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I know he is a whack job, but Battlefield Earth by LRH is pretty damn good. Nothing at all like the movie and it was a lot of fun to read. Highly recommended for those that like post-apocalyptic mixed with alien invasion. The movie only covered the first third or so of the book.
 
The network mini-series was a big mistake. There's no way they could convey the richness of that novel to the small screen with subtitles and a girlie-man like a Richard Chamberlain playing a total badass like Blackthorne. The book has incredible violence, obscenities, sex, torture, not to mention intricacies of thought that can't be conveyed to a screen.

In the book you know what all the Japanese Samarai are thinking, and each one is weaving some secret tapestry of deceit, plotting for power, revenge or political gain. Indeed feudal Japan in 1600 was every warlord for himself. The women in the novel are also shrewd samarai, with their own deceits.

It is one of the most fascinating books I've ever read.
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https://www.amazon.com/Shogun-Asian-Saga-James-Clavell/dp/0440178002


“A tale surging with action, intrigue and love . . . a huge cast . . . vast and dramatic . . . stunning . . . savage . . . beautiful . . . an extraordinary performance.”—Publishers Weekly
Just downloaded off of iTunes. Will begin reading it this weekend.
 
Free shipping from the book depository... A couple of second hand stores in NZ selling it too.


This is the book, btw, that introduced the West to the Amida Tong and the "ninja"...a religious cult of assassins for hire. And bushido--the code of the warrior. The book is fiction, but, like C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian, painstakingly accurate from a historical standpoint.

Since it's publication, many books and movies have "borrowed" from it. Madison Avenue was putting the word "Shogun" on just about everything.

Feudal Japan was the strangest fucking place on the planet.

Btw, you can still get brand new copies. The book is still in print.
 
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Just finished reading

The Last Battle: The Mayaguez Incident and The Last Battle of The Vietnam War by Ralph Wetterhahn.

All I had known before reading was that a US ship had been captured by the Khemer Rouge, what a complete and total cluster fuck it devolved into...
 
Just finished reading

The Last Battle: The Mayaguez Incident and The Last Battle of The Vietnam War by Ralph Wetterhahn.

All I had known before reading was that a US ship had been captured by the Khemer Rouge, what a complete and total cluster fuck it devolved into...


It was the doorknob hitting our asses on the way out...the final insult...with the exception of Carter pardoning all the draft dodgers. If I have one eloquent thing to say about that entire era, it's "fuck it."
 
Rising Sun, Falling Skies: The Disastrous Java Sea Campaign of World War II by Jeffrey Cox. A little known campaign in the opening days of WWII as a motley, unorganized force from the American, British, Dutch, and Australian forces (ABDA) fleet tried to take on the early WWII Japanese surge. I'm only a few chapters in, mostly background to the war stuff, but it is very good and well written. One of the books I picked up through Amazon's Kindle book deals for 3-4 dollars.
 
I'm about 30 pages into Shogun, enjoying it immensely. I always enjoy something that starts off with a beheading. I really don't read enough fiction these days.
 
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