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Post by sirclarence on Jul 26, 2019 1:17:04 GMT -6
I just started Fritz Leiber's 'Our Lady of Darkness'.
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Post by doublejig2 on Aug 1, 2019 10:55:38 GMT -6
The Demon Haunted World - Carl Sagan
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Post by doublejig2 on Aug 6, 2019 21:14:12 GMT -6
I've got stacks of Osprey books. I've declared August to be read them all month. I'll post at the end of month with what I was able read.
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 7, 2019 23:48:20 GMT -6
I also have a bunch of books I never finished reading. I need to look for them and give them another try.
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arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 229
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Post by arkansan on Aug 10, 2019 23:07:39 GMT -6
Finished up "1177 B.C. The year civilization collapsed" several days back. Enjoyable work but I was a little disappointed to find that there wasn't really much in the way of new information for anyone who has a passing familiarity with the late bronze age. A copy of Oswald Spengler's "Man and Technics" arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm looking forward to starting on it soon, however it's been a bit delayed by a death in the family, my grandfather passed yesterday and I just haven't felt much like doing any serious reading.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 16, 2019 19:04:35 GMT -6
Just filled in a lacuna in my reading of major Lovecraft tales by finally finishing the "Shadow Out Of Time". A great companion piece to "At the Mountains of Madness". Fear the Flying Polyps! One form of the Great Race of Yith (not the Flying Polyps) as drawn by Erol Otus for Deities & Demigods:
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Post by Falconer on Aug 17, 2019 17:15:32 GMT -6
Yeah, I did a chronological readthrough a few years ago, and didn’t make it to the last dozen or so stories, for some reason. Been thinking of giving it another go.
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 20, 2019 14:06:03 GMT -6
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Post by doublejig2 on Aug 21, 2019 8:20:10 GMT -6
I've cut my month short, because the titles are starting to blur together. But here's what I managed: I had these already: Celtic Warriors, Tim Newark Celtic Warriors, 300bc-100ad Germanic Warriors, 235-568ad Anglo-Saxon Thegn, 449-1066ad The Normans I finished these: The Barbarians, Tim Newark The First Crusade The Second Crusade The Third Crusade The Fourth Crusade Knight Hospitaller (1) Knight Templar Teutonic Knight German Medieval Armies 1000-1300 And, my study of warriors, knights, battles, and campaigns is much improved!
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Post by stevemitchell on Aug 30, 2019 19:57:01 GMT -6
The Black Sutra by Walter C. DeBill. Beginning in the 1970s, Mr. DeBill wrote stories incorporating Lovecraftian themes, but often using the writer’s own “Mlandoth Myth Cycle” as a background. He also developed his own haunted landscape—in and around the Texas Hill Country. This is a big collection of his stories—quite well done in my opinion.
Empire of Liberty by Gordon Woods. The second volume in the Oxford History of the United States, covering the early national period from 1789 to 1815.
Adolf Hitler by John Toland. Over 40 years old now, but still a very useful bio of a very bad man.
Colors for Murder, The Purple Dragon, The Monkey Suit, The Death Lady, The Dagger in the Sky, Measures for a Coffin, King Joe Cay, The Thing That Pursued, The Too-Wise Owl, and Mystery Island by Kenneth Robeson. After spending 900 pages with Adolf Hitler, I decided I wanted more congenial company, and a big Doc Savage reading binge ensued.
A Lost Name by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Another gloomy Victorian mystery from the author of Uncle Silas and Carmilla.
Overlord by Max Hastings. An absorbing military history of the D-Day invasion and the subsequent campaign for Normandy. Somewhat controversial when first published due to the author’s assessment that the German army was the best army of World War II.
Strayers from Sheol by H. Russell Wakefield. Wakefield’s “final” collection of ghost stories, originally published by Arkham House, and now in an expanded edition from Ash-Tree Press. I say “final” because a surprise cache of unpublished tales by Wakefield was discovered after this volume went to press, leading eventually to a collection called Reunion at Dawn.
Jack the Ripper and Black Magic by Spiro Dimolianis. Several essays exploring possible occult connections in the Ripper murders. This seemed like a good idea when I saw it for sale at CrimeCon, but I found the book to be rather turgid and uninteresting.
The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky, abridged and annotated by Michael Gomes. The author’s famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) rendition of the Book of Dzyan, considerably streamlined and compressed.
