Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

No, but did you like Nicomo Cosca and Black Dow?

Oh, most certainly; I liked both, but Cosca's flamboyant style appealed to me perhaps more than Dow's outright brutal nature. By the way, our library network has several copies of both novels, so I reserved them! :)

(I just hope we will eventually see another novel starring the ever lovable Sand dan Glokta...)

Out of the biggies, we never see

Otherwise, every other character, it seems, from the other two books first debuted in The First Law Trilogy.

EDIT: Glotka was pretty awesome.

Re-read a personal favorite, Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs.

Vive le Galt!

Conan the Freebooter looms ahead.

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America by Eric Foner.

Pretty rockin' so far! Citizen Paine is, of course, my faves 1776-er.

Also, where'd everybody go?

I am reading book 5 of the codex alera by jim butcher, rogue angel by alex archer (probably book 12 or so) and the cryptonomicon (again).

Nothing heavy, just wanted some light reading...

Quick Malanthropus--name five AWESOME!! books.

Stranger in a strange land

First book of song of fire and ice (really all of them)

Cryptonomicon

Wizards first rule

The captains b y web griffin (not the greatest writer, but good storyline)

Stranger in a Strange Land was awesome.

Heinlein is still my goto when I am looking thru my books wondering what to read. Jim butcher is a close second for completely different reasons. I also just got the re howard books for the mars series and put them on my tablet from guttenberg.org

I read Stranger back when I was like 16 and I recently read Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, but that's it for Heinlein.

Which one is your faves?

Stranger was indeed awesome.

I managed to struggle through Cryptonomicon but could never really get into it.

Just finished The Entropy Tango. One of Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius books. I've always loved them, even though I still have no idea what's going on in them.

Now it's Bendigo Shafter. I'm not normally a Western fan, but I apparently was infected by Louis L'Amour while I was young. It's formulaic, but quick and fun.

Look, Hitdice! thejeff couldn't get through Cryptonomicon either!

EDIT: Woops. Wrong Stephenson, methinks.

Finished A Clash of Kings and started A Storm of Swords. Haven't touched either since at least 2006ish, possibly earlier, so it's interesting how much better together some of it fits in hindsight.

Even two full books and part of a third in, I'm still finding Dany's chapters very hit and miss compared to the others. (And I want to strangle Sansa every time I read her name, except that one chapter where she's fretting about possibly being killed, raped, or raped and killed. She's so damned obnoxious...) Completely forgot how Catelyn goes off the rails, if for perfectly understandable reasons.

I'm wondering how I'll take the big event this time around. The first time was a complete sucker punch and I almost yelled at the book. The second I caught all the foreshadowing and it came off as a surprising, but pretty standard plot twist. Sometime between the reads I became much less of a partisan for the biggest victim, which probably helped.

I read my dead tree Game of Thrones since it was handy and in paperback, but for the next two I've gone and bought the ebooks since I don't enjoy lugging around hardcovers as much as I used to. It's pretty nice being able to sit naked in bed, finish one book, and have the second in your hands in less than thirty seconds without having to as much as move your elbow. :)

I read Stranger back when I was like 16 and I recently read Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, but that's it for Heinlein.

Which one is your faves?

Try The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's one of his better ones, despite the rampant libertarianism. :)

Heinlein's always fun to read. In some ways his kid's books are better. More tightly plotted. His later stuff tends to ramble. He only has a few distinct character personalities that he reuses.
For example, The Number of the Beast is nothing more than an excuse for a bunch of his characters from different books to meet up and be witty at each other. There's no real plot to speak of. Our heroes meet up, go on the run from mysterious baddies who are dispatched in the last chapter with no real explanation. And I love it. I could gladly read a whole book of nothing but a bunch of iconic Heinlein characters sitting around snarking at each other.

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

I read Stranger back when I was like 16 and I recently read Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, but that's it for Heinlein.

Which one is your faves?

