The Core Dump

Book roundup, part eleven

2013-05-19T00:00:00-07:00

Non-fiction

Becoming a Supple Leopard, by Kelly Starrett with Glen Cordoza ★★★★☆

Weighty and magisterial service manual for the human body. You should read it before yours breaks down.

Starrett is well-known in part for his Mobility WOD site, for co-founding San Francisco CrossFit and for in general being an expert on human body mechanics. And it shows in this intense and thorough book, the size of a typical yearbook and packed full of insights and mobility exercises to help you relieve yourself of pain.

Since there’s no free lunch, the way to relieve yourself of pain is through pain, or at least severe discomfort. Especially the dreaded Couch Mobilization (the good part starts about 2 minutes in). Try it!

A Higher Call, by Adam Makos and Larry Alexander ★★★★☆

Very touching story of the meeting over the skies of World War II Europe of a fighter and bomber pilot that is really the story of Franz Stigler, a German fighter ace trying to reconcile his humanity with fighting for an increasingly evil and erratic Nazi regime.

Well worth reading, even though it does feel a bit long—the authors have clearly done their research and are a bit too hesitant to edit some of it out, which bogs down some parts of the book. Nevertheless, the story itself is one that deserves to be heard and remembered.

American Sniper, by Chris Kyle ★★★★☆

SEALs are so alpha they can barely see the rest of the alphabet. In this autobiography, Kyle explain the life journey that took him to the SEALs and to become the sniper with the most kills. It’s a raw and honest read, and is highly recommended for anybody who wonders about the men who become elite soldiers.

And of course, it’s a tragedy that Kyle was senselessly murdered by a fellow veteran he was trying to help get back into civilian life.

Damn Few, by Rorke Denver ★★★★☆

Another autobiography of a SEAL team member and at the same time a lesson on the ethics and history of the SEALs.

As one would imagine is the case with most special forces soldiers, Denver is a fascinating blend of intelligence, physical prowess and atavistic masculinity. As with Kyle, it can be hard to understand they are part of the same species as the rest of us.

Eat and Run, by Scott Jurek ★★★★☆

Jurek is an ultrarunning legend, having won a lot of really hardcore races like the clinically insane Badwater Ultramarathon. He’s also a smart and interesting person. Eat and Run follows him from his fairly rough childhood in Minnesota, the disease that took his mother, and his realization that he had the ability to simply go for longer than most other people. Jurek is also interestingly a vegan, proving that a plant-based diet can provide enough nutrients for the most strenous activity.

Not surprisingly, ultrarunning provides a lot of alone time to think, and Jurek has done lots of thinking about the things that matter in life.

No matter what kind of activity you yourself engage in, this short, surprisingly laid-back story of overcoming is well worth reading.

Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me?, by Mindy Kaling ★★★☆☆

Short, breezy and fun read from the writer and actress.

Fiction

He Died with His Eyes Open, by Derek Raymond ★★★★★

Thorougly bleak noir from Thatcher’s London in the 1980s, featuring what might be the most jaded, soul-weary protagonist of all time.

This is the strongest noir I’ve come across since Jim Thompson, and that’s really saying something: Raymond captures the essence of desperation of ’80s London the same way Thompson captured the small-town South in Pop. 1280. Can’t give higher praise than that.

But beware: this truly is industrial-strength bleakness couched in beautiful, poetic language.

Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson ★★★★☆

Vastly ambitious gritty fantasy in the vein of Glen Cook’s Black Company series, Gardens of the Moon is the first novel of 10 in Erikson’s The Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

First, the good: Erikson has created a large, lived-in world that mostly avoids the tropes of the genre—no elves and trolls, but plenty of other more or less strange non-humans and an interesting system of magic, and populated that world with interesting, believable characters who do interesting things.

The weakness is that Erikson goes full Gatling gun: The plot is super dense and has so many characters it can be hard to keep track of everything that goes on and all the people running around. Above all, he doesn’t telegraph which characters and plots are central and which are less important. As a reader, you can’t sit back and let the story carry you along: You have to pay attention at all times. So, there’s work, but the work is rewarded with a deep, vast story.

