What are we reading?

[JasonPratt]

AB,

I don't have many devotional books to recommend -- mostly I have technical/historical books -- and the one set I would normally recommend might add to your stress a bit, since George MacDonald has a few testy things to say in passing about Roman Catholics in his Unspoken Sermons (only once or twice but why borrow trouble?)

I just got finished reading Aidan Nichols' 2nd edition of Rome and The Eastern Churches, though, which sounds like something you might like: follows the history of doctrine and practice between the ancient trinitarian communions, and the good signs in modern times of them reconciling with one another. Nichols (himself Roman Catholic) takes a very friendly approach to all sides of the disputes, and while the warts-and-all realistic tracing of the disputes is sad I felt encouraged by the follow-through (despite being realistic about remaining problems).

I found Brant Pitre and Scott Hahn's Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist pretty interesting, too; I didn't entirely agree with all his attempts, but I was impressed with most of it and I'm super-picky.  C:-)

[Greybriar]

Thanks for your comments, Jason. I appreciate your input.

[Windigo]

I recommend this religion/philosophy book.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

WARNING: reveals belief incongruency in individuals

[bob48]

Visited a bookshop in one of the indoor markets in Newcastle today, and picked up a brand new, hard back copy, of Bitter Victory by Carlo d'Este.....for £5. To say I'm pleased would be an understatement   :)

[Martok]

Just started book 6 (The Lord of Chaos) in The Wheel of Time series. 

It's still going well, but I am starting to think I may need to take a break and read something different after this before I plunge back into book 7 (when the series starts to slow down).  We'll see. 



EDIT:  Because I'm too dumb to keep my book titles straight...  :-[ 

[JasonPratt]

Martok,

It's worse than you think: TFOH is book 5! -- i.e. it feels like you've already read a whole book farther when you haven't. IT'S LIKE THE SLOG HAS ALREADY BEGUN!   ::)

(TFoH was my favorite book up until the grand finale finally overtook it; but reading it again last year I remembered why some people thought the slog had begun there or even with TSR before it and gave up. Fwiw, Sanderson's trilogy matches and eventually exceeds it IMO.)

[Martok]

Thanks for the correction, Jason.  Yeah, I meant to say I just began LoC yesterday (and that it was FoH that I just finished).  ::) 

I've heard Sanderson's trilogy is everything a WoT fan could hope for and more, but it's good to hear you say so as well.  It'll help me keep my "eye on the prize", so to speak -- especially important, once I begin the 7-10 slog (especially WH and CoT).  ;) 

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile, if I may engage in a bit of quasi-nepotism:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mariebrennan/chains-and-memory-a-sequel-to-lies-and-prophecy

Marie Brennan is an old friend of mine -- we met back on the Compuserve Wheel of Time forum back in the days between Lord of Chaos and A Crown of Swords -- and since back around 2006 or 07 she has been publishing fantasy series through Warner Aspect (Warner Books' fantasy arm at the time), Orbit (who bought out WA if I understand correctly) and now TOR. (Plus a metric ton of short stories, and doing things like helping freelance the rules and color for the recent Legend of the Five Rings role-playing game ruleset revision.) She routinely earns good reviews in the trades (and on Amazon etc.), including starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. With two fantasy series under her belt, and a third one ongoing (a Victorianesque alternate-universe fantasy about a female scientist globetrotting the world studying dragons), she joined a self-publishing collective of traditionally published authors last year to set up her very first completed fantasy novel (which I helped extensively edit back in the day, not incidentally  O:-) ), Lies and Prophecy.

Set in an alternate-universe version of Boston and Harvard (where she wrote it originally as a freshman, also not-incidentally), a few generations after an apocalyptic psychic event Manifested latent magical powers in many humans, Kim has just started her junior year majoring in divination classes when Something takes an interest in her peculiar friend Julian -- a young man (of some romantic interest, spoiler  ;) ) who makes even other magic students nervous with his subtly alien ways. What starts as a dark omen quickly turns dangerous, as Julian finds himself under attack, and Kim tries to master unfamiliar magics in an attempt to defeat her own premonitions and save her mysterious friend.

And then things get worse. A lot worse.

Marie has always wanted to write a sequel, and has been toying with the plot for it for nearly fifteen years while writing several other books and then the ones publishers have been buying. Now since she has gotten her original first novel finally published, and her fans from other books have supported it, and a bloc looks like it'll open up this year for continuing her contract with TOR (on the Lara Croftish Dragon Raider series, for want of a quicker description  -- it's more serious than that, but the story goes back beyond the time I first met her and I'm pretty sure I remember the genesis of the idea) , she's hoping to write it this summer and get the first draft done by early October as a 15th anniversary of her first completed book. Then after she finishes the next book for TOR, she'll edit-polish up this sequel, Chains and Memory, for a tentative release 2015 depending on her other publishing obligations.

Since she's publishing through that (peer-edited) self-pub group, she can be pretty sure of releasing the book (she doesn't have to sell it through her agent etc.), and knowing her as well as I do I can vouch she'll want to finish it. So unless she gets hit by a bus or some other crippling tragedy happens, the release is pretty much a lock. (And in case of crippling tragedy she has many author friends, myself by far the least of them, who would help her get the book out the door, even posthumously if necessary.)