Try The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It's one of his better ones, despite the rampant libertarianism. :)

Well, it must be downright progressive compared to all the fantasy novels we read extolling rampant monarchism and feudalism!

Finished A Clash of Kings and started A Storm of Swords. Haven't touched either since at least 2006ish, possibly earlier, so it's interesting how much better together some of it fits in hindsight.

Even two full books and part of a third in, I'm still finding Dany's chapters very hit and miss compared to the others. (And I want to strangle Sansa every time I read her name, except that one chapter where she's fretting about possibly being killed, raped, or raped and killed. She's so damned obnoxious...) Completely forgot how Catelyn goes off the rails, if for perfectly understandable reasons.

I'm wondering how I'll take the big event this time around. The first time was a complete sucker punch and I almost yelled at the book. The second I caught all the foreshadowing and it came off as a surprising, but pretty standard plot twist. Sometime between the reads I became much less of a partisan for the biggest victim, which probably helped.

I read my dead tree Game of Thrones since it was handy and in paperback, but for the next two I've gone and bought the ebooks since I don't enjoy lugging around hardcovers as much as I used to. It's pretty nice being able to sit naked in bed, finish one book, and have the second in your hands in less than thirty seconds without having to as much as move your elbow. :)

I'm not sure if I think this post needs a spoiler because I haven't read Martin yet or because the image of Samnell nakedly playing with his kindle/nook/whatever is haunting my imagination,

Currently reading The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett.

I'm not sure if I think this post needs a spoiler because I haven't read Martin yet or because the image of Samnell nakedly playing with his kindle/nook/whatever is haunting my imagination,

My Transformer, actually. Does that make it more disturbing? If it doesn't, feel free to assume Optimus Prime is also involved. He was in the room at the very least. And there's a Fellowship of the Ring poster up so Frodo was watching. Also Abraham Lincoln is on the spine of a book that would be almost eye-on with me while in repose. Come to think of it:

Started reading Neuromancer (rereading actually, after about 15 years).

Heinlein time enough for love is also good. Lazarus long is such a lecherous grumpy old man.

Zelaznys castle amber series is good reading also.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick

Finished The Android's Dream by SCAAAALZZZI!!!!

Attempted The Brass Man but gave up when I figured out that the author loves technobabble and unintelligible sentences more than his plot or his characters.

Trying hard to work my way through The Furies of Calderon but not finding it very compelling. Does it get better?

In English: Finishing up Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley, then it's back to Kalevala.

En español, La niña que odiaba los libros y Donde viven los monstruos. I now know how to threaten cannibalism en español!

Mein Kampf...Talk about revisionist history. Be glad when I'm finally done with it.

Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Worldwound Gambit by Robin Laws
A Burnt-out Case by Graham Greene

Rational Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding with Their Use and Application in the Knowledge and Search of Truth by Christian Wolff....which is just as pretentious as it sounds XP

I'm also reading The Possessed by Dostoyevski who is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers.

Yeah, Dostoyevsky rules. Which one was The Possessed--the one about the nihilists?

There's a band out there called Stinking Lizaveta which I never listened to but always thought, "now there's an awesome name!"

Yup. Stavrogin. He's the mostest entertaining person ever ^^

"Fathers and teachers, I ponder what is hell? I maintain that hell is the suffering of being unable to love."

Amen to that brother.

Is that a quote from something?

The Brothers Karamazov.

I used to graffiti it around my high school. Because I was a literary tagger, damn it!

I hope the statute of limitation on public vandalism has run out...

"Ah Mr. Anklebiter, if you could come with us please we have a few questions we would like to ask you about something that happened in a high school years past. please come along quietly. Don't make it hard on yourself."

Oh shiznit!

[Flees in terror]

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

Tom Paine--Common Sense. In the Penguin edition that I'm reading, the introduction is almost the exact same length as the pamphlet itself! Otherwise, I'd already be done.

