This is posted as solidarity with those being attacked by radical Muslims for drawing/publishing a cartoon. Viva free speech!

There are articles about the latest attacks here and here.

I just finished Man of Constant Sorrow by Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean.

It's obvious from reading it that it is really Eddie Dean writing up and connecting together stories told to him by Dr. Stanley. At times, there are sentences or pieces of stories repeated in different chapters but 0ther than that, he does a very good job of weaving the stories together into a coherent narrative.

Like all autobiographies, this book can be a little too self serving. Ralph clearly sees himself as someone who says it the way he sees it, and he has a lot of regard for himself as a musician and a "living legend". It also has some holes that you wouldn't find in a more objective biography - there is only a single sentence mentioning his first marriage and his son, Ralph Stanley II, is only mentioned briefly in the last chapter.

I am a huge fan of the Stanley Brothers -- they are my favourite bluegrass band, by far -- so the earlier parts of the books were very interesting to me. Learning where some of their songs came from, and about the hard times they lived through, even up to and past Carter's death, as well as a lot of other facts about their lives, probably wouldn't suit some audiences but it was perfect for me.

Most of the other original bluegrass stars, like Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt, and Jimmy Martin, are gone and it is a shame we don't have a record of their stories as told by them. It is a great thing for bluegrass that at least one of them went on the record and told it like they saw it.

Highly recommended for bluegrass fans.

Yesterday I finished Rimrunners by C. J. Cherryh.

I haven't read any Cherryh in a long time, and didn't remember liking her all that much, but I enjoyed this book.

It follows Elizabeth "Bet" Yeager as she tries to get a job on a ship, not really caring where it goes, as long as it is away from the station she is trapped on with no prospects and no money. Eventually, she finds a birth on a ship, forms some friendships, gets into trouble and then helps fend off an attack. All this is made much more difficult because she is a former Marine with the opposing military, something she tries to conceal from her new crew mates.

The book starts off slowly, with her stuck on the station and dealing with other reprobates and getting more and more despondent. The situation only gets slightly less grim as she gets a job on a ship where there are massive crew problems, including violence. The grim tone is a little off putting as well. But the book picks up as it goes along and has a strong conclusion.

Last night I finished Revelation Space, the debut novel of Alastair Reynolds.

Revelation Space has a "space opera" feel, but with more of a hard science fiction background. For example, there is no faster than light travel here but there is aggressive nanotechnology and other exotic science ideas.

It's quite an enjoyable book, once it gets going, and a surprisingly good debut. At the beginning, the multiple story lines were a big bewildering, particularly because they moved around in time in unclear ways. Leaving things un-explained at the start is a common SF writing style, but if not done carefully, it can be very off putting. Once you get past that, and the stories start to flow individually, and then come together, the novel improves a lot. The end also has some flaws, as the amount of exposition increases almost exponentially, pulling away from the story/characters at times but necessary to explain what is going on.

The story itself is pretty complex, starting with an archaeological find, an assasin and a spaceship needing a crew replacement. Later there are coup's on colonies, clones revealed, battles between AIs for people's minds, aliens that turn out to be different than what they appear and a final decision that needs to be made.

Last night we say the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience at the Freight & Salvage.

It was a great show, by a great group of local musicians - David Grisman, Keith Little, Jim Nunally, Chad Manning and Sam Grisman. They did two sets mixed between bluegrass standards and Grisman originals.

I've seen other shows of DGBX but this was the best one so far. In addition, it was good to see the new Freight full. I've seen two other shows there with very small crowds, but this one was sold out.

The new Freight is a great place to see music. I liked the old Freight because of the great acts they got, but I never liked the sound there. The new Freight is not only very nice to look at, but has excellent sound.

Year In Review - 2009

My favourite book I read this year:

Perfecting Sound Forever by Greg Milner. As I said at the time, "Well written, well researched, overall excellent".

