đź“š The book lovers thread
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@dkf said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
But it's the period up to WW1 that is really interesting. Why did Europe split into two power blocks?
Completely accidentally.
The original impetus of the war was Austria-Hungary's desire to mount a punitive expedition against Serbia for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. The problem is: Serbia had a pact with Russia (who had a pact with France, who had a pact with the UK). So to keep Russia off their backs, A-H got Germany involved. What nobody knew (and it's interesting to think of how history would have changed if Germany had just said something) is that Germany had only one mobilization plan, the Schlieffen Plan, and it required, as part of mobilizing its army, invading Belgium. (And, BTW, had they invaded France without invading Belgium, the UK would have been hands off. They weren't that allied.)
If Germany had just said at one of the many discussions, "hey, guys, look. Russia's mobilizing, we get that but if we mobilize that means we invade Belgium-- yeah dumb I know-- let's go back to the table and talk this out", the whole thing could have been averted.
As it turned out, A-H's army was so poorly-led, poorly-equipped, and poorly-trained that tiny Serbia held-out against them almost the entire war while their suicidally incompetent field marshal Conrad Graf von Hötzendorf was busy smashing their brains out against the Russians.
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@blakeyrat Audibiook purchased.
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@kt_ said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Right now I'm reading something you Americans could already be familiar with. Can't say much yet, just started, but man do I love Twain!
I do too, Wish he did more audio books.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
The original impetus of the war was Austria-Hungary's desire to mount a punitive expedition against Serbia for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
That was (one step along from) the casus belli, the thing that ignited the war, not the thing that made the whole situation so volatile in the first place. It's like blaming a lightning strike for a forest fire; while strictly correct, it's missing the long term forestry management issues with allowing lots of highly flammable deadwood to build up.
Much more critical was the entente cordiale, without which France and Britain would probably have been fighting each other. Plenty of historical precedent for those two powers (who both had large empires at the time) having another go at each other, but instead they decided to bury the hatchet. Similarly, there were a lot of mutual defence treaties drawn up elsewhere. It's these things that are interesting.
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I stand by what I wrote.
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@blakeyrat I wasn't disagreeing, just noting that that was not in itself enough. The mesh of interlinking treaties was what turned a local piece of stupidity in the Balkans into a world-spanning war.
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Discourse On Toxic Substances Discourse On Toxic Substances was a legendary borax-bound codex. The written portion consists of a 28 page manual entitled Discourse on Toxic Substances, authored by áspka Cratereyes. It concerns the classification of toxic substances. The writing is reasonably serious. Overall, the prose is passable. In the early summer of 63, Discourse On Toxic Substances was created in Lovercities by the human áspka Cratereyes. In the early summer of 63, Discourse On Toxic Substances was stored in Lovercities by the human áspka Cratereyes.
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@dkf said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
One of the times a collaboration between writers genuinely worked.
Niven/Pournelle seems to be, over all, a good author combo; sort of like Weber/Drake/Stirling.
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@blakeyrat might I interest you in:
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@Mikael_Svahnberg Not if you just plop down a link without giving any review or explanation of it.
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@blakeyrat I haven't read it. My wife read it between her usual biographies of 16th to 18th century swedes, and she liked it. As far as I understand, Englund follows 20 ordinary people through letters and diaries etc. during 1914, thus givning a von-unten (is that an english term?) perspective of the war.
Other than that, the reviews on Amazon probably does a better job than I can at summarising it.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
von-unten (is that an english term?)
It's not an English term. I'm guessing from context and very hazy German that it's best translated to “bottom-up”.
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@dkf splitting hairs, but more like "from below". It's just a matter of perspective, not a work traversion.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg Yes, but that's how English rolls anyway.
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I've been reading this and greatly enjoying it.
For me, one of the most interesting things is that this is a different culture's perspective on science fiction. It has a different set of biases to what I'm used to. Great stuff.
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@dkf How is the story? Reviews are mixed about the story-telling and characters.
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@dse It's not perfect, though I'd need to know Chinese literature a lot better to be able to say if that's an intentional flaw or not. (If it's like it is because it is echoing other works that are also that way, it's entirely legitimate.) There's a few too many human characters for the length of book for my taste, and not quite enough exploration of their motivations, though the thoughts of the central characters are well done; it's the circle of characters immediately outside who could have done with more attention.
OTOH, this is SF for people from the information age, not the atomic age. No warp drive BS here, and only one thing that is truly beyond what we know of science currently. Won't say what though; that'd spoil one of the big reveals. :)
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@dkf I got that same sense when I read Solaris and Roadside Picnic (the collection of stories that the film Stalker is based on, and the video game STALKER is loosely based on.)
