2015-07-19

Dear Readers,

the weather in our region annoys and exhaust me.
It definitely hinders me to enjoy live. If I could I would return immediately to the Baltic Sea coast. The only thing which give me some comfort is the amazing book I'm currently reading:
Pandora's Star  ( first published in 2004; digital 2004) [Kindle Edition ASIN:B000FC1AFC] by Peter F. Hamilton. I did not expect it to be that good. It will take a while to finish the book because the high temperatures have a negative impact on my reading speed.

ENJOY READING ....

Edi's Guidepost

The Lighthouse
News and information straight from the horse's mouth by Lighthouse keeper ediFanoB

Reading progress

Books
The latest report from our shelf shop net correspondent Bona

New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another

Blogosphere
Messages from the depths of the blogosphere by spheronaut Bona Fide

Hellish Weather on Other Planets

No place for me

The gym alternative

Bad conscience

An author and her book

Movies
Remote control junkie Fide and his zapping highlights

Heroes Reborn

Quotes
The member of the house of quotes and a quote himself the Keeper of the minutes ( we call him Kotm) fished for you

German proverbs, sayings and idiomsQuote related to time

The Lighthouse
Reading slowed down the past two weeks. But I'm happy that I continued my two current reads and started a new one which absorbed me.

I finished

-  Wächter der letzten Pforte ( digital September 2014) [Kindle Edition ASIN: B00NLDSRXU] by Henning Mützlitz and Christian Kopp. This German high fantasy book delivers a lot of twists and turns, likable characters and a kind of medieval world mixed with magic driven airships."I'm happy that I read this book which shows there are also German fantasy authors who write great stories. The world is amazing and the characters are lovable and not to forget to mention the many twists and turns and a revelation at the end which give the perfect reason for a sequel."

I'm

- 155 pages in Imperial Fire (pb, this edition February 2015) [ISBN-13: 978-0751547764] by  Robert Lyndon.
At least a small progress.

- 152 pages in Hunter of Sherwood: The Red Hand (pb, 30th December 2015) [ISBN-13: 978-1781082904] author Toby Venables
At least a small progress.

- 297 pages in Pandora's Star  ( first published in 2004; digital 2004) [Kindle Edition ASIN:B000FC1AFC] by Peter F. Hamilton

No progress

Nothing to tell

Enjoy your weekend ....

Books

Dear readers, I'm the one to tell you about books - only books? What about novellas and other stuff? My name is Bona. I scour shelves, shops and the net for books. If you call me a book whore I would not gainsay you. But be aware I have my own, sometimes elusive taste.
New books on my shelf/reader or when one book leads to another

It is science fiction time. Reading Pandora's Star  ( first published in 2004; digital 2004) [Kindle Edition ASIN:B000FC1AFC] by Peter F. Hamilton inspired my to buy following digital copies.

First of all I needed a digital copy of the second book in the Commonwealth Saga. Now Judas Unchained  ( first published in 2004; digital 2004)  [Kindle Edition ASIN: B000FCKPJ4] by Peter F. Hamilton
is on my reader waiting that I finish Pandora's Star soon.



"The high-action concluding novel of the Commonwealth Saga from Britain's No. 1 Science Fiction writer

It is around the year AD2400 and a war between humans and Gaens is raging over many starsystems. Against this backdrop, Captain Wilson Kime confides to Paula Myo, chief investigator at the Intersolar Serious Crimes Directorate, his belief that humans are being manipulated. With the help of the one creature she can trust, Qatux, a Raiel, Paula Myo's team set out on an investigation to discover the unknown entity responsible for corrupting the humans, which leads to a race against time as both humans and Gaen hurry to deploy their new doomsday weapons." [Source]

Tracer ( digital July 2015)[Kindle Edition ASIN: B00PW4O06Y] by Rob Boffard aroused my interest some month ago and I ordered a copy in advance which now has been delivered.



"In space,
Every. Second. Counts.

Our planet is in ruins. Three hundred miles above its scarred surface orbits Outer Earth: a space station with a million souls on board. They are all that remain of the human race.

Darnell is the head of the station’s biotech lab. He’s also a man with dark secrets. And he has ambitions for Outer Earth that no one will see coming.

Prakesh is a scientist, and he has no idea what his boss Darnell is capable of. He’ll have to move fast if he doesn’t want to end up dead.

And then there’s Riley. She’s a tracer – a courier. For her, speed is everything. But with her latest cargo, she’s taken on more than she bargained for. A chilling conspiracy connects them all.

The countdown has begun for Outer Earth – and for mankind." [Source]
In the meantime I found out that story of  Tracer which is  Rob Boffard's debut novel will be continued with Zero-G in January 2016.

