Yesterday I finished Black Gangster by Donald Goines.

Goines is one of the more famous early African American authors writing about street life. Black Gangster is a very pulpy story about the rise and inevitable fall of young man trying to take over the gangs in Detroit, through organization, shake-downs and murder.

It's enjoyable in the pulp sense, but not something to read if you expect to learn much about the realities of the street. This novel feels more like a reflection of the movie version of gang life, through a more authentic lense since Goines himself lived his life in this context.

I just finished Greymantle by John Morressy.

This is an early '80s era fantasy, similar to a lot of things I read when I was a kid. It's the second book in a trilogy, though it's a prequel to the first one, so maybe I should say it's the first book in the trilogy.

In any case, it's an OK read. Shorter than most modern fantasy books, which is a good thing, but with characters that are almost cardboard. The plot involves a baby with a destiny, saved by the good guys by swapping it with a dead one just before the bad guys try to kill it. He turns out to be the best fighter ever, as well as a darn nice guy, etc, etc, before returning to discover the bad guys and kill them all.

There are some twists and turns, as it turns out the bad guy is actually being manipulated by a group of other bad guys. And some of the plot is handled oddly. Characters are introduced, built up and then killed off screen with very little fanfare. The final confrontation between the hero and the guy who tried to kill him as a baby is very quick, and then things move on to the behind the scenes bad guys.

Maybe it would make more sense if I'd read the other first book in the trilogy, but I doubt I ever will.

Amazon Link: Greymantle

Today I finished Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Anne Goonan.

A post-apocalyptic book without the military as the featured bad guy - yay!

Actually, it's kind of post-post-apocalyptic, which is clever. It seems civilization got into trouble after broadcast medium (radio, TV) is eliminated due to some kind of extraterrestrial radiation. (I know that sounds stupid, but it's not really a heavy feature of the book, so it's best to just ignore it.) Afterwords, the world turns heavily to nanotechnology, which produces some seemingly Utopian cities and then leads to "Information Wars" and nanotech plagues.

The book is confusing (and possibly confused) in places - for example, is Norleans a good place or a bad place? Are the plagues actually helpful or not? - but there are lots of interesting images and ideas once the heroine travels from her countryside community (based on the Shaker ideals) to one of the nanotech infested cities. She turns out to be kind of a chosen one/sacrifice, (of course) but doesn't quite want to go along with others plans for her as she unravels the mystery of why the city is the way it is.

Interesting book, and maybe some of my questions will be answered in the sequels.

Last night, we saw the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek.

Based on the trailers, I didn't know if I would enjoy this version, but I did. It continues in the trend that the more action oriented Star Trek movies are the better ones. This new re-boot of the series is almost all action, with just enough pauses to introduce new versions of the old characters.

There are tons of plot holes and stupid moments, but the quick pace of the movie, along with some decent jokes and acting, propels the movie along fast enough to gloss over the problems. And not everything was stupid. For example, the fact that the movie internally addresses the fact that it is a re-boot, was amusing and well done.

The real challenge will be if they can pull it off again - if this movie does well enough to lead to a twelfth film.

Last night, I finished The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks.

To read my general thoughts on Iain Banks, you can see the synopsys at the top of my review of his last book, Dead Air, here. This new book is again in a similar vein, more like The Crow Road than his stranger books. In this case, even more so than Dead Air, since both The Crow Road and The Steep Approach to Garbadale have a lot to do with family mysteries and conflicting romantic relationships. The newer book is structured very differently, with interlacing flashbacks and points of view instead of a consistent narrator.

Garbadale is a good book, if not quite up to the standards of The Crow Road. His characters never fail to be compelling and interesting, and the reader strongly feels their emotional struggles and dilemmas. The opening is weakened a little by the multiple, switching narrators and point of view, but once the main shape of the story is visible, it is quite engrossing. There is a minor revelation at the end that I had mostly figured out.

