I finished Coyote Risingby Allen Steele on Friday. This is the first sequel to Coyote. The first book was about the first settlers on Earth's first extra-solar colony. The 2nd is about their rebellion against the oppressive government that tries to extend Earth's socialist government to the new colony. I'm a fan of Steele's work, particularly his near space series. Both Coyote and Coyote Rising are as well written as his earlier works but they both suffer from one major problem - they are both basically stitched together collections of earlier published short stories. The result is a distinctly un-novel like lack of cohesion and character development. Instead of building throughout the novel, the parts feel like little vignettes. When I first read Coyote, this was affected my enjoyment of the book enough that I decided to try to avoid other books that did the same thing. I probably wouldn't have bought Coyote Rising if I had realized that it was based on earlier stories. In most books that are created this way, including Coyote, the earlier stories are listed on the copyright page. In Coyote Rising, they are not. While reading the book, it felt like the chapters were individual stories but because of the lacking copyright info, I speculated that maybe Steele had decided to deliberately parrot the feel of the first book. It wasn't until I read the acknowledgements at the end of the book that the previous publication of the stories was revealed. I still like Steele's writing enough to look at his future books but I will be more careful next time and do more research before buying.

We went and saw Keith Little and Jim Nunally at the First Street Cafe last night. As always, it was a great show, even though Keith was under the weather with a cold. Keith and Jim are two of the premier bluegrass musicians in California, probably in the entire US, and it's always a pleasure to see them play in a small, informal setting like this. I've taken lessons from both Keith and Jim at the California Bluegrass Association's summer music camp and they are both excellent teachers as well as unbelievably nice people. Keith plays mainly banjo and guitar. I've also seen him play mandolin, fiddle and bass on stage but he is most well known for his singing. He usually teaches the male vocal lesson class at the music camp. Jim is one of the top flatpicking guitar players out there but usually teaches rhythm guitar. If you want to master bluegrass rhythm, you should definitely try to get in his class.
They both play with a number of bands so there are lots of chances to see them play, particularly if you live in Northern California.

Just finished - Cellby Stephen King. When I was a kid, Stephen King put me off of reading horror for many years. I read parts of Night Shiftat a young age and had nightmares for years. It wasn't till after high school when I had some good friends who were big Stephen King fans that I went back and tried him again. Since then I've read most of what he's written, particularly his early works. At some point it is clear success went to his head and he started to ignore the advice of editors. He started producing bloated novels that didn't appeal to me. I'm not sure if it was getting off drugs or his near death experience (nicely documented in the excellent On Writing) that changed things but his books have slimmed down again. His stories started to get a little better but I don't think he has ever re-captured the full feel of his best works and Cell is a good example.
At first glance, many might compare it to The Standsince they are both post-apocalyptic in a way. But that would be a mistake. The Stand really is a post-apocalyptic tale of what happens after most of the population dies from super-flu while Cell is really just a variant on the classic zombie story. King still does a good job of creating characters and scenes through pop references and slangy dialogue but this isn't one of his best efforts. It would make a good page-turner for an airplane ride but not much else.

When I started posting here again a while ago, I had decided to mostly post about books and concerts but I just read an article that deserves a mention - Kenneth Pollack's latest article on Iraq. There have been a lot of criticisms of the Bush government's actions before, during and after the Iraq invasion but this stands out as the clearest, most concise and best backed up explanation of what went wrong with the reconstruction. Pollack has done a lot of writing on Iraq - he wrote both the best case for the invasionand the best explanation of why everyone thought Iraq had WMD when it really didn't. Both of these are excellent examples of well thought out, non-partisan pieces of analysis - something that is generally lacking in the news coverage, the pundits writings and the blogs on Iraq. Anyone who really wants to know what is going on and why things happened the way they did, needs to be familiar with Pollack's research and arguments.

One side effect of a book is to inspire me to read more in a related area. It doesn't even have to be the best book to do this. For example, I mentioned The Relic below . This inspired me to look into other archaeology related novels and I found The Visitantby Kathleen O'Neil Gear and W. Michael Gear. The authors are both former archaeologists and have written a number of books, many focusing on early Native American cultures. The Visitant is the first one in a new series combining current day archaeoligical activities and a mystery centered in the lives of the Anasazi people of the Southwest.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book. The mystery part was fairly interesting and kept me reading till the end but the modern day material seemed under-developed and the Anasazi sections suffered from a very anachronistic feel - the Anasazi felt like modern people with odd names rather than an actual prehistoric culture. An obvious example comes early in the book when one of the first victims was found and the discoverers worry about whether she is going into shock. Did ancient people in the Southwest actually understand what it meant when a person goes into shock? Somehow, I doubt it. Things like that really throw off the feel of those parts of the book.

