Book review-o-rama part one
I am hugely behind on these book reviews. I figured I’d start with the ones by friends. 🙂
Tales of the Atlantic Pirates and Tales Of The Jersey Devil are both by Geoff Girard. I went to college with him, and we found these on Amazon and had to pick them up. We’re alas, not in touch anymore, but I am glad to see that he kept up with the writing! The Jersey Devil was something that I had never really read into before, so it was great to learn more about that myth; and the pirate stories range from the swashbuckling to the surprisingly sensitive. Plus the historical research is great.
Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present is Cory’s latest short story collection, and it features the usual batch of award nominees and winners. 🙂 Among the stories here are “Anda’s Game,” which I think every MMO player and operator should read — I first read it in manuscript in a London hotel, and it’s great to have it in print finally. My favorite story may actually be “I, Rowboat,” the tale of a sentient rowboat, follower of the Asimovist religion, who has to deal with an actual human tourist on a post-Singularity Earth, and with an uplifted coral reef.
Ragamuffin is Toby Buckell’s follow-up to the highly entertaining Crystal Rain. It’s set in the same multiethnic universe, but this time, we get a glimpse of the wider political universe rather than just the action on the colony of Nanagada. It’s very fast-paced, which sometimes maybe keeps us from feeling too much for the characters — but boy, the aliens are great and the setting is fascinating, and who can resist a zipline crossing of an entire space habitat, powered by machine guns, while under fire from mind-controlled zombies? You know you wanna.
The Last Colony is the apparent conclusion of the story begun back in the superlative Old Man’s War. John Scalzi here lays out a colony world, once again drawing on Heinleinian inspiration in a few spots, but also digs deep into the politics of the overall setting. All in all, a fitting capstone to the trilogy.
Other recent arrivals by friends htat I haven’t had the chance to read yet: Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media; Smart Start-Ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities; and of course, the Syndicate sent me The Legend of the Syndicate: A History of Online Gaming’s Premier Guild. Oh, and I was slipped a manuscript copy of Ted Castronova’s book, which I think may be rather controversial. 🙂 But I can’t tell you about it yet!
Whew. Upcoming: one on books and one on comics. But that’s for another day.
2 Responses to “Book review-o-rama part one”
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This is so strange. I got to your site by doing a Google search on my own name and “San Dimas” (long story!) and one of the first hits was your “As we drove through San Dimas…” entry.
But this is so strange, because I was in the beta for UO and I argued with you on usenet a million (seems like) times, there!
Seems like a small world, sometimes 🙂
By the way, the Circle K really is in San Dimas! Seems like all I ever see down there is cops and derelicts though :O
I’m not really a fan of your work… if I told you the handle I used on usenet you’d probably remember it… but best of luck on your new project. I’m not a PC gamer (or a gamer at all, really) anymore, but maybe a few good titles can change that 🙂
Raph: glad you enjoyed the second book! And thanks for the nice words about it.