Existence

I just finished reading Existence by David Brin.

In the end I really enjoyed this one, although there was a period in the middle, probably about 40% of the book which I thought was very drawn out and I think could have done with some heavy editing. The early and late stages flowed really well and were interesting. Clearly, this novel was built from a range of ideas and short stories (the author admits as much at the end) and mostly it works well, but probably it needed some more chopping.
There is some very cool tech in this one. It's near-future, so nothing crazy, but some really good extrapolations of today's tech. In particular, I loved the smart network-integrated contact lenses which are where we'd like Google Glass to get to at some point. This integrated with sub-vocal commands and gesture and focal tracking for input which made for some really seamless personal technology. I enjoyed some of the discussion on how to deal with strong AI as it is developed, with the solution essentially to raise AI like children to teach them human values. There was one particularly cool piece of tech where a video of recorded events was played back at high speed, with an AI interpreting and summarizing the content in the sound, and then as the video was merged into real-time as the viewer caught up, the AI summarized less and less until just the raw feed was left.
Some things annoyed me. Perhaps I'm too sensitive about this, but there were a lot of new words created by taking existing words, and replacing vowels with 'ai', to mean AI enhanced versions of those technologies, such as ailectronic, vaice, aitopilot. They just seemed awkward and annoying to me.
There was a lot of discussion about two topics in particular that formed the main theme of the novel, and they are - coverage of possible extinction events, or problems leading to extinction, and also, the Fermi Paradox. Most of this was really well covered and if you are interested in these topics, then you will definitely enjoy this book.

The Hydrogen Sonata

I love a good Culture novel, and I enjoyed reading The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks at least as much as any of his others.
Since the events in Excession, the ships in the ITG (Interesting Times Gang) seem to have retired from being involved in high level events, but fear not, a new motley crew of minds comes together to meddle, with the best of intentions, in the affairs of another civilization.
As is expected, the ship names and their respective attitudes and humour is colourful and creative, hilarious at times. In particular I enjoyed some of the side-channel communications between ships as they comment on or make fun of other ships behind their backs as it were.
Interesting new tech, weird places, bizzare things. The flat, flying artificial sentient pet drapes itself like a cape; large scale weird alien art, such as a mountain in a windy area holed to produce a massive but complex Sound; the guy with 56 penises driven by four hearts so he can have sex with a record number of people; of course, enough but not overwhelming techno-babble about ship tech when they perform outrageous feats of "disloc", or weapons fire in battles. It's pretty much a constant stream of delight really.
The actual writing was complex but always understandable with a good flow. Banks often uses dashes to separate an aside within a sentence - because, you know, it can be annoying when you get lost in a tangent - to improve readability. I didn't do that very well, but you get the point. Descriptive sentences are often very long and complex, dense with detail, but as long as you are immersed, and not distracted, it really pulls you along.
A fantastic read.
Also, if you enjoy Banks' writing, you should visit here, as he is "officially Very Poorly".

Mindjammer

I just finished reading Mindjammer by Sarah Newton.
I only managed to read half this book as I found it just too annoying. This is only the second time I can remember bailing on a book, but it's quite long and I have lots of books lined up that I'd like to read.
First, the good things. I like some of the tech, hack descriptions, locations and scenery. Mostly the writing wasn't too bad, some cool descriptive word choice and language generally interesting with good flow.
Unfortunately, it was also littered with things that really annoy me. The things below can be found in many if not most books a little, but when they happen constantly and often, I find myself rolling my eyes and sighing and it breaks me out of any captivation.
Naming. Naming is important. OK, calling the activity of going through hyperspace "planing" is borderline, but then calling hyperspace ships "planeships"? Just no. Also, one of the main characters is called Max Proffitt. Guess what his character is like. Eye rolling time.
Use of an interesting, unusual descriptive term is really effective when used occasionally. When everything is coruscating or has coruscation, it's eye rolling time. I found 42 hits on the word variform. Apparently everything is variform in this universe. Which is fine, but after being used the fifteenth time in a descriptive way, it's more eye rolling time. If someone is incandescent with rage, which is a really cool description, each and every time they are upset...
There is a cool instant messenging tech through implants which the characters use to 'cast' eachother. Instead of using quotes, Newton uses a dash at the beginning of the line, like
- Max is right, cast Clay.
to indicate the communication. However, there is no way to tell in such lines, aside from context, whether the last part of the line is being said/cast by the character, or a is follow-up description. Most of the time it's obvious but sometimes I had to re-read it to check, and it started to get very annoying. I've seen other authors use italics, angle brackets, different fonts, to much better effect.
Is it just me, or should the editor be picking this stuff up?

