- he went to Wheaton College for undergrad and Johns Hopkins for his master's degree
Yeah, that'd cause nightmares lol...
(I grew up in Wheaton)
I was mostly interested in Meade's pursuit of Lee's army after the battle because many people, starting with President Lincoln, have criticized Meade for failing to crush or capture Lee's entire army. This book made clear to me that this is not as valid of a criticism as I once thought. In fact, Meade had many of the same problems that Lee had. Mead's army had suffered harrowing losses at Gettysburg and was low on supplies of everything (food, ammunition, shoes, etc). Additionally, Lee handled the retreat skillfully and made it very difficult for Meade to determine his intentions let alone foil them.
I would say the South has suffered from losing that war and 75% of Southern wealth until this day. After Jim Crow was finally, at long last lifted, and the South started using our entire population, instead of using 55% to hold down 45%, the South started to prosper but we still are low on the numbers we should be high on, like college graduates. and high on numbers we should be low on, like poverty rates, high school drop-out rates, etc.
Actually it was not the war that caused this, it was slavery itself. There was no capacity to absorb several million poor, uneducated people into our system.
I think air conditioning has led to the south rising as much as anything (and I'm not saying that in a joking manner).I agree with this. It isn't the only reason but it is certainly a big part of it.
Just bought August 1914, by Solzenitsn, which I probably can't spell right. Haven't started.Let me know how it is. Tannenberg is a highly underappreciated battle. The Germans won, of course, but in the meantime they old Prussian Elite had become nervous due to the Russian hordes invading their homeland. That nervousness probably ended up costing Germany their best (and probably only) chance to win WWI. Short version:
You have some strange interests, @nuwildcat (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=28) :86:What can I say, I'm a sucker for hella catchy melodies!
That said, kimchi rocks.
Back on topic, I'm going to start reading Game of Thrones soon, and will also read The Gunslinger (the first book in Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series that spurred the movie of the same name).
Let me know how it is. Tannenberg is a highly underappreciated battle. The Germans won, of course, but in the meantime they old Prussian Elite had become nervous due to the Russian hordes invading their homeland. That nervousness probably ended up costing Germany their best (and probably only) chance to win WWI. Short version:
When the Prussian Elites raised alarm over the Russian invasion of East Prussia the issue became such that the Imperial General Staff had to respond. Their response was to transfer an entire army from the Western Front to the Eastern Front to meet the threat.
Unfortunately for the Germans, this transferred Army was in transit (W->E) when the decisive actions against the Russians occurred in East Prussia and again in transit (E->W) when the Battle of the Marne stopped the German advance into France on the Marne river.
Notably, the German army that was withdrawn from the Western Front due to the apparent threat in the East was taken from the exact spot where the French discovered and attacked a large gap in the German line. Had it not been for the Russian invasion of East Prussia these troops would never have been taken off of the Western Front and it is entirely possible that France would have been knocked out of WWI. Given that Tsarist Russia subsequently collapsed it is entirely possible that this could have dramatically altered the outcome of WWI.
Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August is a great read about the diplomatic attempts to avoid the war and the early days of WWI.
WWI is fascinating to me, moreso than WWII. The technological changes during WWI were, IMHO, even more immense than during WWII. Look at aircraft, for example. In the fall of 1914 when the war started the aircraft mostly looked pretty much like the Wright Brother's original flying machine. They were mostly wood and cloth bi-planes with almost no armor or armament. By the fall of 1918 there were some very modern-looking all metal monoplanes with substantial armor and armament. Similarly, on the ground at the beginning of the war Cavalry was a major weapon and rifles were similar to the ones used by the armies of Napoleon and his enemies a century earlier. By the end of the war there were tanks and machine guns.
The cultural changes brought on by WWI were also immense. At the beginning troops in Austria Hungry answered to an Emperor, troops in Russia answered to a Tsar, troops in Germany answered to a Kaiser. The families of the Emperor, Tsar, and Kaiser had ruled at least parts of their respective lands for centuries. When the dust settled after WWI the Tsar and his family were all dead and Russia was ruled by a Politburo. The Austro-Hungarian Emperor died during the war (he was over 80 when it started) and at the end of the war the empire was dissolved into many pieces and his successor lived out his post-war life in Madeira in exile. The Kaiser fled Germany at the end of the war and lived out his days as an exile in the Netherlands.
