The Reading Diary of John Dupuis

Founders College Book Sale

2010-01-20T15:13:00.003-05:00

I went to the Founders College Book Sale today and was lucky enough to find a bunch of cool older mystery books (and a couple of other books too). Here's my take:

Darker than Amber by John D. MacDonald
The Turquoise Lament by John D. MacDonald
Pale Gray for Guilt by John D. MacDonald
Soft Touch by John D. MacDonald
The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald
The Scarlet Ruse by John D. MacDonald
A Tan and Sandy Silence by John D. MacDonald
You Live Once by John D. MacDonald
The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald
Sleeping Beauty by Ross Macdonald
The Book of Bourbon: And other Fine American Whiskeys by Gary Regan
Archangel by Robert Harris

All that for about $8.00.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, vols. 2-4.

2009-10-24T22:51:00.001-04:00

Vaughn, Brian K., George Jeanty and Joss Whedon. Vol 2: No future for you. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2009.

Goddard, Drew, George Jeanty and Joss Whedon. Vol 3: Wolves at the Gate. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2009.

Whedon, Joss, Karl Moline and Jeph Loeb. Vol 4: Time of you life. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2009.

Now this is more like it!

A little while ago, when I reviewed the first volume of the collected Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 series from Dark Horse, I was kind of disappointed. I felt the story telling was choppy and jumbled and that it lacked a lot of the real character development strengths of the original TV series.

Well, the next three volumes of the series are a huge improvement.

They are Volume 2, No Future For You, volume 3, Wolves at the Gate and volume 4, Time of Your Life.

The main V2 arc is a Faith story, wherein Giles employs Faith to do some Council-type wetwork, stuff he wouldn't want to get Buffy involved in. It's a good, compelling read, getting two somewhat less involved characters in V1 back into the main line of Season 8. V3 Brings Dracula back, this time on Buffy's side, battling against some rogue Japanese vampires. V4 brings the futuristic Fray back into the mix, as Buffy travels into the future. V4 also brings Willow back into the main stream of the Season 8 arc.

Each volume also has a shorter stand-alone story, which is basically used for some character development, which often gets a bit of short shrift in the main volume arc.

Over all, I am pleased with how the S8 arc is developing -- just like more season arcs developed. Slowly during the first part of the season, setting up the big push later on. And the Twilight Big Bad arc for S8 is still pretty mysterious, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops.

I still have a few quibbles, of course, and I think the biggest is how a lot of the character stuff if peripheral to the main story arc. In the tv series, the character development and the story arc were always very tightly bound, basically one growing out of the other. Buffy and the other characters grew and changed because of what was happening to them, and even by S6 what was happening to them became the main story arc. In the comic series so far, they've much more tended to seal off the plot from the characterization. And I think it's a mistake. We really need to get back into the hearts and minds of the characters by the end of the arc, that's what needs to drive everything else. And if it doesn't happen, it'll be hard to judge S8 as a success.

Fox, Andrew. The good humor man. San Francisco: Tachyon, 2009. 282pp.

2009-08-25T17:06:00.003-04:00

Andrew Fox's first two novels, Fat White Vampire Blues and Bride of the Fat White Vampire were entertaining and over-the-top, a couple of innovative entries into the vampire cannon. Cinematic and funny, touching and absurd, they were terrific reads if not quite great literature.

Now comes The Good Humor Man. It's a lot of the same things as the earlier books: obsessed with pop culture, very cinematic, funny and absurd although not quite as touching and romantic. On the other hand, it's also a lot more thought-provoking with a satirical edge that's a lot more upfront than the earlier work.

What's it about? Think of it as Fahrenheit 451 for the diet industry. Imagine a future USA where high calorie foods are illegal, and a gang of government-sponsored thugs will raid any high-cal party they find. Imagine if one of the founders of the movement suddenly thinks it's all going too far and that people should really be free to make their own choices in life.

Furthermore, it's also not hard to imagine that Big Food has come up with a few secrets of it's own. Our newly converted hero then needs to save the day.

What results is an amazing road trip into the heart of American food culture – Fat Elvis. Yes, Fat Elvis is the driving force (but not character, remember, it's the future) and inspiration for the book. More than that, I cannot reveal. Anyways, it's all kinda indescribable anyways. Liposuction, for example, is also a strangely important driving force in the novel.

Read it. It's fun and thoughtful and way OTT. In fact, every time you think Fox can't possibly go more OTT, he pulls another fried peanut butter and banana sandwich out of his hat.

Cooper, Seamus. The mall of Cthulhu. San Francisco: Night Shade, 2009. 235pp.

2009-08-25T16:59:00.002-04:00

Seamus Cooper's The Mall of Cthulhu is a seriously strange and funny book.

Okay, here goes. A decade before the main action, Ted, a regular college kid, saves his lesbian best friend, Laura, from a horde of vampires trying to initiate her into their sorority; he's traumatized by having to massacre the whole nest of vampires (including a recently turned frat friend). Ten years later, she's joined the FBI as an analyst while he's unable to overcome his past and is following her from city to city as her career progresses, all the while working a series of McJobs.

Now, he stumbles on a Lovecraftian conspiracy. A bunch of white supremacists are working to bring the Great Old Ones back from their dimension. Ultimately, Ted and Laura work together along with a shadowy yet underfunded government agency to fight them back.

Light-hearted yet still a bit scary, this is a fantastic first novel. Good adventure, engaging characters, some self-deprecating insights into slacker/nerd culture, more-or-less tight plotting, tons of Lovecraft and other pop culture in-jokes not to mention a whole lot of winking and nudging – this is an entertaining melange. I certainly hope Cooper will bring Ted and Laura back for more supernatural adventures.

Maberry, Jonathan. Patient zero. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2009. 421pp.

2009-08-23T16:54:00.002-04:00

If the vampire novel is slipping down into the realm of the bodice ripper, it seems to me that zombies are the new vampire – able to actually embody horror without romance or any kind of soft and fuzzy feelings. Zombies mostly evoke fear and terror and a almost fatalistic wonder at the randomness of the universe.

In the hands of a great up-and-coming horror novelist, zombies can be gold. Jonathan Maberry is just such a writer, the award-winning author of the Ghost Road Blues series of horror novels. Patient Zero is another real winner from Maberry, if anything even better than his earlier trilogy. It's a combination zombie horror and medical thriller – a very good example of the kind of hybrid science fiction horror genre that's bound to become more and more popular.

Basically, the idea is that a Baltimore cop is recruited by a secretive government agency to help stop what seems to be a Middle Eastern terrorist plot to flood the world with a plague of zombies that spread quite easily via victims being bitten. The action is non-stop, the main character, Jack Ledger, is quite well drawn, the plot points are a bit of a stretch but well within thriller limits.

One of the most interesting aspects is that Ledger's best friend, who also gets drawn into the fight, is a therapist who helps cops deal with the stress of their jobs, especially when they are forced to shoot someone. Throughout the novel, he's talking both Ledger and us through what it means to be a human being caught up in a whirlwind of violence and death, helping his friend and the other agents cope with what they're going thought at that basic human level. Very interesting and very well done.

Overall, an exciting and surprisingly thoughtful read. Highest marks in the summer reading sweepstakes. I anxiously await sequels.

(Yeah, I know. Zombies and humour. Zombies are strangely funny, it seems. Argh.)

Frost, Jeaniene. Destined for an early grave. New York: Avon, 2009. 355pp.

2009-08-23T16:52:00.001-04:00

Anne Rice, Joss Whedon and the makers of the Underworld series of films certainly have a lot to answer for – turning the vampire genre from a true subset of the horror genre into a rather lame subset of the romance genre. Not that I have any problem with romantic vampires – as long as they're part of a larger field of vampire fiction that also includes evil, predatory vampires. My problem is that the dark supernatural romance seems to be edging out all the rest.

This brings us to Jeaniene Frost's Destined for an Early Grave. Not normally the kind of book I would read, a review copy just happened to land on my desk just as we were leaving for the cottage for a couple of weeks of R&R. So, I took it along. I also read it. Mind you, there were several times in the first 50 pages that I was sorely tempted to hurl it across the room. The romance stereotype characters drove me crazy. The sexy, feisty and tough yet strangely goofy and insecure female lead; the tall, dark, brooding and yet strangely sensitive male lead. The tall, dark, brooding and yet strangely deranged villain. Yeah, they're all there: Buffy, Angel and Spike. The plot and setting also hit all the highlights in the feudal gothic hit parade. Hereditary ruling classes, byzantine rules and regulations that you must just die for, a heroine with secret powers that happens to be the key to everyone's plans.

In the end, though, I did end up finishing the book – as stereotypical as the characters were, the plot had enough twists to keep me turning the pages even if the ending was dead predictable. Of course, it didn't hurt that initially I wasn't quite sure I'd brought enough books at the cottage so I more or less felt I had to read it. In different circumstances I might not have made it much past page 10 much less 50 or 350.

Sort of recommended. Barely.

And speaking of evil vampires, I have enjoyed David Wellington's work and I do look forward to reading the new Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan book, The Strain. It is out there, I just wish the proportions were a bit different.

Whedon, Joss and George Jeanty. The Long Way Home. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse, 2007. 136pp.

2009-08-21T14:55:00.000-04:00

Joss Whedon and George Jeanty's The Long Way Home is the first graphic novel collection of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 series from Dark Horse.

When the Buffy tv show first came out, my sons were quite small so my wife and I weren't really adding any new tv shows to our roster. But the show did make a psychic impression because a lot of people I knew were watching it and reported loving it. So, now that the kids are older and all the seasons are on DVD, my wife and I basically gorged ourselves on Buffy, watching all seven tv seasons on DVD over about a seven month period -- watching the last couple of seasons in about two weeks each. The season-long story arcs made them very addictive and easy to watch the episodes in bunches.

Well, we finished the apocalyptic Season 7 a few weeks ago and it seemed like a good time to give the comics version Season 8 a try.

So, what do I think? So far, pretty good but not amazing.

There's about a 12 month gap between the end of S7 and the first issue here where some sort of Slayer organization has been set up in Scotland and that whole process is really glossed over very quickly. I could have used a bit more of a explanation of what went on with that, even if it did slow down the opening action. Which actually makes sense, of course, as the tv show never really worried about using up screen time filling in character relationships and back story bits. If anything, that's my big complaint so far with S8, that the characters and their personal stories are really getting short shrift in favour of some rather frenetic and disjointed action. It's understandable that some of the pacing habits of tv would have to change in comics, but so far I'm really missing the characters and their lives and personal stories.

The overall arc of S8 seems to focus on something called Twilight, and I do sort of see where they're going, but I'm really looking forward to getting a better sense of where they're taking the characters, in particular some of the minor characters like Dawn, who somehow has been transformed into a giant due to a romantic liaison with something called a "thricewise," whatever that is. In fact, that would have been a great story in itself. As it is, it seems to be an excuse to bring back the whiny, petulant Dawn of S6 rather than the more mature young woman from S7 -- a step back as far as I'm concerned. Giles as well is more or less missing in action so far too.

I found the storytelling a bit choppy, disjounted and flashbacky, an odd choice for a book that is presumably aimed quite a bit at comics neophytes, drawn in by the Buffy connection. Something a lot more linear and straightforward would seem to be better suited, especially for the first volume.

So, potential, yes. I'll be reading the rest of the series, for sure, but I'm a little concerned by the first collection that Whedon lost track of what made Buffy such a crossover hit the intervening years between S7 & S8.

2009-08-20T15:17:00.002-04:00

Slaughter, Karin. Blindsighted. New York: HarperTorch, 2002. 389pp.
Slaughter, Karin. Beyond reach. New York: Dell, 2008. 573pp.

I don't have too much to say about the two books at hand, both by the aptly-named Karin Slaughter. Blindsighted is a fairly typical serial killer novel while Beyond Reach is a fairly typical crime thriller. Although they don't necessarily have high body counts, the violence and mayhem is intense and brutal, earning the author both her name and her crime writer stripes.

Both are well-written and exciting, with a common cast of characters which Slaughter carries from book to book in a couple of vaguely overlapping series. The plots are clever, the pace is breakneck, the characters well drawn, the action at times shocking and surprising. I've read three of her books (Triptych last summer) and I think I'll be reading a whole lot more.

Sawyer, Robert J. Mindscan. New York: Tor, 2006. 370pp.

2009-08-20T15:08:00.001-04:00

Robert J. Sawyer's Mindscan is a pretty decent philosophically-based science fiction novel, a real exemplar of old fashioned sf that's idea driven rather than character or plot driven. The novel is basically a wire frame for Sawyer to explore ideas about consciousness, identity and even some legal issues. And that's fine – he's not really trying for a novel of character here. A weakness of this approach, of course, becomes readily apparent. In my mind, any time a novel gets bogged down in a bunch of long, drawn-out court scenes basically to give the various characters the chance to explain their take on the philosophical issues at hand, well, you know you're in trouble. And yes, the novel comes to a screeching halt when that happens.

The issue? If you download your consciousness into a cybernetic version of your body, is it really you or just some other being (which may itself be a fully conscious and deserving of it's own personhood) that just thinks it's you. The complication here is that the old meat version of you isn't destroyed after the download, it essentially transfers legal personhood to the new being and then retires to a resort on the Moon. What happens if the Moon version wants it's life back?

For all the word salad, data dumps and mind melds that Sawyer presents, in the end I have to say that I did enjoy the book and found it thought-provoking. I just wish the characters and plots were a little more in the forefront.

Summer 2008 reading

2009-08-19T14:33:00.003-04:00

A bit late on this, I know, but I'm about to start posting some more detailed reading notes from summer 2009, so I thought I'd clear some of this really old stuff out of the "to be posted" pile.

Here goes:

Clancy, Tom. The sum of all fears. New York: Putnam, 1991. 798pp.

Last summer I read A Clear and Present Danger and it was starting to show some of the signs for Clancy's patented literary bloat. This summer, it's The Sum of all Fears and the bloat has pretty well set in. Overall, it's a solid novel, telling the story of Jack Ryan's involvement in some pretty exciting standard Clancy thriller elements like terrorists, submarine tactics, lost nukes, scheming politicians and incompetent and naive liberals. Mostly pretty good stuff, exciting and involving. However, at nearly 800 pages, the book is easily 200 pages too long. Whole sub-plots could have been removed with no difference to the story. The big, explosive climactic event happens around page 600 with 200 pages to go but should have happened at page 200 with 400 to go.

Turtledove, Harry. End of the beginning. New York: Roc, 2006. 519pp.

Last summer's cottage reading included the first part of this two part series, Days of Infamy. Like with Tom Clancy, summer reading always seems to include a Harry Turtledove novel for me. They're quick and easy to read, light but very involving. The large cast of characters and multiple viewpoints make for quick and lively reading. This one is no different.

To quickly set the stage, Japan invaded Pearl Harbor in December 1941 rather than just attacking the American base there. Days of Infamy told the story of the invasion and initial stages of the occupation. End of the Beginning picks up where Days of Infamy leaves off, following the same diverse cast of characters, both American and Japanese, over the next couple of years, until the US bounces back and re-invades.

A bit slow-starting, I did ultimately enjoy the novel. It does a good job of showing the brutality of the Japanese Imperial forces in WWII, something that's certainly not as well known as Nazi brutality. POW camps and comfort women brothels are among the aspects that are well portrayed. If Turtledove's narrative seems somewhat boilerplate, well, that's the nature of what he does. He churns them out pretty quickly, all using the same basic plan. Knowing what to expect, he doesn't disappoint. On the other hand, I do often wish he would be a bit more ambitious.

Now for some super-capsule reviews:

Clapton, Eric. Eric Clapton: The autobiography. New York: Broadway, 2008. 344pp.

Entertaining, frank and surprisingly humble autobiography of guitar hero Eric Clapton. I enjoyed this one a lot, as would anyone interested in guitar players or the classic rock period.

Smith, Scott. The ruins.New York: Vintage, 2007. 509pp.

Good and creepy, a high quality horror novel with a great ending.

Hill, Joe. Heart-shaped box. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. 354pp.

Very good first novel by Stephen King's son. A quick read with some good characters.

Hassel, Sven. Comrades of war. London: Cassel, 2004. 362pp.

War is hell. Dirty, messy, ugly, violent, not for the faint-hearted, not Hollywood at all, this is a provocative read from a controversial author. Supposedly based on his real experiences in WWII, Hassel stretches credibility quite a bit, but much of it rings true.

Latimer, Jonathan. Soloman's Vineyard. London: Xanadu Blue Murder, 1990. 160pp.

A good period hardboiled noir novel. Snappy dialogue, dangerous dames, perverse plotline, at least for the 1940s when it was written. It's all there.

Slaughter, Karen. Triptych. New York: Dell, 2007. 480 pp.

Yikes. This is one violent and intense thriller. A solid cast of characters, tons of action, good suspense, lots of twists and turns. I look forward to sequels -- and must more Slaughterific summer reading. Yes, the aptly named Karen Slaughter is the perfect summer thriller reading.

Hauer, Rutger and Patrick Quinlan. All those moments: Stories of heroes, villains, replicants, and blade runners. New York: Harper, 2008.

2009-05-30T22:26:00.000-04:00

Actor autobiographies are one of those things you need to pick very carefully. I haven't read too many of them over the years, but the ones I have I've been quite pleased with -- Christopher Lee, Leonard Nimoy, Peter Cushing. Ok, William Shatner not so much.

Which brings us to Rutger Hauer.

Made famous by his role as the replicant Roy Batty in Blade Runner, he's also appeared in a bunch of B movies, tv movies and a host of other things. Most recently, he's appeared in Batman Begins.

Most importantly, he's always seemed to be more thoughtful and intelligent than the average Hollywood actor. And he definitely confirms this is his very interesting and engaging memoirs. From his childhood in post-war Holland (yes, he's Dutch rather that German as I always assumed) through all his most notable roles, Hauer takes us along for the ride in a very interesting career. Concentrating on his early years more than the post-Blade Runner era, we see him struggling to find his way. One thing I liked was that no matter how lame the project seemed, he always seemed to give it his all.

A good, solid memoir of an important genre actor.

Depp, Daniel. Loser's town. Toronto: Penguin, 2009. 339pp.

2009-05-29T21:13:00.003-04:00

I must admit I had pretty low expectations for this one. In fact, very low.

Daniel Depp, you see, is the half brother of Johnny. The prospect of reading a novel, not by a Hollywood star but by a relative of a Hollywood star certainly set off the alarm bells.

Serves me right for jumping to such conclusions. Depp's Loser's Town is terrific. It's basically a Hollywood hardboiled PI noir, set amongst the fakes and phonies of the film industry. The potential series character, David Spandau, is well drawn and believable -- a tough guy, smart, heart-broken and sensitive, has a lot of potential. The voice is strong and assured. I look forward to futher novels in the series, not because it mentions that another is coming, but because you have to believe that Depp won't be allowed to leave it at one.

The plot is appropriately convoluted but not improbable at all. It's dark enough by the end to keep even the most cynical reader happy.

Good stuff. Give it a try.

(Uncorrected proof supplied by publisher.)

What I read: 2008

2009-05-29T20:58:00.000-04:00

What do you care what I read in 2008? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

Ambient Findability by Peter Morville
Year's Best Fantasy 6 edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
Slide by Ken Bruen & Jason Starr
Farthing by Jo Walton
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 edited by Richard Preston & Tim Folger (Series Editor)
The Keeper by Sarah Langan
A Century of Noir edited by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins
Einstein: A Life by Walter Isaacson
Hardboiled America: Lurid Paperbacks And The Masters Of Noir by Geoffrey O'Brien
Supercrunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way To Be Smart by Ian Ayres
Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania by Matthew Chapman
Year's Best SF 11 edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
Infected by Scott Sigler
Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky
Free as in Speech and Beer: Open Source, Peer-to-Peer and the Economics of the Online Revolution by Darren Wershler-Henry
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google by Nicholas Carr
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover
Complications: A Surgeon's Note on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Best New Horror 17 edited by Stephen Jones
Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel J. Solove
The Best of Technology Writing 2007 by Steven Levy
The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy
Wrinkles in Time: Witness to the Birth of the Universe by George Smoot and Keay Davidson
The End of the Beginning by Harry Turtledove
Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton
The Ruins by Scott Smith
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Comrades of War by Sven Hassel
Solomon's Vineyard by
Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study by Steve Batterson
Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them by Clifford Pickover
Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design by Michael Shermer
Triptych by Karen Slaughter
Dark Crusade by Karl Edward Wagner
Little Girl Lost by Richard Aleas
The Wraparound Universe by Jean-Pierre Luminet
Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 by Sarah Lacy
Bad Moon Rising by Jonathan Maberry
The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier
The Best American Science Writing 2008 edited by Sylvia Nasar & Jesse Cohen (series editor)
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany by Bill Buford
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008 edited by Jerome Groopman and Tim Folger (series editor)
The Quantum Ten: A Story of Passion, Tragedy, Ambition, and Science by Sheilla Jones
The Dime Detectives: a Comprehensive History of the Detective Fiction Pulps by Ron Goulart
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future by Cory Doctorow
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens
Mafiaboy: How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken by Michael Calce and Craig Silverman

I should mention that there are a significant number of books I've read that aren't on the list. I'm not recording the books I read for the Sunburst Awards as I don't think the list of books actually submitted for consideration are made public anywhere.

One book that I did read that's not on the list is The Open Laboratory: The Best Science Writing on Blogs 2007, edited by Reed Cartwright and Bora Zivkovic. Since I was on the advance screening panel of judges for the book, I did read all the posts that are reprinted in it during the judging period at the end of 2007; I also ordered and received the book in 2008. But I never actually cracked the cover and re-read all the posts during 2008. I did re-read a few, but not all.

Catch Up Post August -- December 2007

2008-01-01T18:14:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting for a while, so I thought I'd catch up by listing the books I've read since the last post here with a one or two sentence comment. Trying to do real reviews at this point would be too time consuming and I'd rather get up to speed fast and resume regular posting than risk falling so far behind that I don't bother to start posting again.

Pohl, Frederik. The Boy who Would Live Forever. New York: Tor, 2005. 384pp.
Pretty typical late period Pohl. Kind of rambling and discursive, a bit weak on plot but full of lots of heart and enjoyable characters. Worth it for fans of Pohl's work or the Heechee books but probably not for the casual reader.
Hamilton, Donald. The Wrecking Crew. New York: Fawcett Gold Medal, 1960. 176pp.
Another short sharp shock, the second in the Matt Helm series. Lots of twists and turns, hardboiled and noir, violent and cruel. Good stuff.
Wellington, David. 13 Bullets. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007. 336pp.
Over the top horror at it's finest. A modern vampire vs. copy tale, violent and bloody, no refugees from Anne Rice-land either. the vampires are deliciously evil and demented.
Dozois, Gardner, ed. The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty Second Annual Collection. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005. 704pp.
Self-recommending. Full of great stories. Read it and it's brethren from previous and later years if you care about science fiction at the shorter lengths.
Stracher, Cameron. Dinner with Dad: How I Found My Way Back to the Family Table. New York: Random House, 2007. 256pp.
A heart-warming tale of a type-A workaholic dad who tries to slow down a bit and cook dinner for his family more often. A story of overwork, overstress, long commutes and crazy schedules. Mostly, Stracher makes it work.
Stephen Jones, ed. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: 16. New York: Carroll & Graff, 2005. 512pp.
Another can't miss collection. I've been reading these for 10-plus years and I'm not sure if there's been an over all better selection than in this edition.
Scalzi, John. The Last Colony. New York: Tor, 2007. 320pp.
A bit of a disappointment. A bit too talky and slow-moving compared to the previous installments with not enough emphasis on the action that has made Scalzi famous. Also, he really needs to expand this palette of characterization. Not everyone wise-cracks constantly. Also, the Perry/Jane/Zoe family unit is way too transparently Scalzi's own family for my liking. Again, to get to the next level as a novelist, he really needs to work on his characters.