The one negative about the book were the anti-Bush/America diatribes near the end. Putting aside whether or not one agrees with their content, they felt out of place in the story and seemed to be their just so the author could vent his spleen. In the future, I'd recommend that he gets a blog for that purpose, and doesn't burden his characters, stories and readers with them.

I spent most of Saturday and a good part of Sunday at the Maker Faire in San Mateo.

This is my third Maker Faire (I missed the first one). Seemed to be a slightly smaller crowd this year, though still well attended and very crowded feeling at times. This year had fewer of the huge metal sculptures that seemed to everywhere last year, more sponsors and people selling things and fewer logistical problems than in the past. For example, all the speeches I saw were pretty much on time and free of issues with laptops, presentation software, video or audio that were prevelent at the previous two. Most of the major things seemed to be the same - the Crucible was there, the huge mousetrap, the dangerous rides, the incredibly expensive food. No sign of Robot Wars this year (or whatever they called it) but they did give a lot of space to Playing At Learning's displays on the First Lego League and First Tech Challenge. The music seemed to be a little de-emphasised this year, with a smaller stage and less shaded seating but still some good acts (like Culann's Hounds). This year also had less emphasis on steampunk, though there was a strong steampunk contingent, both costumers and makers, there representing.

Adam Savage's speech, although very different from last years, was a highlight again. Some of the other interesting speeches I saw were on DIY electronics prototyping, needs for better robotic manufacturing, a history of Silicon Valley before Hewlett-Packard.

Overall, very fun, but also getting very expensive and the crowds are still an issue for me.

(some photos here).

I wrote about the last two Maker Faires here and here.

Yesterday, I finished First Contract by Greg Costikyan.

Costikyan is best known as a game designer, including the wacky post-apocalyptic Paranoia. First Contract has a similar feel, in terms of wacky action, at time. It's the comedic story of the CEO of a high-tech company and what happens to him, his company, and the human economy after first contact between humans and a galactic federation.

The novel starts off weak, with some poorly developed characters and worse dialogue, but picks up after the CEO loses everything. When he gets caught up in a new business scheme, the book picks up pace and the comedic tone comes through stronger. The economics also strike me as a little unlikely, but they are necessary to set up the rest of the amusing story, so I guess it's OK.

Fun, but minor.

A few days ago, I finished William Blake: An introduction by Raymond Lister.

I got re-interested in Blake from seeing an exhibition at the Tate Britain in London. It was a recreation of a exhibition Blake had given in his brother's home. The exhibition was intriguing, even though most of the exhibition items are either missing or so dark as to be hard to pick out details. I'm not sure if they darkness was due to the effects of time, or part of Blake's intention.

This book is an OK introduction, walking through the events of Blake's life and discussing most of his major works. The mix of biography and analysis, and the small size of the book, results in a shallow analysis of both. Given that Blake is so different from any other artist of the time (or probably since), I would have like more about how Blake came up with his unique mythology, or more analysis with more prints, preferably in colour.

William Blake;: An introduction to the man and to his work

I spent a ton of time this weekend at Baycon, the local science fiction convention.

I've posted before about Baycon. I'm not involved in the local fan scene, so I don't really know any of the people, so most of my con experience is about the panels. There were no real stand out panels I saw this year but I think I've refined my "panel triage" skills, since I enjoyed the panels I did attend more this year.

Here are some of my thoughts on the important items to consider in "panel triage".

Panel Topic

• Aside from being interested in the topic, is the topic something that will be able to be talked about for an hour, usually by non-experts? If it's not, expect a panel that will digress and wander a lot.
• is the panel intended to be a panel + audience or a more free form discussion? Both can work, depending on your taste.In the first case, the moderator becomes key. In the second, the quality of the audience is paramount.
  

