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Two unrelated topics I've lumped together because I'd feel silly starting a thread about one of them. I'll get that one out of the way first: Does anybody here like grapefruit-flavored candy, or grapefruit juice? Or know anyone who does? I don't mind grapefruit itself, but the juice/flavoring in candies is downright nasty, and I've never met anyone who thought otherwise. What the hell is grapefruit doing in my otherwise-yummy and addictive-as-crack box of fruit jellies from Trader Joe's? Orange, lemon, raspberry, lime...grapefruit? WTF? At least the grapefruit ones are very infrequent in most boxes. It's like they're ashamed to be in with the superior flavors.
With that out of the way, does anybody here follow Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries series? I ask because a fourth book is coming out soon after over a decade since the last one, and because the books are basically like a dramatization of a game of Civ. The premise is so absurd I can't mention it with a straight face, and the writing ain't exactly Faulkner, but there's something charming about it anyway. An army captain trying to modernize and/or civilize a planet that's stuck in the iron age and undergoing a massive cataclysm to boot. Plus it's the only source I've encountered for graphic descriptions of what happens when Cataphracti, pikemen, longbowmen, knights, and two or three modern artillery pieces join forces against fifty thousand nomadic horsemen. Call it a guilty pleasure of mine. Pulp fiction for history nerds and, in my case, history nerd wannabes. I'd have made a Civ2 scenario of the books, except I've finally learned that I'm too damned unmotivated and lazy to make a scenario.
With that out of the way, does anybody here follow Jerry Pournelle's Janissaries series? I ask because a fourth book is coming out soon after over a decade since the last one, and because the books are basically like a dramatization of a game of Civ. The premise is so absurd I can't mention it with a straight face, and the writing ain't exactly Faulkner, but there's something charming about it anyway. An army captain trying to modernize and/or civilize a planet that's stuck in the iron age and undergoing a massive cataclysm to boot. Plus it's the only source I've encountered for graphic descriptions of what happens when Cataphracti, pikemen, longbowmen, knights, and two or three modern artillery pieces join forces against fifty thousand nomadic horsemen. Call it a guilty pleasure of mine. Pulp fiction for history nerds and, in my case, history nerd wannabes. I'd have made a Civ2 scenario of the books, except I've finally learned that I'm too damned unmotivated and lazy to make a scenario.
Orange Juice kicks ass! You take that back!
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