yacoob

I always liked Eve Online - perhaps not the game itself, but the atmosphere and the visuals. This book is a collection of very early designs that contributed to the game at its birth. I had a lot of fun peering through it, but I don't think I'd be as interested if I'd just grab this book without experiencing the game first.

3 stars story, plus 1 star for the nice twist at the end. As much as I'm not a fan of DC Universe, this was a pleasant thing to read. I've probably missed most of the injokes though.

Short and to the point. I believe it was written with a specific audience in mind, namely modern devops developer that may be only partially familiar with Unix. It's still useful to other folks, you might just disregard certain general tips. The book gives a good overview of tmux capabilities, and will probably be a good resource for any GNU screen oldtimer that wants to switch.

Excellent tasty treat for any Eve Online player, including former players. I'm not sure the art stands on its own without this context - it's well done, but probably too overwhelming for non players. I've definitely enjoyed it - I'm not a fervent player, but I love the look and feel of CCP's universe.

Dukaj którego można łyknąć w jeden dzień to dziwne uczucie.

Sama książka bardzo smaczna. Wykonanie nieco mniej. Przypisy są ni przypiął ni wypiął: rozumiem nazwy własne ale “klatka Faradaya”, “arboretum” albo “reflektor”, serio? Część z nich wygląda na pisane przez autora - co prawda wolałbym sam zgadywać neologizmy i nazwy własne, ale z tym co było książka nabrała nieco podobieństwa do mang Masamune Shirowa. Coś w stylu notatek na marginesie.

Zastrzeżenie z początku podtrzymuję - wczesne transformery mają dosyć niespójny zestaw softu uczuciowego. Obstawiam, że efekty podniecenia i pożądania by już były zakodowane w tej bibliotece 8) Nie przeszkadza mi to jakoś szczególnie jednak. Wątek z Ogrodnikiem był trochę na odczep - chyba tylko po to by Grześ mógł stracić ostatnie w swoim życiu hobby. Tak czy siak narracja była elegancka, bez zbędnych ekspozycji od autorskich w stylu “ oto jak to działa”. Podobało mi się też że różne postacie miały różne poglądy na to co warto robić i w różny sposób się rozczarowywały. Googlowy przytyk zgrabny, ale trochę na siłę.

Reasumując: prawie 5 gwiazdek, minus za te wściekłe hiperlinki.

Good read, for a fan of Known Space. If the only thing you're read from KS is Ringworld, you'll found some new information, some old and really decent writing. Quite delightful.

This book is also advertised as a good starting point into KS. I'd label it as borderline spoilerific though.

This was surprisingly neat. A tasty combination of Neil Gaiman (for style of presentation) and Douglas Adams (for setting and humour). Starts as seemingly unrelated stories, combines to rather unusual mix. Not really dark, but rather realistic - while staying funny.

The author was advertised to me as “bit like Philip K. Dick, but different”. Turns out, it was a good “ different”. It had a bit of Larry Niven too. Color me intrigued.

Ha, finally.

I've reached out for this book after listening to Radiolab's great rendering of Distance of the Moon. Let's just say the rest of the comics is not as good as this one. It's very much a delightful trip, albeit it gets tedious at the times. There are certain quirks of the author that are bit tiring after prolonged exposure - for example, tendency to squeeze in love stories in the plot, no matter whether they fit there or not. All in all - the stories are tasty, but it's very easy to overdose on them. Tread carefully.

“What if” books are either very good or rather bad. I mean, there's been so many of them in so many different flavours that it's really hard to get good questions and provide an interesting analysis. Randall's book is quite good with regard to that - I had fun reading it, and I've learned some new stuff (for example, how a destroying angel works). If anything, the obligatory ending jokes felt bit forced at the times. But it was an interesting book, well written and decently illustrated.

The further I went into this book, the more disappointed I was.

The premise looked interesting and sound. Then I've started to notice all those copy/paste things that the author did (eBazaar? really?). The deus ex machina with the jinni and bin Laden was rather weak.

So in short: promising setup, disappointing execution.

There's something eerily brilliant about this piece.

Good magical stuff. Just enough oneiric, absurd and intriguing. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say that it's primarily Roland Topor with a dash of K. I. Gałczyński and Tarantino. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

Useless trivia: I've read majority of it with a fever >38℃. Makes it even more magical.

tl;dr: Jeżeli lubiłeś oryginał (niezależnie czy opowiadania czy cykl), Sezon Burz powinien ci sie spodobać.

No więc to nie może być kiepska książka, bo pożarłem błyskawicznie.

Ale do rzeczy: 4 gwiazdki za książkę, jedna gwiazdka ekstra za poprawnie zaadresowany sentyment. Wiedźmin niby ten sam, ale widać że autor się zmienił i pisze inaczej. No i - co najważniejsze - ja też jestem dobre dwa razy starszy więc odbiór pewnych rzeczy się zmienia. Co nie zmienia faktu że bardzo przyjemnie się czytało, skrzywień było mało (tylko przy fisstechu wydałem z siebie lekki świst), nawiązania do oryginału bardzo gustowne.

