I haven’t gone into the background of the joint TerSA and IP project yet, but yes, it is rather unusual for the two organizations to be working together on the Jump technology.
I’ve been so absorbed with conventions and other activities (not to mention drawing the pages!) that I haven’t had much time to devote to reading for pleasure– a situation that I find distasteful, believe me– but I have managed to get hooked into Robin Hobb’s recent novel, Dragon Keeper. A free edition for the Kindle was offered a short while ago (I’m not sure if this deal has since ended), so I grabbed it and finally started reading it. If it hadn’t been free I probably wouldn’t have touched it, since I got tired of the dragon genre a while ago (with the exception of Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon, which has more in common with the Hornblower series than it has with Pern), but I find I’m enjoying it. Although I expect I’ll be grumpy when I get to the end of it, since it’s very clearly the first of a trilogy, and most of the plot threads will undoubtedly be left hanging. I almost dread to ask this, since my reading time has been limited recently to a few pages before I fall asleep at night and it’ll be a while before I catch up, but then again I’m a book lover so I can’t not ask, once I’ve brought up the topic… has anyone read anything good recently they want to recommend? 
I’m quite fond of Gail Carriger’s alt-Victoriana novels Soulless and Changeless (and am looking forward to September’s release of Blameless).
Robin Hobb has written quite a bit of material in that universe. Haven’t read anything of hers in a while, but I did read the Assassin’s Apprentice trilogy, which makes a nice introduction to the setting. A lot of stuff which the one you’re reading probably either presents up front or takes for granted is discovered over the course of the ones I read…
If you haven’t read them yet, David Weber’s Honor Harrington series (start with On Basilisk Station) and Elizabeth Moon’s Kylara Vatta series (start with Trading in Danger), will probably be of interest, as well as (in no particular order): Kelly Armstrong’s “Otherworld” series (start with Bitten) and Nadia Stafford books (Exit Strategy; Made To Be Broken; Tee Morris’ Billibub Baddings series; Danielle Ackley-McPhail’s Yesterday’s Dreams and her Bad-Ass Fairies anthologies; Laura Anne Gilman’s Retrievers series (start with Staying Dead); John Ringo’s Posleen War (start with A Hymn Before Battle); L. Jagi Lamplighter’s Prospero’s Daughter series (yes, that Prospero; Prospero Lost came out last year, second book comes out in two months)… off the top of my head (and my bookshelves)… The first Weber and Ringo books are available as free e-books from Baen Books’ free library.
I’ll second the “Honorverse” recommendation!
That last panel makes me nervous about Patty…
BTW, I love that Star Pirates banner, it’s hilarious!
I second that thoroughly. I’ve actually saved it to my computer so I can still laugh at it even after you’ve stopped running the ad, it’s that good.
Lev Grossman’s The Magicians was AWESOME. If you haven’t read it, do yourself the favor.
Also nervous for Patty now.
Gah! After the print series, I keep feeling like Patti’s living on borrowed time. Way to make us nervous! (Of course, the way Nelson’s been leering, I think Karl might just be on borrowed time, too….)
Re: Dragon Keeper: yes, it ends abruptly, feeling very unfinished. However, it’s only a two-book story, not a trilogy, and the second book, Dragon Haven, is already out. I haven’t read it yet, so I can’t give an overall review. If you like her writing style, I’d recommend the earlier Liveship Trader’s trilogy; it introduces much of what’s in Dragon Keeper, so some “surprises” will already be spoiled for you, but it is compelling reading, telling its tale through the POVs of three generations of women in a Trader family.
I think Hobb’s best work is her Farseer books, which start with Assassin’s Apprentice. At first I was put off by the title and some silly character names, but friends kept recommending them, and they were right! Very solidly told human story, yet with epic scope. I thought her Liveship Series wasn’t quite as gripping, but interesting; there is a lot of story/ setting overlap with Dragon Keeper (how they got to the point of hatching dragon eggs), so if you like DK, you’ll probably want to read those. I’m afraid I completely lost interest in Dragon Keeper because I didn’t find the characters sympathetic and I thought there was too much repetitive monologuing, but Hobb definitely creates interesting worlds.