WW I rifles were all fast loading with cartridges fashioned usually after the Mauser, and they were rifles. The Napoleonic era weapons were muskets, unrifled, and slow loading in the main. The British had some Rifle Companies but their rifles were even slower to load. The bolt action was a significant advance in rapidity of fire as was the cartridge.One of the interesting things about WWI was the extent to which the military establishments of the European powers had failed to learn lessons from the American Civil War. The ACW demonstrated how the advent of rifles (with their much-longer range than muskets) expanded the killing zone out in front of defending infantry. This--combined with defenders improving their positions with trenches and/or abatis made it much more difficult for frontal attacks to succeed. No longer could smooth-bore artillery move close enough to defending infantry to use their anti-personnel ammunition, Napoleon-style--the horses drawing the guns were too easy for rifle-armed defenders to hit.
Other advances were of course in rifled artillery where the French 75 was a breakthrough type weapon and the Germans built monsters like the "Paris Gun", use of railroads (also seen in the US Civil War), entrenchments in the battlefield seldom used in the Napoleonic Wars, and of course poison gas. And of course naval ships were considerably advanced over 1814.
The Germans at that time were undisputed masters in the field of chemistry. They had invested the Haber process which meant their explosives were no longer dependent on mining of saltpeter etc. And they devised use of agents like chlorine and mustard "gas" and phosgene. The nerve agents did not come along until the mid-1930s from insecticide research, also led by the Germans (and not used in WW 2 by the Germans).
The northern belt of France was pretty much demolished in WW One, including the Champagne region, which led to the strategy in 1940 of fighting the next war defensively and in Belgium. That didn't work out so well.
Any Dave Barry fans here?I love Dave Barry. I haven't read anything of his for quite awhile. I need to go see what he has that I haven't read yet.
He's been my favorite humor writer since undergrad
Anyway, I just finished Best. State. Ever: A Florida man defends his homeland
Pretty damn funny as per usual
- this time, Barry takes the reader on a virtual tour of the places and people that make Florida a uniquely goofy-ass place
Definitely recommended for those who already like him and his style
I love Dave Barry. I haven't read anything of his for quite awhile. I need to go see what he has that I haven't read yet.He's been the model of consistency ever since I discovered him
As an aside, the Civil War suffers from recency bias in the face of WW II, when it comes to contemporary comprehension. Nothing can really be done about that, given the advantages WW II has over the Civil War. The fact that we still have veterans, not to mention documentation out the wazoo in the form of video, audio and other media.speaking of Civil War books, I have a ton of Civil War, Custer's Last Stand / Battlefield, etc books that were in my father's library at home and when he passed away six years ago, I inherited all of them along with all our genealogy work he and I had done over the past twenty years. I have downsized and moved to a much smaller place, so I need to find a home for them. I had thought of donating to the Lincoln library system, or the State Historical Society, but the society probably won't take them cause of not being specific to Nebraska history. So.....
That isn't to say the Civil War (its history) is w/o its supporters, on the contrary, it is unbelievable the volume of material which exists which chronicles nearly every conceivable angle of the war. I just find the war underappreciated in a general sense for how destructive and life altering it was for our country.
I'm currently slogging through Tolstoy's War and Peace. It's plodding, but a somewhat interesting take on Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars and the life of the Russian aristocracy. I give it about two stars.Hated it. I feel like it's an inside joke for people who slogged through it to ask other people to read it to share their misery.
One of the interesting things about WWI was the extent to which the military establishments of the European powers had failed to learn lessons from the American Civil War. The ACW demonstrated how the advent of rifles (with their much-longer range than muskets) expanded the killing zone out in front of defending infantry. This--combined with defenders improving their positions with trenches and/or abatis made it much more difficult for frontal attacks to succeed. No longer could smooth-bore artillery move close enough to defending infantry to use their anti-personnel ammunition, Napoleon-style--the horses drawing the guns were too easy for rifle-armed defenders to hit.That is truly amazing. In retrospect, the battles toward the end of the ACW very much resembled the trench warfare of WWI. On top of that, most of the European powers had military observers operating near the ACW battles so they *SHOULD* have learned those lessons and they *SHOULD* have seen trench warfare coming.
And rifles themselves improved. The standard ones were essentially rebarrelled muskets, with reduced bore. They were muzzle-loaders, just like Napoleonic-era muskets, with paper cartridges that soldiers had to tear open with their teeth, pour the powder down the bore, then push the patch and the Minie ball down with a ramrod. By the end of the war there were many units equipped with breech-loading rifles and carbines, and even some repeating, metallic-cartridge rifles.
