Posted on

Emancipated Worlds Saga

Larry Correia at Monster Hunter Nation linked over to Brad Torgersen who is starting to post a military sci-fi serial called Emancipated Worlds Saga. He posted 8 little pieces to set the whole thing up and so far I’m liking it. Here’s everything that’s been posted so far:

  1. United Nations Archive File A-6345-00-1-1999865
  2. United Nations Archive File A-5345-10-6-1982800
  3. From the office of the Secretary-General
  4. District of Columbia, November 2298 A.D.
  5. United Nations Archive File S-8800-32-1-5289462
  6. A report to the Security Council
  7. For the new recruit
  8. One fateful evening
  9. Emancipated Worlds Saga: Prologue
  10. Emancipated Worlds Saga: Chapter 1

Subscribe to RSS of the Emancipated Worlds Saga:
http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/category/emancipated-worlds-saga/feed/

Posted on

Books I’ve read from the list of 100

My compacted list of books from this bigger list: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dg92b8kj_13hph36sfh

X means I’ve read it.
X+ means I read it and loved it.
X- means I read it and hated it.
* means I plan on reading it.

2. [X+] The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
5. [X] To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6. [X] The Bible (not all of it)
7. [X] Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
10. [X] Great Expectations Charles Dickens
13. [*] Catch 22 Joseph Heller
16. [*] The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
18. [X] Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
22. [X] The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
25. [*] The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
33. [X] Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
36. [X] The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
52. [X+] Dune Frank Herbert
87. [X] Charlotte’s Web EB White
89. [X] Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
99. [X] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Not represented here are thousands of read pages from the Dune and Song of Ice and Fire series.

Posted on

Holy Heads On Pikes Batman

Finally. It seems HBO has picked up George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series, A Song of Fire and Ice, and plan to turn it into an ongoing series, one season per book. This is the first thing coming to TV in a long time that has gotten me even close to excited.

You’ve probably heard Nathan or I rave about these books and if you haven’t started reading them then hop on it (if you want to borrow a copy just ask). I’m sure the HBO adaptation will be very well done but nothing can beat the books.

Variety broke the story here and George R.R. Martin has a post on his website here.

Posted on

Textbooks: Save your hard earned money

Some of you reading my site are in college or at least like to read so this should be a great site for you. It took me one semester to figure out that the bookstore at any college is a corrupt operation explicitly designed to gouge and rip off the students they vow to be serving.

Since I pretty much pay for my own books, I have always tried to save the most money possible when I buy textbooks and get the most back from the ones I do not keep. Here’s a quick list of what I do to cut my textbook costs by up to half:

  • Never sell books back to your bookstore, sell on Half.com or Amazon Marketplace
  • Never buy books from your bookstore unless absolutely necessary
  • Find the lowest price of used and new books on the entire Internet at AddALL
  • Compare that price to your bookstore’s new and used prices, purchase accordingly
  • Take shipping and taxes into consideration, a $3-$5 cost for shipping is offset by no tax being charged
  • Make a spreadsheet to see how much you save!

I think my all time high in savings was close to $200 and I have even sold books for nearly the same or more for what I paid for them.

One thing to watch out for on books that seem to have prices too good to be true is a growing popularity of International editions of books. These are usually printed in India or somewhere and are the exact same book, but they will always be softcovers with black and white print on inferior paper to the US editions. If you don’t mind the loss in quality go for it but I’ve only bought one and will shell out the extra money for the nicer hardcover.