Joe Martin

My wife introduced me to Gordon Ramsay a year or two ago. At first, I just saw episodes of Hell's Kitchen in passing. Then I started watching episodes of Kitchen Nightmares. Finally, I made it through the final ¾ of the most recent season of Master Chef.

I was sucked in by Gordon's passion. His outspokenly blunt assessments of the weaknesses of restaurants, chefs, and restaurant food. Because of his shows, I've begun to have a more critical eye towards restaurants and the quality of the food I eat. I'm taking more of an interest in “fancy” food and the real skill and creativity that goes into high end restaurants.

When I saw that the local library had a Kindle copy of this book, I was intrigued. I've wanted to know more about Gordon Ramsay: what makes him tick, how he built his food and media empire, how he deals with the many challenges to his time, etc.

This book was published in November, 2006. It ends on his very first entry into American TV, so it's not very up to date. The vast, vast bulk of the book covers Ramsay's early life, his aborted soccer career, and his early years learning to cook.

There are only a few, short, chapters on his career after he opened his first restaurant. There is next to no information on what it took to open and manage multiple restaurants, what it took to write multiple books, run multiple TV shows, or juggle all of the different demands in his time. I got a lot of information on his early life, but next to nothing about what it's like to be Gordon Ramsay today.

On the plus side, Ramsay's voice comes through quite clearly in this book. I don't know whether he wrote it himself or if he had someone ghost write it. Either way, it doesn't seem to matter. The breezy, vulgar style of the book sounds exactly like Ramsay sounds on screen. It's akin to sitting and listening to Ramsay reminisce on his early career, challenges, and successes. I very much enjoyed the style and tone of the book.

I was struck by how very hard Ramsay worked to get where he is today. He spent years working 80-90 hour weeks in the kitchen. He endured endless abuse from senior chefs (and not so senior chefs) just to learn as much as he could. He spent several weeks literally working 20 hours a day, to earn the money he needed and to learn the skills he needed even more. Whatever level of wealth he has today, I'd find it very hard to say that he hasn't earned every bit of it.

Overall, I very much enjoyed reading Ramsay's story. I just wanted a much deeper look at it what it took to open restaurants number 2-10. And what it took to run the restaurants while appearing on TV shows. And a look at how much control or influence he has over the style and content of what airs each week. From that perspective, this book was a disappointment. From other perspectives, it was a lot of fun.

In the Aeneid, Virgil wrote: “To Romans I set no boundary in space or time. I have granted them dominion, and it has no end.” What if that was true? What if the Roman Empire had never fallen? What if it had been eternal? Robert Silverberg wrote a collection of short stories around that theme. The stories start in A.D. 450 and continue through A.D. 1970, covering 1500 years of Roman history.

We see the attempted colonization of North America (Nova Roma), the civil wars between the Roman and Greek halves of the Empire, the crazy emperors, and the purges. The stories are well written, as you'd expect from Silverberg. They focus on many different time periods, physical locations, and characters. Historians, court functionaries, soldiers, and provincial royalty. In fact, that was the second flaw I noted with this collection—very little focus on the common man of the Empire. They mostly focused on people of high position or people who interacted with the high and mighty. There was only one story that dealt with the commoners.

The largest flaw was right at the beginning of the book. Silverberg obviously knew that he needed a framing device to illustrate how and why his Rome was different from our Rome. He starts by having a Roman historian (in A.D. 450) deliver a monologue to a friend.

The monologue concerns a thought experiment in which the Hebrews (“you do know who they are, right?) weren't just an obscure people group but had instead escaped Egypt, founded a nation, and eventually generated a major world religion that took over the Empire, leading to its gradual weakening and ultimate collapse.

Yes, that's right. Our entire history (an unlikely chain of events in itself) is recast as a thought experiment that one Roman just happens to think up for a book he's planning to write. Once the stories get started, that matters a lot less. But it was an incredibly clunky way to start the book.

Overall, this was an entertaining book, page turner in parts. There were certainly some interesting characters and events in it. It is intriguing to speculate about all of the ways that history might have been different if the Roman Empire had never fallen, if we'd never gone through a medieval “dark ages”, and if Western Civilization hadn't moved its center to Western Europe and North America.

If that interests you, definitely consider reading Roma Eterna. Otherwise, rest assured that you're not missing a must-read book.

