Fantastic Book Quote

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.

How I love them!
How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
  - Arnold Lobel

20 Untranslatable Words... and some translations....

20 Untranslatable Words

I suppose by untranslatable, they mean not translated by a single equivalent word in another language.

Some of them embody interesting concepts from another culture and other are just simply a piece of the mundane for which most of us just don't have a specific word.

Review: Into The Storm (Destroyermen, Book 1)

I am not, generally, a fan of revisionist histories or alternate histories. The two examples I can think of that make that an incomplete generalization are Into The Storm and The Peshawr Lancers.

I dislike the genre often because it is so typically focused on American History and often preoccupied with World War II European or Pacific Theater or with the American Civil War (some sort of counter-insurgency that most Americans are obsessed with... *grin*).

The Peshawr Lancers was different as it focused on a British Empire that had had to move its capital to the Raj. Also the main character, an English Officer, had a Sikh for a side-kick and that was quite an interesting choice.

What makes Into The Storm fascinating is the history lesson that goes with it. From the description on Amazon, where they talk about Taylor Anderson (the author):

Taylor Anderson has a Master's Degree in History and teaches that subject at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. He is the author of a historical work entitled "The Life and Tools of the Rocky Mountain Free Trapper" and a number of short stories and articles. He also won several Inter-Collegiate Press Association awards while a student. He is a voracious consumer of literature of every description and a careful and meticulous historian.

Besides his academic accomplishments, he is a gun-maker and forensic ballistic archeologist, having collaborated with numerous museums as well as the National Parks Service and the U.S. Army. He is a technical and dialogue consultant for movies and documentaries and has even done some acting. A list of productions in which he has been involved is available, but it is safe to say he has played at least an advisory role in many of the movies made in the last 15 years that involved 19th and early 20th Century combat.

He is a member of the National Historical Honor Society and the United States Field Artillery Association - from which he was awarded the Honorable Order of St. Barbara. He owns a collection of 18th and 19th century artillery pieces and fires them with live rounds for movie sound, documentaries, competition and fun. His cannons have also appeared in many films. He knows precisely what they are capable of and that is reflected in his writing.

As a sailor, he is conversant in the capricious vagaries of the weather and the sea and as a historian, he is trained to research what he is unable to experience first-hand. Careful research was essential to writing Destroyermen because one of the main characters is, after all, USS Walker. Over 270 "four-stacker" destroyers were built during and after WW I, but none remain today. Anderson spent thousands of hours researching the class and volunteering to work on the restoration of a similar type ship.

He also wanted the "alternate Earth" he created for the story to seem as though it could realistically have evolved the way it did. That required studying the most recent theories regarding prehistoric life and scientifically extrapolating evolutionary trends based on millions of years of environmental fluctuations. The result is a novel that is far more unusual and thought provoking than the basic "alternate history/universe" premise might imply.

He was moved to write Destroyermen because he has long been inspired by the sacrifice made by the men (and women) of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet at the outbreak of WW II. Long neglected by historians, the stand they made truly ranks with Thermopylae, The Alamo, Bastogne and Wake Island. He hopes to keep alive, at least peripherally, their memory. The alternate history/fantasy angle finds an opening because some of the ships of the Asiatic Fleet really did disappear without a trace.

I learned a lot about the experience of Americans in the early war in the Pacific as they were hammered by the Japanese. I learned about battles I'd never heard of and learned a bit about the sorts of sailors the US Asiatic Fleet was made up of. I also learned a lot about the ships like the USS Walker, a DD well into late life even by the start of the war.

Now, of course, this is an alternate timeline book and the Walker's fate is considerably different than that of the historical one. But the story weaves an interesting series of what-if turns. It explores what might have happened if lands and seas were the same, but species upon them or under them were not. It has a Mcguffin to create the situation, but otherwise feels reasonable.

I have to say I'd recommend this book. The yarn is good, the characters (good, bad or indifferent) are endearing, and the ship (as a character of sorts) is vividly brought to life. I look forward to the two sequels (I guess a 4th book is on the way or out in hardcover).

