I finished The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont this morning.

This is a pastiche of the pulp style that flourished in the 1920s/1930s with a twist - a lot of the characters are famous pulp authors. Some of the authors who appear are Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant, author of The Shadow stories), Lester Dent (aka Kenneth Robeson, author of the Doc Savage stories), L. Ron Hubbard and H.P. Lovecraft.

Part of the book involves the publishing industry in New York but eventually branches off into a mystery in Chinatown involving opium, nerve gas and mysterious refugee from the Japanese invasion of China.

I've read some of the original pulps and though this book is a tribute to them in some ways, it is better written than most of them. I quite enjoyed it.

Amazon Link: The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril

I just finished The Canon by Natalie Angier. The Canon is a summation of current basic scientific knowledge, wrapped in a well written package. I originally picked this up for my girlfriend - she has complained for years about the poor job her high school science teachers did and how she would like to know more about basic science.

If you're interested in a particular topic, I'd look for more focused books but if you want an over-view, this is one of the best I've seen. I found the biology section particularly interesting since I took only the most basic biology classes in school and didn't pay attention very much in those. This book fleshed out what I know a little.

Amazon Link: The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science

During my trip I was busy enough that I didn't get a lot of reading done but I did finish one book after I got home - The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brien. This is the eight in the Aubrey-Maturin series which I wrote about here. This one finds them taking part in a blockade in the Mediterranean as well as running a few side missions. Typical enjoyable entry in this series.

Amazon Link: The Ionian Mission

There won't be any posts here this week. I'm off to volunteer at the California Bluegrass Association's Music Camp and to attend their Father's Day Bluegrass Festival afterwards.

This morning I finished Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. This is one of the Discworld series of books.

Back in the late 70's/early 80's, humorous fantasy novels started to get popular. Some of the main authors in this sub-genre were Robert Lynn Asprin with the MythAdventures series and Terry Pratchett with the Discworld series. Since I was reading a lot of fantasy back then, I read a lot of these books as well. I'm not sure if it was my general dis-enchantment with fantasy or actual quality issues but it seemed that the quality of these series started to fall off rapidly as new titles came out. I quit reading them both around the fifth or sixth books in the series.

I was surprised a few years ago to realize that Pratchett was still around and had continued the series pretty much without pause. He had grown into one of the best selling fantasy authors. Even more surprising was that somewhere in the time between when I stopped reading them and when I started again, the quality had gone way up. I've been reading the new ones and going back and reading some of the old ones when I run into them at the library and I think the newer ones are even better than the first ones in the series. One of the reasons for this is that Pratchett uses multiple main characters and locations so he can switch things up when he has run out of ideas for one particular group.

If you're already a fan of this series, Carpe Jugulum is a little more serious than most and is quite good. TIt is centered around Lancre and the 3 witches - Agnes, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax.

If you're interested in starting the series, I recommend reading the first few to get your feet wet and then picking them up as you find them. They are mostly independent stories, not heavily dependent on what happened in the previous books.



Amazon Link: Carpe Jugulum

I just finished Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track, a collection of letters written by Noble prize winner Richard Feynman and edited by his daughter, Michelle Feynman.

Feynman is one of the greatest, and one of the best known, scientists of the 20th century. I've been interested in him for many years, starting when I read his collection of anecdotes Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman and the follow-on, What Do You Care What Other People Think? If you are interested in reading his letters, I recommend reading the above two collections or one of his biographies first. The letter collection doesn't stand well on its own but it does provide some additional insight into his views.

Amazon Link: Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of Richard P. Feynman

I just finished Burning Tower by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the sequel to The Burning City.

Larry Niven was one of my favourite authors growing up and even though the quality of his work has dropped somewhat, I still try to read everything he puts out. This book was almost an exception because I did not like the previous book, The Burning City, very much. I found it a difficult book to get into and not clearly written at all.

Burning Tower is a much better book. It's clearly written, has some nice characters and a engaging plot, even if it is a little derivative.

Both books are set in a mythical pre-history California in a world Niven also wrote about in The Magic Goes Away. The basic premise of that world is that magic depends on a non-renewable resource. Burning City and Burning Tower take place in a time when that resource has started to run out and the characters have to deal with a world where magic is present but in variable amounts and can be very un-reliable.


Amazon Link: Burning Tower

I just finished Better by Atul Gawande.

Better is subtitled "A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" and a good portion of the book is devoted to exploring how we can do well at whatever we pursue, using Gawande's medical reporting as examples. Readers should note that contrary to the book's introduction, this is not really the whole book. For example, the sections on how a doctor's pay is determined and medical professionals who assist with executions are pretty off topic. Other sections, like the one on obstetrics, appear to be off topic but boomerang back nicely by the end.

