Joel’s Scattered Thoughts

Albert Ellis looks like he might have some interesting stuff to read - we’ll see if ever I can get a login for the local library’s catalogue.

Charlie Stross mentioned that he reads ebooks on a Nokia N800. Jaimie keeps asking me to find her a good ebook reader and this looks very good - now I just need the extra $500 or so.

What Should I Read Next? looks like an interesting site. Mind you, these sites can be rather hit and miss. Maybe I’ll try it out sometime.

Well I finally got a copy of Old Man’s War by John Scalzi. What a well-written book!

I have been planning to buy this book for quite some time, but most of my book-buying is in the form of ebooks from Baen. Scalizi’s publisher, Tor, stupidly decided that DRM-free books are a menace to something and axed the project to make his books available. Since then I’ve been looking for a copy at local bookstores as I keep forgetting to order it via Amazon.

The story follows a soldier of the future from the day he joins the army to a point well into his career. It draws on Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and also has similarities to Haldeman’s Forever War. The alien cultures the soldier meets are decently alien (though as a front line grunt, he doesn’t spend much time on cultural critiques).

I really enjoyed the ending of the book. This book draws the story to close and yet does it in such a way that I’m planning to pick up the sequels as soon as possible.

Joel Spolsky is looking for Simple library software? Oddly enough, Jaimie and I were talking about this kind of sotware just this morning. We’d really like to catalog our books simply and inexpensively.

I posted a question on the duration of copyright on S.L. Veihl’s site. She seems to believe that copyright should be perpetual. I have a real problem with that. It may be because I’m not a writer, but I believe that a perpetual copyright would impovrish us all.

Take the Musical My Fair Lady. It was based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, which references the Greek legend of Pygmalion. In the Greek legend, a sculptor creates a statue so beautiful that he falls in love with it, a goddess gives the statue life so that the sculptor and the statue can live and love together. In sum, a creator falls in love with his creation.

Suppose copyright were perpetual. I’m not sure if Pygmalion was out of copyright when My Fair Lady was written. However, if copyright were perpetual, Shaw would never have been allowed to tell a story so clearly derivative of the Greek legend. For that matter, Shelly’s Frankenstein could be said to derive from the same legend (without the romantic elements of course). When does copyright quit quashing other stories?

I just finished reading Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell. As always, Mr. Gemmell delivers a fine read. The book is fairly large, weighing in at about 450 pages for the paperback. I haven’t read the other books in this series.

This story follows the viewpoints of a number of characters. The primary character is Helikaon, Lord of the Silver Bow (aka Prince Aeneas). However, we also see the world through the eyes of Odysseus, Gershom, Andromache, Argurios, and a number of others. This is managed very skillfully so that I was never confused as to what was going on.

A book this size can easily get caught up in tedious details and infodumps. Mr. Gemmell’s approach is more to weave together numerous little stories into telling one huge story (that still isn’t nearing completion by the end of the book). Thus rather than waiting for the final resolution, you get to see little stories begin and end everywhere, each of which moves you on to the next one and each of which forms a part of the greater whole.

Another thing I like about this book is that the heroes make mistakes, the villains are capable of nobility, and the characters’ actions make sense. There is victory even in defeat, and even the greatest victory is not without cost. It’s a story that tries to show what might have happened. The only traces of the supernatural are seers who truly see the future.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys retellings of classic stories.

An article I was reading linked to a book I enjoyed as a canonical example of bad science fiction. The book is March Upcountry by John Ringo and David Weber. I started wondering what it was about the book that made the article’s author think of it as bad science fiction. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

This isn’t a novel full of deep ideas and shattering concepts. It’s a yarn about a spoiled prince who is stranded on a backwater planet and how he becomes a leader. Mostly it’s an adventure with a bit of a coming-of-age story thrown in. Essentially the same book could have been written a century ago about a prince getting stranded in Africa, or South America, or some other isolated locale. The science fiction bits are largely window dressing rather than essential plot elements. This book is for entertainment. There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read. -G.K. Chesterton

The main protagonist is extremely competent once he gets over being a spoiled rich boy. The story isn’t about the angst he suffers or his various failures, The emotions evoked are primarily about triumph - winning out against the odds by doing your best and surpassing your limitations. Unlike the most of the so-called great literature I was exposed in high school, this isn’t a story about failure, about things going wrong, about despair and hopelessness. Why I like heroic, cinematic, high-magic campaigns: “I already have a place where I can get little recognition for my accomplishments, advance at a very slow pace, and have to work hard to eke out minimum rewards for my efforts. It’s called work.” — toberane.

In sum, if you’re looking for deep thoughts or angst this book will disappoint you. Otherwise it’s a fun, if not particularly deep story.

