Yesterday I finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.

A fairly standard post-apocalyptic novel, told partly in flashback as the protagonist, one of the only surviving normal humans, remembers his youth and interactions with the person responsible for the fall of humanity and partly in the present, as the protagonist struggles to survive, and look after  a group of altered, genetic engineered humans.

The only non-standard thing about this novel is the fact that Margaret Atwood doesn't consider it science fiction.  That just reveals that she isn't exposed to much in the field, since her novel fits neatly within the genre in every way.

Last night I finished The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind.


This, the 7th book in Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, takes an unexpected turn.  Instead of focusing on Richard and Kahlan and their ongoing struggles against the Imperial Order, it focuses on two entirely new characters.  For reasons too complex to go into, one of these new characters is allied with the Imperial Order, against what we have thought of as the force of good in the other books.  In the end, the two sets of characters do interact to tie everything together.

This is an effective twist.  One of the complaints I've had about the previous books is that the protagonist, Richard Cypher/Rahl, has become a "superman", undefeatable in physical combat and immensely powerful in magical terms.  This has led to more and more ridiculous plot twists, like the Superman comics of old, as the author searches for new ways to challenge or limit his protagonist.  This twist removes all of those machinations and puts us back in a simple story, and it works very well.

I missed one book that I finished just before leaving for Grass Valley - The January Dancer by Michael Flynn.

I'm a big fan of Flynn's, going all the way back to reading his stories in Analog.   The January Dancer is a different book for him, moving more into the area of space opera.  It also adds a different spin to that genre, by making the default culture an Irish one.  I don't think that has been done before.  Combine that with a clever new version of FTL travel, and an interesting plot about an alien artifact that has strange effects on those around it, and you've got another darn good book.

Like all of his books, recommended.

Yesterday I finished Feed by Mira Grant.

Feed is a post-zombie apocalypse type book, but one where civilization didn't fall.  It's set a number of years after a rogue genetically engineered virus starting converting people to zombie, where people have adjusted and go on with life.  Civilization works fine but has added many new constraints to deal with the possibility of continued outbreaks.

The protagonists are journalists (i.e. bloggers), a brother/sister pair and one of their friends, who get invited to cover a presidential contended and then get into trouble.

A strong read - more thought out than most similar books, with some surprising twists and turns along the way. 

Mira Grant is a pen-name for Seanan McGuire, who also writes urban fantasy under her own name.  I enjoyed Feed more than Rosemary and Rue,  since it did more to extend and surpass its genre.  I'll still probably check out the sequels to both books.

I just got back from spending a week up in Grass Valley, first as a volunteer teaching assistant at the CBA Music Camp, and then attending the CBA Father's Day Festival. 

I had a great time this year.  At the camp, I was assisting Andy Falco, the guitar player for the Infamous Stringdusters in the advanced guitar class.  Turns out that in addition to being a great musician, he's also a good teacher and a super nice guy.  I haven't always been a fan of the Stringdusters (see my comments here, about the band with the previous guitar player), but after meeting Andy I decided to check them out again.  Their Thursday set was really good, and their Friday and Saturday sets were even better so now I'm a convert.  Their sound is a lot stronger rhythmically than I remembered, and they have some great songs and jamming pieces.

Other than that, the highlight of the weekend was Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper.  He really tore it up on a number of pieces, but my favourite was a slow one he did - Maiden's Prayer.

I just finished This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams.

This book is built around alternate reality games, where the term "This Is Not a Game" is used to keep players and game runners from doing things that would undermine the real feeling of the game.  It involves four people who met through gaming.  The protagonist creates and runs alternate reality games for a company owner.  A third character is an investor and a fourth is an ex-lover.

It starts off with the producer protagonist getting stranded in Jakarta during a crisis and then using her game world connections to help her get out.  That introduces the themes of games vs. reality and using the game players to effect real world events.  In the second part, this gets developed more as another character is murdered and the line between reality and the game blurs.  This kind of game/reality blurring isn't uncommon (see David Fincher's The Game for a film version of this), but the twist here is that the protagonist always knows what is game and what isn't - it's only the players who don't.

Overall, a good read.  Kept me interested enough to finish it in a day or so.

I just finished Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds.

Chasm City is the second book in his Revelation Space series, but is actually a better place to start than the first book.  I've commented on his other novels (here and here), and the lack of exposition in them, but this books goes the other way - it almost has too much exposition, including a prologue that is just a snippet from a guide for newly arriving visitors to a star system.  The books aren't directly related so far, so there is no problem with starting with the second one.


Of the other two books I've read, Chasm City is more similar to The Prefect, in that it tells one storyline from start to finish (minus flashbacks or dreams) and follows one character instead of a cast of characters.  It also has a similar noir/mystery feel, as the protagonist pursues revenge against the man who killed his boss and bosses wife.  This is intertwined with dreams of the founding of the colony he comes from.

