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Bad Luck and Trouble
By Lee Child
The next installment (paperback) of the Reacher franchise. In this Reacher meets up with his old unit to avenge a comrade's death. Unlike the previous Reacher book, Child is back to good solid thriller fare, and the book is an enjoyable testosterone romp. The twists are enough that I didn't guess them - in fact my basic premise of whodunnit was wrong all the way through. I nearly gave up on Lee Child after the last book, and a cheap offer at WSmiths persuaded me to give him a try - glad I did!

Posted at: 20:14:24 30 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

Odd and the Frost Giants
By Neil Gaiman
Gaiman's entry for World Book Day. I bought it with a £1 voucher I had left over from Christmas -it felt appropriate and read it this morning. Its about Odd, who runs away from his Viking village, and why the winter hasn't ended, and its just perfect.

Posted at: 10:05:54 29 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

Murder In Canton
By Robert Van Gulik
In this edition; what hapened to Ma-Jong once he married the twins, Is Tao Gan as much of a misogenist as has been let on, and does he have reason? Will the Judge find the missing Censor in time to sort ot the problems in the capital, of which he is now Chief Justice?
The world of Judge Dee will never be the same again!

Posted at: 10:26:14 23 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

Blood Engines
By T.A. Pratt
I think I bought this from an Amazon 'people who bought also bought' recommendation. If thats the case, other people are morons. This was terrible. I mean, really, really, bad - so bad I couldn't even get half way through. Having done NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago, I know I could write as well or better than than - and I've only written the one thing and never gone back and revised it!
Cardboard characterisations, wish fulfillment characters, pitiable morality and bad plot. Euurgh.

Bloody Tolstoy, ruining my enjoyment of trash.

Posted at: 10:25:36 23 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

Lars and the Real Girl
A and I saw this on a whim on Friday at the Arts Cinema. Funny and clever - exactly what you might expect, but also so much more depth and characterisation.

Posted at: 10:25:16 23 Mar 2008 [] permanent link

Throne Of Jade
By Naomi Novak
A. bought this after reading my copy of Temeraire, and I read it as soon as she'd finished. I've been reading fairly intermittently recently - a few pages here, a few pages there, and I think this deserved slightly more concentration, as I found it a little disjointed. More my problem than the authors, I feel.
In tis book, the problem of Temeraire being a effectively royal chinese dragon is addressed, as the Chinese want him back. She's obviously done her research, and its written from the western perspective, which left me hungry for more chinese detail but again, thats just me.
Not as strong as her first novel, but I think she's done a good job moving the book into a series, and adding more subplots while simultaneously fleshing out more detail. One of her strengths in the first book was the way she handled the fights, and I found the fight scenes longer here, but perhaps that was just perception. All in all, a good installment in what looks to be a multi book series (at least four that I know of right now).

Posted at: 10:14:02 23 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

BSFA Best Short Story of 2007
I'm currently working my way through the entries for the British Science Fiction Association's short story awards for 2007, via the Starship Sofa podcast, which I came to via Escapepod.
I've been completely blown away by Ted Chiang's story 'The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate'. Its an excellent fantasy/science fiction story written in the style of 'A thousand and one nights' and similar Arabic fantasies, performed superbly by James Campanella. I have no idea if Campanella is Arabic, but he sounded just like I would imagine an Arabic storyteller would sound - having seen (but not understood!) them in the square at Marrakech.
This has all the elements of sci-fi at its best, for all that its fantasy - it takes a scientific idea (limited time travel through fixed point wormholes), and explores it with believable characters and plots that interweave and complement.
Ted Chiang. A man to watch, you mark my words.

Interestingly, he has a book of short stories out (and a hardback limited edition of this story, currently going for nearly sixty quid), and the Synopsis of the book does a very good job of describing the short story I just heard - it sounds like all his stories are like this!

Here are eight astonishing science-fiction stories that explore the boundaries between science and religion, between determinism and our ability to choose, between words and the entities they describe.

Posted at: 22:45:54 17 Mar 2008 [/books] permanent link

Fitzwilliam Museum Recitals
I came to these a little late, only finding out about them when my Violin teacher, who is also a Soprano, gave a room filling (in both senses!) performance last sunday. Its the last performance in the series this 'term' at the weekend;

Sunday Promenade Series, Gallery 3 at 1:15pm
Lyn Carter, Piano
Micheal Wigram, Cello
playing Brahms & Beethoven

Posted at: 07:24:15 6 Mar 2008 [/live] permanent link

Letter to my MP
Dear David Howarth,

I am writing to ask you to attend the Commons on 7 March and stand up and object to a Private Member’s Bill proposed by Pete Wishart regarding copyright extension (Sound Recordings (Copyright Term Extension) Bill 2007-08).  

It is my belief that all the economic evidence points against term extension;

* Every other UK citizen is expected to contribute to their pension out of income earned in their working life.
* Retrospectively extending copyright term won’t encourage Elvis Presley (for example!) to record any more new tracks.
* If governments continue to draft intellectual property legislation on behalf of special interest groups, it will only further erode the respect that ordinary citizens have for the letter of the law.
* An independent review (the Gowers Review) commissioned and endorsed by the UK government says it should remain at 50 years.

You should find the ORG briefing pack on copyright term extension informative, should you wish more information; http://www.openrightsgroup.org/uploads/releasethemusic_aug07.pdf

Yours sincerely,

Posted at: 07:17:03 6 Mar 2008 [] permanent link

The Curse-d database
This database comes with a curse:
I just wasted an hour or worse
On LimerickDb,
Now all that I see
I read as if written in verse.

Posted at: 20:59:46 5 Mar 2008 [] permanent link

RIP Gary Gygax
RIP Gary Gygax
dead at 69
My first introduction to role playing games, like almost everyone was Dungeons and Dragons.
Gygaxs's prose style was tortured and slightly overpompus ('antithesis of the weal'?), but it set the foundation for a lot of other things; an entire hobby you might say.
Seeing Penny Arcade's cartoon, I just had to link to it..

Posted at: 07:55:27 5 Mar 2008 [] permanent link