a novel or a novella. A quick but enjoyable read. Heinlein isn't the most visionary or imaginative (thats not saying he lacks these things, just that others surpass him there) SF writer but he uses the tools in an expert manner and tells a story smoother than most, perhaps all, other authors in the genre.

Kurben

Reading Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the bible and why by Bart Ehrman, a New Testament Scholar. He goes through the different books of the bible and how they have changed, through copying, translations, additions and subtractions to the text. It is an interesting story. For example i just learned that the story of the adulterous woman in Johns gospel (Go, and sin no more, May he who he is without sin throw the first stone) is a later addition to john. In the earliest ćopies we have of John that story is totally absent. I totally understand why they added it, its a wonderful story and probably originally came from some of the many other writings of Jesus that existed in the first centuries. Many other examples but you get the drift. Ehrman is one of the most sceptical of Jesus scholars and in his book on Jesus himself comes close to denying his existence as a historical person but stops just short by saying that we cant know anything about him from the sources but that he probably existed. (for my taste he is too sceptical and i think there are some things we do know about the historical Jesus). But thats not the issue here where he does a textual analysis of the 27 books in the bible. Amd his methodology is good. Only about halfway but an interesting read so far.

Kurben

Reading The Origin of Rome by David Potter. Rome from the Republic to Hadrian (264 bc (start of first punic war) to 138 ad (death of Hadrian). I think its a good idea to not do the easy division with first one on the republic and then one on the empire Instead starting with the rise of Rome to a big power to be reckoned with. That started with the three Punic wars until Trajan and Hadrian finished the expansion phase. So in a way its logical. I might have extended it a bit so we got to hear from Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius too. They did not conquer new territory but they made an excellent job of holding this vast territory and were if not great conquerers so at least really good emperors. After Marcus Aurelius death in 180 as they became rather rare and then next book could then be the decline of Rome or something like that. It makes sense to treat Caesar, Pompey, Sulla and Marius (republic) in the same book as Augustus, Claudius, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan and Hadrian (Empire). These were the times when Rome was ruled by competent men ( Forgetting for the moment a few rotten eggs like Caligula and Nero but they were the exceptions, not the rule). Its just that i dont like the thought of two basically sound emperors being in the same books with horrors like Commodus, Caracalla and Elagabalus that probably sticks out among the long line of incompetent emperors that followed. A few exceptions here too of people that at least tried to do what was good for Rome even if not always succeeding like Septimus, Diocletian and of course Constantine.