An effective and enjoyable novel.

A few days ago I finished Hellburner by C.J. Cherryh.

Hellburner is a sequel to Heavy Time, which I wrote about here.  Heavy Time was not an easy read, since a good part of the book involves a man who has been so badly traumatized that he can't function normally.  Hellburner is actually a harder read - it spends even more time in the same traumatized man's head, after another accident has caused him to flip out again.

On top of that, it is often difficult to follow the action in the book.  Too much exposition can be a problem for a novel, but too little exposition is also a problem.  Following the action in this book felt nearly impossible.

I don't know if I would have picked it up if I knew it was a direct sequel to Heavy Time, and I don't think I will pick up any other books that are directly connected.

I just finished Bios by Robert Charles Wilson.

Bios is an oddly short book, shorter than most novels released these days.  It tells the story of a world where all lifeforms have evolved to be hyper-aggressive, leading to death for any human exposed to even the smallest amount of material.

It's never drawn out why human's need to explore this world, but the follows a girl who was genetically altered to be able to resist the bacteria, etc. as a pilot program for others.

The short length, and lack of an important driver behind human needs to survive on this world, undermine the plot and make it less involving.

Yesterday I finished The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook.

Cook is best known for his dark fantasy novels, particularly those featuring the Black Company.  This is the first science fiction novel I've read by him.

The Dragon Never Sleeps involves an international police/peacekeeping force (the metaphorical "dragon" of the title) called the guardships.  They have come to be seen as oppressive by the people they are policing, and they battle not only their own rebellious people but also aliens who want to expand into their space.

Cook's style can be very terse at times, with a lot of ground covered and much implied with a few words.  This works well in his fantasy books, as the things he is talking about tend to be easy to understand.  In a complex space opera setting like The Dragon Never Sleeps, it is a little harder to follow and I had to backtrack a number of times in this book to figure out what had just happened, or how particular characters had gotten to a particular place.

Overall, an interesting book but not as highly recommended as his fantasy novels.

I just finished Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter.

Point of Impact is the first of the Bob Swagger novels, son of Earl Swagger who was used in novels I wrote about here and here.  It was also made into a movie starring Mark Wahlberg.  The name was changed to Shooter and the war Swagger fought in was changed from Vietnam to Iraq, but otherwise it follows the story fairly faithfully.

Not much to say about the book - tough guy gets betrayed, gets revenge and outwits (and out-shoots) his opponents.  Decently written, well plotted and the gun discussions don't take over the story.

I finished The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds a few days ago.

Set in the same universe as Revelation Space, The Prefect starts off as a police procedural and ends as a space opera.  The prefect of the title is a kind of police officer, charged with making sure there are no violations of voting rights in a large set of orbital habitats with diverse cultures.  They get drawn into an investigation of an entire habitat being wiped out, presumably by a sub-culture that travels between the stars at slower than light speeds, but ends up being tied into some scheming AIs.

The book moves along well, and is less difficult to get into than Revelation Space.   The characters aren't anything unexpected, or much beyond a set of generic protagonists, but the back story was interesting.  It made me interested to read some of the books that come between these two in this series.

I just finished How We Decide by Johan Lehrer.

How We Decide is one in a raft of pop sci books that use behavioural research to discuss how human behaviour departs from the theoretical rational "economic man" model.

A lot of the research discussed is actually old and I've been exposed to it in various other books, but the new twist is the Malcolm Gladwell-esque narrative pop sci spin put on it.  Not much new to see, but presented in a palatable format.

There are a number of places where Lehrer over-extends the meaning of these results.  For a start, he uses a naive view of reason, mentioning Plato's views of reason opposing emotions, and then takes that as the standard in all of western civilization.  But, as he points out himself, Plato's pupil Aristotle had a more nuanced view that held that the true reasonable man knows that both reason and emotion have their places and the struggle is to find where they should be applied.

An example of this naive view of reason can be seen in his discussion of the ultimatum game, where one party is allowed divides a reward and the other party can choose to accept the division or both parties get nothing.  Naive theories of reason like those used in basic game theory lead to the conclusion that the offerer should make a very minimal offer and that the receiver should accept it, because it is still better than nothing.  In contrast, in the real world most offerers make a much closer to even distribution and most receivers will reject the offer if it is not closer to even.  This is taken as evidence of irrationality, but it is only irrational in that it shows most people can not isolate their thinking into such an artificial context on demand.  In real world behaviour, demanding a more even split will result in better payoffs for the receiver over time, and making more even splits will result in better payoffs for the offerer over time, since they know that receivers will demand higher payoffs.  At this higher, more realistic level, the outcome is completely rational.

On the other hand, he also discusses framing effects, where the identical problem elicits a different response depending on how it is presented, clearly a sign of inconsistent and irrational behaviour.