What matters to Russians, at least during the USSR, was so weird and different than what Americans cared about. Sure, both cultures were excited about building rockets, going to strange planets, playing with advanced alien technology, but the Russian stories have this amazing emotional focus that was never present in US sci-fi of the same era.
As a late-comer to Solaris (I didn't watch the film version until the George Clooney remake came out), it really made me kick myself that I hadn't read it years ago.
My copy of Roadside Picnic also contains a little essay describing how difficult it was to get the book past the censors, which I found amazing. They read it as some kind of screed against capitalism (even though that's hardly the point), so they simply moved the setting to the US and kept the rest mostly the same.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Solaris ... Russians
The author of "Solari", Stanisław Lem, was Polish not Russian (so not in the USSR, but indeed the mentality is similar) and he wrote many great books, with a range of different ideas:
- about contact with alien species (I especially like this one):
- traditional SF about space exploration:
- and even children books in SF style:
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@Adynathos said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
The author of "Solari", Stanisław Lem, was Polish not Russian (so not in the USSR, but indeed the mentality is similar) and he wrote many great books, with a range of different ideas:
I GREW UP WHEN THERE WERE ONLY TWO COUNTRIES AND ONE OF THEM WERE RUSSKIES!
Yes yes correction noted, sheesh.
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@blakeyrat Mixing up Russia and Poland is even more inflammatory than mixing up Mexico and Texas. :)
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@dkf Yeah but only to Europeans so who gives a shit.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
@dkf Yeah but only to Europeans so who gives a shit.
Indeed. Say, do you happen to pass by Capitol hill on your way to work?
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@Mikael_Svahnberg For me, it was always 'D' yu new 'ny faemus people ayeeaw?' or occasionally, 'are the girls hotter in America?'
Highschool overseas is weird.
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@Mikael_Svahnberg said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Indeed. Say, do you happen to pass by Capitol hill on your way to work?
Why, trying to figure out where to aim the sniper rifle?
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@blakeyrat Philip K Dick thought Lem was a group of USSR writers:
Dick thought that Stanisław Lem was probably a false name used by a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion, and wrote a letter to the FBI to that effect.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
I know some people here were interested in Great War stuff. I just finished Meyer's A World Undone, and I have to say this is by far the best general history of the Great War I've ever read. In an amazingly complex topic, he knows exactly which subjects to gloss over and which to focus on to produce a balanced, entertaining narrative of the war. He proudly presents figures obscure in other sources (like Arthur Currie, possibly the best commander of the war), and doesn't shy away from calling-out the Entente when they were acting like assholes (both Britain's lying to their Arab allies, and later the continuation of the naval blockade after the cease-fire well into 1919, which undoubtedly caused tens of thousands of deaths through malnutrition.)
Man, I'm up to Spring 1915 in this book and basically EVERYBODY in charge of EVERYTHING was an irredeemable douchenozzle and awful at planning. Particularly in the department of brilliant tactics with no thought into 'hey what do we do 15 minutes after this works!?', etc.
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@Weng Haha yeah, he points out every missed opportunity that could have swung the war, and there are a LOT of them.
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@blakeyrat
{Germany} I have a great idea! Let's use chlorine gas to kill the fuck out of the Frenchies!
{Frenchies} drowns in own fluids
{Germany} Wait, what? That actually killed people? SHIT THAT'S SCARY I AIN'T GOIN' ANYWHERE NEAR THOSE TRENCHES!
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@Weng said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
irredeemable douchenozzle
Ah yes, leadership on the Western Front. I don't think it really improves through the rest of the war.
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@dkf Austria-Hungary's Conrad was the worst, the ABSOLUTELY WORST.
Also, every single leader in Italy. But you kind of expect that from Italy, because they've always been pathetically awful at war.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Italy, because they've always been pathetically awful at war
I guess they must have got it out of their systems with the whole Roman Empire thing.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Austria-Hungary's Conrad was the worst, the ABSOLUTELY WORST.
Perhaps, but then there was the Russian leadership; they managed to actually outright lose before the end of the war. Despite being mainly up against the Austrians…
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@dkf said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Perhaps, but then there was the Russian leadership; they managed to actually outright lose before the end of the war. Despite being mainly up against the Austrians…
They did have their moments of glory, though. They mostly "lost" due to political fallout and the whole revolution thing.
