What We're Reading

[BouncyCaitian]

John Ringos 'Posleen' Series

A rather interesting sci-fi series where in Earth is approached by a galactic confederacy of pacifists and is asked to create and act as the confederacies army because the confederacy member species have absolutely no clue on how to commit violence and are deathly afraid of those that can. The only reason they asked Terrans to fight for them is that the Alien invaders that they fight (the Posleen) are five years from earths doorstep, so the Terrans pretty much don't have a choice.

Problems: a) We have to protect our world plus two others. Any military person can see the TO&E problems and chain of command issues that will result.

b) relative lack of manpower. We're only out numbed about a million to one by the posleen. And the posleen are nasty canniballistic Reptilian-Centuars with rail gun tech that would smoke an M-1 easily that come in 'human waves'

c) equipment production isn't as best as the confderation hasn't the first clue about Henry Ford-style industrial production. This causes supply problems.

d) the aliens we're working for don't really trust us. Or are really aren't that helpful.

e)Forget air support. Posleen weapons planes from the skies like flies

Given this sort of background, you'd expect the monkeys to be meat for the posleen, but we've a few things going for us.

A) the Average Posleen has the brains of a gnat and is realtively schtoopid. They have leaders who make themselves obvious on flying disks. Sniper bait anyone?

B) The Posleen have no concept of indirect fire support. This saves humanites hide more than once.

C) The Posleen aren't used to food that shoots back. making them inexperienced with a vicious enemy used to scortched earth tactics

A very good series, really. Ringo manages to make believable modern characters thrust into a sci-fi setting and dealing with all the fallout of a total war on earth an in space against an enemy that is utterly alien and implacable. Many hard decisions are made by Humanity so far in this series, so which might be discomforting to the readers. But all in all a very good series.


Books:
A Hymn Before Battle: Earth Makes Contact
Gust Front: The Invasion of Earth.
When The Devil Dances: the war grinds on on earth
Hell's Fair: Counter offensive by the heros, anda Cybertank named 'Bun-Bun'
Die Wacht Am Rhein: The Posleen invade Germany, and Germany raises a specter fromt he past to defend her

[Evan van Eyk]

I just finished the last volume of a German series about the British Navy in the age of sail.

Since I am travelling much around, it happens that I read several books at once, so I am also currently reading the Silmarillion ( again ) and the Illiad from Homer. I had thought about reading it in Latin, but that would have been more work than actual reading, so I took the German translation.

[Squick]

Always reading comics, but that's probably not what you're asking about

I'm actually busy with Carl Sagan's Contact at the moment. Always been a fan of the late Cosmos mastermind, saw the movie with Jodie Foster (which I kind of liked), but never read the book, until now. Very insightful and totally different to the movie in terms of story-line, pacing and characterisations. It's essentially a platform to debate the differing perspectives of science and religion, and offers some really cool takes on both sides. Heartily recommended.

Also recently finished Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie. A Pulitzer Prize winning biography, that's a monster of a read, but well worth it. Probably the best biography I've ever read.

Thanks BouncyCaitian; your synopsis is very compelling -- I might just look into it.

[Poolshark]

At the mo', I am away from Sci-Fi/ Fantasy stuff and reading Hunt for Red October and Patiot Games by Tom Clancy.

Not read any thriller-y type stuff for a while, and that was conveniently to hand. I still see Seen Canary as Ramius, not matter how hard I try, and Sam Neill as Vasily Borodin ("I would have liked to have seen Montana........")

Cheers

Tas

[black campbellq]

I'm taking a break from my usual plethora of history tomes and have turned very sci-fi/futurist this last month:

Dan Simmons' very ambitious Illium and Olympos series. Excellent use of classic literature, Greek myth, and transhuman tropes. Excellent read. I had my doubts he could pull it off by the end, but he did. All said, my only read critique is it's too long.

Finding Serenity : essays on Firefly and the movie, the setting, etc. Interesting stuff.

The Singularity is Near : Ray Kurzweil's uber-ambitious and a bit optimistic book on future trends. His predictive powers have been pretty good -- in general, he hits the mark about 8 out of 10 times int he last 20 years of this sort of thing. Some of it's pretty mind-boggling. I've been using his excellent The Age of Spiritual Machines to inform and shape the current Trek campaign we're playing.

The Serenity RPG rulebook.

[Jem'hadar]

Other than comics & military history magazines, I'm currently reading:

The Serenity RPG;

From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East by Bernard Lewis;

and finishing Lost in Tibet (an account of a crew of WWII US pilots who crashed in Tibet in 1943).

[JALU3]

I subscribe to U.S. News and World Report , so that gives me something new to read every week. And an indepth news magazine, that IMHO, that is more balanced.

However, book wise, there is always mangas (a new one Once a month usually), and the occasional collection thick book.

The new manga is Full Metal Alchemist (book 3), of which I am in the process of reading. And the new book is the chronicles of Narnia.

Now the chronicles of narnia I had read a LONG, LONG time ago. However, with the new movie coming out I decided to read it all over again. And there for, I have finished it. An enjoyable read. Now, if only the movie lives up to the book.

[Tobian]

Hmm I don't read much fiction really. I've been reading a book on the knights Templar, and how they fell, recently, and I have a few Simon Scharmer 'A History of Britain' books; Which are a pretty good read, but I'm not getting far in Of course I've been reading a tonne of roleplaying sourcebooks latelly, including the latest Whitewolf offerings, Warhammer and the new Serenity book (which didn't take as long as Mage to read ) I've been doing allot of local history research into the 13th century, for my dark ages inquisitor game, and being the dark ages I wasn't too surprised to find very little

[Grimace]

After a long stint of not reading anything (other than history magazines), I recently picked up the book "His Excellency; George Washington". So far it's been an excellent book for anyone interested in George Washington. I consider it an "advanced" read, as the author is quite learned and uses more than a fair share of eloquent words.

Other than that, I read the Sunday funnies.

Oh, and I'm writing a story. Does that sort of count?

[Mr Harkonnen]

I'm reading In Enemy Hands by David Weber. The sixth book in the Honor Harrington series.

Great stuff, military SF. Honor Harrington is a starship commander that rises through the ranks throughout the course of the series. Not deep or a masterwork of prose, these books simply and effectively deliver the drama of war in space (as well as the intrigues and battles that lead up to the war). I have never read better depictions of ship-to-ship combat. I recommend the series to any SF gamer.

Game-wise I'm reading Attack Vector:Tactical (AdAstra Games), starship minis combat rules.

[Mr Harkonnen]

I'm actually busy with Carl Sagan's Contact at the moment. Always been a fan of the late Cosmos mastermind, saw the movie with Jodie Foster (which I kind of liked), but never read the book, until now. Very insightful and totally different to the movie in terms of story-line, pacing and characterisations. It's essentially a platform to debate the differing perspectives of science and religion, and offers some really cool takes on both sides. Heartily recommended.

Very good book, read it years before the movie came out. Pretty cool how the message unites humanity (for a time any way), something not really depicted in the movie.