Book Recommendations?

Did y'all know there was a new Vorkosigian book out?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145...

Annnnnd, not on Kindle. Damn it, Bujold, bring your anachronistic future stories into the present!

kazooka wrote:

Did y'all know there was a new Vorkosigian book out?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145...

Annnnnd, not on Kindle. Damn it, Bujold, bring your anachronistic future stories into the present!

Actually Bujold has brought her anachronistic future stories into the future. She prefers to publish first on DRM free sources, you can buy it here at Baen books, which is always my first source for ebooks, though sadly they only have Sci Fi and Fantasy, and not a tremendous selection of even that.

Thanks for the reminder, my wife and I really enjoy Vorkosigan.

Picked up Killing Floor to see what all this Reacher fuss is about.

Might as well dig up one of The Destroyer series. Pretty similar.

Robear wrote:

Might as well dig up one of The Destroyer series. Pretty similar.

Ha! So far it's reminding me a lot of First Blood.

I've only read one Destroyer book. It was so over the top I enjoyed it, but one was enough.

I finally picked up The First Law series and I'm already into the 2nd book.

kazooka wrote:

Did y'all know there was a new Vorkosigian book out?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145...

Annnnnd, not on Kindle. Damn it, Bujold, bring your anachronistic future stories into the present!

Received an email this AM from Baen Ebooks:

Baen Ebooks Kindles Relationship with Amazon

Best-selling Baen Authors David Weber, John Ringo, Lois McMaster Bujold
Available on Amazon.com for First Time in Ebook Format
RIVERDALE, NEW YORK- Ebook pioneer Baen Books is making its ebooks available in the Kindle Store on Amazon for the first time beginning in mid to late December 2012. Science fiction and fantasy publisher Baen Books has sold its own ebooks for over fifteen years at Baen's retail site, Baenebooks.com, where ebooks have always been downloadable totally free of digital rights restrictions. They will also be DRM-free in the Kindle Store. The move to third party distribution is new territory for Baen, which has built a name for itself in the ebook arena with an innovative e-Advanced Reading Copy program and limited time monthly discount bundles. These programs will continue, according to Toni Weisskopf, Baen's publisher.

"Now that we're selling on Amazon, it will be easier than ever to download your favorite Weber, Ringo, or Bujold ebook to your Kindle or free Kindle reading app," says Weisskopf. "But you can be sure we will always maintain our famous ebook pioneering spirit and customer-first orientation."

Baen's well-known monthly discount bundle program, previously known as Webscriptions, and its eARCs-advanced copies of upcoming titles in "galley" form-will still be available exclusively at Baenebooks.com, according to Weisskopf. "As part of the change, we will also be raising ebook royalties to our authors by 25 percent so that they not only get the benefit of the expanded audience but a larger cut, too."

Baen is known for its New York Times bestselling science fiction and fantasy, including David Weber's Honor Harrington series, Eric Flint's Ring of Fire alternate histories, Larry Correia's Monster Hunter International urban fantasies, and Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, Baen's most recent entry on the bestsellers lists. Baen's paper titles are distributed by Simon & Schuster.

For more information email [email protected] or call 1-800-ITS-BAEN.

* * * * * *

www.baen.com

Baen's current system is an enormous pain in the ass.

I read through their guide on how to send a purchased e-book to my Kindle.

1. Log in to your Amazon Kindle account at Amazon Kindle Manager.

Okay, easy enough.

2. Go to Your Kindle approved email list, and add the following address: @baenebooks.com.

Alright, done.

3. Return to the book download page and enter the address for your Kindle device in the available space.
Click Send.

Return to where?

The book download page.

There's no section called book download page.

The book download page.

Do you mean this business here in the order form? This is talking about receipts.

The book--

I f*cking heard you the first time! Okay, it's going in the order section.

4. Click Send.

There's no send button, but--

The book download page.

...

Okay, check my Kindle and nothing. Check my account for commercial e-mail.

Dear Customer,

The sender [email protected] tried to send document(s) to your Kindle. Any document, sent to you by [email protected] will not be delivered to your Kindle because the sender is not in your Kindle approved e-mail list.

But that's not the e-mail address you told me to allow! Who the f*ck is principled technologies? Maybe if they were a little less principled they could set up a working e-commerce system!

Alright, I'll send it directly to the e-mail account. I'll just download it directly from the site. That's a 1.55 MB zip file. Okay, guess they all get zipped and some people have really slow connections. What's in that zip file? Another zip file. Goddamn it, Baen. You double zipped me to save 410 kilobytes.

Okay, I'll just try and upload it and

There is a problem with your upload.

Oh for--

Okay, I'll sign out, sign back in, send the file and-- still not in my Kindle.

