Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, aka that book Die Hard is based on (Die Hard was based on a book? Well, yeah, most of the great movies in history are based on some kind of pre-existing source material...).

Joe Leland is a retired cop, divorced (and his ex-wife is deceased), who now works as a security consultant. He's travelling to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with his divorced daughter, Stephanie Gennaro, and her two kids. They're supposed to meet up at the Klaxxon Oil building where she works and where Stephanie has just helped close a massive deal to build a bridge in Chile. But some terrorists lead by a German, Anton "Little Tony/Tony the Red" Gruber, invade the company Christmas Party and take everyone hostage. When Joe realizes what's happening (while washing his feet in an office), he grabs his gun and pads off in his bare feet to the stairwell, where he tries to figure out what to do next.

In comparing the book to the movie, one of the most interesting things isn't that they're different (although they are), but how alike they are, at least in terms of plotting. There are several sequences that one could feel safe assuming were invented for the movie because of how over the top they are, but they're right there in the original novel; e.g., Joe having to evade the bad guys by lowering himself into the building's air shaft with the strap of a gun, or having to rappel off the roof of the building with a fire hose to escape exploding helicopters. There are still some differences - Joe never actually falls in the shaft and has to miraculously grab a vent on the way down. He manages to find purchase on a vent in the dark and carefully squishes himself inside, but he does it feet-first and he doesn't have a lighter to orient himself, so it's less exciting but more suspenseful and claustrophobic than the movie version.

To the major differences, the book is entirely from Joe's perspective, so you never really get to know the villains and supporting characters like you do in the film. Because of the total focus on Joe, the book is often introspective. Early on, Joe is just thinking his way through situations like a cop and war hero would, but as it goes on and he takes more and more punishment (he probably takes even more than Bruce Willis does), his mind wanders toward the disappointments of his life. This book is a sequel to Thorp's 1960s book The Detective, which got made into a Frank Sinatra movie. That book is a pretty downbeat hard-boiled cop story (and absolutely huge for such a novel), so Joe is already coming from a bad place, and we learn that he feels regret about how his marriage ended and how he became estranged from his daughter. Because he's an older man, he tends to think of the terrorists as "kids" (Gruber is only 30), which weighs on his mind, and several of the terrorists are women he ends up shooting, which weighs on him further. By the time the book is over, he understandably is angry and confused about what he even accomplished.

I would say the book version of Gruber is smarter than Alan Rickman's character. Little Tony correctly figures out several of Joe's moves ahead of time, and a lot of the action happens because Joe wanders into traps despite himself. Unlike the film version, the terrorists actually are terrorists - there's no big twist on their motives - but Gruber is still the one who starts all the shit when he blasts the head executive and then kills Ellis later on. Joe seems quite correct when he observes that Gruber and the other terrorists just like to murder and destroy stuff despite their high-minded political lecturing.

The tones are just different. Even the titles: Die Hard has a defiant, life-affirming quality while Nothing Lasts Forever feels downbeat. The filmmakers wanted to make a fun action movie with a lot of humor and a happy ending. The book...doesn't have a happy ending and there are couple of developments in the last couple of chapters that are kind of jaw-dropping, especially the bit with Sgt. Powell vs. Karl.

I would say the movie is better than the book, but that's not a slight on the book. It's a Psycho situation. Robert Bloch was a great writer and Psycho is one of several good books he wrote. Hitchcock's Psycho is one of the best suspense movies ever made in a genre that is often viewed as trashy. Similar deal here. Nothing Lasts Forever is a very good book, but there are many very good books that are released every year. Die Hard is one of the best action movies ever made, and even in its time it wasn't often that we got action movies on its level, and things are a lot worse now (check out those last couple of "Die Hard" sequels that were made...). The movie just has a bigger footprint in its medium, but I would certainly recommend the book.

Cheers for the nudge to not lazily rely on preference, as I usually tend to :)

Could anyone recommend books in the fantasy underwater civilization genre or stories that feature aspects of that sort of flavor? I'm building a Merfolk character for an upcoming pen-and-paper campaign using the Swords of the Serpentine system (Swords & Sorcery, basically a Conan-type setting). For inspiration purposes, I would love some suggestions of material to read. Thanks.

