Object Dart

what i was reading

richard paul russo – unto leviathan (4 february 2012) – the only space opera i’ve ever read that i could not stop reading the last 20-odd pages of.

thomas cahill – how the irish saved civilisation (28 january 2012) – coherently argued text stating that the irish, in point of fact, saved western civilisation. it’s an interesting argument, and one i find myself compelled by.

l. jagi lamplighter - prospero lost (19 january 2012) - didn’t quite finish it before it had to be back at the library. but, a little boring, almost entirely because the author uses the same old tropes. there’s something about authors wanting to include every single historical figure when writing about immortals that is unbelievably tedious. plus, the mythology was a boring rehash of know characters.

michael bollen – earth inc. (11 january 2012) – very humorous tale in the style of the late, great, douglas adams. got a few good chuckles out of this.

bernard cornwell – sword song (18 december 2011) – uthred kills even more danes. if that is at all possible.

stephen jones – zombie apocalypse (16 december 2011) – more zombies, this time risen from the dead after being infected by zombie-creating fleas. meh.

bernard cornwell - the lords of the north (11 december 2011) – ragnar gets to avenge his father when uthred heads north to sort stuff out at the behest of alfred.

margaret atwood – after the flood (6 december 2012) – ultimately disappointing. oryx and crake had the sense of mystery of the last man on earth coping with his isolation and the madness of his past, but this? this was mostly just lame backstory.

bernard cornwell - the pale horseman (29 november 2011) – the follow-up to the last kingdom. alfred all but saves England, perhaps!

bernard cornwell – the last kingdom (23 november 2011) – a rip-snorter and page turner set in the Norsemen’s invasion of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

margaret atwood - oryx and crake (16 november 2011) – another dystopian future earth, in which humanity has all but disappeared. in the ruins sit the snowman, reminiscing about long-lost days.

jack london – The Iron Heel (8 November 2011) a clasic novel set in dystopian future earth. except, it was written in 1907.

joan slonczewski – brain plague (25 october 2011) interesting but ultimately pointless story of a future where people can sometimes have “micros” added to their bloodstream. these little critters talk via flashing lights in your eyes, blah blah. another example of highly creative scifi authors failing to generate “story”

jay lake – pinion (18 october 2011) – third in the alternative earth series. starting to get a little dated. the biggest disappointment being that it was a sequel, not another stand-alone book like escapement.

marcel theroux – far north (5 october 2011) more dystopian ficion. one persons tale of survival after the collapse,

paul auster - in the country of last things (28 september 2011) – dystopian fiction, a letter written from a near future post-apocalypse city.

adam zamoyski -  the rites f peace (21 september 2011) – a very long overview of the congress of vienna. couldn’t *quite* finish it.

neil gaiman – american gods (28 july 2011) – great fun, although the same old kind of derivative.

some dude – a crap book about climate change (1 july 2011)

china mieville - the city and the city (19 june 2011) – this might need an actual blog post)

china mieville – kraken (1 june 2011) – mieville does great cityscape fiction. this time, unLondon gets a go around, with the disappearance of a kraken from a museum it’s curator is introduced to another world.

karl schroeder - the sunless countries (12 may 2011) – more fun. the world of virga sure is getting big.

tony ballantyne – capacity (3 may 2011) – pretty good. had the feel of an *actual* scifi as opposed to space opera.

ruri pilgrim - fish of the inland seto sea (27 apr 2011) – extremely tedious holiday reading off a shelf.

david marusek – mind over ship (11 apr 2011) – a slightly dull, middle of trilogy book. actually quite disappointing

jay lake - madness of flowers (27 mar 2011) - fun, but not as gripping as trial of flowers.

david van edelman – geosynchron (11 mar 2011) – mostly read because it was the third in a trilogy. summary: i’m sick of reading american books with jesus motifs. it is very, very tedious.

james brown – the los angelese diaries (27 feb 2011) bleak personal history of brown’s. poor bastard.

michael cobley – seeds of earth (21 feb 2011) – highly enjoyable space opera, with actual depth! looking to read more in this series.

