brainstorms

Wednesday June 22, 2005

accelerando: it is a hot summer tuesday...

He glances up and grabs a pigeon, crops the shot, and squirts it at his weblog to show he's arrived. The bandwidth is good here, he realizes; and it's not just the bandwidth, it's the whole scene.

this is from the opening of accelerando, one of the coolest and sharpest books of this summer. two decades ago, david langford (white dwarf) described neuromancer like this: crackles with creative energy, hammering your forebrain with ideas ... from what i have so far read, i would now like to borrow that description for accelerando.

various reviews out, one i like is rick kleffel's review.

[i do not ordinarily link to amazon, but for this book, i will make an exception.]

[alas, the pidgeon i grabbed is not from amsterdam, but from the distillery district, toronto. nikon d70 (iso 200) + nikon 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 AF D.]

Monday June 20, 2005

someone comes to town, someone leaves town...

cory doctorow's latest novel, someone comes to town, someone leaves town is now available online under a creative commons license (of course). this time, he is using a creative commons developing nations license. from his announcement:

This book is the first novel to employ the new Creative Commons Developing Nations License. That's a license that lets anyone living in a country that's not on the World Bank's list of high-income countries treat the book as if it were in the public domain. If you live in a developing nation, you can print your own editions of this book and sell them, you can make your own movies, radio plays, translations and whatever else you can think of, charge whatever the traffic will bear for them, and never give me a penny or ask my permission (though I hope you'll drop me a line and let me know what you're up to so I can keep up on the book's spread!). The only limitation on this right is that you may only export your works to other developing nations: the rich nations where my paying customers live are strictly off-limits.

nicely done. congratulations cory.

music: tbd.

Saturday June 18, 2005

accelerando now available for download

charles stross's latest novel, accelerando is now available online under a creative commons license. charles asks bittorrent be used. [i ordered my hardcopy sometime ago]

The book is available for reading in HTML, with minimal markup (to make it easier for web clipping utilities to digest it). In addition, zip archives are provided for download in a variety of formats. The primary formats are RTF and conformant HTML 4.0. For direct reading on PDAs and smartphones, a Plucker database is provided. Finally, there are (deprecated) plain text and Palm DOC versions – these lack typographic markup.

music: tbd. i'm thinking of haydn string quartets by amadeus quartet (trio) but i may go for something like mercan dede's secret tribe (nar) or electronic.

darwin's watch...

I just received my eagerly awaited copy of pratchet, stewart & cohen's the science of discworld III: darwin's watch [the title alone will cause many to start grinning from ear to ear] one does not wait long: chapter two is titled paley's watch and takes on "intelligent design" as should. all of a sudden, you just know this book will not be a bestseller in many states, especially kansas.

Once God is removed from the day-to-day running of the planet, and installed somewhere behind DNA biochemistry and the Second law of thermodynamics, it is no longer so obvious that He must be fundamental to people's daily lives. In particular, there is no special reason to believe that He affects those lives in any way, or would wish to, so fundamentalist preachers could well be out of a job.

hmm, sleep, or darwin's watch. choices, choices... [um, i cannot believe what i just wrote]

important/great books referenced in the first fifty pages:

young and edis (eds) why intelligent design fails
susan haack, defending science - within reason
dennett, darwin's dangerous idea
dawkins, blind watchmaker

[a note on paper: the copy i am holding was printed and bound in england, and the copy page says papers used by ebury press are natural, recylable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. it does not say acid free. it does not smell or quite feel like acid paper, but i cannot tell. sigh]

what science abhors, the arts crave. -- science of discword III

[this book seems unavailable in the US through online sellers in any straight-forward way. you may wish to order it from canada, through chapters/indigo or amazon.ca.]

Friday June 10, 2005

time travel notes [cont]

[continuing to read and reflect on langford's white dwarf reviews collected in the complete critical assembly]

feb 84 review mentions herbert and ransom's the lazarus effect as enjoyable, good average SF, neither unputdownable nor unpickupable. langford says jesus incident [previous book] is fairly awful. i do not know. the first book was destination: void which i liked enough to read twice in one year, and i did pick up the late sequels. for whatever reason [awfulness sense?], i could never get into jesus incident so both books in sequence remain unread to this day, in one of the back rows of my double-packed sf shelves. sigh. this reminds me: some of herbert's non-dune sf, eg. saratoga barrier, dosadi experiment etc. have been re-released by TOR. [never mind links. i would visit my local sf bookstore for these, eg. Incomparable bakka in toronto.]

