Category: Books

  • Review of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: The Final Empire

    I got Mistborn: The Final Empire in Tor.com’s ebook giveaway. I hadn’t heard of Brandon Sanderson before, but I really liked this first book. I read through it in about three or four days, which is pretty good for me because I have not had the time to just read for fun lately. I usually […]

  • Kindle DRM Complaints

    I am really interested in a kindle. I plan to get one as soon as they release a version for Japan. That might be a while, but that is ok, I can wait. The wireless feature is just killer and I would hate to import one and be without it. I am a bit worried […]

  • Esther M. Friesner’s The Sword of Mary: A Sequel

    I posted earlier about the book Psalms of Herod, and generally didn’t come away from it with a good impression. The main detraction is that it is not a self-contained book. It just ends, abruptly. It was just by chance that I picked up the sequel, The Sword of Mary: A Sequel (at least the […]

  • Psalms of Herod and Architects of Emortality

    Psalms of Herod This flight out I didn’t read many books. I only started one, Esther Freisner’s “Psalms of Herod”, but I didn’t even finish it on the plane. I ended up finishing it on the road sometime. I didn’t really like the book. It is set in some unspecified point of time in the […]

  • Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen’s Wheelers

    This is a book that I picked up on my last trip out (from Half-price books I think) and I finally got a chance to read it on the flight from Tokyo to San Francisco. It was a good book, I enjoyed it. It was a nice departure from the science fiction that I have […]

  • Review of Charlie Stross’ Atrocity Archives and Glasshouse

    I’ve finished two more Charlie Stross novels recently. The first is Glasshouse. I highly recommend it. A far-future sci-fi novel, instant transfer wormhole gates, personality downloads, backups, and editing. The main hook is: in a society where mass memory editing has taken place, how can you track down things that might have been completely erased […]

  • Review of David Gemmell’s King Beyond the Gate

    I’ve read three of David Gemmell’s books now, all in the Drenai series. I’ve really enjoyed all three, but so far the first one has been the most impressive. As a debut novel it takes a different look at traditional fantasy (or at least, a new one to me) and is a fun read. The […]

  • Jeff Bezos and Kindle 2 on The Daily Show

    Let’s see the clip. Oh, this isn’t a movie? $79 dollars a year for free shipping? That isn’t free, it’s $79 A YEAR! What is this thing? And that is the last time Jeff will see that kindle… I’m a big fan of The Daily Show. Imagine my surprise when I came home to watch […]

  • Review of Charles Stross’ Halting State

    A while back I read my first Charlie Stross book, Accelerando. I really liked it, so much so that I bought a few more Charlie Stross books. This is the second one that I read. I was hopeful, because the title refers to a classic decision problem that basically asks you to determine whether a […]

  • Amazon’s Kindle 2

    Not that I’m breaking any news here at all, but Amazon has announced the second version of their ebook reading, the Kindle. It is a nice looking piece of hardware. I actually tested a version of this a few months back when I was in Palo Alto. I really would like to get one of […]