Finished over New Year's - Maximum Light, Dinosaurs in the Atticand Marvel 1602. Maximum Light is a dystopian science fiction book by Nancy Kress. The gist is that the cumulative effects of synthetic chemicals has reduced human fertility to a unsubstainable level while also causing a much higher number of low functioning children. The government is covering things up and a few persistent citizens find out the truth. It's not one of her best works but it's an OK read. Neither the future she creates nor the characters are particularly interesting and the cover up is fairly obvious from early on.

Dinosaurs In The Attic is the non-fiction book about New York's Museum of Natural History that I mentioned below. It does a good job of presenting the museum and it's history, particularly the interesting expeditions that produced many of the musuem's extensive collections. The last (and only) time I was in New York, I focused more on art museums but if I make it back, the Museum of Natural History will definitely be on my must see list.

I picked up 1602 from the library on a whim. It's a graphic novel and a mostly pointless exercise in "what-if" with a number of Marvel's main superheroes living lives in 1602. For example, the X-men make an appearance but are called "witchbred" instead of "mutants". Neil Gaiman wrote it and he does an OK job of creating a 17th century feel instead of having the characters act in a more modern fashion.

Books finished over the Christmas break: My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Timeby Liz Jensen and The Fortune of War - the 6th in the Aubrey-Maturin seriesby Patrick O'Brian. I first read the Aubrey-Maturin novels a few years ago. I didn't like Master and Commandervery much originally but I decided to read the 2nd one, Post Captain, anyways and I liked it more. By the third one, H.M.S. Surprise, I was hooked and I read the rest of the series as fast as I could get through them.
Recently I decided to re-read them and I'm enjoying them as much the 2nd time through. In hindsight, it must have taken me a while to get used to the writing style and that is why I didn't like them at first. On 2nd reading, I appreciated Master and Commander as much as the others. O'Brian uses a very sparse style, peppered with nautical or historical language with little or no explanation. He also tends to have a long buildup followed by very short climaxes - often only a sentence or two to wrap up pages or chapters of plot.
My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time could also be described as a historical novel, but with a science fiction twist since the characters travel back and forth between 19th century Copenhagen and 21st century London. It's not as interesting from a historical perspective as the Aubrey-Maturin books but it's a fun read. I picked it up from the library's featured books section on a whim but I liked it enough that I will check out Liz Jensen's other books.

I saw For Your Consideration, Christopher Guest's latest improv movie, over the weekend. I think I'm one of the few people who saw (and liked) Waiting for Guffmanbefore Best in Showand A Mighty Windcreated some buzz around what he was doing but his latest is probably the weakest of the four films. It has the same low key style, combination of slightly off and very strange characters and improv feel but it never quite jells. This one adds a lot of TV satire set pieces, playing off shows like Entertainment Tonight, and I think those pieces are too crudely done to fit in with the light touch of the rest of the film.

I also finished The Relicby Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. It's a pretty standard thriller/horror book with some an interesting background - the Museum of Natural History in New York. I'm not sure how they divvied up the work on this one but they do create a decent "page turner". Preston also wrote a non-fiction history of the Museum called Dinosaurs in the Atticthat looks interesting.

I finished two books today. The first is iWoz - Steve Wozniak's autobiography. I owned an Apple II clone when I was in junior high but I never thought very much about the man behind it until last year when I heard him speak at a conference. His speech was about his childhood and inventing the personal computer and was inspiring. I didn't know how central his role had been and how much of an amazing engineer he was until that speech. After that, I heard his autobiography was coming out and couldn't wait to read it.

Of course, it's not quite as good as my expectations. Like many autobiographies, it's based on conversations/interview he had with the real author, Gina Smith in this case. Some of the stories are the same ones he told in his speech and some are ones that are available on the web. If you're interesting in the history of computers, Apple or want to be inspired about the pursuit of engineering, I'd recommend it.

