Random’s Comments (group member since Apr 30, 2009)

Random’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

I need the rest of the year off so I can read it all. :D

Well its my b-day in a few days and between my husband being an utter sweety and a few BN and Amazon gift cards, I've managed to get a major haul.

First are the audio books which are a combo of gifts from my husband and Audible points that needed to get used before they expired.

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
The Antipope by Robert Rankin
In Your Dreams by Tom Holt -Wow, audio CDs. How archaic.

Since ebooks are so quick and easy to purchase, I normally don't buy until I'm ready to read them. However, these gift certificates were burning a hole in my pocket so I went a little insane. :D

Non-Fiction
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin
Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith by Anderson J. Thomson
What Would Erma Do?: Confessions of a First Time Humor Columnist by Gayle Carline

Fiction
The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolf
Vellum: The Book of All Hours by Hal Duncan
Fated by S.G. Browne
Historical Lovecraft by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Dead Iron: The Age of Steam by Devon Monk
To Ride Hell's Chasm by Janny Wurts
The Wars of Light and Shadow series by Janny Wurts
The Rai-Kirah series by Carol Berg
The Bridge of D'Arnath series by Carol Berg
Collegia Magica series by Carol Berg

Wahoooo!

Ron wrote: "I picked up Daemon by Daniel Suarez (sorry, Martin fans) and am enjoying it quite a bit. I guess "cyber-thriller" is as good a pigeonhole as any. Fine characters a..."

That one has been sitting on my mp3 player for months now. I'm going to have to give in and force myself to start it....one of these days. *sigh*

Denae wrote: "Random wrote: "[bookcover:Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum..."

Ooh, how is Dry Storeroom? I've had it on my tbr for a couple years, but have never quite gotten to it. "

I've only gotten a few chapters in, but so far its pretty good. It may seem dry to some, such as the details of naming, but there's humor there if you know how to look at it.

I seem to have gotten into a non fiction kick lately, so I've decided to just go with the flow.

I'm currently reading
Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum


The books I'm kind of planning on hitting this month (though my mood is always variable so who knows)

Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body

The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of Earth's Antiquity

How long of a series do we generally look for? I'm assuming something like a trilogy might not be worth the effort? I don't have anything particular in mind at the moment, just curious.

Kara wrote: "Then later, at his room in the inn, the brief scene with Auri made me tear up. (I'm a sucker). "

You're not the only one. I had been listening to the audio book on my way home from work and hit this scene just as I got home. I came into the house with tears streaming down my face. My husband thought I had gotten into an accident on the way home or been fired or something. :D

I'm still reading and about a third of the way through at the moment.

LOL, that would be more like 3x10^-8s or
.00000003 seconds :D

Actually Marty already gave the answer, c or the speed of light.

E is a notation often used by calculators to denote '10 to the power of' whatever number is listed after the E.

So it could also be stated as

3x10^8 m/s
(Three times 10 to the eighth meters per second)
or
300,000,000 m/s

Finally finished my reread of The Name of the Wind a few days ago and started The Wise Man's Fear yesterday. Hoping (but very unlikely) to have it finished in time for next month's discussion.

I can't help but like Sovoy.

Sandra aka Sleo wrote: "I think Denna is definitely part of the whole Chandrian thing, and I'm hopeful that there is another side to them as I'm bored with totally evil villains. Interesting that both the 'dragon' and the Chandrian have 'blue fire'. Hadn't thought of the Ash and Cinder connection, but the patron is certainly a shadowy character."


I haven't the time to see if anyoe else has mentioned this, but when Kvothe's parents are talking with Ben about the song they are working on, Kvothe's father mentions that he believes he has figured out their motivation and purpose.

I don't think they are just your random Evil Guys who do harm for the sake of doing harm. We just don't know the entire story...yet.

I was curious so I did a quick search. According to a wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibal...), "Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded for more than 1500 species".

Also, "Cannibalism seems to be especially prevalent in aquatic communities, in which up to approximately 90% of the organisms engage in cannibalism at some point of the life cycle."

Taking a short break from my DA2 marathon...

You hit upon something I've been planning on bringing up. Over the last year I've looked at reviews for this book out of curiosity and most of them go along the lines of "This book is about what life would be like on a neutron star".

In my opinion, this is wrong however. It isn't about life on a neutron star. The environment is an excuse to be able to show what I feel is the main point of the book, which is the evolution of a society from the most primitive to highly advanced.

The favorite characters you mention are also mine. They were the ones who developed. The ones who were able to make the intuitive leaps that allowed their tribe to advance and survive. I enjoyed seeing the first Cheela who was able to grasp the idea of one thing representing another.

And I feel so sorry for poor little Pink-Eyes. So dejected, rejected, useless in so many ways and he so badly wanted to be more.

Karen, if you haven't already I recommend you pickup the sequel Starquake.

We see each individual Cheela for such a short period of time, yet overall they seem to have a big affect and I found I was very drawn to them. In a lot of ways I see the Cheela society as as character in itself.

An odd topic for this book since we see little of the humans and the Cheela go by so quickly. However, some still manage to stand out.

What would you say is your favorite character? Did any one (character or time period) affect you more than the others?

I've personally found the Cheela to be one of the most fascinating alien species I've run across.

A couple points of contrast to human society:

They never developed a sexual taboo (or even other biological taboos).

They never developed gender rolls.

Other than a brief attempt by Soother (influenced by knowledge of humans), they never developed family bonds.

So, what are your thoughts of the Cheela?

Any other interesting points of contrast against human society?

I'm the one who nominated it. I adore the book.

An interesting fact. I first ran across Dragon's Egg in a round about way.

A number of years ago my husband and I were bored enough to be watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. We found the basic premise of the episode fascinating. The execution was in our opinion highly disappointing.

My husband being curious did some research and discovered the episode had been inspired by a book written by an unknown (to us at least) author.

So, we ordered the book. When it arrived, my husband read it in one sitting. A few days later I repeated his performance. The Cheela are fascinating, and I loved the way certain things were presented.

And that's all the time I have right now. I should be able to get some topics going sometimes this weekend or by Monday at the latest.

Stephan, interesting idea but I keep thinking this may all end in Kvothe's death.

"It is the patient, cut flower sound of a man who is waiting to die."