What are you reading? Options

[Decrepit]

At 2058 yesterday evening, 4 Jun 2025, I concluded an initial read of Terry Brooks' "Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1, Running with the Demon". I liked it very much. Smaller in locale and timespan than his sprawling early Shannara entries, I find it far better written. It held my interest from start to finish. I'll definitely continue the trilogy.

But first, a possible change of pace. Having created a new cover for Mary Wollstonecraft's (the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley of Frankenstein fame) "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", I decided to give it a try. I'm only partway through the short, meh biographical introduction, so it's too soon to report on the book's worth or lack thereof.

[SubRosa]

A few days ago I "read' All Quiet on the Western Front, from the audiobook here.

It is good. It goes quickly, as the writing does not get bogged down like the armies did in the trenches. It is not a standard, single story with a beginning, middle, and ending. Rather it is a series of individual anecdotes that were clearly taken from the author's personal experiences in the First World War (he was a German infantryman on the Western Front). This is not a bad thing. In fact, I think this is why the book flows so quickly and seemingly effortlessly.

All together the events span a period of about 3 years, and they show different facets of an ordinary soldier's life during the war. The Nationalism that prompted him and his classmates to join direct from graduating high school, the grimy and gross facts of life such what it feels like to crush the lice that live on you, or how they ambushed the rats that ate their food (and them). Going home to find that he does not belong there anymore. And of course the artillery bombardments, and a face to face encounter with a French soldier that really brings home the horror of it all.

I was surprised at how faithful the movie adaptations have been, at least the 1930 and 1979 films. They pretty much hit every mark in the book, except the Russian prisoners of war back home.

[Decrepit]

A few days ago I "read' All Quiet on the Western Front, from the audiobook here.

It is good. It goes quickly, as the writing does not get bogged down like the armies did in the trenches. It is not a standard, single story with a beginning, middle, and ending. Rather it is a series of individual anecdotes that were clearly taken from the author's personal experiences in the First World War (he was a German infantryman on the Western Front). This is not a bad thing. In fact, I think this is why the book flows so quickly and seemingly effortlessly.

All together the events span a period of about 3 years, and they show different facets of an ordinary soldier's life during the war. The Nationalism that prompted him and his classmates to join direct from graduating high school, the grimy and gross facts of life such what it feels like to crush the lice that live on you, or how they ambushed the rats that ate their food (and them). Going home to find that he does not belong there anymore. And of course the artillery bombardments, and a face to face encounter with a French soldier that really brings home the horror of it all.

I was surprised at how faithful the movie adaptations have been, at least the 1930 and 1979 films. They pretty much hit every mark in the book, except the Russian prisoners of war back home.

I love me a good WWI in-the-trenches novel. Read AQOTWF early this year (2025), before my accused reading block kicked in. Its 1930 film adaptation is one of my all-time favorite movies. (The remake is okay but doesn't equal it IMO.) "Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914 – 1918", an early Kindle purchase read during 2021, remains my favorite such book. Its one drawback, if drawback it be, is that Barthas, a real-life person, spent the closing months of the conflict in relative safety, rendering the ending a bit anticlimactic.

[SubRosa]

I "read" an audiobook of War of the Worlds yesterday while I was at work. Here is a link to it. It was good. The best of HG Well's work that I have read so far of late (The Time Machine and Island of Dr. Moreau). It is very much an adventure story - which those are as well - but this one has a faster pace. There is more happening, and the stakes feel higher. The story does not waste much time, it quickly gets right into the first cylinder landing near the protagonist's home in Surrey. From there it is a quick succession of events as he bears witness to the invasion.

It is not an action story, in that the protagonist is not an action hero. He is not wrestling Martians or getting into gunfights. Though there is a fist fight at one point, and a hatchet does eventually get used. Instead the protagonist and later his brother are essentially point of view characters who are there to describe what happened in this big event. But they are not shaping the event itself. They are simply swept up in it.

Which in itself works as an example of what life is like for the millions of refugees displaced by war and other misfortune. That was one of the points of the story. Wells wanted to show what it is would look like if some technologically advanced culture came along and did to Britain, exactly what they had spent centuries doing to Indigenous populations around the world. It is not subtext, but actual text. He directly calls out the genocide of the people of Tasmania at the beginning of the book.

