Galactic Courier by A. Bertram Chandler

Books I didn’t finish

Galactic Courier
by A. Bertram Chandler

Rating: 2 of 5

http://www.baenebooks.com/p-1499-galactic-courier.aspx

I got about through the first story in this volume, started the second, and wondered “Why am I reading this?” I suppose some people view sex as entertainment. I don’t. And I often suspect authors use it to cover for the lack of a story, or at best to increase the word count. Are authors still paid by the word?.

It was taking me a long time to plow through this. It my age, I realize that the money I spent on the book is gone, but my “to read” pile is tall enough that there are other, more interesting books I could be reading. Life is to short to waste it reading boring books.

© David B Snyder 2013

Empire of the East

Empire of the East by Fred Saberhagen

including “The Broken Lands”, “The Black Mountains”, and “Ardneh’s World”

ACE 20563-1 558 pages

rating: 3 of 5

The has been on my “to-read” pile for many years. As I try to cut costs and space, I’m reading more from this pile, before deciding whether to keep or donate these books. This is the ACE compilation of the trilogy, published in 1979, paperback, 1980. The price on cover ($2.95) reminds me of a day when I read much more voraciously.

Gas Sensors

GPS of the Jet and Balloon payload.

A recent balloon flight by Explorers post 632, instrumented with Futurlec.com gas sensors (also available from SparkFun) appears to have detected jet fuel gases in a contrail.  I did not expect these sensors to be sensitive enough to detect anything.  I’m pleased to be wrong, and will need to start figuring out how to use them.  Perhaps a small suite of Ozone, CO2, Air Quality, and Humidity? would be useful to fly regularly.