So there's a Clan of jumped-up tinkers from an alternate timeline who can world-walk between timelines. They grew massively wealthy through a simple physical arbitrage. They pick up medicinal grade heroin down in Florida or Central America. They switch over to their home timeline, still stuck in the medieval period. They load the heroin into a caravan, guarded by Clan members with automatic weapons. They transport the heroin all the way north to their home base of the Gruinmarkt. Then they switch over to our timeline and deliver the heroin to the Boston based buyers. Voila! A secure, completely untraceable conduit for drug deliveries, worth millions.

They make money the other way by acting as a super high speed courier service. Take a letter from a king or a duke or a count in the Gruinmarkt. Switch to our timeline, catch a plane to Seattle, and carry the letter with you. Pop back to your home timeline and deliver the letter, next-day post, to the recipient, neatly avoiding the bandits and the multi-week horseback trip that would be required in your home timeline.

It sounds like a neat setup, right? Good family men, good business men, providing a needed service on both worlds. But what would happen if the DEA were to find out about these untraceable heroin couriers? Worse yet, what if a highly trusted individual were to sell out the Clan to the DEA, telling them everything he knows about safe houses, transfer points, and delivery networks?

Well, let's just say that America's ever paranoid security services wouldn't react well. At all. After all, if these people can securely transfer heroin, who's to say that they're not transferring bombs? Or terrorists? Or nukes? What if they might be hostile? It'd be far better to treat them as a hostile government and take them out first, before they take you out, wouldn't it?

And so it goes for Miriam Beckstein. Right as she's establishing a toehold in her family's business and starting to gain a little freedom for herself, the Clan ends up in a clandestine war with the U.S. government. Everything goes to pieces and Miriam gets herself even more tightly restricted than she already was.

Stross once again superbly plays the realistic reaction card. You, the reader, can understand and sympathize with both the government security forces and the Clan. Their both acting rationally according to the information they have, the cultures they're from, and the interests they need to protect. And it's probably not going to end well for either of them. It's a train wreck that you see coming from miles away, drive by the logical decisions of each character. It's unsettlingly realistic and slightly depressing. There's no authorial deus ex machina to make everything turn out well for your favorite characters. There's only the inexorable march of inevitable events.

That's refreshing to read in a science fiction story. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all ends.

Charlie Stross puts this story squarely in the real world. Sure, it's science fiction. But that only means that it has a fictional element to it. The rest of it reads as real as history.

Miriam Beckstein is a tech journalist in Boston and the adopted daughter of sixties radicals. She has a fairly normal life writing investigative journalism (and getting fired for uncovering the wrong bit of sleaze). Normal, that is, until her step-mother gives her a locket that her birth mother had when she died. Suddenly, Miriam finds herself in an alternate universe version of Boston. One where the Roman empire never ruled the known world, the Catholic church was never dominant, and the British empire never reached North America. Instead of Boston, she finds herself in the Gruinmarkt, a semi-Danish kingdom, stuck with medieval technology.

Besides a foreign land and a foreign language, Miriam has to contend with a new family. It turns out that she's a long lost duchess, from a whole family of world walkers—the Clan. Unfortunately for her, while her family has heard of women's lib, they hold no truck with it. They may have modern amenities and they may enjoy the high tech American lifestyle, but they're still medieval underneath. Like Saudi princes in New York—they may look sophisticated and urbane but back in the Kingdom they're still patriarchal jerks.

To make things worse, every member of the Clan is expected to contribute to the family business or die. When Miriam shows up, they waste no time trying to assimilate “Duchess Helge” into their pre-existing plans. Thus Miriam gets sucked deeper and deeper into her family's affairs, almost entirely against her will. She has to fight hard to have even the slightest control over what happens to her.

There's a lot going on in this story and most of it feels completely realistic. Miriam and her family are each acting in their own best interests. It's hard to fault either of them for acting as they do, given the constraints that they each operate under. Their motivations and actions all make sense, given the worlds they live in. None of which changes the fact that Miriam's situation well and truly sucks, even as she lives out the sci-fi dream of being able to travel between worlds.

The story would be well worth recommending just on that angle. But Stross didn't stop there. He also built the story around development economics. Miriam desperately wants to raise the standard of living of the Gruinmarkt from subsistence-level medieval farming to modern industry. But how do you bootstrap an entire kingdom into the modern era? Especially given that the only cargo you can move between worlds is what you can physically carry, your family distrusts your every move lest you rock their boat too much, and the people of the Gruinmarkt consider you a witch?

