What books are you reading?

ChristopherMD wrote: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius because it sounded interesting. Just started so not much to say about it right now.

I've basically been a lifelong Stoic. That's the only book that sits by the bed.

After being raised Christian and dabbling in about everything under the sun from east to west, Stoicism is the only thing I keep returning to.

Books:

BEYOND THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES. For the kid. Not as good as the first series. But okay.

JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. Also for the kid. Much more amusing and gruesome.

MASTER AND COMMANDER. The first one. Loved the movie, tried reading this one at the time, was put off by the shocking amount of nautical verbiage. This time around, it is less shocking and I like the cut of its jib.

dysjunct wrote: JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. Also for the kid. Much more amusing and gruesome.

MASTER AND COMMANDER. The first one. Loved the movie, tried reading this one at the time, was put off by the shocking amount of nautical verbiage. This time around, it is less shocking and I like the cut of its jib.

I highly highly highly suggest that everyone check out Roald Dahl's "adult" works. The Everyman's Library collection of short stories is excellent. Such a twisted mind. There's a reason Hitchcock adapted several of Dahl's stories for his shows.

As for M&C, once you find your sea legs in navigating the nautical terminology you should be good to go. I finished reading through the set a couple years ago. Even the worst book of the lot is still pretty damn good, assuming you find the subject matter interesting.

Nice thing about O'Brien or the Hornblower books is that you don't really need to know exactly what they are talking about, the dramatic tension of a battle or storm comes across even if the leeward port battery taking a hit on the foc'sle killing the boatswain isn't immediately understandable.

Dr. Mabuse wrote: Currently starting in on Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. After years ad years of reading Eurocentric sci-fi/ fantasy, I'm looking forward to delving into some Afrocentric work.

That one and the sequel, Parable of the Talents, are excellent. I re-read them pretty recently. Maybe I thought the present world wasn't dystopian enough?

I've been reading the Expanse series and just finished book 3. I'm glad to see it diverges a bit from the tv series starting with book 2.

I have a week off soon where my wife and I will be tent camping, which usually means there are many hours a day spent laying in a hammock with a book. I plan to take a break from the Expanse and crack open Steinbeck's East of Eden, which has been on my "get to someday" list for awhile. My library hold for Le Guin's The Dispossesed also just came in so that will be on the agenda as well. Can't wait, I haven't really had a vacation since early summer 2019 due to family health problems or covid19.

The Boatswain has no business being near the leeward port battery.

My bad, he was on the poop deck.

Much more likely!

jason10mm wrote: Nice thing about O'Brien or the Hornblower books is that you don't really need to know exactly what they are talking about, the dramatic tension of a battle or storm comes across even if the leeward port battery taking a hit on the foc'sle killing the boatswain isn't immediately understandable.

I just yesterday finished book #18 in O'Brien's series ("The Yellow Admiral") and I totally agree with this comment. The nautical terminology is essentially "flavor text." The details usually don't matter much. It's like watching "E.R." back in the day, when the show would blast you with 10 pages of medical jargon. I don't know what a "chem 7" or a "CBC" is, and it doesn't really matter, as long as the emotions of the characters come through.

If something truly DOES matter to the plot, then O'Brien will make sure you understand it. Usually, he'll have Dr. Maturin ask Capt. Aubrey for an explanation. Maturin is a great character, but he's also a brilliant expository device.

I love the whole series. It's almost like diving into a really rich epic fantasy, because the world is so strange and fascinating, and the world-building is astonishing in its detail.

jason10mm wrote: Nice thing about O'Brien or the Hornblower books is that you don't really need to know exactly what they are talking about, the dramatic tension of a battle or storm comes across even if the leeward port battery taking a hit on the foc'sle killing the boatswain isn't immediately understandable.

Great point. It's like the technobabble in a typical science-fiction tv show. The specific terminology is often incidental and the crucial aspect is the intensity of the delivery of the lines.

Now I gotta read the damn things.

I was a competition sailor on big boats for a decade, I'm curious how much I'll understand.

I only sailed very occasionally, and always at a social level. My understanding of nautical terms never got past "ballast". I was very good at my job, though...

Shellhead wrote: Great point. It's like the technobabble in a typical science-fiction tv show. The specific terminology is often incidental and the crucial aspect is the intensity of the delivery of the lines.

Pretty much with the caveat that these books are not just tossing out terms randomly, if you do understand it the experience is just that much deeper (reversing the polarity on the hyperspace deflector is never gonna make any sense) and you begin to correctly anticipate tactics and consequences ("he is in chains, oh he's screwed now!").

It is kinda fun to see technobabble that mirrors real world stuff though, like Weber's Honor Harrington books that go to some pretty crazy lengths to replicate ship of the line broadsides.

jason10mm wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Great point. It's like the technobabble in a typical science-fiction tv show. The specific terminology is often incidental and the crucial aspect is the intensity of the delivery of the lines.

Pretty much with the caveat that these books are not just tossing out terms randomly, if you do understand it the experience is just that much deeper (reversing the polarity on the hyperspace deflector is never gonna make any sense) and you begin to correctly anticipate tactics and consequences ("he is in chains, oh he's screwed now!").

That's a great point. I would also add that if you stick with the books, you begin to develop some fluency in the terminology, which is really cool. A lot of the terminology still washes over me as pleasant background noise, but there are interesting bits that stick out. Just as a super simple example, when a ship "rakes" another ship, it means they're firing lengthwise down the enemy ship, from stern-to-bow (or from bow-to-stern). You quickly learn that raking is VERY VERY BAD, so when Capt. Aubrey maneuvers into position to "rake" the other ship, you know what that means, and you know he's about to seriously fuck some shit up. Stuff like that is fascinating. The story works just fine even without knowing that detail ... but when you DO know, it's cool.

The books don't get enough credit for how funny they are. I think that has surprised me the most. The humor is really dry, deadpan stuff too, like Aubrey trying and failing to think of a word to make a terrible pun, and Maturin discretely mocking him. It's all very, very British.

jason10mm wrote: It is kinda fun to see technobabble that mirrors real world stuff though, like Weber's Honor Harrington books that go to some pretty crazy lengths to replicate ship of the line broadsides.

The Harrington stuff was killer. I also loved Vatta's War which I got from Graphic Audio. Great hard Space Ship science fiction. Really loved both of these, very much recommended.

Part of the issue O'Brian had to tackle (I've seen him interviewed but not read the books) is that very little of how ships of that age were handled was written down. It was passed generation to generation verbally and by doing. So much of what he writes is educated guess, at least for the day-to-day operations of the hardware. There's only one written description of tacking a tall ship, and it is very surfacey and not practicable when people try it with what few SOL level ships are on the seas now. Most run the "iron jenny" (the diesel that all modern ships have) in order to push through the wind, even when under sail. Uphill sucks in a tall ship. Oddly enough Tuchman is the only author I've seen that's published the tacking instructions. Not exactly a nautical author by any means.