If I had any criticisms, they would be twofold: the enemy of the piece is initially laid out as inexorable, terrible, and nearly mindless. Over time, things come to light which makes this assessment both too simplistic and too mild, and one of the characters (a captured Japanese) is made rather sympathetic - although possible, this feels somewhat like a cop-out, but perhaps this was done as a counterbalance to the enemy of the book who turn out to be the boogeymen everyone saw the Japanese as - powerful, merciless, ruthless, etc.

At any rate, I enjoyed the heck out of this book and can't wait for the sequels I have ordered to arrive at my local bookstore!

Altered Sense of Time

This article gives a little bit of a perspective as a neuroscientist looks into why we have an altered sense of time in life threatening situations along with very vivid recall.

I post it on a blog about books and writing because it may help inform someone writing about these sorts of situations with some sense of what might actually be happening neurologically. I guess this is the sort of general background knowledge a writer needs to absorb. Neuroscience these days is telling writers all sorts of useful things about the mind and the body if they are paying attention.

Article from npr.org

"Turns out, when you're falling you don't actually see in slow motion. It's not equivalent to the way a slow-motion camera would work," David says. "It's something more interesting than that."

According to David, it's all about memory, not turbo perception. "Normally, our memories are like sieves," he says. "We're not writing down most of what's passing through our system." Think about walking down a crowded street: You see a lot of faces, street signs, all kinds of stimuli. Most of this, though, never becomes a part of your memory. But if a car suddenly swerves and heads straight for you, your memory shifts gears. Now it's writing down everything — every cloud, every piece of dirt, every little fleeting thought, anything that might be useful.

Because of this, David believes, you accumulate a tremendous amount of memory in an unusually short amount of time. The slow-motion effect may be your brain's way of making sense of all this extra information. "When you read that back out," David says, "the experience feels like it must have taken a very long time." But really, in a crisis situation, you're getting a peek into all the pictures and smells and thoughts that usually just pass through your brain and float away, forgotten forever.

Quote:

Ever tried? Ever failed? No Matter, try again, fail again, Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett

The 9 Most Amazing Bookstores in the World

Pardon the source, but this is a great set of pictures and short descriptions of some pretty amazing bookstores. I'd like to visit most of them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/26/9-of-the-most-amazing-boo_n_659870.html#s117832

---

I wonder if e-books, growing as they are in popularity, will turn real books once again into a special item, expensive to produce, fine of quality, and more artisanal than mass-production oriented?

I wonder if the real books someone keeps in their house will be of special value to them or if they'll simply represent what they want others to think they read, while they actually read tawdry teen vampire suck-novels on their electronic tablet? 

I'd hate to see the tangible, physical book die out. There is a substance and a reality to them that are hard to valuate, but which I think have a meaning. I'm not such a fan of e-books, even though I own many PDFs which are exceptionally portable.

There's just something about wandering in a book store with a hot cider in the winter. Or perusing the latest offerings in my local mall bookseller at lunchtime. And bookstores with character are like public houses with character - you just can't help hoping they never die out or change into something lesser.

And if things go bad in the world, we'll still be able to read conventional books by sunlight. Hopefully we'll have saved some good ones.

The BBC: Destroyers of the English Language

Participatory
Normal: PAR-tih-sih-pah-toh-ree
BBC: par-tih-sih-PAY-toh-ree

Regulatory
Normal: REG-yoo-lah-toh-ree
BBC: reg-yoo-LAY-toh-ree
 
Syracuse
Normal: SEE-rah-cue-suh
BBC: SYE-rah-cue-seh

Osaka
Normal: OH-saw-kah
BBC: aw-SAY-kah

There was another one from tonight I can't remember.

And the uniformity of their crappy pronunciation shows an attention and focus upon getting it wrong consistently.

They are awful. They have posh sounding accents but sound remarkably backward when they can't correctly pronounce common english words. 

English is a wonderful language. Who is going to teach it to the English?

