<i>Neuromancer</i> by William Gibson

I often have trouble following these "cyberpunk" novels. It is sort of like reading one's first Russian novel---you can't, for the life the life of you, keep the characters straight and, after making it through 2 or 300 pages, you are lucky if you have even a basic idea of the plot. This was definitely the case for me when reading The Golden Age series and The Diamond Age.

I, though, after this book am getting a better feel for the genre---what is the basic play between good and evil and what are the character types I can expect. I was more prepared for the battle inside the computer and how it interacted with what was going on outside---both The Golden Age and The Diamond Age use the interplay between cyberspace and the real world as a major theme of the stories.

There were some really great images in the book. I really liked the images of cyberspace that Case was hacking through. Of course, it is very attractive to think of coding and hacking in that way---visual---despite the fact it is rather like writing (if I am to believe my coding friends). Though, I guess when I write---and get things right---it is not a pleasurable sound I have in my head, but more like fitting puzzle pieces together to have a perfect picture. So, maybe for coders it is a similar imagery in the brain, and since Case has a neural link to the system, and we are looking through his POV, it could be that we are seeing his brain interpretation of the code.

Another great image was of the sacks of poison hanging inside of Case to keep him in-line. I imagined the dynamics of these sacs as Case moved along and they swung like so many shopping bags gently hitting his internal organs. There are few things as frightening as the poison inside you.

The ending wasn't bad. It left enough unsaid to not make it feel like Gibson as wrapping everything up with a bow. It was short, to the point and uncomplicated, as Case's life quickly became the same. So, overall a good read. Gibson is great at describing a cyberspace in 1983. It didn't read like dated sci-fi. My 21st century brain still felt this was in the future not the present or the past. That's pretty good for a book from 25 years ago: before the web and cell phones.

8/10

<i>"Fire in the Hole"</i> by MJ Boss

A coworker of mine wrote this book. I believe it was self-published through an online publishing house. When I had read and returned it, I told him he needs an editor, which he does.

He was going for a modern terrorist thriller and had a rather interesting compound story. Unfortunately, though, the book read little better than my journal entries---a series of events and interactions merely listed off. The characters were hardly developed, causing them to be easily confused as I read. It was little more than 120 pages (in 14 pt font, 1.5 spaced), though the plot could have easily filled the 400 pages generally given to a Clancy or Crichton novel.

The worst, though, was the distractions caused by the non-existent editing, which allowed the poor word choice, poor grammar and improper punctuation to reach the page. My advice is, still, to get an editor, then spend some time expanding the plot. It was a nice try, but a complete miss.

2/10

<i>Deadeye Dick</i> by Kurt Vonnegut

I swear I read somewhere that this was Vonnegut's favorite of his own works. I can't though, put a source to it---and a Time obituary says it was Slaughterhouse Five. Despite the internal mis-attribution, I enjoyed the book.

This is a self contained novel compared to other Vonnegut works where characters, words and phrases are shared. Like Player Piano in that sense: it almost seems like a different author. We become wrapped up with one character and his personal story and it is not outside events that shape his life (like Billy Pilgrim w/WWII), but his own actions (shooting into the night, writing a play).

Even with the main character (Rudy) acting without pressure from an exterior crisis, the book covers the regular Vonnegut theme of the inevitableness of life (there is little one can do but go with the flow). With no war or similar, Rudy shows this by doing nothing based on his own ambition. He writes and submits his play to a contest based a comment from a teacher. He becomes a pharmacist based on a comment from his father. The only act that he does on his own is the shot into the night. From there on, he is swept along by everyone else.

I like how Vonnegut set Rudy's most upsetting scenes as mini plays. It gave them more action---more interactions between people than the retelling of those interactions. It made them strong and more fun. Sometimes more can be done with brief stage directions than with a paragraph of dialog.

This was a good one. I enjoyed it.

9/10

<i>The Great Santini</i> by Pat Conroy

This is a book I should have read in high school.

A ticket taker on the train saw it and said that when he read it, he made it about 2/3rds of the way through when he got so mad at the story that he had to put it down for a few days. Based on that, I expected there to be a huge blow out between Ben and his father. Though there are a number of incidents, there was nothing obscene enough to make me put the book down.

