What you reading

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NottinghamWhite
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Re: What you reading

Post by NottinghamWhite »

Will start Wilbur Smiths The Tigers Prey this morning. Up there as one of my favourite authors his early books taught me a lot on South African history.
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ChilwellWhite
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Re: What you reading

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The Boy on the Shed by Paul Ferris
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ChilwellWhite
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Re: What you reading

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I’m trying a new author later Clive Cussler. Anyone read anything of his ?
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Wigan White
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Re: What you reading

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ChilwellWhite wrote:I’m trying a new author later Clive Cussler. Anyone read anything of his ?
Yes, I've read quite a lot of the "Dirk Pitt" novels.

I find them an enjoyable read.
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ChilwellWhite
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Re: What you reading

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Wigan White wrote:
ChilwellWhite wrote:I’m trying a new author later Clive Cussler. Anyone read anything of his ?
Yes, I've read quite a lot of the "Dirk Pitt" novels.

I find them an enjoyable read.

Thanks I’ve got Spartan Gold to read when I’ve finished my other book.
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Re: What you reading

Post by Deleted User 728 »

The Past Through Tomorrow
Robert A Heinlein

A collection of short sci-fi stories mostly centred loosely on the moon by one of the greatest genre authors of all time.

I've got the Kindle edition and I've been reading this for a few months now as it's massive, I mean LOTR kind of length.

The tales themselves were written in the 40s and 50s mostly and it's absolutely staggering how prophetic he is with his thinking.
You know you see stuff on Star Trek like the clam-shell communicators and automatic doors with sensors that back in the late sixties would've been pretty cool to conceive ? Well, when sci-fi is at its best it's like that not just with gadgets but entire concepts.
For example, the story I'm reading right now is written from the viewpoint of a sixteen year-old girl who was born on the moon - a daunting task at any time for a middle-aged man, I think you'll agree. She's what's called a "loonie" as she and her family dwell in Lunar City and she refers to anyone from earth - mostly tourists - as "groundhogs". The city is bright, safe and clinically clean. Her favourite pastime is "flying" in a giant underground cave - two miles across - that's used as a leisure space by the lunar inhabitants and she wants to design and build spacecraft when she graduates. She has a relationship of sorts with a boy two years older than her, who's already at design school, and they work on designs together in their spare time. They both have part-time jobs as tour guides for the rich folk who visit from earth - and I'm talking mega-rich - and this causes a rift when a female celebrity arrives. The description is deliberately vague, not saying she's a movie star or singer, merely that she's very famous (that rang a bell for me given today's culture) and she starts to show a little too much interest in the young man despite being old enough to be his, well, older sister at least.
The story ostensibly is a rites of passage one like any other, but it's the details of the world that fill the mind.
How believable it all is.

There's another one about mining on Venus and there's a passage there about how the rich and powerful elite on earth make things so oppressive and so competitive that even very sick people dare not take time off work in case they lose their job. They earn a bare pittance, living hand to mouth, in small homes with very little in the way of luxury, no holidays, no insurance as to any kind of relief should something terrible happen. In the end, this leads to many of the poorer members of the population signing up for a work period on Venus, under horrendous conditions - heat, long hours, hostile locals, the risk of death on arrival from disease and bacteria not to mention the vagaries of space travel just to get there. They don't realise that the contracts they sign have lots of small print clauses that inevitably tie them down for years to come as raising the money for the fare home is nigh on impossible given the various outgoings they incur on the planet such as drugs to help them overcome the heat and environment long enough to be able to sleep at night.
It's modern slavery, more or less.
Sound familiar ?

The guy's a genius.

If you want to read one book by him above all others, I'd recommend Stranger In A Strange Land first though - that's an absolute masterpiece.
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Re: What you reading

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Just finished 3 books by John Grisham, 'The Rainmaker', 'The Racketeer', and 'The Summons'.
The first 2 were good right from the start,good story line, kept it interesting.The last 'Summons' I thought weak story line, was waiting for the real interesting/surprise action to start, which it never did. Also thought the end left a couple of loose ends.
The story line of each book was based on the legal profession with the Lawyer being part of the case.
All stories were based in an area, mid east and south east states, USA, which I thought Grisham had an intimate knowledge of.
Without reading his Bio, I also suspect Grisham has been part of the legal profession such is his knowledge of day to day working of the system.
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Re: What you reading

Post by Deleted User 728 »

Not read the book, but The Firm was set in Memphis which would suggest you're right about the location.
Cracking city to visit, btw.
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Re: What you reading

Post by Saxon »

Just finished 'The English Spy', by Daniel Silva, sounds a Portuguese name to me, one of my wife's collection.
Not a bad story, as the title suggests, spies, terrorists, counter terrorism, flying all over Europe torturing and assassinating the enemy.
Problem I had was that there was too many characters with complicated foreign names. I kept having to re read previous pages to sort out who was who, good guys and bad.
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ChilwellWhite
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Re: What you reading

Post by ChilwellWhite »

ChilwellWhite wrote:I’m trying a new author later Clive Cussler. Anyone read anything of his ?
Enjoyed my first book of his Spartan Gold so ordered a couple more from Amazon so I’m starting The Chase today.
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