Heh. That reminds me of when I read the Penguin edition of "The Epic of Gilgamesh".

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

I haven't read this since I was 16 or so; like the quotes from the Old Testament about how monarchy is an abomination in the eyes of God!

<blinks>

<ponders a moment>

<blinks again>

Um... there are indeed many people who interpret the Old Testament that way. I remember one of my religious teachers making that argument... while many of the students, myself included, made arguments the OTHER way. It CAN be interpreted to mean the opposite.

When I was pondering earlier, the one major thought that I had was that Samuel got upset at the suggestion of a king. I searched for "Common Sense", looked at this site, and browsed it just long enough to confirm my belief that Paine quoted Samuel a lot (as well as a few other places in the Bible.)

But still, I mean, really! Listen to this:

Thomas Paine, in Common Sense, wrote:

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology there were no kings; the consequence of which was, there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion.

WHAT THE...?!?

Before the establishment of a monarchy, the Jews went through a TERRIBLE time!!! They were poor, and were often attacked by other nations... and when one tribe was attacked, that tribe could only beg for support from the other tribes, because there was no king to unify them. Read the story of Cicero and Barak in the book of Judges, and see what Deborah had to say about those tribes that refused to help!

But let me get closer to the heart of the matter: When Paine said "no wars", I assume that he meant no CIVIL wars... and that's baloney!!! The end of the book of...

"It may seem ironic that Paine, who twenty years hence condemned the authority of the Bible in The Age of Reason, would use such arguments. When John Adams told Paine he thought the Biblical reasoning in Common Sense was ridiculous, Paine laughed, 'expressed a contempt for the Old Testament and indeed the Bible at large' and announced his intention of one day publishing a work on religion."

From Tom Paine and Revolutionary America by Eric Foner.

So, there's a possibility we didn't consider, Aaron: Paine was consciously fibbing!

hey I thought you were leaving. Watch out the "Officer " is still looking for you man.

So, there's a possibility we didn't consider, Aaron: Paine was consciously fibbing!

The man's job at the time was producing propaganda. It's a bit goofy how starry-eyed people get over his most self-serving and commercial work whilst ignoring the far more serious achievements that turned him into a pariah in the country.

Samnell was into Thomas Paine before Thomas Paine was cool!

But I have to ask: what do you mean by self-serving?

Samnell was into Thomas Paine before Thomas Paine was cool!

But I have to ask: what do you mean by self-serving?

Your Foner quote sums it up. The man was quite prepared to peddle what he knew to be BS because it made good copy and would thus help the cause.

Doodlebug Anklebiter wrote:

So, there's a possibility we didn't consider, Aaron: Paine was consciously fibbing!

The man's job at the time was producing propaganda. It's a bit goofy how starry-eyed people get over his most self-serving and commercial work whilst ignoring the far more serious achievements that turned him into a pariah in the country.

Well, I'm not sure I can totally agree. Common Sense was a pretty serious achievement. Obviously because of what it wrought, but Foner claims it was the first colonial pamphlet attacking the principles of hereditary monarchy and it appears to have been one of the first works in English to argue for republicanism since the Restoration.

But, I get your point about The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.

Well, I'm not sure I can totally agree. Common Sense was a pretty serious achievement. Obviously because of what it wrought, but Foner claims it was the first colonial pamphlet attacking the principles of hereditary monarchy and it appears to have been one of the first works in English to argue for republicanism since the Restoration.

But, I get your point about The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.

To some degree it is my own biases, but the idea of promoting arguments you know to be faulty because it's politically convenient for swaying the rubes really grates on me.

Oh. Is this an opinion you held before my post or a response to it? Because it was news to me and I thought maybe you had more dirt.

Oh. Is this an opinion you held before my post or a response to it? Because it was news to me and I thought maybe you had more dirt.

