Order of the Stick books, Rich Burlew

Title:		Order of the Stick (see below)
Author:		Rich Burlew
Rating:

If you play D&D, you need to read Order of the Stick.  If you don't play D&D, but like character driven graphic novels, then Order of the Stick is for you too.  And finally, what the author is doing is telling a good - and funny - story.  If that appeals, then you'll enjoy it as well.  You'll miss a bit of D&D related humor, particularly early on in the story, but the rest holds together well and will appeal.

Here's a link.  Get started:  http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html

That may keep you occupied for days.  There are years of the story to read out there, for free.  Knock yourself out.

In fact, in book form, there are now 7 volumes.  They are named and numbered thusly:

• D: OOTS: Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails
• -1: OOTS: Start of Darkness
• 0: OOTS: On The Origin of PCs
• 1: OOTS: Dungeon Crawlin' Fools
• 2: OOTS: No Cure For The Paladin Blues
• 3: OOTS: War And XPs
• 4: OOTS: Don't Split The Party

Burlew published these books one at a time, and the older ones gradually went out of print, but he got a lot of funding via a famous Kickstarter, and now they are all back in print and available from his distributor.

There is a lot of fun wrapped up in these books, and some very good story telling.  Six main characters drive the plot, with numerous supporting characters and quite a few villains as well.  The story arc is large and complicated, involving dragons and magic and quests and, well... it's a D&D campaign told in pictures featuring stick figures.  That might sound lame, but it really isn't.  (The Kickstarter campaign was supposed to raise about $58K.  Instead it raised $1.2 million.  Yes, really.  It's not lame at all, and the proof is in over 14,000 backers of that campaign who love with Burlew does.)

As I write this, Burlew is recovering from a hand injury, so he isn't updating the web site with new content right now.  I am guessing he will start back up again sometime after the beginning of the year, and I will be thrilled to see how the story continues.  I'll also be buying new books as they come out.  This is great stuff.

Give it a shot on the website, from the link above.  If you like it, the books are definitely worth owning, and now you can.

Thirteen, Richard K. Morgan

Title:		Thirteen
Author:		Richard K. Morgan
Rating:

If you like your science fiction hard nosed and edgy, then Thirteen is for you.  In fact, so far, everything I've read by Morgan is grade A goodness of the same sort.

Set in the not too distant future, Thirteen tells part of the story of an... well... it's complicated.  The hero - Carl Marsalis - is an outcast working for the man.  He's kind of a cop, but his relationship with authority is challenging, and his assignments...  suffice it to say he hunts down escaped people like him.

And what is he?  Well, a thirteen is a member of the last (thirteenth) generation of genetically modified super soldiers.  They're faster and stronger than regular humans, and the programs were all shelved and the survivors are outcasts, relegated to a few fringe communities and the Martian colonies.  Some don't like that, however, and get loose with the rest of us.  When that happens, Carl is called in to find them and bring them back, or kill them if they won't come along.

But Carl gets brought into this story in a sideways way, involving a crashed ship from mars and a series of murders.

We get to watch Carl interact with humans - and other thirteens - and in the process see all kinds of interesting things about the dystopian society they live in.  This is a deeply uncomfortable world, and humanity is not doing well.

But Morgan's science fiction has that sort of edge about it.  Everything is dirty, and the real motivations for things are hard to find.

In short, this is good stuff, and I highly recommend it.

Oh, and it was published under the name Black Man outside the US, so if you're looking for it elsewhere, that's the name.

Lord Of Light, Roger Zelazny

Title:		Lord Of Light
Author:		Roger Zelazny
Rating:

Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite authors.  His writing is light and quick, with am occasional turn of phrase that leaves me laughing uproariously.   He tackled big and small stories, along with big and small themes.  Not everything he wrote is perfect - like all of us, he had his up and down projects - but I find a lot more hits than misses with his works, at least until near the end of his life.

Lord Of Light is an earlier work, and one I really enjoy.  The story follows a group of colonial humans on a distant planet in the far future.  Some are gods - via technology and/or mutation - who oppress the rest of society.  Among the gods, though, there is one who opposes their rule, and who will fight to free humanity from the tyranny of the few.  He is Sam, and quite a character he is.

