Troy Rising

in #deepdives3 years ago

Think big.
The United States Government used to think big. It built the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, and the Interstate System. Not too long ago it put a man on the Moon!

Recently, sad to say, not so much. Lately it seem the government is more interested in 'diversity, equity and inclusion, whatever that means. Oh! It also want to do something about climate change, and buy oil from Russia. It seems that the government is no longer interesting in building things rather it is interested in preventing others from building things. Of course it has to raise taxes to do it.

John Ringo, one of my favorite authors, wrote a series of books about a guy who thinks big. Not just big but Giganormous. He thinks that Cheops had insufficient ambition.


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Troy Rising (3 book series)

Elon Musk once said, regarding one of his projects, that making the damn thing wasn't the hard part. The hard part was getting the permits. So it is with Tyler, the protagonist in the story, might say the same thing. Dealing with politicians is a night mare, dealing with the news media, dealing with bankers is even worse.

Troy Rising was written as a 'near future' story in 2010. That was twelve years ago. 'Near Future' ten years ago right now. Ringo got an amazingly amount of stuff right but he neglected a few things, bitcoin for example. He deals with nanofabricators, graphene, artificial intelligences, space habitats, very well. He writes too well about how inept, incompetent, government could screw up everything it touches. He explains the media quite well.

I read it when it first came out, over a decade ago. I highly recommend it. It's one of my 'comfort reads' that I reread from time to time. I'm reading it now.

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Thanks for the suggestions... I'm off to order physical copies now.

Personally I prefer e-books. I have a kindle app on my desktop computer. I have a fairly large monitor (actually I have three) so I can adjust the text to be LARGE. It saves on eyestrain don't ya know. Since I'm pretty much reading all the time when I'm awake it works pretty well for me.

Your milage may vary.

I ordered all three books in that series as used hardcover editions in good condition and it cost me around $20. I had some Amazon points though so ended up getting it for $11.

Excellent. I bought the HardCover version myself when it was first published at (gasp) over $25 EACH. That was back in the day when I had money, and better eyesight.

It should take you about three days to read them all. I started yesterday morning with book one. I'm halfway thru book two now. It's kinda fun re-reading a GOOD book. It's almost better than reading it the first time.

Yeah. I prefer to read books away from screens. I own a lot of them myself. While I have kindles, tablets, and very large monitors I still prefer to read a physical book in my hands. I also consider them investments into something that has value even if my screens became unusable for some reason. Power grid, etc.

My primary monitor of the two attached to the computer I am writing this on is a 48" 4K. I have a 27" 1080p as my secondary.

I am at screens SO MUCH that having something that takes me away from them is a good thing.