Text 139, 55 rader
Skriven 2004-12-10 17:20:45 av Kay Shapero (1:102/524)
    Kommentar till text 135 av Robert Bull (2:250/501.4)
Ärende:  Hello
==============
on Nov 28 04 19:13, Robert Bull wrote to Kay Shapero:

 RB> So that means, that the bigger screen is not a killer feature for 
 RB> reading 
 RB> text?  Unless you can change the mode to give you a bigger font, I 
 RB> suppose.

Oh the larger screen is useful regardless of the orientation you set it to.  It
still provides a lot more text per page.  And you can change the font size,
either directly in the file or using the "zoom" function which has three
settings - small, medium (the default case) and large. 


 KS>> CBIP - SF: THE COBRA TRILOGY by Timothy Zahn - One of the more
 KS>> thoughtful treatments of the cyborg soldier idea, complete with a
 KS>> healthy regard for the Law of Unintended Consequences.  The first 
 KS>> book takes one of the original recruits for the Cobra project and 
 KS>> follows him through his career.  The soldier part is actually fairly 
 KS>> short; the real meat of the book comes in the "ok, we've created all 
 KS>> these supersoldiers, the war is over, and we can't reverse the process 
 KS>> that created them.  Now what?" part.  The book ends with their 
 KS>> solution.

 RB> Would this have been stimulated by Vietnam?  

I doubt you'll find a book written after Vietnam involving the military that
won't reflect that experience.  In this case the problems aren't psychological
so much as social (civilians being afraid of returning soldiers who of
necessity still have some of the modifications to speed and strength, and even
some weaponry) and physiological damage (early onset of arthritis and the like)
caused by some of the implants.  And of course inevitably those who have "seen
the elephant" are changed by the experience in ways generally not understood by
those who haven't.

 RB> When I read the Kalevala I read it three sections or so at a time 
 RB> then went 
 RB> onto a novel, so as to avoid getting bored with too much at once.  

That's about what I'm doing with War and Peace - treating it like a TV serial
rather than something to deal with all at once.

Speaking of books:
CBIP: _Paladins_ by Joel Rosenberg.  Almost didn't read this one (it came in a
bundle with several other books I did want), but whatever it was that bugged me
about his early works seems to have worn off.  It's set in an alternate version
of Earth where Pendragons in the line of Mordred rule England, in the
equivalent of our Age of Sail, and Our Knightly Heroes have stumbled over
something particularly nasty afoot in the eastern Mediterranean.  Not but what
they don't have plenty of problems of their own.  The setting is nicely fleshed
out, the characters are interesting, the author can't quite resist the
occasional in-joke, but on the whole doesn't use them to excess.  I'm about 3/4
of the way through.

--- Msged 6.0.1
 * Origin: StormGate Aerie (1:102/524)