Blindsight, by Peter Watts ★★★★☆

In the near-future, humanity has found the way to live out life in a cyber hallucination, to fix any genetic weaknesses, to rewire the brain, to get free energy from space and has re-created vampires. Yes, vampires. Turns out there used to be vampires, but they died out.

And then first contact is made with a mysterious alien civilization and a probe is sent out. A probe filled with misfits.

This is extremely smart hard SF with truly alien aliens and an interesting if unlikeable protagonist (one who’s had half his brain and a lot of his humanity removed), but above all it’s a kind of grim meditation on what makes us human.

I waffled between three and four stars, since Blindsight certainly isn’t what anybody would call fun to read, but at the same time it hooks you so hard and refuses to let go it does deserve the fourth star. It’s the kind of novel where you can almost hear a church organ stuck on the lowest bass note as you read. Star Wars, it ain’t.

King of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence ★★★★☆

Follow up to the relentlessly grim Prince of Thorns (my review here)is if anything even grimmer. This is grimdark. Weird, brutal and very hard to put down if you can stomach it.

The Departure, by Neal Asher ★★☆☆☆

As a big fan of Neal Asher’s Polity series, I’m sad to report that The Departure was a tough one to get through. Set in a near-future dystopian Earth, it is relentlessly hopeless and bleak. Yes, too bleak for me, which is saying something.

(DISCLOSURE: All links go to the Amazon Kindle store and are affiliate links. If you buy one of the books through a link here I get a tiny kickback from Amazon.)

Paywalls and tinfoil hats

2013-05-11T00:00:00-07:00

If you feel the need to start a post with saying you’re not paranoid, you’re probably paranoid.

I’m not paranoid.

That being said, the Internet sure has been getting creepy lately. What with Facebook working on an über-cookie that tracks you even after you log out and Twitter and Facebook both being able to track you across any site that has a Twitter or Facebook button—a huge swath of the Web—and Google of course having its tentacles into everything—your Web surfing is generating a constant stream of data about you.

Most people are probably aware of this at some level, but not how detailed and sophisticated this data-gathering has become. As a former Facebook employee said, “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.” (And incidentally, that last link leads to Bloomberg Businessweek, which we found out just this week has been using its Bloomberg Terminals to spy on traders in what is an absolutely breathtaking breach of ethics and common decency if true.)

You, my friend, are worth bank and extremely smart people with flexible morals—as well as a bunch of general Silicon Valley high-energy douchebags—are doing their best to cash in.

There’s a pretty decent overview of ways to protect yourself at Lifehacker. It’s worth reading. But this is of course not new. It’s been going on for years. And you could make some kind of argument that them’s the breaks: You pay for the free services with your personal information. That argument is weakened by people not really understanding just what it is they are giving up for the ability to stalk high school friends on the Internet, but nevertheless, it is an argument.

What’s been raising my hackles lately is something as innocuous-seeming as newspaper paywalls. There’s certainly nothing wrong with newspapers trying to stay afloat. You could be a bit bitter and make a solid argument that the industry could perhaps have used some of its 40% and up profit margins in the golden days to invest in the future instead of convincing themselves the Internet was just a fad, sure, but what’s done is done.

Paywalls are here to stay and there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with them. Except here’s what bothers me: For each news site you create an account with, that newspaper now knows exactly which articles you read. Not in aggregate, but in precision-strike detail. You.

Is it possible that an organization under severe financial strain will be tempted to sell out its morals and its users? Bear, poop, woods.

For myself, I do want to support news gathering, so paying is no problem, but orifice-probing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so at this point I pay for the content, but use incognito mode to read the sites. Which is a best of both worlds for me.

Now, the reason I started using incognito mode was nothing as high-minded as my personal data. No, it was simply technological incompetence. That’s right. The two sites I’m currently paying for, AZCentral.com and NYTimes.com, both kept managing to log me out all the freaking time. And you know, much as I want to pay my fair share, adding the frustrations of technological incompetence to my experience as a paying customer is just not a good move.

First rule of getting paid on the Internet: Make it easy.

Second rule of getting paid on the Internet: Don’t make it difficult.

Logging me out and throwing guilt-trip messages in my face every few days as it turns out is not the way to make me feel good as a customer. I’m sure you can set your cookies to last longer than a few days. Really. If you don’t, call me and I will tell you how to do it.