Panelists

• are they experts (or at least knowledgeable on the topic)? A rough rule - if more than one panelist opens by saying "I'm not sure why I'm on this panel", check out a different panel.
• how are their presentation/humour skills? For example, there are a few presenters at Baycon that are consistently amusing, no matter what the topic (Seanan McGuire comes to mind).
  
• are there any blowhards on the panel? These can derail almost any panel, even with a good moderator.
• how strong/experienced is the moderator? This is particularly important relative to the next category

Audience

• if the panel is intended to be more of a "panel + audience", are there members of the audience who don't understand this and try to have a back and forth conversation with the panelists, even if they aren't talking to this attendee directly?
• are there attendees who don't seem to understand that the panel isn't about them, and that there may be more than one person who has questions or comments? This can also be a problem with some panelists (see "blowhard" comment above).

I just finished The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy. A post-apocalyptic story set in and around San Francisco.

I'm not sure why this is, but it seems the military is the villain of choice in any post-apocalyptic story, whether they caused the disaster (see Stephen King's The Stand), or whether they try and take over and impose their ideas of order and discipline afterwords (see CBS's Jericho, or many others. The one semi-original piece of this book is that the apocalyptic disaster is actually accidentally caused by peace activists, instead of the military industrial complex.

In this novel, the contrast is even larger because the protagonists are artists and free spirits who live in San Francisco in a very Utopian anarchic society. Who knew that all we needed for a comfortable life we could devote to art was for 99+% of the population to die off? In addition to that silliness, there is an uncomfortable anti-American vibe throughout the book. For example, the evil military leader espouses the values of "America" and is mocked by other characters and one characters opines that they always thought the old American flag was "ugly".

Yesterday, I finished Renegade's Magic by Robin Hobb.

This is the third book of a trilogy, and I wrote about the second book here. The general things I said in that post are still true, i.e. Hobb is one of the best writers in fantasy today, partly because she writes complete books instead of books that are really just part of one larger book, and trilogies instead of endless series. Also, this trilogy, while quite good, is not quite as good as her other ones. Another interesting feature of Hobb's work is that it is not very derivative. She creates unique worlds, unique magic and then populates them with realistic characters.

Renegade's Magic is a good closing of this trilogy, resolving the open issues from the first two books and resolving the over-arching problem of the conflict between two cultures.

Hobb is a master of creating impossible, or tragic, situations for her characters and then having them struggle their way through them. In this book, that takes the form of the protagonist being trapped in his own body as part of him that was split off in the first book controls it. The only problem is that this plays into one of Hobb's few weaknesses, that her characters can be too indecisive and passive, like Hamlet, endlessly debating their options and suffering along the way. This book felt a little too passive for large portions of it.

I just finished The Victorian Underworld by Donald Thomas.

Thomas synthesizes a lot of first hand researchs from sources like Henry Mayhew into a very interesting account of the seedy parts of the Victorian world, from crime and poverty among the costermongers (street vendors), to the ever present prostitution and sophisticated forgers and pornographers.

He gives a lot of good anecodtes, most drawn directly from sources like Mayhew. I'll have to track down one of Mayhew's works to see how much Thomas adds to it, or if the source is better.

Yesterday I finished Gaudeamus by John Barnes.

An odd little book. Basically, a bunch of tales told to the protagonist by a friend, tales involving magical physics devices, aliens and telepathy. Are they true or false? Even the protagonist doesn't know. And to add to the weirdness, the protagonist is the author himself. I'm not sure why that is - maybe Barnes is trying to create a feel like some of the early pulps or Burroughs books, where the story is purported to be true and dictated to the author.

The story itself is just OK - nothing special, but somewhat amusing. The characters who tells the story might be a little offensive to some people, in the words he uses and the ways he refers to people, and the author himself takes some swipes at science fiction fans along the way for some reason. Other than that, not much to say about this book. It falls in the middle of books by Barnes I've read, between ones I've liked and ones I've hated.

Last night, we felt like going to see some theater. We ended up seeing Bright Young People, put on by the youth conservatory of the SF American Conservatory Theater.

