LibraryThing

 Computer, Culture  4 Responses »
Mar 192009
 

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 useful.

A friend at work just hipped me to LibraryThing, a website that seems tailor made for people like me. It is a little like a book-oriented facebook – you join and set up a profile (here is mine) and then start adding books. Books you have added can be given ratings and keywords, you can even write reviews if you are really keen. Once you have registered a few books, LibraryThing starts recommending other books you might like.

The website works pretty well for something claiming to be a beta. It is very text-heavy, but I don’t think that will be a problem for its target audience. The one thing that could be smoother is the interface for actually adding books – at the moment it is a bit of a pain to add multiple books by the same author, even if they appear together in the search.

In true Web2.0 fashion, LibraryThing offers all sorts of RSS feeds and blog widgets to publish data to other sites. As an experiment, I have added the LibraryThing widget to my blog theme. You should be able to see a random selection of books I have read to the right. I removed this, unfortunately it doesn’t work very well with my theme.

Book Bragging Rights (Fantasy Edition)

 Culture  6 Responses »
Mar 082009
 

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 future, nor do novels containing doughty heroes slaughtering goblinoid lesser racers lend themselves to commentary on the human condition, except in the most ironic way. Still, I will admit to enjoying some olde-time dragon slayage as much as the next man.

I got this list from the same site as the SciFi list, but you can see they were scratching to find 100 fantasy books worth mentioning. Several items are more “Magic Realism” which is publisher-speak for “telepathic policeman” or some-such nonsense. Others are could have easily been labeled SciFi. Still more just aren’t really that good.
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Book Review : A Wanderer’s Tale

 Culture  No Responses »
Jan 112009
 

wanderertaleThe 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 later on. So it is with A Wanderer’s Tale by David Bilsborough, the book I foolishly bought to read during a recent trip.
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Book Review : Bambi vs. Godzilla

 Culture  No Responses »
Dec 112007
 

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.

Bambi vs Godzilla CoverHollywood is full of stories of the soulless studio system destroying artistic merit, stripping the spark-plugs in the whole engine (the writers) of credit and fair monetary reward – witness the current writers strike in America. I was hoping for a tell-all book with vitriolic anecdotes singeing the page, the blurb promises as much. What I got was a collection of light essays on various facets of the movie business, almost like a series of casual blog entries. Some of the essays are quite good, but many are average and they tend to repeat themes after a while. Even when describing the few ways in which the Hollywood system has screwed him over, the author maintains his professionalism and refuses to name names.

All this make for some fairly dull reading. If you really want some good dirt (and advice) from a big shot Hollywood writer, check out this series of columns, they are much more entertaining.

Recommended only for serious film students wishing to get some references on film archetypes.

Book Review: The Algebraist

 Culture  No Responses »
Nov 212007
 

by Iain M. Banks

The Algebraist CoverA 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 moody loner with secrets of his own into a desperate mission to locate a probably fictional list of alternate wormholes from the capricious alien race that lives in the system’s gas giant planet. Along the way loyalties are tested, nothing is quite what it seems, and ripples from events from the distant past collide to throw the protagonist in unexpected directions.

Unlike all of the other Iain M. Banks books I have read, this one is not set in the culture universe, but an entirely new setting where culture-esque AI Minds have been wiped out (or have they…). The bulk of the book is spent inside the society of The Dwellers, a gas-giant living alien race who possibly hold the key to a hitherto unknown system of wormholes.

This was an excellent airport read, long but never dull, with plenty of finely detailed descriptions of the alien worlds visited. Whenever the main protagonist’s quest is getting bogged down, the action shifts elsewhere – usually to a massive space battle for a quick change of pace. It is my opinion that this technique should be more widely used in literature; imagine how much better Wuthering Heights (for instance) would be if an floating armada suddenly appeared in the skies above the moors. Chuck in a few ninjas and you have the makings of an absolute classic.

If you have read any other Iain M. Banks books you will know what to expect, despite the new setting it is quite like the his other books featuring a intelligent but moody loner with secrets of his own forced into a far-ranging quest in which loyalties are tested, nothing is quite what it seems, and ripples from events in the distant past collide, etc, etc. The Algebraist lives up the high standards set by its predecessors, but does not exceed them.

My one criticism is that the solution to the central mystery is fairly easy to guess if you have been paying attention, and it should have been obvious to many of the main characters right from the start. But apart from that quibble, The Algebraist was an enjoyable read.

Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Book Review: Nathaniel’s Nutmeg

 Culture  No Responses »
Jun 252007
 

Nathaniel’s Nutmeg – How One Man’s Courage Changed the Course of History
By Giles Milton

nutmeg.jpg

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 the richest source of nutmeg. And the nutmeg trade was very lucrative indeed, with a markup of 60000 percent selling a small sack of the spice could buy a very nice house.