So defending armies went to ground, entrenched, and put up barricades, and attacking armies usually lost. Cavalry moved to the margins of the battlefield, being used for reconnaissance and security missions, and occasionally in economy-of-force roles, such as Buford's division on Day 1 of Gettysburg, but virtually never in frontal charges except against other cavalry (Custer's fight against elements of Stuart's command east of Union lines at Gettysburg on Day 3 is a good example) or disorganized, scattered, or retreating infantry.
The bayonet became less important. There was some prevalent humor that the only bayonet wounds delivered were in the backs of soldiers who were already breaking. Bayonets didn't become useless, but because the killing zone of defensive positions had so increased in depth, bayonet charges seldom reached their objectives.
All of this was there for the European armies to learn, but they mostly didn't. They wrote off the lessons of the ACW as the product of mass, poorly trained armies fighting under the command of amateur generals. They had to experience the horrible offensives of 1915 before they learned the truth.
Yep. You got stuck in the same thing I did.I liked your review. One of the things that I find difficult with Russian literature is remembering the names. It seems like they are all odd, they all have about 40 letters, and they all sound somewhat alike when I pronounce them in my head. The problem this creates for me is that I can never seem to remember which character is which such that I end up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure that out. Honestly, it would be at least 80% easier for me if the translators simply replaced the Russian names with Americanized English names that are familiar to me.
"I don't care, but I'm too far along NOT to finish."
I was so unhappy with the book that I sort-of reviewed it (http://www.thelibertypapers.org/2011/02/21/war-and-peace/)...
I'm currently slogging through Tolstoy's War and Peace. It's plodding, but a somewhat interesting take on Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars and the life of the Russian aristocracy. I give it about two stars.Good on you for slogging through on your own. My slogging was captained by a Literature professor my SR year. Would've never read all 1400 pages if not required by a class. Either way a tough haul to include the literal weight of the novel.
As for the novel's grand status, IMO it stands mostly because of its sheer ambition which is successfully executed in parallel with its exposition on the history of the time. From a reading standpoint Andrei, Natasha, Helene, and Pierre are strong characters in a literary sense, with memorable key scenes (i.e. Helene in the theater, Andrei's tree, and Napolea's intro in the tub) but the towering volume of the text renders many scenes forgettable.I will concede that at the outset, I was intrigued to learn what would happen to these characters (and others). But good lord, by the middle of the period between the wars JUST GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!!!!
I'm reading War and Peace largely because I was complaining to my neighbor about what a slog Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was (the Tell Tale Heart, just a lot longer and made as boring as possible--and ok, with sort of a tale of redemption at the end). His reaction was to agree, then to suggest War and Peace as the antidote (it is his favorite novel!).I actually enjoyed Crime and Punishment more. I thought it was more of a page-turner, i.e. pulp literature, so I don't think it necessarily has earned particular accolades. But it was an entertaining read, and held my interest.
And, regarding your *sort of review,*To be honest, upon re-reading it I'm not entirely even sure where my head was at that point... I know I was delving deeply into currency issues during that period, I think we were kinda into (and then out of) the Arab Spring, and I'm not entirely sure what else was going on.
speaking of Civil War books, I have a ton of Civil War, Custer's Last Stand / Battlefield, etc books that were in my father's library at home and when he passed away six years ago, I inherited all of them along with all our genealogy work he and I had done over the past twenty years. I have downsized and moved to a much smaller place, so I need to find a home for them. I had thought of donating to the Lincoln library system, or the State Historical Society, but the society probably won't take them cause of not being specific to Nebraska history. So.....If you can't find a good home for them, find a used bookstore and sell/donate them there. They'll end up in a better place than a dumpster. That's what I've done with a lot of my old books, including some I never got around to reading.
If you (or anyone else on this board) are interested, I would be happy to give them to someone who has an interest in that era. PM me for more info if interested.
That is truly amazing. In retrospect, the battles toward the end of the ACW very much resembled the trench warfare of WWI. On top of that, most of the European powers had military observers operating near the ACW battles so they *SHOULD* have learned those lessons and they *SHOULD* have seen trench warfare coming.Yes. Those two short wars, smallish by the standards of both the ACW and the 1914 collision of the armies, fooled 'em.
I think the thing that blinded the Europeans to this was that there were two European wars fought after the ACW where trenches were not an issue:Neither of these two wars lasted long enough for trenches and attrition-based warfare to become terribly relevant.