It's a tribute to the words and music of Noel Coward, stitching together a bunch of scenes and musical numbers that he wrote. It was surprising to realize that thought I had heard of Coward, I had not heard a single one of these songs before, or seen or read any of these plays. His take on the playful aristocracy doesn't seem to have caught hold in current pop culture.

The singing and acting by the young performers was quite good. A few rough spots here and there, but overall well done, particularly for people who are mainly juniors in high school.

I've finished two books since I returned from vacation.

The first is Juggler of Worlds by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner, sequel to their earlier Fleet of Worlds. Like the previous book, this one's greatest weakness is it's relationship to Niven's other Known Space stories. In fact, this one has that weakness worse. Time and again, just when the book gets interesting in it's own right, it digresses to show a new character viewpoint on a previous story, or to add some twist or new knowledge. The result is a mish-mash that doesn't stand well on its own, and undermines the earlier stories.

The second was Freedom & Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. I had read this one before, many years ago, since I am a huge Steven Brust fan, but didn't like it that much. I picked it up again because I was on a thirteen hour plane ride and had finished the book I was reading. Stacey was reading this one, so I started re-reading it anytime she was sleeping, and I enjoyed it much more this time.

It's told in epistolary form, mainly of letters between the four main characters, James Cobham, his step-sister Kitty and their cousins Richard Cobham and Susan Voight. The novel is set in the mid 19th century, after the Chartist movement has failed. James was involved in that movement, and in various violent acts, and his past has come back to haunt him. We find this out slowly, as well as further complications, as more and more letters develop the back story and characters.

The novel makes good use of it's epistolary nature, having some letters reveal different details or mis-representations that various characters have told in previous letters, but it does make it a longer read than is strictly necessary for the plot. Fans of Brust and Bull should know what they are getting into before they read the novel, to avoid disappointment. (Possible spoiler alert) Although there are earlier hints that seem to lean in this direction, there are none of the fantasy elements that occur in their other works.

Vacation 2009 - day 15

May 5, 2009 - Orleans/Paris

Up for a hotel breakfast, went out to scout which stores opened when for Stacey. Since this was our last day in France, she wanted to see if she could find some good clothes or good food.

Back to the hotel to check out and then to the train station. Stacey shopped for a while in the mall next to the train station and then for a while at Cop Copine, Stacey's favourite brand, and one that is hard to find in the US. Afterwards, we caught the train to Paris.

We found our hotel, the Hotel Bervic. It's right in the center of Paris, very conveniently located near the Gare du Nord train station, which seemed like a very bad neighbourhood. Very scummy and dirty, with bars on all windows, etc. Reminded me of the San Francisco Tenderloin. The hotel room wasn't particularly clean, and had no towels. We had to ask repeatedly to get them, and to go up and down the four flights repeatedly of stairs (no lift/elevator) to get them. I'm not sure you could pay me enough to stay there again.

We tried to get into a nice restaurant Stacey knew about, but they were full up. We ended up eating at a place called Brasserie Lipp. It looked good from the outside, but the food we got was pretty terrible - mediocre fish and overdone veal in cream of mushroom soup!

Then back to the hotel, to get ready for the plane out the next morning.

(pictures from Paris)

Vacation 2009 - day 14

May 4, 2009 - Orleans

Up for 7:30am breakfast, talked to hotel staff about touring around. They thought it would be difficult without a car, but it turned out to be impossible to find an automatic transmission to rent. She suggested talking to the local TI. We walked over to the city center and found the TI, and based on their advice, hoped on a 40 min train ride to Blois. From the Blois TI, we bought tickets on a bus tour that included a number of chateaus.

The bus driver was very nice, spoke English, and because we were the only two people who showed up for this particular time of the tour, we got a lot of extra attention and information. The first stop was Chambord, built by Francis I to show off after he re-took Milan but not completed till the reign of Louis XIV. It has a funny history - it spent more time abandoned than being lived in. But it is a very impressive building nonetheless.