Ambassador of Doom by Brant House. Another entry in the saga of Secret Agent X, a pulp-magazine hero in the tradition of The Shadow and Doc Savage.
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Post by doublejig2 on Aug 30, 2019 20:57:27 GMT -6
Alexander the Great, hourly history - it really is a lightweight treatment that can be read in under an hour for the philosophers: Proposed Road to Freedom, Bertrand Russell Realism and Nominalism Revisited, Henry Veatch
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 30, 2019 22:55:37 GMT -6
Hans Talhoffer's book on combat
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Post by geoffrey on Aug 31, 2019 13:23:17 GMT -6
My daughter and I are both reading The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson:
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2019 15:33:42 GMT -6
Hi all, I merged two older threads on this topic, mainly because I was a bit annoyed to have to see Kent's name as the thread starter. So, here we go with this new, merged version that hopefully will serve of for many years to come! Take care, R
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Post by grodog on Sept 6, 2019 16:00:11 GMT -6
Currently reading: - re-read of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus (in prep for her new novel The Starless Sea, which releases in November) - Ghosts of Saltmarsh (mining for Greyhawk stuff) - Black Sands: Catalogue of hte Ten Thousand Churches - Journal No. 2 (1911): Cult of the Promised Land by Blair Reynolds (of ex-Pagan Publishing CoC fame) - Arrival by Ted Chiang (short stories, one of which was made into the recent film) - re-read of The Hobbit - reading aloud to Henry at his request, and superceding the read-aloud of DragonQuest by Anne McCaffery (which we lost traction on over our July trip to NJ to visit my family)
Allan.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2019 0:15:16 GMT -6
Two books that I'm reading lately that I consider worth a look for people with our shared taste for the fantastic: "Anno Dracula", Kim Newman, an appropriately pulpy Ravenloft-esque tale of what would have happened if Dracula had married Queen Victoria. Spoiler alert, the book ends with him dying his hair ywllow and applying for the lead of the Tory party in 2019. "The Darkness out of Carthage", by Carl D. Smith: Why Carthage was REALLY destroyed. Funny historical Cthulhu pastiche. Should get a bigger audience.
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arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 229
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Post by arkansan on Sept 9, 2019 20:24:23 GMT -6
I've just been perusing my copies of the Del Rey Conan collections. Re-reading "Beyond the Black River" at the moment.
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Post by sirclarence on Sept 10, 2019 1:00:42 GMT -6
I started to reread Sterling Lanier's Hiero's Journey for the third time. Such a great book.
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flightcommander
Level 6 Magician
"I become drunk as circumstances dictate."
Posts: 370
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Post by flightcommander on Sept 11, 2019 0:00:49 GMT -6
I started to reread Sterling Lanier's Hiero's Journey for the third time. Such a great book. This book is SO Gamma World.
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Post by geoffrey on Sept 11, 2019 7:17:39 GMT -6
I've just been perusing my copies of the Del Rey Conan collections. Re-reading "Beyond the Black River" at the moment. I'm slowly re-reading those as well. Right now I'm in "The Pool of the Black One". Good stuff!
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Post by stevemitchell on Sept 11, 2019 13:03:51 GMT -6
Now do some Conan modules, Geoffrey!
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Post by doublejig2 on Sept 18, 2019 9:22:44 GMT -6
Just finished: Nemesis, Alcibiades and the fall of Athens; David Stuttard; it's a good follow up and ride to Herodotus and Thucydides. Now I must read Xenophon! Currently reading Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, ed. Edward Peters. It follows my earlier reading of: The Medieval Church by Joseph Lynch; The Medieval Church by Marshal W Baldwin; and The Magician, The Witch, and the Law by Edward Peters I'll wrap this thread up with Inquisition by Edward Peters
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Post by doublejig2 on Oct 22, 2019 18:47:30 GMT -6
Just read: Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers Now reading: Saga of the Old City by Gygax
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Post by tkdco2 on Oct 25, 2019 2:00:44 GMT -6
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Post by stevemitchell on Oct 26, 2019 14:42:57 GMT -6
Battle for the Stars by Edmond Hamilton. A good, old-fashioned space opera from a master of the genre.
Siege by Michael Wolff. More on the Trump administration from the author of Fire and Fury.
Fallon by Louis L’Amour. In Nevada, a gambler sets out to “build” a town and then fleece its inhabitants; along the way, he finds himself becoming committed to his new town and its people.