This book is fun, thought-provoking, and frustrating (in the best possible way). This is exactly what good science fiction should be.

Theodore Sturgeon's acclaimed classic about a group of gifted misfits who discover that together they have the power to move humankind forward—or destroy it completely.

Lone is a seemingly simple young man living on the street and in the woods, dim and helpless, yet effortlessly able to read the thoughts of others. His true nature won't be revealed until the arrival of eight-year-old Janie, a telekinetic; twins Bonnie and Beanie, who can teleport easily across great distances; and Baby, an infant with a super-computer brain. Together they are the Gestalt, a single extraordinary being composed of remarkable parts (although an essential piece may be missing).

But are they the next stage in human development or harbingers of the end of civilization? It's a question that takes on a terrifying new relevance when Gerry joins their group—for though he's powerfully telepathic, he lacks a moral compass ... and his hatred of the world that has rejected him could prove catastrophic.

This description caught my eye, when I saw it on my library's website. I'm always interested in speculative fiction about the future of humanity or people with unusual talents and abilities. When those people are actually blending together into a new life form, the concept just becomes more interesting.

The story wasn't the tightly plotted thriller or straightforward character development story that I expected. Instead, it was a series of vignettes, each focusing on different characters from different viewpoints, some from first person perspective and some from third person perspective. Some of the vignettes were beautifully and poetically written, others were more straightforward prose. Some focused directly on the main characters, others focused only peripherally on the main characters. Together, they formed a tapestry that told the story.

The book's flaw is that Sturgeon told more than he showed. He mentions, several times, that these multiple characters form one single entity. He even has one of his characters say that she can no more live without the others than an arm or a leg could live without the rest of the body.

And, yet, the story never shows that this is true. From what I saw, the characters don't appear to be that tightly linked. True, they worked well together and all of their gifts complemented each other. And they formed a tight knit family. But I never got the sense that they more than a close, devoted family. I never sensed that they were a linked entity that would truly be unable to live or operate as individuals. Diminished, yes. Demolished, no. As poignant as the book is, this flaw drags down the rest of the story.

I've never been a huge fan of literary fiction. Perhaps it's because I find our world to be so familiar as to be boring. These science fiction novels by Robert Silverberg were a nice compromise. They were literary in tone but set in a world a bit different from ours.

Both stories share a theme: who am I? Not in the grand mystical sense of “where did we all come from?” but in the more personal sense of “what makes me, me?”

In To Live Again, the Scheffing Institute regularly records the brain scans of the super rich. Then, after death, their scans can be implanted in someone else's brain. The host gets to experience the memories, knowledge, insight, and personality of the dead. The dead get to experience living all over again, even if just as passengers in someone else's head.

Some people have productive relationships with their implants while others live in near constant conflict with them. What does it mean to be “you” when there is someone else in your head? When you have two sets of memories and a voice constantly whispering in your mind, are you really the same person anymore? Silverberg uses this setting to explore maturity, ambition, jealousy, and loyalty.

The Second Trip features Paul Macy. Paul used to be Nat Hamlin, a famous and successful sculptor. Four years ago, Nat was convicted of multiple rapes and was sentenced to Rehab. In the story, Rehab is a process of completely purging the personality and then building a new personality from the ground up—complete with a manufactured past. Paul Macy is the new personality in Nat Hamlin's body.

Nat Hamlin is gone. Or is he? The story plays out almost entirely in Paul's / Nat's mind, as Nat struggles to regain his own life and body and Paul struggles to establish his right to exist, even though “he's” less than 4 years old without any true life experience. Again, there's the theme of “who am I?” coupled with the question of “do I even have a right to exist?”. The resulting conflict is interesting to watch and spurs much thought.

This is another collection of some of Heinlein's early stories. In this case, more of his “Future History” stories. The volume is almost worth reading just for John Campbell's introduction, explaining why Heinlein was such a great writer.

Simply put, he faced the challenge of conveying the mores and patterns of a strange cultural background, the technological background that created and sustained that culture, and the characters that inhabited that culture. He managed to do it brilliantly, over and over again, without resorting to the info dumps that are so often present in literature.