Word of the Day: Sybilline

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2010/07/08.html

This word has a classical, although somewhat murky derivation. I like it because of that classical tie in and the fact one of its definition involves another word I quite enjoy - oracular.

Great Quote

Adventure is just bad planning.  - Roald Amundsen

Your Ten Top Non-Fiction Books

A friend of mine had a great idea... a list of the ten best fiction books on his shelves.

I'm taking advantage of the concept but proposing the posting of lists of the ten best non-fiction books on your shelves. A brief description of why you chose your ten is a bonus.

My List:

1. The Prince and the Discourses (Niccolo Machiavelli)
2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
3. The Art of War (Sun Tzu, Cleary Translation)
4. Design Patterns (the "Gang of Four")
5. The Mythical Man Month (Fred Brooks)
6. The Second World War (Winston Churchill)
7. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Waterson)
8. The SAS Survival Guide (John Wiseman)
9. A Brief History of Time (Stephen Hawking)
10. Amo, Amas, Amat and More (Eugene Ehrlich)

Bonus Entry: Anything starting with FM-xxxx. (FM stands for Field Manual, US military) But since these I have on CD, I'd have to not include them in my base 10.

Another friend of mine said #1 and 3 above give you advice on how to live, #2 on why. I put #4 in because it represented a pardigm shift (literally) in my field and in my mindset. #5 explains why Project Management appears to have nothing in common with science or art (or success usually). #6 is about one of the key wars in human history and written by one of the most key figures. #7 is joy in book form. #8 could save your life. #9 will blow your mind (at least it did mine). #10 reminds us why some things from antiquity matter and how they can still be fun two thousand years later.

Your list?

Quote of the Day

The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.
  - Andre Malraux

To me, the quote exemplifies the remarkable part of our humanity - our ability to live meaningfully amid times that make one doubt all certainty, all truth, and all authorities. We draw that from within and exert our own meaning upon our world.

From a writing perspective, it is an interesting construction with evocative imagery.

The quotation at the top by Malraux was 'shamelessly quoted' from Quotes of the Day.

Writ of Certiorari

I love Latin. I also like some concepts embedded in legal codes. This particular one fits both my word-lover side and my legal-nerd side.

Writ of Certiorari

Atwood goes to Israel

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=a3UDSV5teRIA

This is a good interview. I like it from an authorial perspective because of her pottery metaphor for writing a novel. She talks about having to actually throw out some that she got to the 200 page mark with before realizing they just weren't coming together.

She also makes a very salient point about what is likely to be one of the most critical issues in the middle east - Water.

They (the folk in that region collectively) seem to worry a lot over there about a lot of stuff that in the long run matters less. I often think the real issues are so painful to dissect and challenging to resolve that it is far easier to fall back on jingoism and simplistic points of conflict. Certainly this benefits many of those in power in the region.

Un-Words

I challenge my readers (the entire two of them) to find an Un-Word they hate and post a comment about it.

What is an Un-Word you ask?

An Un-Word is something that people use as if it was a word, but is not a word acknowledged by any reputable dictionary.

I will rule out the one obvious choice (irregardless, which people use as if the word regardless was somehow insufficient while expropriating its meaning).

So, my submission, from an esteemed Genetic Scientist who has worked on the reconstruction of Wooly Mamoth Hemoglobin....

Boughten (one presumes a verb).

The context of use suggests the word 'bought' was meant instead. 

An interesting take on how long it takes to get published

http://io9.com/5528774/what-do-i-wish-id-knownor-youre-kidding-right

Good point about learning to appreciate the process, also in the length of time it can take to become successful. Subtext would be the length and breadth of persistence it takes to get to that point.

Language: Using i.e. versus e.g. - why, when?

I have a fascination for language. New words I find exciting and understanding the phonetic history and etymology of words is an insatiable source of curiousity for me.