Paywalls are a fascinating topic, and the Swedish newspaper industry (like the flagship Dagens Nyheter) are taking a different tack from American media, moving toward a “Plus” model—there’s no metering, but certain content, like in the case of Dagens Nyheter, movie and music reviews, as well as other premium content, are locked down to subscribers only.

I’m not familiar with the economics of either approach, but Plus content does have a bonus for the sites: You have to be logged in to get the Plus content, so incognito mode stops becoming an option. To me it makes more sense than metering, but money talks and so far the companies on either side of the Atlantic haven’t shared their numbers anywhere I’ve seen. But I’d sure love to know.

And then there’s Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, etc.… All of which I feed data into every day. This is the kind of game you can only win by not playing.

OK then, Mr. Gekko

2013-04-23T00:00:00-07:00

I’ve been a big nerd for a long time, and I care about technology, Lord help me I do, despite all my best attempts to wean myself. I’m the kind of guy who tells myself at the release of each new glass-fronted rectangle or sadistically shaped handle¹ that this one I’ll pass on. Not getting my money this time. And sometimes that works. And sometimes I end up filling Apple’s coffers after twitching at night for a while.

So, I care about the products Apple releases. And I care about Apple’s business results in that I would prefer the company to not go bankrupt or teeter along the horrific edge enough that Wired magazine feels it appropriate to armchair quarterback the company with hilarious results again.

But I also don’t care about the day-to-day of Apple’s stock price or which analyst wins the complete yobbo competition on which day or, and above all, I don’t give a shit what anybody who isn’t a C-level Apple person thinks Apple should do.

Do. Not. Care. You. Deluded. Prick.

I mean, it’s nice for you that you’ve managed to inflate your ego to the point where you think Tim Cook and his entourage cares what you think, or that you’re laying the groundwork for your rise to power once people see the strength of your strategic monetized synergistic solution-driven thinking about the future of the television space which Appple clearly must occupy².

Or that your Grand Theory of What Apple Must Do Or It Is Doooooooomed! will garner enough page views that you can roll around naked in Google Adwords credits. I don’t know. And I don’t care.

I just know that I enjoy reading about Apple’s products, but apart from a nod that “Everything’s still above water,” I really don’t care about Apple’s financials—nor anybody else’s financials. I do not have an MBA.

For me personally, all I’d like is to be able to read news about Apple’s products without being periodically inundated with news about Apple’s financiazzzzzzzzzzz and the morons who believe their ideas will allow them to oust Tim Cook from his perch.

It’s apparently a lot to ask.

No, no, Jony, you’re right—making the handles on this 40 pound Mac Pro razor sharp clearly continues the lines in a pleasing manner. Yes, obviously, if somebody can afford a Power Mac, they can afford gloves. You know who can’t? Dickensian orphans! Ahahaha.↩
I know, I know; those were not great. I just can’t even parody that perversion of English known as business speak with any conviction anymore.↩

Read this book: Salt Sugar Fat

2013-04-04T00:00:00-07:00

Salt Sugar Fat is the first must-read book of 2013. Meticulously researched, it tells the history of the processed food industry and how the industry has spent millions upon millions of dollars on research and marketing to sentence us to a catastrophic diet.

(Note: facts are from the book or linked; opinions are my own.)

Here are some stunning facts: The average American consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar per person each day. Visualize that—22 teaspoons of sugar. The average American consumes more than 50% the maximum recommendation for fat each day. Each year, food companies use 5 billion—with a B—pounds of salt. The average American consumes “as much as 33 pounds of cheese and pseudo-cheese products a year, triple the amount we consumed in the 1970s.”

Exceptionally smart people have spent their lives researching exactly what tastes we enjoy, how the food should feel in the mouth—down to the precise pressure required for a potato chip to give off the perfect crunch—and of course what exact ratio of salt, sugar and fat will yield the most sales at the lowest cost.

Salt Sugar Fat is a fascinating and frightening story of completely amoral behavior exhibited by what seem from the included interviews like smart, aware and well-meaning professionals.

Alas, well-meaning professionals who do not care about anything except sales numbers.