No. I wasn't aware that Paine had engaged in this kind of skullduggery before your post. I still esteemed Age of Reason more than Common Sense, but I imagine that could have been guessed. :)

Well, my original post might have been slanting it a particular way for comedic effect.

Without digging through the Collected Papers of John Adams and reading his account of the conversation (and Adams wasn't fond of Paine), two things occur to me:

--I don't know that Paine's knowledge of/opinion about The Bible was necessarily the same in 1776 as in 1794-1807 (in three parts--thank you, wikipedia!). I mean, I'm sure he was already some kind of English nonconformist/freethinker but maybe he hadn't already reached the conclusions he reached in Age of Reason. Then again, I haven't read that, so, maybe I should shut up about it.

--Part of trashing the credentials of hereditary monarchy is, of course, bashing the divine right of kings. Remember, Louis XVI is still running around out there and Charles I was only 100ish years prior.

But I'm just pulling stuff out of my butt. Thomas Paine is a hero of mine, and I'm all on the defensive.

Well, my original post might have been slanting it a particular way for comedic effect.

Without digging through the Collected Papers of John Adams and reading his account of the conversation (and Adams wasn't fond of Paine), two things occur to me:

--I don't know that Paine's knowledge of/opinion about The Bible was necessarily the same in 1776 as in 1794-1807 (in three parts--thank you, wikipedia!). I mean, I'm sure he was already some kind of English nonconformist/freethinker but maybe he hadn't already reached the conclusions he reached in Age of Reason. Then again, I haven't read that, so, maybe I should shut up about it.

--Part of trashing the credentials of hereditary monarchy is, of course, bashing the divine right of kings. Remember, Louis XVI is still running around out there and Charles I was only 100ish years prior.

But I'm just pulling stuff out of my butt. Thomas Paine is a hero of mine, and I'm all on the defensive.

I get it. If his ideas did progress substantially from '76 to '94-'07 that's entirely fair and I wouldn't hold it against him the same way I would consciously using arguments you knew were no good. It's quite different to hold an opinion and later change it.

I'm going to risk starting a flamewar here by suggesting that you cannot accomplish much in the field of politics without using arguments that you know are no good. If your job is to persuade the masses, and if the most effective way to do so is with lies and half-truths, then you'd better do so. If you don't, you'll lose the battle to your opponents who do. It grates on me too, but that's the way it is.

I still maintain, as I did all those months ago, that Paine could have made more sensible arguments, but "more sensible" does not mean "more effective", and in the end, it's the results that count.

Let's say that Paine was thinking along the lines of "The Bible is a load of bunk, but many ignorant people believe in it, so I'll just claim that it says whatever suits my purposes, and the ignorant masses won't bother to look it up to challenge my claim." (I'm not saying that Paine DID think such a thing, but let's just assume for the moment that he did.) Even if THAT'S the case, the fact is that it WORKED. How can you argue with success?

If Paine makes a simplistic claim like "there were no wars", then that's easy to remember, and the masses don't have to bother their minds with considering any complex issues. Had Paine stuck with what the Bible actually says, it would have brought up all kinds of arguments on both sides, the people would have to do more thinking, and although some of them might decide, after all that thinking, that the Bible is against monarchy, other people might decide the opposite.

(By the way, I won't claim to understand politics. In fact, I'm the perfect example of the ignorant masses that can easily be persuaded by simplistic arguments. :) Just not Biblical ones.)

Hmmm. Things to think about.

Well, I'm glad I didn't say anything and just kept reading Foner.

Anyway, I hope I have successfully defended Thomas Paine from the calumnies and scurrilous attacks of Citizens Samnell and Bitman and all other Stooges of the Plutocracy (TM).

And, finally, Aaron, I can't sit here and say that I never lie or that none of my heroes have ever consciously lied (as distinguished from not telling the truth), but I think consciously lying for propagandistic reasons is, ususally, despicable.

Well, I'm glad I didn't say anything and just kept reading Foner.

** spoiler omitted **...