The second stop was Cheverny, a family house lived in until 1985. Very fancy, surrounded by a park, but not on the same scale as Chambord.

The third stop was back at Blois, where there is a royal chateau but we didn't have time to see the chateau. Instead, we had supper at the train station restaurant (based on the local tour driver's recommendation) and then caught the train back to Orleans.

After we got back, we wanted to just get a nice dessert. We went to a nice looking restaurant and were able to get seats, but it turned out that they don't just serve dessert - not sure if it was just that restaurant or all French restaurants. In either case, it was pretty annoying. We walked around for the rest of the evening just checking out the architecture in Orleans. At one point, someone driving by yelled something at us and something hit my jacket. Probably just stupid kids, but not a great end to the day.

(pictures from Orleans)

Vacation 2009 - day 13

May 3, 2009 - Paris/Orleans

Up to catch Eurostar to Paris. Pretty boring train ride. Got into Paris, checked our luggage so we could wander around for a few hours before our train to Orleans.

Made our way to the Paris Laduree, but it took a long time on the Metro due to some people being on the train line at one point. Had to get off the Metro and walk to the Bastille area to catch another train. Stacey picked up some more macarons and jam at Laduree. Saw the outside of the Louvre on the walk back to train. Caught the train to Orleans and walked to our hotel, which is right on the Loire river. We then walked to the old part of the city to find food.

Since it was Sunday, mostly everything was closed. We ended up eating at an Indian place that looked good, but turned out to be pretty awful. Stacey's dishes were too creamy and my rogan ghost took so long to arrive that Stacey had already finished all her dishes, and then it turned out to be the worst lamb dish I've ever had. We ended the day by walking back to the hotel along the Loire.

(pictures of Paris and Orleans)

Vacation 2009 - day 12

May 2, 2009 - Cotswolds/London

Up for 8:30am breakfast. Met another couple staying at the B&B, a new couple that live in north London. He was a self-employed mortgage broker, she was a math teacher. Then went on a farm tour - beef and lamb farm, with crops just to feed them. Discussed some of the "City" money that owns some of the houses up here and only visit on weekends. Then drove back down to Oxford, found car rental place OK (with only a few wrong turns).

Walked around Oxford a little, but it wasn't very impressive, and had the worst lunch yet - panini sandwich for Stacey and a Cornish pasty for me. Caught train back to London, checked into hostel (clean, but dingy and had to sleep in seperate rooms).

Then we went to check out the exhibits at the British Library. Saw Shakespeare folios, the Lindisfarne Gospels, a Guttenberg Bible, original manuscripts from Jane Austin, Charlotte Bronte, etc. The original Beowulf manuscript was out - being restored or researched.

Then off to Harrod's - very claustophobic place, like a low ceilinged mall with a LOT of people. Stacey found the Laduree there and bought some mini-macarons. Then went to Soho to find some food. Couldn't find the place we were looking for, ended up eating at an upscale Indian restaurant - pretty good food. Then back to the hostel.

Vacation 2009 - day 11

May 1, 2009 - Cotswolds

up at 8am, nice breakfast at the B&B, off to Chipping Campden. Walked around checking out the nice village, larger than Stow and nicer than Moreton. Found an Arts and Crafts movement related museum, saw the manor house estate (which is actually rent-able), saw the church and stopped at a local famous silversmith workshop that had been around since the Arts and Crafts movement. Drove down to Lower Slaughter, parked on a country lane and walked though the village and then on a right of way path to Upper Slaughter. Very picturesque.

For dinner, we went to the New Inn, down the street from the Bell Inn and very different - much more homey, filled with locals (including three dogs) and basic pub food. I had a cottage pie with chips and Stacey had a half chicken with salad and new potatoes. Pretty good food.

(pictures from Cotswolds)