guess

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: Post Apocalyptic sci-fi. Told in backstory from the viewpoint of a survivor. Dark, parts of it were good. The ending is very annoying. Atwood seems to be a bit stuck up. She said here work is not science fiction, it is speculative fiction and science fiction involves space ships. Strikes me that she just doesn't want to be 'associated' with sci-fi nerds.

How good is 11/22/63? I also know that King is a liberal (this doesn't bother me), and I am wondering if he loads the book up with liberal diatribes? I read some reviews on Amazon that make me think he does. Even if you agree with him politically you should be able to see this if it happens. I don't like it when conservative writers do this either (Clancy loaded his later books with right wing diatribes). I think there is another Time Travel book about saving Kennedy that was written in the 1970s. It was by two well known sci-fi authors. I never read it and can't remember the name. Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove: This is done more as alternative history. A bunch of racists go back in time and give Robert E. Lee 100,000 AK-47s in January 1864. The book is VERY well done. It doesn't spend much time on the time travel part and focuses more on the alternative history. I have read 10-12 books by Turtledove and this one is by far my favorite. If you are somewhat tempted, read the prologue and see if it catches you. I really liked it. One of my favorite book quotes of all time. (quote will be off a little. been a while since I read the book) "What are these new fangled repeaters?" Said Robert E. Lee "General Lee, its an AK-47" Sounds silly, but it works in the book. Turtledove is a history buff and he clearly did a lot of research and put a lot of thought into this book. I never got the sense of 'oh this is just silly'. Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt: This is ok. 2 friends discover their dad's time travel device and go historical site seeing. Its more of a history buff book. I think McDevitt likes history and thought it would be fun to write about 2 regular guys from modern times chatting with historical figures. The Accidental Time Traveller by Joe Haldeman: Very good book. It also has a sense of humor. A graduate student who is too lazy to finish his Ph.D. accidentally discovers time travel. The problem is the time machine only goes forward in time. There is one scene in the distant future where he runs into something similiar to the anti-Skynet. Instead of wanting to destroy mankind, this AI, thinks people in the future are so shallow and utterly annoying, it wants to go forward in time to get away from them. Haldeman has a very good writing style. His prose is very compact. The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter: Sort of a sequel to the original Time Machine book by HG Wells (written 100 years ago). This is more sci-fi oriented, but I found it fun. You don't need to read the first book to know what happens. Nantucket Series: by SM Stirling. Read 2 out of 3. Island of Nantucket gets zapped by an alien force and sent back to 6000 BC. All the people and stuff on the island are the same. Stirling is a terrific world building and that was really fun. I never read the third one because I found his bad guy character boring and too over the top. I think he added it just to have a good guy/bad guy arch.

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie: Joe Abercrombie is a god. He talks Dark and Twisted fantasy and takes it to a new level. His characters are incredibly rich and detailed. None of them are perfect and they all have issues. Another thing I like about him is that none of his characters are the super hero type. Most authors will make a super hero type, then use a few sentences here and there to say to you that no they are not. However, they act like super heroes. When his anti-hero was captured and tortured, she did not go ninja and escape or cast some spell. She screamed and cried. As you would expect someone to. Many of her characters are disturbed, one is clearly autistic (he can't figure out why he doesn't have any friends), and another is so centered he thinks everyone else is self centered (he is a poisoner). Abercrombie writes the best action scenes I have seen. I usually get bored in fight scenes and just want to skip over the details to see who won. His are fascinating. What he does best are large battles. His battles are chaotic and a mess and he makes you feel like everything is a mess. He has a few interesting video interviews on the web about this book. He set it in an area of his world that he modeled after the politics of Renaissance Italy (constantly warring city states that hire mercenaries that only want to loot and plunder). This is a stand alone book that takes place a few years after the First Law Series ends. It focuses on new characters and some minor characters from his first series. I thought the book was incredible. It is basically a revenge book. Mercenary leader gets betrayed, so she goes on a murder fest to get even. This is not a typical action movie type revenge fest. She is not a good person, a lot of innocent people get hurt and its her fault. On top of that no one really cares. I like this, because when people get upset, it makes the book morally easy to read. Historically, monarchs and mercenaries are petty, self centered, violent, and basically a bunch of thugs. This is something that is often glossed over in fantasy. The evil people are this way,but we have our good guy kings too.

