Recently Read - 4th September 2007

Here's a list of the books I've recently read, with an Amazon-style star rating and a few comments.

• Thursday Next: First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde
  If you are a literary buff who likes humor, you really should be reading Jasper Fforde. Before I started this, I wondered whether the author could create another great book or if he'd gone stale. He took the time to produce another winner and left it wide open for a followup (without ruining this one).

• Old Twentieth - Joe Haldeman
• The Accidental Time Machine - Joe Haldeman
  Haldeman is one of my favorite authors. He writes clear, concise prose, crisp dialog and has lots of interesting ideas. But I've been finding with his recent novels, that the endings are getting abrupt. Here's two more examples. Did he reach a word limit? Loose interest? Or what?

• Spook Country - William Gibson
  I wanted so much to give this a higher rating, but I think Gibson is in a rut. He's developed a formula for his novel writing and he's sticking to it.

• Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson
  I decided to read this after watching the film recently and being disappointed by it. I wish I'd read the book first. I would have had such a better understanding of what was really going on in the movie.

• Colony - Rob Grant
  One of those little mini reviews on the back of the back said "Will delight all Red Dwarf fans". Not even close. I guess Doug Naylor must have been the real genius of the two.

• The Scar - China Mieville
  I find Mieville's books hard work (number of pages per hour goes way down), but it's all worth it. He is a great world builder. Fantastic beings and scenarios usually on a grand scale. It reminded me of Iain M. Banks SF Culture novels in that regard.

• Mere Anarchy - Woody Allen
  The latest set of his humorous pieces. Some very recent. Quality varies. This Nib For Hire (the attempted novelization of a Three Stooges film) is one of the funniest things I've read in quite a while.

• P.S. Your Cat Is Dead - James Kirkwood
  This was a book that was recommended as funny on rec.arts.books about twelve years ago (when I was snarfing away such information). I'm finally getting around to reading some of them. A book cover review called it "zany" and "riveting". I found it mildly funny in places and overall slightly disturbing. I wonder what was happening in Kirkwood's life at the time, to make him want to write and publish this.

• Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Elliot
  A collection of poems that were the inspiration for the Broadway hit Cats.

• Dzur - Steven Brust
  The ninth book in the Vlad Taltos series. It's been five years since the previous one (Issola). They are all quick, entertaining reads.

• Rainbows End - Vernor Vinge

  And last but not least, the latest novel by Vinge.

  Spoilers ahead.

  Gibson did it with Neuromancer. Stephenson did it with Snow Crash. Now Vinge has done it with Rainbows End. Each has tried to predict what the near future "cyberspace" will look like (albeit Gibson coined the name as well). Vinge has embedded this in a novel that also deals with future high school life and grand terrorism.

  Vinge's ideas are firmly grounded in what you can currently do with the Internet, so that makes it easier to predict, but I think he's about 25 years out. If it had been set in 2050 (rather than 2025), then I'd think he's got some great ideas. But who can tell. Technological change moves at such a fast rate. I just don't think all these things will have come to fruition in 18 years time. Certainly not the morphing and avatar support. Or automated transport systems. Or a combined UPS and FedEx sending/delivering parcels by launching them into the atmosphere. It did make for an entertaining read though.

  I completely enjoyed this book nevertheless, and was only slightly disappointed that most things were left open at the end.

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( Sep 04 2007, 01:56:17 PM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [2]