What I read: 2007

2008-01-01T14:18:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 2007? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful.

Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
Over My Dead Body by Lee Server
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 edited by Brian Greene
The Best American Science Writing 2006 edited by Atul Gawande
Demons by John Shirley
The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 edited by Bora Zivkovic
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels by David Pringle
Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal
It by Stephen King
The Google Story by: Inside the Hottest Business, Media, and Technology Success of Our Time by David Vise & Mark Malseed
Witness to Myself by Seymour Shubin
Lady Yesterday by Loren D. Estleman
Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future by Eric Dregni & Jonathan Dregni
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip Jose Farmer
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin
Still Life with Crows by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Balanced Libraries: Thoughts on Continuity and Change by Walt Crawford
The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters by Ardea Skybreak
The Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli
You'll Die Next by Harry Whittington
Trials of the Monkey: An Accidental Memoir by Matthew Chapman
Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger
Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Stolen by Kelley Armstrong
Days of Infamy by Harry Turtledove
The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
Ghost Road Blues by Jonathan Maberry
The Boy who Would Live Forever by Frederik Pohl
Glut: Mastering Information Through The Ages by Alex Wright
Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature by David Quammen
The Wrecking Crew by Donald Hamilton
13 Bullets by David Wellington
The Year's Best Science Fiction: 22 edited by Gardner Dozois
Dinner with Dad: How I Found My Way Back to the Family Table by Cameron Stracher
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: 16 edited by Stephen Jones
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts by John McCain, David Dunbar, and Brad Reagan
The Best American Science Writing 2007 by Gina Kolata
Dead Man's Song by Jonathan Maberry

Maberry, Jonathan. Ghost road blues. New York: Pinnacle, 2006. 472pp.

2007-08-08T22:40:00.000-04:00

A great read, a fantastic first novel full of great action, spooky treats and gonzo villains. Basically, there's this hick town which has turned Halloween into a kind of industry, with specialised boutiques and rides. But, little do we know that the town is haunted by an ancient evil that is reawakening after being defeated 30 years before. The good guys are not really aware of what is going on as the bad guys get all their forces in order for the first cataclysmic encounter. The good guys win, of course, but not without some losses. However, this is the first book in a projected trilogy so I imagine that there's lots of carnage to come.

There are some first novel issues here, including a slightly flabby page count, overly precious and smug characters and an over reliance on snappy dialogue. Crow, for example, is far too obviously an idealized version of the way the author sees himself, while Val is equally obviously an idealized version of his adolescent dreams of a powerful, sexy kick-ass women who somehow totally loves the complete goofball main character.

Overall, though, I have to say that there are far more positives than negatives for this novel and I'm looking forward to reading the sequels.

Malmont, Paul. The Chinatown death cloud peril. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. 367pp.

2007-08-08T22:39:00.000-04:00

Now this is a cool book! A phantasmagorical postmodern pastiche-orama, a 1930s pulp plot involving 1930s pulp authors as the main protagonists!

Walter Gibson (Maxwell Grant/The Shadow) and Lester Dent (Kenneth Robeson/Doc Savage) are the main ones, with significant contributions from L. Ron Hubbard, Chester Himes, John W. Campbell, Orson Welles, H.P. Lovecraft, Cornell Woolrich, E.E. “Doc” Smith, Stan Lee, “Otis Driftwood” (I'm not giving that one away...), Blackstone the Magician, even Joe Kavalier gets a mention and Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster get a cameo! And that's not including the ones I don't recognize!

Crammed full of colourful action sequences, daring escapes, dastardly villains with evil plots, weird science, zombies, magicians and evil, cruel editors, it's actually a bit short on plot sanity and cohesion, but it's definitely long on atmosphere and good old pulpy fun. I can't recommend this novel enough. I really enjoyed it, despite a few first novel failings.
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Scalzi, John. The ghost brigades.. New York: Tor, 2007. 343pp.

2007-08-08T22:38:00.000-04:00

My Scalzi habit seems to be forming. Last summer I read Old man's war at the cottage, exploring a new author, and enjoyed it a lot. This summer, I did the same thing, this time reading Scalzi's second book in his OMW series, The ghost brigades. And guess what, I loved it too. This guy fits as much plot into 343 pages as a guy like Harry Turtledove fits into an entire seven volume series. Action, adventure, romance, intrigue, loyalty, honour, lively smart-ass dialogue, blood and guts. Military sf with brains and a heart, the courage to ask big questions, to challenge easy assumptions about good guys and bad guys. And I'm not even that big a fan of military sf, most times. Habit forming. I hope there's another Scalzi coming out in paperpack next spring/summer to take with me on whatever travels we get up to. Highly recommended. Scalzi has rocketed to the front of the line of my favourite authors.

Turtledove, Harry. Days of infamy. New York: Penguin Roc, 2005. 520pp.

2007-08-08T22:37:00.000-04:00

A pretty typical Turtledove alternate history novel, nothing more, nothing less. Interesting premise, large cast of viewpoint characters on both sides, lots of plot threads to make room for a bunch of sequels, a fair amount of padding in the text itself in the form of endless repetitions. And most of all, not much plot for a lot of pages.

This one is set in the Pacific theatre of WWII, with Japan invading and occupying Pearl Harbor in December 1941 instead of just mounting a surprise attack. The occupation that Turtledove presents seems suitably brutal, mostly in sync with what we know about the Japanese military during the war. Since Turtledove always has some characters conflicted by their situation in his alternate histories, this one is no different. This time it's the substantial population of Hawaiian Japanese, with the older generations tending to favour their homeland and younger siding with the USA. Of course, the Yankee characters are generally fairly arrogant and self-assured about their innate superiority and it's nice to see them taken down a peg by the superiority of the Japanese forces, leading me to at times root for the Japanese (if only temporarily, the occupation is truly brutal). I imagine that we'll see the American forces get the upper hand in later volumes.

Armstrong, Kelley. Stolen. Toronto: Random House, 2002. 399pp.

2007-08-08T22:36:00.000-04:00

What's the demographic for this novel? I really felt that this novel was squarely aimed at a certain type of fan, the fan of Laurel K. Hamilton & those other spooky sexy romance novels. But could it transcend its demographic and find interest for a 44 year old guy? (Or is a 44yog part and parcel of the demo for a sexy horror novel?)

When you get right down to it, it's all adolescent wish fulfillment, to have power in a world that doesn't recognize your specialness, to have secret powers, to be above the morals of mere humans. Even the good characters are more or less amoral killers, I find the Clay character particularly annoying and smug, even the main character, Elena, seemed a bit of an idealized awkward, gawky adolescent goth: tall, skinny, plain, poor fashion sense, not very accomplished in “real” life, snarky and sarcastic but somehow powerful, sexy, ultra-competent and poised. Not to mention, still somehow able to win the affections of the smartest, most competent, best-looking male character.

A quick outline of the plot: the secret werewolf society becomes aware of the larger world of supernatural beings, including witches, half-demons, vampires and others. The attend a meeting of leaders of these groups to assess the dangers of a group of humans that seems to be hunting and capturing various members of the races. Ultimately, Elena is captured and imprisoned by the humans, financed and lead by a rogue billionaire software geek. Eventually, she escapes with some of the other captured supernaturals, and, well, you can guess the rest.

There's some stuff that's wrong with this novel, mostly that it needed to grow up a bit, to get to adulthood, adult characters and adult situations. The series has a lot of potential, potential I would like to see fulfilled. I liked the first episode of the loose series quite a bit, but this one not quite as much. I do look forward to reading more installments to see how the series and the characters grow, even if the series shifts to the less interesting witches rather than the werewolves. A bit of a sophomore jinx is nothing to abandon the series for.

Clancy, Tom. Clear and present danger. New York: Berkley, 1990. 688pp

2007-08-08T22:35:00.000-04:00

Good ol' Tom Clancy. A bit of technophilia, some serious obsessiveness about “competence” and honour and duty and gadgetry. On the other hand, there's also a strong emphasis on camaraderie, the vital importance of mentors, relationships with friends, the centrality of families – you would almost call the guy sentimental. Every character needs to have a background, a context, an explanation for their strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it feels like he's taking a stock character out of central casting, but sometimes it hits the right note. Clancy is also oddly pragmatic or even liberal about a lot of traditional right wing issues, like that drug problem as much about demand as supply, women in the military or US involvement in Central America and other developing nations. His characters also always ask questions about what they're doing, ponder moral rights and wrongs of their actions, the nature of good and evil, the nature and purpose of government action. You don't always have to agree with the characters' conclusions, but it's interesting that Clancy feels the need to have them asked and not always even answered completely. There's a lot of grey in a novel you expect to be black and white.

So, what's the big picture plot outline. The novel opens with a horrific execution at sea of a US businessman and his wife and kidson a South American fishing trip. This spins out with the President getting the CIA to launch a real War on Drugs, more no-holds-barred. It gets a bit out of hand with some semi-rogue elements in the government. Some CIA good guys like agent John Clark and new acting Deputy Director Intelligence of the CIA, Jack Ryan, and a whole bunch of army super-grunts need to save the day and get the Agency back on a more legal and ethical track. There's lots of explosions and miscellaneous derring do. I also find it odd that the whole War Against Drugs plot line feels almost like a historical novel. It's a good thriller, but it almost feels like it's about Berlin in 1950. It's worth noting that we don't even see Jack Ryan much until after page 100, and even then he's peripheral to the main action until the very end.

And how does it compare to the movie starring Harrison Ford? The movie more or less successfully mixes and matches some of the characters and plots, extracting some and adding others, figuring out a way to make Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) more completely integrated in the action. Pretty good but since it leaves out all the crazy detail that make Clancy novels so much nerdy fun, it seems a bit bland in comparison.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of champions. New York: Dell, 1973. 295pp.

2007-06-22T15:20:00.001-04:00

Vonnegut died a little while ago and I thought I'd dig up one of his novels I'd never read and give it a try, and Breakfast of champions was the one I found first in the vast recesses of my personal library. Now, I never discovered Vonnegut as a teen, the time that most people who are most passionate about him seem to clue in. Vonnegut, like Dick or Ellison or Lovecraft, seems to speak most directly to the emerging adult, the insecurities, the cynicism mixed with idealism, the smart-aleciness. I certainly remember one of my best friends back in the late high school, early college era really catching the Vonnegut bug and endlessly spouting quotes and aphorisms. For some reason, thought, it didn't happen to me with Vonnegut -- although in spades for Dick, Ellison and Lovecraft, of course.

I have read a bunch of Vonnegut novels since leaving my teen years, and mostly liked them quite a bit if not quite with that all-consuming passion of the real devotee. Breakfast of champions is mostly considered middle range Vonnegut, not his best but not his worst either. And I have to say that's my opinion too. Loosely plotted around his signiture character, sf author Kilgore Trout, traveling to a conference to accept an award and the various other characters directly and indirectly involved, it's an amusing romp, full of Vonnegut's trademark gentle humour and biting satire. A kind of world-weariness mixed with optimism, if you will. Good stuff, if not quite gripping or compelling.

Farmer, Philip Jose. The fabulous riverboat. New York: Berkley Medallion, 1973. 256pp.

2007-06-22T15:07:00.000-04:00

This is the second book in Farmer's Riverworld series, the first of which, To your scattered bodies go, I reviewed about 18 months ago. That one was quite a good book, really deserving the classic label. As a reminder, the Riverworld series takes place on a giant planet where everyone from all human history has been reincarnated along a hugely long river.

This one, however, was a bit of a disappointment. The story revolves around Samuel Clemens' (yes, Mark Twain) attempts to build a river boat to explore the river and discover the secrets of the mysterious aliens that have created this bizarre scenario. First of all, the book was mostly political wrangling until the very end, the boat project didn't really even get underway until the last 100 or so pages. The story never really grabbed me like the first one.

The third in the series is about exploring the Riverworld, so I will probably end up giving that one a try. On the other hand, the extended series rule of diminishing sequel returns may not favour that option. We'll see.

Preston, Douglas and Lincoln Child. Still life with crows. New York: Warner, 2004. 592pp.

2007-05-27T21:30:00.000-04:00

I love the occasional seriously over the top thriller and this series by Preston and Child fits the bill perfectly. This is the fourth in a loose series, the first being Relic, then Reliquary and Cabinet of curiosities. There are three or four more that I haven't gotten to yet.

Gonzo, grizzly and gruesome, the three g-words that describe this great novel. The setting is a microscopically small town in Kansas where a series of increasingly bizarre and violent killing take place, potentially disrupting a hoped-for economic biotech spin off in the town. The killings draw the very stange FBI Agent Pendergrast who teams up with a local teen misfit to solve the crime. It sounds like it shouldn't work but it does. Preston and Child give the book enough narrative drive and gory detail to keep you interested. And Pendergrast is a quirky and odd enough character to keep you coming back to the series (although he isn't in all the previous books, like I said the series so far is quite loose). While Pendergrast is a little too alien a figure to give the books a intimate human dimension, the authors always come up with a local character to identify with. This time it's teen misfit Corrie Swanson, a goth kid who's ostracized by the community but is smart and savvy enough to be a real help to Pendergrast. I think we'll be seeing more of her eventually, as she would surely make a good long-term sidekick one day.

One minor complaint about the series, though. I find they always tease supernatural causes for the mayhem but in the end it always ends with a naturalistic explanation -- and that's ok. I don't need a horror novel to be supernatural, human nature is scary enough. My problem is that they always end up having the whole thing be a bit stretched to the bounds of credibility for my taste, as if they felt the need to push the limit while they were writing and they had to squeeze in the reality at the end.

Estleman, Loren. Lady yesterday. New York: Ballantine, 1988. 211pp.

2007-05-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

This is a novel in Estleman's long-running Amos Walker series of novels about a hard-bitten Detroit PI. It's a pretty good novel, nothing too fancy. A girl-gone-bad-gone-good looking for her father gets Walker to help. He digs deeply into her past, finding out some things that she doesn't want to know meanwhile pissing off various members of the criminal underground. A fairly standard tough-guy mystery, but with a good plot, good characters. Short and sweet, to the point. I look forward to trying out more books in this series and by this author.

Shubin, Seymour. Witness to myself. New York: Hard Case, 2006. 250pp.

2007-05-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

So, this kid possibly commits a crime at 16 while on vacation with his parents, an assault on a young girl, but didn't stick around long enough to tell if the girl lived. Years pass, he becomes a successful lawyer but he still doesn't know what happened all those years ago. So, he researches the crime, to see if anything was in the papers in the small town where it happened. And from there it commences, he draws attention to himself, he attracts a weird stalker and it all comes to a head and not how you think, either.

A bit of departure from straight noir, as nobody is really a stone criminal but nevertheless I found this novel to be pretty entertaining. It's one of the first of the Hard Case Crime novels that I've read that was not a classic reprint but an original novel. In fact, it's a bit disconcerting when the guy does most of his research on the web (although he does end up at the town library), it almost seems a bit unnatural for modern technology to impinge on the noir genre.

In any case, Shubin is a classic noir author so I guess it all evens out. I recommend this book heartily. It's not a classic but it's got enough twists and turns to keep anyone happy.

King, Stephen. It. New York: Signet, 1987. 1090pp.

2007-04-12T23:47:00.000-04:00

Reading this novel is like running a marathon. You start and it just goes on and on. One thousand and ninety pages. I've hardly ever in my life read such a long novel; the only other one I can think of over 1000 pages is also King's -- The Stand, Expanded edition, natch. Well worth it, but also a marathon.

I started It during a vacation that I knew had a couple of longish train rides, to get a good head start. But still, it took me a good 3 weeks to get to the end. Was it worth it? On the whole, I have to say yes. If anyone can keep the interest level high over such a long book, it has to be a natural storyteller like King. I really enjoyed the detail, the opportunity to really get to know a few interesting characters. The story of the battle of good and evil in Derry Maine, twice fought, in 1958 and 1985, of a group of kids at 11 and 38, is a good one combining a coming of age and an acceptance of adulthood.

But, such a long book must settle for a short review. Read it, but you better start soon.

what I read: 1992

2007-04-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

What do you care what I read in 1992? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful.

the comic book killer by Richard Lupoff
In the blood edited by Alan Ryan
War of the worlds / Time machine by H.G. Wells
In the land of the living by Robert Silverberg
Star wreck II by Leah Rewolinski
Good omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley
Widows by Ed McBain
The Hemingway hoax by Joe Haldeman
The city and the stars by Arthur C. Clarke
Time of the fox by Matthew J. Costello
The soft whisper of the dead by Charles L. Grant
Harlan Ellison's watching by Harlan Ellison
The seeds of treason by Ted Allebury
Outnumbering the dead by Frederik Pohl
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Ace Double: Eye for eye by Orson Scott Card / The tunesmith by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
Polar star by Martin Cruz Smith
Pastime by Robert B. Parker
The difference engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Our angry earth by Isaac Asimov & Frederik Pohl
The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick
The bridge by John Skipp & Craig Spector
Oh Canada, Oh Quebec by Mordecai Richler
The seeress of Kell by David Eddings
The killing of Reinhard Heinrich: The SS "Butcher of Prague" by Callum McDonald
The golden fleece by Robert J. Sawyer
Fetish by Edward Bryant
Boy's life by Robert R. McCammon
In the blood by Nancy A. Collins
Kiss of death by Daniel Rhodes
The firm by John Grisham
The dark beyond the stars by Frank M. Robinson
First blood by David Morrell
Tales from Gavagan's bar by L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
The divine invasion by Lawrence Sutin
Stopping at slowyear by Frederik Pohl
Covenant of the flame by David Morrell
Against infinity by Gregory Benford
The demolished man by Alfred Bester
Rock and a hard place by Peter David
The world at the end of time by Frederik Pohl
Author's choice monthly by Joe R. Lansdale
Bimbos of the death sun by Sharon McCrumb
In the land of the dead by K.W. Jeter
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
The engine of the night by Barry Malzberg
Wonderful life by Stephen Jay Gould
Bad brains by Kathe Koja
The exile kiss by George Alec Effinger
By reason of insanity by Shane Stevens
Needful things by Stephen King
Nine princes in amber by Roger Zelazny
Military misfortunes by Eliot A. Cohen & John Gooch
Summer of night by Dan Simmons
Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett
The sachertorte algorithm by John Shore
Genus homo by L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller
Hitler slept late by James P. Duffy
Across the sea of suns by Gregory Benford
Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman
Jhereg by Steven Brust
Dream makers by Charles Platt
Age of wonder by David G. Hartwell
What might have been, V3 edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Hype and glory by William Goldman
Wilderness by Dennis Danvers
Heir to the empire by Timothy Zahn
Forever war by Joe Haldeman
One monday we killed them all by John D. Macdonald
The guns of avalon by Roger Zelazny
Slaughterhouse five by Kurt Vonnegut
The stand by Stephen King
Count Geiger's blues by Michael Bishop
Indiana Jones and the dance of giants by Roy Macgregor
The M.D. by Thomas M. Disch
Brothers in arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
Miami blues by Charles Willeford
Deus X by Norman Spinrad
Carve the sky by Alexander Jablokov
The rainbow abyss by Barbara Hambly
Empire of fear by Brian Stableford
Demon by John Varley
Kiss by Ed McBain

What I read: 1991

2007-03-29T22:33:00.000-04:00

What do you care what I read in 1991? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful.

American vampires by Norine Dresser
Carrion comfort by Dan Simmons
Bone by George C. Chesbro
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
That's not all folks by Mel Blanc
Vespers by Ed McBain
Strange invasion by Michael Kandel
The ascension factor by Michael Bishop
Software conflict by Robert Glass
The cipher by Kathe Koja
Prime directive by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The dark half by Stephen King
The thief of time by Tony Hillerman
Cutter by Edward Bryant
Yellow fog by Les Daniels
A fire in the sun by George Alec Effinger
Xolotl by Robert Sheckley
The game by Ken Dryden
Poodle springs by Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker
The SFWA handbook edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith
Rules of prey by John Sanford
Flag full of stars by Brad Ferguson
The killer inside me by Jim Thompson
Stardust by Robert B. Parker
The fifth profession by David Morrell
Songs from the starts by Norman Spinrad
Deadlines by John Skipp and Craig Spector
Polar city blues by Katherine Kerr
Esse hominid by Esther Friesner
Gauntlet edited by Barry Hoffmann
Sunglasses after dark by Nancy A. Collins
Vendetta by Peter David
The girl who fell from the sky by Kate Wilhelm
A case of mistaken identity by L. Timmel Duchamp
Black cherry blues by James Lee Burke
Good news from outer space by John Kessel
Lords of the line by David Cruise & Alison Griffiths
Murder can be fun by Frederic Brown
The city, not long after by Pat Murphy
Wizardry & wild romance by Michael Moorcock
Hard candy by Andrew Vachss
Mark of the werewolf by Jeffrey Sackett
Only begotten daughter by James Morrow
Dinosaurs by Walter Jon Williams
The mythical man month by Fred L. Brooks
Slob by Rex Miller
Myth-nomers and Impervections by Robert Asprin
The further adventures of the Joker edited by Martin H. Greenberg
What might have been VII edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg
Batman: Captured by the Engines by Joe R. Lansdale
My enemy, my ally by Diane Duane
Homegoing by Frederik Pohl
A morning for flamingoes by James Lee Burke
A burden of proof by Scott Turow
Obsession by Rick Reed
Sunday best by Edward O. Phillips
The quickening by Michael Bishop
City of truth by James Morrow
Pacific edge by Kim Stanley Robinson
Under the yoke by S.M. Stirling
The will to swing by Gene Lees
Wyrd sisters by Terry Pratchett
The left hand of darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Romulan way by Diane Duane & Peter Morwood
Dark matter by Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi by Rob MacGregor
Russian spring by Norman Spinrad
No enemy but time by Michael Bishop
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Q-in-law by Peter David
Killer on the road by James Ellroy
Four past midnight by Stephen King
Man-Kzin wars IV by Donald Kingsbury, Greg Bear and S.M. Stirling
Books of blood V by Clive Barker
Green eyes by Lucius Shepard
Night by Alan Rodgers
Jurassic park by Michael Crichton

What I read: 1990

2007-03-23T23:37:00.000-04:00

What do you care what I read in 1990? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful.