It turns out that those in power have taken on the roles of ancient, Hindu deities, and their associated aspects (or powers).  Sam, however, has taken a different path, and is considered a Buddha, among other things, and the conflict between him and his fellow gods is something to see.

In this work we see Zelazny writing when he was young.  I love this book, and reread it every few years just because I can.

The Devil's Eye, Jack McDevitt

Title:		The Devil's Eye
Author:		Jack McDevitt
Rating:

Another Alex Benedict novel, like A Talent For War, Polaris, and Seeker.  Once again we have the usual assortment (in hardish SF) of space ships, aliens, and a threat of some sort that might or might not come from the aliens.

And as with the other books in this series, the actual narrator is Chase Kolpath, Benedict's assistant and pilot.

This time we have a mystery involving a famous writer asking for help and then having her mind wiped - entirely - for no obvious reason.  Benedict and Kolpath start looking and, well aliens and threats ensue.

If this sounds a bit vague, it is.  I read the book a while back and the details have slipped away from me.  I had to open it up and scan a few pages to refresh my memory even that much.

I enjoyed it, but I think my tolerance for this sort of work is dwindling.  There's another book in the series, I see via a quick glance at Amazon, but for now I think I will pass.  Those who've loved these books will, no doubt, want to read Echo, but I am off onto other things.

Snake Oil Science, R. Barker Bausell

Title:		Snake Oil Science
Author:		R. Barker Bausell
Rating:

If you have any interest in alternative medicine, or any belief that it might be real, this is something you should read.

Bausell is a biostatistician - a specialist in looking at the math behind scientific studies of medical treatments - and he spent time doing that for CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) for the NIH, among other things.

In this book he spends a lot of time going over how science is (or should be) done, and documenting exactly what the placebo effect is and at least partly how it actually works.  Then he goes on a quest to find good science showing that any kind of CAM therapy works.

Not to give it away, but from the title you've probably guessed it: he finds essentially nothing.  The few positive studies have all kinds of issues - of the sort that Bausell is an expert in identifying - and the result is that they fall in the noise category.  If you use TCM, acupuncture, chiropractic, chelation, various herbal remedies, and so on, it turns out the evidence says all you're getting is the placebo effect, nothing more.

I would give this book a top mark review but I suspect it could have been edited down just a bit, to avoid it dragging in a couple of places.  The content is great, though.  No problems there.

I am sad to say, though, that most of those who need to read it won't.  Those who believe in CAM aren't usually open to the idea that it's a sham.

Oh... and for those who might not have heard it before, here's a related joke:

Q: What do you call and alternative medical therapy that actually works?
A: Medicine.

The Lisbeth Salander Series, Stieg Larsson

Title:		The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo The Girl Who Played With Fire The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest
Author:		Stieg Larsson
Rating:

I am very late to the party on these, but I did enjoy them when I finally got around to reading them.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is quite good.  It introduces new and complex characters well, and even manages to overcome my lack of knowledge about Sweden without coming across like a textbook.  Bloomkvist is an interesting person, and feels real, but Salander is the heart of the book as I read it, and the central mystery of her story is what the subsequent books follow.

Book two - The Girl Who Played With Fire - suffers from a very long and slow introduction.  150 pages in I almost gave up, but then it picked up.  Larsson was positioning his pieces and getting ready to tell his story.  I could wish he'd done so more quickly or in a way that didn't drag on so long, but the rest of the book is quite good, and we start understanding Salander's background and the reasons she is who she is.  It ends on a cliff hanger, though, so be prepared with the last book if you go down this route.

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest picks up right where TGWPWF leaves off; no introduction, no summary.  It just jumps right into the middle of the action, which is where Larsson's writing shines.  We watch as Salander (with the aid of Bloomkvist) deals with the rest of the fallout from her childhood and the story comes to a close.

There are a few things I might quibble with in the overall plot, and Salander's software and hacker skills aren't as realistic as I - a programmer by trade - would have liked, but overall it isn't too bad.  With the exception of the intro to TGWPWF, Larsson wrote well, and I am sorry we won't see more works by him.  Good stuff.

