Thrawn by Timothy Zahn Years ago, while in high school, I read Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. This was in the early days of Star Wars novelizations. Before The new Jedi Order, before Darth Caedus and before Disney cleared the plate for the new Star Wars movies. Thrawn has always made an impression. While we will always have the original Thrawn trilogy, this book and the recent Star Wars: Rebel series canonized Thrawn! more »
The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi Based on the name, I had expected this book to relate to the Philip Dick classic “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” in plot. While there is a relation to that book. The relationship is very peripheral. Scalzi is a really good story teller. The web he’s woven in this tale is quite amazing. The tight pacing in this story could work very well as a movie script. more »
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut This won’t be a review. Seems a little presumptuous to review this book. I read this book after watching Arrival and Interstellar close together. Completely unplanned. These stories all dealt with the non-linearity of time in their own ways. In Cat’s Cradle, the saying is “busy, busy, busy”. For this book, the refrain is “So it goes”. Vonnegut’s story can hardly be categorized as sci-fi. It makes you doubt, intentionally one would assume, whether the sci-fi is in the mind of the author or the character. more »
The Collapsing Empire (The Interdependency #1) by John Scalzi Great start to a series. This first book sets up the grand world of the Interdependency and I am ready for more. Like everyone says, it certainly reminds me of elements of the DUNE SERIES by Frank Herbert and the FOUNDATION SERIES by Isaac Asimov, two of my favorites. The book opens up with a tense scene that grabs you right away and tricks you into thinking it might be a Star Trek like space opera… Rest assured, it’s not. more »
On March 28, the House Republicans voted to repeal a set of proposed FCC rules that would have given strong privacy protection to ISP customers. This party-line vote follows another party-line vote in the Senate that also approved this measure. Not a single Democrat voted for it. There is not a single consumer friendly argument that can be made for this. The only conclusion you can draw is that Republicans think earning profit for the ISP is more important than protecting the privacy of consumers. more »
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams I read this book after reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and that after reading Gaiman’s Norse Mythology. All without knowing what the books were supposed to be about. I picked up the book through random sales and happen to read them in this order. Serendipity. Were I Mr. Dirk Gently, this would induce me to believe in the “Zen” method of book selection similar to his “Zen” method of navigation. more »
American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition by Neil Gaiman I read this book in 2 ways. Kindle ebook version and the audible version (A Full Cast Production). This might be the first time I’ve listen to a book recorded as a full cast. Compared to other books where there is a female voice and a male voice, the full cast here is done really well. I immediately identified with the voices picked for Shadow and Mr. more »