This is one of the reasons the Lord of the Rings and the entirety of the works of Middle Earth struck me. It's why articles from the early part of the last century (some pulpy sci-fi, for instance) and things from even further back draw me in, despite simplicity of plot and sometimes the characters themselves.  They draw me in because of the language - different enough from the spoken word of today, yet cloyingly familiar. I find Broad Scots, Medeival English, and Latin all give me elements of that feeling as well.

I'm also amused and fascinated by the rules of grammar; The conventions of grammar are sometimes esoteric or opaque, but being educated into their mysteries means understanding the value in breaking them and when and where it makes sense to do so, as well as why!

One of the areas I've always had a bit of a fight with myself over (other than the correct spelling of guard... my trouble word of many years....) was when it was appropriate to use i.e. (id est) and when it was appropriate to use e.g. (exempli gratia).

Well, I wonder no more, thanks to the wonders (not to overuse a word) of Google. I have found a brilliant article that makes very clear the distinction in usage between i.e. ane e.g. and I think that I shall not confuse the two again because of it.

Perhaps you already know the distinction, or think you do, but I recommend you check out the link.

id est versus exempli gratia

The world is a wonderful place!

Review - Valor's Trial by Tanya Huff

Valor's Trial
(4th book in the Confederation series)
Author: Tanya Huff
Publisher: DAW
Copyright: 2009 (this release)
ISBN: 978-0756405571
Book Type: Science Fiction (Military, but shades of Romance)
Size: 416 page paperback
Amazon Link: Amazon Link

Review


Valor's Trial (and the entire Confederation series) is another example of military serial science fiction with a touch of the romance influence. This is the 4th book in the series after Valor's Choice, The Better Part of Valor, The Heart of Valor and there is already a 5th book, the Truth of Valor, scheduled for 2010. In 2006, there was an omnibus Confederation of Valor which repackaged Valor's Choice and The Better Part of Valor as well.

The protagonist is Torin Kerr, lately Confederation Marine Gunnery Sergeant Torin Kerr, aka the next best thing to God as far as the Marine Corps enlisted personel account such things. She's a tough, mission-focused character who has her own personal interests and aspirations, but who knows how to be a professional and subordinate those to the mission, which is primarily getting whatever job done as is required and keeping her Marines alive.

The Confederation setting sees a number of Elder Races who have come recruiting for the Humans and some other young races to fight their war with an alien multi-species polity called The Others (at least, that's what the Confederation calls them). The Elder Races are, predictably, running the show and keeping the younger races somewhat out of the loop for unspecified reasons.

The thing that caught my attention and drew me to the first book in the series was the examination of the challenges of integrating different races with different physical needs and capabilities into unified combat formations. The thing that kept me reading was a slowly evolving arc about the war with The Others and about the characters. Like most military fiction, non-Protagonist character turnover can sometimes be high, but that's part of the genre.

Another thing that kept me interested is the focus on the role of the senior NCO (Torrin, if I recall correctly, starts as a Sergeant in book one, moves through Staff Sergeant to Gunnery Sergeant in this book) in managing the squad, the platoon, and the company. Tanya seems to have a good grasp of the relationship of the NCO and the Officer. There is some very archetypal commentary about Officers and about the NCO's role as a shepherd. Beyond that, there is an appreciation of the Officer's role as the big picture manager of a unit, with the NCO being the details-focused leader whose decisions are mostly focused on keeping her people alive and prepared for whatever comes next. Both the Officer and the NCO play tactical decision making roles and the cooperation between both (at times) is shown as is the tension (if the officer is an idiot or martinet or a REMF).

The latest book, Valor's Trial, covers a POW situation. It is a truly unique POW situation insofar as the prison is on the interior of an alien world. I won't say much more about the plot because I certainly don't want to give away the good things you'll discover by reading it. I will say the overall series story arc moves ahead with a variety of new an interesting discoveries, one learns a bit more about the foes, and more is learned about another mysterious player in the big picture.

Throughout the book, the focus is on a psychological treatment of the effects of imprisonment without it becoming too much of a lead pipe to bludgeon the reader with. There is also a focus on the consequences of decisions - sometimes you make the right one, sometimes not and there is always a price of some sort. There is also a focus on the psychology of command, of (to some extent) the power of conviction, of patterns, and of the familiar bonds of unit and duty and how these things can guide soldier's behaviours in both good and bad ways.

