Books I've read the past half year (june 2012)

I've been reading quite a lot of books this year (at least in my humble opinion)

Dan Abnett - Primeval
I've seen and utterly despised the tv-series Primeval and just to tease me Lee from Too short to be a stormtrooper sent me the book which was written áfter the the release of the tv-series. To my surprise it was written by Dan Abnett whom I know through the warhammer 40K sci-fi series of Gaunt's ghosts, Eisenhorn and Ravenor which are all awesome btw.
To be short: it's a bit different from the books I knew, but it was quite a fun read about wormholes which allow dinosaurs into our time and a specialist unit who tries to deal with it. Do I need to try and revisit the tv-series? I don't think so.

Dan Abnett - Bloodpact
This is if you don't take the short stories (Sabbat worlds anthology - which I've also read) into account, the 11th book of the Gaunt's ghosts series mentioned above. Abnett does it again, pure awesomeness. The Anthology must be read too since the story Iron Star falls into the Gaunt's ghosts series just before Bloodpact. The others are in the same campaign, but not about the Ghosts.

Horus Heresy books: 
Dan Abnett - Horus Rising
Graham McNeill - False Gods
Ben Counter - Galaxy in flames
James Swallow - The flight of the Eisenstein
:
I seem to be a fanboy of Abnett. I didn't get around to reading the Horus Heresy before, but... just wow. This really gives a grey perspective to the 40K universe. Your black and white idea (bad/evil) is gone for good after reading these books. And I've only started in this series since there are currently 19! books out excluding the audiobooks. It might actually be a good series for non-40k gamers to get a grip on the world behind the game.

Schatten uit de Schaduw (Treasures out of the shadows).
It's a book about archeological finds in and around the city of Groningen (where I live).
Every object is first described (what is it, where was it found, what was its significance) and after that a story follows which is a good mix of fiction and things that could've happened. If you're from Groningen and speak Dutch..this is really a must read!

I'm currently reading Michael Waltman and John Haas - The communication of hate
on the side in my study breaks.
This book focuses on hategroups in the USA. What is hate, who do they hate (mainly non-whites), why do they (at least from their pov/say they) hate and how do they communicate hate. It's really interesting to read the ways these hategroups use to appeal to people and try to convince them of why the Aryan race is superior. The WTF'ing about those views just keep coming. The authors analyze these ways pretty thoroughly.