My favourite concert I attended this year:

It was a year of great concerts with Devo, Hot Club of Cowtown, Audie Blaylock and Redline, Town Mountain and others, but there was one clear winner - Heaven and Hell, the Dio version of Black Sabbath, at the Warfield. Seeing musicians like this at a smaller venue, was simply amazing and exceeded my high expectations.

My favourite movie I saw this year:

On the other hand, it was a weak year for movies. Nothing I saw this year really blew me away. I guess I would have to give the top spot to UP. It's not as strong as Pixar's other movies, but still better than most of the dreck Hollywood puts out these days. I guess I need to see more non-Hollywood films.

My favourite place visited this year:

Another strong category, from the natural scenery of Jasper and Banff, to my first trip to the mega-city of London, but my favourite is easy - Edinburgh. I wrote about it here, here and here with pictures here. A wonderful, colourful and historic city with the nicest people I've met in my trips to Europe.

Most unexpected experience this year:

Jury duty - I went into it expecting to be bored by the realities of a courtroom but I came out of it with a new respect and interest in the legal field. In many ways, it was more interesting than how it is portrayed on fiction.

I'm running a little behind in reviews, even though it has been the Christmas vacation and I've been off work.

The second last book I finished was Anne Perry's No Graves As Yet. It is built around two brothers, one a pastor and teacher at Cambridge, the other a government agent for the Secret Intelligence Service (later to be called MI6). The book starts with the death of their parents, who were coming to tell the spy brother about a conspiracy, and is complicated by the death of a Cambridge student.

In some ways, it is an old fashioned British mystery, set amongst the upper class before the Great War. But it spends a lot more time developing the characters of the two brothers as they go about figuring out if their parents were killed, who killed the student, and if the deaths are related. It's quite well written, and works as a stand alone book, although it is actually the start of a multi-book series.

It does feel a bit lopsided by the end, as one brother is dropped from the narrative for most of the second half and only re-appears at the end.

The last book I finished is Clarke County, Space by Allen Steele. I had read it before, many years ago but had misplaced my copy.

This book is part of his series of loosely related near future books (called the Near Space or Rude Astronauts series). These were Steele's attempt to bring near future SF "back to Earth", in a sense. They are grittier and more realistic than much SF, and use a lot of background Steele learned as a journalist covering the US space program. It is set on an orbiting station just as it decides to break away from its position as a US colony, and as a hitman pursues a fugitive aboard.

I wish Steele would go back to writing in this world, as it was quite interesting and is still different from most SF books. He has since moved on to other series, mainly the Coyote books, which I don't enjoy as much.

Yesterday we saw Avatar in IMAX 3D.

It's quite a spectacle. The whole $280M is up on the screen. The 3D is the best I've seen, although it still makes things look disjointed at times to me. The CGI for the Na'vi has successfully crossed the "uncanny valley".

On the more artistic front, the performances are good and James Cameron still has an amazing touch with action sequences. On the other hand, his writing skills haven't shown much improvement. Science fiction involves a willing suspension of disbelief, but Cameron shows off an ignorance of physics, ecology, economics, history and military tactics that makes that suspension pretty difficult. The story adds up to Dances With Wolves but where the Indians win at the end.

Overall, worth seeing. It makes me wish that this level of technical skill would be used for some science fiction classics with better stories, like Larry Niven's Ringworld.

We just got back from seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie, aptly titled Sherlock Holmes.

Overall it was an enjoyable movie, with some weak parts. Given the weakness of the other modern film versions of Sherlock Holmes (the Chris Columbus penned Young Sherlock Holmes in 1985 and the middling funny Without A Clue in 1988)

The look of the film is a highlight. The backgrounds and street scenes are reportedly all digital effects, but don't feel like it at all - it feels like an immersive Victorian world.

Some of the reviews have disparaged the more action oriented Holmes interpretation, but I think it is a valid one. The stories do talk about Holmes skills in Baritsu (an English martial art) and boxing and he actually gets in a few fights and scuffles in the canonical stories. Other reviews have faulted this version as not being "fastidious" enough, but that is also straight out of the stories. Holmes, as written, is extremely sloppy and disorganized outside of his professional areas, experiments with chemicals in his apartments and the scene where he shoots V.R. (for Victoria Regina) into one wall of the apartment is straight from Conan Doyle.

