I’ve enjoyed reading a handful of awesome books the last couple of months. The sci-fi ones, in particular, have been greatly enjoyable. I wrote up some books from earlier this year back in June, and this is the next batch.

In fact, I’ve read 3-4 of my top 10 sci-fi books ever during the past couple of months. Wool, Ready Player One, The Forever War, and The Player of Games, all were outstanding.

The entire Wool series / Silo saga by Hugh Howey is excellent. There are 9 books in total, collected into 3 books (Wool, Shift, and Dust in the omnibus editions), all flowing together smoothly. What an amazingly-creative piece of work, a scary possible view of the future.

Ready Player One, by Ernert Cline, was so good that I read it twice, back to back. It also features a scary view of a future where everyone is plugged in to the “Oasis,” a world-wide massive virtual reality game, neglecting their real lives. There are heroes and villains there, naturally, and a battle to control the game, and thus life itself.

Close on its heels I read The Player of Games, by Iain M. Banks, which was also superb. It’s one of several books that take place in the same world, Banks’s “Culture” series, but the only one of those I’ve personally read so far.

Just yesterday I finished Joe Haldeman‘s classic novel, The Forever War. Wow, what an excellent book. I literally couldn’t put it down on the train / subway, and while walking around. It’s not a new book, but it was one of the few Hugo + Nebula joint award winners that I hadn’t read. The parallels to Heinlein‘s classic Starship Troopers are so clear, but the books play off each other perfectly.  And it turns out the author is a professor of creative writing at MIT!

Killing Pablo, by Mark Bowden, was a fascinating book as well. It led to a late night reading about Pablo Escobar and other drug figures on Wikipedia. Very detailed but not repetitive, and does a great job of expanding the Colombian context to Pablo’s life.

Lee Child‘s Never Go Back and High Heat, both Jack Reacher novels, were predictably good beach reads. Simple, but entertaining to read and fast-paced.

These are the best books I’ve read the couple of months — there have been a couple of duds, too, but that’s for another day.

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the first book of The Hunger Games trilogy, also called The Hunger games: read that first.

During the subsequent 36 hours, staying up much of two nights, I finished the next two books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.  They’re addictive, easy to read, entertaining, and highly recommended.

Just like the Matrix movies, I think the first book is the best.  But just like the Matrix movies, you kind of can’t stop until you’re done with the trilogy.  It’s that gripping.

I don’t want to spoil the plot, so I won’t reveal any details here, but I can’t wait for the movie next month.

And there’s no way I’m writing a blog post that mentions the Matrix without plugging one of its many awesome scenes.

I read this book last year, and I’m not sure why I didn’t review it then, but it was eye-opening.  High Crimes, written by Michael Kodas.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=yoasspa-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=B00134XEQO

The book talks about how over time, once permits became more easily available to anyone with enough money, the Everest mountaineering scene has changed.  More tourists, less qualified folks, more accidents, more shady guides and expedition organizers, a sketchier black market in equipment, and more.

It’s a good read not only for mountaineering fans like myself, but for anyone interested in some unintended consequences of apparently-good economic decisions (opening up a previously closed / controlled market in permits to free capitalism).

Well-written, fun to follow, and both shocking and entertaining at different times, I liked it.

Last week I started and finished a great book, The Hunger Games.  Enough friends told me I should read it that I just caved and moved it to the top of the queue.  It’s also #2 overall in the Kindle store right now, so apparently I’m not the only one raving.

It’s an excellent book, highly recommended.  It’s the first in a trilogy, and I’m reading the second book right now.  (In fact, I stopped just to write this review, because I imagine I’ll want to review the second book as well, and I don’t want them to blend together on this blog.)

The book is extremely well-written by Suzanne Collins.  The universe it describes is epic in size and scope, richly-detailed, and fascinating.  I won’t spoil any of the details here, since you should all read the book yourselves.

And there’s a movie coming out in March, so you’ve got a couple of months.  It’s an easy read, does not take long, and well worth the time.

The book reminds me of Ender’s Game, one of my all-time SciFi favorites, which is a big compliment.  The sense of hopelessness in the protagonist facing impossible odds, the community tie-ins so it’s more than just one against the world, the story and character development, the internal dilemmas faced by key figures, it’s all great.

I might be late to the game on this one, but it’s a great game 😉  Go read it.

I saw Invasive Procedures at the airport store and bought it right away because of its author, Orson Scott Card.  Card is the author of Ender’s Game, one of my favorite sci-fi novels ever.  Ender’s Game is one of those books, like the Godfather in movies, that has elements imitated so often they’ve become cliche, but it’s the original, the inspiration to many others.

Invasive Procedures is a near-future story, not as far-fetched as Ender’s Game.  It’s about gene therapy and bioengineering, and it’s fascinating.  I don’t want to spoil the story here (I never do), but it’s a good, taut read.  Highly recommended.

I read Tina Fey‘s “Bossypants” on vacation in Israel last month.  I don’t remember why I picked it up, but one day I saw it in the Kindle app, and it fit my mood.

It’s a light-hearted funny book with plenty of interesting stories.  There’s a few rants and raves in there, but they’re mostly very entertaining, and well-written as you might expect given Tina Fey’s professional experience.

A fun book to read on a beach day (as I did) or on a snowed-in day (as are forthcoming…)

A couple of days I finished reading Tracy Quan‘s novel, “Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl.”  This novel was recommended by a friend (who is not a call girl ;)) and it was a strange, but good, read.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=yoasspa-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=0609607243

It was a bit meandering at times.  There are a bunch of side stories, of which some are amusing, and others are less interesting.  But the main story is so stressful, I felt stressed myself while reading it.  It does resolve well at the end, but I didn’t think it would.

I think that’s a compliment to the author, who managed to take me along for a ride and convey some real stress, and then surprise at the end.

An interesting book.

I just finished reading two Navy SEAL-related books in a row, and both are highly recommended.  I don’t want to spoil the surprises with too many details, so I’ll keep this brief.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=yoasspa-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0316044695&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrLone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 tells the story of Marcus Luttrell and his unit mates on an operation in Afghanistan.  The operation (“Red Wings“) went badly, and after a variety of adventures, Marcus was the only one left alive to tell this story.  It’s non-fiction, but it’s as fascinating as any action movie I’ve seen recently.

The next book I read after that is older, but it has a bunch of connections to the people in the above book.  It’s called The Warrior Elite: The Forging of SEAL Class 228, and among other people, it has the above Luttrell completing his initial SEAL training.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=yoasspa-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=1400046955&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
This book, too, is very well-written and fun to read.  The author, Dick Couch, is a former Navy SEAL and Captain, and as such he was given unprecedented, unlimited access to the same training he underwent himself years ago.  More than any journalist or other external party would get.

The result is the most in-depth, detailed description of the training program and its purposes that I’ve ever.  Really fascinating.  Both books also have some side rants and discussions about US policy, the impossibility of some of the “rules of engagements” limitations, digging into warrior philosophy, and more.

Both of these books are highly recommended, great reading.  I’ll close this post out with a clip from GI Jane, a fun movie from a few years ago, showing some small piece of Navy SEAL training.