Ace Double: The color of neanderthal eyes by James Tiptree, Jr. // And strange at ecbatan the trees by Michael Bishop
Black sun rising by Frederik Pohl
Lincoln's dreams by Connie Willis
Through darkest America by Neal Barrett, jr.
The scream by John Skipp and Craig Spector
Marching through Georgia by S.M. Stirling
Demon lord of Karanda by David Eddings
Playmates by Robert B. Parker
Narabedla, Inc. by Frederik Pohl
The colour of magic by Terry Prachett
Only apparently real by Paul Williams
Black dahlia by James Ellroy
Wonder's child by Jack Williamson
Callahan's secret by Spider Robinson
When gravity fails by George Alec Effinger
Blood of the impaler by Jeffrey Sackett
Nighteyes by Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The maker of Dune by Frank Herbert
Islands in the net by Bruce Sterling
Bio of an ogre by Piers Anthony
Slaves of the volcano god by Craig Shaw Gardner
Headhunter by Michael Slade
Winter palace by Dennis Jones
Strike zone by Peter David
The wolf's hour by Robert R. McCammon
Love and marriage by Bill Cosby
Doctor's orders by Diane Duane
Tau zero by Poul Anderson
Metamorphosis by David Suzuki
The skin trade edited by Douglas E. Winter
The league of night and fog by David Morrell
I hope I shall arrive soon by Philip K. Dick
A is for alibi by Sue Grafton
Peter Cushing: An autobiography by Peter Cushing
Presumed innocent by Scott Turow
Deserted cities of the heart by Lewis Shiner
The exorcist by William Peter Blatty
Lori by Robert Bloch
Good times by Russell Baker
Ace Double: Enemy mine by Barry B. Longyear // Another orphan by John Kessel
A talent for war by Jack McDevitt
The evolution man by Roy Lewis
Ancient images by Ramsey Campbell
Science fiction in the real world by Norman Spinrad
Digging dinosaurs by Jack R. Horner
Star Trek: The lost years by J.M. Dillard
Nick and the Glimmung by Philip K. Dick
The god box by Barry B. Longyear
The silence of the lambs by Thomas Harris
Becoming a technical leader by Gerald M. Weinberg
Misery by Stephen King
Star wreck by Leah Rewolinski
Running wild by J.G. Ballard
Sea of glass by Barry B. Longyear
Dark dreamers by Stanley Wiater
Red prophet by Orson Scott Card
The chocolat war by Robert Cormier
Managing programming people by Philip Metzger
Escape from Kathmandu by Kim Stanley Robinson
Sorceress of Darshiva by David Eddings
The healer's war by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
The right place at the right time by Robert MacNeil
Sepulchre by James Herbert
Bill: Planet of the robot slaves by Harry Harrison
A hidden place by Robert Charles Wilson
Book of the dead by John Skipp and Craig Spector

What I read: 1989

2007-03-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

What do you care what I read in 1989? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency by Douglas Adams
The leper of St. Giles by Ellis Peters
Other Americas by Normal Spinrad
Cabal by Clive Barker
Knight life by Peter David
2061: Odyssey three by Arthur C. Clarke
The green train by Herbert Lieberman
One-L by Scott Turow
Survivors by Jean Lorrah
In the ocean of night by Gregory Benford
The hunting season by John Coyne
Mindkiller by Spider Robinson
The king of the Murgos by David Eddings
I'll cry when I kill you by Peter Israel
XPD by Len Deighton
Spock must die! by James Blish
The jagged orbit by John Brunner
Crimson joy by Robert B. Parker
Memory prime by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens
Pet sematary by Stephen King
This is the way the world ends by James Morrow
Hot blood edited by Jeff Gelb and Lonn Friend
Seventh son by Orson Scott Card
The gold coast by Kim Stanley Robinson
Ghoul by Michael Slade
Replay by Ken Grimwood
The hormone jungle by Robert Reed
The hunt for red october by Tom Clancy
Prime evil edited by Douglas E. Winter
Angry candy by Harlan Ellison
Bill, the galactic hero by Harry Harrison
Unicorn mountain by Michael Bishop
Spock's world by Diane Duane
The eyes of the dragon by Stephen King
The colour out of time by Michael Shea
The suiting by Kelley Wilde
Bare bones edited by Tim Underwood & Chuck Miller
The Barsoom project by Larry Niven and Stephen Barnes
Greenmantle by John Buchan
Rogue male by Geoffrey Household
Fade by Robert Cormier
An edge in my voice by Harlan Ellison
Journey into fear by Eric Ambler
The spy who came in from the cold by John Le Carre
What might have been: I edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg
Howling mad by Peter David
Myth inc link by Robert Asprin
Adversary by Daniel Rhodes
The year's best horror: 11 edited by Karl Edward Wagner
Mort by Terry Pratchett
Obsession by Ramsey Campbell
The motion of light in water by Samuel R. Delany
Lullaby by Ed McBain
The Kobayashi Maru by Julia Eckler

Shirley, John. Demons. New York: Ballantine, 2003. 372pp.

2007-03-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

This is really two pretty good horror novels bound together as one. The first is Shirley's short novel Demons and the second is its sequel Undercurrent.

Demons is a fairly traditional horror novel, well done in an over-the-top way. It seems that demons have suddenly started appearing in the world, randomly killing people that get in their way. A courageous band of anti-heroes band together to figure out how to get rid of them. Some good gorey sequences and some good mumbo-jumbo supernatural stuff too make for a satisfying experience. Undercurrent, the sequel, picks up nine years later and it seems that the government has convinced everyone (or almost everyone) that the original infestation was a mass delusion. So, it seems that this evil corporation want to...well, I'll let you find that out for yourself. Undercurrent neatly subverts the traditional horror tropes and pushes them into a kind of social citique of capitalist greed. I'm not sure how well it works in the end, nor am I sure that it makes for as compelling a read as the original, but I have to give Shirley props for reaching high.

What I read: 1988

2007-03-06T20:53:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1988? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Thunderball by Ian Fleming
The alteration by Kingsley Amis
A fine and private place by Peter S. Beagle
The lights in the sky are stars by Fredric Brown
Myth directions by Robert Asprin
The end of the night by John D. Macdonald
The brotherhood of the rose by David Morrell
Ender's game by Orson Scott Card
Her death of cold by Ralph McInerny
The moon godess and the sun by Donald Kingsbury
Shadow land by Peter Straub
Chernobyl by Frederik Pohl
The godwulf manuscript by Robert B. Parker
Bloodthirst by J.M. Dillard
The shore of women by Pamela Sargent
The witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz
Becoming Alien by Rebecca Ore
Dagon by Fred Chappell
The panic of '89 by Paul Erdman
Rumplestiltskin by Ed McBain
Hit or myth by Robert Asprin
Bio of a space tyrant 5: Stateman by Piers Anthony
The red fox by Anthony Hyde
Ancient of days by Michael Bishop
A friendship: The letters of Dan Rowan and John D. MacDonald 1967-1974 by Dan Rowan and John D. MacDonald
The devil in velvet by John Dickson Carr
The guardians of the west by David Eddings
The annals of the Heechee by Frederik Pohl
Valediction by Robert B. Parker
Hold on, Mr. President by Sam Donaldson
The widening gyre by Robert B. Parker
The songs of distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke
Radix by A.A. Attanasio
Pale kings and princes by Robert B. Parker
The princess bride by William Goldman
Ironweed by William Kennedy
The vampire tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas
The blue hammer by Ross MacDonald
Pavane by Keith Roberts
Be true to your school by Bob Greene
Dark horse by Fletcher Knebel
Speaker for the dead by Orson Scott Card
Final frontier by Diane Carey
Glitz by Elmore Leonard
The black robe by Brian Moore
Tuf voyaging by George R.R. Martin
The long night of the grave by Charles L. Grant
Lovecraft's book by Richard Lupoff
The eagle has landed by Jack Higgins
The Bourne identity by Robert Ludlum
Myth-ing persons by Robert Asprin
Dead image by Clive Barker
Heavenly breakfast by Samuel R. Delany
The dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
Sleepless nights in the procrustean bed by Harlan Ellison
Full spectrum edited by Lou Aronica and Sheila McCarthy
Next, after Lucifer by Daniel Rhodes
Children of the shroud by Garfield Reeves-Stephens
The incorporated knight by L. Sprague de Camp
Early autumn by Robert B. Parker
The fraternity of the stone by David Morrell
The dragon in the sword by Michael Moorcock
Dr. Adder by K.W. Jeter
Gorky park by Martin Cruz Smith
Station Gehenna by Andrew Weiner
Dress her in indigo by John D. Macdonald
Dark valley destiny by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp and Jane Whittington Griffin
The best of Jack Williamson by Jack Williamson
Little myth marker by Robert Asprin

What I read: 1987

2007-03-06T20:21:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1987? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Neuromancer by William Gibson
The best of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick
Callahan's crosstime saloon by Spider Robinson
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice
A mobid taste for bones by Ellis Peters
Blue champagne by John Varley
Trespass by Fletcher Knebel
The virgin & the wheels by L. Sprague de Camp
Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon
Fuzz by Ed McBain
Three hearts and three lions by Poul Anderson
The best of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber
The warlock unlocked by Christopher Stasheff
The adventures of the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
Taming a seahorse by Robert B. Parker
Different seasons by Stephen King
Ceremony by Robert B. Parker
Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Radio free Albemuth by Philip K. Dick
Raven: Swordsmistress of chaos by Richard Kirk
Looking for Rachel Wallace by Robert B. Parker
Dream park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes
Wild cards edited by George R.R. Martin
Fatherhood by Bill Cosby
Armageddon rag by George R.R. Martin
Not this August by C.M. Kornbluth
Strangers from the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonnano
Fouth side of the triange by Ellery Queen (Avram Davidson)
City at world's end by Edmond Hamilton
My discovery of America by Farley Mowat
What's become of screwloose by Ron Goulart
Little heroes by Norman Spinrad
Deathbird stories by Harlan Ellison
The damnation game by Clive Barker
Why not you and I by Karl Edward Wagner
The black curtain by Cornell Woolrich
Hitler victorious edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg
Fletch by Gregory McDonald
Raven: A time of ghosts by Richard Kirk
Vampire junction by S.P. Somtow
Wasp by Eric Frank Russell
Bio of a space tyrant 4: Executive
God save the child by Robert B. Parker
The wild shore by Kim Stanley Robinson
Psycho by Robert Block
Footfall by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
How much for just the planet? by John M. Ford
Another fine myth by Robert Asprin
Time travellers strictly cash by Spider Robinson
Beyond armageddon edited by Walter M. Miller, jr. and Martin H. Greenberg
First flight by Chris Claremont
Myth conceptions by Robert Asprin
Tom O'Bedlam by Robert Silverberg
The thin man by Dashiell Hammett
Skraelings by Carl Sherrell
Man of two worlds by Frank and Brian Herbert

What I read: 1986

2007-03-05T14:35:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1986? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Dark forces edited by Kirby McCauley
King Kobold revived by Christopher Stasheff
Bethune by Roderick Stewart
Camp concentration by Thomas M. Disch
Stalking the nightmare by Harlan Ellison
The best of Fredric Brown by Fredric Brown
Pawn of prophesy by David Eddings
The humanoid touch by Jack Williamson
The fog by James Herbert
Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad
Bio of a space tyrant 2: Mercenary
Queen of sorcery by David Eddings
Magicians gambit by David Eddings
Castle of wizardry by David Eddings
And on the eighth day by Ellery Queen (Avram Davidson)
Enchanter`s endgame by David Eddings
The best of Frederik Pohl by Frederik Pohl
The Holmes-Dracula file by Fred Saberhagen
Miracle visitors by Ian Watson
New maps of hell by Kingsley Amis
The science fiction novel edited by Basil Davenport
The house next door by Anne Rivers Siddons
The glass teat by Harlan Ellison
The long tomorrow by Leigh Brackett
Star songs of an old primate by James Tiptree, jr.
Pilgramage by Zenna Henderson
Growing up by Russell Baker
The big sleep by Raymond Chandler
2010: Odyssey two by Arthur C. Clarke
Silverlock by John Myers Myers
The other glass teat by Harlan Ellison
Child of fortune by Norman Spinrad
Merchant's war by Frederik Pohl
A Catskill eagle by Robert B. Parker
The last days of the edge of the world by Brain Stableford
I, vampire by Jody Scott
The best of C.L. Moore C.L. Moore
Sinister barrier by Eric Frank Russell
Heroes in hell edited by Janet Morris
The history of the runestaff by Michael Moorcock
The year's best fantasy stories: 11 by Arthur W. Saha
Enterprise: The first adventure by Vonda N. McIntyre
Startide rising by David Brin
A touch of strange by Theodore Sturgeon
Foundation's edge by Isaac Asimov
Driftglass by Samuel R. Delany
Bio of a space tyrant 3: Politician by Piers Anthony
Empire of the sun by J.G. Ballard
Masters of Darkness edited by Dennis Etchisson

Novik, Naomi. Thone of jade. New York: Del Rey, 2006. 432pp.

2007-03-05T13:35:00.000-05:00

This is the second in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series of novels, the first being His majesty's dragon. The series is an alternate history fantasy set during the Napoleonic wars, the different being that the various warring factions have dragons that they use more or less like flying warships, complete with rigging, crews and naval jargon and naval tactics.

The first got terrific reviews and was one of the serious buzz books in 2006 and I'll admit to being fairly positive myself. Throne of jade was a different story altogether. It got altogether mixed reviews most saying it was pretty boring compared to the first. I'm more or less in agreement with those sentiments though perhaps not as strongly as many.

The basic plot is that the Chinese government was the dragon, Temeraire, back from th e British, who captured him as an egg from a French ship.The Brits, and in particular his British captain, Will Laurence, disagree and want to keep him. A complication is that the government would seem willing to give the dragon up to secure the Chinese cooperation against the French. So, Laurence, Temeraire, a Chinese delegation and some British government officials set off on a boat for China to see what deal can be struck. Around page 100. And arrive around page 300. Two hundred pages on a boat. This is what everyone complains about with the novel, that those 200 pages are filled with, well, filler. And they are. The voyage should have been compressed into 50-75 pages and the wheeling and dealing in China made the true focus of the novel. I agree. The last 100 or so pages were great, very tense, very exciting, full of intrigue and drama. Everything the voyage was not.

So, not a great book, but not so bad either. There were a few good battles and crises on the slow boat to China to keep me somewhat interested but I do definitely hopw that the third book is much more focused and keeps it's eye on the dragon.

What I read: 1985

2007-03-04T00:22:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1985? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

The Maltese falcon by Dashiel Hammett
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled by Harlan Ellison
The year's best fantasy stories: 10 by Arthur W. Saha
Virgin planet by Poul Anderson
The female man by Joanna Russ
Mutant by Henry Kuttner
The best of L. Sprague de Camp by L. Sprague de Camp
The day of the triffids by John Wyndham
The golden apples of the sun by Ray Bradbury
The warlord of the air by Michael Moorcock
The best of C.M. Kornbluth by C.M. Kornbluth
Triton by Samuel R. Delany
The worlds of Frank Herbert by Frank Herbert
Bio of a space tyrant 1: Refugee by Piers Anthony
The wanderer by Fritz Leiber
The blue world by Jack Vance
The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick
Heechee rendezvous by Frederik Pohl
Killer by David Drake and Karl Edward Wagner
Thorns by Robert Silverberg
Conan the rebel by Poul Anderson
The best of Cordwainer Smith by Cordwainer Smith
Medea: Harlan`s world edited by Harlan Ellison
5 odd edited by Groff Conklin
The haunting of hill house by Shirley Jackson
The quintessence of Ellery Queen edited by Anthony Boucher
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The warlock in spite of himself by Christopher Stasheff
The drowned world by J.G. Ballard
The shores of space by Richard Matheson
Tolkein: a biography by Humphrey Carpenter
Fevre dream by George R.R. Martin
The best of Raymond Z. Gallun by Raymond Z. Gallun
So long and thanks for all the fish by Douglas Adams
Image of the beast by Philip Jose Farmer
Strange eons by Robert Bloch
Nine hundred grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty
Love by Leo Buscaglia
Davey by Edgar Pangborn

What I read: 1984

2007-03-02T17:34:00.001-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1984? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 in 1983 when I started keeping track of the books I read) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Moon of skulls by Robert E. Howard
Second foundation by Isaac Asimov
A tale of two cities by Charles Dickens
The white plague by Frank Herbert
Good Neighbors and other strangers by Edgar Pangborn
Partners in wonder by Harlan Ellison and others
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Bypass to otherness by Henry Kuttner
Martian timeslip by Philip K. Dick
Podkayne of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein
Lest darkness fall by L. Sprague de Camp
Conjure wife by Fritz Leiber
The starchild trilogy by Frederik Pohl and Jack Williamson
The best of Stanley G. Weinbaum by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Dream makers by Charles Platt
Project Pope by Clifford D. Simak
Federation by H. Beam Piper
Thirteen o'clock by C.M. Kornbluth
Courtship rite by Donald Kingsbury
2001: A space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman
the space beyond by John W. Campbell, jr.
The stars my destination by Alfred Bester
The best of Lester del Rey by Lester del Rey, edited by Frederik Pohl
Universe 3 edited by Terry Carr
The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams
The restaurant at the end of the universe by Douglas Adams
Life, the universe and everything by Douglas Adams
Nightwings by Robert Silverberg
Shatterday by Harlan Ellison
Neutron star by Larry Niven
The chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The iron man by Robert E. Howard
The compleat enchanter by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
The best of Edmond Hamilton by Edmond Hamilton
The golden man by Philip K. Dick
The Lazarus effect by Frank Herbert and Bill Ranson
The science fiction hall of fame, volume 2A edited by Ben Bova
The player on the other side by Ellery Queen (Theodore Sturgeon)
Nightfall and other stories by Isaac Asimov
At the mountains of madness by H.P. Lovecraft
100 sf short short stories edited by Isaac Asimov and others
Outlaw of Gor by John Norman
The year of the quiet sun by Wilson Tucker
The worlds of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber
Preferred Risk by Edson McCann (Frederik Pohl and Lester del Rey)
The man in the jungle by Norman Spinrad
The fountains of paradise by Arthur C. Clarke
A dream of Dracula by Leonard Wolf
Beyond by Theodore Sturgeon
A canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, jr.
The best of Eric Frank Russel by Eric Frank Russell
Danse macabre by Stephen King

What I Read: 1983

2007-03-02T17:09:00.000-05:00

What do you care what I read in 1983? Nothing, of course, but I do. As I get older (I was 20 when I started this list) I find myself more and more in the position of looking at a stack of books on my shelves by, say, Cornell Woolrich and they all have the word "Black" in the title. I know I've read a couple but I can't remember which ones. Fortunately, I've been maintaining a little list in a little brown book since April 1983 of all the books I've read (or at least attempted). By putting this list here it will be searchable. I may ultimately put at least some of it in something like LibraryThing, but for now I'll be putting it here. The advantage is that the blog is quick and dirty, without a lot of effort per entry. The books are in the order I read them.

By way of adding some value to the list, I'll italicize any work that I remember as being particularly wonderful

Cities in flight by James Blish
Lord Foul's bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
The eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert
The gray prince by Jack Vance
Island by Aldous Huxley
The illearth war by Stephen R. Donaldson
Tree and leaf by J.R.R. Tolkein
Nerves by Lester del Rey
The weird of the white wolf by Michael Moorcock
Approaching oblivion by Harlan Ellison
Norstilia by Cordwainer Smith
The currents of space by Isaac Asimov
The persistence of vision by John Varley
The power that preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson
Flesh/Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer
Thuvia, maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The synthetic man by Theodore Sturgeon
Flow my tear, the policeman said by Philip K. Dick
When worlds collide by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer
The well of the unicorn by Fletcher Pratt
The science fiction hall of fame, volume 1 edited by Robert Silverberg
The way the future was by Frederik Pohl
In a lonely place by Karl Edward Wagner
The swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
The book of skulls by Robert Silverberg
Away and beyond by A.E. van Vogt
Web by John Wyndham
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The evil that men do/The purloined planet by Lin Carter
Time and stars by Poul Anderson
The syndic by C.M. Kornbluth
The singing citadel by Michael Moorcock
Asimov on science fiction by Isaac Asimov
Golem 100 by Alfred Bester
The new Adam by Stanley G. Weinbaum
After worlds collide by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer
Again, dangerous visions edited by Harlan Ellison
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
The humanoids by Jack Williamson
The space tug by Murray Leinster
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Foundation and empire by Isaac Asimov

2007-03-01T22:20:00.000-05:00

Gawande, Atul, editor & Jesse Cohen, series editor. The best American science writing 2006. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. 362pp.

Greene, Brian, editor & Tim Folger, series editor. The best American science and nature writing 2006. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. 290pp.

Zivkovic, Bora, editor. The open laboratory: The best writing on science blogs 2006. Chapel Hill, NC: Lulu.com/coturnix, 2007. 315pp.

First of all, these three books are all self-recommending. If you care about science, if you love good writing and especially if you can't get enough good writing about science then you have to buy and read these books. In the end, you won't be sorry with any or all of these books.

Two of them are from established series, Brian Greene's Best American Science & Nature Writing 2006 and Atul Gawande's Best American Science Writing 2006; as such, we really know what to expect from these books: high quality popular science journalism from the print media. And basically they both come through with representative volumes in their series. I'll talk about them in some detail, but not too much as, like I said, the series are known quantities. The third, Bora Zivkovic's Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 is a totally new beast. The first in what will hopefully be a series collecting the best in recent science writing on science-related weblogs. This is a wild card; going in we really don't have too much of an idea of what to expect in terms of quality of writing or variety of coverage or even basic interest level of most of the pieces. To make matters even more uncertain, it's self-published using the print-on-demand service Lulu.com rather than a traditional publisher, so potentially quality control for both the physical and intellectual components could be an issue. As a result, I'll discuss this book in quite a bit more detail.

I'll discuss them in the order I read them.

First of all, Brian Greene's Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 (BASNW). Really solid, most of the articles were professional and interesting. Having read every book in the series since 2000, I can say that this volume does not shame the series at all. I especially like the way Greene uses the introduction to encourage us to see good science writing as a way to bridge C.P. Snow's famous Two Cultures, bringing together humanists and scientists around the warm glow of the scientific world view. A couple of the really notable stories this time around are John Hockenberry's "The Blogs of War" about soldiers blogging from Iraq and the free speech/military discipline issues around that. Another is Kevin Krajick's "The Mummy Doctor" about a man who's devoted his live to studying mummified human remains. Finally, I'd like to mention Charles C. Mann's "The Coming Death Shortage" about the oncoming population bulge in retired people and how it will effect western society, a fine article, one of the most thought provoking I've read in quite some time.

Now for the bad news. I always have a few quibbles with these books, and this one is no exception. One of the unfortunate things is that the quibbles always seem to be similar. First of all, 25 stories, only 2 women. Ok, Natalie Angier is pretty well the best science writer out there and she's one of the two. But you have to think that 2 out of 25 is pretty pathetic. Secondly, of 25 stories, 7 were from The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books or The New Yorker. Either Greene or (more likely) the series editor really need to get out more. As well, 6 were from Scientific American, another huge problem. SciAm tends a bit towards a kind of homogenized earnest dullness in thier articles, which while perfect for what they're trying to accomplish, tends to wear on you after a while. Greene should have made an effort to include a bit more diversity in his selections. Another quibble was that there was basically no nature writing, maybe 1.5 articles out of the total.

Next comes Atul Gawande's The Best American Science Writing 2006 (BASW). This is a particularly terrific example of a science essay collection. I think Gawande has done an exemplary job putting this book together. I've read a few of his essays in previous volumes of the various series and they were all excellent; I will try to track down his recent book, Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science.

He sets the tone for BASW right up front in the introduction:

So then what would the definition of the best science writing be? The clearest, most completely objective answer is: the best science writing is science writing that is cool. Even better, this particular year the best science writing is science writing that I think is cool...