Another weak part of the book is the section on morality.  He connects morality and emotions in a strong way, postulating that morality is based on emotional reactions to and sympathy with other people.  He lists  psychopaths as examples, since they lack emotional affect and behave in an immoral fashion.  But he doesn't give any explanation for the observed variation in morality across cultures and across time, or for the lack of serious immoral behaviour among autistics, another group that lacks emotional affect and sympathy.

There are better books on the same subject.  This one is OK if it is your first introduction to the subject.

I finished Cauldron by Jack McDevitt last week, but forgot to post about it due to work being nutz.

Cauldron continues the story of Priscilla Hutchins that started in The Engines of God.   Hutchins has gone full circle from starting out as a exploring starship pilot, to managing an academy of pilots, to retiring and fundraising and then back to pilot. 

Cauldron does a lot to resolve mysteries that have been raised in earlier McDevitt books, including that of the Omega Clouds that are the scourge of civilizations throughout the galaxy.  As such, it doesn't feel like most of his other books, which thrive on unexplained mysteries and the emptiness of space.

I finished Faith and Fire by James Swallow a few days ago.

Set in the same Warhammer 40K universe as this book,  Faith and Fire is better written.  The action scenes are clearer, the characters are better written and the plot fits together more easily. 

These novels all have to walk a fine line, since the side of evil is over the top evil while the side of good is a fascist, oppressive and grotesque theocracy.  The obvious way to maneuver around this is to have one of the powerful good characters turn out to be the real villain.  I guess that could be considered a spoiler, but only if you weren't paying attention, since the suspicious nature of this character is obvious from the start.

Overall, a decent novel, but one that only caters to a very specialized taste.  

I just finished The Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. 

I've read a few of the Preston/Child's books - Relic, Reliquary and The Cabinet of Curiosities.  They are all techno-thrillers to one degree or another, usually overlapping with serial killers and some kind of mysticism.

This one is no exception, as a dangerous object is stolen from a Tibetan monastery and the killer escapes on a new ocean liner, followed by FBI agent Pendergast.  Pendergast has moved from being an odd minor character, to being the focus of their novels, of which The Wheel of Darkness is on the tail end. 

Nothing unexpected here, but an OK read given that.

I just finished Sideshow by Sherri S. Tepper.

Sideshow follows Raising the Stones and Grass, ultimately tying up the fates of all the characters and species from those novels and leading to the ultimate destiny for humanity.

The plot follows on from Raising the Stones, where the fungal network known as the Hobb's Land God is spreading throughout human systems.  One group decides that it must isolate itself from the network on a distant world, in order to preserve their diversity and work on the question of human destiny.  They go so far as to have enforcers whose job is to maintain diversity and the status quo. 

The novels starts when things have started to go wrong, the world is taking a dark turn and strange creatures are showing up and interfering with the populace.

It's a good book, but not as involving as the previous two.
 

Last night I finished The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest by Po Bronson.

More accurately, I finished re-reading it, since this is one of my favourite books.

I read the book first in 1997, while working on my MBA, before I moved down to Silicon Valley and before the dot-com boom and bust.  Moving to Silicon Valley added a new layer to the book for me, since I the locations changed from generic mental images to real memories of actual places.

This book, along with Bronson's other novel, Bombadiers, is a rare beast - a work of fiction that is about business.  It follows some engineers who split off from a foundation to start their own company, and their rivalry with the top designer from the foundation.  It has a very light, comedic touch but still has some emotional resonance and interesting characters, similar to some of the works of Douglas Coupland.

Sadly, Bronson has moved away from fiction writing.  His non-fiction works have all been excellent, but I would trade them all for some more novels any day.

I finished Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow a few days ago.

I've read a number of Morrow's books, mentioned here, here, here, and here.  This one is different from all of those.  His other books are heavy on the philosophical discussions and implications, while this one feels like a much lighter weight, and shorter, satire.

It's set just before the end of WW2, and postulates that the US had developed Godzilla like creatures that it might need to unleash on Japan since the atomic program isn't going well.  An schlock horror film actor used to portraying monsters is recruited to give a mock demonstration to the Japanese big wigs. 

The book follows his adventures leading up to the demonstration, and afterwards. 

It's a fun romp, particularly if you're a fan of early monster movies.

I just finished Raising the Stones by Sherri S. Tepper.'

Raising the Stones tells the story of the rise of the Hobbs Land Gods, some kind of fungus based group organism that creates a harmonious, productive society around it.  This comes about on Hobbs Land, an agricultural settlement planet in a under-defined solar system with many planets, connected by teleporting "Doors".  This harmonious society comes into conflict with the Voordsteders, a repressive patriarchal society meant to be derived from the remnants of the Judeo-Christian/Islamic beliefs.

Set in the future of the same universe as Grass,  this isn't really a sequel since it neither involves any of the same characters or follows directly from the events of Grass.  It's a very well told story, though the overly strong patriarchal versus matriarchal themes were a distraction.