MingtheMerciless wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:47 pm
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, which is a helicopter pilots story of Vietnam.
When ya get done read the sequel "Chickenhawk, Back In The World"
Then you'll want to read Chickenhawk again... & maybe the sequel again too.
Sequel is out of print so you'll have to find a used copy, there's plenty out there online.
I think everyone has read Chickenhawk, several times, but I didn't know the second book existed.
Thanks.
It's a scif-fi / fantasy novel, but based around the decisions which led to the allies using atomic bombs against the Japanese.
Of course I knew it happened, that it was terrible. The book goes into a lot of detail explaining the Japanese psyche for war. It uses as a background framework the negotiations that went on, looks at whether Stalin might have been duplicitous, and issues such as the predicted costs of lives lost if a land invasion had taken place.
Like I said, half way. I stopped reading last night, about 10pm, August 8th.
The anniversary of the first bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.
I stopped reading at the point 'Little Boy' was released. Today I have been reading the eye witness accounts (through the narrator's eyes) of the damage and desolation, structural and human.
Amazingly researched, superbly written, thoroughly recommend. I have no idea where it's 'going'. The fantasy aspect relates to the narrator, Robert Tulliver. GB has written several novels with RT (and the psychic Society that he belongs to) as the linking factor.
I'm reading on kindle, but printed also available:
Horse wrote: ↑Sun Aug 09, 2020 1:58 pm
Mid-way through Trinity's Wake, by Greg Bennett.
Like I said, half way. I stopped reading last night, about 10pm, August 8th.
The anniversary of the first bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.
Close but no cigar.
08:15 on 6th August.
I always knew that there was a major problem with international time zones
Great book, thoroughly recommended. Frightening, too, how through subsequent tests various governments appear to have 'accidentally' experimented on service personnel and civilians.
I've just put down 'The Thin Red Line' by James Jones, unfinished.
In fact I only read 3 chapters which are overly long. One thing you could say about Mr Jones is that he's not a man of few words. Why write 50 words when 500 will do?
I may pick it up again but I might just watch the film instead.
Harry wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 8:24 am
I'm reading 1984 again, with a foreword from Thomas Pynchon.
It's grim reading in 2020.
It always strikes me that human nature hasn't changed since that book was written. If Orwell could think all that stuff up in 1948 you can see how present times aren't all that unusual.
MingtheMerciless wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:47 pm
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, which is a helicopter pilots story of Vietnam.
When ya get done read the sequel "Chickenhawk, Back In The World"
Then you'll want to read Chickenhawk again... & maybe the sequel again too.
Sequel is out of print so you'll have to find a used copy, there's plenty out there online.
I think everyone has read Chickenhawk, several times, but I didn't know the second book existed.
Thanks.
Mr. Dazzle wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 9:14 am
It always strikes me that human nature hasn't changed since that book was written. If Orwell could think all that stuff up in 1948 you can see how present times aren't all that unusual.
I think it's all the more easy to fool the masses now, the news is invited and beamed right into the middle of your living room and people welcome it with open arms and believe every word. Pavlovian political reflexes are now so well formed that it's entirely normal to hate your neighbour because he votes a certain way.
ZRX61 wrote: ↑Sun Aug 02, 2020 6:20 pm
When ya get done read the sequel "Chickenhawk, Back In The World"
Then you'll want to read Chickenhawk again... & maybe the sequel again too.
Sequel is out of print so you'll have to find a used copy, there's plenty out there online.
I think everyone has read Chickenhawk, several times, but I didn't know the second book existed.
Thanks.
Neither did I...
It's a bit rubbish, I bought it on the kindle and only got halfway through before abandoning it.
It's a self indulgent mess of woe-is-me, waffle for the sake of it and stupidity. I got to the bit where he gets on the yacht and sets sail and then got bored. I've been tempted to pick it up just to see how he got caught but I haven't been bored enough to stoop that low yet.
MingtheMerciless wrote: ↑Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:47 pm
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason, which is a helicopter pilots story of Vietnam.
When ya get done read the sequel "Chickenhawk, Back In The World"
Then you'll want to read Chickenhawk again... & maybe the sequel again too.
Sequel is out of print so you'll have to find a used copy, there's plenty out there online.
I think everyone has read Chickenhawk, several times, but I didn't know the second book existed.
Thanks.
Anything by Tom Robbins. 'Another Roadside Attraction' and 'Jitterbug Perfume' are my particular favourites. Re-read both these during this year's lockdowns, and they age well.
In my last few years of travelling I started to read Peter James books _ only because they were all based around Brighton and the surrounding area.
They are unbelievably badly written, obvious and implausible stories - and I am stunned that he gets a book deal.
But he does ...