I like science writing to be clear and to be interesting to scientists and nonscientists alike. I like it to be smart. I like it, every once in a while, to be funny. I like science writing to have a beginning, middle, and end -- to tell a story whenever possible.

Now that's a manifesto I can live with! And it seems that Gawande and I have very similar tastes in science writing, because I thought an awful lot of the stories he chose were really cool. In particular I'd like to mention Tom Mueller's "Your Move" about the developers of the super chess computer Hydra, Alan Weisman's "Earth without People" which describes how long it would take the planet to revert to its natural state if suddenly all humans were just to disappear. It a great article, very thought provoking and very moving, in a strange way. I also really enjoyed Neil Swidey's "What Makes People Gay" about the genetic and/or developmental origins of homosexuality. A good article is often one that leaves you with more questions, more uncertainty, than when you started. Finally, one of the truly finest stories I've read in any of the volumes of these stories is Richard Preston's "Climbing the Redwoods" about the great redwood forests in the north west -- climbing, exploring the treetops and canopy and hanging out with the dedicated researchers trying to save the redwoods.

A couple of small quibbles with Gawande's book are, of course, inevitable. Again, only two women out of 21 contributors is a little small. With fully six items from The New Yorker and four from The New York Times, and a bunch from the other slick magazines, Gawande suffers a bit from the lack of diversity of sources I noted with the Greene book altough not to the same extent and not as damaging to the quality of the book. For this particular kind of book, choose The New Yorker over Scientific American any day.

Finally, we come to Bora Zivkovic's The Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs 2006 (OLBWSB). There's an interesting story behind this one: scientist Bora Zivkovic and some of his colleagues in North Carolina decided to organize a one-day science blogger conference for January 21, 2007, hoping to attract a bunch of bloggers to come and talk about what they do and get to know each other face to face. To commemorate that project, he came up with the idea to edit an anthology of the best recent science blog postings. Unfortunately, by that time it was December 2006 so there was very little time to solicit, compile, edit and publish the book. Well, using the power of the blogosphere and the print-on-demand powers of Lulu.com, he pulled it off (you can read more about the genesis of the book and conference here and here and order the book here).

Needless to say, this was a labour of love that certainly didn't take the full 9 months to be born. The important question is, how does it shape up to the other two? At first glance it seems that Zivkovic set himself an impossible task trying to pull something decent together, both in terms of the presentation and the quality of the content, in such a short period of time. We can probably only expect something shoddy and half-assed -- right? Well, I'm happy to say that all fears of disaster were certainly not justified -- anyone that pays attention to Zivkovic's blog knows that he's smart, capable, dedicated and without a doubt energetic and that he wouldn't let something unworthy out the door. Being a long-term fan of his blog (A Blog Around the Clock, part of the important ScienceBlogs stable), I was pretty sure I would be happy with the book and was looking forward to reading it as soon as he announced the project on his blog. And I wasn't disappointed. The book is very good indeed, better than even I expected. Zivkovic and the mighty forces of the science blogosphere that he drew upon have not let us down.

First, the good news. There's quite good variety in the posts, some longer and most quite short and to the point. That's something I appreciated about this book, the authors get right down to business with no wasted space, reflecting the more hit and run nature of blogs. Also, I appreciated the nice mix of tone, some serious, almost Scientific American-y, some very technical descriptions of some scientific principle, some very sophisticated literature review articles. On the other hand, there were also some pieces with more light-hearted intent, some personal essays and slice of life stories. Evolution vs. intelligent design, global warming deniers and other hot topics were also well covered. I would also like to note a much better percentage of women contributors than the others as well as several non-American voices excluded by definition from the other two. (10 11 women and ~~at least 8~~ 13 non-US out of 50 ~~-- many authors are pseudonymous or don't give easily found location information so these numbers are approximate~~). The average quality of the writing might be a touch lower than the other two books, but only a little and, to my mind, understandable and almost inevitable in a collection that privileges non-professional writers; the flip-side is that we're getting so much of the information directly from the professional scientists so a few infelicities of style are more than compensated for. There are lots of great bloggers represented in this book, a few I'm certainly adding to my blogroll.

Now for a few individual highlights, although choosing three or four out of 50 is a tough task. The first article that really stood out for me was Zivkovic's own "Everything you ever Wanted to Know about Sleep (but Were Afraid to Ask)" where is gives a lot of information about sleep patterns and habits in a highly digestible and enjoyable fashion. Afarensis' "Lessons from Kennewick" was also very interesting and enjoyable. He talks about some of the important issues surrounding studying ancient human remains while still being respectful of what those remains represent to people today. Skeptico's "What the (Bleep) Were they Thinking" is a great demolition of the film What the (Bleep) Do We Know, which purported to be about how quantum theory supports various new age-y ideas but was really a load of crap. Finally, I'd also like to mention the post from John Hawks's Weblog "Selection, Nuclear Genetic Variation, and mtDNA" which was a bit too technical for me, but was a great example of the kind of review-type essay that's so valuable on the web. You can read the original posts for all the entries in the book here. And before I forget, Lulu.com does a great job on the physical book; it's comparable in quality to the best of trade paperbacks.

There always room for some constructive criticism; most of the quibbles I'm going to mention are obviously a result of the book being put together so quickly. Nevertheless, some issues need to be raised. First of all, there were a few cases where the short author bios at the beginning of each article needed to be expanded a bit. There were a couple of posts from group blogs where the actual author (which Munger from Cognitive Daily) wasn't mentioned or where an author's name is known but it wasn't mentioned in the bio (Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars). A few other hings of that nature, too.

I also found that the subject areas of the blogs were a little more restricted than I would like. The concentration of the life sciences posts, for example, was a bit high, but that reflects the focus of ScienceBlogs platform and of Zivkovic's blog where most of the post recruiting was done. I would have liked to see more on computing and engineering, for example. But again, the short time frame meant that people not plugged into the ScienceBlogs universe would unlikely have found out in time. The fact that Zivkovic also used a panel of volunteers to vote on submitted posts also may have lead to a bit less diversity of subjects -- first-past-the-post systems always reduce diversity at the margins. As an example, I was quite surprised not to see any posts on women in science. I hope Zivkovic uses a stronger editorial hand next time giving the book an even better balance and a stronger personality. But to reiterate, I loved this book so these criticisms are only meant in the most constructive way.

So, after a look at the individual trees, can we take a look at the forest as well? In other words, can I see any major differences in the kind of material in the various books? First of all, BASNW and BASW are composed of professionally written pieces, done for money by professional journalists. The stories are, on average, longer and more structured. They'll take an in-depth topic and explain from start to finish. Often it'll be obvious that no expense was spared in researching the article. The journalists get to travel around, interviewing scientists, visiting their labs or accompanying them on their field work. This leads to really interesting, human stories about the women and men doing the science. On the other hand, the blog postings are a little more all over map. Ranging from screeds against religious zealots and climate change deniers to short essays explicating a very particular scientific or philosophical concept to heartfelt personal essays, they reflect an amazing diversity of thought and opinion. I look forward to reviewing the next iteration of all three of these books this time next year. My final verdict? If I had to rank them, I'd put BASW in first a little; it's definitely the most purely entertaining of the three. A little behind BASW is OLBWSB, which is also a little ahead of BASNW. But, I'm really glad I have all three of these books and would unhesitatingly suggest them to anyone interested in science. I would recommend them to any academic or public library. High school and middle school kids would also really enjoy them. I know my 14 year old is next in line to read them around here!

Update 2007.03.02: Updated numbers of women and non-US contrbutors based on comment by Bora Zivkovic (coturnix) on the other blog.

Sawyer, Robert J. Hybrids. New York: Tor, 2004. 396pp.

2007-02-09T10:43:00.000-05:00

This is the third installment in Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy and it brings everything to a nice conclusion. The overall plot of the trilogy revolves around a portal (in Sudbury, Ontario, of all places) between our earth and a parallel reality where neanderthals have evolved as the dominante humanoid species. The main characters are scientists from the two worlds, Ponter Boddit and Mary Vaughn (of York University!) and their relationship, eventually their falling in love and wanting to have a child. Thus the title of this volume, Hybrids. As the novel progresses we see the struggles that Mary and Ponter must undergo, both personal and scientific, to realize their dream. We also continue to see Sawyer use the contrasts between the two worlds, on violent and one peaceful, to make some interesting commentary on our world, for both good and bad.

Sawyer asks some interesting questions about human/humanoid nature: why are we peaceful, where is the root of sexual violence, can curtailing our privacy make us more peaceful, what lengths can we legitimately go to to save ourselves, to what lengths can we go to reproduce ourselves , what does it mean to be gay or straight -- is it cultural or biological. As you can see, he doesn't shy away from the big questions and he certainly should be congratulated for his courage to tackle big issues. Of course, he really doesn't have the answers, anymore than our politicians do, anymore than our scientific knowledge can offer complete and final answers either. But at least he asks the questions. This another fine example of Sawyer at his best -- a good story well told that also gives lots of food for thought.

Server, Lee.Over my dead body: The sensational age of the American paperback: 1945-1955. San Francisco, 1994. 108pp.

2007-02-09T10:34:00.000-05:00

A pretty cool book, basically a quick overview of the first great age of the paperback novel. A bit of an uneasy balance between a serious study and history and being an art book, to the extent that it doesn't function that well as either. If you take it as a kind of taster book, leading to a search for a more serious art book and history of paperbacks, then it is quite successful. There's certainly enough cover art from the paperback era to whet my appetite for more. And the history part is also certainly going to lead me to more resources as well. The book covers a multitude of genres from hard boiled mystery to romance, so each section doesn't get too much coverage. On the other hand, it's certainl pointed out a bunch of authors for me to keep an eye out for, such as Henry Kane, Harry Whittington, Irving Shulman and Hal Elson.

Mooney, Chris. The Republican war on science. New York: Basic, 2006. 357pp. Revised and updated edition.

2007-01-24T11:54:00.000-05:00

The is a fine and necessary book, one that uncovers a lot of history and a lot of current events that I certainly didn't know about. Being a Canadian, however, there was probably a bit more nitty gritty detail about various political maneuverings than I really felt I needed to know. It makes me wish in a way for a somewhat smaller book, say 150 pages of text rather than the 269 presented here (the rest is end notes, index, etc.), maybe titled The Republican War on Science for Canadians, complete with little glossaries sprinkled throughout reminding us that Red is conservative and Blue is liberal rather than the reverse here in Soviet Canuckistan.

Anyways, back to the task at hand. Like I said, I really appreciated the thoroughness of this book, the way it tackled Republican meddling in scientific circles in the last several decades. The way it didn't stint on critisizing the Democrats when the deserved it and praising moderate Republicans when they deserved it too. The book starts very positively with a detailed taxonomy of the different ways science can be abused, from undermining science itself to error and misrepresentation to magnifying uncertainties. This taxonomy not only appealed to the librarian in me, but gave an real map to the rest of the book, laying out the ways in which Mooney would approach and analyse his topic.

Mooney takes us on a quick tour of the Republican administrations from FDR to Nixon, followed by a bit more information on Reagan where the issues were creationism, Star Wars, Gingrich's campaign against the Office of Technology Assessment and for "sound science." Next up, he tackles the beginning of the battles against global warming and the EPA, also under Gingrich. Big Tobacco and the food industry's war on our waistlines are covered in the next couple of chapters. The Endangered Species Act is covered in chapter 10. The religiously motivated attachs on evolution, stem cell research and research into sexual and reproductive health issues are tackled in the next few chapters. The final chapter looks in some detail at the attitudes of the current administration, notably on climate change. The conclusion brings in all together; I found it particularly interesting how Mooney draws a parallel between postmodern critiques of the scientific worldview and the Republican penchant for ignoring the "reality-based" community of scientists.

So, in the final analysis I appreciated the opportunity to read this book, to plunge my mind into the depths that to which politics can sink. How relevant is the book still? Well, the current Republican administration is in its lame duck phase so the worst may be over. On the other hand, the Democrats also seem to want to curry favour with the religious element, which may mitigate some of the positives. As well, Canada has an ideologically conservative government right now as well, one that looks south for inspiration. The lessons learned by pro-science advocates in the US may prove to be all too relevant to us here in Canada.

A final note: Chris Mooney's blog is here, and the site for the book, here.

Skal, David J. Screams of reason: Mad science and modern culture. New York: Norton, 1998. 368pp.

2007-01-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

A little pop-cultural analysis is never a bad thing, taken in small doses. In larger doses, however, it can be a bit problematic. The good news is that it can be breezy and light, fun and frivolous while still making some good points and containing a few nuggets of real wisdom. On the other had, it can be plagued with shallowness, of research and analysis, lacking in both depth and breadth. David J. Skal's Screams of reason is a good example of both the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, although in the final analysis I would have to give it more plusses than minuses.

So, what's Skal trying to achieve here (p.18):

A prototype outsider, shunted to the sidelines of serious discourse, to the no-man's-land of B movies, pulp novels, and comic books, the mad scientist has served as a lightning rod for otherwise unbearable anxieties about the meaning of scientific thinking and the uses and consequences of modern technology. The mad scientist seems anarchic but often serves to support the status quo; instead of pressingus to confront the serious questions of ethics, power, and the social impact of technological advances, he too often allows us to laugh off notions that science might occasionally be the handmaiden of megalomania, greed and sadism. And while he is often written off as the product of knee-jerk anti-intellectualism, upon closer examination, he reveals himself (mad scientists are almost always men) to be a far more complicated symbol of civilization and its split-level discontents.

And I would submit that he does a pretty good job of it, each chapter exploring a different aspect of the image of mad scientists (and science/scientists in general) in modern culture. In chapter 1, Skal presents the history of the prototypical mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein. He does a good presentation of the history of the novel and the various films based on the novel, relating them to his thesis fairly well. He also touches upon some other creations from the same period, such as Dracula. Chapterd 2 and 3 touch on the Frankenstein story some more, this time focussing on artificial life such as robots, electicity and mostly B movies from the 30s and 40s. Chapter 4 doesn't quite see us moving on from Dr. Frankenstein, but we do continue discussing B movies, mostly related to nuclear weapons and fear thereof. Finally, chapter 5 moves on from our favourite mad scientist and discusses the phenomenon of aliens, UFO and abductions. And yes, a lot of B movies and a bit of TV. Chapter 6 is about mad medical doctors and the fears they conjure up. The Nazis get a few mentions, as does, you guessed it, Dr. F. Robin Cook, Hannibal Lecter and AIDS all get name-checked here. Chapter 7 is one of the most interesting, as Skal discusses the whole posthuman movement, with lots of fast and furious commentary on Rock Horror, David Cronenberg and others.

While this is good work, there are some serious weaknesses in Skal's approach. First of all, so much of the ambitious analysis he sets up for himself on page 18 really boils down into a lot of film history. That's understandable, because that's what he's known for with important books on Tod Browning (Dark Carnival), Dracula (Hollywood Gothic) and horror film (The Monster Show) but he really needed to broaden his approach for this project. He barely touches on the science fiction and horror pulps era of the 1930s onwards. Comics, almost nothing, when you consider the importance of several EC titles in horror and sf this is really too bad. Novels also get short shrift, unless a film was made out of it. Even tv didn't get too much coverage. Obvious shows like Star Trek and X Files are touched on only briefly while others like Night Stalker not at all. Even non-US film gets little attention, such as the various Hammer Films getting only brief coverage. Like I said, these are a serious weaknesses. It's like he had a lot of notes left from some of his film projects and thought he could cobble them together into another book.

Some other weaknesses? The tendency to recite film history and plot summary in the place of analysis is amusing and fun, but not really what he's trying to get at. As I alude to above, while Frankenstein may be the most important example I think he relies on the various film versions a bit too much.

Finally, at the end of the book, he gets all post-moderny on us, something that I found kind of surprising. Some quotes (p312-317):

[Carl] Sagan does not seem to appreciate that many people find scientific material threatening and dehumanizing, not because of ignorant apprehensions but because of what science explicitly states. Most people don't want to think of themselves as temporary mechanism destined for the scrap heap of oblivion...Sagan does a commendable job...in debunking pseudoscience...But in rationalizing the abdunction stories into absurdity, he completely misses their metaphorical dimensions and significance. They are the ultimate symbolic expressions of twentieth-century fears about being immobilized and dehumanized by "scientific" authority figures.

*snip*

In her book Science as Salvation the British moral philosopher Mary Midgley note theat "increasing technicality in the sciences...leaves unserved the general need for understanding, and whatever spiritual needs lie behind it." Ironically, "The promise of satisfying those spiritual needs has played a great part in establishing the special glory of the abstraction 'science' in our cultures." But as scientific complexity increases, general understanding wanes. As Midgley elaborates, "Many scienitists will now say flatly that most of us cannot expect to understand what is happening [in science] at all, and had better not even mess around with the popularizations. This gloomy estimate must extend, of course, far beyond the uneducated proles to the scientists themselves, when they deal with anything outside their own increasingly narrow provinces. There cannot, in this view, ever be such a thing as a scientifically-minded public.

And, well, a lot more like that in the last few pages of the book. After such a lively, but limited, journey through pop culture I find it interesting tha the last chapter reads like a bad undergrad paper in the philosophy of science by a 19-year-old that has just discovered postmoderism. In a sense, Skal is saying we're stuck with the image of science and scientists in pop culture becuause scientists are too smart, arrogant and condescending for their own good and that the "little people" are justified in their fear and suspicion because of their own ignorance and lack of intellectual curiousity. Sheesh. Read a book, pay attention in school, watch a documentary, for god's sake.

Anyways, in the final analysis, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it with some reservations. It's got lots of fun B movie history and a few interesting things to say about the place of science in modern culture, even if Skal seems to fall into some of the same traps at the end that he bemoans in the middle. Just skip the conclusion.

Wellington, David. Monster nation. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2006. 282pp.

2007-01-05T17:53:00.000-05:00

This is the prequel to David Wellington's novel Monster Island I reviewed a little while ago. This one, though published later, fills in a lot of the back story on how the world came to be populated by zombies. Like it predecessor/successor it's full of over-the-top horror and some very dark humour and is completely enjoyable. I can't recommend it enough.

It follows the "lives" of various characters at the beginning of the zombie outbreak in the US, including an army officer who's trying to contain the plague. It also follows a newly created zombie who, due to a bit of oxygen-supplied luck, has kept most of her human intelligence. Both are interesting, in that the officer tries to be brave in the face of unspeakable horror and the new zombie starts by trying not to eat any humans, but soon gives in to her hungers. We also get insight into how the whole plague came about, as a kind of horrific science experiment/supernatural accident.

Wellington has been publishing all his novels online in blog form before the print version. Here's a listing of all Wellington's online serializations. Enjoy.

Monster Island
Monster Nation
Monster Planet
Thirteen Bullets (vampire novel)
Frostbite (werewolves, currently in progress)

McDougall, Sophia. Romanitas. London: Orion, 2006. 607pp.

2007-01-03T19:50:00.000-05:00

This is a perfect example of a novel where the execution doesn't live up to the idea. Oh, the book isn't terrible. It's just not anywhere near as good as it could (should?) have been. The premise is quite interesting: what if the Roman Empire didn't decline and fall and survived into the present day, with institutions such as the emperor and slavery intact? The plot built around this setting is also interesting: what if the presumptive heir to the throne favours abolishing slavery and is assassinated, making it look like an accident? What will happen when the new heir, that person's son, also has an attempt on his life and flees with a bunch of escaped slaves to a secret escaped slave hidaway, from which to plan a return to Rome and rescue by the emperor? Lots of potential here, but sadly the novel never really takes off. Too much shuffling around without much actually happening; at 575 pages of story, the book is at least 100 pages too long.

In any case, this is a first novel, and McDougall does show promise. I'll very likely end up giving the second volume a chance one of these days.

Bruen, Ken and Jason Starr. Bust. New York: Hard Case, 2006. 254pp.

2006-12-27T23:47:00.000-05:00

Wow, I gotta find a way to read more of these Hard Case Crime novels. So far, I've read three (first two here and here) and they've all been absolutely fantastic. This one, Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr, is the first of their original novels I've read, the other two being classic reprints.

So, what's the story? Well, it's a tried and true hard boiled plot. Man is cheating on his wife with his secretary and they plan to have her killed and get married and live happily ever after. Only this one is different. All the characters are fatally flawed, all pretty well despicable, all more than a little unhinged. So, as the headlong train wreck of the plot explodes into double cross, followed by triple cross, followed by quadruple cross, the pitch black hole humour becomes pervasive. You don't know whether to laugh or cry, and by the end it doesn't really matter too much. Tragedy? Comedy? Human nature.

Whatever -- this is one great read. I'm going to hunt down some more of the solo work by Bruen and Starr, that's for sure. Oh yeah, and some more Hard Case books too.

Roberts, Siobhan. King of infinite space: Donald Coxeter, the man who saved geometry. Toronto: Anansi, 2006. 399pp.

2006-12-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

I'm reading a lot of science auto/biography these days, and generally enjoying it a lot. While generally not much of a fan of the "great man" theory of science history, I also tend to like a really good story. Siobhan Roberts's biography of mathematician Harold Scott MacDonald "Donald" Coxeter is a little more heavily weighted on the "great man" side of the equation a perhaps a little light on the "good story" but I enjoyed it tremendously nevertheless. Not least because I have a rather interesting personal connection to this book, but more on that later.

So, who was Donald Coxeter? In a sense, he was the Einstein of geometry in the 20th century, in the sense that Einstein demonstrated that science wasn't exhausted in the 19th century, Coxeter demonstrated that classical geometry wasn't exhausted either, that there was a lot of interesting avenues for important research and applications, both in science and the arts.

A nice quote from page 4, giving a sense of the man and his life's passion.

Coxeter was also known to be both instructive and entertaining in revealing the hidden symmetry of an apple. Around the dinner table with colleagues gathered for the American Math Society conference in 1981, he asked: " Did you know t hat apples do not have cores?" They thought he was pulling their legs, until the hostess, Marjorie Senechal, a mathematics professor at Smith College, procured an apple and placed it before him with a knife, as requested. He filleted the fruit into thin horizontal sections, demonstrating that there was no stem-to-stern core, but rather elongated pods of seeds within. The piece de resistence occurred when he reached the center of the apple and sliced through the equator. There lay it's secret symmetry -- not nature's sloppy attempt at spherical symmetry, as suggested by an apple's exterior, but rather perfect fivefold symmetry, hidden at the apple's heart: the apple seeds were arranged in a five-point star. Everyone around the table gasped when they saw it. "It just shows," said Senechal, "that he was looking everywhere, and looking deeply. Coxeter delighted in the geometry of everyday objects, and, because he was so curious and astute, he found symmetries and regularities in these objects that the rest of us never suspected."

And this is what Benoit Mandelbrot had to say about Coxeter style and place in history (p127):

"He was viewed as a throwback...He was a bit marginal...I remember feeling the strength of his style. The enjoyment Coxeter always had handling shapes, models, and letting models help him dream, is something I find very attractive and very important -- the spirit of loving shapes and the role of the eye and the hand, that what I dound so marvelous in Coxeter."

"Most people are not strong enough to have a well-defined personal style...The should bend according to fashion or circumstance and he clearly did not bend. He kept with his classical tradition of geometry, wich had been totally flattened -- pulverized would be even closer -- by Bourbaki. to learn mathematics without pictures is criminal, a ridiculous enterprise."