Looking for ones that are not author specific. anyone know any other good ones?

I think it is a very good game for kids. Since its not a mind numbing game. They have to be creative. The new release added experience and levels. I think if they add more combat and levels, it will appeal more to kids, but they still have to be creative. There are literally 100s of youtube videos about the game. I do want to warn parents, it has VERY basic graphics. That will turn kids off. Before you show it to your kids, you may want to do some googles. The game is designed to be easily modded and there are also a lot of graphics packs, that improve the graphics a lot. Kids might be turned off by these graphics. A couple of other things you will want to do to get your kids into the game. -- google minecraft wiki. You will get a list of things you can create. -- go to youtube or google video and search for minecraft first day. The first day is hard. Since you only have 10 minutes to build a shelter and create torches before the monsters come out. You need to hide. if your child gets frustrated. go to options and just turn off the monsters so they can get started. They can always create another world. There are literally 100s of videos on this game. It is incredibly popular. I think its a great game for kids. There is an xbox 360 version coming next year. Down side is that I am not sure that version will have easy access to mods. The mods make the game fun. Fans write alot of extensions to the game. Anything from new items, to mapping utilities, to a really cool one called buildcraft (you can set up machines to mine for you and build things for you). There is also an online version so you can play on people's servers.

Can someone tell me if the two books by Scott Lynch leave you hanging? I have heard great things about them, but I don't want to get left with a cliff hangers where I really want to find out what will happen next. Since we don't know when or even if there will be any more books.

Plague Year, Plague War, Plague Zone by Jeff Carlson: Nanotech virus gets out of a lab and wipes out most of humanity. Only people that survive are people above 10,000 feet . There is a failsafe built into the nanotech where it explodes at low air pressure. These are pretty good. The author is familiar with the mountains and spends alot of time there. I actually found the attention to detail on the environment and the world more interesting than the action/adventure plot. For example, if all mammals are dead below 10,000 feet then there are not enough predators for ants which end up exploding in population and destroying the forests. They were short and fun. If you have any interest in these, google the author to find his web page. He has some pretty good video blogs on his books. They are not great, but fun and relatively short. I would have liked them more if he focused more on the people and how they survived than the action/thriller plot. I am not sure if that is fair, since they are action/thriller books. Currently: Robopocalypse: Read the first 2 chapters last night. Has Isaac Aasamov style prose. I don't really like it so far. Best Served Cold Joe Abercrombie: About 200 pages in. GREAT BOOK. He really brings his characters to life. He gets so dark and violent sometimes that its funny. Lord tries to murder a mercenary. She survives. Brother does not. So she gets a bunch of murderers to go kill him. I like how the book is loaded with minor characters from the First Law Series so you can learn more about them. The crazy, ex-con Day is a new favorite of mine. I think he is autistic, but no one in a fantasy would would know what that is (do any other fantasy authors have characters with issues like this? ) Audio: Hunger Games: About 1/3 through. Arena just started. Pretty good. However, as an adult, I feel that the dark treatment is treated too lightly. I think the subject would have been better for an adult book. Then again, I like darker books. This probably would not sell as well. I keep thinking it would be better if it was more of a cross between 1984, Lord of the Flies, and Gladiator. I would also up the violence 10x. Its a horrible world, don't protect the reader. I generally avoid childrens books because the material is too light. Collins prose is very good. She has a very good voice for her main character. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood: Started this, but got Hunger Games from the library. Hunger has a waiting list so I can't renew it. Post Apocalyptic book. Too soon to tell how good it is. I have seen Atwoods books for a while and read reviews. She seems to be critically acclaimed. So I gave her book a shot. I really like her prose so far. Way of Kings: Trying the audio. If its too long for me to follow, I'll read the book. I like audio cause I can take a walk when I listen to it and keeps me off the couch. Don't hate on me for not getting to this for a while. I don't read or audio as much as some of you.