These stories, “Life-Line”, “Let There Be Light”, “The Roads Must Roll”, “Blowups Happen”, “The Man Who Sold the Moon”, and “Orphans of the Sky” all illustrate that part of Heinlein's talent. And they're all enjoyable.

“Life-Line”—how would the world react if someone could predict the instant of anyone's death?

“The Roads Must Roll”—Cars do not roll upon the roads. The roads themselves roll. What might force that innovation, what kind of world would it create, and what risks would come with that world?

“The Man Who Sold the Moon”—The one man who most wants to visit the moon, who will do the most to push humanity to the moon, may be the one man who never sees the moon. Poignant.

“Orphans of the Sky”—Residents of a generational starship believe that The Ship is all there is to the universe. They've systematically reinterpreted all of the scientific texts as various forms of allegory and myth. But what happens when one man is convinced of the truth and tries to act the missionary to his fellow voyagers?

This collection is definitely worth a read.

Start with a family reunion. Focus on the black sheep of the family. Make him wealthy. Now give him a nerdily interesting, checkered past. Finally set him up as the creator of a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game that's built around making money in creative ways that other MMORPG's find distasteful.

The MMORPG is called T'Rain, built on the back of a truly nitpicky landscape generator called TERRAIN. (Terrain, T'Rain, get it?) It's set up with the careful attention to detail , accuracy, and knowledge of geek culture that only Stephenson can provide.

This is all part of the setup and it does take a while to set up and to start the story rolling. But once stolen data is encrypted by a virus (called REAMDE) and held hostage for (virtual) ransom, things start rolling along. Stephenson sets up a story that rolls along like billiard balls or a Rube Goldberg machine. One set of characters takes action that results in then careening into a new set of characters who are then jolted into action and sent careening into a new, completely separate and different, set of characters. And the actions just bangs along from one continent to another.

Or, at least, it seems to at the beginning. But once Stephenson has introduced all of the characters, he seems to lose control of the narrative. Within a short while, the book consumes itself with the intricate details of how, exactly, characters move from one location to another. Given the sheer number of characters Stephenson introduced, that poses a bit of a problem.

The story just switched from character to character to character to character to character, showing how they were moving around. Even the action sequences, when they finally came, suffered as too many characters were doing too many things in too many different locations. It was a chore to keep track of everyone and where Stephenson last left them. The ending, when it finally came, was a blessed relief that even managed to feel rushed.

Ultimately, Reamde is a book with some good ideas about the MMORPG gaming world and how it interacts with the real world. But it's a mediocre action story that could have used a good bit of reductive editing.

I have a few thoughts after reading this book.

1. It felt really long. Obviously, it was long. But some long books feel short and some short books feel long. This book felt really long.


2. How in the world did we manage to elect a neurotic, insecure, narcissistic man like Nixon to the Presidency? Especially one who would work in close partnership with another thin-skinned neurotic, in Kissinger? Sure, Johnson was also a power hungry manipulator. But he wasn't actually mentally unstable the way that Nixon appears to have been.


3. Why does Dallek always refer to Nixon as “Nixon” but mostly refer to Kissinger as “Henry”? It seems very odd.


4. It's a wonder that the U.S., and the rest of the world, survived the Nixon / Kissinger partnership as well as they did. Between Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pakistan War, it was pretty bad. But it could have been a whole lot worse.


5. The book was aptly titled. It was entirely about situations that involved both Nixon and Kissinger. Dallek focused exclusively on foreign policy. He entirely excluded domestic policy from the book. Aside from the inescapable inclusion of Watergate during the last 6 months of Nixon's Presidency, you could be forgiven for forgetting that anything outside of foreign policy even happened between 1968 and 1974.


6. Even Nixon himself disappeared from the pages of the book when he wasn't dealing with foreign policy. Dallek focused almost exclusively on Kissinger's actions during the last 6 months of Nixon's presidency.

I can tell I'm reading a good Discworld novel when the humor walks up behind me with a cudgel and lays me low. It starts with a surprised snort and devolves into irrepressible giggling. I can force it down but it threatens to come back whenever I think of the offending passage.

This book had that effect on me. It may have borrowed a bit too heavily from Shakespeare (and particularly Macbeth) but it was still a good Discworld novel.

This is the bit that got me.