So, what is it about Roberts' book that makes it worth reading? First of all, it's quite a good outline of Coxeter's life, if a little shallow on his non-mathematical life. We hit the high points, like birth, death & marriage, but we see his children on stage only peripherally until the end when his daughter Susan starts taking care of him. To me this is a bit of a weakness of the book, the lack of color and emotion in the tale of Coxeter's life. Maybe there wasn't much, perhaps the life of a mathematician is like the life of a novelist, where all the good stuff happens between their ears rather than on a grander stage. And there are hints that Coxeter was a bit cold and distant. But still, remarkably little seemed to have happened in a life of over 90 years.

On the other hand, the story of Coxeter's intellectual life is absolutely griping, entwined as it was with the history of mathematics in the 20th century, especially the place of geometry in that history. In a way, you can almost see the story of Coxeter's life as the intellectual history of geometry in the last century, rising from the doldrums to take it's place in as a driving force in physics, ecommerce, databases and even bioinformatics. The overriding theme of the book is the interrelationship of geometry and life, the visual elements that we interact with in film, in art, in science, in architecture, in virtually every aspect of our lives. Coxeter's lifelong battle was to bring the visual sense back into math and math education, rejecting the more algebra-based ideas of the French Bourbaki collective, making math more understandable and accessible. And it was very clear that Coxeter was passionately concerned with the teaching of math and geometry and that cared a great deal about this students. There's a great story about how one of his students, Asia Ivic Weiss, now of York Unversity, was a bit leary of telling him about an error he'd made. When she did, he was actually delighted that she'd found the error and even gave her a wedding gift that commemorated the occasion (p129-130).

Yes, the more math, especially geometry, you know, the more you will enjoy this book. It doesn't shy away from challenging the reader to grasp subtle concepts, to make connections, to understand and enjoy geometry for it's own sake. But, we are rewarded by our efforts. We see how Coxeter's life intersects those of various notable personalities, both scientific and artistic and how Coxeter always takes something away to improve his own work. The artist M.C. Escher is a perfect example. He and Coxeter had a wonderfully odd, mutually beneficial relationship, a relationship well explored in the book as was Coxeter's relationship with Buckminster Fuller.

So, yes, this book is not perfect. I would have appreciated a bit more about Coxeter the man It's also a bit strange how much information was packed into 80+ pages of endnotes, almost like a parallel book actually more about Coxeter's life. I would have appreciated it if a lot of the material in the notes was expanded and pulled into the main narrative. Also, a couple of times a glossary would have been helpful.

But, overall this is a great book that tells a very important story. At the beginning I said I wasn't too fond of the "great man" theory of science history. That's certainly true, but at the same time I realize that so much of the intellectual history of an age can be seen through the works of individual scholars, that to ignore their stories is as great a error as to glorify them. And this book does strike a balance between the man, his work and the intellectual currents that surrounded him.

(A note to the math librarians out there reading this -- the bibliography is a wonderful source for collection development in the roots of classical geometry, in particular I guess we should all make sure our libraries are full of Coxeter!)

I guess I should elaborate on my personal connection to this fine book. In my capacity as Mathematics librarian at York University, I've obviously gotten to know many of the math profs at York and one of them is Asia Ivic Weiss, who happens to have been Coxeter's last grad student at the University of Toronto. Prof. Weiss was the graduate program director in the math department for a few years, including around when Coxeter passed away. As it happens, before he died Coxeter donated a significant amount of his mathematical papers to the Math Department at York, to be housed in their Coxeter Reading Room. Well, a few years ago, after Coxeter had passed away, Asia approached me for some advice on what to do with these papers. They were nice to have, and scholars certainly took advantage of them, but she was not sure if this was the best place. So, we met and discussed the situation. We quickly saw that the issue was larger in scope, that really we should come to terms with all of Coxeter's papers, most of whom were at his house in the Rosedale neighbourhood in Toronto. So, Asia, Coxeter's daughter Susan Thomas, Coxeter's mathematical executor Arthur Sherk and I all met at the Coxeter house where Susan was still living. I also consulted with one of York's archivists, Susanne Dubeau, to get her advice on the situation. After that meeting and subsequent conversations we all agreed that Coxeter's papers belonged at the University of Toronto Archives, including the ones that were currently at York. And so, that's where they are now. It was gratifying that everytime I checked a footnote in Robert's book and saw that the source was from the UofT archives that I played a small part in making sure that Coxeter's papers are accessible to scholars and journalists. It's also great to see the names of so many of the profs know from my work mentioned, like Lee Lorch, John Andraos from Chemistry and Walter Whiteley. Walter was probably the most interviewed person in the book, with many insights on the role of Coxeter's work in other areas of math and science and on the "geometry gap" -- the idea that if we don't teach geometry to scientists, they'll miss out spacial or geometric connections in their work.

Tomorrow, December 12, 2006, there's a book launch at the Fields Institute in Toronto. I hope to be there and report back my experiences.

Update 2006.12.16: I went to the book launch at the Fields institute on the 12th and it was a very nice event. Not a reading, more of a cocktail party with a short talk/film clips in the middle. The relaxed atmosphere was very congenial; it was nice to see my York colleagues Asia Ivic Weiss and Walter Whiteley as well as to meet Susan Thomas, Coxeter's daughter, again after a couple of years. As usual at such events, it's always a treat to shake the author's hand and say how much you enjoyed the book.

Jones, Stephen and Kim Newman, eds. Horror: Another 100 best books. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005.456pp.

2006-11-25T20:42:00.000-05:00

This is a great book based on a great idea. Ask 100 people in the extended horror fiction family to write a short essay about their favourite book and then publish the results. If you can get authors like Robert Silverberg, Poppy Brite, Nancy Collins, ST Joshi, David Morrell and a whole bunch of others, you're in business. I liked this book a lot, as well as the first book in the series published a few years ago, Horror: 100 best books. It's a great thing to leave around the house and read a chapter or two here and there -- I've been reading the darn thing since June and just finished it today. I actually read all the chapters in sequence, something I've not done yet with the original book. There are also books in the series on science fiction and fantasy. I hope to give all three of those this same treatment one day; in fact, I think I'll be putting the sf one at my bedside today. One great thing about these books is that they also have additional reading lists at the end. This one has the TOC from Horror: 100 best books as well as a year by year listing of important books from 458 BCE (The Oresteia by Aeschylus) to 2005 (The mysteries by Lisa Tuttle).

The best thing about a book like this is that is introduces you to books and authors you've never heard of or didn't know much about and gets you excited about trying out there works. It also gives you a chance to judge your own comprehensiveness in genre reading, letting you know if there are serious gaps.

By way of a meme-y thing, I present the list of 100 here, with the ones I've read bolded and the ones I want to get around to reading in italics. Many of the later, of course, suggested by my reading of the essay in the book. Many thanks to the link here for saving me a lot of typing.

Robert Silverberg on The Revenger's Tragedy by Cyril Tourneur
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro on Pikovaia Dama/The Queen of Spades by Aleksandr Puchkin
Elizabeth Hand on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Doug Bradley on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Jay Lake on Rekopiz Znaleziony w Saragossie/The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan, Count Potocki
K.W. Jeter on New Grub Street by George Gissing
David J. Skal on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Les Edwards on The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Tony Richards on The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Rick Hautala on The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" by William Hope Hodgson
Jean-Marc Lofficier and Randy Lofficier on Le fantome de l'Opera/The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Tim Lucas on Fantomas by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allan
Christopher Wicking on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft
Barbara Roden and Christopher Roden on They Return at Evening by H.R. Wakefield
Sydney J. Bounds on Creep, Shadow! By A. Merritt
Chaz Brenchley on The Trail of Fu Manchu
Stephen Volk on The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley
Gahan Wilson on The Haunted Omnibus ed. Alexander Laing
Robert Weinberg on The Edge of Running Water by William Sloane
T.M. Wright on L'Etranger/The Stranger by Albert Camus
David A. Sutton on Sleep No More: Twenty Masterpieces of Horror for the Connoisseur ed. August Derleth
Storm Constantine on Lost Worlds by Clark Ashton Smith
Stefan Dziemianowicz on Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales by Henry S. Whitehead
Gwyneth Jones on Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural ed. Herbert A. Wise and Phyllis Fraser
Joel Lane on The Opener of the Way by Robert Bloch
Christopher Fowler on Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Gary Gianni on Carnacki the Ghost-Finder by William Hope Hodgson
Randy Broecker on Darker Than You Think by Jack Williamson
Tanith Lee on Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen
Lucius Shepard on Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell
David Bischoff on House of Flesh by Bruno Fischer
Anne Billson on Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier
Nancy A. Collins on The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson
Laurence Staig on The Third Ghost Book ed. Lady Cynthia Asquith
Andy Duncan on The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
John Gordon on The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Norman Partridge on The Hunger and Other Stories by Charles Beaumont
Robert Irwin on The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
Mark Morris on The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
Howard Waldrop on A Scent of New-Mown Hay by John Blackburn
Ed Gorman on A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson
Muriel Gray on The Weirdstone of Brinsingamen by Alan Garner
Terry Dowling on Tales of Terror ed. Charles Higham
Peter Atkins on Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon
Jack Womack on We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Darrell Schweitzer on The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell
Peter Crowther on Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Ian MacLeod on The Collector by John Fowles
Glen Hirshberg on Who Fears the Devil? By Manly Wade Wellman
Simon Clark on A Wrinkle in the Skin by John Christopher
Nancy Holder on Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
Ellen Datlow on The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural Selected by
the Editors of Playboy
Terry Lamsley on Pages from Cold Point by Paul Bowles
John Farris on Outer Dark by Cormac McCarthy
Stephen Baxter on The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg
Elizabeth Massie on Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
P.N. Elrod on The Night Stalker by Jeff Rice
Michael Swanwick on Blood Sport by Robert F. Jones
Nicholas Royle on Nightshade by Derek Marlowe
Roz Kaveney on Peace by Gene Wolfe
David Drake on The Year of the Sex Olympics: Three TV Plays by Nigel Kneale
Marc Laidlaw on Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
Paul McAuley on The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
Jo Fletcher on Darkness Weaves With Many Shades by Karl Edward Wagner
Sir Christopher Frayling on The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
Thomas Ligotti on Sweeney Todd by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
D.F. Lewis on The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen by Elizabeth Bowen
Christopher Golden on Dark Forces: New Stories of Suspense and Supernatural Horror ed. Kirby McCauley
John Burke on Tales from the Nightside by Charles L. Grant
Yvonne Navarro on They Thirst by Robert R. McCammon
Poppy Z. Brite on The Face That Must Die by Ramsey Campbell
David Stuart Davies on The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Michael Marshall Smith on Pet Sematary by Stephen King
Anthony Timpone on Clive Barker's Books of Blood Volumes One, Two, and Three by Clive Barker
Nancy Kilpatrick on Perfume: The Story of a Murdered by Patrick Suskind
Bill Sheehan on Finishing Touches by Thomas Tessier
Kelly Link on Strange Toys by Patricia Geary
Allen Koszowski on The Dark Descent ed. David G. Hartwell
Graham Joyce on Misery by Stephen King
Frank M. Robinson on The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
Mark Chadbuurn on Prime Evil ed. Douglas E. Winter
Jay Russell on By Bizarre Hands: Stories by Joe R. Landsdale by Joe R. Lansdale
Peter H. Cannon on The Grotesque by Patrick McGrath
David Morrell on Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
Stephen R. Bissette on From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
David McGillivray on American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Brian Hodge on Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite
China Mieville on The Course of the Heart by M. John Harrison
Adam Simon on Flicker by Theodore Roszak
Paul Di Filippo on X, Y by Michael Blumlein
Caitlin R. Kiernan on Skin by Kathe Koja
Tananarive Due on Throat Sprockets: A Novel of Erotic Obsession by Tim Lucas
Simon R. Green on The Off Season: A Victorian Sequel by Jack Cady
S.T. Joshi on The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti
Roberta Lannes on A Sight for Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell
Michael Shea on Reprisal by Mitchell Smith
John Pelan on A Haunting Beauty by Sir Charles Birkin
Jeff VanderMeer on House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Richard A. Lupoff on Feesters in the Lake & Other Stories by Bob Leman
Tim Lebbon on More Tomorrow & Other Stories by Michael Marshall Smith

Hmmm. Only 21 read (23/100 in the first book), not that impressive for someone who likes to think they're a horror fan. On the other hand, I do tend to do best on sf lists with horror in the middle and fantasy worst, so it's not too surprising. The good news is that there's lots of good reading ahead for me to catch up!

Science Fiction Book Club list most significant SF novels between 1953-2006

2006-11-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

Who'da thunk I'd be linking to Walt on this blog?

In any case, this is one of those listy-memey things, a list of 50 books that are a test of a sort on how comprehensive a reading history a person has in sf.

The rules are:

“Below is a Science Fiction Book Club list most significant SF novels between 1953-2006. The meme part of this works like so: Bold the ones you have read, strike through the ones you read and hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put a star next to the ones you love.”

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert*
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke*
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury*
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.*
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov?
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl*
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin*
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick*
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon*
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford*
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer*

I agree with Walt and am adding a "?" for ones I can't remember if I've read. I'm also giving myself credit for the Cordwainder Smith book and Deathbird Stories. I haven't read those particular books, but in both cases I've read so many of the author's short stories in other places that I think it counts.

If I count right, my score is 40, which is probably pretty good. I'm probably helped by the fact that I always try and mix in the occasional classic with my current reading. A couple of the above are ones I've read in the last couple of years. I'm also helped by the fact that there's a number of very core fantasy and horror titles included, which I've also tended to make sure I've read. Although, the Shannara I did read when I was very young and very impressionable and under the thrall of Tolkien; even then I recognized it as a ripoff.

I also agree with Feminist SF - The Blog that the list could be a bit more diverse.

Dunning, John. The bookman's wake.New York: Pocket Star, 1996. 432pp.

2006-11-14T14:44:00.000-05:00

This is the second in John Dunning's Cliff Janeway series of detective novels. The first, Booked to die, was published in 1992 and this one came a couple of years later in 1995. Then there was a longish gap in the publishing until The bookman's promise in 2004. They've been a steady one per year since then. I read the first a number of years ago then put the series aside until the recent spate of new books led me to take a look at the second in the series.

It's a pretty mainstream detective series -- the loner ex-cop gets involved in a bunch of crimes while sort of trying to stay away from his old life and sort of still drawn to it. Not generally the kind of thing that interests me that much and normally I probably wouldn't bother with this series. Except for one thing: it's set in the rare book world. After Janeway left the police force he became a rare book dealer in Denver and all the books somehow involve a murder that's connected with that world. That's what attracts me to this series and, so far, it works. This novel involves a mysterious young women who has a connection to a highly collectable printer who died mysteriously in the late 1960s. She's involved in a breaking and entering and murder in Seattle and a shady ex-cop sends Janeway their to take her back to Denver. Murder and mayhem ensue and all the various familial mysteries are solved at the end. Like I said, pretty mainstream but for me the insights into the book world make it all worthwhile.

In fact, it should be interesting to read the next in the series, published in 2004, to get Janeway's take on what the internet has done to the rare book world and how the collectable markets in general have been affected.

Heppenheimer, T. A. Countdown: A history of space flight. New York: Wiley, 1997. 398pp.

2006-11-14T10:36:00.000-05:00

The decision to read this book was certainly not rocket science, even if it is a book about rocket science. An engaging and fascinating read, you don't have to be a brain surgeon to understand it either, as it concerns itself as much with the human challenges in the history of space flight as with the purely engineering ones.

Since this book was published in 1997, it obviously doesn't cover any of the more recent missions from the last ten years or so, but I didn't really find that to be much of a problem, as what I was really looking for was information about the early years of rocketry, and this book covers those quite well, including the programs in Germany, Russia and the USA.

I really appreciated the focus on the early careers of Wernher von Braun in Germany and, in particular, Sergei Korolev of Russia, whose name was unfamiliar to me before. The hardships of the Russian engineers and other workers who were forced to work in incredibly bad conditions for Stalin were something was also a revelation. Von Braun's story was also fascinating, perhaps the only flaw in the book's coverage is that I would liked to have learned more about the program under Nazi Germany. Von Braun was very likely an unacknowledged war criminal, and this was underplayed.

The great strides of the Soviet program in the 1950s is also well covered, including the determination by the Americans to ultimately overtake the Soviet program, which they did by the 1960s. The stories of the machinations of the US Army, Air Force and Navy and their jockeying for position and influence was very well presented. The seemless integration of the military and industry is also quite apparent, leading the Eisenhower's famous comment about watching out for the military industrial complex. Well, it's all here, laid out in the history of the space program. The main developments in ICBMs, spy planes, spy sattelites, high altitude bombers are all covered.

In some ways, the most exciting part of the book is the chapters leading up to the dramitic Apollo moon landing, contrasting with the Soviet program's declining success at that time. The chapters following the moon landing could have been anti-climactic. However, I found the history of the various unmanned, exploratory missions very interesting; Heppenheimer is definately a proponent of unmanned exploration versus the political showmanship of dangerous and expensive manned missions. This part of the book, leading up to the Challenger disaster, was very critical of the American decision to put all it's eggs in the shuttle basket and showed how the Europeans were able to capitalize on that and how even the Soviet/Russian program was able to make many positive strides.

The book ends on a positive note, hoping for a renewed international space program based on international co-operation. We're not quite there yet, but this book certainly gives the background necessary to understand where we are and how we got here.

Wellington, David. Monster island. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2006. 282pp.

2006-11-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

Old school, gonzo, over-the-top, gross-out zombie horror! Such joy must come into every life every now and then!

David Wellington's new zombie trilogy begins with this novel, Zombie Island. Interestingly enough, all three novels have already been serialized (apparently in somewhat different form) in blog form by the author. The links are in Wellington's Wikipedia page I link to above and I also link to them at the end of this post. Since each of the 60+ chapters in the novel was originally a blog post, they tend to be short and sharp, each with a good cliffhanger ending. The novel has a very fast, breakneck pace leaving the reader almost breathless as we race through. This is a good thing.

The storyline is rather basic and contrived, of course. For some reason, a UN worker in Somalia named Dekalb is forced by a warlord to journey to New York to get AIDS drugs that he thinks are for sure in the UN building there, possibly the only such stash of AIDS drugs left in the world. The catch? The entire world is overrun by zombies, making the mission to NYC a bit problematic. Once in New York, our hero must face off with the zombie hoards controlled by a newly empowered zombie lord. His companions? A gang of gun-toting teenaged Somali school girls sworn to the warlord. Right, who needs a plot. And I mean that as a compliment.

In any case, we really don't know how the whole zombie plague came about, a question that is apparently answered in the prequel/sequel Zombie Nation. That one's been published in book form and needless to say, I'll be getting it pretty soon.

For fun, here's a listing of all Wellington's online serializations. Enjoy!

Monster Island
Monster Nation
Monster Planet
Thirteen Bullets (vampire novel)
Frostbite (werewolves, currently in progress)

Wilson, Robert Charles. Spin. New York: Tor, 2006. 454pp.

2006-10-23T12:51:00.000-04:00

Robert Charles Wilson's Spin is as good a science fiction novel as you will ever read. Period. It has it all: good science, good characters, mystery and a big dollop of Wilson's characteristic transcendance. I won't summarize the plot, as the Wikipedia entry does a great job of that.

I want to talk a little about what a thrill it is to read a good sf novel. It doesn't happen very often, but it's worth noting when it does. I've been lucky lately, the last really good sf novel I read was John Scalzi's Old Man's War, before that, a bit longer ago, when I finally got around to reading To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer last year around this time. What really signals that reading experience for me? Well, it's when the book stops me in my tracks while I'm reading it and makes me think very deeply about the characters and/or issues raised in the book. Spin is one of those books, that stopped me in my tracks. The characters, the transcendence, the aliens, the Martians, the decline and decay, this is a great book.

1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die

2006-10-18T14:43:00.000-04:00

Via BookSlut, my own little meme-y thing. Of the list of 1001, how many have I read?

104. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels
109. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
167. Time’s Arrow – Martin Amis
174. Get Shorty – Elmore Leonard
197. London Fields – Martin Amis
210. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency – Douglas Adams
213. The Black Dahlia – James Ellroy
227. Watchmen – Alan Moore & David Gibbons
242. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
253. Empire of the Sun – J.G. Ballard
254. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
258. Neuromancer – William Gibson
288. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
301. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
320. Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
340. Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
345. Crash – J.G. Ballard
375. Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
389. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Arthur C. Clarke
390. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
417. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut
430. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John Le Carré
436. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
437. A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
439. The Drowned World – J.G. Ballard
444. Stranger in a Strange Land – Robert Heinlein
494. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
496. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
508. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
521. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
527. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
529. The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
539. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov
547. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
564. Animal Farm – George Orwell
599. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
610. The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
623. At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
635. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M. Cain
649. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
652. The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett
660. The Maltese Falcon – Dashiell Hammett
736. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
743. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
790. The War of the Worlds – H.G. Wells
792. What Maisie Knew – Henry James
794. Dracula – Bram Stoker
796. The Island of Dr. Moreau – H.G. Wells
797. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
804. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
808. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
814. The Master of Ballantrae – Robert Louis Stevenson
820. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
846. Far from the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
848. Around the World in Eighty Days – Jules Verne
851. Erewhon – Samuel Butler
866. Journey to the Centre of the Earth – Jules Verne
867. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
871. Notes from the Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsk
876. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
883. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
879. The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
911. The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe
916. The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
931. Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
938. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
983. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift
987. Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe

No bad, all things considered. Certainly lots of lit courses over my school career helped pad a lot of the numbers here. As expected, genre is very poorly served by this list, most of the selections are either obvious or token. Mystery-wise, James Lee Burke, John D Macdonald & Ross McDonald are key ommissions as are Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Dan Simmons, Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber and countless others on the f/sf side. Taking the easy way out, the lister chooses too many items by the same famous authors, leaving less room for truly interesting selections. For example, we probably don't need 10 Dickens selections, 5 Hemingway or even all the Wells that was chosen.

Of course, there are also many books I do hope to read off the list by Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, Martin & Kinsley Amis. Iain Banks, William Kotzwinkle, Angela Carter, John Le Carré, Raymond Chandler and many others.

The big list of books

2006-10-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

Another meme from Andrew Wheeler.