I epilog bardzo na miejscu. Mam tylko nadzieję że Sapek nie pójdzie w ślady Hideo Kojimy i nie zacznie produkować kolejnych *-queli.

Being short and concise is both upside and downside for this book.

Good, because it's straight to the point without unnecessary waffling around. Bad, because you're left with an uneasy feeling that there might be more complex mechanisms at play, that you don't know enough about. In the beginning the book tries to be an introduction to programming as well - but it quickly drops that pretense. Worth reading if you already know how to program and are curious about golang.

Where do I start?

It's gunpla modelling manual for beginners. Gunpla stands for Gundam plastic model - small plastic kits of bipedal robots from Gundam metaseries. If you're not interested in that, this book will most likely be a waste of your time - unless you want to start your adventure with gunpla :D

The material is really beginner stuff, but quite well presented. You can see an inspiration taken from Nomoken series. The material could be edited better - there are some duplicate information here and there - but let me put it this way: it's a great thing that finally there's a book about gunpla in English. So, if you're a beginner - get it, it'll help you. If you're an advanced modeller - get it to support the publisher. They promise publishing some more advanced material later - let's give them a chance.

Oh, and if you're considering Kindle edition - don't. The book consists of one image per page, and the resolution is not too high. This way of publication was obviously chosen because of restrictions in mobi format - but as it is, the Kindle version of this book is quite ugly and quite useless. Get the paper version, or ask the publisher to sell you a PDF :)

This book came quite close to being a very good book, and I'm pretty torn about it.

On one hand, there are neat ideas contained in the book. Good story seeds for RPG campaign, if you ask me. The oneiric bits were done quite well, and the atmosphere of “well, noone knows, but here's the gossip” worked for the setting of the book.

On other hand, the book lacks flow. It does look like a video game (I've checked, and the book was published first) - our character travels from A to B, to C, to D... and every point brings a new adventure, largely independent of others. The character development is really mediocre, and the twist at the end is quite predictable. It really looked to me like this book was rushed.

Having said so - if you like apocalyptical books, you'll most likely enjoy this one.

tl;dr: Elder One discovers bureaucracy.

Short fun read, but two things stopped me from enjoying it fully:

* BOFH-scented smell of the text; this tendency has been growing in recent Laundry novels. Perhaps it's intended as part of the flavour, but it makes me uneasy.
* The FAQ section was out of place and broke the immersion completely. This made me stop caring for the NPCs in the story and disregard the Eldritch Horror. I'm not sure what was the author's intention here...

Oh, and the formatting in Kindle version is atrocious. Underscore, really?

Prosta ale urocza historia. Jest nutka solarisowa, a całość smakuje trochę jak H.G.Wells.

I usually read RPG sourcebooks for the ideas and story seeds - I don't really care about mechanics anymore, as I don't usually play RPGs nowadays. Given it's GURPS, there's fair amount of number paste, describing that you can meet 2d patrol bots in a robofactory. Other than that, it's quite tasty story of a post-apocalyptic (or ongoing apocalypse? :) of a robotic flavor. Enjoyable if you're into those kind of things.

Read it a long time ago in Polish, now rereading it in English. One day I'll read it in Japanese :)I really enjoy the story - it has this air of uneasiness, comparable only to Junji Ito work, but without resorting to any unnatural matters. Nothing out of ordinary happens in that book, but at the same time, the puzzle presented by the author is very tasty and mysterious. With both Polish and English translations I've experienced the same thing - the style of writing felt very William Gibson like. Can't exactly put my finger on which property of the text makes me feel that, but it's very much Gibson - just not in cyberpunk flavour.

Pretty meh. Way too little nodejs specific information, plenty of general web service advice. Unnecessary colloquial tone in few places, plus asyncIO Kool-Aid instead of details. Perhaps it'd be useful as an intro to complete newcomer to webapps. I just wanted to read something structured about node.us - and that book missed my expectations.

Oh, and security chapter was quite silly and as such - completely expendable.

Gripping and horrifying story. about worst kind of prison - one that locks you up inside your own head.

Very well written, with decent amount of sources propping the story up. Must read if you're interested in North Korea history - and really recommended if you aren't.

Looks like an excellent RPG system!

I always preferred narration to mechanics - and after bumping into both Gurps and Kryształy Czasu I got burned by “universal” schematics. Fate presents itself as primarily narration based, very flexible and cooperative game. If anything, I'd be slightly afraid of seeing a powergame abuse this flexibility - but it really looks like something I'd enjoy.

The book itself is short and sweet - straight to the point, good examples, plenty of very good advice, on both game creation and actual gameplay. If you're an RPGer that has seen a lot - you'll most likely enjoy Fate. If you're a newcomer - read this, as it's a really simple yet powerful game.

I had a lot of fun reading this :)

Hard to give an honest opinion here. On one hand, it looks very straightforward, down to earth set of advices. Which, of course, can be outdated, the later it is past publication date. On the other hand, generous use of italics, underline and CAPITAL LETTERS bear uncanny mark of a book written primarily with passion. Given the author's controversial behaviour it very well might be the case.