I just finished reading the Stephanie Plum series. These are some of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time. I had checked them out from the library, but I’ll probably go out and buy my own copies.

These are technically mystery stories as there is always a some kind of mystery that gets solved over the course of the book. However, Stephanie Plum is more like Inspector Clousseau and less like Sherlock Holmes. She solves the mysteries through blind luck and persistence rather than through any piercing insights or deductive logic.

It is the characters that make this series so much fun. Stephanie herself is not incompetent but she somehow ends up in the weirdest situations. She works as a bounty hunter and the people she’s tracking down are always strange. Both of the men in her life are amused, amazed, and appalled at her success (sometimes simultaneously). Her grandmother seems to be going through a second teenager-hood. Her mother can always be counted on to have an irresistible dinner ready so that Stephanie can be lured home for a lecture on her latest activities and the neighborhood gossip.

These are light and fluffy books. The closest thing to angst is Stephanie occasionally resolving that this time she’s going to do something about her weight. If you’re looking for a deep exploration of the questions of human existence, these aren’t for you.

I would highly recommend these books to just about anyone. The language can be a tad rough, but it’s not excessive. There’s always something to funny going on no matter what Stephanie gets herself into. I plan to buy the whole series just to reread them for fun. My wife recommended them to me after she laughed her way through them.

In my slow rereading of the Vorkosigan Saga, I’ve just completed Brothers in Arms. This has to be my favorite series of books. The only series that can compare to it is the Honor Harrington series. You can read early books in both series for free at the Baen Free Library.

What draws me to the Miles books is both how amazing he is and how human he his. He comes up with brilliant ideas and then manages to get himself caught in his own elaborate schemes. He manages to take over an army using little more than his gift with words, and has a heck of a time persuading anyone to marry him. He is amazingly believable. I love the way he grows and yet remains the same over the course of the series.

Every time I read a book in the series I come out feeling as though I could take on the world.

My one gripe with reading electronic texts is that bookmarking your place in a story is a royal pain. Here’s where I’m at in various books/texts/whatever.

Sagiro’s Storyhour - http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=598&page=39&pp=40
How we got here - pg 91
Real Life
PartiallyClips

This is going to be a short review of “Roadkill on the Information Highway: The Future of Work in Canada” by J. William Pfeiffer. I obtained this book from my local library, hoping to get a picture of what work in Canada will look like. Unfortunately, the book is nearly unreadable.

It seems to have been designed by someone who thinks that the reader’s maximum attention span is 60 seconds. There are any number of interesting ideas, but the longest articles seem to be about two pages in length and these are often cluttered with sidebars, comics, graphics, colored backgrounds, and other distractions.

The only way I can see using this book is as a quick reference - a way to get a point of view on a given Canadian economic issue. Reading it cover to cover strikes me as just too awkward - like trying to eat a full meal from hors d’oeuvres trays.

“The worst thing about blogs is that they’ve allowed me to read the thoughts, opinions, and general rantings of my favorite authors, entertainers, and celebrities. Never in history has it been so easy for those I hold in some esteem to convince me that they should just shut up and write.” — Drew on ENWorld.org

Some authors are articulate, well-written, and interesting outside of their novel writing. Others just aren’t. Most of the time I can make the distinction between an author and their characters. There are a number of authors I read and enjoy that I don’t agree with at all. Their essays or interviews may infuriate me, but I keep reading their books.

However, every once in a while I read an author’s blog, website, or interviews and I find myself repulsed by what it shows about them. It’s not that their books have gotten worse, it’s that I don’t want to spend time in the company of such a person even by proxy. At that point, I no longer read what they write.

I bought an advance reader copy of John Ringo’s Ghost via Webscription. It was a good book, but not worth the $15 US I paid for it. Here’s my review.

My biggest complaint it that this book has John Ringo writing like Tom Clancy. Basically, if you’re not a born and bred American, you are evil and/or incompetent. If you are an American, but not a Republican, you are fuzzy brained, ignorant, or evil. Ringo singing the praises of George W. Bush gets tiresome.

The rest of the book is basically an action hero story. It’s not Hollywood - bullets hurt and time is needed to heal wounds. There’s some sex in it, teasing in first part, somewhat graphic in the second, brutal in the third. I’d put it about on par with an average western or non-Harlequin romance as far as sex goes.

Overall, I’d give this book 6/10 - a decent read, but not a book I would read again unless I’m very bored. I probably wouldn’t buy other books in this series, though I’d probably check them out from the library.

Jaimie and I are reading Bill Bryson’s
A Short History of Nearly Everything. I would say he does a fine job a science popularizer. It’s fascinating to read the stories of the people who advance our knowledge of the world. Forget celebrity gossip, science gossip has characters who are at least as weird and entertaining. I hope I remember to give this book to my kids when they’re old enough to read it.