The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov

Title:		The Gods Themselves
Author:		Isaac Asimov
Rating:

This was a recommendation from somewhere, but I honestly don't recall who it was that suggested it.

It was originally published in 1972 and it reads like it, which, alas, is a problem I have with a lot of science fiction of late.

In this one Asimov was playing with parallel universes, parallel people/beings in those universes, and the end of the world (or worse).  Alas he was also writing about the kinds of personal interactions and sex his various characters might have, and (IMO) not writing about those things all that well.

And for as bright as he was I don't feel like he did the science justice here.  The potential for ending the world could have been handled in a much more convincing way.

The end result isn't all that interesting, sad to say.

Still, there was a story here, and it held my interest to some degree.  Not awful, just not as good as I think it could have been.

And yet this won both a Hugo and a Nebula in 1973.  Really?  My standards must be really different.

Seeker, Jack McDevitt

Title:		Seeker
Author:		Jack McDevitt
Rating:

Seeker is another Alex Benedict novel by Jack McDevitt.  Set in the far future, Seeker tells the story of a group of people fed up with earth who make their exit and hope to establish a new society on another planet.  Well, actually, it tells that story from the perspective of Chase Kolpath, Alex Benedict's assistant, thousands of years after the actual event.  She and Alex follow some clues that lead in the direction of that ancient story and wind up, well, you should read it for yourself.

As with earlier Benedict novels, I have some mild reservations about telling the story from Chase's perspective rather than Alex's, but it holds together and is a pretty good read.

With the obvious exception of the Mutes and their unexplained telepathic communication, this is basic, hard SF.  There is faster than light travel with rules, a society spread among the stars, and a few complications and limits that keep things interesting.

So far I like McDevitt overall, and this holds up well compared with the other works of his that I have read.

Recommended if you like real SF.

Polaris: Jack McDevitt

Title:		Polaris
Author:		Jack McDevitt
Rating:

Polaris is the second novel in the Alex Benedict series by Jack McDevitt. I briefly reviewed the first - A Talent For War - some time back.

Set in the far future, Polaris describes Alex Benedict's efforts to understand how and why the crew of the ship Polaris disappeared.  Benedict is a dealer in antiquities, not a detective, so his take on things can be different from that of someone "in the business".

The story is actually told from the perspective of his assistant and pilot, Chase Kolpath, and that is perhaps the weakest link in the novel.  Telling it from the perspective of someone other than Benedict lets important realizations (and some events) happen off stage, so we only find out about them later.  It may be a reasonable way to maintain the story and keep the reader guessing, but it feels a bit forced at times.  Not horribly bad, though... just a bit off.

I enjoyed the novel for what it is - a detective story in an unusual environment - and found it pretty good reading.  Enough to cause me to start the next in the series now.

Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy

Title:		Blood Meridian
Author:		Cormac McCarthy
Rating:

I cannot read this book.  I read one and a half chapters and gave up.

A while back I read - and thoroughly disliked - The Road, another work by McCarthy.  It was, however, the only thing by him I had read, and I thought I would give him another try.

Mistake.  Big mistake.

This book is just about as unreadable as The Road.  The prose is deliberately stilted, and convention - like quotes around dialog and apostrophes in contractions - is ignored.

In a nutshell, it's junk.  I couldn't comfortably follow it, and was disinterested in it - and the characters involved - nearly immediately.

The only reason I am not giving it the worst possible rating is because I didn't finish it, and I cannot in good conscious do that to something I didn't fully read.  That said, I did flip around after giving up, and no, it clearly gets no better.   The complaints above apply from page one right through the end.

I won't be reading any more McCarthy.  Not my thing.

The Varieties of Scientific Experience: Carl Sagan

Title:		The Varieties of Scientific Experience
Author:		Carl Sagan
Rating:

The Varieties of Scientific Experience is a printed version of Carl Sagan's Gifford Lectures, originally presented in 1985.  In them he discusses his views on religion, science, the search for extra-terrestrial life, and philosophy.

These are engaging, and quite possibly very useful to someone without a deep training in atheism.  Sagan's sense of wonder at the natural world comes through, as does his openness to many things, even as he indirectly points out the problems and contradictions with much of modern religion.

