Look a book review!

This is the review I’d started when I was hit with what I originally said was writers block and eventually attributed to being burnt out.

I’ve avoided coming back to this but I really do need to get it out of the way so here it is.

After the previous book I’d read I was pleased to say I really enjoyed this one! This was despite reading the description and being a little bit wary.

The story is set in a near future where body modification is the norm and having your jawline reshaped is a common as having your ears pierced!

The main character is Fed, whose defining physical characteristic is that he has prosthetic legs – despite living in a world where getting a new set of legs would be trivial.

Fed is a bit of a loner, highly intelligent and a near genius with computers. His life is at a bit of a crossroads when he meets up with his estranged brother who convinces him to get involved in a what sounds like an impossible “get rich” scheme. Fed agrees to get involved and drops out of school which is where the fun starts.

Fed’s skill with computers a key part of the plan so this part of the plot was obviously of interest to me.

The story is very much about how Fed grows as a person and tries to figure out who he is as he comes across a wide variety of weird and wonderful characters and they soon realise they are way in over their head.

What I really loved about this book was the imagery it created of the world it was set it. I honestly think it would make an amazing film!

The title of the book sounds a bit random but once you realise what the phrase Roo’d means it makes perfect sense.

It all gets a little bit crazy towards the end but it doesn’t take anything away from home much I enjoyed this.

As with a lot of the books I’ve read so far this year it’s available on a creative commons license so grab it and check it out!

Highly recommended.

This was the first book in a while I didn’t actually like, hence the brevity as it wasn’t all that memorable either!

I rarely give up on a book once I’ve started it properly because I like to give it every chance – some books redeem themselves after an iffy start this wasn’t one of them. I didn’t give up on it but I came very close!

The book is a selection of very short stories all based around a technology theme.

My issue was that too many of the stories made little sense. Many of them were actually too short.

It actually got reasonable reviews on GoodReads but this one wasn’t for me.

It’s possible I just didn’t get the humour as the write-up said it was “tech absurd”.

It’s another creative commons book so if you want to check it yourself it’s available here.

Another Cory Doctorow book!

This book was another that I’d actually got on my Amazon wish list before I realised it has also been released under a creative commons license.

It took me quite a while to get into this. I read the first half of the book with a frown on my face as I just didn’t get the underlying premise. The main theme of the book is based around groups of people living and working around a specific time zone, regardless of their geographic location. What’s the point in that you may ask but if you think about the modern world we conduct lots of relationships online.

People always come together because of shared interests and the World Wide Web has allowed us to interact with groups with similar tastes all across the world. The only downside with this is that we all live in different time zones. If one of your best friends lives on the other side of the world how can you maintain that friendship if one of you is always asleep?

So by living by the same time zone, regardless of where you are in the world this obstacle is easily overcome. There are obviously practical problems that go with this which the book looks into as well.

Once I’d got my head around this concept the first half of the book that I’d read made a lot more sense. I’m not sure if the story was specifically intended to work like this or if it was just me being a little slow on the uptake.

Anyway, the rest of the story – the main character Art is living in London but is part of the Eastern Standard Tribe. All is well in Arts life until he accidently hits a woman from Los Angeles called Linda, with his car. This throws the two together and they quickly become inseparable. They both have their own baggage however and through some double crossing Art ends up in a psychiatric ward!

As I said earlier it took me a while to get into and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other two Cory Doctorow’s I’ve read recently it was smart enough to hold my attention.

Back in February I explained about the book reviews I’d started posted on the site. I was trying to be more consistent with my reading so thought keeping track of what I’d actually read would help. Also writing book reviews would help me keep in the blogging habit. Finally, I hoped that anyone who might be interested in my blog would have similar reading tastes so they would be valid blogging fodder anyway.

The problem is the reading has actually gone too well. My more consistent reading habits coupled with my recent Kindle purchase means I’m finishing books quicker than I’m writing blog posts!

I’ve read 18 books so far since the start of the year, which you can see on this page.(Books that don’t have any cover art on GoodReads aren’t displayed – you need to click through to GoodReads to see the full list)

I’m conscious that I don’t want this to turn into a book review site so I’ve actually got a bit of a back log of reviews to write.

I asked for some opinions on Twitter and the consensus was that reviews were ok, though obviously my main content area is still important so I’m imposing some rules on myself.

For every book review, I’ll write at least one other post. If this is more than all the better but it’ll stop me posting book reviews one after the other.

The side effect of this to me should be that it’ll help keep in the blogging habit even more as I’ll have to write other content.

