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Permalink Reply by Chuck McAllister on February 15, 2014 at 11:06am

I am reading the 3 volume set of rules for Matrix World in Flames game.  It is just like the board game for the most part.  No ai yet.  The 3 volume set is a beautiful hard cover set that are about 250 pages each.  Much of the books cover how to use the pc version, not just pure rules.  It's a very,very nice game and manuals.  It is my new part time job!

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Permalink Reply by Don Cooper on February 15, 2014 at 11:40am

I have been reading that as well. A little bed time reading, nicely done. 

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Permalink Reply by Joseph on February 28, 2014 at 5:02pm

Read: "The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners That Shook the World in the Summer of 1900" by Diana Preston. The title says it all. Very Good and Recommended. See Charlton Heston's movie on this subject "55 Days at Peking". Pretty Good.

"Pandora's Star" by Peter Hamilton. Book 1 in this 2 book Series. A SF mystery, where Humanity gets too curious about a distant star and foolishly opens Pandora's Box. The author has created his own universe just like in "Star Trek" or "Star Wars". A outstanding read with "cliff hangers" galore. Very Highly Recommended.

"Judas Unchained" by Peter Hamilton. Book 2 in the above book with a great climatic ending. Very Highly Recommended.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph on March 16, 2014 at 7:09pm

Read: "How the Barbarian Invasions Shaped the Modern World" by Thomas J. Craughwell. This is primarily on the Vikings, Vandals, Huns, Goths, and Mongols. These are the main suspects for the author in how they caused the world we live in today. He left out one very important component, the muslims. The book is just so-so.

"Dominion" by C. J. Sansom. It is 1952, 12 years since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to nazi Germany. They keep their empire but in subservience to the nazis. America did not enter the war and the Germans and Russians are still fighting out east for the last 11 years. A English geologist learns a "secret" that causes his life to be in danger by everyone: Americans, nazis, and English. Very Good and Recommended.

"The Abominable" by Dan Simmons. A novel that starts in 1924. If you want the "untold" on mountain climbing, this is it. Deep in Tibet and high on Mt. Everest, climbers find themselves being pursued by someone or something, in a nightmare that becomes life or death at 28000 feet. Very Good and Recommended.

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Permalink Reply by Chuang Shyue Chou on March 17, 2014 at 1:59am

I ordered and received 'Dominion' from Book Depository earlier this year but I have not read it. I will probably read it soon. Late last year, I finally finished 'SS-GB' and 'Fatherland' after meaning to read those two for a long time. The alternate futures constructed were created with great care. Of course, one wishes that there were more.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph on March 17, 2014 at 6:50pm

I have read Mr. Deighton's book and enjoyed it. "Fatherland" is excellent and "Dominion's" author has a notes section at the end of his book giving reasons for writing the book, etc. but praises "Fatherland" as the "best alternative historical novel he has read". There is also a movie on "Fatherland" which was very good. There is another great book on a German/Japanese win in WWII. "The Man in The High Castle" by Phillip K. Dick. I read it as a teen from the SF book club. It won a Hugo Award in 1963. In this "universe" it is years after WWII and Japan and Germany are the super-powers of their time and are having a "Cold War". The US has been conquered and divided between these powers. Here is a link on this book but beware of a "spoiler Alert".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle

I have similar problem of buying books faster than I can read them. Also, the same on my Wargames.

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Permalink Reply by Chuang Shyue Chou on March 18, 2014 at 2:34am

Thanks. I have read 'The Man in the High Castle' in the eighties and have read a lot of Dick's work since then. I didn't find Dick's alternate history to be convincing, 

I do enjoy Deighton's other volumes like the 'Fighter', Blitzkreig', the Bernard Samson books starting with 'London Match'. I can't quite remember them as I read them in the early eighties. Likewise the other Deighton volumes. 'SS-GB' is my first Deighton since 1984 or 1985.

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Permalink Reply by Joseph on March 18, 2014 at 1:58pm

I've read Deighton's "Blitzkreig" but not the other books.

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Permalink Reply by Chuang Shyue Chou on March 18, 2014 at 2:39am

May I know what you thought of 'The Iron Dream' by Norman Spinrad?

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Permalink Reply by Joseph on March 18, 2014 at 1:56pm

Never read it.

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Permalink Reply by Chuang Shyue Chou on March 17, 2014 at 1:55am

I finally finished Italo Calvino's 'The Castle of Crossed Destinies' over a decade after I first started it. Somehow, many things intervened in those years and I didn't manage to sit and finish it when I first bought it. Now, the book is yellowed.

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Permalink Reply by Christian A. Strasser on March 17, 2014 at 8:55am

Just finished "The Terror" also by Dan Simmons.  Boy, can he write!  I've loved his work ever since I found Hyperion back in 1991 (or so).  "The Terror" is about the doomed Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage in the mid 1840s.  Simmons imagines a mythical arctic monster that slowly kills all the crew.  But the monster isn't the only problem.  There are plenty of "monsters" among the crew as well, including the creepy Cornelius Hickey.

 

Well-researched, full of telling details.  I felt cold every time I picked it up from his descriptions of the Arctic.

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