A good read, particularly for those wondering about their religious faith.

The Entire Harry Potter Series: J. K. Rowling

Title:		The Entire Harry Potter Series
Author:		J. K. Rowling
Rating:

The final Harry Potter movie has shipped on DVD and will be here soon, which means it was time to reread the entire series as part of my ongoing interest in how books are changed as they become movies.

As you might expect, the earlier books in this series suffer less change than the later ones, where Rowling had the ability to ship 800 page books without fear.  Getting such monsters into a single movie - or even two - is tough.

Overall I think the screen writer did a pretty good job.  In many cases entire sub plots are dropped out, and other things are re-ordered and/or simplified to make them work better on the screen.  I found the number of times that lines or actions given to one character in the books are given to someone else in the movies amusing, but it makes sense since hard core fans will recognize those kinds of things.

There are a few places in the movies where things are simply not explained.  They're pretty subtle, but there.  A simple example: the kids take the Hogwarts Express train from London to the school.  Clearly that trip takes a few hours, based on how it is described.  But when they fly to London on thestrals, the movie glosses over the time required, whereas the books tell you that thestrals fly really fast, apparently much faster than the train.  Other small stuff is like that.  The movie doesn't explicitly say Draco repaired the vanishing cabinet, nor why it needed repair in the first place, but the books tell you that, and so on.

If I have a beef with these books, it's the King's Cross bit towards the end of Deathly Hallows.  Harry desperately wanted to see is godfather again, but that didn't happen.  There's some indication that he will meet him again - when he (Harry) dies - but clearly no way to talk to him now.  Then, however, we have a long discussion with Dumbledore in Harry's imagined King's Cross station.  Why?  How?  Rowling doesn't explain that well enough for me, nor why Harry didn't meet Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks there too.   Others might not have minded, but it bugged me as I read it.

Still, these are fun books.  They keep readers of any age interested and wondering what is going to happen.  Rowling's world is deep enough and complex enough that it feels real, which is the sign of a good author in my mind.

I'll read these again at some point.  Good stuff.

Sleeping With The Devil: Robert Baer

Title:		Sleeping With The Devil
Author:		Robert Baer
Rating:

Sleeping With The Devil is Robert Baer's book about the US relationship with Saudi Arabia.  While it is profoundly disturbing at times, there are places where I don't think he fully supports his arguments.  In addition, events have surpassed his vision of reality.

Published in 2003, Baer worries about the affect of very high oil prices on the US economy that might result from instabilities and problems within Saudi Arabia.  He worries about oil getting up to or over $100 per barrel, but that has already happened.  See, for example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brent_Spot_monthly.svg

I am sure that the price of oil has deepened our economic problems, but it, singly, has not brought down the world's economy as Baer seemed to fear.

In any case, the issues Baer highlights about the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia - mostly in the form of our relationship with the Saudi royal family - are troubling.  Any number of great arguments for energy independence can be made starting from concerns about oil, and I think there is a lot of truth there.

In short, an interesting book, but how much it reflects reality now I am not sure.

Illium and Olympos: Dan Simmons

Title:		Illium and Olympos
Author:		Dan Simmons
Rating:

Argh... lots of time spent on these before giving up.

I read all of Illium, the first in a 2 volume set by Dan Simmons set in the far future.  In it, for reasons that I still don't know, a group of gods and humans is acting out something like the story told in The Illiad but on a terraformed Mars, or something like that.  A set of humans on Earth is struggling to figure out what they really are, and a set of moravecs - effectively cyborgs that are mostly machine, with wetware brains interfaced to their computers - based around the outer planets is worried about unusual physics in the Mars area, and so sends a small team to investigate.

Olympos is the continuation of the story, but I stopped reading just under halfway through that book because it is all just too disjoint and silly for me to keep going.  Lots of things didn't make sense to me once Olympos got started, as if Simmons had a bunch of new things and ideas to add to the series at that point and just did so without worrying about how things interacted with the contents of Illium.

As a result, Simmons - famous for the Hyperion series - just couldn't make these work for me.