All of the sections, on and off topic, are well written and interesting. I was a little disappointed since I was hoping for a more well integrated book rather than a collection of previously published articles (mostly from the New Yorker) but it provides a lot to think about and to try to apply to your own life, whether it's work or hobbies that you want to do better at.

I wrote about his previous book a while ago.

Amazon Link: Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance

I spent a good portion of the weekend at Baycon, the local Bay Area science fiction convention.

Even though I read a lot of science fiction, I've never been involved with science fiction fans as a group. I've been to one or two cons, including a Worldcon held in San Jose in 2002. It seems most fans attend to socialize but I mainly like to go to attend some of the panels.

At this Baycon, the most interesting panel I attended was one on podcasting novels. One of the panelists was Scott Sigler, one of the first, and most successful, authors to use podcasting to promote his un-published novels. He had some success with his first novel and his 2nd novel debutted at 7th place on Amazon after his podcasting promotions led to a publishing deal.

According to Sigler and the other authors on the panel, promoting novels using podcasting is still pretty new and not a saturated field like blogs. If I was a struggling author, I would definitely want to give this a try.

This weekend I finished Seeker by Jack McDevitt.

This is a pretty typical McDevitt book - a few intrepid investigators try to find a lost civilization or clues to some odd event that happened in the distant past. The one difference is that the research in this case is on a more human level, involving talking to witnesses, tracking down lost objects, etc. instead of the galactic scale of most of his books.

It's an OK book but not one of his best.

Amazon Link: Seeker

Last night we saw another concert, Tim O'Brien at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. O'Brien is one of the cross-over stars of bluegrass. Most of his fans come from either his days with Hot Rize or his work as a solo artist/songwriter.

This was a solo show so it was just him and his guitar (or mandolin or fiddle) for most of it. Normally I wouldn't buy tickets for a solo show but I got these from a friend who couldn't go at the last minute. Even thought it's not my favourite format, O'Brien does a good solo show. He is a skilled enough player on all the instruments to keep things interesting and he has a laid back stage presence that goes along well with the songs. At the end he was joined by the opening act, the Infamous Stringdusters. a young band from Nashville.

The Stringdusters are one of two bands I've seen doing a "post-modern" form of bluegrass that abandons a lot of the traditional roles for each instrument and instead creates a layered, tone-colour sound based on instrumental virtuosity. The other band that is trying something similar is Chris Thile's new band, recently renamed the Tensions Mountain Boys. Thile's band is strong enough that it overcame the problems I have with this new sound but the Stringdusters aren't. The layered sound they seem to be going for detracts from (and sometimes totally undermines) the driving rhythm that is a fundamental part of bluegrass for me. The songs they did at the end with O'Brien were the best of the night. O'Brien's more traditional approach and song choice added a nice rhythmic feel to the band.

Last night I finished Iron Council by China
Mieville. The book jumps back and forth between the building of a revolution in the city of New Crozubon and a group of refugees from the city that are searching for a legendary group , the Iron Council, that rebelled and fled the city man years ago.

In terms of genre, like the other two books in the series (Perdido Street Station, The Scar), Iron Council is fantasy rather than science fiction but it's not what most people think of as fantasy. There are no Tolkien-esque characters or settings, it is more like what is sometimes called steampunk or modern writers like Neil Gaiman.

This is the third of his books set in the same world and I would put it in the middle in terms of quality. I liked Perdido Street Station the best and The Scar the least. The twists and turns of the brewing revolution are interesting but the characters in this one are less compelling and since it the plot takes place in multiple locations, it never creates a strong sense of place to latch on to.

Amazon Link: Iron Council

I spent a good portion of the weekend at the 2nd Maker Faire, a very cool event celebrating DIY culture of all types. I saw Tesla coils, giant robots, flaming sculptures, catapults, rockets, human powered carnival rides. I also got to try my hand at welding, milling and running a lathe.

I only took a handful of pictures but you can check them out here.

Update: There are a lot of good Maker Faire photos at Flickr here and here.

Last night we say the Waybacks at the Little Fox Theater.

I've seen the Waybacks live more than any other band that doesn't include friends of mine (see the links in the sidebar). This is probably the 7th or 8th time I've seen them and I've even written about them before.

They are simply a great band. If you have an open mind or a broad musical taste, you should definitely check them out. I haven't been able to come up with a short description but last night we heard acoustic/bluegrass/jazz/country/New Orleans/rock/classical influences in the same concert and sometimes in the same song!

Original member Chojo Jacques left the band a while ago and he has been replaced by fiddle wunderkind Warren Hood. The new version of the band has changed the mix of music that they play - there is less wacky/funny songs and more rock oriented and jam based songs - but they still put on a great show. Hood is a much more technically talented musician than Chojo was and he fits in a little better with the skill level of James Nash, their amazing guitar player/singer.