I appreciated the complexity that Conroy gave Ben's father. Though the Marine attitude was getting on my nerves quite a bit, there was more dimension to Bull's character. He had fun with his kids and gave up his post to make sure his son was safe. It was easy to hate him, but it was hard to say that he had no redeeming qualities---something that Ben realized by the end.

I generally liked Ben. I was pissed---just as he was---that he listened to his father in the basketball game. The better strategy is to take it and just play tougher---get revenge in regular play. One of the things, though, that Ben was learning was when he should and when he shouldn't listen to his father. Mary Ann was generally his conscience on such matters, but she couldn't be with him on the court, and, indeed, was nowhere to be found in the stands.

Overall, a good book. Conroy was tight with his prose and portrayed the characters motives and ideals clearly. I would like to know what happened to Ben. I assume he became a pilot to honor his father. But it would have been poetic justice to see him become an English professor.

8/10

<i>Prey</i> by Michael Crichton

It appears that the last Crichton book I read was Jurassic Park, back when I was riding the bus home from high school. I remember from that experience that Crichton is a quick engaging read and does a reasonably convincing job with the science.

Prey was similar. I read the entire 500 pages in one day. It was an excellent read for waiting at the train station and for taking a slower than expected train ride from Sacramento to Reno. The science is reasonable, if not believable. I enjoyed many of the characters, though Crichton kills them off pretty readily.

Despite the sci-fi of the book, Crichton addresses a modern concern: how do we control what we create. It is similar to the point made in Jurassic Park---life finds a way. More specifically, evolution works and anything with mutating genes will work its way out of our control. It reminds me of the concern over genetically engineered crops.

The writing was fast paced. There were a couple moments when the writing was wrong, or just not how a computer programmer would talk or think about a problem. It was a satisfactory book for its purpose.

6/10

<i>Smilla's Sense of Snow</i> by Peter Hoeg

Rodin does not have a good record. Two books, two misses.

I started out really like the book. I liked the mystery about the boy's death. I liked the relationship between the boy and Smilla and the boy and the mechanic. I though that was going to be the story. Then I realized that this is a thriller and a NYT best seller.

There are a few things that bother me about conventional thrillers. One is the amount of time pope spend having the crap beat out of them, with generally little to no effect on the speed of the plot. Here, once Smilla's beatings started, it was a pretty regular occurrence, though she was still able to continue with the adventure with no issues. It got to the point where I was unable to suspend disbelief for any longer. There was little chance that she could have done half of what she did if she really had the crap beat out of her as described.

Another thing I dislike is how the plot has to get so out of hand after a while because the author has almost backed himself into a corner and can't otherwise find a way out. Really? Aliens?

I really did like the background on Smilla and her life with her mother in Greenland. I would have liked to hear more about her childhood and her interaction with her brother. I liked hear about the different clothes, boots and tools that Greenlanders used as they lived, worked and walked on the ice.

One other thing that really bothered me was the review on the back of the book from People that Hoeg was Hemmingway-esque. No. That is entirely wrong. There was more exposition than Hemmingway would have ever used and the plot was far to complicated to be a Hemmingway story. And there wasn't nearly enough drinking.

Not a very good read, though I did enjoy learning about Greenland and its relationship to Denmark.

4/10

<i>QED</i> by Richard Feynman

Feynman gave me some more tools than I previously had for understanding quantum mechanics. While I knew that electrons bumped around energy levels emitting and absorbing photons, I never really understood why that is significant or what phenomena it produces. What Feynman does is use common examples based on light to give meaning to the quantum behavior---give the why, when before all we could say is "defraction".

Though I will have to refer to this book again to understand these principles in further detail, Feynman did a great job presenting a rather difficult topic. I was confused at some points when he referred to a mathematical principle I am familiar with, such as referring to vectors as "arrows", or when I was trying to understand his description based on the quantum mechanics I already understand. I now, though, really want to read the physics book he wrote so I can better understand everything else I already think I know.

8/10