The rules: books you've read are in bold, books you intend to read are in italics, and add three books at the end.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (a good beach/vacation/train trip book)
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6) - J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3) - J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4) - J.K. Rowling
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5) - J.K. Rowling
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons - Dan Brown
Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Book 1) - J.K. Rowling
Neuromancer - William Gibson
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2) - J.K. Rowling
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Ender's Game (The Ender Saga) - Orson Scott Card
Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman (one of the funniest books of all time)
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert
The Unberable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
The Nature of Blood - Caryl Phillips
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules - Ed. David Sedaris
Yarn Harlot - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
Spook - Mary Roach
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanne Clarke
Marley and Me - John Grogan
Gone to the Dogs - Emily Carmichael
Book the 11th: The Grim Grotto: The Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
State of Fear - Michael Crichton
The Speed of Dark - Elizabeth Moon
Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat - Anne Rice
The Snow Fox - Susan Fromberg Schaeffer
Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
The Princess Bride - William Goldman (An all time favourite)
Luck in the Shadows - Lynn Flewelling
Arthur & George - Julian Barnes
The Seven Dials Mystery - Agatha Christie
The Stupidest Angel - Christopher Moore
Sabine's Notebook - Nick Bantock
Strangers in the Night - Linda Howard
Night Tales (v.1) - Nora Roberts
Reunion - Nora Roberts
White Lies - Linda Howard
Fever Season (Merovingen Nights) - CJ Cherryh
Divine Rite (Merovingen Nights) - CJ Cherryh
Angel With a Sword (Merovingen Nights) - CJ Cherryh
Mount Dragon - Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child (Relic and it's sequels rock!)
Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine
Settling Accounts: Return Engagement - Harry Turtledove (the next HT series I'll be tackling, I think)
In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
Cell - Stephen King (I guess, but I'm so far behind in my King reading)
Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
Star Trek: S.C.E. #66: Many Splendors - Keith R. A. DeCandido
The Crucible, Book Three: The Crippled Angel - Sara Douglass
Star Trek: Mere Anarchy, Book One: Things Fall Apart - Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore Dragonlance Chronicles, Book One: Dragons of Autumn Twilight - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Star Trek: Mere Anarchy, Book Two: The Centre Cannot Hold - Mike W. Barr
Duty First: A year in the Life of West Point and the Making of American Leaders - Ed Ruggo
Hit Parade - Lawrence Block
Jpod - Douglas Coupland
Manhattan Transfer - John Dos Passos
The Neon Wilderness - Nelson Algren
The Bride Wore Black - Cornell Woolrich
Rain in the Doorway - Thorne Smith
City of Glass (graphic novel) - Paul Auster with Paul Karasik & David Mazzaucchelli
Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero - Karen Traviss
The Starslip Crisis Technical Manual - Kristofer Straub
Four Ways to Forgiveness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Reinventing Paul- John Gager
The Ghost Stories of M.R. James- selected by Michael Cox
La vita nuova- Dante
Star Trek: Crucible: McCoy: Provenance of Shadows- David R. George III
Dancing After Hours- Andre Dubus
Gun, with Occasional Music- Jonathan Lethem
Infinite Jest- David Foster Wallace
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus - Mary Shelley
Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets - David Simon
Dancing on the Edge of the World - Ursula K. Le Guin
Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
The Book of the New Sun - Gene Wolfe
Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake
Davy - Edgar Pangborn
Black Cherry Blues - James Lee Burke
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

Unread books meme

2006-10-14T22:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, another meme. This one via Andrew Wheeler.

Ten Books I Own and Want to Read But Haven't Gotten To Yet.

So, I own zillions of books that I haven't read yet. What's the use of owning zillions you have already read and will never read again? Therefore, most of my we're-running-out-of-space weeding efforts over the years have been focused on books I've already read. Here's a list of 10 books that I've got lying around the house and hope to read in the next 12 months. I'll do 5 fiction and 5 non-fiction, some I've had lying around a while and some that are fairly new.

Anvil Chorus by Shane Stevens. Stevens wrote one of the seminal serial killer novels, By Reason of Insanity. This is one of his other novels and if it's as good as BRoI, I can't wait.
Demons by John Shirley. I love a good horror novel and this one got great reviews when it came out.
The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem. Another novel that got great reviews when it came out. I'm looking forward to this one in particular because of the comic book connection.
Cool War by Frederik Pohl. Pohl has long been one of my favourite novelists, and this is one of the ones I've missed.
Witness to Myself by Seymour Shubin. Hey, those Hard Case Crime books are always great...
The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. A facinating and topical book, especially considering the new Conservative government in Canada.
King of Infinite Space: Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry by Siobhan Roberts. Science biography is always one of my favourites and Coxeter has a lot of personal connections for me through my work and York U.
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science by Carl Sagan. Cool stuff by the master of popular science.
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips. More biography, this time of noted sf author James Tiptree.
The David Suzuki Reader: A Lifetime of Ideas from a Leading Activist and Thinker by David Suzuki. An essay collection as a follow up to his recent memoirs that I enjoyed so much. I also want to read The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature but I haven't bought it yet.

Two other books that I'll be reading soon that I didn't want to waste list space for are The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 by Brian Greene and Tim Folger and The Best American Science Writing 2006 by Atul Gawande. I never miss the volumes in there series.

Park, Robert. Voodoo science: The road from foolishness to fraud. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 230pp.

2006-10-11T20:23:00.000-04:00

This year, during my sabbatical, I'm really trying to read a lot of science non-fiction, as opposed to my usual diet of science fiction. And so far, it's been great. Bryson, Suzuki and now Park have all given me both entertainment and information and perhaps even a little knowledge. Suzuki and Park, in particular, perhaps have even shared a bit of wisdom.

Both books, the Suzuki bio I finished a few weeks ago and this book, Voodoo Science by Robert Park, are about teaching the world to be a little more rational, a little more humane and a little less gullible.

So, Bob Park, physicist, author and debunker. The weekly dose of rationality in his What's New newsletter. Subscribe, you won't regret it. Every week is a few pointed notes about the world, a few skeptical take-downs of those who would cheat, coverup or manipulate science to their ends. That's what Voodoo Science is all about.

One by one, Park takes on various frauds and deceptions, both by those in the scientifif community and politicians, media or corporations, and debunks them. From homeopathy to the international space station, from perpetual motion machines to electromaganetic fields causing cancer, from Roswell & UFOs to abuses of quantum theory by Deepak Chopra and his ilk, Park is unafraid to tackle the big issues. And he always makes sure that the news media get the scorn they deserve for sloppy and ill-informed coverage.

A grim and depressing book in some ways? Sure. But Park always keeps the tone light and pace fast. A good and entertaining book, as well as an important one.

Suzuki, David. David Suzuki: An autobiobraphy. Vancouver: Greystone, 2006. 404pp.

2006-10-03T15:51:00.000-04:00

We live in a time when the military, industry, and medicine are all applying scientific insights, with profound social, economic, and political consequences. As a result, ignoring scientific matters is very dangerous. It's not that I believe science will ultimately provide solutions to major problems we face; I think solutions to environmental issues are much more likely to result from political, social, and economic decisions than from scientific ones. but scientists can deliver best descriptions of the state of the climate, species, pollution, deforestation, and so on, and these should inform our political and economic actions. If we don't base our long-term actions on the best scientific knowledge, then I belive we are in a great danger of succumbing to the exigencies of politics and economics.

-David Suzuki.

An nice quote from noted Canadian scientist, broadcaster and environmental activist, David Suzuki. For me, this quote pretty well sums up this entire book, a strong call for rationality, for scientific literacy, and even stronger call to save the environment, to be active, to make a difference. These are certainly what Suzuki's life have been all about. By implication, by example, these are the things he calls on us to make part of our lives too.

This is a great book, moving and impassioned, and yet still very human. Suzuki is clearly not overly impressed with himself, not caught up with his own celebrity and this makes his memoirs so engaging. There's lots of gentle humour here, often at his own expense. He also balances the story of his public life with the story of his private life. He gives enough insight into his personal to give us a good feeling of who he is without so much that it feels intrusive or exploitative.

Following up his first volume of memoirs, Metamorphosis from 1986, Suzuki mostly picks up where that one leaves off. He gives us a brief summary of his childhood, education and early academic and broadcasting career in the first few chapters. Since it's been nearly 20 years since I read Metamorphosis, I really can't recall how much is rehashed and how much is new. The following chapters are mostly telling the story of his environmental activism along with some details about his family life. The story we get the most on is his involvement with First Nations communities, particularly in BC. Also, we get three strong chapters on his involvement with Amazon forestry issues. Also various environmental summits are covered, including the Rio Earth Summit and Kyoto.

But it's the last two chapters that I really loved, "Reflections on Science and Technology" and "A Culture of Celebrity." These are almost manifestos to pay attention to the planet, to learn about our place in the ecosystem and to value science -- he takes a few digs at Canadian culture for placing such a low value on science. He also muses a bit on the whole "Greatest Canadian" thing, and our insane celebrity culture in general. It's intersting to not that the poll placed him the highest of any living Canadian. David Suzuki -- greatest living Canadian. I can live with that.

I would be remiss if I did not give some important links:

David Suzuki Foundation.
Citation for Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour
Suzuki Foundation publications
Suzuki's Science Matters newspaper column, since 1999.

Bryson, Bill. A short history of nearly everything. Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 2003. 544pp.

2006-09-25T20:00:00.000-04:00

I'm a bit of two minds on this book. Really, I almost consider it two different books that I could review separately. The first, a book I really like, that I think is an important contribution to efforts to improve scientific literacy amongst the general population. The second, a book that subtly undermines efforts to improve scientific literacy among the general public by essentially portraying most scientists as lying, egocentric freakazoids.

Let's do the good review first. This book is a fun read, a hard thing to say about most science books, popular or otherwise. Bryson has an engaging style and a good eye for the most accessible stories. And the emphasis is definitely on stories, on the role of individual scientists in the history of scientific discoveries. He comes at the science using the stories of the scientists and inventors, always bringing the knowledge to a human scale and understanding, always giving a good understanding and grounding of the science in everyday life. And, the search for scientific understanding as part of the everyday lives of the scientists. Like I said, the story is king here and Bryson really personalizes science in this book. If scientists often seem a little remote as they are portrayed in popular culture, well Bryson goes out of his way to make scientists seem very human.

What sciences does he concentrate on? Really what we sometimes call the hard sciences: physics and astronomy especially, chemistry, geology, all the earth sciences. The age of the universe, the earth and life (especially human life) on earth is one of his dominant themes throughout the book, so palaeontology, paleoanthropology, evolutionary biology, particle physics all play important roles in those big questions and he treats them all engagingly.

I also admire Bryson's resolutely rational and non-supernatural approach to the material. No intelligent design theories here, only a scientific, rational, reality based approach. And a very strong environmental message. Bryson fights the good fight here, with good material on species extinction, pollution and climate change. Another bonus is an 11 page bibliography to get you going on further reading on all the subjects he tackles.

And now for the not-so-good news. The humanization-of-science thing goes a bit too far, and Bryson seems to go out of his way to dig up some unsavoury gossip on virtually every historical scientist he talks about. It's one thing to glorify and sanctify these all-too-human people, but on the other hand, I don't think portraying them all as a bunch of kooks is a good idea either. For example, on p. 357 he tell us how Linnaeus was obsessed with sex and always giving organisms slightly naughty names, such as one genus of plants he named Clitora. On p. 351 he tells us of other scientists who were in the habit of stealing hundreds of specimens from London's Natural History Museum. And on p. 385, he gives us a detailed description of Charles Darwin's mysterious disease, making him seem to be a bit of a hypocondriac. And on and on, these are just a few examples from a short stretch of the book. A bit of balance, please, Mr. Bryson.

Actually, I guess there's a third book under discussion here. The book that includes the stuff that Bryson chose not to cover. The list of scientific disciplines I mention above is pretty impressive, but I think that some areas that he covered excessively could have been trimmed and some areas that were left out could have been added. As I imply above, one candidate for trimming was his very extensive coverage of how we have come to the current age of the universe and the Earth. While interesting and useful, it could easily have been shortened. The areas I would have added, which I think would have made the book even more valuable, are math, computing, a more general coverage of biology and a bit on philosophy of science. First of all, biology. Bryson really doesn't cover biology to the same extent as the earth sciences, and what he does cover in biology is mostly human evolution, ie. paleobiology. Related to paalaeontology and really in the same strain as the earth sciences. So, at least a little more botany, a little physiology and maybe even some expanding the decent coverage of genetics to include the bioinformatics revolution. Math -- it seems to me that most of modern science rests on a foundation of mathematical reasoning and to not even cover calculus and what it means to scientific progress is shortchanging the reader. Mathophobes be damned. "Nearly everything" has to include a bit of math.

Computing -- as we know, computers are ubiquitous in the world today, and that is no less true of modern science. Computational methods are so prevalent in scientific research these days that I think Bryson owed it to his readers to give at least a taste of the growth and development of the computing field and its influence on science. And really, the pioneers of computing have to be at least as colourful as any other discipline.

And lastly, the philosophy part. I'm certainly not advocating that he go into all the gory details of the philosophy of science -- all that postmodern sociology stuff is a bit heavy for a pop science book. But I also think he owed it to his readers to talk a little bit about what the scientific method is and how it works. It seems to me that understanding a little bit about how scientists know what they claim to know is a useful bit of knowledge. With all the various wars on science going on out there, a little bit of understanding of how scientists get around to making their claims will make us all a better informed citizenry, and this book leaves us hanging a bit in that respect. Remember, "nearly everything."

But enough of all the carping. Buy the darned book. It's mostly pretty good and a surprisingly easy read with more positives than negatives. The illustrated version, which I don't have but have glanced through in the bookstores, is probably even easier to get through.

You're a greedy SOB, Jim.

2006-09-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

A quote from a CNN story, via the Retrospectable blog:

If you ask them what still gets them fired up about the late producer Gene Roddenberry's creation after all these years, you get an answer that -- underneath the glibness -- is very telling:

SHATNER: Money.

NIMOY: Yeah. The big, the big bucks.

SHATNER: Money. The money gets you fired up.

TOGETHER: The biiiig bucks.

Seriously?

SHATNER: Yes, that was serious. We were very serious about that.

*Snip*

SHATNER: So you want Paramount to say we've made enough money?

NIMOY: Let's stop making money. Yeah.

SHATNER: Yeah, yeah.

NIMOY: The stockholders won't mind.

SHATNER: No, and we've --

NIMOY: We should stop making money.

SHATNER: Folks, we've made enough money, we're walking away --

NIMOY: We're going to take a break --

SHATNER: Yes. It's been a wonderful ride --

NIMOY: We're going on vacation --

SHATNER: And no more money.

NIMOY: Right. Off to an island someplace and just ...

SHATNER: We'll just handle the books in a different way and make it look like we made something.

NIMOY: Watch the sunset and forget about money...

SHATNER: Yes.

NIMOY: And your investment? Oh, don't worry about it, you know.

SHATNER: It's going to be OK.

NIMOY: We'll get around to that someday.

SHATNER: You'll have some other shows.

NIMOY: Yeah, we don't want to make any more money. No.

Back in my sf convention running days (I was co-chair & treasurer for Montreal's ConCept from 1989-1992ish), I always used to get really exasperated by the media sf fans. They seemed to have this slavish devotion to the actors in sf tv shows and, to me, it just didn't make any sense. What do we love about sf -- the extrapolation, the estrangement, the fun, the effects, the whatever -- and who gives it to us. Well, writers are responsible for bringing us the sfnal thrills in novels and short fiction. So, yes, they are the ones we love for sf fiction. Authors.

Well, who brings us the sfnal thrills in media sf? In the highly collaborative media such as film or tv, lots of people contribute to the thrills. The writers, sure, they start the ball rolling. But also the directors and effects people play a huge part in bringing our sf dreams to life before us. These are the ones who love sf and bring it to us. James Cameron, Peter Jackson, and the effects people whose names we don't necessarily know but who work very hard, yeah, I can go with worshipping them in the same way we worship sf authors. But actors? For the most part they're just the hired hands, the ones who care least about what we, as sf fans, care about. This little bit from Shatner and Nimoy just confirms it. They don't care about us, why should we care about (and worship) them.

McDonald, Ian. River of gods. London: Simon & Schuster, 2004. 575pp.

2006-09-15T23:31:00.000-04:00

This is a big, fat, sprawling, panoramic novel set in India during its 100th anniversary of independance in 2047. As such, its immediately going to beg comparisons to Salman Rushdie's big, fat, sprawling, panaoramic novel of India's independance, Midnight's Children. Midnight's Children was about the children who were born the very instant of Indian independance in 1947 and the magical powers they grew up with, and how these powers reflected Indian society and history. It's a beautiful novel, one of the best fantasy novels ever written, bar none. It's amazing in its complex wordplay and intricate story, endlessly bizarre. At the same time it's funny, warm and human.

How does McDonald's River of Gods shape up? Not bad, actually. It's sf, of course, for a bit of a difference. It's not so much about India per se as it is about the impact of AI on society, focusing on India's impact on the world and the world's impact on India, rural and urban, old and new, history and future. Being sf, it's forward looking rather than Rushdie's focus on the past. On the other hand, McDonald's large cast of characters make the novel a bit too diffuse and confusing at times. It took me easily 150 pages to really get all the various characters and plot strands really straight in my head. As well, by the rather drawn-out finale, I had lost a bit of interest in the plot only perking up again at the very end. But, many of the characters were very vivid and many of the scenes and plot strands were terrifically executed.

On balance, this novel isn't as good as I'd hoped, it doesn't quite pull off some of its ambitious goals. But it is still highly recommended for a couple of reasons. When McDonald is hitting on all cylinders, the novel is terrific; it's always exhilarating to see someone reach for the sky, even if he doesn't quite make it. Equally important, sf often ignores non-western societies and this novel very believably gives us a future India; if nothing else, we need to thank Ian McDonald for pushing the envelope a bit.

Lee, Stan and George Mair. Excelsior: The amazing life of Stan Lee. New York: Fireside, 2002. 246pp.

2006-09-04T00:10:00.000-04:00

This is the autobiography of the main personality behind Marvel Comics, creator (with Jack Kirby and others) of The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, The Avengers and so many others. We already know his public personna from all those Soapbox columns in all those comics -- brash, crazy, enthusiastic, over-the-top, all that. And his memoirs are more of the same. Funny, engaging, a fast-paced tour through his rags-to-riches life in the comic biz, a story Lee tells with a lot of verve and even a little nostalgic warmth. On the other hand, not a lot of startling revelations or deep insights into Lee's personality. Mostly he goes through the superficial business and creative history of his involvement in Marvel, not much about his personal life, not much speculation about what it all means. But that's ok. This is a fast and fun read.

Like I said about the Polgar book, there remains a definitive book to be written about Stan Lee's contribution to modern culture, but this ain't it. But until that book comes along, this is a great start.

Some of the books I'm going to be tracking down and/or digging out of the archives for more depth:

Stan Lee and the Rise and Fall of the American Comic Book by Jordan Raphael
Tales To Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and the American Comic Book Revolution by Ronin Ro
The Comic Book Makers by Joe Simon
Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America by Bradford W. Wright

Book meme

2006-09-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

I don't usually do these meme-y things, but this one is more interesting than most. Cribbed from Claude's blog. (Runner up in parentheses, if applicable.)

1. One book that changed your life?

I'll have to put Davy by Edgar Pangborn as this one. It really gave me an appreciation for the emotional as well as the speculative power of SF. (Brittle Innings by Michael Bishop -- turned me on to one of my favourite writers)

2. One book you have read more than once?

I don't usually read books multiple times. Lord of the Rings comes to mind, three times. (Davy, above, twice)

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Something really thick. How about The Essential Ellison. (If I can have a chess set too, a really thick games collection like 500 Master Games of Chess by Tartakower & du Mont)

4. One book that made you laugh?

Mort by Terry Pratchett. (HHGttG by Douglas Adams)

5. One book that made you cry?

The Green Mile by Stephen King. On a bus, no less.

6. One book you wish had been written?

Easy: another Kane novel by Karl Edward Wagner. In fact, any book by Wagner.

7. One book you wish had never been written?

The Gor series by John Norman. A blight on the world of SF & F.

8. One book you are currently reading?

River of Gods by Ian McDonald. Thick, complex, amazing, very reminicent of Rushdie's Midnight's Children. About 150 pages to go. (Burn by Bill Buford -- just started. Mario Batali uber alles.) (A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. Not perfect, but makes science interesting and scientists, cool & funny)

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Spin by Robert Charles Wilson is next on the list. I've been meaning to read it for a while, winning the Hugo is just the kick in the pants I needed to put it on the top of the pile. (Forty Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson.) (Also a lot of Year's Best anthologies to catch up on.)

Another on the Hugos

2006-09-02T20:41:00.000-04:00

Just thought I'd mention the Harlan Ellison scandal from the Hugo ceremony. I'm not going to go into what happened (you can read a lot of stuff all over the blogosphere), except to say that I've always admired Ellison as a writer, that he was one of the first "serious" sf writers I started reading, that his work has always fascinated and intrigued me, both his fiction and his non-fiction. Passion and integrity shone through in his work, especially during his heydays in the 60s & 70s. To say the least, this incident and his lack of a sincere apology certainly tarnish a lot (most) of the good things I thought about the man.

(You can see the Ellison groping Connie Willis at the Hugo Ceremony here. Ellison's pathetic attempt at an apology is here, in a post from August 31st.)

The Hugos

2006-08-31T21:47:00.000-04:00

A couple of comments on the recently awarded Hugos:

David G. Hartwell for Professional Editor. A long-overdue win for one of the nicest guys in the SF world. More importantly, one of the most deserving. His work at Tor, the various anthologies and the New York Review of Science Fiction are certainly long overdue for recognition. I must have read over a dozen of David's anthologies and who-knows-how-many of the novels he's edited and his taste and knowledge of the field are phenomenal. Congrats, David!
Robert Charles Wilson for Best Novel, Spin. Robert Charles Wilson is one of the great underappreciated authors in the field. I've read half a dozen of his novels and they've all been terrific (well, maybe Darwinia got a little too weird at the end there...). I guess we'll have to stop thinking of him as underappreciated now! I've met Bob a couple of times at Rob Sawyer's parties and he's a nice guy too. It seems that he also used to live on the same street as I do now! And, I guess Spin has just jumped to the top of my to-read list.
Having just read and enjoyed Old Man's War tremendously, I guess I'm also thrilled that John Scalzi won the John W. Campbell Award for best new author.

There's been lots of coverage of the Worldcon and the Hugos. SF Signal has collected a lot of the posts here, here, here, here, here and here.

2006-08-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

Willis, Connie. Passage. New York: Bantam, 2002. 780pp.

Scalzi, John. Old man's war. New York: Tor, 2006. 313pp.

Hughes, Holly, ed. Best food writing 2005. New York: Marlowe, 2005. 325pp.

Turtledove, Harry. Homeward bound. New York: Del Rey, 2004. 597pp.

Plus various magazines: National Geographic Aug 2006, Skeptical Inquirer July/Aug 2006, Scientific American Aug 2006. The magazines too, I'm a magazine junkie so I new I was going to buy a couple while I was away. And a bit of Churchill -- a wildcard, every cottage has a book lying around you just have to pick up.

So, this is the long awaited group review of the books that won my world famous Summer Reading Poll (and here). Well almost. That won, that is. Almost all. The Ian McDonald book River of Gods is the book I'm reading right now, so I'll post on that a bit later. The foodie book also snuck in there, but I'd always planned to bring it along anyway but didn't bother putting non-fiction in the poll.

So, to the reviews.

First off, Connie Willis's Passage. I've always like Willis's work, especially Doomsday Book, a time travel book about the plague. To say nothing of the dog was also first rate; it was set in the same universe, but this time the travellers went back to London during the Blitz. I've also read a few other of her novels and collections and I've mostly enjoyed them quite a bit. Willis is a capable if not exactly deep writer, whose best work uses a lot of humour to facilitate the plot.

Passage is a book I really wanted to love, that really engaged me deeply much of the way through. But, it just couldn't graduate in my mind from ambitious failure to ambitious masterpiece. Ok, failure is too strong a word, but definately this is a novel that just missed greatness and the frustrations I felt at its weaknesses overcame some of the other strengths.

