[tube]-nIej5weq1U[/tube]
(via io9)
[tube]-nIej5weq1U[/tube]
(via io9)
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Yet another update of the percentage of the last 20 books I have read which are available on Kindle as of right after I wrote the post about Shadow of the Hegemon. That book was available on Kindle, the one that fell off the 20 was not, and none of the ones in between changed status, so the percentage goes up from 65% to 70%. For reference:
So here I go, I am now up to Book 6 in the Ender Series. This book once again concentrates on the character of Bean, the minor character in Ender’s Game that got a deeper background in the last book, Ender’s Shadow. Now that the Buggers / Formics have been defeated, the action shifts back to Earth, where the unity of the planet during the war against an alien threat has fallen apart, and now major geopolitical shifts are under way as national powers start reasserting themselves. In this context, the former members of Ender’s team (including Bean) become major players, as they are considered the brightest military minds on the planet. An old rival of Bean’s from his childhood who was introduced in the last book also plays a huge part as the villain, constantly plotting for his own power, but more importantly for revenge against all those, such as Bean, who had ever seen him in positions of weakness. There is some interesting geopolitical speculation here, looking at how a world might look several hundred years in our future, after an interlude where the planet had been forced to unite, but no longer is. But even given the premise of this cadre of super-bright children who had already saved the world, it does start to stretch the suspension of disbelief a little bit when you essentially get a handful of teenagers engaging in machinations that direct the course of major nations as they go into and out of war. It is an entertaining story, and once again Card is doing a novel that concentrates on events and actions as opposed to philosophical speculation. They are different sorts of novels. Both good in their own way. This is maybe in the middle of the pack of the series so far in terms of how much I’ve enjoyed it. Not as good as #1, #2 or #5 in this series, but probably better than #3 and #4. Dunno. They are all enough different from each other that it is hard to compare. Worth a read if you like this series. I wouldn’t suggest picking it up without having read at least #5 though, since it follows directly on from that book.
So, yet another update of the percentage of the last 20 books I’ve read that are available on Kindle as of soon after I posted about The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The book that fell off was not available, neither was the one I just added, and none of the ones in between changed status, so the metric stayed at 65%.
I’ll note as I have the last few times that other editions of The Odyssey are available on Kindle, just not the specific edition I read. [tube]xn6ZqHPu-Mg[/tube]  We had to take one last drive in the Maxima since to get the trade in it had to drive into the dealer’s lot. This is a picture right as Brandy was handing over the keys. Seconds earlier it had been billowing thick clouds of white smoke. But it made it! 
Done. She will be driving it home momentarily. Looks like Brandy’s 1995 Nissan Maxima with 246k miles on it now needs an expensive repair that may or may not actually completely fix the problem. If it doesn’t fix it then actually fixing it would most likely cost significantly more than the car is worth. So we are car shopping. Right now Brandy is looking at a 2007 Volkswagen Passat 2.0T Wagon and is really excited about it. Test drive coming after we eat lunch. If she likes it we may end up with it. We shall see.
 Well, not that happy a turkey, since we’re about to eat it. Oh well! |
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