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@dkf said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Perhaps, but then there was the Russian leadership; they managed to actually outright lose before the end of the war. Despite being mainly up against the Austrians…
Their military leadership was kicking ass. Their civilian leadership is what lost the war.
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Picked up this for 50p at a charity shop many years ago. Then never read it until now when I unearthed it moving. It's really good!
More towards sci-fantasy than sci-fi but the story telling is top notch, more like watching a film than reading. Got a little less formed at the end but this was her first book so I'll try to acquire more now.
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@Cursorkeys said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Picked up this for 50p at a charity shop many years ago.
Looks like it's a bit cheaper now!
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@dcon said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
@Cursorkeys said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Picked up this for 50p at a charity shop many years ago.
Looks like it's a bit cheaper now!
Interesting, and that's in VG condition. Plus the postage is about what it costs to send via Royal Mail small packet so they aren't making any money on that, odd.
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@blakeyrat said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Their military leadership was kicking ass.
Sometimes. Other times, though...
They were never as bad as Austria-Hungary, though, they were a complete joke.
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@dkf said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
@dse It's not perfect, though I'd need to know Chinese literature a lot better to be able to say if that's an intentional flaw or not. (If it's like it is because it is echoing other works that are also that way, it's entirely legitimate.) There's a few too many human characters for the length of book for my taste, and not quite enough exploration of their motivations, though the thoughts of the central characters are well done; it's the circle of characters immediately outside who could have done with more attention.
OTOH, this is SF for people from the information age, not the atomic age. No warp drive BS here, and only one thing that is truly beyond what we know of science currently. Won't say what though; that'd spoil one of the big reveals. :)
I just finished it (first book). I enjoyed it tremendously, it is certainly a great SF. It is very different from most SF I have read, but that is a great plus for any SF/fantasy to be different (no copy-pasta).
The author has clearly done his research and it all makes sense and is relatable.
The bits about cultural revolution and anti-science sentiments of revolutionaries also ring a bell. It has been destructive from the far east to the middle east, and unfortunately it seems to be spreading to the west.
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Status: About 2/3rds of the way through Seveneves by Neal Stephenson.
I love that he goes into gory technical detail about all the physics and technology involved, it really helps to sell it as believable. Well, until they start
I'm pretty sure that part might be beyond our current technological prowess. Perhaps it's not too far off, though!Spoiler
splicing and repairing DNA and fixing human genetic defects in vitro.
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This is another book I just read:
If you are a Sherlock Holmes fan, wishing another masterpiece by the author himself this is it. As if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is reborn after the final problem!
Sherlock Holmes is one the few books I have read multiple times (and watched the Jeremy Brett adaptation multiple times). Dust and Shadow blends in naturally and elegantly.
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@error said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
Status: About 2/3rds of the way through Seveneves by Neal Stephenson.
I love that he goes into gory technical detail about all the physics and technology involved, it really helps to sell it as believable.
Then you should also read 1. The Martian 2. The Three-Body-Problem 3. Cryptonomicon
Well, until they start
I'm pretty sure that part might be beyond our current technological prowess. Perhaps it's not too far off, though!Spoiler
splicing and repairing DNA and fixing human genetic defects in vitro.Then you should definitely look at this:
Spoiler
[CRISPR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR)
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@dse said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
CRISPR
I know it's possible in principle, but with today's technology in extremely adverse conditions? I'm not sure I buy it.
I've noticed Stephenson has a habit of writing about big trends ahead of the curve. Like, Cryptonomicon seemed to predict both cryptocurrency (BitCoin) and the open-carry movement, for example.
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@error said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
I'm pretty sure that part might be beyond our current technological prowess. Perhaps it's not too far off, though!
Yeah, it always had a feeling of near future to me, and the sort of stuff they did with genetics didn't seem like it was necessarily super far out. I mean...they had also already grabbed an asteroid to mine, too (to lend credence to near future, not present day).
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@boomzilla Well, they had a female president, so 1-9 years in the future?
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@error said in đź“š The book lovers thread:
I know it's possible in principle, but with today's technology in extremely adverse conditions? I'm not sure I buy it.
If there wasn't some science or technology ahead of where we are now, it wouldn't be SF…
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This book was really good:
Lots and lots of magic, and characters. It is amazing all that magic does not get out of hand, and the novel keeps its logical pace. Certainly will get the second book.
On the other hand Mistborn's second book (The Well of Ascension) was disappointing:
Started listening to Discworld. People may think I am crazy, every once in while bursting to laughter :--)