If you didn’t catch the Twitter conversation and you’ve got any opinions to share on my book reviews please do!

I guess this doesn’t technically count as a book as it’s actually a short story…but I enjoyed it so much I wanted to write about it anyway!

We’ve all heard about nuclear bunkers and it’s been written about in fiction and movies about how important world figures would disappear into these bunkers in the event of some major global catastrophe.

Something we don’t really think about is data centres. Many of them make the fact they are highly secure one of their selling points. Lots of them are also designed to withstand a nuclear attack.

This is the angle the story takes. If nuclear war broke out, all around the world there would be groups of network engineers, safe and sound keeping the Internet running! The fact they’d be in control of a massive worldwide communications tool would put them in a position of power. The story follows one specific group and the decisions they make about what to do in the aftermath.

I’ll stop here as I’m in danger of writing more than the story itself! As I said it’s more of a short story than a book but I really enjoyed it.

You can read it here. 

Based on my past experience with Little Brother this was another Creative Commons book I managed to pick up for my Kindle.

This book actually needs to be thought about in two parts.

The idea behind it and the story that goes with it.

So what’s the idea?

Think about how the Internet is entrenched into your daily life. Pretty deep I imagine if you’re anything like me. Technology is slowly integrating with our lives, so much so that we’re no longer surprised by hearing about things like the Internet connected refrigerator! So think about a world where the computer becomes a part of the body. When you’re born you’re implanted and you can access the Internet just by thinking it, you’re eyes doubling up as heads up display. Sure you’d lose just about any privacy you might think you have left but what about the possibilities this could bring? There is another side to this of course. If you’re permanently attached to the Internet when do you disconnect? In the story people do just about everything at home and when they do leave to go to work or travel somewhere they are still reading, gaming, chatting, etc while on the go. Regular social interaction becomes a rarity and skills such as learning to read body language are lost.

It’s these questions that the story is based around and the main character Jack, gets caught up in a what appears to be a terrorist plot when her employers computer system is hacked. In trying to figure out who is behind the attack Jack comes across a group called the Red who are a group of people who believe being permanently attached to the system isn’t a something people should do by default. As Jack continues her search her thoughts about “the system” and how she fits into it are questions she needs to face.

Considering this was a free book it was another I really enjoyed. It was a bit of a slow starter but once I got into it I couldn’t put it down and it’s got a pretty interesting twist at the end. It was a little rough around the edges with spelling and grammar at times but nothing that would get in the way of reading it.

You can get the digital version here where there is also an audio version if you’re that way inclined.

This is the first book I read entirely on my Kindle and I stumbled across it totally by accident. I was browsing around the GoodReads site (which if you’re a reader it’s worth signing up for – it’s like the worlds largest book club!) and I was looking at lists that some of my favourite books are on to see if there was anything else that caught my eye. I found Little Brother and noticed there was a “read book” link. When I clicked it I was given the opportunity to save the book in a variety of formats. I initially wondered if GoodReads were doing something naughty but once I’d read the foreword in the book I realised this wasn’t the case.

The book is released under a creative commons license. You can still by a physical copy but if you want the digital version you can download it and pass it around as much you like. The foreword of the book explains the reasoning behind it is thought provoking in itself. You can read about the reasons for giving the book away for free here.

So onto the book.

The story is based around Marcus, or “win5ton” as he’s known online who is a seventeen year old who likes to fool around with technology and considers himself a bit of a cracker. His friends skip school one afternoon and are in the wrong place at the wrong time as they are caught up in a terrorist attack. They are whisked away and heavily interrogated by the “authorities”. Once Marcus and his friends are released they find their home town has become increasing paranoid where everyone is treated with suspicion and everyone’s freedoms are stepped on in the name of “protecting against the terrorist threat”. The story follows Marcus as he vows to fight back.

I really enjoyed this, it’s based around a scenario which when explained as it is in the story sounds very plausible as well as raising many questions about privacy and security which are applicable to everyone in the modern world. The book also has some really good tech angles which was what drew me to the book in the first place.

The author, Cory Doctorow has got several other books under a creative commons license – I didn’t put the link together straight away but I’ve actually already got some of his books on my Amazon wish list so I’ll be checking these out sooner than I originally planned!       

You can download the book yourself in just about any format you can think of here or get the traditional dead tree version here on Amazon.

It also prompted me to see what other books are available under a creative commons license and was surprised at home many I actually found! It’ll probably warrant a post of it’s own.

I picked this up ages ago on market stall selling old books.

