Bargain Books

A couple of weekends ago, the local Lions Club were having one of their regular second-hand book sales in the city piazza.  The piazza sounds rather grander than it actually is, featuring amongst its cultural statements a JD Wetherspoons, a fish and chip shop and a rather fine bronze sculpture of a well-endowed naked drummer (shown below towering over, a somewhat scared looking, Queen drummer Roger Taylor).

Don't look up Roger ...

I've always found The Lions' book sales good for a rummage and I came up trumps this time.  I found not only Max Hastings' Armageddon (The Battle for Germany 1944-45) and a mint condition copy of Robert Harvey's history of the Napoleonic Wars, The War of Wars, but the first six books of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series.

Look wot I bought!

The latter books are something that I've been wanting to read for a while now and I was on the verge of buying the series on audiobook to listen to on the way to and from work, so was very pleased to pick up the whole lot for less than the cover price of a single book.

I'm now well into the second book, Fearless, and would highly recommend the series to any wargamers with an interest in sci-fi fleet actions.   The books are what I would call "hard" sci-fi (ie featuring plausible technology) and remind me a lot of the Larry Niven / Jerry Pournelle Co-Dominium books that I first enjoyed so much 20-odd years ago.

Check out the reviews on Amazon if you're interested.  To my mind, the books are well worth the investment of a few pounds / dollars / euros etc.

Suitably inspired, I think this weekend I'll dig out my copy of Full Thrust* and dust off the old metal starships.

* Despite it's risque title, I can assure readers that this is a set of wargames rules for fleet actions in space.