july 84 review has gardner's wheels, life and other mathematical amusements and dewdney's planiverse. i think i had a copy of the first one and second one was always in the list of books i would pick up if i ever find it remaindered. [i also keep waiting for a definitive gardner encyclopedia of all his sciam columns. i have his wonderful colossal book of mathematics and his lesser known but very thoughtful the whys af a philosophical scrivener - thanks henry]

aug 84 review mentions deadeye dick, my introduction to kurt vonnegut, even though usual starting points seem to be sirens of titan, cat's cradle or bluebeard. after the shooting incident (hence deadeye) i just could not put it down.

kurt vonnegut's deadeye dick makes it as near-sf by including the neutron-bombing of a US city, but is chiefly a straight tragicomedy of power, responsibility and the awful things we do to each other.

[i absolutely detest those "V" cover designs of dell's reissued vonnegut trade pbks. literary giants should not be handed off to unimaginative amateurs. an undergrad can program a robot to design better.]

sep 84 reviews pohl's heechee rendezvous which i think is still (after all these years) in one of my to be read someday boxes. of course pohl's gateway and beyond the blue event horizon were favorites, so i am not sure why i never got around to reading the last book in the trilogy. langford also reviews james p. hogan's voyage from yesteryear which i read at least a couple of times.

background is presented in stodgy lectures, most readers will skip the one on physics occupying most of chapter 24. solid and quite worthy stuff, but practically devoid of characterization.

oct 84 reviews get into some of the best sf reading for me in those days: benford's across the sea of suns, [the sequel to in the ocean of night] and his against infinity. benford is one of my scientist/writer heroes; i think by now i have everything he has ever published, including the recent reissues of the galactic center series in preparation for another (last?) book in that series. [i first came across benford through his collaboration with brin in the heart of the comet and picked up all his other books]

gregory benford's across the sea of suns is a fat, impressive demonstration that one can do ultra-'hard' sf with every rivet placed just so, and still write well.

indeed, every benford book is just such a demonstration.

[to be continued]

Thursday June 09, 2005

accelerando.org online

charlie stross's accelerando.org is now open. the text of his upcoming "Accelerando" will be available for download under a creative commons license later this month (June 2005).

time travel notes: langford's complete critical assembly

lately i have been enjoying david langford's witty and sharp white dwarf SF reviews between 1983-91, collected in the complete critical assembly [cosmos books, 2002]. it is a reader's time travel: nearly every review mentions SF books i still have on my shelves or in my overflow boxes. first piece, march 83 review includes asimov's foundation's edge and heinlein's friday both of which i had read that year. [never wanted to re-read them since]

Robert Heinlein's Friday was also enthusiastically greeted, largely because it came as such a relief after his unreadably awful The Number of the Beast.

i could not agree more. NOTB is beyond awful, and it has a special place in my memory because it is the only book that i have ever thrown in the garbage, a place rarely so well deserved. even going back to pulp through recycling is too good for this.

june 83 review includes stanislaw lem's more tales of pirx the pilot which i have re-read a couple of times since. lem is a genius, and i wish some of his other writing would show up in english. [for example, his 2003 dilemmas has yet to be translated. peter swirski had mentioned that there was interest in translating summa but i do not know if there is a translation underway.]

july 83 review includes amazing randi's the truth about uri geller, flim-flam, and this line:

Even if inclined towards the loony, i mean the uncritical viewpoint, you should consult these books for the devil's advocate arguments. They are important. In a world where an ounce of sensationalism sells better than a ton of rationality any day, they are very important.

two decades later, we are in a lot worse situation, but at least flim-flam is still in print.

jan 84 review includes lem's masterpiece his master's voice, and douglas adams and john lloyd's the meaning of liff. i have been meaning to go back to HMV, and liff of course have been re-released.

massachusetts: those items or particles which people are searching for when they look into their hankies after blowing their noses.

may 84 review includes the robots of dawn, a good but not great followup to asimov's great caves of steel and the naked sun. [i treasure my original pbk copies of these two now because of the cover art as well]

A considerable improvement on the terminally flatulent foundation's edge, it recaptures the feel of those two robotic puzzles which most critics regard as asimov's best books.