The story flows along and is an easy read. The main character isn't prone to vast amounts of melodrama and the inclusion of some moderately challenging and irrascible characters in various spots in the book makes for a form of comic relief from the challenges and difficulties of the overall bleak scenario the protagonist is confronted with.

In the end, there is some change in the shape of things and there is at least one big cliffhanger point on which, no doubt, the next book or books will be focused.

I look forward to that next book, unlike some other series I'm getting distinctly tired of reading - Mr. Ringo, Mr. Weber, someone is calling your name.....

About the Author


Tanya (Sue) Huff was born in Halifax but left the Maritimes while very young. She lived in Kingston until graduation from High School and did a Radio and TV-related program at Ryerson. She spent 3 years in the Naval Reserve. She now lives with Fiona, her partner, and some cats in rural Ontario and makes her living entirely as a writer without taking government grants of any form. She reviews books for the Mop and Pail (Globe and Mail) from time to time. She wrote for Realms magazine in Toronto.

Rating

Readability: 8.9 / 10
Detail: 7.0 / 10
Plot: 8.0 / 10
Value: 9.0 / 10
Overall: 8.1 / 10

Review - Kris Longknife: Undaunted

Kris Longknife: Undaunted
(7th book in the Kris Longknife series)
Author: Mike Shepherd
Publisher: Ace Books
Copyright: 2009
ISBN: 978-0041017867
Book Type: Science Fiction (Military, but shades of Romance)
Size: 368 page paperback
Amazon Link: Amazon Link
 
Review
If you enjoyed David Weber (Honor Harrington series) or David Feintuch before he became morbid enough to make his readers beg for Mercy or Anne McCaffrey (Merchanter series), then you'll probably get some enjoyment out of the Kris Longknife series.

The series features a strong female protagonist who grows from a troubled young adulthood into full possession of her gifts - military, social, and interpersonal. Kris suffers from the misfortunes of being capable, attractive but in an unconventional fashion, possessing an unwillingness to march to the beat of other's drums (be they King, General, Admiral, personal guard, or uppity AI), and a tendency to be in the right place at the right time for all Hell to break loose. And she's a Princess by birth, did I mention that?

In the early parts of the series, she is haunted by childhood trauma, by social isolation, by a problem with alcohol, and by an unwillingness to grow into the Princess and the dutiful daughter as defined by her father, the elected King of a union of planets trying to be some sort of federation worth living in and of general benefit to the citizenry.

During the earlier books, she gets to leave home, discover adventures military, political, and with espionage and trade dimensions, and discover herself along the way. As is not unusual in such risky business, she comes to understand the price the survivors pay.

One of the underlying themes in the books is the imperfect nature of even well-intentioned solutions. Everyone calls her "One of those damned Longknives" and most of them want nothing to do with her. It seems that her family has a reputation for being shot at, bombed, and so on and achieving various hard-fought victories over the bodies of many friends and enemies alike. Being close to the Longknives probably represents a serious jump in your insurance premiums!

All of this leads up to the current book, Undaunted. By this point in the series, Kris is a relatively complete adult, having went through many of the baptismal events previously. The new book throws in the twist of an old alien enemy come calling with a special request.

The aliens are not loved by the humans who fought them so bittery, but it turns out some popularly held myths about the past are set on their ear in this book. This is another theme in Shepherd's series - history often having actually happened rather differently than popular conceptions would have you believe. It also turns out the humans didn't really know as much about their enemies as they thought,  nor did the aliens understand the humans well in times of prior hostility.

In between all the larger story arc aspects of Kris' growth and grappling with being a person of power but also a magnet for trouble and death, there is a story more particular to this episode. I won't spoil it by telling you much about it save to say violence does ensue and adventure, with consequences, transpires.