- The Austro-Prussian war was fought in 1866 and only lasted barely over a month. Prussia absolutely routed Austria and annexed most of what would become Germany.
- The Franco-Prussian war was fought in 1870-71 and only lasted half a year. The Prussians absolutely routed the French and united most German-speaking people to form the German Empire and the furthest extent of German territorial control (other than temporary wartime control during WWI and WWII).
The novel has also been read as being critical of the contemporary literary and philosophical movement Transcendentalism, attacking the thought of leading Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson in particular. The life and death of Ahab has been read as an attack on Emerson's philosophy of self reliance, for one, in its destructive potential and potential justification for egoism. Richard Chase writes that for Melville, 'Death–spiritual, emotional, physical–is the price of self-reliance when it is pushed to the point of solipsism, where the world has no existence apart from the all-sufficient self.' In that regard, Chase sees Melville's art as antithetical to that of Emerson's thought, in that Melville '[points] up the dangers of an exaggerated self-regard, rather than, as [...] Emerson loved to do, [suggested] the vital possibilities of the self.' Newton Arvin further suggests that self-reliance was, for Melville, really the '[masquerade in kingly weeds of] a wild egoism, anarchic, irresponsible, and destructive.'
Has anyone here read Moby-Dick? I haven't, and probably never will, but I recently read an interesting interpretation of it on the Font of All Wisdom and Knowledge.I read it a looong time ago, when it hit the bestsellers list (jk). I really don't remember a lot of the details, but I did enjoy it.
Sooner, my first thought (without reflecting on this too much) is that Melville's extensive days at sea in the late 1830s and early 1840s probably disillusioned his Emerson instilled beliefs in the infinite virtuosity of individualistic self-sufficiency.Catsby:
If so, I don't think Melville was articulating a full rejection of self-sufficiency as an ideal or virtue, but rather indicating that self-sufficiency sure as hell has its limits and Ahab is what it looks like when those limits fail, not only for the individual but to those around him.
If you can't find a good home for them, find a used bookstore and sell/donate them there. They'll end up in a better place than a dumpster. That's what I've done with a lot of my old books, including some I never got around to reading.I did that with a lot of my sister's old romance books, and some of my old science fiction books years ago, but Lincoln has lost a lot of used bookstores that I used to frequent - I will have to check and see if any remaining stores are taking these types of books. If not, maybe a garage sale or the library for its yearly book sale. Good suggestion; I had completely forgot about used bookstores, lol.
I'm reading War and Peace largely because I was complaining to my neighbor about what a slog Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment was (the Tell Tale Heart, just a lot longer and made as boring as possible--and ok, with sort of a tale of redemption at the end). His reaction was to agree, then to suggest War and Peace as the antidote (it is his favorite novel!).The antidote (or antithesis) to weighty Russian Realism is Anton Chekhov, especially his short stories. He's more famous in his time as a playwright, and along the way, writing plays and seeing how much could be said with less, and reading bulky Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky editions, he wondered if just as much could be conveyed by shorter means.
Grant was an alcoholic and he couldn't spot a con man if his life depended on it.Or the roughly 60,000 Rebs in the woods/hills of Cold Harbor.
I can type very fast, that helps.Hemingway typed his dialog and hand-wrote the narrative.
I can type very fast, that helps.SEC Speed Read.
I miss reading - I haven't done it with any volume for the past few years. I just fall asleep immediately - any comfortable reading position = a comfortable sleeping position as well.For a number of years, the only time I read was on airplanes and business trips. That wasn't much of a limit, as I was traveling somewhat frequently.
"Only those who have never learned self-restraint fear reasonable discipline."Good little nugget there.
Good little nugget there.My year in the ROK was '87-88. I was on the 8th Army/CFC staff. As such, I was issued a copy of This Kind of War. To keep. That's still my copy, complete with a clear vinyl protector over the dust jacket. We did a staff ride of the Brits' Gloster Hill fight while I was there.
As a former soldier and what Fehrenbach would call a liberal sociologist, I've always felt Fehrenbach fell a little far on the militaristic side of things, but This Kind of War is nonetheless an important book about warfare and the Korea War. And I agree with the sentiment that a democratic society requires a balance of those instincts.
His juxtaposition of the Army's 2nd ID and the Marine's 1st Division as they faced the Chinese entry into the war is a fair critique of the Army and celebration of the Marines. What the Marines accomplished at Chosin is nothing short of true heroism. It stands in with the very few American military actions that are among history's greatest.