[to be continued]

Thursday June 02, 2005

linguistic irritations found in a nearby bookstore

a bookshelf labelled controversial knowledge sits next to the philosophy section, right under wicca, witchcraft, UFOs etc. this is a recent label in the bookstore. i know it is intended to make the buyer feel less stupid about buying something from this section; not only does it assume a higher-than-a-tarpit stance by claiming the knowledge in its title, it is also reassuring to the reader: noone can tell you that encyclopedia of psychic energy fields you are about to buy is an absolute waste of nice wood pulp and neurons: it says controversial knowledge, right there!

perhaps just a cruel and amusing coincidence, at the end of the shelf is the overflow/beginning of the philosophy section and a copy of the reasonably good, all white encyclopedia of pseudoscience. i laughed. [i should petition the bookstore to have the philosophy section moved next to the science section]

Monday May 23, 2005

now reading...

a list of books (in no particular order) that i have read or been (slowly) reading or skimming in the last number of months. recommendation style is borrowed from my friend peter honeyman.

highly-recommended, recommended, good, ok, dont-waste-your-time, trash.

[carlin]when will jesus bring pork chops
[grayling] the heart of things
[willett] eat, drink and be healthy
[evening] photoshop cs for photographers
[lane] nobody's perfect
[bunge] philosophy in crisis: the need for reconstruction
[goldman & gabriel] innovation happens elsewhere
[jury] about face: reviving the rules of typography
[whyte] crimes against logic, load of blair
[dennett] sweet dreams
[weber] the success of open source
[frankfurt] the importance of what we care about: philosophical essays
[dershowitz] shouting fire
[pratchett] moving pictures
[williams] style: the basics of clarity and grace
[clocksin & mellish] programming in prolog: using the ISO standard
[stone] a field guide to digital color
[pylyshyn] seeing and visualizing: it is not what you think
[marsh] blue note album cover art: the ultimate collection
[bittman] how to cook everything
[dawkins] a devil's chaplain
[evans & gruba] how to write a better thesis
[kingwell] catch and release
[moore] in other words
[pratchett] once more *with footnotes

[notes: i did not have the time to attach barnes&noble links. will do so soon.
grayling book, as with his earlier volumes [along with many other books printed in britain] is in acid paper. i am totally disgusted. i have decided not to waste money on any hardcover printed on acid paper. [some online booksellers now make note of acid paper.]
evening's photoshop book is one of the better books out there, but of course a cs2 edition is coming out soon. i wonder if i should hold off for another couple of months for adobe to release cs3, cs4, cs5, and cs-next... blecch.
note that blink is missing from this list, even though bookstores are nearly giving it away. i have now skimmed it with enough detail to know it is mostly anodyne fluff and i refuse to buy it until it is remaindered. i really worry his next target will be the computing industry, eg. open source...
frankfurt's essays are heavy going and require some exposure to philosophy, but well worth the effort. the one unusual essay about bullshit has been published as a tiny book.]

Friday April 22, 2005

notable comics [cont]

[i seem to have dropped a part of my comics notes on the floor. sigh]

batman: hush is undoubtedly one of the comic masterpieces of the last decade. part of the acclaim for these volumes comes from jim lee's powerful, moving, dark art. other part is jeph loeb's writing of course. sadly i did not come across this until last year's trade pbk releases. [this will be reissued in an oversize/boxed format this september, and will be on my bookshelf the instant it appears]

last year, brian azzarello, jim lee and scott williams started on a superman sequence, for tomorrow which is very well written, thoughtful and superbly(!) illustrated. [it is now complete, and first volume is available in hc.]

i really like alan davis and mark farmer's work. [they are fan favorites so that makes me a fan] last year i was able to get their earlier work, and also found jla: nail an alternate story/history arc. they also started and completed another arc, appropriately called another nail. both are highly recommended. [davis and farmer also did an uncanny x-men sequence last year, written by claremont, and is very very good.] there was also a modern masters volume for alan davis which is worth getting, even though i find it much less than what a good illustrator like alan deserves.

when jeph loeb, ed mcguiness and dexter vines were doing superman/batman: public enemies i was not paying attention. happily it came out in hardcover last year. this is very good story telling (with inner dialogues!) and superb art by mcguiness and vines.