The story revolves around a near death experience (NDE) researcher at a hospital in the States. She is determined that NDEs are rational, medically and scientifically explainable phenomena, rejecting all religious and supernatural explanations. She embarks on a research project with a new colleague at the hospital to prove her ideas, using a new drug that can stimulate NDE-like experiences in subjects. The researchers hope to use these subjects to record a wide variety of different experiences and thereby figure out what NDEs are and what purpose they serve in the human race. So far, so good. Much of the back and forth involving the lab work is well done, giving a good feel for what research is like and how it is done. But, first weakness. Too much of a good thing. These NDEs (our heroine also ends up taking the drug to really figure out NDEs via her own experiences) take up what seems like hundreds of pages, really slowing down the plot. Also, when our heroine starts taking the drug herself, my credibility was a bit strained -- it seems too easy for her to abandon her scientific objectivity and experiment on herself.

The novel also feels really bloated for other reasons: the descriptions of hospital's bizarre maze of hallways went on and on, the endless back and forth with the various subjects about their schedules and why they couldn't make this or that appointment. It was endless. The novel could have been trimmed by a good 200 pages. Another weakness: straw men. The religious types she sets up as bad guys are just too easy to dismiss, their roles as comedic interludes undermines the apparent message of rationality the Willis wants to advance. Or does she. The final, most devastating weakness. After nearly 800 pages of thinking that this novel truly presents a scientific, rational, non-supernatural view of the world, defending science against religion, evidence against faith, on the very last page she throws it all away. I had to read that last page 50 times to see if I could truly believe it.

Our heroine has died, we are seeing in a final series of chapters what we believe to be her NDE, as it plays out in her mind, as her consciousness fades to black. On the last page, "She looked up at the sky. It was changing again, deepening, brightening to gold...Behind them, above the tower, the sun came out, blindingly bright, gilding the crosses and the captain." WTF? All this and the religious loonies were right all along?

Thankfully, John Scalzi's Old man's war was a much more satisfying experience. And one I don't feel the need to write about at such great length. The setting is a universe at war. Humans versus the rest of the various alien civilizations out there. The interesting catch is that the human army is made up of 75-year-olds who volunteer and are then rejuvenated and genetically/cybernetically modified before being sent off to their units. The first part of the novel follows the protagonist who has just entered the army and follows him through his rejuvenation and training. The rest follows his adventures battling other alien races, mostly his quick climb through the ranks in the army. Good battle scenes, engaging characters, smart and intellectually satisfying plot. This is Heinlein for the new millennium, obviously descended from Starship Troopers but also much more grown up, able to ask real questions about real issues. Military sf that knows it's military sf. Highly recommended, a can't miss. I ripped through it in a couple of sittings. Sequels on the way, of course.

Best food writing 2005 was another terrific entry in this series. I read it for the first time last year and I'm now officially hooked. Who doesn't like reading about food, after all? A standout article for me this year was "Where's the Nutella?" contrasting Nutella's cult-like appreciation in Europe with a more restrained attitude in North America. I also liked "New loaves rising" by John Kessler about the renaissance of a traditional family bakery in Atlanta. I'm a sucker for anything that promotes locally grown and/or produced food.

As usual, I'll mention a couple of books excerpted/mentioned in this volume that I'm going to try and remember to track down:

Last chance to eat by Gina Mallet
At mesa edge by Eugenia Bone
Chocolate by Mort Rosenblum
Fried chicken: An American Story by John T. Edge
Garlic and sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Oh, yeah, "Bitter Alchemy" by Deirdre Heiken has so inspired me to try making my own liqueur.

Harry Turtledove's Homeward bound was the last novel I read on vacation and I have to say that, like most of Turtledove's books, I really raced through it, forsaking all else while getting lost in his characters and plots. This is the 8th and (probably) final volume in his saga about an alternate history where aliens invaded during WWII. The once-warring nations of earth more-or-less banded together to take on the aliens, lizard-like Race, and fought them to an unsteady peace which lasted until the good-ole-U-S-of-A developed interstellar travel and head off on a mission to the aliens' planet, letting them know that the human race is now equal to them and should not be triffled with. After much back and forth, tense negotiations, the novel ends in a very unsteady state, a bit anti-climactically. The stodgy Race unsure of it's next step and the Yanks strutting their universe-to-be-conquered stuff. Turtledove makes it all very compelling, with solid characterizations, both human and alien, with a few characters lasting from the very first novel to the last, the endlng a bit open-ended, as if leaving a opening for a ninth book. A good read, no doubt about that, a great potboiler for the beach.

On the other hand, for all Homeward bound's virtues, it also has some flaws. As with the Willis above, it really suffers from terminal bloat. A good editor could easily trim 50-100 pages from this book, just from endless commentary about how the Race is so stodgy and humans are so dynamic. It's been 7+ books. We get it. And the characters seem to have the same coversations over and over again. I really wish Turtledove would write one or two really fine novels a year than feel the need to write a gazillion potboilers. Also, the whole earthling (ie. American) smart, dynamic, innovative, creative, blah, blah blah, contrasting with the slow, efficient, conservative, patient Race -- it just got old. It was pushed so much that I actually started to root for the underdog Race to whip some human (ie. American) butt. I'm not sure if that was what Turtledove was hoping for.

Finally, such a long post nears its end, with a few comments about the magazines I picked up while I was away. I love magazines; it was inevitable a couple would find their way into my reading rotation. First off, SciAm August 2006. What caught my attention here was the article on using chess grandmasters to model how experts gain their expertise in their fields. National Geographic is a mag I pick up occasionally -- the August 2006 issue had a great, inspirational article by Bill McKibben about redefining the environmental movement to be a broadbased societal movement that everyone can identify with and buy into. Read the article and then go see An Inconvenient Truth. Skeptical Inquirer is not a magazine I've ever picked up before -- it always seemed a bit too earnest for me. I picked this one up on a whim and, yes, some of it is a bit too earnest for my liking, but I did enjoy it overall. Some good book reviews, a few interesting articles. The one that made the most impression was "The Philosophy of Pseudoscience" by Mario Bunge (and here), rigourously comparing the philosophical underpinings of real science vs. the lack thereof of pseudoscience.

Jones, Stephen, ed. The mammoth book of best new horror: 15. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. 624pp.

2006-07-12T22:35:00.000-04:00

Another one of those self-recommending books. If you like short horror fiction, you will like this book. Even if you don't like short horror fiction, you will probably find a few stories worth your effort but perhaps not enough to make it worth buying the book.

This series is pretty reliable, quality-wise. I usually tend to like about half the stories, be indifferent about a quarter and sorta dislike about a quarter. The half I like is usually worth the price of admission. So, how does this volume stack up? Actually quite a bit better than average -- I would say I like upwards of 60% of the stories or even more. Probably one of the best volumes in the series I've ever read, and the first was volume 6, I think.

the stories from this volume that really stood out for me:

Cell Call by Marc Laidlaw
Hunger: A Confession by Dale Bailey
Mr Sly Stops for a Cup of Joe by Scott Emerson Bull
The white hands by Mark Samuels
Dancing Men by Glen Hirshberg
Bitter Grounds by Neil Gaiman
Child of the Sones by Paul McAuley
Exorcising Angels by Simon Clark & Tim Lebbon.

The closing story, Exorcising Angels by Clark & Lebbon was easily my fave from the book. An eerie WWI/WWII historical, featuring Arthur Machen and miracles and the blitz not to mention a valid historical basis, a real tour de force with a sharply defined setting and a terrific premise.

One small note. This book has extensive front and endnotes giving lots of introductory information on the "year in horror" from 2003 (yeah, a little behind in my reading). The actual stories take up about 520 pages.

Novik, Naomi. His majesty's dragon. New York: Del Rey, 2006. 353pp.

2006-07-12T22:21:00.000-04:00

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik is the first book of a new series, one of the real buzz books of the last several months, with great reviews and lots of hype. The setting for the series is the Napoleonic wars, but with a difference. There are dragons. Big ones. And both sides use them as sort of a cross between fighter planes and sailing ships, with an odd array of battle tactics to boot.

This novel is the story of Will Laurence, British ship captain, who captures a dragon egg from a French sailing vessel. The egg hatches before they can get to shore and give it to the authorities and the dragon latches on to Will as his combination mommy and trainer. Kinda weird, but in a good way. Dragons in this universe are highly intelligent and articulate. This novel mostly sets up the rest of the series, with a lot of time spent on the care and training of the dragon, Temeraire, paying particular attention to the close relationship between Temeraire and Will.

There are a few good battle scenes at the end, a little unrealistic in their construction. For example, they often use their dragons (which have crews of a dozen or more "sailors" strapped to their complex riggings) to come up beside and actually attempt to board other dragons. Just try to imagine it and you'll see how unlikely it seems -- couldn't the dragons just fly away when the other one got close?

Anyways, enough quibbling. This is a good, solid first novel. I look forward to the sequels. The one worrying thing is that Novik has apparently signed up for at least 5 more books and I often get worried about quality in long series.

McBain, Ed. The gutter and the grave. New York: Hard Case, 2005. 217pp.

2006-07-12T22:11:00.000-04:00

Another dynamite reprint from Hard Case, this one a classic Ed McBain from 1958. The Gutter and the Grave is a story about a man, Matt Cordell, done wrong by a cheatin' woman who gets another chance to be a real man and help a friend solve a petty crime. Well, the friend ends up accused of murdering his business partner, so Matt ends trying to clear his friend. Lots of gorgeous dames and tough talking ensue, a couple of surprises at the end and Cordell gets his chance to rise up from the gutter and ends up...well, read the novel to find out what happens to him.

They don't get any more hard boiled than this. At 217 pages, another short sharp shock from the fine folks at Hard Case. Next!

2006-07-09T20:33:00.000-04:00

Goldstone, Lawrence and Nancy. Used and rare: Travels in the book world. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 1998. 215pp.

McGinn, Colin. The making of a philosopher: My journey through twentieth-century philosophy. New York: Harper Perennial, 2003. 241 pp.

Two memoirs, both describing the entry of someone into a rarefied and highly selective world. The first, rare book collectors and the second, philosophers. Both are highly entertaining, amusing and stimulating and, for McGinn's in particular, thought provoking as well.

The Goldstone's book Used and Rare, is a light-hearted look at the husband and wife's entry into the world of rare book collecting, from just wanting a few nice-looking hardcovers for their shelves to exploring some second-hand stores, to going to high-priced auctions in various parts of the US. Lots of fun book talk to keep things moving, this memoir resonated with me quite a bit. While never a serious book collector myself, I have nibbled at the edges of the hobby a few times and I do have a few really good finds in my library. I also know a couple who have the bug pretty badly, so it's a fun look inside the world. The Goldstones have written a bunch of other books on the collecting world which I look forward to hunting down in the shops myself!

McGinn's story is a kind of philosophical coming of age tale -- going from being a working class kid in the English industrial heartland to a philosophy prof, first in the UK and then in the US. It's also a history of his branch of philosophy of language and mind in the later half of the twentieth century. The two parts mix reasonably well, if sometimes a little heavy on the philosophy and a little light on the life story. In any case, the book is well written and engaging, and you certainly don't have to be a philosophy expert to understand most of it; there's only a couple of parts I briefly had trouble following.

McGinn's claim to fame, "New Mysterianism" gets quite a bit of coverage near the end; the main idea is that humans are fundamentally and completely incabable of understanding our own mind and how it works, that cognitive science and philosophy of mind are fundamentally limited in what they will ever, in the entire future of humanity, be able to discover. Personally, whenever someone uses words like "never" in reference to such a new human endeavor as cognitive science, I get suspicious. It always sounds like someone at the beginning of the last century saying we would never be able to fly or understand the workings of the atom.

2006-07-09T00:30:00.000-04:00

Korchnoi, Victor. Chess is my life. Zurich: Edition Olms, 2005. 226pp.

Polgar, Susan and Paul Truong. Breaking through: How the Polgar sisters changed the game of chess. London: Everyman, 2005. 319pp

Two chess biographies, and they couldn't be more different. The Korchnoi is probably one of the finest of its kind ever written, a terrific book, one for the ages by a player for the ages. The Polgar, a book with just as much potential, also about very important players, is a bit of a disappointment. The Polgar is a bit bloodless where the Korchnoi bleeds chess passion on every page.

Victor Korchnoi is one of the greatest figures in the history of chess, a renowned fighter and fierce competitor. Most believe that he is the greatest player never to be world champion, having faced Anatoly Karpov twice for the championship and lost. As well, he faced Karpov in 1974 for the right to play Bobby Fischer in 1975, which Karpov won. As we know, Fischer refused to play and Karpov was awarded the title. This book is Victor the Terrible's memoirs. From his early life in Lenningrad during the Nazi seige to his turbulent years as a grandmaster in the Soviet system to his defection to the west and his life in Switzerland, this book covers a lot of ground. Korchnoi is very open and honest about everything, he pulls no punches. He doesn't hide his disdain for the Soviet's favourite sons and their machinations, particularly for figures such as Petrosian and Karpov, who tried to hold him back. He is candid about his reasons for defecting, going into some detail about his thought processes and the actual process of defecting and how he ended up in Switzerland. He discusses many of his tournament and match victories (and losses) in detail.

A great book. But, be warned. This is not a games collection. Korchnoi only annotates a handful of games in this book. He does have several games collections (both in books and on DVD) available. As an added bonus, the book comes with a CD of 4280 unannotated games. Korchnoi is still playing, of course, still at the a very high level in international tournaments, still rated 2600 and ranked 134th in the world.

Susan Polgar is the eldest of the three famous Polgar sisters, Judit being the youngest and most famous and Sofia the middle and least famous. They're famous because their father used them as a sort of pedagogical experiment to see if he could raise chess grandmasters by various educational strategies, mostly via tactical drills. Well, he succeeded. The details of how he did this would be facinating as well as instructive, wouldn't it? This book is the story of how these three women became a sensation in the chess world and beat a lot of men at (supposedly) their own game. The best part of this book deals with the girls stuggles as they were growing up to be taken seriously in the male dominated world of chess, both in their native Hungary and in the world at large. These parts of the book are quite effective, and really make the book worth purchasing on their own. As well, there are many insights and stories about the sisters lives that make this an interesting and entertaining book.

On the other hand, there's more about this book that is disappointing than not. First of all, we really don't get much on their father's strategies for turning his daughter's into geniuses, only vague generalities. I was certainly expecting some detail on his methodology and pedagogy.

Also, the focus is really Susan. She takes up 125 pages of the book, Sofia about 70 and Judit about 85. The last 30 pages or so on the 2004 Olympiad also mostly revolve around Susan. The book would have been much stronger if the emphasis was more even, especially if there was more on Judit's rise as one of the strongest players in the last 10 years, being the first woman in the top 10. At least for me, that was a story worth telling. As well, I found all the sections on the sisters a little superficial. I don't need tabloid-style details, but I felt a lack of personal details and real insight made the book seem a bit bloodless, lacking in passion and emotional resonance; the sisters really didn't come alive for me in this book like Korchnoi did in his.

The main reason for this superficiality is the uneasy balance between biography and games collection in the book. Over 70 pages of games and combinations in the Susan chapter, 60 for Sofia and over 65 for Judit, with each woman's bio sections also liberally sprinkled with games and game fragments. So, the vast majority of the book is really a chess games collection, not the story of how the sisters changed the game of chess. Now, the games are well annotated, especially for the average player, but they really dominate the book, to it's detriment. I get the sense Susan Polgar wanted this book to inspire girls and women to play chess, to reach for the top. I think it could have, but their stories would have inspired, their triumphs and tragedies, not their game scores.

This book is certainly worth buying, I don't regret buying my copy. And one day a truly great book will be written about the Polgar sisters, in particular about Judit's rise to the top, but this isn't it. I look forward to reading some other recent books on women's chess, including Jennifer Shahade's Chess Bitch and Marilyn Yalom's Birth of the Chess Queen : A History.

Ellis, Novalyne Price. One who walked alone: Robert E. Howard, the final years.West Kingston, RI: Donald M. Grant, 1998. 317pp.

2006-07-05T22:24:00.000-04:00

This wonderful book is the memoirs of Novalyne Price, a close friend of Robert E. Howard during the final years of his life, before he committed suicide distraught over the impending death of his mother. It was the basis for the equally fine movie Whole Wide World in which Renee Zellweger and Vincent D'Onofrio both give terrific performances as Price and Howard. It's well worth seeing for any Howard fan.

The book in question is made up of Price's diary entries chronicling her stormy relationship with Howard. It's never really clear how romantic their relationship became, and that tension and uncertainty is, I think, a key facet of Howard's personality. He never really seems grown up enough to have a real girlfriend, and Price always seems to know that about him. She goes back and forth between wanting a real relationship with Howard and just valuing him for his stimulating friendship, and that's the key tension in the book and, I guess, in Howard's life.

In the final analysis, One who walks alone is a heart-rendingly sad book, a tragic story of a man who could never really grow up, who could never cut the apron strings from his possessive mother. The whole book we know he's going to take his own life at the end, it hovers over every happy moment Price describes, it is forshadowed by every flash of his temper or dark moods. I can't recommend this book enough to all fans of Howard's work or to historians of fantastic literature. Even those who are unfamiliar with Howard's work will find a lot to admire.

POLL: What I'm going to read on my summer vacation

2006-07-04T12:33:00.000-04:00

I always like to plan my summer reading well in advance, to have my beach books ready to go when the summer blogging break hits. This year I thought I'd have a little fun with it and give you, my readers out there in the biblioblogosphere, a chance to determine my summer reading. I've chosen 10 books that are on my long list and you can vote for them. I'll take the top 3 or 4 (depending on page counts) away with me on vacation, starting July 15th. The voting will end on July 14th.

New Update: Blogpoll.com was too flakey so I've switched to Pollhost.com.

Some additional information on the long list books:

Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove
My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Passage by Connie Willis
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
Romanitas by Sophia McDougall
Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

6.6.06

2006-06-06T09:40:00.000-04:00

Enjoy the day, listening to Slayer or watching The Omen. A good day to watch a horror movie, read a novel or listen to some really scary music. I'll remind everyone of the triple review I did of horrific stuff in Lost Pages some time ago. To make a brief addition to the above, on a day like today you can't go wrong reading or watching The Exorcist. For your listening pleasure, given the day, I will definately recommend some Slayer: Reign in Blood or, released on September 11, 2001, God Hates Us All. Slayer's DVD, Reign In Blood: Still Reigning, is also quite amazing.

Frederik Pohl interviewed in SciFi Weekly

2006-06-05T11:18:00.000-04:00

Long one of my favourite authors, Fred Pohl is interviewed in a recent SciFi Weekly.

What do you think is your greatest achievement, of everything you've achieved in your life?

Pohl: I think Gateway is my greatest achievement, because not only is it a great book, but it was a groundbreaker in many ways. It was told in unusual ways. I used sidebars to convey information in a way that nobody else ever had, and I think it worked pretty well, so I like that. But, I don't know. I'd say Gateway.

Westlake, Donald E. 361. New York: Hard Case Crime, 2005. 207 pp.

2006-05-24T15:34:00.000-04:00

Hard Case Crime is a great new(ish) publishing house. They specialize in hardboiled detective & crime fiction, both publishing forgotten classics and new books. They've been around for a couple of years and have published new and classic books by such notables as Stephen King, Donald Hamilton, Ed McBain, Lawrence Block and Charles Williams and a whole bunch of others that may or may not be familiar to the mass audience. Well, I've always liked hardboiled stuff but have never had a really good guide to new and classic stuff. So, finally getting around to reading one of the books from this series was a mental event for me of the highest order. Would it live up to the hype? Would I be able to use the distinctive retro cover stylings of the line as a key to excellence?

The answer is yes. The first one I've read is 361 an early novel by Donald Westlake. Westlake, of course, is notable for many other crime and detective novels, as well as some cool fantastic fiction such as the excellent Humans.

And 361 is a good one. My kinda hardboiled. Seems this guy Ray Kelley gets out of the Navy and his father picks him up from the base. They're driving around a little later and his father gets gunned down while driving the car by a guy in another car. When our man Ray gets out of the hospital, recovered from the injuries sustained when the car crashed, he and his brother vow to figure out what really happened. They end up in New York City, tangled up with the mob, learning more family secrets than they can shake a stick at. There's violence aplenty with a few more bodies, some surprising, some not. But it's not some abstract, bloodless stuff from a shoot 'em up movie. It's personal, in your face. This is a memorable novel that will stick with you with good characters portrayed in lots of shades of grey, facing pain and tragedy and more than a few moral dilemas.

First published in 1962 and mostly unavailable since then, Hard Case has done us all a great service by reprinting this novel. It's the first for me from Hard Case, but it won't be the last.

Lupica, Mike, editor and Glenn Stout, series editor. The best american sports writing 2005. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 353pp.

2006-05-12T18:04:00.000-04:00

This is always a really solid series, full of interesting and involving stories about the sports world, usually with a very pleasingly broad definition of sport. I particularly like this series as commute reading material. Long bus and subway rides are perfect for this kind of book, with lots of short vignettes to keep your mind off how depressing very long commutes are.

This volume? Up to the usual high standards. Each year's editor gives his volume a different feel, of course, and Lupica is no different. The emphasis this year seems to be on difficult, wrenching emotional stories, sometimes with happy endings but very often pure tragedy. This year we have the story of a struggling LA girls softball team, baseball player Ken Caminiti's death, a young player's steroid-induced suicide, a bunch of friends who have an annual golf tournament in memory of a friend that was killed in an accident, a college player's tragic death from a killer infection, the rise and fall of tennis player Roscoe Tanner, a drug-infested highschool in Peabody MA, a hockey player who just disappeared one day in Europe never to be heard from again, rapist Carlos Perez and a female basketball player's near-fatal encounter with meningitis and her long and painful recovery. A grim volume to say the least.

There are a few stories to balance the depression, one in particular was about people in Vermont who go fishing with guns. Yes, they shoot the fish. And a couple of amusing stories on fishing and Howard Cosell.

Aylciffe, Jonathan. The vanishment. New York: Harper,1994. 227pp.

2006-05-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Aycliffe, who also writes thrillers under the name Daniel Easterman, is a very accomplished horror writer. I've read two other of his novels, The lost and The matrix and they were both terrific. The vanishment is no disappointment either. It's a subtle, spooky novel that relies on a building sense of unease rather than a gory payoff (not that there's anything wrong with the occasional gory payoff, of course).

Writer Peter Clare and his wife are vacationing at an old house on the Cornish coast when she mysteriously disappears. The investigation reveals little but Peter does end up delving into the ghostly past of the house. An interesting blend of ghost story and haunted house mixed with a possibly unreliable narrator make for a fun novel. Peter is never less than an interesting character who unwittingly draws others into the supernatural crossfire.

Hamilton, Donald. Death of a citizen. Greenwich, Conn.: Gold Medal, 1960. 142pp.

2006-04-30T14:10:00.000-04:00

Wow. This is the first of Hamilton's tough-guy hardboiled spy series featuring Matt Helm. Don't get this confused with the Matt Helm movies from the 1960's starring Dean Martin. These are no cream puff comedies. No, these are violent and brutal, dated but with a genuinely cruel edge. Well worth reading, I like this book a lot and will definately read as many of the other Matt Helm books as I can get my hands on. At 142 pages, this is a short, sharp shock, not fat or excess baggage to distract from the story. Tired of bloated contemporary novels? This is definately old school.

