What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

[macdoc]

Good fun

https://atboundarysedge.com/2025/11/19/ ... -reynolds/

[macdoc]

Hard scifi at it's best ..author is insanely productive .....and good.

[Tero]

The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire – A Fresh Biography of the Visionary Monarch and Her Swashbuckling Mariners

“A highly colorful, swashbuckling read, one that will give you new respect for Britain’s first Elizabeth.” —Seattle Times

An illuminating revisionist biography about Queen Elizabeth I and her merchant-adventurers who terrorized the seas, extended the Empire, and amassed great wealth for the throne.

Extravagant, whimsical, and hot-tempered, Elizabeth was the epitome of power, both feared and admired by her enemies. Dubbed the "pirate queen" by the Vatican and Spain's Philip II, she employed a network of daring merchants, brazen adventurers, astronomer philosophers, and her stalwart Privy Council to anchor her throne—and in doing so, planted the seedlings of an empire that would ultimately cover two-fifths of the world.

Elizabeth never left England: Like other royals of the time, she frequently used royal barges and vessels for traveling along the River Thames and to visit coastal palaces.

[Tero]

The Spanish Armada
by Robert Hutchinson (Author)

The college texts on history are a bit boring these days. They come up to the year a war started, explain page after page on the political situation just before the war and why there was a war, a paragraph on the war and then five pages on the changes that the war produced.

[Svartalf]

a bunch of fantasy novellas by one Gardner j Fox featuring massive barbarian warriors as the protagonist, and far too much magic to be classified as swords and sorcery.

[Brian Peacock]

Hard scifi at it's best ..author is insanely productive .....and good.

I tore through that. Have just finished his Children of Strife - which is also spectacular imo.

[macdoc]

His peers don't understand how he can bring out great novels so quickly. Apparently he has an active number on the go at once.
RR Martin and Rothfuss take note...

[Brian Peacock]

His peers don't understand how he can bring out great novels so quickly. Apparently he has an active number on the go at once.
RR Martin and Rothfuss take note...

And he turns out 2-3 fantasy novels a year too - which I'm told are very good, but not my thing.

[pErvinalia]

He's using AI to write his novels.

[Tero]

The Spanish Armada
by Robert Hutchinson (Author)

The college texts on history are a bit boring these days. They come up to the year a war started, explain page after page on the political situation just before the war and why there was a war, a paragraph on the war and then five pages on the changes that the war produced.

The Naval battle book is easy enough to read. From the Spanish side, it was a badly prepared invasion. Ships from Spain were to transport Catholic troops from Flanders to Dover. But there was no guarantee they could land there. The Spanish brought horses by ship but the ships never landed.

[macdoc]

Perv you be wrong methinks

AI Overview Adrian Tchaikovsky does not use AI to write his novels. He is known for his highly prolific output, but he relies entirely on his own creative process rather than generative AI.
He has even discussed this topic publicly:
Ideation over Production: He believes that while AI might help implement abandoned ideas, the actual "ideas" are the easiest part of being an author. He argues that generative AI is not particularly good at generating the core, creative concepts that drive his books.
Against AI Art: Within his own community and reader base, there is a strong consensus that he is heavily against AI. He and his publishers strictly rely on human creators for his book covers, and community spaces like the official Adrian Tchaikovsky Subreddit have banned AI-generated art.
Themes: While he doesn't use AI to write, he frequently writes about AI and artificial consciousness in his books, famously exploring these concepts in titles like Service Model and the Children of Time series.

[Brian Peacock]

You can't trust an AI to tell you that someone doesn't use AI.