The Reading Corner.

[Lord Avalon]

Surface Detail, A Culture Novel (#9) by Iain M. Banks

[Buster's Uncle]

I've been re-reading Infinity's Shore be David Brin for about a month, and I'm only halfway through.  That says less about the book -I don't believe in Brin's Uplift Universe, but he spins a good yarn anyway- and more about my sleep cycles lately.  I ain't been getting enough, and I'm passing out before I get more than ten pages into my bedtime reading, usually about two.

[Dio]

The Sea-Wolf by Jack London.

[Lord Avalon]

Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn

[vonbach]

The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is nice.

[Rusty Edge]

I just read two books by "Wolfgang Faust", that are supposedly memoirs of WWII, although the one on the Eastern Front ( "Tiger Tracks- The Classic Panzer Memoir" ) lacks the names of  locations, the battle, and military units, detracting from it's credibility. The one at the end of the war ( "The Last Panther-Slaughter of the Reich- The Breakout from the Halbe Kessel April-May 1945" ) doesn't use names, possibly to protect those involved from retribution for war crimes, and the accidental running down of civilians with tanks. But the lack of names and conversation that was present in Tiger Tracks detracts from the feeling that you are there, inside the tank.

If I thought that these books were strictly factual, I would have put them in my military history thread. Or I might have done the same if they were historical fiction based upon the collective experiences of the author and other panzer crews as discussed during their internment in prisoner camps post-war. But it doesn't assert that. It is supposed to be an eye-witness account. How he saw everything he described while looking through a thick glass block in a slit in the armor while busy driving a tank, considering the distances asserted and the snow and smoke alleged, is beyond me, for example.

And another thing... the subtitles could have been "100 grissly ways to die in a tank battle" and "another 101 grissly tank battle deaths" . The author seems intent on describing immolations, decapitations, and bodies exploding. It's not so much that I refute that tanker crews die in those ways, just that it's better determined in the leisure of an aftermath than in a running battle when you're busy killing and avoiding being killed. It seems like a sort of carnage porn.

All of that said, the stories might have made interesting action movies. In Tiger Tracks, they are the flanking force in a big battle. They succeed in  their objective, only to learn that the main attack was a failure, the German Army has been routed, and Faust and the surviving Tigers are left hanging out on a limb with no air or logistical support. They are forced to flee west for their lives.

In "The Last Panther" Faust is now the commander of a Panther tank. They are encircled in a forest by Russian forces closing on Berlin. They decide to punch through to the 12th Army and surrender to the American Army sitting across the Elbe river, rather than surrender to the Russians and be executed or deported to Siberia. They will stop for nothing. It's either break through, or be broken. There are tanks, foot soldiers, and civilians involved, and a variety of other machines as the story unfolds.

Both stories are page-turners filled with death and destruction, and the message in both is that the war was a wasteful exercise in futility for both Russians and Germans. I wish I knew which parts were authentic. If that's not going to interfere with your sense of immersion, you might well enjoy these books.

[Lord Avalon]

Star Wars: Allegiance by Timothy Zahn

[Buster's Uncle]

Any of that the Thrawn stuff?

[Lord Avalon]

Any of that the Thrawn stuff?

No, the Thrawn Trilogy is Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising & The Last Command.  Although he is listed in the Dramatis Personae of Choices of One, the sequel to Allegiance.

Scoundrels takes place a couple months after the Battle of Yavin. It's sort of a futuristic Ocean's Eleven with Han, Chewie & Lando. Allegiance takes place a little after that, with Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Mara Jade & Vader - the last to a lesser extent.

[Buster's Uncle]

Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster is the only SW novel besides the novelization of Star Wars (Foster allegedly ghosted that for Lucas, BTW) I ever read.

[Rusty Edge]

Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster is the only SW novel besides the novelization of Star Wars (Foster allegedly ghosted that for Lucas, BTW) I ever read.

I think I read that one long ago in bedroom, far, far away.

Did Luke befriend some hairy scarey monsters called Yuzzum, or something of the sort? Did he get into a fight with a miner who had knives attached to his boots?

[Buster's Uncle]

Gosh, it was 1978 when I read that.  There was an oldish woman with completely non-jedi force powers and there was a crystal that amplified force powers considerably for a mcguffin.  The cover had Darth Vader looming and rather anticipated the vision/fight on Dagobah in Empire - this was out way before that.  That's seriously all I recall, so you know I neither hated it, nor was deeply moved.

[Rusty Edge]

Gosh, it was 1978 when I read that.  There was an oldish woman with completely non-jedi force powers and there was a crystal that amplified force powers considerably for a mcguffin.  The cover had Darth Vader looming and rather anticipated the vision/fight on Dagobah in Empire - this was out way before that.  That's seriously all I recall, so you know I neither hated it, nor was deeply moved.

Don't remember a woman. Yes, a red crystal Force amplifier. '78 sounds about right.

[Buster's Uncle]

I didn't mention that it was red, did I?  We definitely read the same book. -Hardly a shock; it was all there was for a few years, I think.  I had about six of the first twelve dolls, too.

[Rusty Edge]

The "Darth Vader looming" phrase jogged my memory.

Yes, if there were more books, before Empire, I probably would have bought them.