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What I read -- August 2014



“Heir to the Empire” by Timothy Zahn. This is book one of the Thawn trilogy, apparently. There are a bunch of these Star Wars books lying around the house. People say he’s like god’s gift to the Star Wars extended universe, so I thought I’d give one a try. Wow. I haven’t read many tie-in books lately, and I was always more of a Star Trek person than a Star Wars one, but wow. He really caught the quirks and nuances of Star Wars. I could really hear Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher delivering this dialog, and I loved how he used the various catch phrases. Though I felt like he didn’t know much about being a pregnant woman, especially after reading that Elizabeth Bear book last month.

 “Make a Scene” by Jordan Rosenfeld. I bought this last year with my Ride for Heart gift certificate, and finally read it so I could do the next draft of WWS. I’d read maybe five chapters and then decided to check out the Amazon reviews, just out of curiosity. The 1-star reviews are always my favorite, except some of the reviewers were more bashing me for needing this book than were actually bashing the book.

I found it useful. I hope it helps.

“Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Glenna Lang and Marjory Wursch. This biography was targeted at young adults, and the writing was a bit condescending. It could have been considered good, if the author was a precocious 15-year-old, but for actual adults the sentence structure and quotes were not really impressive. Nevertheless, the subject matter was well-handled.

“Dark Force Rising” by Timothy Zahn. Book two of the Thrawn trilogy.
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