Force Cantrithor

I just finished reading Force Cantrithor by Michael McCloskey.
Force Cantrithor proposes a new kind of space warfare technology based on FTL electromagnetic field manipulation. The tech is pretty cool, but even though FTL travel also exists, I couldn't help having some believability issues with it. In fairness, the characters were also struggling with the paradoxes this might create and some of the other uses of it that come in later in the book, so it has clearly been thought about, and does form the central focus of the novel. In the end I feel fine about that, as this is what SF is all about; pushing some concepts and discovering the ramifications.
The book is written really well, and I especially enjoyed the ending - actually the pacing was good throughout. I thought the character work was quite good. The central character Emil struggles with his abilities and his humanity and the reader learns along with him what his situation truly is and what is really going on. The slow discovery of his story was part of the fun; my guess about halfway through was pretty close to the mark, but still not on it.
Part of the book was clearly setting up for future novels in the series, so I look forward to reading more.

Zero Point

I just finished reading Zero Point, Neal Asher's second in the Owner series.
And I thought the first novel in this series was hugely violent; I actually felt a little nauseous reading some of this. Zero Point takes the wasteful, corrupt, self-serving, brutal leadership of Earth's "Committee" and then completely frees it of restraint, balance, morals and restrictions. The result is a psychotic, damaged, paranoid, control-freak greenie leader who starts laying waste to the Zero Asset part of Earth's population. The results are truly horrible, and this is even before she tortures her father for two weeks straight.
The story is split between Mars, the Argus space station and Earth, and everyone is struggling to survive, obviously except the leader of Earth who has every luxury available and fawning minions trying not to be noticed. Alan Saul with others on the Argus further develops some interesting technology, the distributed brain/processing cubes and androids are very cool. I'm trying not to spoil too much of what develops, but there is certainly plenty to keep a constant interest in events.
I enjoyed most of the characters and their development, although I thought Hannah was a little flat and less interesting than in 'The Departure'. I enjoyed Var's struggle with leadership and responsibility on Mars.
I love Asher's chapter beginnings which all have a little bit of history which help tie this unreal Earth back to ours, and show us the path to this nightmare. A little bit of social and political commentary in there too.
Good stuff!

A Storm of Swords

I just finished reading A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin.

I found I enjoyed reading this more than the previous two in the series. Most obviously because I had not seen the TV series, and had no idea what was going to happen. This gives all the reveals and twists their full horrifying or fantastic impact. This is the real beauty of Martin's work, in that just because you have built up a strong empathy with or appreciation for, or even massive hatred of a given character, it has no bearing on their longevity or fate. You read with really no idea what will happen, which is sadly missing from many novels which you read really to find out how the end is achieved, knowing really where it is going most of the time.
The language and detail remains impressive and beautiful. The dedication to character building regardless of fate likewise.
Part two in particular is filled with OMFG moments and was so much fun to read.
I look forward to reading the rest, but will do so just leading the TV series. For now it's back to SF.

A Clash of Kings

I just finished reading A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin.
First of all, I've changed my mind now about reading the books after watching the TV series. Initially, I thought it would be more fun to not spoil the surprises and events of the TV, through reading the books, but now I think there is just too much downside. There is quite a lot of detail left out of the TV series, and in some cases they've really simplified what was going on; in particular at the end of the TV series I was plain confused as to why the place was on fire. After reading, I now know, and have a much better idea. Further, I think I'll actually enjoy the TV more for knowing what the full story is, and just going for the ride. Also, I felt I had to wade through the book a little as I basically knew what was going on more than the author intended, so I think it was a little spoiled from that point of view.
Ah well. I now continue straight into A Storm of Swords before the new TV season starts in April.
As for the actual novel, other than the above, I did really enjoy it. The language is beautiful, the detail amazing, and the depth fulfilling. Tyrion shines in the book as he does on TV. Actually, I felt inspired to write something myself, I think its the language that gets me into an expansive and creative mood. No good can come of this.

