tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80992195784477021462024-09-27T15:16:23.541+10:00This blog is <a href="http://unwritable.blogspot.com/2008/08/its-late.html">unwritable</a>. The blog of Owen Roberts.Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.comBlogger299125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-11397754702255328532014-03-11T20:40:00.001+11:002014-03-11T20:40:16.863+11:00

I just finished reading Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Wow. This was really good. Oh my god. I don't want to give out spoilers, but; Vomit. Zombies. In space. Also, my favourite quote "Something out there has a comm array that'll put a dot the size of your anus on us from over three AU away". Much of what I enjoyed through this novel was the plausibility of the tech, the economics and the

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-83706009017400005832014-01-25T17:16:00.001+11:002014-01-25T17:16:15.868+11:00

I just finished The Trilisk Revolution by Michael McCloskey. If you've been reading this series, keep going! Sometimes while reading a series of more than three, I tire of the concepts and characters and don't come back to it. Not so here. It does help that its a nice short novel, but still, tightly written and full of new turns and developments. This one has the same tech and the same characters

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-23816662150851361062014-01-22T20:06:00.000+11:002014-01-22T20:06:58.520+11:00

I just finished A Feast for Crows, but due to its sensitivity on spoilers, I can't actually say much. A Song of Ice and Fire continues to be awesome.

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-82895212614032909392013-12-03T22:04:00.000+11:002013-12-03T22:04:04.462+11:00

I just finished reading The Trilisk Hunt by Michael McCloskey. Excellent. I really enjoyed this latest in the Parker Interstellar Travels series and I think its probably on a par with the first novel in the series when it was fresh. If anything, I'd say it was a little short and I would have liked more complexity, but as a read, it was tight, enjoyable and had lots to hold the interest. In

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-88102797587667261322013-11-19T21:42:00.000+11:002013-12-03T22:04:16.408+11:00

I just finished reading 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. I really enjoyed reading The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, but I'm afraid that I didn't really enjoy this novel much at all really. First of all, the things I liked. There were some glorious descriptions of the solar system, natural events, processes, objects and history of formation and so on. This was clearly well researched, and

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-16248438607651771392013-08-29T22:23:00.000+10:002013-09-09T20:14:31.701+10:00

I've just finished reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Wow, I really enjoyed this, it was just so much fun. It's set in the near future, but essentially takes place inside an MMO. The basic premise is that there is a massive fortune to be won if a player can solve a bunch of obscure puzzles, but what makes it really interesting is that the theme for all of this is 80's trivia but mostly

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-57899464703452303462013-07-31T20:22:00.000+10:002013-07-31T20:24:55.666+10:00

I just finished reading Existence by David Brin. In the end I really enjoyed this one, although there was a period in the middle, probably about 40% of the book which I thought was very drawn out and I think could have done with some heavy editing. The early and late stages flowed really well and were interesting. Clearly, this novel was built from a range of ideas and short stories (the author

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-48224328605069289102013-05-24T13:31:00.000+10:002013-05-24T13:31:10.408+10:00

I love a good Culture novel, and I enjoyed reading The Hydrogen Sonata&nbsp;by Iain M. Banks at least as much as any of his others. Since the events in Excession, the ships in the ITG (Interesting Times Gang) seem to have retired from being involved in high level events, but fear not, a new&nbsp;motley&nbsp;crew of minds comes together to meddle, with the best of intentions, in the affairs of

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-49879289006573181352013-04-21T21:00:00.001+10:002013-04-21T21:00:23.149+10:00

I just finished reading Mindjammer by Sarah Newton. I only managed to read half this book as I found it just too annoying. This is only the second time I can remember bailing on a book, but it's quite long and I have lots of books lined up that I'd like to read. First, the good things. I like some of the tech, hack descriptions, locations and scenery. Mostly the writing wasn't too bad, some cool

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-70620919997628160052013-03-16T11:59:00.000+11:002013-03-16T11:59:18.107+11:00

I just finished reading Force Cantrithor by Michael McCloskey. Force Cantrithor proposes a new kind of space warfare technology based on FTL electromagnetic field manipulation. The tech is pretty cool, but even though FTL travel also exists, I couldn't help having some believability issues with it. In fairness, the characters were also struggling with the paradoxes this might create and some of

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-70378467065654264752013-03-05T22:17:00.000+11:002013-03-05T22:17:06.787+11:00

I just finished reading Zero Point, Neal Asher's second in the Owner series. And I thought the first novel in this series was hugely violent; I actually felt a little&nbsp;nauseous reading some of this.&nbsp;Zero Point takes the wasteful, corrupt, self-serving, brutal leadership of Earth's "Committee" and then completely frees it of restraint, balance, morals and restrictions. The result is a

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-8027506254313731792013-02-23T11:47:00.000+11:002014-01-22T20:05:00.104+11:00

I just finished reading A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin. I found I enjoyed reading this more than the previous two in the series. Most obviously because I had not seen the TV series, and had no idea what was going to happen. This gives all the reveals and twists their full horrifying or fantastic impact. This is the real beauty of Martin's work, in that just because you have built up a

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-81111453850901946842013-01-22T20:32:00.001+11:002014-01-22T20:05:24.486+11:00

