Reply to: CUK Book Club: Currently reading...

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Uranium: War, Energy and the rock that shaped world" by Tom Zoellner.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Well there's a thing: the pitchblende out of the Congo mine was 65% uranium and the legacy is known even yet as "K-65" since it's the most radioactive processed waste, riddled with decay products to an extent unknown for other sources.

Next: "The Mare's Nest" by David "Hitler never knew" Irving. Revised slightly to acknowledge the existence of ULTRA (but not very much).

Well that's something I've not read about elsewhere: Hauptman Herbert "Peter" Cleff: the POW who told some inneresting tales.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Hitchhiker A biography of Douglas Adams" by M. J. Simpson.

Might have been a mistake reading this following on so closely to the Neil Gaiman version. Tends to stall a bit now & then.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: TBD.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Flying Bomb" by Peter G. Cooksley.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Rather dry.

Next: "Uranium: War, Energy and the rock that shaped world" by Tom Zoellner.

[NotAllThere]

Notre Dame de Paris - deeply darkly funny. Wonderful story. Worth reading.

Since then on the third book in the Rogue Agent series by K. E. Mills. Again dark and highly enjoyable.

Oh, and this morning, I read my daughter's entry to an international Sci Fi competition.Maybe I'm biased, but it's one of the most imaginative and compelling short stories I've ever read. I remember 14 years ago reading her first draft and being impressed by the ideas. Now she's refined it. With references that only I will understand, since I'm basically I'm her editor..

She's actually planning to go 50% at work and the rest of the time working to get publishe

I'm hoping she'll be very successful and be paid a few million for film rights, and I'll be able to retire!

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Secret War" by Brian Johnson (1978). A letter from Oslo, Battle of the Beams, Radar, Enigma etc.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. The chapter on Enigma was pretty meh, but the chapter that included The Great Panjandrum was larf out loud funny, with Nevil Shute Norway steering the thing, rockets falling off the wheels & whizzing everywhere, plus the dog chasing them & the photographer nearly being run over by it.

Next: "Flying Bomb" by Peter G. Cooksley.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "ULTRA goes to war" by Ronald Lewin. (1978).

This one mentions ENIGMA, the contribution of the Poles, COLOSSUS, Bletchley Park, Tommy Flowers, and even has a photograph of the latter receiving a doctorate from Newcastle in 1977.

Done: off to Oxfam with it: being a paperback it's in imminent danger of falling in half at the illustrations.

Next: "Too much and never enough" by Mary Trump. More about the Moronic Orange psychopath.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Mother Earth" by I. Asimov.

Set before "Caves of Steel". I'd never heard of this one and have never seen it in an anthology.

https://archive.org/details/Astoundi...ge/59/mode/1up

So here it is in all its glory.

Done. And it doesn't need to got to Oxfam once it's read. .

Next: "The Secret War" by Brian Johnson (1978). A letter from Oslo, Battle of the Beams, Radar, Enigma etc.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Stainless Steel Rat wants you" by H. Harrison (1978).

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Sword of Shame" by The mediaeval murders. Cost 49p remaindered at The Works some indeterminate time ago. Quite a while judging by the foxing, but some time after 2007.

[NotAllThere]

Doughnut - Tom Holt.

Notre Dame de Paris was very good. Darkly funny.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the H2G2" by Neil Gaiman. The updated 2003 edition: remaindered at £3.99.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Hitchhiker A biography of Douglas Adams" by M. J. Simpson.

Might have been a mistake reading this following on so closely to the Neil Gaiman version. Tends to stall a bit now & then.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The rough guide to H2G2" by Marcus o'Dair. Paid 99p for this 28/9/2013. Bargain. It's already reminded me how much I've forgotten about books 3, 4, and 5. Never bothered with 6.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. Looks very much as if I don't have book 5 either.

Next: "Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the H2G2" by Neil Gaiman. The updated 2003 edition: remaindered at £3.99.

Goes into some detail on the differences between the Radio Series, the first two books, and the TV series.

Too early to have compared those with the rather dire film.

I think I don't have the 5th book because the 4th book was so mediocre. And I never bothered with book 6 at all.

If Adams was bored with endless Hitchhikering then so, oddly enough, was I. .

Very impressive, not, the way the poor bastards who brought out the LPs were treated.

[DoctorStrangelove]

"The illustrated history of Gadget Warfare: The Vietnam War" by F. Clifton Berry Jnr.* 82nd Airborne.

All that materiel, all those crazy weapons, Puff the Magic Dragon, Agent Orange, Daisy Cutters, CBU-55 FAE.

And they still lost to little men with AK47s and bicycles.

If there's something to be grateful to Harold Wilson for, it's keeping us out of that mess.

*That's the late F. Cliffton Berry Jnr.

https://www.airforcemag.com/f-clifto...-jr-1931-2020/

Done: read for the 2nd time: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "Mother Earth" by I. Asimov.

Set before "Caves of Steel". I'd never heard of this one and have never seen it in an anthology.

https://archive.org/details/Astoundi...ge/59/mode/1up

So here it is in all its glory.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "Secret Warfare" by Bruce Norman. Published 1973. No mention of ULTRA, ENIGMA, Bletchley Park or COLOSSUS, these remaining secret at the time. No idea when I bought this but it was at least 20 years ago, if not 30.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. I didn't attempt to understand any of the codes/cyphers mentioned. The most recent mention was of the Krogers.

Next: "ULTRA goes to war" by Ronald Lewin. (1978).

This one mentions ENIGMA, the contribution of the Poles, COLOSSUS, Bletchley Park, Tommy Flowers, and even has a photograph of the latter receiving a doctorate from Newcastle in 1977.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: "The Magic May Return" edited by L. Niven. An anthology containing "Not Long Before The End" being the first of Niven's Warlock stories plus stories by other writers in the same vein.

Done: off to Oxfam with it. "Strength" by Poul Anderson and Mildred Downey Broxon was very good: the end of magic leading to the return of the glaciers and the fall of a civilisation held up by magic, presumably 14000 years ago in north America.

Did look at some other swords & sorcery stuff but neither book appealed particularly, so:

Next: TBD.

[DoctorStrangelove]

Next: the wizard one "The Magic Goes Away" by L Niven.

This one is an illustrated trade paperback. Bought far back in the mysts of tyme. Probly 1979. 2nd printing.

Done: off to Oxfam with it.

Next: "The Magic May Return" edited by L. Niven. An anthology containing "Not Long Before The End" being the first of Niven's Warlock stories plus stories by other writers in the same vein.