Well-meaning professionals who, it should be added, do not serve themselves or their children the products they create and market. If there’s any indictment of the food industry stronger than that the people who create the product will not consume it themselves, I don’t know what it could be.

But not just the food engineers who create the food products are scary: the marketers who sell it to you spend as much money and brain power to figure out how to make you buy it. Everything that happens in your grocery store is planned. Everything. There are no accidents. Behind the muzak curtain, mega corporations are fighting bloody, merciless battles to get their products optimum shelf placement.

Apart from the enormous cost in human suffering caused by obesity, diabetes and the host of other medical problems caused by a horrific diet, it’s depressing to think of all the good things that could have been wrought by all that money, drive and brain power. But nope. Going to sell the ever-living hell out of that cereal and get my bonus!

Now, if you’re of a libertarian bent you may be shaking your head clucking, “Fools! People are choosing to eat crap and get fat and sick and it’s their own fault!”

And sure, people of a certain class and with certain means can certainly afford to eat quite well—would Monsieur like the grain-fed beef?—and have enough knowledge of nutrition to lead a healthy life.

But in America in 2010, 17.2 million households were food insecure (meaning they weren’t sure where their next meal was coming from). These people have little choice but to go for the cheapest calorie possible and will in some cases be starving to death while obese. As a sidenote, that 17.2 million households are food insecure in the richest country on Earth should be a cause for shame for us all.

But it’s not just money, it’s also education and socialization. The average American exists in a dietary plane crash, bombarded with advertisements for unhealthy foods. When ads for hamburger restaurants, sugary cereal and ersatz Italian restaurants are what you’re bombarded with, they become normative—this is what people eat. I don’t see anybody eating anything else.

It’s a preventable tragedy.

Salt Sugar Fat spends quite a bit of time on Lunchables, that cheery little cardboard lunch pail you can give your child to bring to school and feel like you’re not a terrible parent.

Which it turns out you are if you give your child Lunchables—they are loaded to the gills with, can you guess? That’s right: Salt, sugar and fat.

So, please read Salt Sugar Fat. Please tell other people to read it. It’s important.

The cargo cult of technology

2013-03-13T00:00:00-07:00

Do you understand the machinations your computer slash smart phone slash tablet goes through every time it boots up? It’s an orgy of different systems and pieces of hardware, each and every one of which has to work perfectly or all you’ll end up with is a non-functioning system and a sad state of mind.

But whether you know what’s really going on inside your computer or not, you know it’s complicated as all get out, and that Surly Men With Beards get paid a ton of money to make the magic happen.

Which subconsciously causes a lot of people to exist in a state of angst about their computers. Man, if that puppy blows up, I am screwed.

And what do humans do when exposed to complicated systems we don’t understand? That’s right. Cargo cult.

My computer stopped working after I updated it. But then I performed an update after repairing permissions on my hard drive, and it worked great. Therefore, repairing permissions must be something to do before every system update.

Cruise around the Internet a bit and you’ll find myriad statements in that vein. To be honest, it’s depressing. Because it’s nothing but magical thinking—I found something that worked, and therefore that must be The One Way. It’s post hoc, ergo propter hoc writ large, all over the Internet.

Remember, computers are nothing but logic machines. There’s nothing magical inside them. Not even a drop of unicorn tears, just logic gates, all understood by the engineers who create the machines.

So whenever some random person tells you that you must do X before you update your system or at certain intervals or whatnot, they are victims of cargo cult mentality. What you must do before installing any kind of update is what the manufacturer tells you. No more, no less. And the software manufacturers spend a lot of time and energy making sure you don’t have to sacrifice any chickens before updating.

Nevertheless, there are indeed times when things blow up. It’s frustrating, but it does happen. And at that point, the only thing sure to save your bacon is having a current backup.

Spend your time making sure you have good backups, not listening to the nattering of witch doctors on the Internet, and you’ll have a much better time.

Seen a Rechthaberei lately?

2013-03-06T00:00:00-07:00

Here’s a new and necessary loan word to be included in American English: Rechthaberei. Yup, it’s German, like Weltanschauung and Schadenfreude. It combines the word for “right” and the word for “have”—so, a person who is right (correct) or person who has the right (legally).