“Would you care to share our lunch, old...good wo...miss?” he said. “It's only salt pork, I'm afraid.”

“Meat is extremely bad for the digestive system,” said Magrat. “If you could see inside your colon you'd be horrified.”

“I think I would,” muttered Hwel.

Another fun, enjoyable read in the Discworld universe. A dying wizard tries to give his staff to the newly born eighth son of an eighth son. But the new son turns out to be a new daughter and the Discworld is about to see its first female wizard. Or its first wizard witch. Or something. The result is, as you might expect, both humorous and poignant.

This book definitely has Pratchett's trademark humor. I loved his pun on Granny Weatherwax's observation that “good fences make good neighbors”.

This is the concluding book in David Brin's original Uplift trilogy. These stories take place in an imaginative universe. All races in the Galaxy have been “uplifted” into sentience by a prior alien race, in a chain stretching back to the Progenitors. Humans have even uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees into sentience. But who uplifted humanity? This is a great mystery and the other races are antagonistic towards the “wolfing” human race, without patrons or lineage.The last book, [b:Startide Rising 234501 Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, #2) David Brin http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320455583s/234501.jpg 251634], dealt primarily with the neo-dolphins that humanity has Uplifted into intelligence. This book deals primarily with the neo-chimpanzees that have been similarly Uplifted.Startide Rising dealt almost entirely with the neo-dolphins. The Galactics were in the story but we only got cursory glimpses of them and didn't become familiar with any one race. The Uplift War turns that around.The action takes place on the planet of Garth, a human and neo-chimp colony. Garth is invaded by the Gubru (an avian species). Several of the chimp characters take leading roles. Humanity is allied with another alien species, the Tymbrimi. The story also features Athacleana, the daughter of the Tymbrimi ambassador.I liked this focus on the chimp and Tymbrimi characters. David Brin does a pretty good job at bringing a non-human perspective to the story. (I did feel, at times, that Athacleana was acting too much like a human female though.)Brin has hinted in the previous books about the different species, their behaviors, and Galactic customs. In this book, he moved from hints to specifics. He used this story to narrow the focus from all of the Galactics to just two or three specific species. He then dove into the details of how the races acted, politicked, and made war. It gave a lot of depth and realism to his universe.This was a very good end to Brin's original trilogy. It didn't answer any of the big mysteries from [b:Startide Rising 234501 Startide Rising (The Uplift Saga, #2) David Brin http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320455583s/234501.jpg 251634], but it expanded the scope of the story and made it clear that there are many, many more stories that could yet be told.

Once I'd finished Tunnel in the Sky (it was such a quick read), I wasn't ready to be done with Heinlein. And I had this book sitting around, checked out from the library. So I went ahead and read it. It's another of Heinlein's juveniles. It's not as much of a coming of age story as Tunnel in the Sky. It certainly has elements of that but it's a bit more focused on the line between authority and tyranny.

Heinlein hits on some familiar themes: responsibility is a matter of maturity and skill, not of age. Self-defense is the right of every person. The man asking (or requiring) you to disarm yourself doesn't have your best interests at heart. He undoubtedly has someone's best interests in mind, but it's not you. Respect for other civilizations and peoples is not only a matter of decency, it can also be a matter of life and death. Self-reliance and initiative is far preferable to dependency and trust in good intentions.

It's an entertaining story, with a necessary message about life. It's another one that I'll be recommending to my daughters, as they grow up.

After reading (and being disappointed by) Darkship Renegades, I decided to read something from Heinlein himself, to cleanse the palate. I'd heard about Tunnel in the Sky last July, from a blog comment on Tor.com.

Whenever you're sitting around and thinking to yourself, “You know I could really go for a novel in which is exactly like Lord of the Flies, but only in space,” then this is your book. Funnily enough, this book was published the same year as Golding's Lord of the Flies and if it were up to me, it would be taught instead. The primary SF conceit of the novel deals with interplanetary colonization through big teleport jumps. Naturally some younger folks get stranded and certain ugly aspects of human nature are revealed. The only one of Heinlein's “juvenilia” that I feel gets overlooked, and easily my favorite from that period.

It's a short read and I ripped through it pretty quickly. But it's a good one. As a “juvenile” (what we'd now call young adult) novel, it's a coming of age novel. Heinlein writes a story that's character driven, moves quickly, and is entertaining.

