What are you reading?

I do like a good Scottish detective novel - I've always very much enjoyed Ian Rankin's Rebus books - and I've been reading a few Val McDermid books recently. I'm on A Darker Domain at the moment, and it's excellent so far.

 

Just finished “The Dangerous Years” by Max Hennessy.
Meat in a trilogy.
Historical Fiction featuring the Royal Navy back when it was THE Royal Navy in the early 20th century during the UK’s dead cat bounce years.
“Back to Battle” will round it out, but since it’s historical fiction you pretty much know….who done it.

Just uploaded:
“The Last Paladin” by Deutermann….
“Nightwork” by Nora Roberts
“The 6:20 Man” by Baldacci

 

After >40 years I am re reading Heinlein’s “Time Enough for Love”. It is provoking, and as I am not the person who read it then, I’m giving it another go.


Among gems contained, one small piece relates to my current interest in sentient thought:


“ … self-awareness never arises in a computer designed only for deductive logic and mathematical calculations, no matter how big it is. But if it is designed for inductive logic, able to assess data, draw hypotheses therefrom, test them, reconstruct them to fit new data, make random comparisons of the results, and change those reconstructions—exercise judgment the way a flesh-and-blood does, then self-awareness may occur.”


We ought to forgive Mr. Heinlein setting this up in either/or terms, as he had many other ideas to present. Yet I now suppose that any large computer made to do big things would include both deductive and inductive architectures. A) Why not? B) Computer limitations (hard and soft) have been much relaxed since that story was written.


There is a lot more fun (and a lot more fluff) in his novel, But I am now interested in humans making larger and more interconnected computers. Other sci fi suggests bad outcomes from that. A smaller fraction including Heinlein’s reckons that benevolent benefits will result. I expect to be gone before any computers ‘think’ and allow us to know that they do.


Heinlein was a fabulous thinker and writer, and not entirely distracted. Born decades too soon? Not for me to say, but reading his work makes me feel that old me will miss seeing his anticipations. While there is usually time enough for love, time enough for knowing runs short.

 

Most remembered for Starship Trooper, a book that used to be on the Professional Reading Programme lists for all of the US militaries.
(So was 1984)
Now I suppose it's on none of them.

I never realized that they made a movie from that novel until, tragically, I stumbled upon it in the mid 90s.

Interestingly enough, when I was knocking holes in the North Atlantic I met people who went into the canoe club as a result of READING Heinlein's ode to his alma matter. Later, when I switched my major from Undersea Warfare to Coastal Warfare (Now Expeditionary Combat) I would go on to meet people who hitched their wagon to that starship as a result of seeing the MOVIE.

Two VERY different groups.

I never groked why Troopers was so controversial .....
Probably my libertarian underpinnings.

 

Have Spacesuit Will Travel. Guess it's "young adult" level, but hey, reread it with my wife about a year back, fun book.

 

Weren't the mid-90s when it was made? 1997ish?

At least you weren't unaware for very long before stumbling on it.

 

finished mutiny on the bounty, good story.

started gentleman in moscow, page turner so far. i did have to wiki the bolshevic revolution because of my public education.

 

moby dick, melville is quite wordy

 

^
That’s me and Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

My Daughter has a dust collector copy of it and some others like it on her shelf.
I picked it up and just about recited the famous first line from memory in a poor imitation of an Oxford English Accent:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a goof fortune must be in want of a wife.”

She gave me that ‘daughter-father’ look and expressed surprise that I had read it.
I had to admit that I never have, but I’ve started it so many times that I just about know the first chapter by heart.

Almost done with “The 6:20 Man” by Baldacci.
On Deck: (maybe) “Nightwork” by Nora Roberts or maybe I will try P&P one more time.

I’ve been reading much lately on building a 300AAC pistol, deciding on barrel length, twist rate, brace, optic, etc while they’re widely available.
There’s a large mountain of material out there and arguments over them are even more contentious than oil change periodicities here in PC.

That’s been eating away at my free time to read a novel.

 

P&P is worth another chance. It may grow on you later. Mr. Bennet is a character it's hard not to enjoy, and reminds me of one or two folks I know.

I also haven't finished Moby Dick, but not because I wasn't enjoying it. I had finally caught on to Melville's tone and the fun he was having with me, and then I was in the right spirit for it, but something else came up and now it's been long enough I'd probably have to start over.

 

a lot of the 'classics' can be a difficult read. the more old english you read, the more your brain grows accustomed to it.
melvilles prose is especially difficult, and i skim some of his descripive work that isn't particularly relevant to the story, such as his one long run on sentance on 'the whiteness of things'.

some parts are torrid page turners, and others are yawners.

 

Some are long inserts of the sort of droll humor you can kind of warm up to, once you see that's the game.

But I knew some folks who would tell that sort of yarn in real life.

 

Reading "Nimitz At War" by Symonds currently as a 'fall asleep book.'
No big surprises there, since he's a well covered and extraordinarily non-controversial historical figure.

At my current one chapter before ZZzzzz...... rate I will be done by Christmas.
"6:20 Man" by Baldacci was as predictable as a Sunday Morning talk-show, but maybe a little more entertaining. It's a fast, simple read.

Starting "Nightwork" by Nora Roberts, as my next day book.

I downloaded "Citizen Cash" (Foley) as my on-deck book, but I see now in the sub-title that it's about the singer's political activism, and quite frankly I've been using books as an escape from the 24x7 political soap operas - so I may bench that one for awhile.

 

just finished pilgrims progress (yawn) and am in the middle of 'a connecticut yankee in king arthurs court'. kind of a yawn so far, but i also had trouble with tom sawyer and huck finn

 

It doesn't stay that way.

There's a cute musical version the middle schoolers put on while I was in high school; I got roped in to some tech on it.

After reading the book years later, I think it's safe to say the cute musical doesn't really capture the thing.

 

thanks, i'll go on with anticipation then.

 

starting 'the lincoln highway', amor towle. he wrote ' a gentleman in moscow', and i liked it, so i figured i'd try another. so far, not quite as good, but the other may have started the same way.

towle had a paragraph in lincoln highway about the count of monte crisco being very wordy at 1,000 pages, and how the author sets you up, but then proceeds for so long without a climax, you've forgotten what it was about by the time you get there.
i wonder if books written before movies, radio, television, etc., had to be that way because that was the only medium people were accustomed to, and they needed to be more descriptive.

finished connecticut yankee. it was a pretty good ending, but wain took a very rambling route to get there.

i like to have two books going, one fun, and one daunting, so i picked up crime and punishment at the swap shop. i may have read it in college, we'll see.