marianne de pierres – dark space (1 feb 2011) – space opera with some dramatic elements. took a little while to get to understand the universe, then i was away. not much to write home about.

kit reed – enclave (23 jan 2011) an extremely ordinary bit of sci fi.

grahame green - our man in havana (8 jan 2011)

nancy kress – steal across the sky (28 december 2010) – nice premise, but ultimately disappointing tale. aliens seeking to atone for an ancient crime that turns out to be completely ridiculous. further – a completely pretentious title.

neal asher - voyage of  the sable keech (19 december 2010) – zombies, pirates AND cyborgs. this pedestrian space opera really tries to hit all the bases. and fails. dull as dishwater.

neal asher – prador moon (11 december 2010) – title is the biggest giveaway, EVER.

jonathan lethem – chronic city (5 December 2010) – both good and weird. i spent half the book wondering if the characters actually lived in second life?

alan ward – a show of justice

gregory benford – cosm

harry pearson - actung schweinehund! (8 september 2010)

adam zamoyski – 1812: napoleon’s fatal march on moscow (22 august 2010) – awesome read.

rudy rucker – hyloxoic (21 july 2010) – meh.

jaine fenn – consorts of heaven (9 july 2010) – pedestrian sci-fi…

john steinbeck – the grapes of wrath (juneish 2010)

steig larson - the girl with the dragon tattoo (23 may 2010) – pretty average murder mystery, but with added S&M. ho-hum

alan ward – a show of justice (27 April 2010)

michael flynn – in the country of the blind (7 Feb 2010)

martin sketchley – the affinity trap (15 jan 10)

michael flynn – eifelheim (14 Jan 10)

michael flynn – the january dancer (4 January 10)

david louis edelman – multireal (30 dec 09)  sequel to a prologue and not so snazzy. was expecting more, and while the tech ideas are interesting, the story itself kind of limps along. won’t be reading the third installment unless i really have to.

Neal Asher – Shadow of the Scorpion (24 Dec 09) – meh. not so great. not so bad. a decent holiday read. basically a thriller cum space opera.

bernard cornwell – sharpe’s rifles (19 Dec 09) – ripping yarn outlining richard sharpe’s time in spain during some of the pennisula campaign

jay lake – green (16 Dec 09)

stephen hunt – the kingdom beyond the waves (10 Dec 09)

john meaney – to hold infinity (4 Dec 09)

david louis edelman – infoquake (26 Nov 09)

Alexander Mikaberidze - the battle of borodino: napoleon against kutuzov (20 Nov 09)

jaine fenn – principles of angels (11 Nov 09) - a ripping thriller cum space opera set in a floating city. thoroughly enjoyable.

michael adams – napoleon and russia (5 Nov 09)

anthony birley - marcus aurelius: a bibliography – (12 Oct 09) an interesting biography where the author sticks to demonstrable facts largely informed by primary sources. this means there is a lot of discussion of correspondence between marcus and his main teacher fronto. on average, dull.

william gibson – all tomorrow’s parties – (27 Sept 09) a well-told story and pretty much wat you’d expect from gibson. the future is a weird place apparently.

john ralston saul – voltaire’s bastards. – (20 Sept 09) i really tried. but you just have to think so damn hard. maybe when Chef Du Plunge is a little older.

ian macdonald – brasyl

whitley strieber – 2012 – (12 September 09) awful on so many levels. here, aliens descend from a parallel universe to plunder earth. but… it’s actually a parallel eart have to try save the other parallel earth from the parallel earth full of reptilian aliens. that, and everything is all wrapped up in CHEESY quasi-religious mythology. avoid.