Great show from one of my favourite bands.

Update: You can download songs from this show here in either FLAC or MP3 format.

Last weekend, we saw Hot Fuzz, the new action film/parody by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the same team that made the zombie movie/parody Shaun of the Dead.

It's quite good. Wright and Pegg understand that in order to make an effective parody, you first have to create a good example of the original form. In both movies, they do a good job of creating compelling, sympathetic characters and interesting situations that drive the story and provide a framework to hang the jokes from.

Some reviewers have compared this movie to The Naked Gun series but I think that is a bad comparison. The Naked Gun movies provide a very bare frame for slapstick/wacky jokes that come at a breakneck pace. Hot Fuzz's jokes come at much more measured pace and are more character based rather than slapstick or pun based.

Just finished Probability Space by Nancy Kress, the third book in a trilogy, following Probability Moon and Probability Sun.

Aside from the silly titles, these are all excellent books. One nice thing about them is that they are all stand alone books - each one is a complete story with no cliff-hanger endings. The third one is a little less stand alone and is my least favourite. The first two are centered around the characters dealing with a strange new culture and trying to figure out what is causing it's unusual features. Probability Space deals with the consequences of what happens in the first two books and wraps up the over-arching plot line. It feels more like a standard "space opera" without the cultural exploration angle and suffers because of it.


Amazon Link: Probability Space

I just finished The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. This is really an extension of an article Anderson wrote in Wired about this subject back in 2004.

The basic idea of the long tail is simple - in a market where the cost of carrying additional items has dropped to near zero, a significant aggregate amount of demand exists for items with a small amount of individual demand. The initial examples came from Rhapsody and Amazon. For a standard store like Tower Records, there is a physical limit to how much merchandise can be carried and therefore there is competition between products based on which one can produce the most revenue. The result is that records stores carry product heavily weighted towards hits and that affects what we can buy.

In contrast, there is almost no cost for Rhapsody or Amazon to add another product and therefore they can carry products that do not contribute a lot of revenue. The first result is that Rhapsody and Amazon have a much larger selection. The second result is that if you sum up all the small contributions of the marginal revenue products, you end up with a substantial amount - sometimes 20-40% of total revenues.

If you plot the revenues for each individual product, you get a power law like in the picture at the top of this post. In the past, retailers focused on the left hand side of the line because there was a limit on how much product they could carry. But now, more and more companies are finding that there is a lot of money to be made in the right hand side of that line.

I read Anderson's original article years ago and liked it. But I avoided reading this book because I had heard it was mostly redundant and Anderson over-stretched himself by trying to use the long tail concept more than is appropriate. Both of those criticisms are partially true, but the book is still worth reading. There is repetition but Anderson also adds enough new details about where the long tail economics apply and where they don't and the history of how companies learned to exploit it. Near the end, he does apply it a little more widely than I was comfortable with that is just a small section of the book.

If you are interested in why companies like Amazon, eBay and Google are having such a profound effect on the modern economy, this book is highly recommended.

Amazon Link: The Long Tail

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Just finished Killing Time by Caleb Carr.

For some reason, Carr's reputation is that of a more "literary" author but the books of his that I have read all seem to be fairly standard genre fiction. Neither the writing nor the characters are noticeably different.

Killing Time is his first science fiction book and was first published as a serial in Time magazine and there is nothing to distinguish this book from a lot of dystopian works available. The specific dystopian themes seem to be drawn from very current, mostly left-wing, conspiracy theories about the dangers of the un-regulated Internet and the pernicious influence of business and trade on governments around the world but the rest of the book harkens back to such science fiction classics as Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - the protagonist stumbles into a plot by a mad scientist to overthrow the current corrupt society, no matter what the cost. There are a few interesting twists and turns along the way but the ultimate conclusion and denouement are disapointing.



Amazon link: Killing Time

Yesterday I finished Complications by Atul Gawande.

Gawande's day job is as a surgeon but he also does a good turn as a non-fiction writer. This book is built out of a number of pieces that he wrote for the New Yorker and other magazines.

Complications is a popular science book about the philosophical issues at the base of modern medicine. Some of the ideas he discusses are: how do we know what is right treatment, what is the best way to learn how to do a complex task, how do we make decisions given uncertainty and high stress situations, should a patient decide on their own treatment. It dovetails nicely with a lot of my interests in the nature of knowledge, decision making and how humans learn/process information.

I've got his next book, Better on request at the local library and I'm looking forward to it based on this book. I had read some of his New Yorker articles so I thought I would find it interesting but I was surprised at the breadth of his thought and the consistent quality of his writing. If you are squeamish or prone to hypochondria, some of the sections of this book might bother you. Otherwise, it is highly recommended.


Amazon Link: Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science