Heinlein spends a lot of time talking (through the story's events) about responsibility, proper attitudes towards survival, and what makes civilization. He uses the story to make a strong argument that proper government is a necessary component of civilization. That sounds odd, coming from a libertarian, but I think he wins his argument.

The government doesn't have to be large, overbearing, or especially powerful. But there are certain tasks that need to be done to protect the civilization (no matter how small it is). There are certain matters of organization and defense that need to be arranged. Someone has to give those orders and everyone else has to accept those orders as legitimate and proper.

Humanity invented government to allow that to happen. The type of government will differ in different times and different places. And each group of people will need to make their own decisions about what constitutes legitimate authority. Heinlein effortlessly illustrates all of this through the story as these lost students (high school and college aged) work to build a society once they realize that they've been stranded on an alien planet.

This story works on all levels. It's both thought provoking and entertaining. The philosphy doesn't interfere with the adventure, it merely backs it up and deepens it. This is definitely a story that I'll be recommending to my daughters as they grow older.

I had trouble reviewing Ms. Hoyt's previous entry in this series, Darkship Thieves. At the time, I ended the review by saying “It felt very uneven and not all that ‘real'.” After reading this book, I have a better understanding of what I don't like about this series.

Sarah Hoyt is a strong libertarian and an admirer of Robert Anson Heinlein. (She dedicated this book to her son, Robert Anson Hoyt.) I think these books are intended to be an imitation of, and homage to, Heinlein's more openly political novels.

Hoyt has her characters sharing political asides with each other and also shares their inner monologues and thoughts. In these novels though, it doesn't really work. Hoyt is not as good of a writer as Heinlein (but who is?) and isn't able to pull off what he can pull off. The political insertions feel awkward and contrived rather than natural. It makes the story limp along and is, in my opinion, what drags this down from being a 4-star adventure story.

This is the second entry in David Brin's Uplift series. The first book, Sundiver, was a mediocre story in a very interesting universe. This book is a very interesting story in the same very interesting universe.

All races in the Galaxy have been “uplifted” into sentience by a prior alien race, in a chain stretching back to the Progenitors. Humans have even uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees into sentience. But who uplifted humanity? This is a great mystery and the other races are antagonistic towards the “wolfing” human race, without patrons or lineage.

Startide Rising is the story of the first dolphin crewed spaceship. The Streaker made the find of the millenium and was rewarded by hot pursuit from most of the galaxy's inhabitants. After fleeing from a battle, the Streaker crash lands on the water world of Kithrup.

The neo-dolphins must hide from the aliens currently engaged in combat above the planet, attempt to repair their ship, and hope for an opportunity to sneak away again. The resulting adventure deals with dolphin psychology and features an intriguing version of a dolphin language. It also showcases the various alien races and their unique perspectives on the universe and the purpose of life.

This is both a fun read and a chilling one. It's a hostile universe, full of races that would like nothing more than the opportunity to gain power over humanity and tweak and twist our genetic code until they've turned us into something more to their liking. David Brin's universe is interesting but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to live in it.

The book ends on a delightfully unresolved note. We end the book still not knowing what the Streaker found, what its importance is, or what will ultimately happen to Earth and the human race. That's as it should be for a universe with this much scope.

I really liked the big idea in the universe that David Brin created for this book. Brin introduces the idea that there are multiple, sentient, alien species. Each was “uplifted” from animals by a preceding alien specie, in a chain that stretches all the way back to “the Progenitors”. Each uplifted species is a client to their patrons, bound to servitude for tens of thousands of years. Humanity is a possibly unique exception. Humanity has no known patron and has uplifted two species of their own: chimpanzees and dolphins. As such, they're not bound to servitude but they're also not very well liked.

I think this is a great setting for a story. Unfortunately, this is not a great story. It was somewhat interesting but the characters never really grabbed me, making the events seem less interesting. A bit of a misfire, overall.

I learned several things about this book. It was the second novel that Heinlein ever wrote and the first that he ever had published. That, alone, makes it interesting. It wasn't a Heinlein original story. The outline was from John Campbell—Heinlein just filled it out. The book gets a lot of grief for its racist elements. Both the foreword and the afterword make good arguments that those elements do not reflect Heinlein's own beliefs. (As if his later novels didn't already bear that out.) He did what he could to tone down the racist elements, but it is true that the story couldn't be changed too much without destroying the central plot point of the entire book.