Not sure it is what you are after, but Poul Anderson's The Merman's Children is always a good read

This might be a bit too folklore-heavy for my needs. Thanks so much for suggesting it though, looks like a good read indeed.

If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity

While pointing out various ways in which other species exhibit a certain level of intelligence, the author doesn't try to claim that any of them can compare to humans from this point of view, only arguing that we should accept that, in some way, they possess intelligence and, notably, consciousness, and that more developed intelligence would be better described as broader rather than higher. But, more than that, the book emphasizes how humans misuse or fail to use their extraordinary intelligence, realizing far less than what would be the true potential to do good and causing and justifying immense harm and suffering to themselves, each other, and even more so to the other species and the ecosystem.
However, while I agree that the least intelligent and least complex species have the most success in terms of mere survival, reproduction and obtaining pleasure in the present, that humans generally misuse their intelligence, and that greater intelligence is generally associated with worse mental health problems and tends to have less to do with success than plain luck, I definitely disagree with the conclusion that we'd be better off with far less of it. I mean, rocks exist for eons, bacteria thrive; evolution, and life in general, has no point if it doesn't go beyond survival, if it doesn't reach a level where it can analyze and create, improve its condition and that of the world. But the author offers no solutions to the raised problems, even stating at the end that he never intended to... And arguing that, because life on Earth will eventually be wiped out by the Sun, the only objective measure of a species' success is maximizing present pleasure, while I'd see it as proof that the true measure of success would be escaping such a fate, which requires far more developed and better used intelligence. And even this edition's translator added notes that, beyond the typical clarifications, also point out and express frustration with the author's incorrect use of certain terms or, on a couple of occasions, criticize more directly, pointing out flaws in the logic or arguments.

Rating: 3/5

Yes, No, Maybe: How to recognize and overcome fear of commitment by Stefanie Stahl

There is a focus on love relationships, but this I found a very helpful book on what might make commitment in life difficult in general, for yourself and those around you both. There are lots of poignant case stories, and well-structured advice grounded in psychological findings. Tough to get aspects in this context mirrored back at you at times, but really worth the work, is what I'm realizing. Another recommendation.

Thank you for taking the time to recommend this one, the setting indeed seems to fit what I'm looking for. And boy, you appear to get a lot of reading done looking at your book list. I'm just generally happy to be reading more again.

The Bone Season

When the other characters tend to have such a hard time, and when it may even be said to be a good thing that it’s hard to keep track of the minor ones, considering what happens to plenty of them, the amount of hero’s luck that Paige has seems inexcusable. And when plenty of flashbacks do exist later, when they also break up the action and rhythm, it would have made more sense to use one to explain how it all began as well, letting her be imprisoned for some time instead of being captured just before an event that happens once per decade. And then you have the antagonists that seem to be such fools, allowing so much to happen right under their noses, and those final chapters, shrouded in the haze of Paige’s dimmed awareness, where so much is left unexplained, all the right things just happening to, well, happen. And all of the preparations for such an undertaking, which could and probably should have filled a book on their own, were largely skipped over, being summarized in a few pages.
That said, I’m tempted to consider Arcturus as the most important, and best, character. The fact that Paige takes so long to realize what he is and what he’s planning makes her a fool as well, but their interactions do have good moments, possibly the better ones for most of the book, and there is something to be said about how the bond between them develops. That and their powers would have been a great opportunity to display a deep understanding of people, and that’s not the case, but I’ll nevertheless say that, despite all of the above criticisms, this is not a bad book. It has some thrilling action scenes, most notably in the last two chapters, some characters are worth supporting and caring for, some even develop in a noticeable way, there are some good moments of interaction, and it depicts an unusual dystopian version of this world in a manner that didn’t drive me away… Which, in itself, is quite an accomplishment.

Rating: 3/5

S. Petersen's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Mike Mason

A bestiary supplement for the Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game, published by Chaosium. There are 53 entries categorized into "The Monsters of the Mythos" and "The Creatures of the Dreamlands".