Whether it was Fehrenbach that taught it, the Army did learn lessons of discipline and preparedness from Korea, and has largely avoided repeating it. Of course, a great many young Army officers (this one included) read This Kind of War and took that lesson directly from it.
I'm currently wading through Chernow's Grant. It is long, but so far I haven't found it overly indulgent.
50? Wow.I think my sister and I are in a race to see who can read the most, lol. She averages 1-2 books a day, while I have too many other things going on with cooking, cleaning, driving her to appointments, etc. so I think I average only 1 a day. I've blown through my own personal library twice in the past year, and have caught up on multiple series of books I like through the local library. My favorite authors have had to change publication dates a couple of times, so I have to wait longer for those to come out.
My goal is to read one.
You know there have been a few rather prescient novels lately re: pandemics. A friend of mine touted this one recently as well. I've been ducking it as I'm not really interested in reading about a pandemic while living through one.
I'm about halfway into Amor Towles' latest, The Lincoln Highway, im fairly sure when I finish that I will find this to be wanting and completely inferior to his previous two novels, Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility.
Cool beans. I sent my books to several agents and got nothing, standard rejects. I also sent to some publishing houses and got one "offer", which was not a real offer in my view, they call it vanity publishing.I still want to give them a read,CD.
People who claim to have read my books claim they liked them, but I think they are just being kind, with the exception of BRAD here who provided helpful feedback.
I infer they are amateurish. I think I can write reasonably well, but not as an author.
It's YA fantasy, so not in anyone's wheelhouse here, but my wife just got signed by an agent, who is pitching to publishers. This is the fourth book she's written in the past 4 years. All of which were better than anything I could ever write, but now that she is signed with an agent, one who has another client who signed a miniseries deal with Netflix, she may actually get hardback published.That's cool, AAA, best of luck to your wife on getting published!
I'll continue to write shitty predictions with zero editing.
It's YA fantasy, so not in anyone's wheelhouse here, but my wife just got signed by an agent, who is pitching to publishers. This is the fourth book she's written in the past 4 years. All of which were better than anything I could ever write, but now that she is signed with an agent, one who has another client who signed a miniseries deal with Netflix, she may actually get hardback published.
I'll continue to write shitty predictions with zero editing.
That's cool, AAA, best of luck to your wife on getting published!Yeah, I second that.
And I have to admit that YA fantasy is a guilty pleasure of mine. My 14yo daughter is into it, and so I read a lot of it either with her, or before she does, just to know and understand what she's reading and seeing in her world. And I've found that a lot of it is actually pretty entertaining.
Yeah, I second that.Yeah same here, my daughter has a Kindle that she loves, and it's great for that type of thing.
YA fantasy isn't exactly my wheelhouse, but I have a 14 yo son who has gotten into all that stuff. Started with JK Rowling, has read basically everything Rick Riordan has ever published, was big into the "Scythe" series as well as the "UnXXXXX" series, a bunch of books with titles all starting with "Un"... All sorts of stuff in that wheelhouse. He did the whole Hunger Games series (which my wife and I also read at the same time), and now he's reading Divergent.
My daughter is only 9, so she's not quite up to that reading level yet, but absolutely LOVES to read and is progressing quickly. So even if it's not the right genre for my son, my daughter will be there in a few years.
Keep us informed. If you have a link to where the first three books are available, let us know. My son has a Kindle, so self-published works are fine if they're available in that format.
That's cool, AAA, best of luck to your wife on getting published!My wife has always enjoyed it, but I've gone the opposite direction as my kids have gotten older. I used to read some of her recommendations, now I don't need my escape from actual whiny children to be made up whiny children.
And I have to admit that YA fantasy is a guilty pleasure of mine. My 14yo daughter is into it, and so I read a lot of it either with her, or before she does, just to know and understand what she's reading and seeing in her world. And I've found that a lot of it is actually pretty entertaining.
It's YA fantasy, so not in anyone's wheelhouse here, but my wife just got signed by an agent, who is pitching to publishers. This is the fourth book she's written in the past 4 years. All of which were better than anything I could ever write, but now that she is signed with an agent, one who has another client who signed a miniseries deal with Netflix, she may actually get hardback published.
