Geoff's Blog [Opinionated Geek]

�To Kill A Mockingbird� by Harper Lee

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:06:10 GMT

�You Feel The Heat�
Score: 4/5

Harper Lee

?6.99

I�d never seen the film and I�d never read the book before. That�s surprising, given that some folks were given this in English class to read when I was growing up.

Still, it�s an interesting book, not just because of the story or the characters, but because of how well it evokes the spirit of the times in the US South. It was a cold part of winter here when I read it but I swear the heat of the deep south kept me warm.

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�Reamde� by Neal Stephenson

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:05:28 GMT

�Nice, Simple Techno Thriller�
Score: 4/5

Reamde

Neal Stephenson

?18.99

It�s nice for Neal Stephenson to get back to techno stuff. I really, really didn�t like the Baroque trilogy, and Anathem was patchy.

What you have here is a modern-day thriller. It�s not as large in scope or imaginative as Snow Crash or Anathem, but it�s streets ahead of Quicksilver.

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�The Naked God� by Peter F. Hamilton

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:57:54 GMT

�Even More New Characters�
Score: 4/5

The Naked God (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Peter F. Hamilton

?5.66

By this stage, I was starting to feel like he'd introduced every possible character in the entire universe, but the author outdid himself and came up with some more.

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?The Neutronium Alchemist? by Peter F. Hamilton

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:58:11 GMT

�Some More New Characters�
Score: 3/5

The Neutronium Alchemist (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Peter F. Hamilton

?5.66

The theme continues, and after a thousand pages we finally return to the story that was started in the prologue.

With some more new characters thrown in for good measure.

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?The Reality Dysfunction? by Peter F. Hamilton

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:58:36 GMT

�Gigantic In Scope, Size�
Score: 4/5

The Reality Dysfunction (Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Peter F. Hamilton

?5.66

Boy is this a big book. It has many nice science fiction elements, but somewhere - around page 800, I think - I wanted to plead with the author to Stop Introducing More New Characters.

There are some nice themes about where humanity is going, and the overall premise of the book was quite a surprise to me (I didn't know much about these books in advance).

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�Ready Player One� by Ernest Cline

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:27:04 GMT

�Child Of The Eighties�
Score: 4/5

Ready Player One

Ernest Cline

$24.00

If you�re as old as me (and not too much older) this book will bring back some fond memories. Lots of eighties pop-culture references, from PacMan to Ferris Bueller.

Really, I think the science fiction setting is just an excuse to reminisce about the eighties. There is a sci-fi plot, and it�s OK, but mostly you�ll just sit back, enjoy the eighties references you catch, and wonder how many you�ve missed.

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“The Lost Fleet: Victorious” by Jack Campbell

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:15:18 GMT

“A Fitting Final Chapter”
Score: 4/5

The Lost Fleet: Victorious (Lost Fleet 6)

Jack Campbell

£7.99

I sped through this book every bit as quickly as the others so it really did feel more like a final chapter than a final book. And it was fitting enough, even if it did still have that same niggling word-break issue previous books had.

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“The Lost Fleet: Relentless” by Jack Campbell

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 19:05:56 GMT

“Space, Action And Intrigue”
Score: 4/5

The Lost Fleet: Relentless (Book 5) (Lost Fleet 5)

Jack Campbell

£7.99

I’m still enjoying this book series, and it does finally feel like it’s Getting To The Point. Fun as they are, even their brevity couldn’t stop them seeming the same if there was no progress in the main story arc.

There’s a bit more intrigue in this one too, although it was a bit less than convincing. Still, many of the characters in these books are less than convincing, so I’m just going to let that go rather than look for any hidden meanings.

One weird point about this book. There was a word in it I’d never come across before: ‘identificance’. I’d never heard of it and didn’t really know what it could mean. The root was obviously related to ‘identity’ somehow, and the –ance ending means… something (I’d be able to tell you want if I paid more attention in O Level English, but the internet has come to the rescue and told me it’s one of the endings for a past participle).

It was only later when I read the word ‘identificant’ that I realised it was a Search&Replace error. I’m guessing someone did a global search for ‘sign’ and automatically replaced each occurrence with ‘ident’, without bothering to check if ‘sign’ was part of a different word. Mystery solved, even if it does point to poor proof-reading. (And on the subject of poor proof-reading, some words had extraneous spaces, like ‘in for mant’ but only when (most of) the sub-words were themselves words.

Weird.

Anyway, it didn’t detract from blazing through this book in a very short time.

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“The Lost Fleet: Valiant” by Jack Campbell

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:50:26 GMT

“More Action, More Space”
Score: 3/5

The Lost Fleet: Valiant (Volume 4) (Lost Fleet 4)

Jack Campbell

£7.99

I’m still enjoying these books, although maybe not as much as at first. They really are very readable – a few hours in a morning or afternoon and they’re done.

The story continues much as before. More of the same happens, but in interesting enough ways.

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“The Lost Fleet: Courageous” by Jack Campbell

geoff@opinionatedgeek.com — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:44:12 GMT

“More Action-Filled Spaciness”
Score: 4/5

The Lost Fleet: Courageous Bk. 3 (Lost Fleet 3)

Jack Campbell

£7.99

Some of the books I’ve been reading lately have been hard work. They’re good, but sometimes it can be quite a slog getting to the end. I’ve been interspersing reading those books with reading these Lost Fleet books. These ones are simple fun. There’s action, there’s science, there’s fiction.

They’re not complex, really. One thing they try to do is capture the mechanics of a battle taking place in space at 0.1c – a tenth of light speed. While I’m not sure he’s got the mechanics right, it’s at least interesting that he tried when few others have. I can’t think of many others that have bothered as much with multi-ship formations facing relativistic effects and such short firing windows.

As I said, fun.

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