Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Colonization: Second Contact
by Harry Turtledove
I had already picked this book up at the library sale, so I figured I'd go ahead and read it anyway. Despite the fact that I was unimpressed by the first volume of the preceding Worldwar tetralogy, I found my interest piqued by this sequel. The 1960s start with the planet Earth being shared by humanity and "The Race", reptilian aliens who tried to conquer the planet in 1942. The Race's colonization fleet arrives to discover that their invasion fleet hasn't quite tamed the planet for them. There's a number of intrigues between humans and aliens, as well as the various factions of humanity: principally the Americans, the Soviets and the Third Reich. Guess I'll be getting the other books in the series and trying to forget the spoilers I read online.
I'll be checking them all out, I guess.
LibraryThing link
I had already picked this book up at the library sale, so I figured I'd go ahead and read it anyway. Despite the fact that I was unimpressed by the first volume of the preceding Worldwar tetralogy, I found my interest piqued by this sequel. The 1960s start with the planet Earth being shared by humanity and "The Race", reptilian aliens who tried to conquer the planet in 1942. The Race's colonization fleet arrives to discover that their invasion fleet hasn't quite tamed the planet for them. There's a number of intrigues between humans and aliens, as well as the various factions of humanity: principally the Americans, the Soviets and the Third Reich. Guess I'll be getting the other books in the series and trying to forget the spoilers I read online.
I'll be checking them all out, I guess.
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut, HarryTurtledove, TosevTimeline
Monday, November 14, 2011
Ezra and Nehemiah
by Andrew E. Steinmann
An informative, but dry, commentary on the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Check it out.
LibraryThing link
An informative, but dry, commentary on the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah.
Check it out.
LibraryThing link
Labels: AndrewSteinmann, CheckItOut, ConcordiaCommentary
Friday, November 11, 2011
Worldwar: In the Balance
by Harry Turtledove
Odd. Usually I really like Harry Turtledove's books, but this one didn't impress me so much. Rather than read the other three books in the series, I contented myself with reading the synopses on Wikipedia. Anyhoo, this is an alternate history/science fiction hybrid speculating on what would happen if aliens invaded Earth in the middle of World War II. Mr. Turtledove tells the tale from a variety of perspectives--a technique I fell in love with when I read the first book of his The Great War series. My biggest complaint is that this "global" perspective is actually limited to the northern hemisphere. Logically, there would be a lot of invasion activity in Africa and South America, but that all takes place behind the scenes.
Waiting room material.
LibraryThing link
Odd. Usually I really like Harry Turtledove's books, but this one didn't impress me so much. Rather than read the other three books in the series, I contented myself with reading the synopses on Wikipedia. Anyhoo, this is an alternate history/science fiction hybrid speculating on what would happen if aliens invaded Earth in the middle of World War II. Mr. Turtledove tells the tale from a variety of perspectives--a technique I fell in love with when I read the first book of his The Great War series. My biggest complaint is that this "global" perspective is actually limited to the northern hemisphere. Logically, there would be a lot of invasion activity in Africa and South America, but that all takes place behind the scenes.
Waiting room material.
LibraryThing link
Labels: HarryTurtledove, TosevTimeline, WaitingRoomMaterial
Friday, November 04, 2011
Factoring Humanity
by Robert Sawyer
The cover pitches this as a tale about a mysterious message from space, which, when finally deciphered, threatens to push humanity to the next stage of evolution. It does finally get to that, but when I started reading the book, I thought I was reading a completely different tale. I won't say any more, so as to preserve the shock for others. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found Mr. Sawyer's typical scientist hero, Canadian scenery-porn and Godless spirituality to be a bit cliched. On the other, the man is a great storyteller and does an excellent job of taking a science fiction idea and fully developing it. So, yes, check it out and enjoy!
LibraryThing link
The cover pitches this as a tale about a mysterious message from space, which, when finally deciphered, threatens to push humanity to the next stage of evolution. It does finally get to that, but when I started reading the book, I thought I was reading a completely different tale. I won't say any more, so as to preserve the shock for others. Overall, I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I found Mr. Sawyer's typical scientist hero, Canadian scenery-porn and Godless spirituality to be a bit cliched. On the other, the man is a great storyteller and does an excellent job of taking a science fiction idea and fully developing it. So, yes, check it out and enjoy!
LibraryThing link
Labels: CheckItOut, RobertSawyer
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