$karl schroeder  – pirate sun  (8 September 2009 – Another go on the roller-coaster. This time Mr. Fanning gets to adventure in Virga.

walter mosley – the wave (4 September 09) a guy is woken to someone calling him late at night. turns out his father is… RESURRECTED! interesting if not only because the author is black, and constantly refers to characters by their skin colour?

karl schroeder – queen of candesce (30 August 09) another rollicking tale of virga, this time centring on the least likable of the sun of suns characters, venera fanning.

iain m. banks - matter - a redemption story for a spoiled brat of a prince who sees his father murdered.

karl schroeder – sun of suns

roger zelazny – lord of light

china mieville – the iron council

j.g. ballard – vermillion sands – bit 70s, and a bit dull, though imaginative (23 July 2009)

david marusek - counting heads

j.g. ballard – concrete island

john r. alden – history of the american revolution

china mieville – the scar

harry harrison – a transatlantic tunnel, hurrah!

william gibson and bruce sterling – the difference engine

jay lake – mainspring

jay lake - rocket science

orson scott card – ender’s game

jay lake – dogs in the moonlight

nicky hager – the hollow men

catherine asaro – catch the lightning

M.S. Anderson – war and society in europe of the old regime 1618-1789

sherri tepper – grass

neil gaiman – neverwhere

charles stross – glasshouse

david brin – earth

dan simmons – hyperion

bruce sterling – the caryatids

carol b. stevens – russia’s wars of emergence - fascinating, but has been shelved for a  little bit.

ben okri – the famished road – have read this before, and i’m never going to finish it, because it was a stop-gap… that said, GREAT book.

arthur c. clarke – the fountains of paradise

charles stross - saturn’s children

china mieville – perdido street station

kim stanley robinson – red mars.

daniel miller – the comfort of things – 29 January 2009 - highly interesting bit of social anthropology, but there were sooo many vignettes it got a little much.

henryk sienkiewicz - with fire and sword

jay lake – trial of flowers

h. g. wells - the sleeper awakes

jay lake – escapement

robert a. heinlein - the moon is a harsh mistress

greg egan – permutation city

alexander solzhenitsyn – a day in the life of ivan denisovich – 26.11.08 – a classic and oft-referred to novel, but stuffed if i could figure out why it deserved the novel prize…

dbc pierre – vernon god little - 22.11.08

hugh kennedy – the great arab conquests – 16.11.08 – this is a very, very good ‘military’ history of the arab conquest. it uses primary sources, is well-balanced, and a genuinely interesting read.

rodney collomb – the rise and fall of the arab empire – 1.11.08 – an extremely mediocre, high-level history of the middle east and the various empires that swept through after the arab conquest. collomb’s main contribution to appears to be listing how successive leaders died, something he relishes.

jeff vandermeer – veniss underground

vernor vinge – across realtime – this is a compendium of two novels. the first, the peace war is a good read, and a bit of a sci-fi legend. the second, marooned in realtime, is not.

james belich – paradise reforged – i think i need to face facts. i’m never reading this book…

s.m. stirling – the sky people – this novel has a great premise. set on an inhabitable venus, the cold war has come to outer space. at first the writing was quite simply alarming, but i hung in there see if it improved. short answer no. all the actual dramatic fun was scheduled in the last 50 pages… which was too little too late.

john meane – paradox – a fairly conventional scifi. think dune, but with overtones of the universal hero story. the guy has a good imagination, but the science seemed contrived, and the story kind of wandered at points where it should have gotten gritty. all in all? meh.

jonathan lethem – fortress of solitude – a great read. i’ve enjoyed a lethem where he wirtes abotu what he knows, which seems to be 1970s and 80s brooklyn. this book is gritty, a little challenging, and just plain interesting. that said, it loses it’s way towards the end, which is a pity. otherwise, a curiousity.

james lee burke – julie blon’s bounce - highly enjoyable read. a murder mystery in contemporary southern louisiana.

clay shirky - here comes everybody – sigh. (bad sigh. this shit was annoying)

rudy rucker - the hollow earth – a great story from the ‘hollow earth’ genre, which i only just discovered is an actual genre! rucker has a great imagination, and takes us on a simple, pulpy trip into the centre. recommened, alough light. i hated the man character after a few pages, but he grew on me. which i think was the intention?

ken follet - world without end - in a word, turgid. this tome drags on for over a thousand pages, and just wouldn’t bloody end. i hung in there to see if what was supposed to be a key plot device actually lived up to its promise. short answer, no.