I just finished reading A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin. First of all, I've changed my mind now about reading the books after watching the TV series.&nbsp;Initially, I thought it would be more fun to not spoil the surprises and events of the TV, through reading the books, but now I think there is just too much downside. There is quite a lot of detail left out of the TV series, and in some

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-46350521602167653592012-12-30T16:13:00.000+11:002012-12-30T16:13:33.844+11:00

I just finished reading The Trilisk Supersedure by Michael McCloskey. Another good read from&nbsp;McCloskey; he really does aliens very well. I particularly liked reading the aliens' internal thoughts, they're just very different from us with strange motivations and cultural drives. They're not just some sentient creatures, they're intelligent, but driven differently. I like that the main

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-7736180589649891942012-11-27T21:18:00.000+11:002012-11-27T21:18:08.912+11:00

I just finished reading A Galaxy Unknown&nbsp;by Thomas DePrima. This is a classic space adventure novel featuring a cute young Ensign lost in space for ten years, who after being found turns out to be a brilliant warship commander. All the expected elements are there with FTL travel and communications, space stations, hollowed out asteroids, laser weapons, torpedoes, and so on. I don't think

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-72958660000915015662012-11-13T20:40:00.003+11:002012-11-13T20:40:30.150+11:00

I just finished reading Nymph: The Singularity. Lets get the obvious stuff out of the way first. There were lots of sex scenes, both android on android and android on human, so that was fun for a change. There weren't really a lot of new, interesting ideas here, and I was hoping that there might be a few more with the part title, 'The Singularity'. I suppose I was hoping the novel would cover how

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-73095011369599857312012-11-08T17:43:00.001+11:002012-11-08T17:43:46.115+11:00

I've been using a new Kindle Paperwhite recently. I haven't used a Kindle much before, although my wife has one, so I can do some comparison. What I'm really comparing to is reading on my iPad (1) with the Kindle app. I wasn't sure that it would be much better than reading on the iPad, which is why I've put this off for this long. Reading on the iPad is just fine. Reading on the Kindle is better.

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-13958937699131014822012-10-31T22:52:00.000+11:002012-10-31T22:52:50.766+11:00

I just finished reading Animal Farm by George Orwell. This is a quite amusing commentary on politics and power and corruption. Its not a long read and well worth the small effort required. Essentially, the animals on a farm kick out their human overlords and take over the running of the farm themselves. It turns out the pigs are the most intelligent, and end up managing the running of the farm.

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-60668473657394276632012-10-31T22:36:00.000+11:002012-10-31T22:36:51.873+11:00

I just finished reading The Clockwork Rocket by Greg Egan. Wow, you really have to admire the lengths Egan will go to for a novel. I thought Incandescence was pretty hardcore, and Schild's Ladder was there too. Where in Incandescence he explains general relativity as the characters discover it for themselves from basic experimentation, and in Schild's Ladder he builds on existing Quantum Theory,

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-27585867122528429092012-10-16T21:52:00.000+11:002012-10-16T21:52:09.381+11:00

Some months ago I bought a set of speakers from Pacific Hi-Fi. The speakers are great, but I was just as impressed with the service I received. I have had some problems in some other Hi-Fi stores where you can get quite a bit of the superior, dismissive attitude because you're not interested in the top of the line equipment, or the sales droid wants to seem impressive, or something, I don't know.

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-24821166806616769152012-10-02T20:35:00.000+10:002012-10-02T20:35:23.858+10:00

I just finished reading The Departure (Owner Trilogy 1) by Neal Asher. Asher has taken the Orwellian nightmare, and pushed it to its horrible, brutal limit using some more modern SF devices such as AI integration. Set a century or so in the future, the world governments have&nbsp;centralized&nbsp;their power into a monolithic, all-controlling, ever wasteful "Committee". Those in power enjoy

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-10723869363474067592012-09-05T21:38:00.002+10:002012-09-05T21:38:41.716+10:00

A friend recently passed me this article. Probably significantly overstates what is actually&nbsp;happening, but still. You might want to consider paying for a binary news server&nbsp;instead of using torrents.

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-27823069900279039952012-09-03T21:58:00.000+10:002012-09-03T21:58:04.643+10:00

I just finished reading both The Trilisk Ruins and The Trilisk AI. Both of these were pretty small, but tight reads (200-300 pages), and at $6 for both, it was a pleasure to read a new author. I read and enjoyed the first enough to go straight into the second, which is unusual, but I couldn't resist. The first was probably the better book, introducing new aliens and technology which is always fun

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-91541954282230139672012-08-29T21:59:00.001+10:002012-08-29T21:59:03.662+10:00

I just finished reading this, by George R.R. Martin. Obviously I read this because I enjoyed the TV series so much. I don't usually read Fantasy anymore, although I used to read quite a lot of the genre, and at the time this book was released, but I never picked up on this author. I knew all the authors who wrote one liners for the book, just not Martin. Ah well, I'll be catching up with his work

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8099219578447702146.post-40717894393328217642012-08-29T21:30:00.000+10:002012-08-29T21:30:46.021+10:00

Wow. The ABC are going to make Dr. Who episodes available as digital downloads immediately after they have originally aired in the UK. Part of the reason&nbsp;is apparently an attempt to reduce piracy by providing supply where there is obvious demand. This is a big step in the right direction for television stations making themselves relevant again in terms of rebroadcasting material from foreign

Owen Robertshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735140932443992868noreply@blogger.com0