Finger info for chunky@icculus.org...

[2004-01-05]

Forgot to mention two books:
Sidney Sheldon's "The Sky is Falling". Thorough mindless trash. I read it
in about two hours on the airplane, as time-fodder. The story was good
all the way through, as I've come to expect from him, but the ending
simply cleaned up one loose end. Just one.
And there were many many ends that weren't cleaned up. The book kinda
just stopped. c.f. Eaters of the Dead.


The other book, actually the first one I read this holday, was
incredible. One of the best books I've read in a long time.
"The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. It's written from the perspective
of a girl who's killed, rather unpleasantly, while she's still really
young. I'm happy to confess that I'm a complete wuss and that violence
doesn't really do it for me. I nearly put the book down at the end of the
first chapter, but since it was apparent the rest of the book wouldn't
be like that, I carried on.

The whole book is written from her perspective, sitting up in Heaven. As
it goes, once you die and go there. From there, she can do pretty much
whatever she pleases, except go back. Including reading people's minds
and instantly knowing what's going on wherever she wants. Normally my
mind rebels and simply refuses to accept stuff like that, but this was
written in a way that just never seemed a problem to me. And I REALLY
enjoyed this book. It's about how a bunch of people deal with a little
girl's death. And for anyone who reads it, Ruthie can be my new hero.


Currently, I'm reading "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk,
Something-not-yet-published by Gwyneth Jones [but I need to read it's
predecessor first - I simply don't understand a lot of it, clearly
because it's a continuation], and the Art of UNIX Programming.

Look forward to a bitchy review of the History section of ESR's book
when I remember to bring my notes with me. I've not yet started the
technical bits, but so far there's been an awful lot of RMS-bashing and
self-masturbation, pretty much everything you'd expect from ESR.


[2003-12-28]

I just read "The Reader" today, by Bernard Schlink, or however-you-spell-it.

Fantastic book.

I really enjoyed the whole affair parts of it. The romantic interest,
all that. But the whole thing where it's a book about the holocaust is
a problem for me.

See, I always hated history. And if I hate something, you can be assured
I will go out of my way not to learn it, even if it's an interesting thing
[I mostly hated it because I was forced to do it, IIRC]. So I'm reading
this book, and I didn't:
1) know much about this before I started
2) grow up in Germany

It's really hard for me to grasp a lot of the finer
Germany-and-or-Holocaust parts of the book, because he spends a lot of
time alluding to, floating generally around, and pretty much avoiding
the exact topic he's talking about. If you know stuff about it, then
I'm sure that he's putting an incredible spin on the whole thing,
and extracting new-and-unexperienced emotions from the astute reader.

I, being the backward an uneducated sod that I am, simply didn't grasp
the finer points of the Germany-related stuff, or of what I'm sure were
parallels between the long-running affair and the Holocaust.

Even after all that, it was a fantastic book. I really recommend that
anyone who gets much in the way of reading done reads this.

His other book I've read, "Flights of Love", is also fantastic.


Other books I've read this holiday include "Prey" by Michael Crichton,
and "Dead Air" by Iain Banks.

You know, I never realise quite what a depth there is to Michael
Crichton's books until I see the movie and am so offensively
disappointed. All of his books I've ever read, with the exception of the
Great Train Robbery, I've been able to blast through in a couple of hours
[three at the outside] the first time, and about an hour and a half the
second and subsequent times. Doesn't ever seem like long enough to really
get some good content in. I always really enjoy the book, but after I've
read it I've never felt I read what might qualify as a truly great piece
of writing or a literary classic. Great read, good fun, fabulous stories.

The Great Train Robbery was written in a different style, for good reason
[just read it]

Just by the way: Congo, Jurassic Park [/et al/], Sphere, TimeLine, Great
Train Robbery, Eaters of the Dead [the movie "The Thirteenth Warrior"],
Andromeda Strain, and probably others - all really good reading, and
completely disappointing movies. Notably, the Eaters of the Dead, which
missed out the WHOLE point of the book, IMHO. But also the rest for just
losing out all depth.

"Prey" was a really good read. I recommend that one. Hope they don't
turn it into a movie, because whoever does it will undoubtedly overdo
the special effects and give completely the wrong impression of the
intelligence of the swarm. But that's just my humble opinion, having
read every other one of his books, and watched all the movies where
they're availble.


And now for the disappointment. I hate to say it, but I didn't get a
whole lot out of "Dead Air". Usually Iain Bank's books [and most of his
SF stuff, under Iain M Banks], is really good all the way through. In
fact, his book "The Bridge" is possibly one of my favorite books ever,
with pretty much all of his others high up in my list.

Dead Air has a really good ending. It's gripping for about the last 3 or
4 chapters, had me completely sitting on the edge of my proverbial seat,
for the 15 mins it took me to read them.
Unfortunately, the build up was easy reading but generally dull. Some
guy, who spends a lot of time talking on the radio, having various
bits of illicit sex, and doing drugs. Oh - and does it with a Scottish
accent. Woohoo.

Worth reading for the ending, I guess, but since his
ending-to-end-all-endings in the "Wasp Factory" [incredibly
good book. Seemed humdrum until you got to the end the first time,
and suddenly everything changes], I've been vaguely disappointed with
the endings of many other books.