Ray_Otus
About
- Username
- Ray_Otus
- Joined
- Visits
- 482
- Last Active
- Roles
- Member, Moderator
- Games I like
- Old School Essentials, Troika, Dungeon World
- Books I like
- The Hobbit, Dune, Roadside Picnic, All Creatures Great and Small, Nero Wolfe...
Comments
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@RichardAbbott - I think you bring up a good point about audience. I don't read a ton of naval stuff fictional or otherwise. Some of those nautical terms that found their way into common speech surprised me. That doesn't say much for me as a reader,…
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I think IRL some of us like to think that public perception has no place in/doesn't affect rulings ... but reality falls short of the ideal. Not to get too political, but the media I consume has been a bit befuddled by Trump attacking the judge who …
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I guess I was curious if it "accurately depicted" how these rules were enforced (or not) in other cases. Despite the twists and turns, and the overall f-ed up situation, it was still mutiny. The rationalizations of the self-righteous carpe…
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"The Last Witch of Langenburg" sounds good.
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Right? Scurvy. Daaaaamn.
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My curiosity is about how much value people put on a) escaping prison vs. b) peer judgment. IOW, would I rather spend a few years in jail but be thought of as "a good guy who got a raw deal" by the public, or would I rather be shunned by t…
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Looking forward to seeing some Meso-American ruins and a torture museum leftover from the Spanish Inquisition. :)
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Ports are Cozumel, Georgetown (Grand Cayman), Cartagena, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas.
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(Quote) Apologies be damned. I've found the best way to re-engage with the club is to just say "fuck you" to any feelings of guilt about not being there and participate when I can/feel like it. :P No need for "Sorries." Good to s…
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:D > @clash_bowley said: (Quote)
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We read this this month and discuss it next? Right?
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Read it a few times and will happily read it again. Whenever he says blood transfusions, just think genetic manipulation or something and you will be amazed! Or don't and just read it "in period" and enjoy. Something to wet your whistle fr…
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Yes, I've read all of the Expanse, including the short stories (which I recommend). Pretty great stuff. Not high literature, but solid storytelling in a hard (-ish?) SF world. I'm behind on Islanders, but hope to catch up soon.
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When you put up a new book category is there anyway to notify all of us so we can visit and watch?
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(Quote) Tantor media, Corey M. Snow. Yup. I agree about the accents. LOL. Though overall, yes, the reading was good. His voice is pitched well; he just needs to dial back the dramatic quotient.
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Any chance it wasn't showing me those until I had participated in them?
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Well shit. Sure. Now it works like that! I swear to you it wasn't working like that the other day! (And I know this statement defies logic.) I feel like those are the first things I tried, though I can't swear that I scrolled down very far in recent…
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Well, I categorized the Jewish stuff as racist. But I suppose you could chalk all that up to religion. Maybe. They didn't seem to ask him about his religion, just assumed it based on his name, and apologized for it after saying awkward things. :)
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Hmmm. Interesting. My mind didn't go there, but now it is. Or at least, I'm not familiar with the phrase, but I can certainly get the gist of it by context. And yeah, maybe there was a bit of that.
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Yeah @clash_bowley -- maturity is probably the wrong word. I guess I mean media-experience. If you grow up on distributed viewpoint media, this would not be weird at all.
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That's the best part. I agree, I would have welcomed even more detail. Maybe 20% more of his experience and research and 20% less of his odd commentary on Navy wives. Though I feel like we should talk about the character who was the Polynesian wife…
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One of my favorite events, the two guys who got blind-drunk in the conning tower from swilling torpedo juice or bathtub gin (I forget which), was a direct result of the stop-and-start rhythm. It allowed the author to highlight a lot of different thi…
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"Ensemble of characters." Yep. I bought the next two audiobooks because it was an enjoyable enough read. It's a tricky game for an author. He kept us from getting "too" attached to any character by moving them around, moving the …
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Hmmm. Yeah. Islanders needs more submarines!
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I liked getting to know the crew, partly because it added depth and enjoyment and partly because it allowed us to see different parts of/jobs in the boat. The racism and sexism was probably realistic for the time. I thought it was a little thinly p…
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They were both likable characters. I would like to have seen their flaws become a bit more problematic for realism's sake. Specifically Hinman's practical jokes and Mealey's rigidity. (I thought "Mealy" -- as in mealy-mouthed? -- was an in…
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I did find myself wanting a diagram of the sub. Was there one in the print volume?
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I liked the level of research and technical detail. I really appreciate some realistic points like this in historical fiction and don't mind, since it is historical fiction, that things are arranged to show a number of major events/ideas in a more s…
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It worked as a way to paint the attitudes of the time. As a plot it was all too easy. The protagonist turns out to be kind of a natural at everything and even his mistakes are brilliant. Oh, and the hot, independent, smart woman basically shoves him…
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Yes, I was surprised that the other sub didn't find him in the drink afterward, though it seemed unlikely. It was kind of a random death. I liked it for that, actually. But it did seem an odd choice given the general tone of the book. I felt like th…