Or, if you don’t mind stepping out of the loan word comfort zone a bit, the Swedish enhanced alternative is rättshaverist, which came from the German but by happy coincidence the archaic word for “have” meaning “to be in possession of” was a homonym for “crash,” meaning you can picture a person capsizing on the shores of justice.

Not to be needy, but so far the only Swedish word I’ve seen commonly used in American English is “smörgåsbord.” A second one would be nice. And since we actually one-upped the Germans on this one, it only seems fair to get the nod.

So what does it mean? Rechthaberei is a pejorative term for a person who believes himself to be in the right on a certain issue and is pushing the issue beyond what is reasonable. This is the person who came down on the wrong side of a Home Owners’ Association decision a few years ago and who now writes letters to the editor about it and shows up at every HOA meeting to air his grievances and is just too torqued and just can’t let things go and above all is right, dammit while everybody else is uncomfortable and hopes he’ll go away soon without things spiraling even more out of control.

There’s more than a bit of self-destructiveness to the Rechthaberei.

For a fun exercise that will prove me right¹, spend some time reading the Internet or, if you want to go old-school, the newspaper, and see how many articles you find that involve a Rechthaberei.

We need this word. Let’s put it into service.

Rimshot↩

Book roundup, part ten

2013-02-26T00:00:00-07:00

Non-fiction

The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam ★★★★★

A magisterial, crushingly well-researched account of not only the Korean War, but of America finding itself a superpower after the end of World War II and the country’s pains as it attempts to adapt to its new circumstances.

The political climate of the late 1940s and 1950s was, to put it mildly, toxic. A small but influential group of people blindly supported the almost comically corrupt Chiang Kai-shek against Mao’s communist forces, clamoring for American military intervention to allow Kai-shek to return from exile in Taiwan. At this point North Korea was ruled by a puppet despot supported by Communist China and the Soviet Union and thus South Korea became the perfect staging point for the American military to oppose capital-C Communism.

And yes, this reasoning continued with Vietnam, a conflict that proved America had refused to learn anything from the bloody debacle that was the Korean “police action.” Which in and of itself is astonishing.

General MacArthur led the military forces from the comfort of his command center in Japan, only visiting the country a few times. Ah, MacArthur. The almost unbelievable arrogance of the general himself and his hand-picked cronies incurred such a tragic price his soldiers in the field had to pay in blood and pain.

If you have any interest in the 20th century, The Coldest Winter belongs on your bookshelf.

Oh Myyy! (There Goes The Internet), by George Takei ★★★★☆

Everyone’s favorite weird Internet uncle writes about how he more or less stumbled into becoming a social media powerhouse and his life in general. If you enjoy Takei’s social media output you will enjoy this short, breezy book.

The Revolution Was Televised, by Alan Sepinwall ★★★☆☆

The Revolution was Televised, despite the poor sense of humor conveyed by its title, is an insightful cultural history of the recent time when TV drama went from being laughably bad to the height of shows like Deadwood and The Wire.

If you’ve been watching the quality of dramatic television increase logarithmically and been wondering about what happened behind the scenes, this book is for you.

Tough Shit, by Kevin Smith ★★★☆☆

Life advice from a potty-mouthed smartass.

It’s tempting to write Smith off as a fat clown who got lucky once with Clerks, but you shouldn’t. He has a lot of interesting ideas, a pretty manic work ethic, and a huge ego, so he is tailor-made for movie-industry success.

Tough Shit is short and uplifting. But yes, I’m going to be that guy and complain about the unnecessary R-rating. Sure, working blue is part of Smith’s schtick, but it becomes a distraction from the point he’s trying—and mostly succeeding—to make. But it’s his book so he can obviously do what he wants. It just feels stale. Still, Tough Shit is worth reading.

Fiction

The Rook: A Novel, by Daniel O’Malley ★★★★★

Very smart, wry urban fantasy about a woman who wakes up amnesiac, surrounded by dead bodies, and finds a note from the woman who used to occupy the body she’s wearing. Turns out her name was Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany) Thomas, she was a high-ranking member of the supernatural equivalent of the MI5, and somebody inside her organization is plotting to kill her.

Think X-Men, Buffy, Ghostbusters, Dresden Files and James Bond all rolled into one high-octane plot and served on a scaly tentacle.

