Audiobook finished

[johnridley]

Field of Dishonor by David Weber
Very emotional story. Really can't say anything about it without giving spoilers. Clearly this story is pivotal in the series, with many MAJOR changes happening.

Comments

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Love the series. But do the more traditional format.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

If I stick to reading, I have traditionally gotten about 5 books a year read; I only have about 20 minutes before bed to read most days and I'm not a fast reader (working on it though). Audiobooks get me through an extra 50 or 60 books a year since I can listen to them 3 hours a day or more.

I am actually reading alongside too, and making a special effort lately so that I'm finishing as much as a book a week, which is slow for some but keep in mind that I think I went through a 2 year period recently without reading a single book. I'm working on reading more, it's one of the reasons I bought the eBook reader.

I actually find my retention is better on audiobooks. It's been about 3 years since I started listening to them, and I can still remember the characters and pretty much all of the action from the first one, which was Card's Xenocide. I'd previously read about 3 or 4 books in the Ender series, and I don't remember nearly as much of them.

[sraun]

Rumor has it that there was a bet involved in FoD - something about being able to write a novel without a space battle in it.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was going to mention that there were no space battles in it. It still has plenty of action, and Honor's still badass as hell. Though it's quite a jarring story, at least in the end there's some level of resolution and a way to take the series in a few directions for a few books.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

That was the first one I read -- and I think my favorite. The more of his stuff I read, the more uncomfortable/disgusted/bored I get.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I'm halfway through Flag in Exile now, and so far I've liked all the books. I don't mind a few chapters of politics though. I think FoD would work much better with the preceeding books as background.

Word is that book 9 stinks, it's all politics and boardrooms, but book 10 makes up for it and then some.

Heck, if I made it through RGB Mars, I can make it through an HH politics book.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

I don't mind the politics so much (although military tactics and how they compare to X, Y, or Z in history don't do a lot for me), but the endless descriptions of the diameters and the count of the tubes and the missiles and the etc. and why they had 17 of them not 15 or 200, and where within the hull they fit ...Not my CoT. That 550 page book might have made a really fine 200 page book...

The uncomfortable comes when say, she walks onto the bridge and pats one of her cute young male officers on some portion of his anatomy. And I think -- "ok, were it a male captain and a femaie officer, my neck would have been getting hot", so I view that as a warning flag that something wasn't right. (Oh right, it's _his_ fantasy, not mine.)

The disgusted came with the scene in an earlier book when gosh, she likes him, and he's asked her out, and golly, she's never worn makeup before so of COURSE she needs to figure out how to wear in now, and of course she got laid... I am not good at picking things apart and specifying just why something was wrong/bad, but that one was wrong in so many ways that my claws SNIKT! when I think about it.

Not familiar with RGB Mars. I take it it's an icon of its class and something I should recognize as a reference? (Bad me)

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Uh, wow, that must have been in some later books. So far I don't remember a single instance of her touching any other person in any way more familiar than a pat on the shoulder, except for with Paul. If anything she's painfully proper, and I don't remember a thing that I would have considered a "fantasy" except in that extreme loyalty, devotion, ambition and selflessness might be a fantasy.

The thing with their first real romantic date was that by that time they'd been sparring partners for I think 6 or 8 weeks, and had plenty of time to get to know one another. It was also pretty clear that it was intended to be a fairly formal and romantic dinner, and she knew for weeks due to her empathic link that he was very attracted to her and that he would not hurt her, so I didn't have too much trouble with her wanting to give makeup a try, but hey, I'm a guy and don't like makeup in general anyway, so what do I know? And I didn't have any trouble believing that at that advanced point in their relationship that they'd wind up in bed.

RGB Mars is Kim Stanley Robinson's _Red Mars_, _Blue Mars_ and _Green Mars_. I originally tried to read it on paper. It was completely impossible. I gave up after about 100 pages. I found it actually quite enjoyable as an audiobook though; the entire chapters of developing a character by describing how he was really worried about the harvest this year could be listened to while I was riding or laying tile or something, and it gave nice background. I think it was really necessary for the point of the series, but it was pretty painful. The entire series was really one story, and the point was "humanity and the human is going to change radically when medical science finally makes us able to live hundreds of years." but he took a few thousand pages to say that.

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Well, she didn't pat his tush -- but I didn't remember if it was a head/back/shoulder whatever, but it would have come across _really_ patronizing/belittleing (IMO) had the genders been reversed.

I didn't so much have a problem with them landing in bed, but the makeup thing really bothered me. (She's never done it before -- why would she _need_ it this time. Would he have not wanted to bed her had she not?)

Of course I neither like makeup nor know how to use it, so I might be a little extra-sensative on that topic. (And yeah, I know I'm atypical in a lot of ways, but going from never having thought of it to NEEDING it bothered me.)

Spouse thought it showed him (Paul) how important he was. I figured the situation was pretty analogous to us -- I don't use the junk, and it degenerated into a "so, does that mean you think _I_ should..." sort of ... conversation.