Wednesday, July 1, 2020

What authors are you reading now?

We live in crazy times.

One way to deal with the STOOPID is to go back and read authors whose work can be relied upon to give us enjoyment.

This is more than sticking our heads in the sand. By depriving the hooligans of their fifteen minutes of fame we are taking the oxygen out of the room.

I will get the ball rolling.

I thought W.E.B. Griffin's book "The Lieutenants" was one of the finest pieces of fiction ever written. The later books in the series were also superb.

I like the books John Ringo wrote. The ones he wrote without a co-author seem to be better than the others.

Rolf Nelson's Heretics of St Possenti is superb and I wish he would expand the franchise.

Marco Kloos's Palladium War series is a cut above average.

Jim Curtis's Rimworld is a fun series. The characters seem less constrained than some of his other work (also good stuff).

The earlier books of the Monster Hunters International series by Larry Correia were a joy to read. A common thread in a "franchise" is that later books seem more forced while earlier books seem more free-flow as we discover the rules of the new universe. It is presumptuous of me to critique an author who is 10X the writer I am but it is the realities of writing a series that goes beyond three books.

The books that Tom Clancy wrote (without co-authors) are very, very good.

I will even admit to reading a romance novel or two in my life. The Chicago Stars books by Susan Elizabeth Philips were richly layered and elaborately constructed confections. Later books were churned out at six month intervals as her editors put the spurs to her.

Debbie Macomber had a short series where the angels "Shirley", "Goodness" and "Mercy" would come to earth around Christmas and cause chaos and romance. They were good, goofy fun.

Expand my horizons. What are you ladies and gentlemen reading?

25 comments:

  1. Add Tom Kratman to your list.
    I used the idle time to reread his Terra Nova series, and I've liked everything he has written.
    And read Cedar Sanderson's Pixie Noir series.
    I'll add more if I think of them.

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  2. Was reacquainting myself with Robert A Heinlein.

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  3. I'm re-reading Allan W. Eckert's Winning of America series about American history. The books are a series but are stand alone books. I would recommend to you The Conquerors as it is about the Pontiac Rebellion and is mostly in Michigan. ---ken

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  4. Regarding WEB Griffin, my dad, could not read it. He said after a couple chapters, "This is about my life, I cannot read it." It is like touching my dad to read those books. He had a story about one of his lieutenants cavorting with a USO actress in a bunker in Korea and how they got her back to the USO. Butterworth had to have known that story.

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  5. And, to your question, Antifragile by Talib. Slow going. He has an attention span similar to mine. That is not easy on the innocent bystander.

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  6. I just read a book by someone called John Ross, book is Unintended Consequences. It was in pdf form. I read John Sandfords Prey series of books. Janet Evanovich writes some funny books.
    Also, A. American is a good author.

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  7. Anything by Ferrol Sams... When All The World Was Young is probably my favorite of the Porter Osborne trilogy.

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    Replies
    1. He was my doctor. What a character.

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    2. Those books were bravado with tongue in cheek on his part. Really, they were true stories with the names changed to protect the not so innocent. He waited to publish until after his mother died. He was once on city council and defeated after the paper made a big deal about him characterizing his opponents as "a bunch of piss ants". Visiting with him once I mentioned that that was not the politically smartest thing to say. Hands on his hips he proclaimed "I am most unrepentant, they ARE a bunch of piss ants!" Some time later I had run for office, ran into the doc and his wife at a bbq restaurant. I confided that he was 100% accurate. He knocked his tea over laughing.

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  8. John Sandford, Bernard Cornwell, the Sharpe and Last Kingdom series, for those I also have the DVDs. Craig Johnson, Larry Correia, Tom Clancy, C. J. Box, just the Joe Pickett series. Michael Z Williamson, Stephen Hunter, WEB Griffin, JL Curtis, on Kindle. I also like the alternate history books by Robert Conroy. When I was younger I read a lot of Alistair MacLean, Harold Coyle and Gavin Lyall

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  9. Anthony Riches and Simon Scarrow if you like Roman history. Zoe Sharp for the best female lead, Charlie Fox, out there today. Marc Cameron, Peter Grant and Mark Greaney prove reliable. Lastly a recommendation for a new guy, Quentin Black. His hero is morally ambiguous but definitely on the right side of right and for once, he gets firearms and martial arts right (no safety on his
    Glocks).

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  10. Been reading your novels postings, thank you for these, a welcome respite these days, good, soulful reads.
    Other Books: CS Lewis. Allegorical, Christian philosophy adult fiction novels, yet never judgmental. Pilgrims Regress, The Screwtape Letters and the Space Trilogy. I went through them all as audio books on yt. John Cleese narrates the Letters Book. Pilgrims Regress is the best for a good understanding of the evolution of mind and spirit from the turn of the last century to the today, a good entertaining, light read to understand (the origins?) of some of today's world spectrum of mindsets from his perspective in the 30s as well, same same in many instances; and is communicated very visually. The trilogy is lighter yet more focused in its address of the vastness and possibilities of faith. All have the soothing, feel of a good black and white film or lecture series ... humorous, engaging and thought provoking. His era also comes through, pre and post World War Two England; Reminds, subtly, of the feel and reality of how much good, and maturity and tradition there was and always will be in this world, if even it waxes and wanes here and there in the face of great evil and great good.

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  11. Recently tried to re-activate my amazon account (so I could purchase your books no longer on your blog about to become books) and found that after blues brothering my account (was living at address in Africa that didn't meet their allowed format) can't undo it.

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  12. And here is one that will give you ammunition: https://www.amazon.com/Property-Freedom-Richard-Pipes/dp/0375704477/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=Richard+pipes&qid=1593699323&sr=8-6

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  13. And another: https://www.amazon.com/Communism-History-Modern-Library-Chronicles/dp/0812968646/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Richard+pipes&qid=1593699418&sr=8-2

    Both are eye opening. Gives you things to make the millennial think, if possible.

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  14. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck. A lot of prescient similarities to today's society.

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  15. Currently, Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth", in German. Prior to that, all of James Clavell, John Le Carre, and C.S. Forrester that I could find on Archive. Oh, and a couple from John Grisham.

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  16. Ride the Red Horse from Castalia House is a new version of Pournelle's There Will be War series, complete with a Pournelle story. If you liked the original series, you'll like this one.

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  17. I have ordered a couple books from Amazon by my favorite modern author, a guy that no one has heard of, by the name of J.L.Curtis.
    He is fantastic. I can't wait for my books to arrive !

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    Replies
    1. Lots of us have heard of him. He's actually a REALLY nice guy. Met him years ago, and we have been friends ever since. He cooks a mean steak.

      Look up ONFO.org for his day to day writings if you aren't already reading them.

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  18. Robert Heinlein
    Various prophets in the Old Testament
    Asimov
    Niven
    I'm looking at yard sales for any of Anne McCaffery's Dragonriders of Pern series.

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  19. Heh, book reading when the garden is coming on? Not around here.

    The last book I read was the on-line version of Confessions, by Saint Augustine. What a challenge it was to get through that.

    Before that (it was winter) was Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Again.

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  20. P.J. Farmer's Riverworld series
    Larry Niven's Ringworld series
    Drake's Hammer's Slammers series
    Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series

    Beats partisan politics....

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