www.minecraft.net Anyone else like this game? It is a very unique and detailed crafting game. It is also incredibly popular. If you go to youtube there are entire channels dedicated to it and large numbers of walkthroughs. It is basically a crafting game. Everything in the game can be moved, mined, dug, destroyed or built. you can build mines, steps, houses, farms, and there are even circuits you can design. To keep it exciting there are 10 minute day/night cycles. At night and in dark places monsters come out. So you have to fight and/or hide from them until morning (you can sleep in your house if your safe in there to get to morning). They are constantly adding new features and new releases. It is cheap to. 20 euros. I think that is about about $28. You can actually try it for free by signing up and then hitting 'cancel' after you log in. You can't get it in the store. It also has an online version where people host servers where they build things together. The downside is that it has rudimentary graphics. So if you get it for your kids they won't like that. There are a vast number of plugins and graphics add ons to make the graphics nicer. The game was written to allow fans to create plugins that you can add. There are plenty of web pages and you tube videos explaining how to add these. So if you get this for your kids, you may want to add a graphics pack before showing it to them. I think its great for kids because you can be so creative with it. The learning curve is steep, however, there are so many help pages out there, that its not that steep. Plus large numbers of youtube videos explaining the game. It is just really unique.

books have gotten a lot longer over the last 40-50 years in general. I remember reading that in the 1950s books needed to be short enough so people can finish them on a train or bus ride. Books may continue to get longer as more go to ebooks since this eliminates the printing costs. Yeah I know, printing costs now are a smaller percentage of publishing, but there are limits. Sometimes I really like shorter books. I get in and I get out. I like to sample different authors. This is a good way to do it.

I keep hearing great things about Scott Lynch and I read his blog sometimes. I have been avoiding reading his books since I don't know if he will write any more books due to his medical issues. Looks like he update his online story(I have not read it) so he may be feeling better and he went to some Cons. Does anyone know if he is close to finishing his 3rd book? He seems to be updating his blog more lately.

This is a video. The women in it is very articulate. http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/2011/10/wegotscrewed.html

Large businesses play patent troll with each other too. Apple is suing Samsung in Australia to prevent their smart phone device. So samsung is suing apple in japan and another country. Apple is actually trying to patent the app store. So no other device can have an app store. Oracle is suing Google since the Android operating system using Java. Oracle inherited java when it bought Sun Microsystems. So they want a cut of every android device sold. They tend to complain when they are sued, but then go ahead and do it to each other. The most notorious case of this was the company SCO. They claimed to own the patent on Unix. So they sued any company that used Unix. This includes Sun Microsystem, IBM, HP, etc... I am not even sure if SCO really has any products. All they do is sue. They just had a website. I don't know what kind of staff they had. These large companies would settle with them since its cheap to pay off patent trolls than fight them. The patent trolls could scare away their customers. After years of this, a judge finally ruled that SCO could not sue anyone anymore. They went out of business immediately.

I have not heard of the new Rithmatist project. Did I miss it in his blog or is this the first time its being mentioned? As far as the contract really having a non-compete. It doesn't have to. With civil law, you can't file a complaint to the police. You have to enforce contracts with your checkbook by paying lawyers. So a publishing house(or any business) has more money to throw around so you lose. It would cost the author more than the $20,000 advance to defend herself. So she loses by default. This is not uncommon. There was an article recently on Slashdot. There is 1 guy who runs a centralized timezone database for everyone who uses Linux. He runs it on a government website at NIH. The guy who ran the site didn't make any money off of it. Alot of techies will do stuff like this since they enjoy being part of the community. He is being sued for patent violation by a patent troll. So he took it down since he can't afford to defend himself. They want to win a ruling against him because he has no money to defend himself. Then they will take that ruling and sue the people who have money (Oracle, IBM, HP,the US Federal Government, etc...).