Where the Holmes portrayal does show real weakness is its fundamentally modern nature. Holmes, Watson and the other characters are sarcastic, ironic, egalitarian and overly expressive in contrast to how a true Victorian would have acted. This is especially telling because Holmes' lack of decorum is meant to be more meaningful in contrast to people who behave in a much more reserved fashion.

Which may have contributed to another problem, Robert Downey Jr's performance. Downey is over the top in Holmes lack of social skills, and his main approach to act out eccentricity seems to be twitching in various ways. This may also be due to him trying to distinguish his performance from his other current major role, the much cooler and sartorial Tony Stark.

The story adds up as well or better than most mainstream Hollywood stories, but does feature one really odd choice - the black magic ritual that Holmes interrupts at the start of the movie. Given how prominently a similar ritual was featured in the earlier Young Sherlock Holmes, this feels very derivative. After that, the following mysteries are better and the interplay between Holmes and Watson as Watson plans to move out pre-marriage works fairly well.

The introduction of Irene Adler as Holmes romantic weakness/arch rival works OK, once you've adapted to the modern perfomances. The treatment of the female characters (Irene Adler and Mary Morstan) is also very modern - they are independent, opinionated women and treated with respect from those around them, definitely not what would have happened if played with a period flavour. And once again, the general treatment undermines a specific character. Irene Adler is meant to be shockingly independent and aggressive, but how shocking is it when all the women are similar? It takes away from the uniqueness of the character.

But it is easier to point out in length the weaknesses, the strengths are on the screen, and it is an enjoyable film if you can get past the modernized Holmes and friends.

Just before Christmas, I finished Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller.

It's a very interesting biography in many ways. Rand lived an interesting life, living through the communist revolution in China and then turning herself into what she wanted to be, first a success in Hollywood and then one of the most successful writers of the 20th century. Heller has done a good job of exploring that part of Rand's life, filling in many details I had not known about and using independent research into her life in Russia and the fate of her family after Rand lost touch with them.

The only complaints I have about this part of the book are Heller's playing amateur psychologist in many places and ascribing Rand's later views to various events in her early life. Those are pure speculation and don't give much credit to Rand for formulating actual ideas about the world, rather than having her views determined by it in some kind of pseudo-Skinnerian fashion.

The sections on her books are particularly good. Heller shows a strong understanding of the themes, both philosophical and artistic, in play. This is particularly important because without an understanding of Rand's aims to create "Romantic" fiction, the novels can appear very melodramatic and over-written compared to the more current favoured "Naturalistic" style. When more properly compared with writers like Hugo or Dostoevsky, one can see more clearly what Rand was aiming at and judge how well she did, or didn't achieve it.

The later part of the book is less interesting, and less well researched. It focuses on her relationship with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, and the so-called cult that grew up around Rand after Atlas Shrugged was published. Heller makes it clear up front that she got a lot of input from the Brandens and I don't believe she took that input with enough of a grain of salt, given the Brandens history of misleading and borderline deceptive remarks about this period and their obvious incentives to make themselves look better and Rand look worse. This focus on the Branden's inputs may be partially due to the fact that she did not have access to Rand's surviving papers in the Ayn Rand Archive run by the Ayn Rand Institute. She does not give a reason for that denial, so it is not possible to fully judge, but given the quality of the majority of this book, I think that decision was a mistake on the part of ARI. This book, and the other Rand biography that came out at around the same time, Jennifer Burn's Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, will probably serve as the standard Rand biographies for some time to come and would have been better for everyone if they had full access to all sides. I will probably read Burn's book as soon as I can get a library copy and compare and contrast it with Heller's.

One other criticism is that there is a large hole in the book named Frank O'Connor, her husband of 50+ years. All evidence seems to indicate O'Connor was a taciturn individual and hasn't left a lot of evidence of his point of view on Rand, her writings, the Branden affair or their marriage. This book gives some small evidence that there may have been problems in the marriage, and with O'Connor, but most of it comes across as speculation with little foundation. It may not be possible, even with extensive research, to discover more about O'Connor and his point of view but it doesn't look like that was done here.