I am very slowly going through a list authors I’ve enjoyed and commenting on them.

The first of Harry Harrison’s books that I enjoyed was the Stainless Steel Rat series. I think I may have read the Deathworld series before that, but I wasn’t terribly impressed with them. Stainless Steel Rat appealed to me for the over the top heroics of Jimmy Digriz. Alternate history has always appealed to me and the Hammer and the Cross series is one of the reasons for that. That series can be rather gruesome, but it’s a very plausible alternate history where the Dark Ages were interrupted by the work and luck of one man. For some reason, the third book in that series keeps going astray, so I’ll have to buy yet another copy sometime. In the Worldwar series, aliens invade in the midst of World War II. I liked this series for its portrayal of humanity as unique, though not quite as “humans uber alles” as some early SF. I don’t particularly like his retellings of the American Civil War. In summary, Harrison is one of those authors where some series are terrific and other just fall flat for me.

I enjoyed the first few Chicks in Chainmail books as edited by Esther Friesner. The last one just fell flat for me for some reason. The books she’s written just haven’t appealed to me for some reason.

I really liked the Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur series by Stephen R. Lawhead in high school. The last few times I’ve tried to read some of his work, it has struck me as to heavy on details, to the point where the story is lost.

L. Sprague de Camp’s books are fun to read. I found the Ancient Engineers fascinating. Lest Darkness Fall is another fine example of alternate history. I found his non-fiction to be very readable and his fiction tends to have interesting ideas in it.

What can I say about Tolkein? I really enjoy The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Farmer Giles of Ham was a fun read. I still haven’t been able to get into The Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales.

I enjoyed The Once and Future King by T.H. White, though it’s been quite a while since I read it. I’m especially fond of this quote

The best thing for being sad, replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then– to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn…
– T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Larry Niven’s short stories and his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle are good reads. His writing seems to airy when he writes novels alone. For some reason everything in the stories seems just a bit insubstantial - as though it’s not quite there. I really enjoy his essays. When Lois and Clark was on, I was fond of reading “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex.”

The People Who Owned the Bible is an interesting story about what happens when copy right keeps being extended ad infinitum. I can understand why copyright exists. I can see the argument for a reasonable length of copyright (maybe 20 years or so), but why should copyright be infinite? I really like Thomas Babington Macaulay’s speech on the subject of the extension of copyright. It seems to me to do a masterful job of highlighting both the importance of copyright and the need for its limitation.

I have a list of authors that I try to keep somewhere near me. The idea is that if I end up at a library or bookstore and nothing catches my eye, I’ll have somewhere to start looking. It’s been a while since I updated the list.

• Piers Anthony: I enjoyed the beginnings of the Xanth series when I was in high school. Unfortunately, as I got older, his books got duller. He wouldn’t be on the list today.
• Raymond Smullyan: When I took logic classes in university, I ran across a lot of his puzzles. Unfortunately, my current logic exercise are along the lines of “IF the kids stinks, THEN change him.” I’d need to do a lot of refresher work before looking at his stuff again.
• Gordon R. Dickson: He’s one of those writers whose work I either really enjoy or can’t get into at all. I was really enjoying the Dragon Knight series, but as he’s dead, I’ll never find out what happens. I like a lot of his short stories and humorous work.
• David Webber: I started reading David Webber’s books when someone who was headed overseas sold me a bunch of them for a quarter a piece. Talk about a demonstration of how the Right of First Sale helps publishers. I have since bought most of his books (including those I already had) in hardcover and in e-book format.
• Robert A. Heinlein: I read a bunch of his juveniles sometime around grade 7. I think I’ve pretty much read all his published books. Some of his books struck me as more than a bit strange, but they were still a good read.
• Lois McMaster Bujold: I found her books when I was in Ottawa. I am very fond of the Miles Vorkosigan series - they make me laugh and and bring tears to my eyes at least once per book.
• Alan Dean Foster: I enjoy most of his writing, but it doesn’t stick with me in that same way that other series do. Oddly enough, his short stories have more of that “sticky” quality.
• Andrew M. Greely: These were some of the first romance books that I read. I enjoy his writing, though the romances tend to be fairly predictable. There’s always at least one passage in his books that is very inspiring. I also enjoy his mystery stories.

That brings me partway down the first page of my authors list. To be continued in another post.

I had the local library get me a copy of Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson after reading a review on Enworld. Unfortunately, it didn’t appeal to me at all. After a hundred pages or so, I still had no solid idea of who the characters were or what they were doing. I suspect that those who enjoy George R. R. Martin’s books would enjoy this one as I stopped reading those for much the same reasons.

Here’s a nice list of bookstores in Western Canada. Not comprehensive, but still a very nice list.