Each features a quote from H. P. Lovecraft, and notes about habitat, distribution, life and habits, distinguishing elements, interesting facts ... as well as a comparative height chart. The latter comes in handy when, as the game master, you have to convince players that their beloved Tommy gun won't save them from getting horribly unlived by a towering Dhole or Chthonian. Also: no stats. But then again, if you get into combat with monsters of the Mythos, you are most often doing it wrong anyway.

Gorgeous art brings these creatures to life at the table. Chaosium's site offers an excerpt here. Excellent writing too: the pseudo-scientific tone makes this indeed feel like a handbook with hard-won information through actual field observations and encounters (roll a sanity check, you fools). A few quotes:

"This creature finds large quantities of water deleterious, but resists great heat: an adult can cheerfully wriggle through molten lava." [Chthonian]

"At age 34, the human is nearly ready for 'The Change'. The skin peels, and the ears have been resorbed. Soon the nose will drop off." [Deep One; The "Innsmouth Look"]

"One hypothesis (Larkham, 1985) suggests a pattern derived from matrix mechanics in which the trigger variable is the performance of three fundamental human activities in a specific sequence." [Dimensional Shambler]

Years back I bought this at a convention and got it signed by Sandy Petersen (Call of Cthulhu RPG creator, also formerly part of id Software), who was at the time promoting his Cthulhu Wars board game. Now I sort of want to continue with the complete Lovecraft tome I own. As well as study "A Survey of Pseudoplasmic Super-Entities Common to Population II Stars" by Anne Scow Choirs, 1978; Symposia Hypermetaphysica 84:334-338, as suggested in the "Recommended Reading" section at the back of the field guide.

In the tradition established by matterbandit, here are some fun, uncommon words I came across:

rugose
ophidian
and, of course: gibbous

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes by Daniel Everett

The author, a Christian missionary and linguist, spent about 30 years in a remote area of the Amazon, living among a native hunter-gatherer tribe. In this book, he tells riveting stories of daily life in the jungle, struggles with disease, challenges of outside contact, and the possible advantages of a society guided by immediacy of experience. There is an interesting deep dive into linguistics (particularly, field research thereof), and what it meant attempting to map a language that, at the time, was only spoken by a community of about 400 people. Excellent reflection material about values, levels of complexity and abstraction in life. For Daniel Everett, staying with the Pirahá led to significant changes in his own world view and spiritual beliefs.

Hour of the Dragon - Conan the Conqueror

by Robert E. Howard

Finally found time to continue my journey into the Spinward Fringe.

Book Seven - Framework - by Randolph Lalonde

It was a bit troublesome to reacquaint myself again with the huge amount of actors and plot lines present, but after a couple of hours my brain started to realign its self. Thankfully cause, as it turned out, i was once again invested in the story.

What wiki tells us about The Spinward Fringe series

Spinward Fringe is a long running series of Space Opera Books by author Randolph Lalonde. The origin story behind the series is in the First Light Chronicles trilogy, now collected in Spinward Fringe Broadcast 0: Origins (Also known as the First Light Chronicles Omnibus).

The story is set in the far flung future and follows two crews as they make their way through a complicated galaxy in decline.
At the core of the story is a ship, a constant fight for survival and the sometimes complex situations that come up personally and on a broader scale.

This series often crosses sub-genres between Hard Core SciFi, Cyberpunk, Noir SciFi, and a few other styles. Through it all the characters are our eyes and ears, providing context and a real emotional connection to events both personal and galactic in scale.

Spinward Fringe Series Covers
The books are aimed to be written like a television series, these books are intended for people who don't have much time to sit down and read a hundred pages before they feel they've experienced a significant portion of the story. While the books are a series, the author also maintains that each book or trilogy should be good enough to stand on its own, regardless of how much of the story remains to be told in the next. As an independent author Randolph Lalonde writes full time, spending most of his efforts on the Spinward Fringe series.

Anyhow, time to power up the tablet and continue with book eight

Frankenstein

by Mary Shelley