Trilisk Supersedure

I just finished reading The Trilisk Supersedure by Michael McCloskey.
Another good read from McCloskey; he really does aliens very well. I particularly liked reading the aliens' internal thoughts, they're just very different from us with strange motivations and cultural drives. They're not just some sentient creatures, they're intelligent, but driven differently. I like that the main characters are nowhere near as safe as they think they are when trusting them - it's very well done.
I also like some of the style of writing, where different individuals drive the different chapters or parts, but with overlapping descriptions of events or time periods It can be really interesting just working out whether parts are overlapping at all, and whether the events are similar, but when things do match up, you get the benefit of different points of view subtly changing your understanding of what is going on.
While the story, tech, ideas and aliens are all really good, again its only the characters that are bit soft, but not in an annoying way. Actually, Cilrith wasn't bad, and the aliens were cool, but perhaps needed more from Magnus and Telisa. More Telisa really :_)
The tech and ideas were really good though, and I particularly liked the reveal of just what Trilisk Supersedure was referring to, right at the end. Excellent. I'll read more for sure.

A Galaxy Unknown

I just finished reading A Galaxy Unknown by Thomas DePrima.
This is a classic space adventure novel featuring a cute young Ensign lost in space for ten years, who after being found turns out to be a brilliant warship commander. All the expected elements are there with FTL travel and communications, space stations, hollowed out asteroids, laser weapons, torpedoes, and so on. I don't think there were many new ideas on show, but it was written quite well and had a good pace.
I wasn't completely convinced by some of the main bad guy actions. Why worry about strict controls on  abusing prisoners when they heal easily and you're just going to mind wipe them later? I thought the full court-martial for the heroine when she returned triumphantly home was pretty cool. I've always wanted to see how a rigid big-military society might actually deal with this sort of action in the aftermath.
I think I'll read more of the series, it was a relaxing, enjoyable read.

Nymph: The Singularity

I just finished reading Nymph: The Singularity.
Lets get the obvious stuff out of the way first. There were lots of sex scenes, both android on android and android on human, so that was fun for a change.
There weren't really a lot of new, interesting ideas here, and I was hoping that there might be a few more with the part title, 'The Singularity'. I suppose I was hoping the novel would cover how technology driven by development of sex technology (and this has been an historically strong force) causes humanity to spiral into a technology singularity, driven by AI arising from ever better sex robots. That would have been interesting, even if its not a particular novel idea.
No, this was more covering 'the androids are people too' element, with discussion on how humanity is all going to die because of their environmental disasters and selfishness, and the clever immortal robots will inherit the Earth. I'm pretty sure Asimov covered all of that in the 50s, before the Singularity concept was conceived.
Still, even with some editing problems, I enjoyed reading this, it wasn't badly written, paced quite well, and fun to read. The scenes where the main Android-girl was naive with respect to aspects of humanity and getting social things wrong were fun, and the general process of learning through experience was quite well done.

Kindle Paperwhite

I've been using a new Kindle Paperwhite recently.
I haven't used a Kindle much before, although my wife has one, so I can do some comparison. What I'm really comparing to is reading on my iPad (1) with the Kindle app.
I wasn't sure that it would be much better than reading on the iPad, which is why I've put this off for this long. Reading on the iPad is just fine.
Reading on the Kindle is better.
The resolution is now quite good, 212ppi, and the page turning action is pretty fast. I thought I might get annoyed with the page turn time, but this is just fine. Almost not noticeable - slightly faster than the previous Kindle model.
I didn't think I would really want to use the Kindle PW light. But you can't actually turn it off. But that's ok because it is actually really good, unobtrusive, and just fills in that bit of contrast when you need it, and is effectively gone when you are in good light. It's perfect in bed with the lights off, and its great in the sun, of course. There is a slight unevenness to the light at the bottom of the screen, as reported in many places, but isn't annoying.
The time left to read the chapter (and book) feature is pretty cool, so when you are thinking about putting the book down, you can see how far away the next chapter is easily.
I haven't used the X-Ray feature yet. It may be more useful after finishing a book, if you wanted to check out the characters further I suppose. And when the book supports it.