The story? Matt Helm is a retired WWII behind-enemy-lines operative in late 1950s Santa Fe, living the quite life with his wife and kids. Suddenly, an old fellow operative (and lover, natch) turns up at a party and Helm is dragged back into the world of cross and double-cross where nothing and no-one is as they seem. Wild-goose chases, kidnappings, murder and mayhem ensue. Helm solves his problems old school, too.

Article on Alternate Histories

2006-04-20T16:37:00.000-04:00

The Lure of Alternate History (Plus the 14 Best Novels and Stories) by Fredric Smoler. Also mentions a couple of critical works on alternate histories.

2006-04-18T21:21:00.000-04:00

Dozois, Gardner. The year's best science fiction: Twenty-first annual collection.New York: St. Martin's, 2004. 704pp.
Hartwell, David G. and Kathryn Cramer. Year's best SF 10. New York: Eos, 2005. 512pp
Hartwell, David G. and Kathryn Cramer. Year's best fantasy 5. New York: Eos, 2005. 512pp.

These books are obviously self-recommending. If you love short fiction in the fantasy or sf fields, then you will love these books. And their predecessors and successors. Of these particular instances of these series, I think I liked the Hartwell/Cramer sf volume best, followed closely by the Dozois then the Hartwell/Cramer fantasy a little further back. The fantasy volume's standing mostly reflects the fact I'm a more avid reader of sf than fantasy so there were a higher proportion of stories I just didn't care for. Of the two sf volumes, the Dozois is is some ways more conservative, tending to choose the same authors and the same themes over and over whereas the Hartwell/Cramer is a little more adventurous. However, the sheer size of the Dozois and the fact that he can choose more novellas does compensate a bit.

Some standout stories from the Hartwell/Cramer sf book:

"Sergeant Chip" by Bradley Denton
"Burning Day" by Glenn Grant
"Scout's Honor" by Terry Bisson
"Red City" by Janeen Web
"Mastermindless" by Mathew Hughes (gotta get some of this guy's novels)
"The Cascade" by Sean McMullen
"Savant Songs" by Brenda Cooper

Some standout stories from the Hartwell/Cramer fantasy book:

"The Dragons of Summer Gulch" by Robert Reed
"The End of the World as we Know it" by Dale Bailey
"Leaving his Cares Behind Him" by Kage Baker (I always love Baker's stories)
"Life in Stone" by Tim Pratt
"Beyond the River" by Joel Lane
"Death's Door" by Terry Bisson (two by Bisson, a good year)

Some standout stories from the Dozois book:

"The Bear's Baby" by Judith Moffett
"The Green Leopard Plague" by Walter John Williams
"The Fluted Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi (new discovery of the year)
"King Dragon" by Michael Swanwick (one of the best short story writers in sf)
"The Cookie Monster" by Vernor Vinge (I'm usually not too fond of his work, but this ones was great)
"Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst" by Kage Baker (another by Baker, this time one of her Company series)
"Dear Abbey" by Terry Bisson (a trifecta for Bisson)

Varley, John. Red thunder. New York: Ace, 2004. 416pp.

2006-04-17T15:06:00.000-04:00

Minor Varley, for sure, but still well worth the effort to read.

John Varley has long been one of my favourite sf authors. His relative lack of production over the years has made him an easy one to keep track of, however, and I have read the majority of his works, especially recent ones. He has tended to write in the Heinlein tradition, if a little on the hippie side of things.

Red Thunder is definately in the Heinlein young adult mode, concentrating on youthful, engaging characters involved in a challenging and fun mission -- being the first to land on Mars. These 4 kids (two couples, all around 20) have a chance encounter with a Travis, a washed up old astronaut who happens to have a brilliant and autistic cousin, Jubal. They team up to launch a mission to Mars using the incredible space drive invented by Jubal, basically build a space ship in an old factory with money from one of the kids, who happens to be rich, and beat a mission to Mars already underway from China.

Implausibilities abound and compound, but that's not the point. It's a good story and good entry level sf for someone new to the genre, especially a someone in the 12-15 range.

Update: BoingBoing has a review of the sequel, Red Lightning.

New intro to Midnight's Children

2006-04-12T18:01:00.000-04:00

Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children is one of my all-time favourite novels, and certainly one of the greatest fantasy novels of all time. He's written a new introduction for the 25th anniversary edition talking about the origins of the novel. If you haven't read it before, now's the time. via Bookslut.

Lebbon, Tim. Desolation. New York: Leisure, 2005. 309pp.

2006-04-04T20:21:00.000-04:00

Tim Lebbon is definately one of the great up-and-coming horror writers around today. I've read and loved a number of his stories in Year's Best anthologies and Face was a really terrific novel. Desolation, however, left me a bit cold. It's the story of a very odd man who was held prisoner by his father for many years, held in an institution for still longer after his father died and finally released to a kind of purgatorial half-way house. The odd collection of characters at the half-way house help him discover the truth about his past, which is much stranger than we first imagined. So far, so good. However, there just didn't seem to be enough plot to justify a full length novel -- it could have been very effective at 100 - 150 pages -- but really ended up a bit dull stetched to this length. I'm still looking forward to catching up on some of Lebbon's work I haven't read yet, but this one is not up to the standard of the other work I've encountered.

A year's best embarassment of riches

2006-04-04T16:44:00.000-04:00

Over at SF Signal, a list of the Year's Best anthologies coming out this year and when they're due. There are an astounding 18 of them.

Here's the list, the bolded ones are the ones I'm likely to read (although I may break down and get all the SF ones):

March: Nebula Awards Showcase: 2005, Gardner Dozois ed.
March: Best Short Novels: 2006, Jonathan Strahan ed.
April: Horror: The Best of the Year: 2006 Edition, John Gregory Betancourt and Sean Wallace, ed.
April: The Year's Best Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2006, ed. Bill Congreve ed.
April: Best of the Rest, Brian Youmans ed.
May: Science Fiction: The Best of the Year: 2006 Edition, Rich Horton, ed.
May: Fantasy: The Best of the Year: 2006 Edition, Rich Horton, ed.
June: Year's Best Science Fiction, David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer eds.
Summer: Science Fiction: The Very Best of 2005, Jonathan Strahan, ed.
Summer: Fantasy: The Very Best of 2005, Jonathan Strahan, ed.
Summer: Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror: The Best of 2005, Shane Jiraiya Cummings ed.
July: The Year's Best Science Fiction #23, Gardner Dozois ed.
July: Best New Fantasy, Sean Wallace, ed.
August: The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror #19, Ellen Datlow, Gavin Grant & Kelly Link eds.
September: Year's Best Fantasy, David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer
September: Best New Noir, Allan Guthrie, ed.
October: Best New Paranormal Romance, Paula Guran, ed.
October: The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, Stephen Jones ed.

Burke, James Lee. Jolie blon's bounce. New York: Pocket, 2003.

2006-03-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

Ah, James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels are one of the true pleasures in life. I've been reading them about as long as I've been reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels, although Burke has never been quite as prolific as Parker. The first I read was Black cherry blues back in the early 1990's and I've read about 10 more Robicheaux novels since then. Another similarity to Parker is the series uneven quality. The first half dozen novels are amongst the best crime novels ever, but since then it's been a bit hit and miss; on the other hand, none of them feels like they were written on autopilot -- they are obviously labours of love, just some more successful than others. Another similarity to Parker is that Burke has more recently more-or-less alternated the Robicheaux novels with a new character, Billy Bob Holland. And, like the Spenser and Jesse Stone novels, I'm a bit behind in my reading.

So, what's the story here. Dave Robicheaux is a Viet Nam vet who's now a detective in New Iberia, Louisianna. Dealing with his alcoholism, his violent temperment and his tortured past, he solves crimes among the rich and poor in an intensly interconnected community. One of the great things about this series is the sense of history and doomed inevitability of family strife and violence that hang over the stories like a swampy miasma. Dave's violent temper always threatens to veer out of control and derail his investigations and his life. His past always haunts him and pushes him in unexpected directions. There's always a train wreck feeling about the best of the Robicheaux novels that sucks you in to the detailed and involving mystery.

And Jolie blon's bounce? It's certanly not the best of the novels, but it's certainly well worth reading. All the hallmarks are here: Dave's temper, his wacked-out buddy Clete, family tragedy, history coming back to haunt people and even a touch of the fantastic. And the bad guy, Legion Guidry, who may or may not be the devil himself, is one of Burke's most memorable characters.

As an aside, I really look forward to seeing what Burke will do with the first Robicheaux novel set in post-Katrina Louisianna.

Chabon, Michael, ed. McSweeny's enchanted chamber of astonishing stories. New York: Vintage, 2004. 321pp.

2006-03-25T21:19:00.000-05:00

Blech. This is Chabon's second attempt at the genre-crossing anthology in which he tries to invigorate the modern short story by getting both genre and non-genre authors to try their hand at genre tales. The first, McSweeney's mammoth treasury of thrilling tales was actually pretty successful. This one, not so much. There are a few standout stories, such as "Lisey and the Madman" by Stephen King and "Mr. Aikman's Air Rifle" by Peter Straub and a few others by Jonathan Letham, China Mieville and Poppy Z. Brite. But the stories by so-called mainstream authors are mostly pretty dull and unispiring with the exception of Margaret Atwood's story.

2006-03-07T15:29:00.000-05:00

Lightman, Alan, ed. The best American science writing 2005. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. 300pp.
Weiner, Jonathan, ed. The best American science and nature writing 2005. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 304pp.

These two book series are definately self-recommending. If you like science, if you like good writing, if you have long boring commutes on busses or trains, you owe it to yourself to buy and read these books. Or, buy/suggest these books for your library and read them. Both these books have basically the same aim: to collect popular science and nature writing and present them to an interested public, hopefully from a wide and varied selection of sources. Also, they can easily function as a current awareness tool in the sciences -- you can use the books to spot trends, to keep abreast of recent developments in important areas, to monitor public reaction scientific controversies, disputes or cutting edge advances. So, good books for scitech librarians.

Do these particular editions of their respective series meet these high expectations? Mostly, yes, with a few reservations.

The Lightman books has a good selection of stories from a good selection of disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, genetics, information technology, medicine, some nature writing, a couple of profiles or memoir-type pieces. The particular hightlights for me are Oliver Sacks' "Greetings from the Island of Stability" on discovering new elements and David Quammen's "Darwin or Not" which looks carefully at the arguments in favour of evolution and darwinism and definately comes out on the side of reason and science. A significant lowlight in this collection? I can't for the life of me figure out what possesed Lightman to inlude the essay "On the Origins of the Mind" by David Berlinski. For those not in the know, Berlinski is a member of the Discovery Institute and therefore a card-carrying creationist. Coming right after the Quammen article in the table of contents, the Berlinski article completely undermines Quammen (and in a sense, the whole book). Where Quammen gives a rational, fact-based account of reality, Berlinski, when faced with unanswered questions about the origin and nature of human consciousness, says, "The rest is darkness, mystery and magic." It doesn't take too much intelligence to figure out that these are code-words for god -- if we don't know the answer, then there is no answer we can know, only supernatural intervention. Alan Lightman, what were you thinking?

On average, the Weiner book is a bit better, with no articles I was really disappointed in. A good selection of topics (anthropology, aerospace, psychology, engineering and technology), if maybe a little heavy on medical reporting and book reviews. Real highlights for me are easy to spot: Natalie Angier's "My God Problem -- and Theirs" on the place of religion in public debate in science, Jared Diamond's "Twilight at Easter" on what we can learn from Easter Island and Jerome Groopman's "The Grief Industry" about how maybe people are a lot more resilient in the face of hardship than we give them credit for. This might be the one must-read from this book. Quibbles -- and really, my problems with this book really are just quibbles. First of all, there really isn't any nature writing, despite the presence of word in the title of the book. The Easter Island story is the closest. The second is that the editor needs to get out more. Of the 25 articles in the book, 13 were from The New Yorker, The New York Times or The New York Review of Books. Not to mention, one more has The New York Times in it's title ("The Homeless Hacker vs. The New York Times") and another has The New York Review of Books in the first sentence ("The Man or the Moment"). Not that it would be easy to choose which articles to leave out, but the narrowness of sources and points of view is a bit problematic for me.

One more thing. Natalie Angier has an article in each of these collections and both are excellent. (From the Lightman book, I didn't mention "Scientist at Work: Jacqueline Barton," a terrific portrait of a female scientist.) To all you giants of the publishing industry out there in blogland, why doesn't this woman have at least a couple of essay collections already? She has to be one of the best science writers working today, probably the best without a published collection. What's taking so long?

(Also in the Other Blog)

Hughes, Holly, ed. Best food writing 2004. New York: Marlowe, 2004. 374pp.

2006-03-05T21:56:00.000-05:00

This is a quick recommend. Who doesn't like food, after all? And don't assume that this is just a recipe book (not that there's anything wrong with that) because there are only a few in this book. No, it's a book about the celebration of food: cooking, researching, buying, going to restaurants, writing, travelling, sampling and especially eating. A treasure trove of food writing, this collection is made up of various articles from newspapers and food magazines as well as excerpts from various foodie books. The highlights of this book are easy to spot: a paen of that most humble yet most delicious of foods, the meat loaf ("Meat loaf mania" by James Villas) and an excerpt from the book Candyfreak by Steve Almond profiling a, get this, chocolate engineer.

A number of books that I'm going to track down inspired by this one:

Eating my words by Mimi Sheraton
Cooking by hand by Paul Bertoli
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
Between bites and Stalking the green fairy by James Villas
Crazy in the kitchen by Loiuse DeSalvo
Perfection salad and Something from the oven by Laura Shapiro
Candyfreak by Steve Almond
American pie by Peter Reinhart (about pizza, natch)

Oh yeah, and my fave recipe blog is Simply Recipes. The 2005 edition is already out.

Darren McGavin

2006-02-27T14:48:00.000-05:00

Darren McGavin, one of my favourite actors, passed away over the weekend on Saturday February 25th, 2006. Among genre fans, he's best remembered for his role as Carl Kolchak in the Night Stalker movies and tv series. Night Stalker was a primary influence on The X-Files and Chris Carter paid hommage to his inspiration by casting McGavin in a couple of episodes.

Martin, George R.R. A feast for crows. New York: Spectra, 2005. 784pp.

2006-02-24T11:10:00.000-05:00

A disapointment. After an excruciating 5 year wait since A Storm of Swords, the expectations were pretty high so it's not surprising that a novel written by a mere mortal would have trouble living up. Even so, given Martin's well known rationale for taking so long, that the book had grown so large and unweildy that he had to split it into two volumes (telling the whole story of some characters in this volume, leaving the rest for the other half, due 2006/2007 we still hope), I'm not sure this is what we expected. We expected large and sprawling and we got it. We expected a large cast of characters, some good, some bad, most shades of grey and we got that too. I think we also expected compelling but we didn't get very much of that. We expected action and adventure and got unbelievably little of that. Political intrigue? We expected that in pretty good doses but really that's all we got.

The main problem with AFfC is that it is dull dull dull. Martin has taken the strengths of the series and turned them into flaws. A large cast of characters becomes bewildering and diffuse. Political intrigue becomes byzantine and pointless. Action and adventure leave centre stage and are replaced by endless wandering and political gabfests. The most compelling characters, Tyrion and Dani? Left to the next volume.

So, the problems are structural. There's still lots of good stuff here -- the last 100 pages or so save the novel from train-wreck status -- with the main plot being somewhat advanced. The problem is really that of length. At least two or three of the viewpoint characters could have been completely removed, such as Brienne's story. That could have been reduced to a paragraph in the Jaime thread easily. Also, some of the threads were massively over-emphasized. Cercei is the main example of this one: her story could have been effectively told in about half the space. One of the best bits, the story of the Iron Islands, should have told in a more focussed way, instead it was very diffuse.

A couple of quibbles -- it would have been nice if Martin had used the same names for characters in the chapter headings. A couple of characters switch names half-way through and it was a bit confusing. Also, the Iron Islands chapters needed consistent names rather than all over the place. It would also have been nice if each chapter indicated some sort of chronology and location at the beginning. When people are travelling around and with so many viewpoints, it would have been nice to be able to place a chapter on the map right away. Finally, Martin didn't do such a good job of getting us all up to speed after the long gap; most people will not have recently reread the previous books.

Book reviews

2006-02-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

A couple of other sites I really like for genre book reviews:

Canadians Are Literary Snobs

2006-02-02T10:43:00.000-05:00

Via Emerald City, a provocative piece from the National Post on why genre is the Rodney Dangerfield of the canlit scene.

Fox, Andrew. Bride of the fat white vampire. New York: Ballantine, 2004. 429pp

2006-01-21T23:29:00.000-05:00

This is a sequel to Andrew Fox's first novel, Fat White Vampire Blues and, if anything, is even better than the first.

FWVB is, of course, a vampire novel. But unlike the current crop of vampire stuff, the main character Jules Duchon isn't suave or handsome or mysterious. He's a 450 pound cab driver with a penchant for fanging people who love greasy fast food. Set in New Orleans, FWVB is a great first novel but shows some of the weaknesses inherent in first outings. A little rambling and all over the place, it seemed to shift from comedy to thriller to tragedy and all the way back without the focus those kinds of plot gymnastics require.

BotFWV more or less picks up where the first left off. At the end of the first novel, Jules transformed himself into a horde of white rats in the process of defeating an evil gang of vampires and at the start of the second is unable to get back into human vampire form. Well, his buddies get him back to human form (missing a very important part!) and he sets out of the task of ressurecting the love of his life who was murdered by the bad guys in the first. The novel unwinds in a pretty relaxed way but does keep on track without wandering like the first. The secondayr characters are well drawn, especially Jules's circle of friends. Set in New Orleans, the novel also gives us a glimpse of the lost glories of the Big Easy. Highly recommended.

Parker, Robert B. Potshot. New York: Berkley, 2002. 335pp.

2006-01-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Robert B. Parker's Spenser character has always been one of my favourite private eyes. It's a popular series and Parker has contributed to it very prolifically, with 33 novels since 1973 and at least one per year since 1981. It's probably unavoidable that such a long series would have its ups and downs, good, bad and indifferent books interspersed over the years. And this is the case, with this series probably a bit harder hit than some. Certainly, it's been a very long time since a truly great one has been published, one to stand with Looking for Rachel Wallace. On the other hand, there has hardly been any true stinkers either, with most being at least readable and entertaining. I think that one of Parker's secrets in this has been to keep the novels short -- they never have a chance to really get on your nerves before they're done. And certainly, the worst of the Spenser novels have qualities that can annoy. The line between confident and smug; witty and arrogant; thematic and repetitive; loose and pointless plotting is all very thin, one Parker balances on in all the Spensers.

So, where does Potshot fall? I'd say a bit on the lower half of the scale. The plot is rather thin -- a woman from little town Potshot, Arizona hires Spenser is to figure out who killed her husband. The local gang is suspected. Spenser hires a bunch of extras from previous books (Chollo, Bobby Horse...) to to travel down to Potshot to help out. Hawk, of course, is by his side. All is not as it seems in Potshot. Ultimately, our man Spenser solves the crime and puts everyone in their place. Wittily. With short sentences.

So, not dull, not bad, some good moments, but largely on autopilot. But in the end, Spenserville is such a comfortable place to visit, that I tend to forgive a lot. I'm actually a little behind in the series. Five more have already piled up: Widow's Walk, Back Story, Bad Business, Cold Service and School Days as well as a couple in the somewhat fresher Jesse Stone series (Death in Paradise and Stone Cold). Police family drama All Our Yesterdays (1994) is probably the best Parker novel in the last 10+ years.

Farmer, Philip Jose. To You Scattered Bodies Go. New York: Berkley Medallion, 1971. 222pp.

2006-01-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

Every one has blind spots and holes in their reading histories, classics missed or ignored or just despised. There've been lots of classics I've ignored (Book of the New Sun) or despised (ok, maybe not despised, but disapointed) over the years. However, I do make it a point to try and catch up on the ones I've just missed. Sometimes I'm disappointed, especially if it's reaching fairly far back in history. Often the literary style of a bygone era just doesn't click. Sometimes, however, I'm really pleased to discover a gem. Such is the case with the first book in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series. The premise is well known -- characters are reincarnated along the shores of a vast river along with everyone who has ever lived on earth. The first volume in the series follows the adventures of Sir Richard Burton with later volumes apparently following other characters. I'm definately going to track down the rest of the volumes in the series. Lost classic I would recommend to one and all? Try Davy or A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn, both available from Old Earth Books.

Levinson, Paul. Borrowed Tides. New York: Tor, 2001. 258pp.

2006-01-02T23:28:00.000-05:00

Levinson is both a well-regarded sf writer and a prof in media studies at Fordham University. I've read a few of his short stories and one other of his novels, The Silk Road, and was quite impressed, especially with the novel and stories featuring Phil D'Amato. D'Amato is a kind of science fictional forensic detective, as if Asimov had written an episode of CSI. Anyways, Borrowed Tides isn't part of that series but I thought I'd give it a try in any case. After all, not many sf novels features philosophy of science profs as protagonists. The premise, in a nutshell, is that there's this interstellar trip to Alpha Centauri and this anthropology prof has come up with the quantum mechanical way to make the trip faster via some sort of cosmic tide. The crew ends up including the two rather elderly profs and motley bunch of other rather stereotypical scifi templates. Smart, nerdy guys, butt-kicking women, etc. Well, the quantum-mechanical business doesn't work out as hoped, the interpersonal relationships don't work as as hoped and the novel proceeds rather predictably.

All and all, a bit of a disappointment, mostly because the characters weren't really that memorable for me and also because the whole thing was just a bit dull. It was really an effort to force myself to finish the last fifty pages. This should have been a novella, not a novel.

Smith, Marshall. The Straw Men. New York: Jove 2002. 389pp.

2006-01-02T00:27:00.000-05:00

Michael Marshall is a the mystery writing pseudonym for Brit horror writer Michael Marshall Smith, so I guess we should be expecting a mystery novel with horrific elements here. And guess what, that's just what we're getting. I've read a few of the Smith horror short stories and quite liked them but none of his novels before this one.

And guess what? I quite liked this horror tinged serial killer novel, with lots of mysterious plots and subplots and surprise twists to keep it interesting. Murder, family secrets, secret societies, brutal serial killers, government conspiracies, what's not to like? This is the first in a trilogy of related novels, the other two of which have already been published (although I haven't even bought them yet): The Upright Man and Blood of Angels. This is a great testimony to the Stephen Jones Year's Best Horror series, as that's where I discovered Smith and what ultimately led me to taking a chance on this novel. I guess I'll finally be tracking down some of those horror novels too.

Deighton, Len. SS-GB. London: Grafton, 1987. 402pp.

2005-10-01T21:07:00.000-04:00

One of the classics of the alternate history genre, one that I've obviously only just now gotten around to reading. Sometimes the old classics don't hold up so well and sometimes they do. How did Deighton fare? Pretty good actually, for a mainstream author dabbling in sf. This is basically a spy/detective novel set in a London newly occupied by the Nazis. Our protagonist, the homicide cop, is trying to solve a murder that suddenly everyone seems interested in, getting him involved with both the SS and the resistence at the same time. It drags a bit in the middle, but over all a solid alternate history that really shows that the author spent a lot of time working out the implications of a Nazi-occupied Britain.

What novel should I read during my summer vacation?
	Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy
	Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker
	Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove
	My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due
	Old Man's War by John Scalzi
	Passage by Connie Willis
	River of Gods by Ian McDonald
	Romanitas by Sophia McDougall
	Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
	Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

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