The other book is Clive Barker's The Thief of Always. I haven't read a lot of Clive Barker's work, but this doesn't seem to be as much of a horror novel as his others. It's more of a modern fantasy/horror work for older children/young adults. It's an OK read but nothing surprising.

On the drive home today, I realized that I had overlooked one of my favourite authors when I claimed there were no American authors writing in a similar style/genre to Superchick. Po Bronson's first two books, Bombardiersand The First $20 Million is Always the Hardestare both great books in a similar style. Bronson has gone on to right some very good non-fiction booksbut I hope he returns to fiction some day.

Latest book read: Superchickby Stephen J. Martin. This one was sent to me by a friend and is easily the best thing I've read in a while. It fits in a genre that seems to be entirely defined by British/Irish authors, in particular Nick Hornbyand early Roddy Doyle. For some reason, American and continental European authors haven't produced anything in this working class, humourous, naturalistic style. The most similar things I can think of by US authors are the lighter works of Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, or Carl Hiassenbut these are all in the mystery genre.

If you like any of the authors I listed above, check this one out. It actually had me laughing out loud a few times.

I just finished Gen-e-sis by Robert M. Hazen, a non-fiction book about the scientific research into the origins of life on Earth. I read a fair amount of non-fiction popular science books but this one was a little different. First, it was written by one of the researchers in the field instead of a journalist. Second, it was written about a problem that hasn't been solved yet. Because they are written in hingsight, many of these books pick up a stronger narrative feeling -- the scientists face certain adversities, perservere and eventually they are vindicated. For example, see The Double Helix, which tells the story of Watson and Crick discovering the structure of DNA.

In contrast, Hazen's book provides a slightly different window into the world of working science. There are multiple competing approaches with controversies, false starts and personality clashes with no ultimate winner yet. If you want to get an idea how actual scientists work together, compete or think in general, I highly recommend this book.

I was lucky enough to hear one of the researchers featured speak at Wonderfest, a series of dialogues/lectures that is held at Stanford/UC Berkeley every year. The topic of the debate was "Was the Origin of Life Inevitable". Both of the researchers who spoke actually agreed with the thesis but for the sake of having a debate, one of them took the other side and did a very good job of using his expertise in the field to highlight the missing pieces and problems in the current theories. If you're in the Bay Area, you should check it out next November.

Just finished Saga of the Jomsvikings. Quite short and not very lively compared to most modern fiction. If you like the works of Homer or Herodotus like I do, you might enjoy this one as well. Just don't expect a modern story with a Viking setting.

I just finished Adventures from the Technology Underground by William Gurstelle, an interesting non-fiction book about projects being accomplished by a slew of DIY technology geeks. If you are a fan of Robot Wars, Junkyard Wards/Scrapheap Challenge, Make or even Mythbusters, you will probably enjoy this book. It's a bit short and is more of a collection of vignettes than a deep study of the topic but the people he meets are all interesting and the book could serve as a resource for someone trying to research modern DIY.

The ABC Family Channel was showing the first three Harry Potter movies this weekend. I've seen the first two a number of times on TV over the years but this is the first time I've seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on TV. As I thought at the time, it's clearly the best of the movie versions. And it's more than just a result of the book being meatier than the previous ones. Even a cursory examination shows that Alfonso Cuarón created an actual world that Harry and the other characters seemed to live in, compared to the shallow, un-imaginative backdrop that Chris Columbus created. I only saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one time in the theaters but it was clear the Mike Newall was trying to be more in the Cuarón rather than Columbus mode. Good for him.

Arthur & George is Julian Barnes latest book and the first I have read by him. The two main characters are real people - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji - and their lives are compared/contrasted throughout the first part of the book. The later part is more focused on Doyle's involvement in the real life miscarriage of justice that put Edalji in prison for 3 years based on part raciscm, part police incompetence. After his release, Doyle got involved and eventually got Edalji pardoned. Some of the other major themse in the book are Doyle's involvement in the spiritualism movement and his relationships with his first and second wives.

Barnes does a better job portraying Doyle than Edalji. Even though Doyle had some odd beliefs - he believed in spirits and the afterlife and even argued for the existence of fairies at one point - Barnes creates a convincing character based on the Sherlock Holmes author. On the other hand, Edalji remains a mystery. Many other characters respond strangely to him and it is never made clear if this is because of his mixed race or if it is something odd about Edalji's manner. Edalji's relationship with his father is also never fully explained - his father insisted on sleeping in the same locked room as him until he went to prison but the reasons behind this are never comfortably established.

