http://reader2.com/hannibalchewenhttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: nonfiction 50books2006 ww1

]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:45:37 GMTitem_id_26448_4677hannibalchewnonfiction50books2006ww1http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi dystopia 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:41:14 GMTitem_id_25356_4677hannibalchewscifidystopia50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: mystery 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:39:29 GMTitem_id_26447_4677hannibalchewmystery50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi series science_fiction 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:37:21 GMTitem_id_2063_4677hannibalchewscifiseriesscience_fiction50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: mystery 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:34:52 GMTitem_id_21100_4677hannibalchewmystery50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: mystery 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:33:26 GMTitem_id_26446_4677hannibalchewmystery50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: sci-fi 50books2006]]>Tue, 05 Sep 2006 17:28:41 GMTitem_id_2933_4677hannibalchewsci-fi50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: sci-fi 50books2006]]>Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:13:57 GMTitem_id_21547_4677hannibalchewsci-fi50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: war anti-war 50books2006 pacifism ww1]]>Wed, 15 Mar 2006 20:13:02 GMTitem_id_5313_4677hannibalchewwaranti-war50books2006pacifismww1http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: mystery 50books2006]]>Mon, 06 Mar 2006 04:04:35 GMTitem_id_21320_4677hannibalchewmystery50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew
The discovery of "collapsars" (basically wormholes) has allowed humanity to achieve interstellar travel. Initially, however, several of the exploratory ships disappear and the subsequent discovery of an alien species, the Taurans, sparks an interstellar war.

William Mandella has been drafted into the space army because he has a background in physics. Because the Taurans are completely unknown, the army has recruited people with a diverse array of skills (luck, languages, empathy, etc.) in the hopes of fielding a victorious cadre. The story tracks Mandella's training and first chaotic encounters with the Taurans.

Through pure chance he manages to survive the first few encounters and is allowed to retire back to Earth. Unfortunately, the effects of time dialation via his travels means the world has moved ahead decades in only a short subjective time. In fact, he is so unable to deal with the new realities of a strange time that he re-ups back into the army. As he ships from battle to battle, the war continues across centuries, and time dilation takes them through a new cultural upheaval on every trip. Hence, the forever war.

This was a great book. Read as a straight up sci-fi, it comes across as a bit cliche which often happens with older genre books. The ideas are pretty fantastic as are descriptions of the aliens and the crazy encounters.

Where the book really rises to another level (Hugo and Nebula award winner) is when you look at the allegorical aspects. This was Joe Haldeman's second novel after returning from Vietnam where he was a combat engineer. His descriptions of both the battle situations and the alienation of returning home are sparse and powerful.

Definitely a excellent book to add to the list this year.
by hannibalchew
Tags: war sci-fi 50books2006]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2006 05:01:28 GMTitem_id_1397_4677hannibalchewwarsci-fi50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew
This book, then, immediately grabbed my eye in the used bookstore. This is a memoir written by a Canadian who went to The Aral Sea region in 2000 to lead an environmental awareness campaign about one of the great ecological disasters of our time. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest inland water body on the planet with about 67,000 square km of lightly salted water. By the end of this century, the water level had dropped 19m, it had lost 80% of it's volume and the salinity increased to 40%.



The tragedy of the Aral Sea is really about cotton. The Soviet Union poured money into the region and constructed massive irrigation projects which removed most of the water from the tributaries to the sea. The Cold War competition with the USA surprisingly also involved cotton production and this was where it was most intensively farmed on the collectives. Post breakup, the newly formed countries surrounding the Aral Sea (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan)had no hard currency and continued to produce the cotton that ruined the land and drained the rivers.

Rob Ferguson writes a book that is mainly his recollections of the time he spent in the area but also has fairly good history and context. His project is stymied at every turn by corruption, Russian mafia, old Soviet apparatchiks, and a general anti-Western mindset found in the Central Asian psyche. It's a terrifying and tragic story that for the most part is well told. The author, as the book goes on, gets caught up in the machinations of the NGO world and the book begins to lose touch with the larger, more interesting, story. He has an eye for detail in his travels around the various countries but often his writing skill is unable to keep up with the color of the moment.

A very interesting book about a severely under-exposed area of the world.
by hannibalchew
Tags: nonfiction 50books2006 centralasia]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:59:55 GMTitem_id_21148_4677hannibalchewnonfiction50books2006centralasiahttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew
The author writes about his experiences joining the air force and the training in the UK. When he eventually gets his qualifications (in a very accelerated manner) they send him to Gibraltar and then ultimately on to Malta. Malta is located basically in the middle of the Mediterranean and during the war was essentially surrounded by the German army in North Africa and Italy.

This memoir chronicles the various missions that the pilot and his tight-knit crew had to run in and around the tiny island. The fascinating thing about the Blenheim ship hunters was their MO. When the British got intel on a convoy of Axis ships, a group of as many planes would head out in formation. These guys flew up high until they neared their target and then would come down to near sea level often so close that there would be a wake from the planes. They'd come screaming into the convoy which was usually a bunch of military boats surrounding a tanker or supply ship. Literally flying underneath and between the escort boats, the bombers would fly straight at the target boat and pull up at the last second releasing the 250 pound bombs they carried. All this went on under the heavy fire of the escort boats. Needless to say, many planes never made it back to base.

The biggest shortcoming of the book is that Gillman wrote it from memory almost 30 years after he was demobbed and the memoir is unnaturally vague in some areas and vivid in others. He survived many missions that often went against common sense like attacking a heavily fortified port in coastal Italy and comes across with a sense of amazement that war survivors sometimes have.
by hannibalchew
Tags: wwii war memoir 50books2006]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:57:23 GMTitem_id_21147_4677hannibalchewwwiiwarmemoir50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: sci-fi 50books2006]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:55:20 GMTitem_id_21146_4677hannibalchewsci-fi50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: sci-fi post-apocalyptic 50books2006]]>Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:53:42 GMTitem_id_12762_4677hannibalchewsci-fipost-apocalyptic50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi 50books2006]]>Tue, 24 Jan 2006 22:47:45 GMTitem_id_18531_4677hannibalchewscifi50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi sci-fi 50books2006 christopherpriest]]>Wed, 18 Jan 2006 01:26:21 GMTitem_id_18043_4677hannibalchewscifisci-fi50books2006christopherpriesthttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: classic 50books2006]]>Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:45:08 GMTitem_id_11570_4677hannibalchewclassic50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchewCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
by hannibalchew
Tags: 50books2006]]>Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:43:26 GMTitem_id_16933_4677hannibalchew50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: 50books2005]]>Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:38:51 GMTitem_id_16932_4677hannibalchew50books2005http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: fiction classic 50books2006]]>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:21:05 GMTitem_id_2282_4677hannibalchewfictionclassic50books2006http://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi]]>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:19:13 GMTitem_id_702_4677hannibalchewscifihttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: scifi space aliens hardsf]]>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:17:21 GMTitem_id_7419_4677hannibalchewscifispacealienshardsfhttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew
Tags: fantasy epic series]]>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:15:42 GMTitem_id_924_4677hannibalchewfantasyepicserieshttp://reader2.com/hannibalchew by hannibalchew]]>Mon, 12 Dec 2005 04:13:40 GMTitem_id_744_4677hannibalchew