Recently the first book in a hard-SF trilogy aroused my interest and when I saw a cheap offer for Roboteer ( digital July 2015)[Kindle Edition ASIN: B00TXH9GHY] by Alex Lamb which is the first book in the Roboteer tilogy, I could not resist and bought a copy



"The starship Ariel is on a mission of the utmost secrecy, upon which the fate of thousands of lives depend. Though the ship is a mile long, its six crew are crammed into a space barely large enough for them to stand. Five are officers, geniuses in their field. The other is Will Kuno-Monet, the man responsible for single-handedly running a ship comprised of the most dangerous and delicate technology that mankind has ever devised. He is the Roboteer. Roboteer is a hard-SF novel set in a future in which the colonization of the stars has turned out to be anything but easy, and civilization on Earth has collapsed under the pressure of relentless mutual terrorism. Small human settlements cling to barely habitable planets. Without support from a home-world they have had to develop ways of life heavily dependent on robotics and genetic engineering. Then out of the ruins of Earth's once great empire, a new force arises - a world-spanning religion bent on the conversion of all mankind to its creed. It sends fleets of starships to reclaim the colonies. But the colonies don't want to be reclaimed. Mankind's first interstellar war begins. It is dirty, dangerous and hideously costly. Will is a man bred to interface with the robots that his home-world Galatea desperately needs to survive. He finds himself sent behind enemy lines to discover the secret of their newest weapon. What he discovers will transform their understanding of both science and civilization forever...but at a cost." [Source]

The last book for today is something completely different. It has been published for the first time in 1982 and takes place a long way back into English history. It is about a man who died in 1485 at the age of 32. I talk about Richard III King of England for just two years. Yes, it is the man who is the subject for the play with the same name written by William Shakespeare.
I bought a digital copy of  The Sunne in Splendour ( first published in 1982, this digital edition  July 2012) [Kindle Edition ASIN: B008NB2GI2] by  Sharon Penman.

"Richard, last-born son of the Duke of York, was three when the battle of St Albans began the War of the Roses, eight when his father and brother Edmund were brutally slain at Wakefield Green, nine when his resplendent brother Edward, aged nineteen, won the crown for York, and seven months short of his own nineteenth birthday when he bloodied himself at the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, earning his legendary reputation as a battle commander and ending the Lancastrian line of succession. But Richard was far more than a warrior schooled in combat. He was also a devoted brother whose defence of George of Clarence continued even in the face of madness; whose loyalty to his brother the king endured even unto death, despite his distaste for Edward's libertine appetites and political expediency. And he was an ardent suitor. His all-consuming love for Anne Neville began in childhood. Wed at fourteen to Edouard of Lancaster in a loveless match and widowed six months later, she came to Richard afflicted with wounds of the soul that only his patient tenderness could heal. But heal they did and theirs became a marriage as remarkable for its consistency as for its ardour. Richard was indeed many things, patron of the arts, indulgent father, generous friend. Above all, he was a man of fierce loyalties, great courage and firm principles, who was ill at ease among the intrigues of Edward's court. The very codes Richard lived by betrayed him. But he was betrayed by history as well. Leaving no heir, his reputation was at the mercy of his successor; and Henry Tudor had too much at stake to risk mercy. Thus was born the myth of the man who would stop at nothing to gain the throne. Filled with the sights and sounds of battle, the customs and love of daily life, the rigours and dangers of Court politics and the touching concerns of very real men and women, The Sunne in Splendour is a richly coloured tapestry of medieval England." [Source]
I like historical fiction and this seems a really good book. This is definitely a book for dark and cold winter days with a mug of hot tea next to you.....

No more today, see you next week ......

Blogosphere

Hey, I'm Bona Fide. I just came back from my last foray through the blogosphere. What can you expect from me? I tell you: Everything from Art to Fart as long as there is any faint connection to books. And here is some honey from the beehive blogosphere...

Hellish Weather on Other Planets
Maybe I should not complain about the weather on planet Earth. It isn't any better on other planets as you can see on following post  over at Dark Roasted Blend. Have a look at

Hellish Weather on Other Planets

No place for me
Do you like mountains and are you free from giddiness? The you will like what you will see over at the WebUrbanist. For me this would be a real nightmare.

Scary Skylodge: Geometric Glass Hotel Pod Clings to a Cliff

The gym alternative
Are you tired of running through the same park day by day? Your gym is boring you?
Then you may visit  Atlas Obscura who offer interesting alternatives ....

8 Stunning Staircases Built Into Nature

Bad conscience
Posts like the following one over at Bookworm Blues gnaw at my conscience, It reminds me of all the series I started to read and then lost contact after the first or second book.
Maybe I should take such kind of posts like the light beam of a lighthouse - showing something I forgot in the book ocean at home. It took me some time to find the books. But now they are in the front row on my book shelf ......

Nightrunner Books 1 – 3 by Lynn Flewelling

An author and her book
Publisher like to force their authors to talk about their books and I like to listen. Beside blog tours and book shop tours it is getting more an more common to use videos on YouTube.
In March 2015 I read  The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (digital, February 2015) [Kindle edition ASIN:B00LUJD700] by Becky Chambers and I loved it. A couple of days ago following video has been published and from my point of view Becky Chambers did a good job.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet  is an absolutely wonderful space opera. If you like that kind of stuff then read it.

That's it for today. Come back next week for more ......

Movies

Hey, it's me Fide. I'm a remote control professional. I'm that fast that I can watch two movies at the same time.

Heroes Reborn
Do you remember the TV series Heroes? The series has been aired in Germany too. I liked the first two seasons. After that I lost interest. Now the heroes return in the new series Heroes Reborn.
After watching the trailer I'm willing to give Heroes Reborn a try in case it will be aired in Germany.

That's all for today. See you next time....

Quotes
I 'm the Keeper of the minutes. But I don't mind when you call me Kotm. No, no. I don't explain to you how to pronounce.

Do you remember the TV series Heroes? wear a wrist watch? I stopped to do that several years ago because there a so many possibilities to inform about current time. Nevertheless I like following quote because there is more behind than one might think ....

"A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.”

Segal's Law

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