Hess, Hitler, and Churchill by Peter Padfield. The author examines the many theories about the strange flight of Deputy Fuehrer Rudolf Hess to Britain in 1940.
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. A detailed look at the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, culminating with the 9-11 attacks.
Ten Emperors by Barry Strauss. A work for non-specialist readers that provides long chapters on several “key” emperors (Augustus, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine, etc.) while briefly summarizing the other events between their reigns. A good overview of Roman imperial history
Flying Saucers from the Kremlin by Nick Redfern. Really more about how the beastly Reds may have used our government’s concern with UFOs to spread disinformation and agitate our intelligence services—and how we may have done some of the same to them in return.
The Mystery of the Golden Skull by Donald E. Keyhoe. Dr. Yen-Sin, the Invisible Peril, is back for a second round of murder and mayhem, this time in New York City.
Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King. A big collection of King’s stories and novelettes from about 15 years ago. Out of 14 tales, I would say there were three that just didn’t work for me; the rest ranged from at least interesting to good to very good.
Visitors from the Void, edited by Gray Barker and Andrew B. Colvin. An assortment of essays on UFOlogical themes.
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Post by doublejig2 on Oct 27, 2019 16:28:48 GMT -6
Just finished Artifact of Evil, Gygax
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Post by Falconer on Oct 28, 2019 12:55:39 GMT -6
What did you think?
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Post by doublejig2 on Oct 28, 2019 14:07:42 GMT -6
I thought it was a heart felt romp through Greyhawk, and that part is appreciated. As an attempt to capture that milieu with travel, interaction with NPCs, adventuring, facing monsters, and combats and battles, large and small, most of a DM's work, for example, is brought into relief in this book. Funny, I read Saga of the Old City a few day's prior, and now I can't even remember what its plot was... Anyway, though no Swords Against fill in Fritz Leiber, it's good to have these two from Gary Gygax under my belt; prior to these, I've never read D&D fiction. Though I don't think I'll read the others in the series - I don't like Gord; these two works have strengthened my thinking about the game, especially regards what it means to adventure in the World of Greyhawk.
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Post by stevemitchell on Jan 10, 2020 21:31:55 GMT -6
Access to Inner Worlds by Colin Wilson. More on left-brain/right-brain psychology, mixed with Wilson’s particular brand of existential philosophy.
Sentinels from Space, Call Him Dead (Three to Conquer), and Sinister Barrier by Eric Frank Russell. Three novels; Russell was a prominent SF writer of the mid-20th Century, but appears to be largely forgotten today.
The Lady from the Black Lagoon by Mallory O’Meara. Milicent Patrick was a model and artist, and also a minor film actress, but she was more important as a design specialist in cinema—she created the visual look for the Creature from the Black Lagoon, among others.
This Is Berlin by William L. Shirer. Transcripts of Shirer’s radio broadcasts from Europe—mostly from Berlin—in the years leading up to World War II, and (while America was still neutral) during the first year of the war.
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. The novel on which the two film versions of Village of the d**ned were based.
Ancient Giants by Xaviant Haze. A survey of alleged giant races in the distant past.
Slowly We Rot by Bryan Smith. A novel of the zombie apocalypse, more introspective and less relentlessly lurid than most of Smith’s stories
Inferno by Max Hastings. A complete one-volume history of World War II; very well done.
The Broken Gun by Louis L’Amour. A modern-day (well, modern as of the 1960s) Western.
Tales Out of Dunwich edited by Robert M. Price. A group of stories set in and around Lovecraft’s infamous village, or in locales similar to Dunwich.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2020 5:05:37 GMT -6
Hehe, it's obvious that I'm pretty wrapped up with the Shannara reread, and still am going to be so, for quite a while - but one thing I'd like to highlight that is from our corner of literature, and that has graced my nightstand recently, is the two-part 2013 Gollancz paperback edition of Michael Moorcock's "Corum" tales. A well-manufactured book, which long was a problem for many Moorcock reeditions, and the stories are, in my opinion, among the best that author has to offer. - Mainly because I think that Moorcock's style is hard to identify as such: From a modern perspective, a lot of what he (and Zelazny, by the way) write seems rushed, or bad, or, simply, "not modern". I didn't get that this was basically intentional (short sentences, crisp descriptions, actions like scripted for a movie), until I got into "Corum".
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