Still, she naturally wants to gin up some advance money ahead of time, partly to pay for the cover art which has already been done, so she has started her first Kickstarter. Thus the link above, which I'll repeat here for convenience. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mariebrennan/chains-and-memory-a-sequel-to-lies-and-prophecy

Note that this page necessarily spoils the plot a bit for the first book, since it minimally describes the second, but duh. Also depending on packages the first book will be included, though it's already available through Amazon, B&N, Book View Cafe (that's the author's collective mentioned above) and a few other places. Plus an audiobook version. Some areas offer print on demand for a hard copy.


The link has only been live for three days, and she's 71% to her goal already, so with her established fanbase I don't think she has to worry about meeting it (and waaaay exceeding it), but as a friend as well as a fan I wanted to promote it somewhere, so there it is. :)

[Windigo]

I love it when I can read posts that show a love of reading held by other people... it encourages me to get off the CiV5 treadmill and read something good.

[JasonPratt]

Updated with correction: her Kickstarter has only been active two days (as of this morning) -- that's the correction -- and it's up past 100% this morning -- that's the update.



No idea how many, if any, Grogs helped with that -- it was smoking along quickly to the minimum already -- but thanks if so!

[BanzaiCat]

That's cool, JP. I've thought about trying Kickstarter to help fund my book, which is about halfway done, but it's taken me several years to get to this point. I would have no idea what 'rewards' to offer since I've never written a book before.

[MetalDog]

Mention in the credits?  Dedication of the book?  Author's private phone number?  Half the proceeds?

[BanzaiCat]

Yeah, mention in the book might work, even naming a character perhaps.

The phone number wouldn't work as I ignore all numbers I don't recognize, ha. Besides, I'd only breathe heavily.

Half the proceeds...that might turn out to be $14.08, if I'm lucky.

[MetalDog]

What's it about?  Maybe one of us will be your first customer.

[BanzaiCat]

I've thought for months of posting something here on this site, but it's taking me so long to do it that I hate to generate interest and then take too long to deliver. My FB page for this series has 64 fans I think...I'm amazed they're still there over the years, but it's been a while since I've updated it...and yada yada yada.

Anyway.

It is an alternate history/sci-fi type of tale, surrounding the Trinity nuclear test of 1945. The bomb goes off, and all kinds of things go wrong, throughout the world. The bomb creates a 'zone' (for lack of a better word) that slowly grows outwards, claiming the land.

I've created that area as sort of a cross-dimensional focal point where different realities mesh and mix - there's one where Germany is actually an ally of America, fighting the Japanese in a similar WWII vein, plus others. This also happens across the world, and I'm still working on the hows, but I've narrowed it down significantly over the last few months.

Since it's 1945 when this happens, parts of the world suddenly shift into other realities - mostly Earth-based ones. For example, parts of Russia become Mongol; parts of France become medieval; the entire Allied army between the Rhine and the Oder disappears; and several other events.

I've created a core set of characters from several parts of the globe, still working on bringing them all together. I've put historical figures into the book - for example, the Potsdam conference was in full swing when the Trinity test took place, and of course we find the Potsdam estate where it happens come under siege, finding Truman, Churchill, and Stalin suddenly facing an attack, with a U.S. lieutenant MP trying to herd them to safety in the middle of the chaos. I also have Patton in there, whom will be a central figure in the book's climax. The other fictional characters, I've tried to make them down to earth and real. A pair of cross-country bank robbers, pursued by the feds, get cornered in a bank in New Mexico in 1944, and they are put to death in the gas chamber in July 1945. One dies at the moment the bomb goes off, but instead of dying, he merges with Death itself. Another is a black preacher whom loses his mind and becomes a sort of savant. Still another is a sheriffs deputy from Montana, a drifter, a sergeant MP in Alamogordo (I base him on a real-world friend of mine, a vet of Afghanistan whom took a sniper round to the helmet and lived, a real brave guy that constantly humbles me by telling me how much he loves my book idea). There's others, but I can't think of them offhand.

The main driving force - the invasion of New Mexico after the bomb breaks open reality there - that's been a tough one to put together, but I finally think I nailed it down in the form of ancient peoples that have conquered many worlds, attracted to them because of their warlike and violent properties, almost like an energy that 'soaks' into the world itself as a result of warfare. Sounds awfully hippy I know, but it just started as a thread of an idea and steamrolled from there.

I've honestly thought of self-publishing. I did try shopping the idea to a couple of publishers, but never got a reply, except from one - a guy that works with Harry Turtledove, and he was a real prick. I think I can probably put it together and possibly sell it as an ebook on Amazon, because funds are very tight for me. Self-publishing isn't exactly dirt cheap, especially if you go for printed copies, and my inability to decide on how to eventually deploy this has made me stay away from Kickstarter.

Well, that's a pretty random and jumbled synopsis, but hopefully it gives you a decent idea.