If there are any published authors who read this, I would be interested in your take. There is also a link on the slashdot page to a New York Times article about Amazon's new strategy. Writers don't work for publishers. They are self employed. They have a business relationship. It makes no sense whatsoever for a small business owner to non-compete with a publisher or anyone. As a small business owner it is not your responsibility to worry about your publishers business model. From what I have read, publishers will drop authors right away if you don't produce.. So you have to worry about yourself. Penguin knows that their non-compete claims are not legal. However, under civil law your legal rights are dependent on how much money you are capable of spending. So Penguin wins since the author cannot afford to defend herself. This is very common. If Amazon was smart at all, they would buy this authors book immediately and market it heavily and then put up interviews with the author on the site where she discusses what happened with Penguin. Since they want to sign more authors and essentially get into publishing it could work as marketing to lure more writers to them. Then again, signing with Amazon is locking yourself into only selling on Amazon and only selling on the Kindle. Amazon requires that all contract information remain silent. This typically means that they have severe non-compete penalties if you sell through anyone else. That being said, if the author can get a larger share of the sale prices it may be worth it. I would be concerned about Amazon in the long run if I was an author. They have a track record of making deals like this to gain market share and then being a bully when they have the market share. Several years ago, Amazon raised prices on their best customers. People only found out about when they discussed prices on message boards. Since when you log into Amazon you get personalized responses. Plus last year they hurt authors by pulling buy buttons.

The first link is to a slashdot.org story about Amazon signing authors directly. In there, there is a link to a blog by an author being sued by her publisher. She e-published some older short stories with Amazon that were rejected by the major publishers. I have never heard of this author. Publishers seem to be getting desperate. http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/1821244/amazon-bypassing-publishers-by-signing-authors-directly http://kianadavenportdialogues.blogspot.com/2011/08/sleeping-with-enemy-cautionary-tale.html

I got into reading fantasy when I was in junior high school (in the mid-1980s). I saw someone on the bus reading a Dragonlance book. This was before it became a franchise. I devoured them. I have not re-read them, but I am willing to bet if I did, I'd be bored today. my tastes have changed as I have gotten older. I actually rarely re-read books. Since there are so many other books that I want to read and I don't have time.

I clicked on the ALA link and they don't say that all of the books have been banned. They say banned or 'or' challenged by some 3rd party. They also don't say how often those books have been challenged or successful banned from libraries or when this happened. This is pretty vague stuff that does not really give clear details. So I am not sure what it really means. I find it difficult to believe that 1984, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby (this was required reading in my high school) have much pressure to be banned today. I would like to see more details on this. I would also like to see their definition of a banned book. For example, considering that the economy is bad, is it considered banning if taxpayers say think its a waste of money to buy a book by Howard Stern(or for many Brandon Sanderson fans a book by Terry Goodkind). Local libraries and in particularly smaller town libraries and public school libraries can't buy all the books. That being said, I am not comparing this to some crazies who want to ban the Great Gatsby (I don't think I even liked this book, but I read it a long time ago). My parents were in high school in the mid-1960s. 1984 was required reading. I think it was taught as an anti-communist book. By the time I was in high school, it was no longer required. I read it on my own after I finished college. I would be curious about the cases where this book was banned or who asked to have it removed from a library.

Feed and Deadline by Mira Grant: I am not a zombie fan. The only other zombie book I have read was World War Z (which was terrific). I decided to read these books since it was nominate for a hugo and then I read some reviews about it. There are some things I really like about these books and some things that annoy me. First off the pacing is excellent, the prose is good, and the main characters are interesting and in some ways unique. These books take place about 20 years after zombies popped up in the world and it deals with a world that has to cope with them. It is written in first person and revolves around a brother and sister blogging team. The team is selected to follow a presidential candidate during his campaign. I don't really buy the premise that blogging is as reliable as mainstream news. I also don't did not like the relationship between the candidate and the reporters. It is not believable and they would not have that kind of contact. I rolled my eyes a few times. Also, Grant does not do a really good job with the hard science fiction. She took the internet circa 2010 and projected it 30 years in the future. The only change is that blogging is a bigger deal. Another annoying thing about the first book is a clear liberal bias. She created a republican presidential candidate that only liberals would support and then created a generic right-wing bad guy. I got just as annoyed when Tom Clancy showed his right wing bias in Rainbow 6. Another annoying thing in both books is that the bad guys all tell their dastardly plan just before they die. That is pretty cliched... I do recommend these books. The brother/sister relationship she created is unique. It makes sense to them, but everyone else thinks its weird. I like the first person narratives as well. In the 2nd book the narrator is a bit insane and she handles it way. It works very well in her books. Another positive thing in her books is that there is a constant sense of danger. All of the characters are expendable. So you don't get the sense that anyone is superman. She also does a good job making the ensemble cast interesting. In many books with an ensemble cast, they tend to run together and I cannot tell them apart. That is not the issue here. They all have unique and interesting personalities. Though both books are good. Deadline is much better. The ending to Deadline is outstanding. It makes you want to wait for the next book in the series.