This book feels more like a campaign arc book than a standalone work. Part of that is the long history drawn forth previously, but part of it is this is a transitional work of sorts. In the last few previous books, Kris reached a point of challenging the authorities that guide her life and asserting her independence. This book lays the groundwork for a new multi-book story arc that leads her beyond the fringes of human space and potentially into the face of a much greater foe than any she has faced previously.

There are romantic overtones in the series, vaguely reminiscent of Honor Harrington's series by Weber. There aren't the same huge clashes of mass fleets - ship actions tend to be on a smaller scale, no larger than a small task group. Kris has made fast progress, but is only verging on Lieutenant Commander's rank by the end of Undaunted, so she hasn't flown through the ranks quite as fast as the peerless Admiral Duchess Harrington.

All in all Undaunted is an okay installment in a series that had more punch in a few of the other books, but this book seems to be setting up for even more excitement in the following few. Much like the Two Towers had moments of lull before the storm that was the great climactic battles in the Return of the King, this book appears to be setting up a future of dire conflict that will surely involve the main characters.

Shepherd has a good eye for interesting characters and for some unexpected plot twists. He has an awareness of the political dimensions of the actions of the characters. The characters follow certain archetypes (of the Horatio Hornblower sort), but puts enough of a twist on them to make them interesting and to make them his own. Hornblower never had to deal with the background trauma that Kris Longknife had to. And Hornblower didn't always have a family member unrepentantly willing to throw him into the nasty situations, whether the results tended to work out after some blood and tears or not.

I'd say this is well worth owning, but I'd go back first and pick up the others in the series. The story is worth getting from the start as a fair amount of prior knowledge appears to be presumed by the author. If you aren't expecting powerful stand alone novels, but steady, workmanlike releases for an interesting series of light fiction, then you'll enjoy the Kris Longknife series.

Rating

Readability: 8.5 / 10
Detail: 7.0 / 10
Plot: 7.5 / 10
Value: 7.5 / 10
Overall: 7.5 / 10

Drawing The Quill Once More

Before Christmas, my friends Derek and Chris and I had started a writing project. We had wanted to work on writing a 10,000 - 20,0000 word story. The idea was to attempt to work our way through a complete story of some size. There was never any formal goal of publishing these anywhere and feedback would be given as we moved through the development.

We had each written a few chapters by the time things got busy for us all around Christmas and as usual, the project kind of slowed to a stall. Up to that point, we had managed to read each other's work, make some comments, and I think we had the roots of three interesting stories.

The stalling reminds me of the impact natural pressures can place upon the creative process and of how a full time job as a writer must demand a certain determined single-mindedness at times.

Before we started the contest, for a couple of months, I'd been writing hundreds or thousands of words a week, in the form of various stories, outlines, scenes, character sketches, ideas, etc.

I haven't returned to my project story yet, which probably sits at a few thousand unedited words now, but will probably end up in the 15,000+ word stage. But to get back on the horse, tonight I started doing character sketches and scenario sketches. Only about 385 words tonight, but I'm back at it.

My work will probably be sporadic, since the new job and situations at home are consuming of time and energy, but I reaffirm my goal to complete the original project.

Beyond that, I plan to work towards a compilation of short stories I can publish (even if I only produce a few copies for some friends) using the facilities of http://lulu.com.

They say everyone has a book in them. I'm planning to put that theory to the test. 

New Words, New Books

Reading has a variety of benefits, not the least of which is the discovery of new words with which to expand ones lexicon. My recent acquisitions have included: Twee, belletristic, and tarn.

As I love the non-sequitur, I'll now move into talking about new books.

Bookstores are, for me, something closely akin to Kryptonite. Or perhaps an Achilles' Heel. I walk in and I cannot escape without a backpack full of new books. This last trip, I went in to get one specific book for my dear mother, and lo and behold, out I come with that plus three bags more for myself.

I blame geography. The bargain book shelves stood between me and the atlas I was seeking. Me walking through the bargain shelves with hardcovers for less than the cost of a softcover novel is a lot like a serial philanderer passing down a side street in the red light district with an ungainly wad of currency.... it can only end one way....