Nathaniel’s Nutmeg is the story of how Run came to be discovered, and the extraordinary events that occurred as various kings and companies tried to lay claim to its harvest of riches. The English were trailing in the world domination stakes, the Dutch and the Portuguese pretty much had the area carved up, but the world was a lot bigger then and any policy of exclusion was tenuous at best. Both officially sanctioned and freelance expeditions from various nations sailed the perilous journey to the other side of the world, engaging in trading, piracy and conquest in roughly that order of priority. Due to various misunderstandings about where the continents lie, America was colonised almost by mistake along the way.

This is the sort of history book that can be read repeatedly. Milton mentions the important political and economic events in passing, and quickly gets to the meat of the story – tales of action and adventure on the high seas. These were the days when the line between loyal trader, privateer, and outright pirate were blurred, and diplomacy between nations was often carried out with cannon shot. The pivotal event in the plot – a four year siege of the tiny English-held (yeah!) Run Island by the hated Dutch (boo-hiss), is a particularly gripping read.

Great stuff, highly recommended.

Book Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel

 Culture  1 Response »
Jun 092007
 
ggsteel.jpg

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 books on the development of human societies that become best sellers.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is an attempt to explain why the different human societies have ended up in the places they inhabit today, by looking at the different environments that various societies lived in as humans migrated around the planet in pre-history. Diamond has spent much of his life in Papua New Guinea, and the book often makes the comparison between the technology and lifestyles of native New Guinean population and the foreigners living there. Guns, Germs, and Steel argues that these differences are not due to any inherit inferiority in the natives, but that the European society had developed in a natural environment that fostered the easy development of technological advancement.

For instance, Europe has a large land-mass in a roughly east-west orientation. As plants and animals were domesticated, they could easily spread from one end of Europe to the other since the climate is similar at similar latitudes. Europe also had the advantage of having many species of wild plants suitable for easy domestication. Although the Americas also have a large land mass, the north-south orientation of the continent meant that a plant domesticated in the north could not be spread widely. Europe’s more numerous food sources led to surpluses, which lead to higher populations, which led to new systems of government, which led to more man-power available, which led to inventions that eventually led to European powers conquering the Americas.

All of this is quite straight forward to anyone who has played a few games of Civilization, but Diamond backs it all up with tables listing wild grains and animals suitable for human domestication, figures of population growth and tool use, and many anecdotes from history. I found Diamond’s arguments very plausible, and he takes pains to preempt some of the more obvious criticisms of his ideas.

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a very entertaining read – highly recommended.

5 Ways to Tell If You Are Living In a Fantasy or Science-Fiction Novel

 Culture  1 Response »
May 302007
 
1

When 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; it is undoubtedly inhabited by an evil wizard or the matriarch of an alien insectoid race. It’s probably too late to run.


towers.jpg
Learn to tell the difference (I know what the movie is called, but I know spires when I see them)

2

This a tip for the the mechanically minded. Find an excuse to look under the hood of the nearest powered vehicle. If you see a motor or an engine then you are sitting pretty, this applies to anything from the smallest Morris Minor to the space shuttle. Woe betide you if you spy any kind of drive. Although the vehicle can probably fly or travel trough time, drives are notoriously unreliable especially during the inevitable alien attack.

3

If you ever find yourself in a forest, jungle, or otherwise surrounded by vegetation of significant size, take a minute to look around. If the foliage is green, or even lush you are probably OK, but if it is verdant then the undergrowth conceals lurking enemies, or is itself dangerous. One exception – if any of the leaves appear to be sun-dappled then you will probably soon come across a rather dopey princess riding a unicorn or something. In either case, my advice is to run like hell.

shallot.jpg
She may be cute but beware; she has no boat skills and smells like onions

4

An Experiment: Find a space that does not get a lot of fresh air, like a seldom-opened wardrobe or garden shed, and take a deep breath. If the air is musty or stale you are OK. Dank air is cause for concern, and if the air is close then watch out!

5

Finally, if you are not squeamish, you night like to try a quick autopsy on any recently killed animals or humanoids. Pay particular attention to the fluids that escape from the body. In the real world you will see mainly blood (red) and possibly bile (green or yellow) – this is a good sign.

In contrast, fantasy creatures are filled to gills with sticky black ichor, often under great pressure so the merest prick with a blade results in a great shower of the stuff. If you see any then watch out, since the corpse will most likely rise again soon.

organs.jpg
Diagram showing the differences in human vs orc anatomy – note the large ichor sac on the right figure

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