I really liked Name of the Wind. However, I am mixed on Wised Mans Fear. I thought it was far longer that it should of been. The book followed a series of events, but event seemed to drag on. Too many stories, too many conversations, and so on. I like the overall material, but I think it would have been a better book if 200 pages were trimmed out. It really dragged on. Likes: -- magic system. He clearly spent alot of time on it and did alot of research -- the concept. Kvothe basically going, I'm not so great -- the hero is not a super hero. You get that impression in the first book which is cliched, but as the story goes on Rothfuss makes it clear, he isn't superman -- interludes: the parts of the story that were in the Inn were outstsanding. crisp, short, and to the point -- I like the mysteries in the book. hopefully when he explains them, they will be interesting. -- I like it when Kvothe screws up. he seems like more a real person -- I like how Kvothe blows off his mouth AND this gets him in trouble. The trope in fantasy is the annoying character who blows off his mouth then gets what deserves. In this book its the hero that does it. Which I like. He doesn't even mean too, which reminds me of smart people that I have met. -- I like how its going to get dark and bad things are going to happen to our hero. This is different than most fantasy novels. It seems to be setting up as a tragedy, which is unique in fantasy books. Dislikes: -- too long. really dragged on. would go from event to event, then spend too much time at each. too many stories. -- Kvothe is too over the top as an entertaining. Its a too much. He keeps saying he "grew up as an Edema Ruh". His parents died when he was like 8 or 9 right? That isn't growing up. You would only have images for memories. Even at 16. -- Rothfuss used the word clever too much. That word stands out. First off there are different types of cleaver. No one is cleaer at everything. The part where he was this marvelous poet for his Patron was kind of ridiculous. The kid never had a girlfriend before that. It was too much. It got pretty annoying after a while. -- quest is too good and too smart at too many things. It is a bit much.

if you read The Gathering Storm, Brandon had a viewpoint in the prologue with a couple of farmers. These are regular people. I think it would be interesting to have view points from a regular soldier (not an Ashaman) in Rands army. Just a regular guy who signed up to get away from home or just needed a job. A viewpoint from the spouse of someone in his army. Maybe an innkeeper giving comments on what is going on in the world. Or in George RR Martin's book, have a viewpoint of a farmer caught up in the middle of the war. Both sides steal his food for their armies. Or possibly a servant in the royal castle who is just trying to do her job to feed her family. I am not exactly sure what I am looking for. Someone who isn't a hero or a villain. Someone who isn't a noble or anyone special. I tried Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness (I think that was it) about 10 years ago and just couldn't get into it. I'll try her again.

I read Daniel Abraham's series recently and I really liked how most of his characters were regular people. They seemed like people you could meet walking down the street. They talked about real issues. I remember I saw something with Brandon speaking and he said that fantasy was not as diverse as Science Fiction. I think it would be interested to read some fantasy novels which are a mix of popular fiction in a fantasy setting. I read a couple of terrific middle ages historical fiction (Pillars of the Earth, Cathedral by the Sea). Most of the characters in these books were regular people. Does anyone have any fantasy books they can recommend that are based around regular people? I don't like urban fantasy. I like the escapism of a new world.