Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
Hyperionby Dan Simmons
After years of hearing "Hyperion is the bestest book evar!", I finally managed to read it. And frankly, it is pretty good.
Set in the far future where humanity has created The Hegemony of Man, a culture that spans many planets thanks to portals ("farcasters") that have openings many ...
Posted in Culture | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
Possibly going for the title of "Most English Book Ever Written", Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell tells the unlikely story of two magicians in the early 1800s, a time when magic is all-but forgotten. The two title characters have very different ...
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
I have quite a lot of books. I am not a book hoarder, I quite often do purges of books I don't intend to read again, but my bookcases are always overflowing. I have tried various methods of keeping track of what I have read, but nothing really seemed that ...
Posted in Computer, Culture | 4 Comments »
Sunday, March 8th, 2009
Alright! This is the last one of these I am going to do, partly due to the time they take, but mostly because they make me look bad.
Fantasy is a much (and accurately) maligned genre. Unlike SciFi, Fantasy cannot pretend that its authors are offering up visions of our ...
Posted in Culture | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
Yesterdays list of the 100 best books was judged by some to be a little unfair to the more nerdy side of the spectrum. To make up for it, here is the same thing done with this list of the 100 top SciFi novels.
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Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
A friend of mine (Hi Liesl!) recently went through a list of the 100 greatest books and marked off the ones she had read. She then posted it to Facebook, obviously proud of her total (53 - impressive).
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Sunday, January 11th, 2009
The summer holidays are the one time of year when it is acceptable to stuff your face with cheap food and drink, and stuff your brain with cheap paperback novels. As with the food, you tend to have a good time during the consumption of the books but regret it ...
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Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
By David Mamet
I picked up this book with such high hopes. David Mamet is justly famous for writing some excellent movies (proof), some of which were excellent plays. He may also have written excellent books, but if so this is not one of them.
Hollywood is full of stories of the ...
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Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
by Iain M. Banks
A far flung solar system has been cut of from the rest of the galaxy due to its only wormhole (allowing instantaneous travel) being destroyed. Warned that an invading fleet will be arriving at sub-light speeds in a few years, the system's ruler conscripts a intelligent but ...
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Monday, June 25th, 2007
Nathaniel's Nutmeg - How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
By Giles Milton
The island of Run is pretty much forgotten, now just a small speck in the larger Indonesian archipelago. But during the 1600's, Run was the name on every European trader's lips, for it had been identified as ...
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Saturday, June 9th, 2007
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared M. Diamond
Jared M. Diamond; there's a super-hero alter-ego name if ever I have heard one. By day, Jared lives the buttoned down life of a professor of geography, by night he becomes a maverick author. His secret power is being able to write worthy ...
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Wednesday, May 30th, 2007
1When you come across a thin building taller than 6 stories high, do a quick check to see if it is a tower. If it is then you have no problems, provided you are a law abiding citizen. However, if it could be a spire then you are in trouble; ...
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