This time, my 'waiting to read' list acquired:

• Tales of the Grand Tour (Ben Bova), trade paperback, $4.99
• Lord Stanley, the Man Behind The Cup (Kevin Shea and John J. Wilson), hardcover, $4.99
• Great Tastes: Chicken (Bay Books), softcover, $7.99
• High Seas (anthology, editor Clint Willis), $5.99, trade paperback
• Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer (Tim Jeal), hardcover, $7.99
• Dragon Harper (Ann and Todd McCaffrey), hardcover, $5.99
• Hell and High Water: Canada and the Italian Campaign (Lance Goddard), softcover, $6.99
• Halting State (Charles Stross), hardcover, $6.99
• The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier (Bonnie Trenga), paperback, $10.99
• The Power of Point of View (Alicia Rasley), trade paperback, $18.75
• Crock Pot: Chicken (Pil Publications), ringed hardcover, $12.99
• Empires of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521-1580 (Roger Crowley), trade paperback, $20.00

I contemplated two related biographies from the 'full price' section - one on Ghenghis Khan and one on Kublai Khan. I decided I wasn't yet into the Mongol phase to the tune of $23 per book. But someday....

So, we have two cookbooks, two books on writing, 4 history books, 2 sci-fi books, 1 fantasy book, and perhaps a book of historical fiction (or perhaps a 5th history book - not quite sure yet). We've got coverage of WWII, Mediterranean history leading up to and including the battle of Lepanto, the story of Lord Stanley and his cup and the early days of Canada, some age of sail reading, and Colonial Africa, as well as a number of worlds that weren't.

It's a good thing my interests aren't any more eclectic than they are... I eyeballed a bunch of books on heiroglyphics, egyptian history, the Canadian Navy, further books on food (particular meats), books on photography, philosophy, and Javascript.

The only reason I want to live to a very old age is to finish reading (or having read to me) all of my many books.... then I could probably die a happy man......

How To Present Backstory: Infodumps Reviewed io9.com

This article deals with how different authors use different tools to present backstory and pertinent background to readers in significant chunks without causing the readers eyes to glaze over. This is probably considerably harder than it at first appears. I've tried to wrestle with this in different writing projects and it seemed challenging to me at any rate!

River of the Gods by Ian McDonald

I read about this book in a couple of places, caught the cover art on io9.com in a review about the different SF cover art recently and the quality of same, and became interested in it.

The link is to the Kindle edition, but finding it as a softcover at amazon.ca seemed a challenge. It could be available as a hardcover. Or perhaps through other vendors via amazon.ca.

It seems interesting for a variety of reasons. One is it deals with India - one of the world's largest and most diverse countries. This huge country has a breadth of social class, of economic class, of technological levels, of religions, and of cultural and linguistic groups that is pretty staggering.

McDonald's book projects that forward into 2047 and, according to the reviews I've read, makes some reasonable projections about how things might develop politically, culturally and technologically. He tries to address issues like a coming water crisis, the ongoing balkanization of our world's large powers, population growth, and the challenges to culture and to society introduced by biotechnology and the advances of computer technology.

Evolving A.I.s are a topic McDonald addresses, as well as the contrasts between the highest of high-tech and the lowest of low-tech experiences the future India. India already has this division and the continuing uneven development of wealth and technology does seem likely to foster an even wide continuum in the future.

I'm adding this book to my 'want to buy' list. I'm going to try to find it in trade paperback or hardcover format. I'm avoiding the whole 'Do I want a Kindle?' or not question yet.

I'm not married to proprietary DRM solutions and I want to be able to loan a friend a copy of a book. I also want to be able to read it twenty years down the road and I'm unconvinced the current Ebook reader technology will allow this. So, for now, I think, no Kindle.

The only really pressing or prevasive argument for one is the vast size of my library and the weight of moving it. Right now, my bookshelves for game books, fiction and non-fiction total 12 floor to ceiling bookcases that are 30" wide on average and an additional 3 half height shelves. Some of those, for novels, are stacked double depth. That's a lot of weight to move and Ebooks would lighten things up considerably.