She said the agent brought up the possibilities of a multi-book series as why she was interested. I actually don't think it's her best book, but the one I did, was (a) not fantasy and (b) a one off
Congrats @ELA (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=55)! As someone who for the past two years is familiarized with the publishing industry, it’s very difficult to land a Literary Agent. When it comes to Fiction, only about 1 in 200 novels solicited to agents are picked up for representation. There are a few ways for the writer to raise their odds. In the case of your wife’s YA series she’s already hitting two bench marks for what an agent is looking for. For the sake of marketability and sales potential, agents seek out fiction with clearly defined audiences. And YA/fantasy is currently riding a high. Agents also seek out multi-book authors (especially authors building series) in order to capitalize on potentially growing readerships – one sale turning into four.
For any writers discouraged by the difficulty of breaking into traditional publishing, remember two things: 1) Books are another wing of the entertainment industry where it takes not only talent but plenty of luck in terms of timing and striking unperceivable cords to break in. And more importantly, 2) the last 10 – 15 years has seen enormous growth to what is a very effective self-publishing industry, complete with services like editing, marketing, cover/interior design, and paperback/ebook distribution. Amazon KDP and SparkPress are the two most robust self-publishing platforms.
My step son gave me "Hail Mary" for Christmas, but just like TKAMB has nothing about killing birds, this is not about football. It's interesting, I think it has some technnical errors in it at times but is creative and decently written (same author as The Martian). I'm about half through.I read it during the fall, and really liked it.
Finally getting around to reading Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger; as a lead-in to football season. Having watched bits of the resulting show, MTV docuseries following various high school programs, and having especially watched the movie Varsity Blues countless times, I took the influence of the book too for granted to read it earlier or credit it with launching its uniquely American genre of entertainment.Just a wonderful piece of writing and reporting.
Published in 1990 and following the 1988 Permian Panthers High School Football team, the preface echoes Jack Kerouac’s sense of adventure to uproot from the East Coast and find a different way of life somewhere unknown:
“The idea had been rattling in my head since I was thirteen years old, the idea of high school sports keeping a town together, keeping it alive. So I went in search of the Friday night lights, to find a town where they brightly blazed, that lay beyond the East Coast and the grip of the big cities, a place that people had to pull out an atlas to find and had seen better times, a real America.
A variety of names came up, but all roads led to West Texas, to a town called Odessa.
It was in the severely depressed belly of the Texas oil patch, with a team in town called the Permian Panthers that played to as many as twenty thousand fans on a Friday night.
TWENTY THOUSAND…
I knew I had to go there.”
FNL is a fantastic book. It absolutely captured the desperation, and hope, found in an oil-busted Texas town in the late 80s.
I was in high school at the time, exact same age as many of the key players in that book. Even though Austin isn't as small-town as Odessa, it had a much smaller-town feel than huge cities like Dallas and Houston at the time, and I could definitely relate.
I liked the TV series okay, but it wasn't much like the book. The movie with Billy Bob Thornton, on the other hand, was.
Mentioning @rolltidefan (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=12) and @MikeDeTiger (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1588) as the question came up in the hobbies thread.the expanse tv show is great. i only read the first book, but remember liking it as well. the show, from what i understand, follows the books about as well as can be expected. s1 of the show feels much more scifi horror/suspense than the remaining seasons, which are more space dramas, but they all really good. thomas jane was excellent in the show, as was much of the cast.
Mike mentioned the book series that the show "The Expanse" was based on. I went through all 9 of the books and it was a really well done series. The first book is called Leviathan Wakes if you're looking for it.
There's a series still in progress (8 books so far) that is called Destiny's Crucible with the first book called Cast Under an Alien Sun. To give an idea of how much the series gripped me, I ran through all 8 books in about 2 months, and now I'm anxiously awaiting the author bringing new stuff on.
I found that author (Olan Thorensen) via another book which is more sci-fi called Harbinger, which I'd also recommend. There should be a sequel coming out at some point, but obviously he's also working on book 9 of the previous series.
There's a book called The Hike by Drew Magary that I don't know what to call it, other than a bizarre mind f***. If you're into that sort of thing. Sort of King's "The Dark Tower" series crossed with "John Dies at the End".
Sci-fi, I've enjoyed a lot of Adrian Tchaikovsky's stuff.
the expanse tv show is great. i only read the first book, but remember liking it as well. the show, from what i understand, follows the books about as well as can be expected. s1 of the show feels much more scifi horror/suspense than the remaining seasons, which are more space dramas, but they all really good. thomas jane was excellent in the show, as was much of the cast.Yeah, and frankly book 1 was far more of the horror/suspense than the other books.
Read it in a day; really enjoyed it.And so it starts.......;D
The miniseries was also pretty good.