I just finished Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire.

Rosemary and Rue is an urban fantasy detective novel set in the SF Bay area. The protagonist, October "Toby" Day, is a half-faerie, half-human changeling struggling to find her place when neither side really accepts her.

McGuire, a local author who is also a must see feature on the local SF convention scene due to her off the cuff witty remarks, does a good job with the first book of this planned series. At some points it is a little too obvious she is setting up things to use in other books of a long series (from the numerous possible future/past lovers, to the mentioned but not detailed heroic back story of the protagonist), but she also does a good jobs of the basics of this story.

It starts out with a murder that needs to be solved (with a curse attached to make sure the protagonist doesn't lose focus) and the protagonist is a good example of the kind of detective that solves cases by acting like a bull in a china shop - wandering around bugging people until the solution presents itself.

The down side might be just the setting - urban fantasy started to be written in the late 80's, with Charles De Lint and Emma Bull pioneering the field, but it has grown to such an extent that it almost feels cliched now.

Overall, a good start and worth checking out.

Yesterday I finished Hot Springs by Stephen Hunter.

I wrote about another of his books here. This book actually comes before the other one, and is similar. It is also a "tough guy" story. In this case, it's about the same tough guy, Earl Swagger, working to shut down a gambling town, based somewhat on the real town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, with some real people like Bugsy Siegel, Virginia Hill, Owney Madden and a guest appearance by Mickey Rooney.

This novel is a little more sophisticated than Pale Horse Coming, in that the main character has a lot of emotional problems stemming from an abusive father. These are addressed by the end of the novel, which explains why they are not as central to the sequel.

A few days ago I finished A World Lit Only By Fire by William Manchester.

The subtitle says it is about the medieval mind and the Renaissance, but those two subjects are, respectively, only briefly discussed or barely mentioned. The book is really three essays.

The first is a very brief and cursory overview of the medieval period. This is so cursory that it seems to over-simplify in many ways and is heavily criticized in online reviews.

The second is a detailed overview of the Protestant Reformation, and is much better than the first. It covers a lot of the major events, including the lead up to Martin's protests and the reasons why they were more successful than previous heresies. Very interesting and well written.

The third is a profile of Ferdinand Magellan, whose expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe, though he himself died in an ill considered battle in the Philippines.

I just finished Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.

This one is as good as his first book, Elantris, and better than his latest, Warbreaker. It tells a self contained story, but is also the first book in a trilogy.

The things it has in common with the other books are an new type of magic that the world is built around, a deep feeling back story and believable characters. This is definitely a strong suit of this book compared to Warbreaker, where the characters felt much less fully realized.

I can see why this series was his break out work, leading him to be thought of as one of the new authors to watch in fantasy writing. Too bad that it lead him to get the contract to finish the mediocre Wheel of Time series rather than writing more new novels of his own.

A few days ago, I finished Behold a Pale Horse by William Cooper.

I've always wanted to read a book by a conspiracy nut, and now I have. Cooper rolls in so many of the standard conspiracy subjects - the Illuminati, UFOs, AIDs, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission - that you might think he is writing a parody like the Illuminatus! Trilogy. That is, until you find out that he was actually killed after shooting a police officer that had come to serve a warrant on him. The guy is actually so nuts that he questions easily verifiable physical facts, like the moon always keeping the same side facing the earth.

The book is really a few short essays, tied together with copies of public documents and a few other pieces of conspiracy lunacy from others, including one that he claims was found on a salvaged copy machine. Of course, Cooper takes this as evidence that it is a genuine government document instead of the product of another mind as warped as his.

Given that he served without incident in the Air Force and the Navy, he must have been sane enough at one point. He describes things he saw from those days, relating to UFOs and other conspiracies, that seem to indicate he might have had problems even back then.

