Whatcha reading redux.

[toad]

Jericho941:
Dang I can not remember the name of the book but, I can remember reading a roman a clef that if you were half way familiar with military aviation history or had heard the rumors in the industry you'd recognize as a story about Bell Aircraft corruption dealing with the Airacobra and the Bell Jet Plane that used the same damn obsolete wing section from the Airacobra.
It repeated the story about how a washer was used to game the pitot tube to give a higher than indicated airspeed during a test with an US Army Airforce Pilot. There was other foul deeds reported without naming names.

[Rich]

Just finished "Earth Unaware" by Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston (in a smaller font), courtesy of the El Paso Public Library. Pretty fair yarn, bu it could have been executed better.

This is a prequel of sorts to the Ender series, though Ender hasn't been thought of yet. Earth is slowly colonizing the Solar System and has kind of stratified into a few trillionaires, military, criminals, corporates (owned by the trillionaires), government drones, and corporates and independent families are mining the Asteroid and Kuiper belts. Then aliens appear.

The writing could be better, but the major flaw is that there is no ending. The book just stops on page 364 as if transitioning to a new chapter.

Still, a pretty fair yarn.

[Jered]

"In the Stormy Red Sky" - Eric Flint

Isn't that by David Drake?

In the last few weeks, I've read (or reread):

On Basilisk Station
The Honor of the Queen
Flag in Exile
Honor Among Enemies
In Enemy Hands
Fahim Speaks (This is good, and everyone should buy it.)
The Civil War (by Bruce Catton
The Hot Gate -- John Ringo
Citadel -- John Ringo
Live Free or Die - John Ringo
Hard Magic
The Lotus Eaters
Field of Dishonor

I'll finish Echoes of Honor tonight. Not a lot to do on the island.

[SeekHer]

I saw "Civilization" at the store and looked interesting--is it? They don't have it at the library.

Have you read any of his other books?
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World -- read this one and found it quite interesting but somewhat lacking in "verve", there wasn't a lot there to hold you to finishing it.
Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire
The War of the World

I first read his The Pity Of War: Explaining World War I and really enjoyed it and then read his The House of Rothschild: Money's Prophets 1798-1848 and the second volume The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker: 1849-1999 while very interesting again lacked the verve, the flow, thee hook.
Phenomenal researcher and a good author trying to make a dry subject palpable.

I enjoyed the two volume:
Western Civilizations: Renaissance to the Present and
Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations, Since 1660
both by Dennis Sherman

[Jered]

"In the Stormy Red Sky" - Eric Flint

Brainfart? What brainfart? I don't see any brainfart

Nope. You just did not confuse Eric the Red and David Drake.

I've also been reading the snippets for Midst Toil and Tribulation on David Weber's site. He posts there, too.

[toad]

I just finished the paper back edition of Carol O'Connel's "The Chalk Girl."
It is a book in here Mallory Series. Kathy Mallory was an abused child who ended up as a cop, and she is pretty much a high function sociopath in the NYPD.
This book has a Roman a Clef feel to it as it deals with the corruption involved with "charitable" and "non-profit" institutes. You could put a lot of the plot into any of the Major cities, esp. Boston, Chicago, and LA.

[cageym]

About halfway through "Walking the Trail, One Man's Journey Along the Trail of Tears" Jerry Ellis

[SeekHer]

I suddenly got on an Alamo kick and have no idea why.

I have just ordered:
Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth by Phillip Thomas Tucker;
The Alamo by Frank Thompson;
The Illustrated Alamo 1836: A Photographic Journey by Richard Carr;
Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crocketts Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution by James E. Crisp;
Alamo Traces: New Evidence and New Conclusions by Thomas Ricks Lindley

Custer Survivor: The end of a myth--the beginning of a legend by John Koster.

I have also found replacements for:
The Agincourt War and
The Crecy War both by Arthur H. Burne;
Agincourt: A New History by Anne Curry;
Agincourt by Juliet Barker

[Rod]

I understand Phil Collins, the musician, has an Alamo book out. It's mainly about the collectibles though. I'm reading Six Frigates by Ian W. Toll. It's the story of the Navy, focused on the first six ships built after the revolution. Got interested when the Constitution sailed this weekend.

[Darrell]

Presently reading Field Guide To Meteors And Meteorites, by O. Richard Norton. He did a great book on the subject some years ago called Rocks From Space.