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don't you folks ever read anything light?
Well ... yea, but most of my light stuff is SF and I'm not sure, but I always get the feeling most people don't care for SF (except for the fantasy sf, which is not a genre I like very much).
But I've put the physics thing off for way too long while my FIL borrowed my book. (The other physics books I mentioned are very simple books - really, they're for the layman.)
I love the BOLO series of books (started by Keith Laumer and continued by David Drake, et. al.). Particularly, I think they contrast nicely with Fred Saberhagen's Berserker series. In Bolo, the robotic tanks are the heros. In Berserker, they're as relentless as the borg. (I suspect strongly that the Veger episode of startrek was based on this idea.) The Berserkers are not villains, per se. The really evil ones are the people who SIDE WITH THE ROBOTS to destroy all life.
I also like the Midnight at the Well of Souls pentology. (The second series, a trilogy isn't near so good.)
Brin's Sundiver trilogy (aka the uplift saga) is pretty good, as is the second trilogy.
For fantasy, I like the Book of the Dun Cow (which may be a children's book, but it's still good). Also, Anne Mcaffrey's Dragon books are really good. And Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave trilogy.
I guess if you really only want light reading, I doubt you could find better way to while the time than a collection of short stories by O Henry or HH Munro.
k
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Aside from SF - which I read and enjoy - what about books by living authors. The boys and girls need to make a living awready!
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Joined: Jun 2002
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member
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I recommend anything by Ian Banks (except the most recent one as i didn't read it) and by Ian M.Banks - good science fiction
I love SF and fantasy. I am currently working my way through Terry Prachett's Discword novels and I am happy. Although "The hitchhiker guide to Galaxy" is voted by British public as one of the 100 best books of all times I only moderately enjoyed it. probably, all fine sarcasms are wasted on my thick Belorussian skin
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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A midshipman is a sort of apprentice officer. It's used by USns to refer to a student at the US Naval Academy, but in the old days it was more On the Job Training (OJT). King's Ransom is just a very large sum of money. It's a metaphorical usage, the amount of money it would take to pay someone for the release of a king taken hostage.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
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Terry Pratchett is great especially for punny people.
Another favorite of mine is anything by Yvonne de Bremond D'ars a Parisian antiques dealer who writes what I think are amplified rather than fictionalized autobiography.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Father Steve quoth: In reply to:
I read the first of the two books which Feynman wrote "for the layperson" and found him to be among the most egotistical, self-obsessed, self-promoting, self-congratulatory writers I have ever read. Needless to say, I did not / will not read the second.
Right on, Padre. Me too. I thought I was almost on my own. Come to think of it, I may be!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jun 2002
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Anything by Peter F. Hamilton or Iain Banks is worth the effort. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy is an amazing feat of imagination. Hamilton was born and still lives in Rutland. They're all pretty odd from there - it's just up the road from me.
If you're tempted to buy "The Shelters of Stone" by Jean M. Auel, don't bother. It's rubbish and I wasted £5.99. IMHO, of course. She really only comes to life in the sex scenes. A well-researched skin novel, if you'll excuse the multiple entendres. Maybe living in Colorado does that to you.
David Brin's "Kil'n People" is a completely new departure (well, after his hash of the reprise of the "Foundation" series, he had to do something to repair his reputation), and is a really good read. In spite of that, I still haven't forgiven him for the Maori drum ...
I've just finished rereading Roger Zelazny's "Amber" decalogy. Great stuff and easy on the brain. Roger's dead at the moment, so there won't be any more. No, wait! Yes there will be, but it's rubbish from a hack writer trying to ape his betters. Pretty much as bad as the "collaboration" between Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to cash in on Frank Herbert's Dune series by writing a slough of prequels. I think they got the idea from George Lucas. It's a bad one.
Stephen Baxter's near-future stuff ("Titan" and "Moonseed" are good examples) are really worth the effort if you're a space nut.
Kim Stanley Robinson's RGB Mars series - in fact, anything he's written - is brilliant. He's also put out a collection of short stories connected to the series called "The Martians" which just makes you wish he'd write the whole thing over again so you could have more of it.
Reading (or in my case, rereading for the umpteenth time) Georgette Heyer's historical novels (not the Regency romances) is very much worth the effort. "The Spanish Bride" and "My Lord John" are both outstanding.
Martin Cruz Smith is my fav non-sci-fi author of the moment. His Renko trilogy is brilliant. Trilogy? Nope, there's a fourth book in the series, called "Havana", which sees Renko in, guess, Cuba.
I like to reread Edgar Wallace's "Sanders of the River" series, mainly because it harks back to a simpler, more innocent time, when a handful of white colonialists lorded it over millions of adoring black subjects who'd stab you in the back as quick as look. Bit like the Congo on any day ending in "y", I suppose, except the colonialists are as black as their adoring subjects.
I think that's enough to be going on with.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The Book of the Dun Cow is NOT a children's book.
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Book of the Dun Cow
Not young children, of course. I haven't read it since maybe freshman or sophomore year of college. My recollection is that it seemed a bit like something geared towards junior high students, or possibly hs students. Been a while.
k
post edit:
Been a while since I read either of these as well, but I would think it's very roughly comparable to Watership Down or The Plague Dogs. The first of those is on my oldest daughter's recommended summer reading list for rising 8th graders.
(I don't know if that makes it a children's book. OTOH, I only said BOTDC 'might' me one.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Let me suggest that, like several other books which masquerade as children's fiction, The Book of the Dun Cow is a serious book, written for adults, by a serious theologian, who grapples with altogether serious issues in it.
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