The Rook is seriously impressive. Can not wait for O’Malley’s next novel.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan ★★★★☆

Absolutely delightful novel about a San Francisco man who gets a job in a … strange … bookstore and starts to believe he’s gotten himself involved with a strange cult.

Which he has. A strange cult, indeed.

If you’re of a nerdy bent, this novel will make you very happy.

Gun Machine, by Warren Ellis ★★★★★

Whoa. Gun Machine is a kick in the teeth. Ellis’s prose is tight and musical, the plot is a psychotic adrenaline rush and both protagonist and antagonist are skewed and interesting.

A contender for best novel of 2012. Get it. Now.

Shadow Ops: Fortress Frontier, by Myke Cole ★★★★☆

The sequel to the very good Control Point (my review here) answers most of the questions left open by the first installment and picks up the pace from there.

You really shouldn’t start with Fortress Frontier, though, as it will make very little sense if you haven’t read Control Point. The lack of recapping is a good thing, since it means Cole doesn’t have to spend time on world building—instead, Fortress Frontier gets right into the action.

And a whole lot of action there is. Fortress Frontier is mechanically better than Control Point with better pacing and a more streamlined plot, so if you liked the first, congratulations, good stuff is in store.

Standing in Another Man’s Grave, by Ian Rankin ★★★★☆

Rebus is back! He’s old, tired and even crankier than before, but he’s also back on the force.

I’m not even going to go in to plot here. Who cares about the plot? It’s Rebus and it’s good.

Excellent police procedural.

A Memory of Light, by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson ★★☆☆☆

Yes, people! Yes! The Wheel of Time is finished. Whew!

Finally.

A Memory of Light ends the series about as satisfyingly as can be expected, although Epic Battle is Epic for way too many pages. Lordie, so many pages.

But it’s done now. It feels so, so good to close this loop.

Note: the link goes to the hardcover, since the publisher hates you and your newfangled Kindle and will not release a version for it. Damn hippie.

(DISCLOSURE: All links go to the Amazon Kindle store and are affiliate links. If you buy one of the books through a link here I get a tiny kickback from Amazon.)

The Core Dump is hibernating

2013-01-07T00:00:00-07:00

The Core Dump is hibernating in its cozy cave and will return with new content in February.

See you then.

Book roundup, part nine

2012-12-20T00:00:00-07:00

Non-fiction

Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer ★★★★☆

The story of Pat Tillmans’ life including his death from friendly fire in Afghanistan becomes a tragic hero’s journey in Krakauer’s thorough, well-researched book.

Where Men Win Glory paints a picture of Tillman as an iconoclastic patriot—the contrast between his selflessness and the Army’s many shabby attempts at hiding the truth of how he died is sickening.

By painting Tillman’s story and death and weaving it into the history of Afghanistan—”graveyard of empires”—al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Krakauer creates nothing less than an indictment of US international policy since the Vietnam War, topping it off with the thoroughly cynical treatment Tillman’s family received after his death, all written with Krakauer’s customary economy. Highly recommended.

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed ★★★☆☆

Very well-written story of a woman who decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to help her cope with the death of her mother as well as other issues—cough many issues—she’s been dealing with.

Strayed starts her hike doing everything wrong, including not ever having loaded her backpack before—it’s way too heavy—not having worn her hiking boots before—they’re too small—and pretty much any rookie mistake you can make.

But she grinds on.

We learn more about her background and demons as the story unfolds in economical, tight prose. It’s a hard book to put down.

Interesting and emotionally powerful as it is, though, Wild does feel more “truthy” than truthful, with strangers showing up at the exact moment when she needs that kind of person to interact with and trigger a certain response too many times.

But be that as it may, Wild is a captivating read.

Inside the Box, by T. J. Murphy ★★★☆☆

Nice, short history and personal impressions of the CrossFit movement from a journalist who has become a believer. This book makes you want to join a box and try a Fran (SLYT).

On the downside, while inspirational, Murphy glosses over a lot of well-publicized CrossFit drama and personality conflicts that are relevant to the topic. Nevertheless, despite its hagiographic nature, Inside the Box is recommended for anybody interested in fitness or the CrossFit movement.