Animal Farm

I just finished reading Animal Farm by George Orwell.
This is a quite amusing commentary on politics and power and corruption. Its not a long read and well worth the small effort required. Essentially, the animals on a farm kick out their human overlords and take over the running of the farm themselves. It turns out the pigs are the most intelligent, and end up managing the running of the farm. The corruption and politics of the pigs and the way they take advantage of the other animals becomes more and more extreme.
This has some clear parallels with Nineteen Eighty Four too. The pigs rewrite history and convince the others that things happened differently to how they remember, and rewrite their '7 Commandments' subtly in their favour and so on. There's also the enforcement of correct thinking and abuse of power.
There is plenty of depth if you want to go into the details of the allegory if you are interested, but the main point is pretty obvious really.

The Clockwork Rocket

I just finished reading The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan.
Wow, you really have to admire the lengths Egan will go to for a novel. I thought Incandescence was pretty hardcore, and Schild's Ladder was there too. Where in Incandescence he explains general relativity as the characters discover it for themselves from basic experimentation, and in Schild's Ladder he builds on existing Quantum Theory, in The Clockwork Rocket (and soon parts 2 and 3) he proposes a whole new universe where the laws of physics are subtly yet vastly different. For a near complete explanation of these new laws of physics, you can have a look at his extensive web site on it.
As in Incandescence the reader discovers the universe through the characters experiments and discoveries. Essentially light can travel at different speeds depending on its wavelength and the ramifications are pretty weird. Following the theory is very difficult and I got lost quite a bit, but you have to remember it's a novel, and you are not studying at university, and to just try to enjoy the ride. Familiar Egan territory.
Yes, Egan is amazing and produces such massive depth and such incredibly different ideas in SF, but I'm not sure I enjoyed this as much as I would have liked. The explaining of physics through the experiments of the characters was interesting once, and while very different, still somehow very similar. If that makes sense. There were lots of really cool ideas along the way though such as the reproduction cycle of the 'people' and how it affected their society and reflections on our society I guess.
Brilliant and amazing and wondrous, but somehow also a little flat.

Pacific Hi Fi

Some months ago I bought a set of speakers from Pacific Hi-Fi. The speakers are great, but I was just as impressed with the service I received. I have had some problems in some other Hi-Fi stores where you can get quite a bit of the superior, dismissive attitude because you're not interested in the top of the line equipment, or the sales droid wants to seem impressive, or something, I don't know.
The guys at Pacific Hi-Fi have been very helpful again recently when my sub-woofer died. It was checked, taken in for repair and returned within a few days on warranty, no problems, no fuss.
Well worth the trip if you need some new gear.

The Departure

I just finished reading The Departure (Owner Trilogy 1) by Neal Asher.
Asher has taken the Orwellian nightmare, and pushed it to its horrible, brutal limit using some more modern SF devices such as AI integration. Set a century or so in the future, the world governments have centralized their power into a monolithic, all-controlling, ever wasteful "Committee". Those in power enjoy wealth, while the rest of Earth's twelve billion not only languish in poverty, but are instructed on politically correct thought and constantly monitored to ensure compliance. Those guilty of incorrect thought, are sent for "adjustment" which involves incredible torture and very often termination, including being fed live into an incinerator.
Of course, Asher describes all of the horrors in gloriously intense detail. My favourite part of the Committee control infrastructure was the readergun, which is a massively powerful automatic weapon emplacement with an id-chip reader, programmed to annihilate anyone with an ID on a blacklist, or alternately anyone not on a whitelist. A very nasty control device indeed. Then there is the laser weapon satellite network designed to similarly zero in on and kill individuals.
The story follows Alan Saul's journey of revenge against the Committee, and a particular member of the Inspectorate. It all comes down to control, who has it, who is willing to use it, and how far they are willing to go. Since this is a game of the highest stakes, all the main characters were willing to commit massive amounts of atrocity to achieve their aims and their struggle makes for some hugely violent reading.
Entertaining, satisfying and very dark.