I was kind of OK with Illium, but none of the characters except the moravecs were all that interesting.  The humans on earth are too dumb to live, the humans (or whatever they are) bringing The Illiad to life have no business being where they are and are thus unexplained in an irritating way, the Greek gods they interact with are too arbitrary and stupid for words, and the "scholic" Hockenberry is so far beyond unexplained that his presence and actions drove me crazy.

These books are long and definitely needed a serious editing.  Illium clocks in at 725 pages in my paperback edition, while Olympos is 891 pages.  I know there is an argument saying that sometimes authors need that sort of room for their story, and I fully understand that, just not in this case.  Simmons needed to put these books on a serious diet.

If you really want to know, it was Setebos that drove me away.  Simmons is playing with a bunch of different literary references, well above and beyond The Illiad.  I was OK with that despite not having read most of them, but by the time we get descriptions of Setebos and what he/she/it is doing on at least one copy of Earth, I could no longer sustain the willing suspension of disbelief.  I plowed on for a while longer, but then stopped.  Whenever I had the time and desire to read but faced picking Olympos back up, I did something else instead.  After a week of not reading I decided the problem was serious enough to give up.

For me, Illium and Olympos are failures.  I suggest reading other things.

A Talent For War, Jack McDevitt

Title:		A Talent For War
Author:		Jack McDevitt
Rating:

A Talent For War is pretty good science fiction.  It's set in the far future, after humanity has had first contact with aliens, and fought a war with them.  The story revolves around someone trying to find out what really happened to a war hero who turned the tide of that battle.

I found the characters reasonably well developed, though not perfect, the descriptions of future technology were interesting and well done, and the story moved along at a good clip, mostly without bogging down.  From me, given my recent reactions to science fiction, that's high praise.

If I have a complaint it is that some of the story winds up being a bit opaque, and I am still not entirely clear on what really happened in the history being described.  Then again it is, after all, history, and that may well be deliberate.

There are two more books in the series, or so I am informed: Polaris and Seeker.  I will probably look them up.

The Art Of Demotivation, E. L. Kersten, PH.D

Title:		The Art of Demotivation
Author:		E. L. Kersten, PH.D
Rating:

What to say about this book?  It's a tough one to review.

I've seen bunches of business fads come and go in my time in the high tech industry.  I have seen offshoots of the human empowerment movement, various ways of categorizing people by communication style, and a zillion pep rallies of various forms.  They were all, in a word, crap.

I am a cynic, though, and I admit it.

When I learned of this book from the chief of Despair, Inc. - the makers of Demotivators (tm) and other amusements - it seemed like it might be a funny read.  I wish that had been the case.

Kersten's tome comes across as all too serious.  I think it's supposed to be humor, but if so it didn't work that well for me.  His thesis - that management is better off creating a demotivating work environment in which employees will resign themselves to their fate, thus costing the company less in benefits (and related expenses), taking fewer chances, and even being so paranoid about keeping their jobs that they won't leave as often - sounds all too real to me in this day and age.

Personally I've been lucky in much of my work.  I've had a few enlightened employers and some good managers, so I have seen how a good work environment can function.  In my own time in management I've done my best to make things work like that for my employees too.  But I have also seen some of the darker side of things, and I know many who have seen far worse.  Kersten's suggestions could be marching orders in far too many cases.

While I suspect his tongue really is firmly in his cheek, that only came through effectively (for me) when he briefly discussed how senior management should be treated, and how they need to be kept apart from employees.  A couple of those sections caused me to smirk, at least.

But nothing caused a belly laugh, and I can imagine someone who isn't in on the joke thinking this is a real blueprint for how to manage a company.  It's that dry and straight in its presentation.

As a result I am not sure this book is successful.  Maybe if you've read a bunch of books on management theory the jokes are more obvious, but I found myself cringing too many times at how close to reality his "recommendations" are in far too many cases.  Ever since the MBAs starting running the zoo companies are less human and less caring.  Squeezing every last dime out of an operation doesn't leave room for anything as simple as having fun in the office.  The Art Of Demotivation could easily make that worse as far as I can tell.

