Registered
I'm registered for LCA 2011! I wasn't expecting to be able to come due to a clash with a work event, but then they moved that event. So, I'm pretty happy about that. Have you registered yet? Early bird closes soon...
The Ghost Brigades
This book is a really good sequel, and just as good as Old Man's War. While some of the characters reappear, the story stands on its own and is quite entertaining. I enjoyed this book a lot. There's something about bright green genetically engineered super soldiers killing aliens that makes me happy. [award: nominee prometheus 2007] [isbn: 0765354063]
Old Man’s War
I've owned this book for a while, and now really regret not reading it the second it hit my shelves. Its amazingly good for a first book, and is definitely as good as The Forever War and Forever Peace, and better than Starship Troopers. I'm very very impressed with it. An excellent book if you're into combat scifi. Update 2011: I've been in a rut recently where I haven't really been enjoying the books I've been reading. The number of books I read has also dropped off a lot since I moved back to Australia. Some of the drop off is associated with living in a house instead of an apartment -- there is constant maintenance work to be done, and I might never finish painting this place. However, I was worried that perhaps I simply wasn't as into reading as I was a couple of years ago. So, I decided to go back and read a book I enjoyed before, and see if I still liked it. This was that book. The answer is hells yes. This book is still fantastic, and I really enjoyed it. I also knocked it over in a time similar to when I was…
Breakfast of Champions
This is a pretty odd book. It was given to me as a gift, and its a meandering tale about a failed science fiction writer. The author even appears as a character. The style is interesting, as the text stops for frequent illustrations, which is something I haven't seen before. However, the story doesn't really do it for me. [isbn: 9780385334204;0385334206]
Books read in October 2010
I Know You Got Soul Consider Plebas Destinies Volume 1 Number 1 The Accidental Time Machine Camouflage Mars: A Survival Guide The Hemingway Hoax The System of the World Zodiac
Zodiac
This isn't Neal's best work, and I found the second half a little hard to read -- I think because it meandered, with several theories for who was responsible being interchanged. They were all reasonable theories, but the jump between each of them was jarring and could have been better done. The version of the book I was reading also had heaps of typographical errors -- single character substitutions and stuff like that -- which meant you needed to re-read sentences to make them make sense, which was pretty annoying. Overall not the worst book I've ever read, but certainly the worst Stephenson I've read. [isbn: 0099415526]
Reading recommendations anyone?
I was talking to some folk at work yesterday, and they suggested that perhaps I'm reading the wrong books. In fact, they might have been a tiny bit less polite than that. So, I whipped up a little recommendation engine last night. Its nothing fancy, but if you want to recommend a book for me, then please do!
The System of the World
The final book of the Baroque Cycle, and it feels like a real achievement to have gone through them all. They have their slow spots, but also excellent action and characters I love. Best of all, this book focuses on the latter two, with only one section of long theoretical dialog (about the nature of God in this case), which was so common in the other books and somethings so hard to follow. This story line was well worth the 2,500 or so pages it took, and the last book was a pleasure to read. It feels like there should be more books in this universe, but I'm not aware of any -- perhaps later? [award: winner prometheus 2005] [isbn: 0060750863;0060750863]
The Hemingway Hoax
A Hemingway scholar sets out to forge a lost Hemingway manuscript, with unexpected consequences. This is quite a different premise from other Joe Haldeman books I've read. In fact the feel of the initial part of the book is quite different, but this very quickly turns into a Haldeman story that people who have enjoyed his others will like. Its a bit more explicit about sex and wounds from combat than Haldeman normally is, but that is all there to further the plot in this case. This was a quick engaging read which I really enjoyed.
Mars: A Survival Guide
This book, written in the style of a travel guide, was an impulse purchase the other day as a brand new book. That's rare because I don't tend to buy new, and certainly not in Australia (everything is so expensive!). However, this book isn't available on Amazon because its from the ABC, and looked good, so I bit the bullet. The book's first half is interesting and very readable. After that it tends to die down into an exhaustive treatment of issues you'd need to consider if moving to Mars, and feels like a list of lists. It picks up again towards the end. I know its hard to be interesting in non-fiction reference books, but I feel this book lost its way at the midpoint and could have tried harder to be interesting. However, it was still ok overall and I might be being overly harsh as I don't read much non-fiction. [isbn: 9780733324895]