Hello from Amazon.com,
----@--- has sent the following document to your free Personal Document Service account ("name"@free.kindle.com):
Captain_Vorpatrils_Alliance.azw

Okay, this is good news.

You can download this document to your computer by logging into your Amazon.com account and clicking on the link below:
Captain_Vorpatrils_Alliance.azw
You can then transfer the document to your Kindle through the USB cable.

My Kindle is like five years old. It has cracks. It looks like one of the stone tablets Moses held up on the mount. The USB cable literally decomposed into its constituent parts last month.

We have also archived your document in your Kindle Library. For more information about archiving personal documents, visit http://www.amazon.com/kindlepersonal...
Note: Retrieving archived personal documents is currently supported on these Kindle devices: Kindle Keyboard, Kindle Touch, and Kindle.

Oh, archived documents. That's easy enough, I just go to that section in my Kindle and....not there. Where did you send the book Amazon?

Your Amazon Kindle document is here

Where is here?!

Your personal documents are now archived in your Kindle library.

WHERE IS THAT?!!! Is this about the DRM? I'll go back to the DRM I swear! Just tell where it is?! What happened?! What did you with it?! Where is it?!

Um, the cloud, maybe?

AAAAAAAGHHH!!!

Other than that, Mr. Kazooka, how's Baen's service been for you?

Looking forward to an orgy of downloading soon. I did indeed grab a few of their books a year or two back, but having to download them onto my pc and load them up, well, I kind of stopped. I figured there's enough out there to read already.

That does sound like a headache. I'm not sure what's causing the problem there, but I didn't have any trouble getting baen ebooks sent to my kindle fire earlier this year.

That is weird, I just purchased Captain Vorpatril's Alliance this morning, and had no real problems sending it to my kindle (and to my android phone).

Dies the Fire series is pretty good so far. The wicca stuff is a bit off putting, though. I don't know why. I've read plenty of books with poly-theism, magic, Old World stuff, and witchcraft. But this one just seems to make me uncomfortable. The Bearkillers are badass, though.

Grenn wrote:

Dies the Fire series is pretty good so far. The wicca stuff is a bit off putting, though. I don't know why. I've read plenty of books with poly-theism, magic, Old World stuff, and witchcraft. But this one just seems to make me uncomfortable. The Bearkillers are badass, though.

Loved that series. Have you read The Island in the Sea of Time series? They are in the same universe. Haven't gotten around to reading the newest book in the series that follows Dies The Fire yet. The last one (The Tears of the Sun) was a big let down for me. What was originally planned as a 4 book series has been slowly expanded to be 7 now and I think it is hurting for it.

Kazooka:

Have you considered using Calibre to manage your ebooks? This may not be less of a PITA, but it will leave you in control of the PITA.

It is ebook management software that, with the right plugins, can strip DRM from your books and allow you to have control of what items you can read on your devices.

If you purchase ebooks from a number of sources (I buy from Kindle, O'Reilly, Kobo, direct from pubs, and others) and want to manage them and send them all to one device, using Calibre along with Apprentice Alf's plugins for stripping DRM allows you to maintain a database on your computer and then send the books to your reader using cable or your Kindle's email address.

It's a little high-maintenance (medium-maintenance?), but I'm please with the end result. I can buy stuff in epub or .mobi format, strip the DRM, and then send it to my device in whatever format that device can read. If I decided to break-up with Amazon, I can buy another reader and still keep my books.

I could never get Calibre to work properly to strip DRM off my Nook stuff. Don't know what I was doing wrong. I know I was using the right credit card, but it still wouldn't work.

Rykin wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Dies the Fire series is pretty good so far. The wicca stuff is a bit off putting, though. I don't know why. I've read plenty of books with poly-theism, magic, Old World stuff, and witchcraft. But this one just seems to make me uncomfortable. The Bearkillers are badass, though.

Loved that series. Have you read The Island in the Sea of Time series? They are in the same universe. Haven't gotten around to reading the newest book in the series that follows Dies The Fire yet. The last one (The Tears of the Sun) was a big let down for me. What was originally planned as a 4 book series has been slowly expanded to be 7 now and I think it is hurting for it.

There's actually another one after Tears of the Sun that dropped in September, and another planned for next year (and likely more planned ad infinitum).
I also lost interest during Tears of the Sun, though. I'd like to go back and finish so I can continue the series as I really like the world and the characters, but goddam if Stirling hasn't come down with a bad case of RobertJordan/GRRMartin-itis. A group if characters walking an uneventful mile through a forest shouldn't consume 100 pages of text.

I got it working after a little while.