This book suffers from a heavy dose of pseudo science and a lack of well-developed female characters and secondary characters. Those are all strengths that Heinlein developed later in his career. But it is a rip-roaring good tale of how a native insurgency threw out a conquering force through a strong dose of psychological judo and religious misdirection.

Recommended for fans of Heinlein but a neutral recommendation for everyone else.

An enjoyable collection of science fiction short stories, from an acknowledged Grand Master of the genre.

These stories are from a period where Silverberg was really maturing into his own as a writer. Some are straightforward SF and some are more experimental literary works. They're all good.

Special mention goes to SOMETHING WILD IS LOOSE, GOING, and WHEN WE WENT TO SEE THE END OF THE WORLD.

An extra special mention goes to the last two stories of the collection: CAUGHT IN THE ORGAN DRAFT and MANY MANSIONS.

Sad to say, I hadn't heard of Guy Gavriel Kay before April of this year. My loss. It turns out that he writes beautiful historical allusions. While his novels are usually classified as fantasy, they could just as easily be classified as historical fiction. His novels don't take place in the historical world as we know it. But they do take place in a world that's astonishingly similar, well researched, and meticulously crafted.

The Lions of Al-Rassan takes place in a peninsula that contains Espana in the north and Al-Rassan in the south. This peninsula is a strong allusion to Moorish Spain. The story revolves around three different groups: the “Jaddites” in the north (with a society roughly analogous to medieval Catholicism), the Asharites in the south (roughly analogous to the Moors), and the barely tolerated Kindath (roughly analogous to the Jews).

The story revolves around three characters: Jehane, a Kindath doctor; Rodrigo Belmonte, a Jaddite calvary captain; and Ammar ibn Khairan, a Jaddite poet, warrior, and advisor. All three become both friends and enemies as the Asharite society wanes, the Jaddite society waxes, and events move towards what we could call the Reconquista.

This is a captivating story of the intersection of religion, politics, and faith. More than that, it's a truly beautiful story. Kay keeps to a deliberate, methodical pacing that focuses as much on the characters and their motivations as it does on the events of the story. It's told in a very lyrical and poetic manner, allowing the emotion of the plot to dominate the story.

I felt that this book was a love letter to a lost time, a lost place, and lost peoples. A story of nobility, courage, savagery, violence, love, and dedication to a dying way of life. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I've long been interested in the idea of immortality. For the past decade, I've been watching advances in medical technology and predicting that I'll have a much longer life span than my parents or grandparents—far longer than most people expect. And, yet, what would it really be like to be immortal? (Or just to live really long?)

Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois have assembled a very interesting collection of stories on that topic. They made me think about different facets of immortality that I hadn't previously considered. They made me think about familiar facets in new and different ways. They gave me an emotional connection to the pathos, ennui, and forgetfulness of immortality. They made me reconsider what I thought I had already thought abopathos, ennui, and forgetfulness of immortality. They made me reconsider what I thought I had already thought about. And that's one of the highest praises that I can give a collection of stories.

This book reminded me of why I enjoy Peter F. Hamilton's stories as much as I do.

Start with an interesting future earth. There's the North family—a multi-generation family of clones. There's a vast alien world, bare of any intelligent life. There are giant algae paddies that are used to grow oil (bioil). There's great predictions about nanotechnology—advanced ways to embed sensors and tools into your body as well as smart dust that can be scattered across the ground and on buildings to provide continuous monitoring. It's enough to make people look superhuman and the police to look invincible.

The book opens with a mysterious murder. One where it quickly becomes apparent that the gangs of the time have plenty of experience in foiling the police force's strengths. One where the police don't even know the exact identity of the victim, making it hard to determine motive or opportunity. The first major section of the book is an engrossing police procedural. The technology may be advanced but the frustrations and politics of police work remain the same.

The second major section of the book is an exploration of the alien planet. Is it truly empty of life? Is there something out there? Or is the military just being paranoid and making up bogeymen to justify defense spending? Finally, who is Angela Tramelo? And what is her back story?

The book ties all of the these themes together into an entertaining story. I enjoyed the interesting characters woven into the grand scope of the world that Hamilton created. It makes me look forward to Hamilton's next book.

