Good Day to all. I am currently kicking around Minnesota, one wife two boys. They are 5 and 2 and known as Space Monkey #1 and Space Monkey #2. I am a sound guy NOT a DJ (Kinda like a the difference between a Marine and soldier.) I have never served in the armed forces but if I had I would have liked to think I would have made a good Air Force PJ (more then likley so Rear with the gear type of job). I have been intrested in millitary fiction since I picked up The Hunt for Red October when I was 12. I have been intrested in Millitary Sci-fi since I read David Weber's Crusade when I was 14 (That and Red Storm Rising are the two books I read once a year). My to many hobbies include playing guitar and screetching, playing bass and screetching turning guitar amps up really loud and building scale models. Aircraft, armor, cars whatever is made out of plastic and needs super glue. I also try my had at writing now and then. My masterpiece has been a work in progress for about 8 years and keeps getting longer. The outline is hovering around 20 pages. But I try my hand at all sorts of writing styles.
Recomended Reading: Any Honor Harington books, Any Patrick O'Brian books, Survivor by Chuck Pahlinuk, The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and On Killing by Dave Grossman
TSJ
TS, thanks for that rundown. We always like to know something about the people on this site, since we spend so damned much time on it "Space Monkey 1 & 2" reminds me of the story about the Mexican fireman whose wife had twins. He named the first one Jose and the second Hose B.
Tell me, what did you like about Grossman's book?
Jose Hose B I like that.
I like books that give me a little different insight into things I have no experince with and probably never will. Or things that don't seem to have an answer. By that I don't mean theolgical or philisophical, things in the world that people say can't be explained. Well in the real world history explains everything, and goes beyond simple dates and facts. I took a Vietnam history class in college and have since continued reading and studying certain aspects of that war. That led me to On Killing which then sent me off on studying killing. It seems to be a very unexplored topic in the mainstream, movies generally gloss over it and specials in the news never focus on what killing does to an otherwise normal person. Grossman's book did a nice job of pointing out and supporting things that us laymen would never see and that is people who are not cowards but still cannot bring themselves to kill another person. Also, the work done to remedy the situation in the millitary pops up into Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, which is about how the brain makes decisions without a person even knowing that the decison was made and this is how the millitary got it's soldiers to fire without thinking. It even pops up in Starfist. Some book has Dean jumping up to bring his blaster to bear but doesn't even have it in his hand. This is the exact training the millitary uses with it's shooters today and it can have damaging effects on someone not mentally fit for it.
Well that's the basics. There is more to it then that but you'll have to read the book to catch it all.
Thanks for the tip.
Yes, his logic kinda folds in itself at times. I have also had a tough time tracking down his "Facts" but the book was intresting and opens the door on a subject that is rarely discussed in our socitey.
Just read the amazon discription of Ordinary men and intend to get it ASAP. Seems like another book I just read called Tiger Force. And that did give me something to think about.