In the Sci Fi sense, it is predicts several things. First the Martian War Machines are sort of like precursors to real life tanks, in that they are machines piloted by people, armored and filled with devastating weapons. There is a clear line to mecha from here as well. Of course he has the Death Ray, in the form of the Martian's heat beam. But similar things might have been done before. What surprised me was that the Martians also used chemical weapons, with something like poison gas that they fired from tubes. They also had aircraft, which is not a giant leap, as balloons had been a thing for a century and people had just started using dirigibles with propeller engines around the time of his writing. Wells took the next step and took this emergent technology further ahead, and imagined it without the need for a big gas bag to hold it up, and instead fly of it is own accord.

He also goes back to microbes here, and the idea that the Martians either did not have bacteria and viruses on Mars, or that they had eliminated them. This was something he touched on briefly in the Time Machine, in which the future Golden Age that preceded the fall to Eloi and Morloks, humans had also wiped out harmful microbes, and with it diseases.

All in all it is a really good story. I highly recommend it. I can see why so many films and TV series have been made from it. It lends itself very easily to a visual format.

[Acadian]

Thanks for the neat reviews!

[SubRosa]

Today I finished "reading" Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Stephen Stanton has an absolutely outstanding audiobook version of it Here on YouTube, that is broken up into separate episodes by chapter. It is the same Stephen Stanton who is the voice actor (well actor), who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the Clone Wars, and other characters in the various animated Star Wars shows. He's really good, and brings a lot of versatility to the character's voices when they are speaking dialogue.

The fantastic ability of the reader aside, the book itself is pure gold. I have not read it since childhood. But it really holds up after all this time. So many of our tropes and common conceptions of what pirates are come from here. The parrot, the peg leg, buried treasure, fifteen men on a dead man's chest, and so on. Stevenson's pirates are drunken scalawags, brutal ruffians, and greedy rogues. They really come to life as real, breathing scoundrels that practically jump from the page and hold a cutlass to your throat.

Of course Stevenson himself did not invent all this whole cloth. He got a lot of inspiration from the various books about real world pirates that were floating around by the mind 1700s. Many of which purported to be non fiction, but in actuality were short on the non, and long on the fiction. But there was some truth. Captain Kidd really did bury his treasure. He had been accused of piracy, and thought he could get his name cleared by facing the charges. He hid his money first so the authorities could not just take it for themselves. Instead he thought he could use it as a bargaining chip. He was wrong, and swung from a noose.

In any case, it is a very fun, engaging adventure story. It does not slow or drag, but continues on a brisk pace. The characters are likeable. Their actions make sense. John Silver really stands out among them. He is a neat villain to read because he is both intelligent and charismatic. He gets you to like him and convinces you that he is your friend. In the way that a true sociopath can do so well. When in reality you are just a tool for him to use, and a throat to cut once you are no longer useful.

[Decrepit]

A timely report, SubRosa. I've had 'Treasure Island' on my Kindle for several years and created a new cover for it a week or so ago. I'll give it serious consideration for my next read.

I've not posted my reading log for a while now. Here are the books I've read since my last log post:

21. 05/24/2025: 2126 “Jane Eyre, an autobiography” by Charlotte Brontë
22. 06/04/2025: 2058 “Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1, Running with the Demon” by Terry Brooks
23. 06/22/2025: 1152 “The Venetian Heretic” by Christian Cameron
24. 06/27/2025: 1534 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 01 of 03” by William Ainsworth
25. 06/30/2025: 1324 “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century” by Barbara W. Tuchman (fifth read)
26. 07/01/2025: 0800 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 02 of 03” by William Ainsworth
27. 07/03/2025: 1930 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 03 of 03” by William Ainsworth
28. 07/05/2025: 0423 “The Case of Oscar Slater” (non-fiction) by Arthur Conan Doyle
29. 07/06/2025: 043x “Eve’s Diary, Complete” by Mark Twain, illustrated by Lester Ralph
30. 07/07/2025: 1051 “A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry” (during the U.S. Civil War) by L.S. Trowbridge
31. 07/10/2025: 2332 “Lost Gip” by Hesba Stretton, illustrated
32. 07/20/2025: 2046 “A Hero of our Time” by Mikhail Lermontov, English translation by Marr Murray & J.H. Wisdom

After watching a YouTube video discussing the exploits of Jack Sheppard, a real-life English criminal noted for his numerous escapes from seemingly inescapable incarceration, I visited Project Gutenberg, which houses a small selection of books about him. I chose a romance built upon his exploits. Available as either a single-volume download or broken into three downloads, I read the three-book version, which includes illustrations missing in the single-volume download. It was a fun read. Almost everyone in these books is corrupt, criminal, or both. The few who aren't exist primarily as victims for those who are. Bad things happen to them. Recommended.

