Oh, I Will SO Be Buying This Book
“And that one?” I pointed to a man up to his chin in boiling blood. He was screaming in agony so his face was distorted, but he looked Oriental.
“New one,” Billy said. “Seung, something like that. Went out and shot a bunch of people in the college he was at. Allen, it puzzles me that a man can shoot thirty-two full-grown men and women before the sheriff’s men gun him down. You’re more his time, maybe you can tell me. Why didn’t someone just shoot the son of a bitch?”
I scratched my head. Billy’s viewpoint seemed skewed, alien.
“Five of them were teachers,” Billy said. “They had to protect their kids. How could they not be armed? It’s as if someone has been taking away their guns.” He saw my puzzlement. “Oh, well. I don’t know how long he’ll be out that deep, but he needs watchin’. Keeps trying to get ashore.” – Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, Escape from Hell
Excerpt stolen shamelessly from From the Barrel of a Gun.
My boss and I talked for a good half-hour before work this morning about books. He’d brought me S.M. Stirling’s In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, since he’d just finished it and knew I’d recently read The Sky People. As it turns out, our tastes in fiction are almost identical, though he tends to enjoy the horror genre more than I do. Escape from Hell was one book we both mentioned we planned on reading. On his recommendation I’m going to be picking up some C.S. Friedman soon, too.