Updates: Formatting and Active Reading comments

Site Formatting...

• Modified banner image
• Added subscription box (lower right side) for RSS feed readers
• Moved welcome message to conserve sidebar real estate
• Added amazon search box (and even made it a colour match) 
• Updated all of my book lists at the side, more updates to come

Brief Snapshot of Current Reading...

Meditations on Middle Earth

I'm quite enjoying Meditations on Middle Earth - it is interesting to read what a wide variety of fantasy and sci-fi authors we've all read have to say about Tolkien's influence in their submitted essays (this is an anthology of those essays). I'm working through Poul Anderson's comments after reading Raymond E. Feist's.

I learned that Feist's fantasy world was actually the D&D world that he and his college friends played in, transformed into the home for his novels and inspired by Fritz Lieber in some significant senses. Fiest calls Tolkien not the Father but the Grandfather of modern Sci-fi and Fantasy, spawning a generation of other great authors in the interim.

Each author mentions his own influences and the sort of historical context Tolkien existed in. In discussing this, the authors name a very large group of older sci-fi, fantasy and horror authors whose works I am unfamiliar with. I'm compiling a list to include here and to link to their works (those I can find in some available format). I always enjoy reading the works of the earlier pioneers and of those that authors I like have found influential and informative in their own development.

Nelson's Battles

Nelson's Battles is proving a good read, but my aging eyes are having trouble with the text. The base font size is not terribly large, I believe is a serif font, and any embedded block quotes are in an even smaller font size. All this is doing is slowing me down slightly, certainly the text is absorbing, being written in a somewhat archaic style and quoting from even more archaic sources such as Nelson's own writings.

I've just read about the Battle of the Nile. Interesting in its historical context, with Napoleon on his Egyptian adventure.

I also read in this book about Nelson's loss of an eye and his loss of his arm. Interestingly, and contrary to what I always uknowingly believed, both of these injuries were sustained ashore leading landing parties of Marines or British Regulars.

The eye was damaged when his shore battery came under artillery fire and the artillery chipped loose stone fragments from the battlement his unit was using for cover, one of which damaged his eye and cost him the sight in it. The arm was lost to a musket ball in a most inauspicious landing attempt while trying to take a rumoured treasure ship. His son applied a tourniquet and got him back aboard his ship to the surgeon or else he likely would have died.

I look forward to finishing this, although progress is a bit slow due to the reading challenges.

Read, Review To Follow: John Ringo and Tom Kratman's Yellow Eyes

I've finished Yellow Eyes and there were things I liked a lot about it and things I got pretty darn tired of quickly. I'm trying to let the annoyances settle a bit before I write the review so as to try to be balanced.

Acitve Reading: "Yellow Eyes" by John Ringo and Tom Kratman

I'm working my way through Yellow Eyes, one of the series of books set in Ringo's Posleen-invaded Earth setting.

So far, and I'm about 400 pages in, my only response has been 'ho-hum'. I will post a more detailed review when I have completed the book. So far, it is neither particularly a terrible book nor particularly a memorable book.

I have noticed a larger than usual number of grammatical or typographical errors. Regardless of their source, proofreaders or editors should have caught them and did not. The authors could have caught them as well, if they were not introduced subsequent to their manuscript submission (which may have occured).

The most memorable moment so far was a bit of humour, when a decision is being made about the 'gender' of a vessel. The rough paraphrase is 'Traditionally, ships are female. Most navies use female gender for vessels. The Russians use male ship names, but they are mostly gay.'

I found it funny to be poking fun at the Russians and their Navy in such a fashion, quite in line with the overall geopolitical leanings of the authors. It was worth a good chuckle in any event. Obviously, some readers could take such comments as amiss for various reasons, but if you are reading Ringo or Kratman, one presumes you have already abandoned any expectation for political correctness in any form.

More later, once I have worked my way through the rest of it. If nothing else, it is a thick book.