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Cigarpass Book Thread

I just finished an old sci-fi, "Beyond the Horizon" by Robert Heinlein(1942). I've been reading some authors with "new eyes" that are due to age and experience.

For starters, I never really noticed that his dialog is terrible. Dialog is one of the most difficult aspects of writing but Bobby's is really bad. I think one reason I had ignored it was that Heinlein was always about his thematic ideas, which were unique and refreshing.

The theme of this was no exception. It's set in a utopia. Remember, this was published just as the horrors of Hitler's utopic ideals were widely known. Eugenics, formerly embraced by American Establishment, got a serious black eye. So it was interesting on it's own and from a historical perspective.

Secondly, everyone is packing in this utopia! :) I hadn't ever read of one like that. A whole set of customs he created to make it work made it fairly feasible. People are damn polite in that type of society. Kind of like the old Westerns.

If you can stomach the dialog, I thought it was an inventive and instructive story vis-a-vis present day hysteria and insanity.
 
Had to figure out how to turn my phone into a personal hotspot (pretty much, just pushing the button) in order to download the newest Harry Bosch book, "The Wrong Side Of Goodbye". I'm breaking into it in about 5 minutes...
 
kann said:
Had to figure out how to turn my phone into a personal hotspot (pretty much, just pushing the button) in order to download the newest Harry Bosch book, "The Wrong Side Of Goodbye". I'm breaking into it in about 5 minutes...
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I've read most if not all of Michael Connelly's books and am looking forward to this newest in the Bosch books. Although his Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series are the most popular he's got some other mysteries that also held my attention. The Bosch Netflix series is worth watching also...IMHO
 
mjolnir01 said:
To Heinlein, that IS utopia!
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That and "negative taxation". He was a proponent of this economic system where new money is injected into the economy by not only government expenditures but a negative tax. A stipend paid to EVERY citizen. No welfare because this stipend, which is predicated on economic growth, is enough to barely subsist. Interesting theory but I doubt it will ever be tried. But who knows?
 
I just found out that my Amazon Prime account lets me "borrow" up to ten titles at a time on my Kindle. :eek:

Starting with a reread of a favorite old classic, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" (the Prime series based on it has been pretty good!) and then some new authors.

~Boar
 
thinde said:
I've read most if not all of Michael Connelly's books and am looking forward to this newest in the Bosch books. Although his Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer series are the most popular he's got some other mysteries that also held my attention. The Bosch Netflix series is worth watching also...IMHO
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I'm a huge Titus Welliver fan, so I was excited when I heard he was going to be playing Bosch. I can't imagine anyone better in the role. It was just picked up for a fourth season, which I'm also stoked for.

I'm about 7 or 8 chapters into the new book, and it's typical Bosch. I'm really liking it.
 
vortex said:
That and "negative taxation". He was a proponent of this economic system where new money is injected into the economy by not only government expenditures but a negative tax. A stipend paid to EVERY citizen. No welfare because this stipend, which is predicated on economic growth, is enough to barely subsist. Interesting theory but I doubt it will ever be tried. But who knows?
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In Heinlein's time negative taxation was a core libertarian tenet advocated by none other than Milton Friedman. Lately it's fallen tremendously out of vogue in those circles. I don't understand enough about it to have an opinion... on the surface it seems somewhat contradictory to those principles.
 
mjolnir01 said:
In Heinlein's time negative taxation was a core libertarian tenet advocated by none other than Milton Friedman. Lately it's fallen tremendously out of vogue in those circles. I don't understand enough about it to have an opinion... on the surface it seems somewhat contradictory to those principles.
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It's pretty simple in theory. As an economy grows it requires more money reinvested for more production. This money is currently created by debt through loans, personal and public. The negative tax would instead issue currency directly to citizens instead of creating debt. They, in turn, would then spend it and save it, providing new capital investment for the economy. Also, the government pays for itself with this new issue.
The primary problem with this is the same one faced by governments in general - greed and corruption. One argument against this objection is that it would be more decentralized, which should keep corruption to a minimum.

Also, everyone receives identical stipends so opportunity for theft of this portion is reduced to identity theft.

But what about government expenditure? True enough this would be a weakness, but it is the same opportunity for corruption that exists in the debt based system.

The other counter argument is what happens when the economy grows too slowly or contracts.
 
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Finished Connelly's latest Bosch novel, "The Wrong Side Of Goodbye", last night. It was good, but not great. I read an interview where Connelly said he was inspired to model this one on old noir private-eye tales, and it shows. Knowing that, it makes sense. However, it's a little left field in the resolutions for a Bosch book, in my opinion. Still good, but not in the top five of my Bosch picks.
 
To continue the Bosch theme, I'm going to be starting Season 3 on Amazon here today. I've been waiting for this for quite a while, and I've heard good things from another Bosch/Welliver friend of mine.