Overall, I would highly recommend it, particularly for fans of Sherlock Holmes or of the Victorian/Edwardian period in general.

OK, I haven't managed to actually post here in years. I'm going to try something new - just post quick notes about what I'm reading, shows I've been to, etc. and see how that goes. For example, I just recently finished Arthur & George by Julian Barnes. Maybe tomorrow, I'll post a review.

Wow. That last break was short, compared with this one. I got busy or something (who remembers after almost 2 years) and stopped posting. I might start posting again, but I really shouldn't promise anything.

The latest performances I've seen that I can comment on are Chris Thile/Edgar Meyer at the Herbst Theater in SF and The James King Band at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley.

Chris Thile was, as always, amazing. The seemingly effortless way he produces idea after idea, sometimes playing at breakneck speed, other times at a more normal human speed, is a joy to watch. I've seen him play with his band Nickel Creek and with Mike Marshall before and loved all three shows. This time he played with the bassist Edgar Meyer, who was also very fun to watch. They made an interesting pair - the middle aged, sedate looking bass player beside the very young, sometimes hyperactive mandolinist.

This was the second time I've been to the Herbst Theater. It is a very nice venue for acoustic music. The music at this show could have been a little louder since we were in the very last row of the balcony, but the audience got into the atmosphere every note could be heard. Some of the between songs banter was harder to hear but the music was un-diminished.

The other show, James King, was also a pleasure. I've seen James King 3 times now and I will continue to seek his shows out anytime he is in the Bay Area. He plays the kind of intense, old time bluegrass that is my favourite and seems to love to play as well. 2 of the 3 times I've seen him have been at venues less than a third full and both times it didn't seem to result in him holding back at all.

Other recent shows include The Barefoot Nellies and Grizzly Peak at the Blarney Stone in SF. I know people in both bands so it was fun to see them play in public. We were running a little late and ran into parking problems so we missed about half of the Nellies set but they sounded really good, particularly for a band that hasn't been playing together that long.

This was my first time seeing Grizzly Peak since they changed guitar and banjo players. The new guys fit into the band really well and the whole band is well worth seeing.

Ok, so the break turned out to be a little longer than I intended. As I mentioned in my last post, things were on hold until DSL got set up. That happened quite some time ago but right around that time I badly hurt my left middle finger while climbing. That made typing a chore and I've only recently got the OK from the doctor to start using it in a normal fashion. It's still not back to normal, and may never get 100% back, but typing now is no problem. On the other hand, my two main hobbies - climbing and playing guitar - are still hampered. Climbing is completely out for the foreseeable future. I've started playing guitar again, but in a limited fashion.

Since I took my hiatus, the war started and then ended again. If you blinked, you might have missed it.

Anyways, hopefully I will be posting more as things come to me.

Sadly, posting will probably get even scarcer here for the next little while. We've mostly completed the move to our new house but there is no internet connection set up there till the DSL gets set up in 2 weeks. I'm not posting from work, so that means there won't be the possibility of posting.

Last night we took advantage of being in Oakland and made our way over to world class jazz house Yoshi's to see the virtuoso gypsy guitarist Bireli Lagrene. Of course, almost any professional gypsy jazz guitarist is going to be a virtuoso, but I'm told Bireli stands out from the crowd. Gypsy jazz, modeled after the Django Reinhardt's Hot Club Quintet, has it's own sub-culture, smaller even than that of bluegrass. I understand it is bigger in Europe, where most of the modern practioners hail from. In fact, a lot of the top players are Gypsy's like Django. It seems after Django gained his fame in the jazz world, his musical style took over among Gypsy's, in many cases even supplanting the Gypsy's traditional music. This led to a large crop of Gypsy youths who were raised to play guitar a la Django, and since they've been doing it since they were 3, they tend to be pretty good at it.
Bireli is an interesting case because after he made a mark at 13 as sounding more like Django than Django, he went on to become a well regarded jazz fusion player, playing electric guitar with fusion stalwarts like bassist Jaco Pastorius. Just recently he decided to return to his roots and record and tour with a Gypsy jazz band. He looks like he's having a ton of fun playing this style of music and I liked it enough that I'm thinking of breaking this month's concert budget and going to see him again Sunday afternoon.