Fiction

The Black Box, by Michael Connelly ★★★★★

The Bosch series is as good as it gets for current American police procedurals and the 18th Harry Bosch novel brings it. If you’re already a Bosch fan, that’s all you need to hear.

If you’ve never read a Bosch novel before, let me tell you that you must. But you should start with The Black Echo, then read them all in order.

Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone ★★★★☆

Kos Everburning is dead. Now it’s up to one of his acolytes and a hired-gun necromancer to figure out who killed the god and how to resurrect him.

It’s rare to find a fantasy novel that turns the entire genre on its head. But that’s what Three Parts Dead accomplishes. The best way to think of it might be dark, steampunk-ish fantasy by way of John Grisham. Because there is a trial, as there must be to figure out what to do with the estate of a god who has died under mysterious circumstances.

Red Country, by Joe Abercrombie ★★★☆☆

As a huge Joe Abercrombie fan I was wicked excited about this latest release. Unfortunately, it’s far from his best. Not terrible, and with moments of glory, but in the end a disappointment. Of course, a disappointment compared to fantastic novels like The Blade Itself but still.

Basically Red Country is Abercrombie writing a fantasy western. Picture Unforgiven with magic and you’re pretty close. In the end it feels like the bleak, desolate setting just doesn’t give Abercrombie enough to work with and in this case his typical parade of cynical misanthropes only bring you down.

The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks ★★★★☆

The Gzilt are about to sublime—to leave the universe behind and go to a better place. Which means other, less advanced, cultures are waiting in the wings to take over their planets and technology.

When things start to go wrong, the Culture, or rather, its ships, gets involved.

This is space opera at its finest, full of mind-bending ideas, huge (and small) spaceships, and the Minds that run the Culture ships. Said Minds are vastly powerful AIs with their own often warped personalities and foibles, and they enjoy nothing more than intellectual stimulation—what some would label meddling.

The Hydrogen Sonata is another strong entry in Iain M. Banks’s Culture series.

If you like brainy sci-fi, you’ll like this.

(DISCLOSURE: All links go to the Amazon Kindle store and are affiliate links. If you buy one of the books through a link here I get a tiny kickback from Amazon.)

Ode to joy

2012-12-08T00:00:00-07:00

Springsteen in concert Dec. 6, 2012 in Glendale, Arizona.

Bruce Springsteen performed a concert in Phoenix¹ Thursday night. As I’ve been a Springsteen fan since seventh grade in Sweden when a friend of mine introduced me to his older brother’s LPs, it was time to make an effort to see Springsteen now. He will only be with us for so long.

Now, as I’ve talked about before on this blog, Springsteen was a major motivator for me to learn English and he is in many ways a reason I live in the States now, so this concert carried a lot of emotional baggage.

The first time I saw Springsteen in concert was way back in 1985 at Ullevi arena in Gothenburg, Sweden² on the Born in the USA tour. Yes, 1985.

Springsteen is one of the major reasons I’m fluent in English and living in America, and I’ve spent countless hours listening to his albums. I expected a great show.

It’s Springsteen, so of course it’ll be a great show.

The Boss delivered something better than great. At this point in his life and career he’s amassed a massive back catalogue to draw from and has honed his craft as a performer to such a fine edge he knows exactly how to keep an audience in the palm of his hand. Seriously, if you programmed a Terminator to run a show, it would not do it as well as Springsteen.

That combined with the work ethic that has everything rehearsed to the point where it looks spontaneous is really a stunning thing to behold.

But the thing that really made the concert transcendent was joy. It sounds corny, but it was three hours of sheer joy—Springsteen and the entire band were beaming, looking like there was nowhere they’d rather be and nothing they’d rather do than play the hell out of that concert.

It’s wonderful that Springsteen, who has penned some truly bleak songs about the American condition, is at the point in his life where he wants to celebrate and share joy and that he’s in a position where he can travel the world and do so.

Even the poignant memorial to fallen band members Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici were joyous in their own way—celebrating their lives instead of mourning their deaths.

If you get any chance to see him, do it.

Glendale, Arizona, technically, at the dystopian sci-fi future that is the Jobing.com arena.↩
Springsteen seems to love Sweden and tends to put on absolutely smashing shows over there.↩