charles stross - halting state

some guy - wikinomics- entirely conventional pseudo-lessons on how wikis and mass collaboration work. probably best considered as a entry-level guide to the sport. otherwise, boring.

philip k dick - a scanner darkly

kurt vonnegut – slaughterhouse five

james surowiecki – the wisdom of crowds – an enjoyable bit of pop-science that starts with lots of great information, then appears to slide into a discussion of “the market”. recommended.

normal mailer - the fight

hugh fearnley-whittingstall – the river cottage meat book – a great tome of lessons on how to cook meat. thoroughly enjoyable.

jack mcdevitt – odyssey – dull space opera with little direction and no real story.

neil gaiman – smoke and mirrors – interesting a quirky, a collection of short stories and poems by gaiman across the entire length of his career. but… not interesting enough for me to finish it. maybe if i owned a copy i’d read it slowly, but too many stories seemed to make too little sense. maybe this is his “b-list” of work (3.5.08 )

lloyd jones – mr pip – a beautiful book that pays too little homage to the horrors of the war in bouganville. written simply and effectively, but with hidden depths that will have me returning to figure out more of what jones hid between the lines.

charles stross – singularity sky – a great story, and a great space opera with something resembling a hard-core of science underlying it. once again stross’ imagination is far and above other recent sci-fi readers.

buddhism for dummies

a. mackay – spain in the middle ages: from frontier to empire

john scalzi – old man’s war - great premise, but the story simply doesn’t follow through. it’s a pity, because the characters are authentic and enjoyable people. unfortunately scalzi turns what could have been a great story into a very, very weak version of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

philip k. dick – galatic pot-healer – i’m glad i’ve forgotten a lot of the stuff from the biography of dick. made this an enjoyable, if not slightly quirky read. it’s about a pot-healer who is summoned to another planet to help raise a mystical cathedral.

jeff vandermeer – city of saints and madmen - a great read. provided the background to shriek, and had some genuinely funny foreshadowing that book.

christopher tolkien – the children of hurin

jeff vandermeer – shriek: an afterword

chris trotter – no left turn

j.d. salinger - a catcher in the rye

f.w. walbank - the hellenistic world

malcolm vale – war and chivalry

jon courtney grimwood – effendi

jonathan lethem – girl in landscape

jon courtney grimwood – end of the world blues

liam callanan – the cloud atlas

ursula le guin – the birthday of the world

isaac asimov – the gods themselves

jonathan lethem – amnesia moon

john m. harrison – light

m.k. joseph – a soldier’s tale

tony williams – cassino

jonathan lethem – motherless brooklyn

john burdett – bangkok tattoo

stanislaw lem – the star diaries

john burdett – bangkok 8

tom robbins – fierce invalids home from hot climates

ursula le guin – the left hand of winter

maurice shadbolt – the new zealanders

ursula le guin – the lathe of heaven

jose saramago – blindness

albert camus – the plague

isaac asimov – foundation

david cohen – a perfect world

neal stephenson – snow crash

neil gaiman – stardust

thomas pynchon – the crying of lot 49

c.s. lewis – perelandra

stanislaw lem – solaris

charles leadbeater – living on thin air

arthur c. clarke – the lion of comarre, and against the fall of night

jamie oliver – cooking with jamie

c.s. lewis – out of the silent planet

do androids dream of electric sheep? – philip k. dick

a fire upon the deep – vincent vinge

valis – philip k. dick

cat’s cradle – kurt vonnegut jr.

accelerando – charles stross

divine invasions: a life of philip k. dick, lawrence sutin

les halles cookbook, anthony bourdain

iron sunrise, charles stross

veniss underground, jeff vandermeer

the atrocity archives, charles stross

jitterbug perfume, tom robbins

the algebraist, iain m. banks

ubik, phillip k. dick

the dispossessed, ursula le guin

midnight’s children moor’s last sigh, salman rushdie

the sirens of mars – kurt vonnegut jr.