Oso wrote:

Kazooka:

Have you considered using Calibre to manage your ebooks? This may not be less of a PITA, but it will leave you in control of the PITA.

It is ebook management software that, with the right plugins, can strip DRM from your books and allow you to have control of what items you can read on your devices.

If you purchase ebooks from a number of sources (I buy from Kindle, O'Reilly, Kobo, direct from pubs, and others) and want to manage them and send them all to one device, using Calibre along with Apprentice Alf's plugins for stripping DRM allows you to maintain a database on your computer and then send the books to your reader using cable or your Kindle's email address.

It's a little high-maintenance (medium-maintenance?), but I'm please with the end result. I can buy stuff in epub or .mobi format, strip the DRM, and then send it to my device in whatever format that device can read. If I decided to break-up with Amazon, I can buy another reader and still keep my books.

You know, the thing about a lot of my Kindle books is that I don't really care that much about whether they stick around. They tend to occupy the penny dreadful portion of my bookcase. The books that I like and want to reread, I'll get those in hardcover.

MannishBoy wrote:

I could never get Calibre to work properly to strip DRM off my Nook stuff. Don't know what I was doing wrong. I know I was using the right credit card, but it still wouldn't work.

I've had a couple of occasions where I had to struggle to get everything working properly. I had multiple Adobe accounts which complicated things (the plugin allows for only one) and recently I had to hunt to find a beta version of the plugin to decrypt the newest .azw3 format from Amazon.

It is certainly a PITA, but I get a sense of satisfaction from unlocking my books. It's probably more trouble than it's actually worth, were it not for that feeling.

kazooka wrote:

You know, the thing about a lot of my Kindle books is that I don't really care that much about whether they stick around. They tend to occupy the penny dreadful portion of my bookcase. The books that I like and want to reread, I'll get those in hardcover.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm a little amazed at how I've moved beyond print books so fast. I'm a librarian by trade and I don't read books anymore, fer krissakes. But I still have shelves of books for display and penny-dreadful guilty pleasures hidden on shelves no casual visitor to our house will every see.

As a heads up Baen changed their Kindle email delivery system this morning. I consider most of Baens military sci fi stuff a guilty pleasure. Reading Hammer's Slammers and loving it. I also have the CoDominium Bundle that has some of Pournelle's best.

SpyNavy wrote:

As a heads up Baen changed their Kindle email delivery system this morning. I consider most of Baens military sci fi stuff a guilty pleasure. Reading Hammer's Slammers and loving it. I also have the CoDominium Bundle that has some of Pournelle's best.

Which Baen series is the one where there are giant pyramid super tanks?

ruhk wrote:

There's actually another one after Tears of the Sun that dropped in September, and another planned for next year (and likely more planned ad infinitum).
I also lost interest during Tears of the Sun, though. I'd like to go back and finish so I can continue the series as I really like the world and the characters, but goddam if Stirling hasn't come down with a bad case of RobertJordan/GRRMartin-itis. A group if characters walking an uneventful mile through a forest shouldn't consume 100 pages of text.

Yea I am getting tired of RobertJordan/GRRMartin-itis. Recently read Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and to some extent I think it would have been a stronger book without so many view-point characters. Especially the ones that only showed up for a single chapter or two. I understand fleshing out an universe like that but sometimes I just want a the main course without all the side dishes. A lot of Stirling's work up until Tears of the Sun or perhaps The High King of Montival was largely like that. The change of scope halfway through the series was a bit jarring.

Truthfully these days just about anything I read only seems to be something to hold me over until book 3 of the Kingkiller Chronicles or book 2 of the Stormlight Archives.

Dunno if this has been recommended, I'm a filthy skimmer for this thread, but I'd recommend Ready Player One by Earnest Cline.

Great book about an easter egg hunt in the MMO of the future for the lead designer's fortune, as stipulated by his will. Lots of 80s movies, video games, and music references through the book, but lots of good fun that anyone who was alive in that era or just vaguely remembers it as part of their early childhood.

Rykin wrote:
ruhk wrote:

There's actually another one after Tears of the Sun that dropped in September, and another planned for next year (and likely more planned ad infinitum).
I also lost interest during Tears of the Sun, though. I'd like to go back and finish so I can continue the series as I really like the world and the characters, but goddam if Stirling hasn't come down with a bad case of RobertJordan/GRRMartin-itis. A group if characters walking an uneventful mile through a forest shouldn't consume 100 pages of text.

Yea I am getting tired of RobertJordan/GRRMartin-itis. Recently read Hellhole by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and to some extent I think it would have been a stronger book without so many view-point characters. Especially the ones that only showed up for a single chapter or two. I understand fleshing out an universe like that but sometimes I just want a the main course without all the side dishes. A lot of Stirling's work up until Tears of the Sun or perhaps The High King of Montival was largely like that. The change of scope halfway through the series was a bit jarring.