Aliens is pretty standard geek fare and as a teenager I was obsessed with both Aliens and Predator. I haven’t read any Aliens fiction for ages so thought I’d change that since book has been sat on the shelf for a while.

The plot is focussed around a pharmaceutical company who make drugs from Alien “royal jelly” (gunk from the eggs). Their main product “Xeon Zip” is a little but like Red Bull but it starts to have weird effects on certain people, turning them overly aggressive and giving them superhuman strength and speed – they call this product offshoot “Fire” and naturally this gets the attention of the military and a mission is put together to visit the Alien “hiveworld” and collect some more of this royal jelly. The story follows two main characters, Daniel Grant – the owner of the pharmaceutical company who tags along on the mission to get away from his “business problems” on Earth and Colonel Alexandra Kozlowski who heads up the team of soldiers that are visit the planet.

They don’t actually get to the planet until the last third of the book which is a bit of a shame as it meant the action on the planet was actually quite short.

When they get to the planet they discover the Aliens have split into two different variations, the regular black Aliens and these new red Aliens and the ship lands right in the middle of a war between the two factions which gives them plenty more to contend with on what was already a seemingly impossible mission.

On the whole it was a good read but it would have been nice if the red/black Alien concept had been explored further.

If you’re a fan of the Aliens universe it’s worth a read.

You can get it on Amazon here.

They say never judge a book by it’s cover but I’m glad I did with this one! I was in a bookshop looking for something else when the RSS symbol on the cover jumped out at me. I had a quick read of the overview which mentioned bloggers so as there was a "3 for 2” offer in the shop I added to the other books I had in my hand and it’s sat on my bookshelf for months since.

I finally picked it up Friday night and I’d finished within 24 hours as I was so engrossed!

The basic concept of the story is that sometime in the near future we’ll develop a cure for both cancer and the common cold but these two things combined will create something new that turns allows the dead to reanimate (zombies!) Because of how the story is handled by the press, mainstream media lose a lot of trust and credibility so bloggers become a key part of news services. The story follows three bloggers, a brother and sister and their friend,  who hit the big time when they are invited to follow a US senator on the campaign trial as he runs for the presidency.

The zombie angle was why this had initially stayed on the shelf for so long as it’s usually not my sort of thing so my expectations were quite low when I finally decided to give it a whirl….how wrong was I?!

The story is written in such a way that’s it’s very believable and you side with the main characters from the very beginning which is why i found putting it down really difficult.

I don’t like spoiling stories so I won’t say anything else about the story other than you should check it out!

I also found out today this is the first in a trilogy of books so I’m looking forward to getting the next one.

I mentioned recently about how much I like to read. Surely for a techie, getting an Amazon Kindle is a no-brainer?

Things is I’m really torn.

With my technical head on it makes perfect sense. An entire library in my pocket. Books available on demand, no waiting for deliveries, shelf space at home reclaimed!

The technical side of the device is also really cool. Wi-Fi, optional 3g with coverage in over 100 countries, automatic backup, sync across multiple devices so you can pick up where you left off, massive battery life, text to speech, Facebook and Twitter integration, easy to read e-ink which works in sunlight!

Really, what isn’t there to like?! Honestly I’m completely sold. So why haven’t I got one yet?

The thing is I love books, as in real, actual, physical, books.

I have tons of them and while I understand I’d save a ton of space by switching to digital books I like having them around and I still get a massive kick out of receiving a book as a gift. 

Also, while the instant buying experience of the Kindle is really appealing I love going into a book shop and just browsing. I’ve picked up lots of books purely by accident that I don’t think I would get just by browsing the Amazon site.

Take this book for example.

I spotted this while when I popped into a book shop whilst in town today.

I wasn’t looking for anything specific. I was just looking at the shelves to see what jumped out at me and I grabbed this straightaway.

This sort of thinking must have also happened to lots of people when the MP3 became popular and I’ll be honest I don’t miss music CDs and the switch to obtaining music digitally was really easy for me.

Everyone I’ve spoken to who owns a Kindle has nothing but great things to say about them and as I’ve already mentioned I’m totally sold so why am I having such a hard time getting over the fact I’d never need to physically own a book again. All those books I’ve read once and not picked up for years would instead just sit in memory on the device.

Am I subconsciously trying to keep score of the amount of books I’ve read by the the amount of shelves I’ve managed fill? 

I’d be really interested to hear other opinions on this.

I’m so indecisive if I do decide to get one then I’ll torn over whether the 3g version is worth the extra money.