Tuesday April 19, 2005

notable comics from last year

i will remember 2004 as the year for my comics interests: i have found material from many good writers, pencillers and inkers, some of whom i wish i had known sooner. here is a quick tour of comics that i thought were very well written, drawn & inked or both. sometimes, storylines grew too complex with many genre references [and in the case of horror, religious - almost always christian - and occult references i am familiar from some distance] but still remained enjoyable, and when the storyline faltered, good art kept me going.

i knew about kurt busiek (i think henry mentioned him first when i asked about some of the top writers in the field) and had read about him in writers on comics scriptwriting. i did not know what a potent combination he would make with carlos pacheco and jesus merino: Arrowsmith: So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms is about war and its costs.

writer/illustrator kazu kibuishi's daisy kutter is steampunk/western masterpiece; his art is as different from superhero comic book art as sumi-e is different from western watercolors; trade pbk should be out soon. when i last checked, amazon had not heard of kibuishi, but barnesandnoble at least has an entry.

joss whedon [of buffy fame], karl moline and andy owens produced the remarkable fray: good story with sharp and dynamic art to match.

not sure how i found out about the witching hour by jeph loeb, chris bachalo, art thibert (may have been mentioned in wired or entertainment weekly) but that was my first encounter with chris bachalo's magnetic, complex work.

here he is again in morales, bachalo, campbell's captain america, and his own glorious if somewhat confused steampunk.

[since i wrote the draft of this blog, bachalo nearly completed drawing a beautiful sequence in x-men: age of apocalypse by writer akira yoshida]

karl kesel, skottie young in human torch [which should be out in trade pbk soon]. i really like skottie's style. [still trying to find a copy of his sketchbook.] daniel way, skottie young, rick ketcham in venom: twist [i think this follows a venom volume by humberto ramos]

brian augustyn, humberto ramos, sandra hope in remarkable crimson loyalty and loss (1-6) heaven and earth (7-12) earth angel (13-18) and redemption (19-24) weird and wonderful story of alex elder, a teenage vampire.

one of last year's good surprises is majestic while you were out: i was not that familiar with abnett and lanning so i did not know what to expect; also this is the first time i encountered neil googe's work. every panel is well composed and drawn; add sharp inking (a calligraphic/cut nib?) by trevor scott, and good coloring, and that is a sequence (now complete) well worth getting.

Friday April 01, 2005

the concrete jungle

The death rattle of a mortally wounded telephone is a horrible thing to hear at four o'clock on a Tuesday morning.

good reading: hugo-nominated novella by charlie stross, the concrete jungle [and not surprisingly, it is under a creative commons license.]

[of course, you also have to read about charlie's posthuman condition]

Monday March 28, 2005

notes on logo books

after a reasonably fresh and successful first volume, logolounge 2 is a big yawn [audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure. -- edward r. tufte] and a disappointment. what is with the intel, fedex, dell, microsoft, disney, coca cola, 20th century fox, shell, john deere logos? designing member name dropping? [if i just wanted an arbitrary pile of tired classics, i would get carter's big book of logos.] note to the editor: do away with the now-annoying "logo search" chapter header. it was cute in the first volume, two years ago.

actually, in a limited-budget situation, one could give up on the logolounge volumes altogether, and choose los logos and dos logos instead. sure, not nearly as stylish and colorful, but classic clothbound, edgy and international. more oxygen, less pomp.

[note to self: avoid reviewing books not near the keyboard. going over los/dos logos again, i will restate: they are brilliant. a working graphics/logo designer will get much more out of these two, even though lounge books include some very fine logo designs. save your money.]

exercitato artem parat.

Thursday February 17, 2005

i, robot

[no, not the asimov book, not the recent movie]

cory doctorow's new short story i, robot is here at infinite matrix. the story title is no accident: [quoting doctorow]

Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael Moore appropriating the title of 'Fahrenheit 451' to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the toalitarian assumptions underpinning some of sf's classic narratives.

(2005-02-17 09:25:54.0) Permalink Comments [0]

Wednesday February 16, 2005

nebula award ballot

this year's nebula ballot announcement is here. some tough choices. [i am rooting for doctorow, but am also a very big fan of mcdevitt and mcmaster bujold. note: "down and out" link is a free download from craphound]

Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold
(Eos, Oct 2003)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom , by Cory Doctorow
(Tor, Feb 2003)

Omega, by Jack McDevitt
(Ace, Nov 2003)

Cloud Atlas: A Novel, by David Mitchell
(Sceptre, Jan 2004)

Perfect Circle, by Sean Stewart
(Small Beer Press, Jun 2004)

The Knight, by Gene Wolfe
(Tor, Jan 2004)

(2005-02-16 18:58:30.0) Permalink Comments [0]