Truthfully these days just about anything I read only seems to be something to hold me over until book 3 of the Kingkiller Chronicles or book 2 of the Stormlight Archives.

The think about the multi-viewpoint stories is that they are ridiculously hard to do right. I just read Hyperion by Dan Simmons and thought he did a very good job with it (I actually listened to it on Audible and it had a different voice actor for each major character).

As I've read more and more, I feel like Robert Jordan doesn't do an awesome job of it, honestly. I still like the books and am excited to finally have it conclude, but he isn't nearly as masterful as GRRM or Sanderson. I definitely get your desire to have a story told in a more direct fashion. In many ways, my favorite part of what GRRM does is letting his characters disappear for a while. You'll have long sections where you don't hear from a character, or you'll find out what's happening to them through the rumor mill. I think that little bit of restraint is what elevates him above Jordan (that and his hatred of the reader and all his characters).

Just finished The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it although not sure how I feel about the last few chapters. I think it is probably because it sets the characters up for future books but I typically like all my threads ties up at the end of a series.

Biggest bummer for me in the last book of The First Law trilogy is when

Spoiler:

Marshal West dies. Real bummer. Dude had finally made it against all odds and then gets it in a pretty awful way.

karmajay wrote:

Just finished The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it although not sure how I feel about the last few chapters. I think it is probably because it sets the characters up for future books but I typically like all my threads ties up at the end of a series.

It isn't so much that he is setting them up for future stories, it is more that the world just keeps going on.

kazooka wrote:

Did y'all know there was a new Vorkosigian book out?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/145...

Annnnnd, not on Kindle. Damn it, Bujold, bring your anachronistic future stories into the present!

I always manage to forget that these books are basically romance novels disguised as sci-fi space opera. It's beginning to wear a little bit thin. The last one I read she married off like seven different couples at the end. I enjoy them, it's just that I'm not sure that Bujold is as good at writing romance as she is at plotting mysteries. Then again, I'm not a big romance fan, so how would I know?

karmajay wrote:

Just finished The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it although not sure how I feel about the last few chapters. I think it is probably because it sets the characters up for future books but I typically like all my threads ties up at the end of a series.

Same. I think I posted in here at one point, but the last few chapters seriously damaged my view of the whole thing. I'm not against bad things happening, but it felt gratuitous and deliberately out of character for some of them.

Haakon7 wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Just finished The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it although not sure how I feel about the last few chapters. I think it is probably because it sets the characters up for future books but I typically like all my threads ties up at the end of a series.

Same. I think I posted in here at one point, but the last few chapters seriously damaged my view of the whole thing. I'm not against bad things happening, but it felt gratuitous and deliberately out of character for some of them.

So it's the ME3 of books, got it, avoooooooooid!

Haakon7 wrote:
karmajay wrote:

Just finished The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it although not sure how I feel about the last few chapters. I think it is probably because it sets the characters up for future books but I typically like all my threads ties up at the end of a series.

Same. I think I posted in here at one point, but the last few chapters seriously damaged my view of the whole thing. I'm not against bad things happening, but it felt gratuitous and deliberately out of character for some of them.

Well, i see 2 other books on Amazon from that world :

Spoiler:

Starred Review. This blood-drenched, thought-provoking dissection of a three-day battle is set in the same world as Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy (The Blade Itself, etc.), but stands very well alone. Union commander Lord Marshal Kroy coordinates the fight with the aid of a motley group of incompetent, self-important officers. The strangely sympathetic Col. Bremer dan Gorst is officially a royal observer who nurses a burning desire to kill or be killed. Leading a much smaller army against the Union is Black Dow, whose grip on the throne of the Northmen is tenuous and based on fear and brutality. Calder, a slippery and cunning egotist, advocates peace while plotting to take Black Dow's place. Abercrombie never glosses over a moment of the madness, passion, and horror of war, nor the tribulations that turn ordinary people into the titular heroes.

Spoiler:

Best Served Cold is a stand-alone novel that takes place in the same world as Joe Abercrombie's acclaimed The First Law series. To his many fans (of which I'm certainly one), I say: you'll be more than pleased with Best Served Cold. Along with a colorful array of new characters -- criminals, henchmen, assassins, power-hungry nobles, and mercenaries -- several of the second-string characters from The First Law play a major part. I'd list them, but half the fun of this book is guessing just who will show up. I will just give you this much: if you liked the despicable soldier-of-fortune Nicomo Cosca before, or maybe even if you didn't, you're gonna love him in Best Served Cold.