Atheist Universe: David Mills

Title:		Atheist Universe
Author:		David Mills
Rating:

Atheist Universe is an excellent introduction to the atheist point of view. It covers a wide ranging set of topics from a straight forward, "this is why we think that" perspective. If you're an atheist but not used to defending your turf, this book will help you see how do so. If you're wondering how someone can get along without believing in God, this book will explain it.

It isn't a perfect volume, though. Really deep explanations - the actual underlying science - isn't here. That's not a problem, really, and it would make the book vastly larger to include even a small portion of it. Mills summarizes it when needed, and he mostly gets it right. The years since the last update and the fact that I am better read them him in a few areas give me a couple of minor quibbles with his statements, but they don't invalidate his arguments.

More problematic is his style, which is somewhat "in your face". Some would call it aggressive or pushy. Others might call it calling a spade a spade. Regardless, he isn't afraid to tell you what he thinks is right, and in this era of political correctness I enjoyed much of it.

There is one chapter - on Christian fundamentalists and internet porn - which seems out of place to me, but the rest is pretty solid stuff. If you want deeper arguments - covering the philosophy or science in depth - you need to look elsewhere, but if you want a summary of why an atheist might think the things s/he does, this is a fine place to start. Just be prepared to be challenged if you come from that perspective. Mills is confident that all religion is silly and says so. I happen to agree with him.

Willful Creatures, Aimee Bender

Title:		Willful Creatures
Author:		Aimee Bender
Rating:

Willful Creatures is a collection of short stories by Aimee Bender. These came highly recommended and I was looking forward to reading this volume. Sadly, though, they didn't stick with me.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy reading them. I did, in a way, but life has been busy and now, just a few weeks later, I cannot remember any of them without flipping the book open to renew my memory.

What I do recall from reading the book is that the behavior and motivations of the characters seemed rather arbitrary. I know these are short stories so I don't expect the kind of character development I'd get in a novel, but then again I do expect to see something, some explanation for what they do or why they do it. That was lacking.

The situations were interesting - they must have been or I would have abandoned the book - but there was something lacking in the motivations that kept me from being sucked in as deeply as I might have otherwise.

I suspect that Bender has a consistent style. If you've read other works by her and liked them it is likely you will like this. Alternately if you didn't like her other works, then you probably won't appreciate this one much. If you're not sure, reading it won't cost you much time - it is a quick read, and most stories are very short - and you can make up your own mind. For me, I think I am done with Bender's short fiction. It's not bad, but there is lot that I would rather read.

Three Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser books, Fritz Leiber

Title:		Three Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser books
Author:		Fritz Leiber
Rating:

These are the first three in the Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser series by Fritz Leiber:

1. Swords And Devilty
   
2. Swords Against Death
   
3. Swords In the Mist
   

These are fluff, pure and simple, though they are somewhat fun fluff. After reading all three of these books none of the characters except Fafhrd and the Mouser themselves are at all memorable, but that's OK. Each has a magical advisor/nemesis as well - one with seven eyes, I recall - but I can't tell you their names nor which goes with which main character.

I found the plots somewhat thin and the resolutions somewhat weak, but that really didn't bother me. I think reading these books is about the atmospherics. Many of the tropes of fantasy are present in them - a thieves guild, mysterious mages of unspeakable power, strange events, etc.

The most disappointing thing about these books is how much action takes place off stage. It seems that Leiber is always telling us that there were other adventures that the heroes have been on that set the stage for what they're seeing and doing now, but we never hear about those adventures except for the sentence telling us they happened.

These are not great literature, but they are kind of fun. I might read more - there are seven or eight, at least, in the series - or I might not. Time will tell.

Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale, Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee

Title:		Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
Authors:		Joss Whedon, Zack Whedon, Chris Samnee
Rating:

The Shepherd's Tale is a short graphic novel given much of the back story behind Shepherd Book, one of the characters from Firefly and Serenity. I enjoyed it greatly, but I am a fan. In truth it's a quick read, but it seems important back story for the series. I wish it could have been fleshed out in the original medium, though, rather than in book form.

An interesting device is the telling of the shepherd's story in reverse, starting at the Haven Mining Colony and working back through his life, linking formative incidents and events in a chain.

Recommended for fans. Those who don't know Firefly and Serenity need not bother until they do know them.