Robin Hobb is fun stuff.
I recently plowed through the first two of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who _____ trilogy. They’re excellent stuff, although the first was far better.
And we we a week for the explanation…A-GAIN! You will give it to us, yes?
Next issue — ESCAPE!
(gratuitous Xeno’s Arrow reference)
Actually, if I’m not mistaken, next week we get two explanations!
It does make sense that Carl is so surprised, the grand idealists (TerSA) teaming up with the classic realists (IP) would surprise everyone first time round especially when you consider how differently the two organisations operate especially after that ideological ding-dong the team indulged in between ambushes a few pages ago.
In the past few months I’ve devoured all the works of Lynn Flewelling. She has an ongoing series (the Nightrunner books) which has 5 novels now, as well as a trilogy set centuries earlier in the same world (the Tamir triad). It’s fantasy, with a certain darkness to it, and a lot of welcome grittiness regarding day-to-day life (and the Tamir books also add creepy ghost-story elements). Flewelling also is great at setting up expectations of where the plot is going to go, and then going a completely different direction.
If you liked Naomi Novik’s books, you ought to check out Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander series, as I’d say it was the main inspiration for her books (along with Pern, of course). Superbly well-written historical fiction, putting you so much into a somewhat alien world that it’s almost like really well-written science fiction instead.
Why are they leaving her!
Reading recs: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is the first in a series of mystery novels featuring Sherlock Holmes and his accidental new apprentice, Mary Russell. If you like Holmes, they are pretty much brilliant. They have the feel of a Conan Doyle but with the more “modern” air interjected by Mary Russell, sometimes much to Holmes’s resigned distress. She’s the perfect foil for the Master Detective, and the books treat the rest of the cast and Holmesian canon with respect and clever insight but not stuffy reverence. The first one starts out a bit slow since it’s easing you into Mary’s life, but from the second part on through the rest of the series, it’s pretty much…I don’t know, perhaps “leisurely madcap” would be the best description? At any rate, they’re delightful and addictive, and excellent enough that even though they early on took a particular turn that I was very much hoping they wouldn’t, I can’t find a way to complain. And I’m generally pretty good at that when I want to be. Verdict: thoroughly brilliant.
Red Mars is the first in a trilogy that I haven’t finished reading yet, but I certainly intend to. I’d imagine you’ve read these already, but if you haven’t, I highly recommend that you do. I’ve never read a planetary colonization story that is quite so realistic as this one is–and I’ve certainly never read anything so comprehensive! You name it, it’s in here. The whole range of the sciences, social problem, and especially personality types. It is, I must say, a very dense book, but well worth losing yourself in. I admit that I could not always follow the minutia of the science, but never in such a way as to leave me confused or lost. I did end up feeling smarter not only after I’d finished it, but while in the midst of the story as well. Of course, it also left me feeling depressed/inspired to go save the world…and very, very sad that we are not already seriously heading off into space. Verdict: words fail to encompass it.
Blacksad, the most beautiful comic I’ve ever read, I think. Dark Horse just published a lovely new hardcover translation of the first three albums (it’s from European publisher Darguard) and really, everyone should go get it. It’s a noir-ish detective story set in America in the 1950s and the main character is a private eye named John Blacksad who is, incidentally, a cat. Everyone is an animal, and you’ve never seen anthropomorphism as brilliant as this. (Well, there’s Lackadaisy…but they’re really not comparable. Maybe as two disparate sides of the same coin of awesomeness.) The facial expressions are incredible. Did I mention it’s fully painted and absolutely beautiful? Verdict: ooooh!
I know I’m late to the party, but if you like Naomi Novik and haven’t yet read her novel Uprooted, you really should. It’s fantastic!