The Dresden series continues to be the most interesting urban fantasy I've ever read. Dresden's Chicago feels very real. The people feel real. They do stupid things, for petty reasons, that have horrible consequences. When ghosts and vampires are involved, those horrible consequences can actually be very horrible indeed. Butcher's vampires are different from the traditional fantasy vampires, giving them an aura of reality too.

I continue to like the fact that Dresden is very much the opposite of an invulnerable hero. This book continues the trend of letting Dresden get the crap beat out of him, forcing him to continually reach deeper just to keep moving forward. The only complaint I have is that there are a few instances in which it feels like he should be completely finished. Instead, he's saved by a conveniently timely rescue or an extra burst of power. But that's a small complaint for what is, overall, a very good story.

And the final fight sequence is worth the price of admission all by itself. If I could watch that on the big screen, I'd be a happy fan indeed.

I've long been a sucker for alternate history stories. The sheer “what if” factor in a good story is fascinating. If certain events hadn't happened—or had happened—how would the course of lives and nations have changed?I'd never heard of this story, until Singularity & Co published it as part of their Save the SciFi project. I'm so glad they did. It's a gem of a book and well worth saving.The story opens as Elleander Morning, an American woman, enters a café in Vienna and shoots an indigent artist named Adolf Hitler. Elleander is quickly arrested and tried for her crime, receiving a swift convicting. Years later, in the 1980s, her granddaughter, Lesley Morning, begins to learn about her mysterious grandmother. And what of these books—the two-volume [b:WW II: Time-Life Books History of the Second World War 21140 WW II Time-Life Books History of the Second World War Time-Life-Books http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1289188479s/21140.jpg 22324]? There never was a World War II and, yet, the books look so realistic.The novel explores Elleander's very personal reasons for assassinating Adolf Hitler and the consequences through the next 70 years. There are interstitial quotes, after each chapter. Through them, we learn of Vice President Eleanor Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Joseph McCarthy. We hear Winston Churchill's dying words. “It is a matter of pride, and I must add, of comfort to me, that I will go to my reward with the knowledge that the sun will continue to find it impossible to set on the British Empire.” It's a world in which Russia is a weak nation, the Cold War never happened, and German is the leading European nation with Europe's highest standard of living.The historical details feel accurate too. Having just read [b:The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany 767171 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich A History of Nazi Germany William L. Shirer http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331223772s/767171.jpg 1437584], Yulsman's descriptions of Vienna put me right into the same world that Shirer had just put me in. Later, as Lesley's story moved to German, the details about Germany put me right back into the world of the Third Reich. That, in turn, made the alternate history world feel very real.I like that the novel starts with the assassination of Hitler and then move towards questioning why and whether that would be sufficient to stop World War II. Was it just the actions of one man? Or was it the general attitude of an entire nation? Asked through this story, it's an important question.

I've spent the last 85 days either reading about, or thinking about, the Third Reich. I certainly never intended to do that. Thanks to the magic of ebooks, I had no idea that this was an 1100+ page book. But I'd been realizing that I didn't really know that much about World War II or the Nazis, so I added it to my Kindle and started reading it. By the time I realized how long it actually was, I was hooked.

This is one of the most footnoted books that I've read. But it wasn't boring or dry. Shirer writes like a journalist (which he was), keeps the narrative flowing, and strives to entertain the reader. He was in Berlin before and during the rise of the Nazi party. He had familiarity with all of the major actors and many of the major events. He's not shy about relating those observations and judgments. Some of the best parts of the book are his casual putdowns and insults of the Nazi leaders. He'd seen the buffoonery first hand and isn't afraid to point out just how ridiculous these evil men could be. These personal observations and commentary do much to bring the narrative to life.

This may be the best 1100+ page overview of a subject that you'll ever read. And it's definitely an overview. Shirer does cover the rise of the Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party, and the Third Reich and its eventual downfall. He covers the major events, turning points, and decisions of World War II. The further I got into the book, the more I realized just how much he was leaving out. He only gives a cursory mention to some of the major battles, events, and characters of the war.

How could it be otherwise? There was simply too much going on during this period of history for any one book to cover it in great detail. This book can't do that, but it can give you the lay of the land. Afterward you've read this, should you desire to read more, you'll certainly have a good idea of what topics you could dive into. And Shirer's detailed footnotes (20% of the book!) will give you some great ideas of where to go diving.