On the reading front, I've finished the entirety of Vince Flynn's "Mitch Rapp" series, and I'm on the third Jack Reacher book, "Tripwire". I'm not sure about the Reacher stuff. It is good, for sure, but DAMN is it unnecessarily thorough and longer than need-be by about 50-100 pages. It's plodding stuff. Reminds me a lot of prime Clancy. The character is good, though, but I'm hoping that the plots get better. I'm just not that emotionally invested in currency counterfeiting or militia groups. Reacher's involvement in the stories is plausible, but I guess I share Reacher's, "Why should I care about this?" attitude as he's being dragged into the mix of it all. Also, it's become clear he's going to get the girl and find a reason to have to leave the girl/lose the girl in each story. I'm hoping one of them actually just gets killed off here soon, because "It just wouldn't work out", just isn't working out. I make it sound like I don't like the books -- I do. It's just going to be hard to make it through the entire series if they don't pick up the pace a little bit.
 
kann said:
To continue the Bosch theme, I'm going to be starting Season 3 on Amazon here today. I've been waiting for this for quite a while, and I've heard good things from another Bosch/Welliver friend of mine.

On the reading front, I've finished the entirety of Vince Flynn's "Mitch Rapp" series, and I'm on the third Jack Reacher book, "Tripwire". I'm not sure about the Reacher stuff. It is good, for sure, but DAMN is it unnecessarily thorough and longer than need-be by about 50-100 pages. It's plodding stuff. Reminds me a lot of prime Clancy. The character is good, though, but I'm hoping that the plots get better. I'm just not that emotionally invested in currency counterfeiting or militia groups. Reacher's involvement in the stories is plausible, but I guess I share Reacher's, "Why should I care about this?" attitude as he's being dragged into the mix of it all. Also, it's become clear he's going to get the girl and find a reason to have to leave the girl/lose the girl in each story. I'm hoping one of them actually just gets killed off here soon, because "It just wouldn't work out", just isn't working out. I make it sound like I don't like the books -- I do. It's just going to be hard to make it through the entire series if they don't pick up the pace a little bit.
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I read the Mitch Rapp books and then tried the Reacher books right after. I couldn't get into Reacher either. I might try again since it's been a while.
 
Bsneed51 said:
I read the Mitch Rapp books and then tried the Reacher books right after. I couldn't get into Reacher either. I might try again since it's been a while.
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I'm on the fourth or fifth book now. The writing is competent, but it's clear that it's a foreign guy writing about what he thinks America is like. Some of his details are WAY off the mark (like Ft. Dix being a Marine Corps station), and his handling of three letter agencies is laughable. I'm sticking with it out of nothing else to turn to at the moment, but if I find a new series with the same sort of character as Rapp or Reacher, especially if it's on Prime Unlimited (for FREE), I'm not opposed to dropping the series in favor of something else. I'm just patiently waiting on a new release from Clancy's (literal) ghost writers or Cussler.
 
kann said:
I'm on the fourth or fifth book now. The writing is competent, but it's clear that it's a foreign guy writing about what he thinks America is like. Some of his details are WAY off the mark (like Ft. Dix being a Marine Corps station), and his handling of three letter agencies is laughable. I'm sticking with it out of nothing else to turn to at the moment, but if I find a new series with the same sort of character as Rapp or Reacher, especially if it's on Prime Unlimited (for FREE), I'm not opposed to dropping the series in favor of something else. I'm just patiently waiting on a new release from Clancy's (literal) ghost writers or Cussler.
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Which Cussler books are you reading? I've been reading the Fargo adventures intermittently when I just feel like a light, campy read.
 
Bsneed51 said:
Which Cussler books are you reading? I've been reading the Fargo adventures intermittently when I just feel like a light, campy read.
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I've read them all, actually. As you said, they are good for light, relatively quick reading. The plots are kind of forgettable, and really get stretched (especially in the Pitt series with so many books), but I like the Isaac Bell series best. I like that they usually center around some historical event, and add the fiction from there.
 
For those of you looking for a Mitch Rapp follow-up I heard about the John Wells series by Alex Berenson and picked up the first book in the series. I thought it was quite good and plan to continue the series once I get the queue cleaned up a bit. I also read 4 or 5 books involving a character named Pike Logan (can't remember the author) that were entertaining.

The Faithful Spy: A Novel (John Wells Series Book 1) Alex Berenson
 
Just got my copy of Bravo Two Zero back from a buddy that had it for the last 9 years....
Gonna have to read it again.
 
I just started "The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride" by Daniel James Brown. It's about the ill fated Donner Party's saga of 1846, written from the perspective of a young bride making the trip from Missouri to California.
 
Undegreed said:
For those of you looking for a Mitch Rapp follow-up I heard about the John Wells series by Alex Berenson and picked up the first book in the series. I thought it was quite good and plan to continue the series once I get the queue cleaned up a bit. I also read 4 or 5 books involving a character named Pike Logan (can't remember the author) that were entertaining.

The Faithful Spy: A Novel (John Wells Series Book 1) Alex Berenson
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Come'on

by "queue" you mean, Hop on Pop, 1 Fish 2 fish, and the Cat in the Hat.....

T
 
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