Overall, it was good to have read it, but I wouldn't recommend it. A very difficult read.

I just finished Get Real by Donald E. Westlake, the 14th, and probably last, of his Dortmunder novels.

Get Real is one of the better of the later novels. The setup is simple - Dortmunder and the gang get asked to be involved in a reality TV show about them doing a heist - and their is no nemesis figure like there has been in many of the more recent entries. It's just about them figuring out what to steal from whom, and how to do it.

Very enjoyable.

In reading this, I also looked up the movies that have been made of the various Dortmunder novels. I think Dortmunder must be one of the most filmed modern characters, although the characters name is almost always changed for the film. How many others have been played by a range of actors like Robert Redford, George C. Scott, Paul Le Mat, Christopher Lambert and Martin Lawrence? Sadly, the movies are almost all terrible.

This morning I finished Busted Flush, the latest in the Wild Cards series.

I was a fan of the original series, reading up to the tenth book in the series before losing track of it. This is the 2nd in a intended new trilogy, following up on the first book Inside Straight.

This book has the same flaws as Inside Straight, and makes some of those flaws clearer. For example, their use of more "ripper from the headlines" style settings doesn't work well. In Inside Straight, this was a reality TV show. In Busted Flush, it is a Katrina style flooding of New Orleans. Other flaws include too many characters, with too many switches of perspective, making it difficult to keep track of who's who.

A few days ago, I finished A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin.

I'm a huge, huge fan of another Helprin book, A Winter's Tale. While A Soldier of the Great War doesn't live up to that standard, it is still a good, and enjoyable book.

It starts off in the present day, as a worker misses his bus and an old man gets off in sympathy and they decide to walk to their destinations, even though they are few days walk away. Along the way, the old man reluctantly starts talking about his life and his service during WW1. The story ranges from his early romances/crushes in Rome, to service in the trenches, to desertion and almost execution and then service in the Alps.

The scenes set in pre-war Italy feel like typical fin de siècle portraits of the time, the war is stereotypically horrible and stupid, so there aren't any real surprises here - just a well told story.

Over the weekend, we went and saw Fantastic Mr. Fox, the new Wes Anderson movie based on the Roald Dahl book.

It's a fun movie, but not one I would recommend for most kids. I doubt most kids will be able to follow the story, and might get very lost during the Anderson-esque relationship scenes between Mr. Fox, his son and his wife's nephew. It is definitely the weirdest semi-kids movie I've ever seen, from the first moment we see Mr. Fox listening to The Ballad of Davey Crockett to the final dance scene in the grocery store.

My favourite moment - anytime Fox or his family are eating, when they transform from urbane anthropomorphized animals to a much wilder state. I laughed every time.

The one sour note for me was the use of well known actors for the voices. George Clooney's voice is to recognizable as Mr. Fox and it is a distraction from the movie.

I finished two books over the Thanksgiving break.

The first is Dzur by Steven Brust. I'm a big Brust fan and have read all of his books. Dzur is a good read, but not one of the best of the series. Like most of the later books in the series, it uses an unconventional structure. This one is structured around a meal the main characters has. Each chapter starts with a re-telling of part of the meal and then continues into the main story. It was also the latest book in both chronological and publication order, rare in a series that jumps back and forth in time.

Of course the book will be almost unreadable by anyone who hasn't read the series, even though they tell self-contained stories.

The second book was Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter.

Pale Horse Coming falls into the category of what I call tough guy noir. Pioneered by Mickey Spillane, the books feature characters that are constantly upping the stakes in toughness, until the toughest bastard is the one left alive. Hunter does add some emotional depth and variety to his tough guys, which does make the book more compelling.

The story features an isolated prison farm in rural Mississippi during the 50s, featuring brutal treatment of the inmates and a mysterious secret that ends up explaining some its isolation and brutality. It's a page turner, with some off putting parts. It's set in the 50s and the racial language used is period accurate, which reads as fairly shocking to modern ears. Also, towards the end there is one chapter that is basically gun porn and isn't really necessary to the rest of the story at all.