This is a consistent topic of discussion around our house. Tepper and later LeGuin have already been mentioned as writing horribly agenda-driven genders.

Both pikers compared to Alice Walker.

Can anybody recommend good books about espionage tradecraft? Not cryptanalysis, but the stuff about how to set up dead drops, how not to be seen, &c.

Moscow Rules, Vladimir, Moscow Rules I can't think of any off the top of my head; you can glean a lot from le Carre, of course, but it's out of date. This one: [link] looks good for surveillance, etc, but has nothing about agent running or deep cover stuff (drops, meetings etc). This one [link] written by Gordievsky who's the Frankie Fraser of KGB defectors, has all that but is probably (I've not read it) more designed to give a frisson to the armchair spy.

Yeah, Hec, but she's written great stuff, too. Her latest have devolved into writing a perfect world or something, though, which, although I find it sensuous, I can't really believe in it.

Are we back here for discussing Harry Potter, now that the Book Club is active again?

My current houseguest pointed out a difference between the British and American versions of HBP that is suggestive, and I don't think it was mentioned here during the big spoilerific discussion.

In the British version (pp 552-3 if you are keeping track), Dumbledore says: 'Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...when the time comes, we can hide him too...'

while in the American version (same scene, but pp 591-2) he says "He cannot kill you if you are already dead. Come over to the right side, Draco, and we can hide you more completely than you can possibly imagine. What is more, I can send members of the Order to your mother tonight to hide her likewise. Nobody would be surprised that you had died in your attempt to kill me -- forgive me, but Lord Voldemort probably expects it. Nor would the Death Eaters be surprised that we had captured and killed your mother -- it is what they would do themselves, after all. Your father is safe at the moment in Azkaban...when the time comes, we can hide him too..."

I think it's definately important, but I have no idea how. We mention it, I'm pretty sure, during dicussion somewhere

I just finished The Constant Gardener, and there's some spycraft in there too.

I loved the book. That man can turn a phrase, well aside from the subject matter and plot. Damn.

I cannot forgive Tepper for Fresco. It wasn't just sexist, it was facile and beyond anvils. I still want to reread her YA stuff, but her adult stuff is pretty poisoned for me now.

ita, I plan to read the book: yours is the second recommendation I've had lately, and the movie was excellent.

Yay! Now go see the movie and tell me if it will make me mad. Or if it stands enough on its own that I won't get nitpicky.

This is just damn cool. Keep your bookpile online for all to see! Like Flickr for books. Kind of.

I just came across this line in a review of the new Takeshi Kovacs book ( Woken Furies ):

On Kovacs's home plant, Harlan's World (an allusion to Ellison, perhaps?), for example, still-functioning Martian satellites automatically destroy any aircraft that rises above a certain altitude.

Did I miss something? I didn't think those satellites were Martian; I thought they were an artifact of the fighting back in the Quellcrist Falconer days?

Of course, it took me three tries to not type the new title as Woken Furries, so there you go.