Mark Twain's "Eve's Diary", also from Project Gutenberg, is quite short but a sweet read, as one might suspect considering the source.

"Running with the Demon" reinforces my opinion that Terry Brooks' more recent Shannara entries are a decided improvement over early series releases. (I recently attempted a re-read of the original "Sword of Shannara" book but DNF'd fairly early on.)

Jane Eyre is Jane Eyre. I enjoyed it, except during a few episodes of introspection / inner turmoil that overstayed their welcome. (Project Gutenberg)

"Venetian Heretic", an Amazon purchase, was a solid, entertaining read with possibly the best-written Gondola chase in literature. A solid recommendation.

"A Hero of Our Time" (Project Gutenberg) was readable, but didn't overly impress.

"A Distant Mirror: ...", receiving its fifth read and the only paper book on the list, is one of my favorite non-fiction history works.

I made new covers for all the Project Gutenberg titles. Here's the cover for Jack Sheppard, volume 03.

And speaking of Treasure Island, here's its new decrepit cover.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Jul 22 2025, 10:47 AM

[Decrepit]

As threatened, I read R. Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (free Project Gutenberg download), finishing it yesterday evening after retiring to the sofa for the day.

Subrosa said what needs be said about the book:

"In any case, it is an entertaining, engaging adventure story. It does not slow or drag, but continues at a brisk pace. The characters are likable. Their actions make sense. John Silver really stands out among them. He is a neat villain to read because he is both intelligent and charismatic. He gets you to like him, convinces you that he is your friend. In the way that a true sociopath can do so well. When in reality you are just a tool for him to use, and throat to cut if you are not long useful."

It's not my favorite seafaring novel by a long shot, but certainly enjoyable, start to finish. I'm glad to have read it.

BTW, my ongoing "kitchen table paper-book", read as I dine, is "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler" by Robert Payne, receiving its fourth or fifth reading. It's a favorite bio, and this go-round has added appeal due to parallels with current happenings . . . which I'll not detail since we're not that sort of forum. I'm now at page 319, just over halfway through, with Hitler about to invade Czechoslovakia.

I've not yet decided on my next Paperwhite e-book read.

[SubRosa]

The Behind the Bastards podcast had several good episodes on Hitler. Not simply talking about the obvious stuff, but the more personal quirks and nature of his private life. One was how he loved Karl May's Old West novels. One two parter was about his girlfriends. He had seven girlfriends throughout his life, and six of them committed suicide. At least one my have had 'help' doing so as well. His big move to impress the chicks was to beat his dog with a whip. What a romantic...

Yesterday I read A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Barsoom (or John Carter) series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was a lot better than I expected. Like Treasure Island, it is a fun romp across a fictional Mars - aka Barsoom. Like Treasure Island, it moves at a brisk pace, even in the exposition heavy areas where Burroughs is telling us how Martian society works.

It is far from perfect. Early on there is a line about how all the slaves loved Carter back in Virginia that was just painful to read. From there we get a ton of examples of the Damsel in Distress trope, with a healthy topping of Deus Ex Machina. At least the latter serves the purpose of keeping the story moving along at a quick pace, and prevents things from getting bogged down in what would otherwise been slow plodding if things had unfolded in a more realistic fashion.

OTOH, I really loved the Post-Apocalyptic setting this has. Like Lord of the Rings, it is not our standard Post Apocalypse story, which is set close to the end of the world, and tends to focus on how the survivors are trying to survive in the wake whatever catastrophe destroyed their society. Instead it is set thousands of years later, and the characters live in the ruins of previous societies that have so thoroughly vanished that no one really remembers who they were. They just know that at one time Mars was a place thriving with life and advanced peoples. Now it is a dying wasteland where six-limbed nomads travel across deserts that were once oceans, while 'civilized' humans live in a city states where they not only recreate the technology of old, but perhaps even surpass it in some places. But always, the ever-present specter of the planet's death hangs over them all. It really brings a sense of stakes to everything. This is a world that hangs on a knife edge of continued survival.

In any case it is an enjoyable fantasy adventure. If you like Conan, you will probably enjoy this.