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Time for another books post
I guess I've read a few more books since my last post -- time to update.
Book 14: Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton. Number 14 in the Anita Blake stories -- filled with poly issues, self-examination, self-doubt, sex, and vampire politics. It is sadly missing any sign of the murder mysteries, and action-adventure of the earlier books in this series. If I started reading with this, I probably wouldn't have taken up the series, but I'm still (unfortunately?) hooked by liking the characters.
Book 15: All About Thickness: Understanding Moyo and Influence by Ishida Yoshio, 9-dan. This is another of my books on Go strategy that I've been re-reading lately. Unlike most go books, this is mostly filled full-page whole-board diagrams, with red arrows and indicators on it, with a few descriptive comments. It feels too light, too much "just do this", without enough meat to really understand what is going on. In many ways, it seemed an attempt to write a different type of go instructional book, but I'm not sure it completely worked.
Book 16: Archform: Beauty by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is a fun fantasy with a near-future feel to it, though it apparently is set in a post-collapse world that has re-built itself, so actually set a couple hundred years in the future. It tells interleaving tales using multiple viewpoints of political and business manipulations, the decline of the arts (music in particular), a series of murders and their investigations, and criminal manipulations of much of this. At the start, it felt like the multiple viewpoints were a couple too many -- too distracting with too many characters/stories to follow, but by the end they were woven well enough together that I no longer was doing any, "ok, which character am I following now". And, while an enjoyable story, with interesting characterisations, the good seemed just too good, and the bad just bad -- the cop was smart, honest, and good at it; the good politician was an honest politician really seeming to want to do the right thing; the singer was beautiful; etc. The good guys were too good, the bad guys too clearly bad -- not enough grey in the world. Still, I enjoyed it and will read the sequel that I have sitting on my shelf. Oh ya, it also told a complete story -- this is important.
Book 17: Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyam, 7-dan is the third of my old go books I've reread. This one doesn't focus on one part of the game, but on what Kageyama feels are fundamentals -- important points or basics of the game. The level of approachability varies a lot, but is fairly high-level, with him stating as "obvious" some stuff that goes over my head. Also particularly enjoyable in this game are a couple chapters where he talks about life as a professional -- doing go lectures on TV, or a particular triumphant game of his own, talking not just about the game, but how he felt about it and prepared for it. I find this one of the most just "readable" of the go books I have.
Book 18: Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management by Howard Tayler is the dead-trees edition of the online comic Schlock Mercenary. It is one of my favourite comics, a wonderful combination of humour and space opera. The most dangerous thing about it, is the entire archive is online -- 7 years of daily comics. And, he updates absolutely regularly. I bought the dead-tree edition to support an online comic whose strips I like. And, when I've met him, I've liked Howard, too.
So, 18 books read by mid-May. I seem to be actually keeping pretty close to a book a week again, though not particularly trying/aiming for that. Though, right now, I'm way behind on my Economists -- partially because I fired up Master of Magic and got sucked in to a couple games of that.
Book 14: Danse Macabre by Laurell K. Hamilton. Number 14 in the Anita Blake stories -- filled with poly issues, self-examination, self-doubt, sex, and vampire politics. It is sadly missing any sign of the murder mysteries, and action-adventure of the earlier books in this series. If I started reading with this, I probably wouldn't have taken up the series, but I'm still (unfortunately?) hooked by liking the characters.
Book 15: All About Thickness: Understanding Moyo and Influence by Ishida Yoshio, 9-dan. This is another of my books on Go strategy that I've been re-reading lately. Unlike most go books, this is mostly filled full-page whole-board diagrams, with red arrows and indicators on it, with a few descriptive comments. It feels too light, too much "just do this", without enough meat to really understand what is going on. In many ways, it seemed an attempt to write a different type of go instructional book, but I'm not sure it completely worked.
Book 16: Archform: Beauty by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. is a fun fantasy with a near-future feel to it, though it apparently is set in a post-collapse world that has re-built itself, so actually set a couple hundred years in the future. It tells interleaving tales using multiple viewpoints of political and business manipulations, the decline of the arts (music in particular), a series of murders and their investigations, and criminal manipulations of much of this. At the start, it felt like the multiple viewpoints were a couple too many -- too distracting with too many characters/stories to follow, but by the end they were woven well enough together that I no longer was doing any, "ok, which character am I following now". And, while an enjoyable story, with interesting characterisations, the good seemed just too good, and the bad just bad -- the cop was smart, honest, and good at it; the good politician was an honest politician really seeming to want to do the right thing; the singer was beautiful; etc. The good guys were too good, the bad guys too clearly bad -- not enough grey in the world. Still, I enjoyed it and will read the sequel that I have sitting on my shelf. Oh ya, it also told a complete story -- this is important.
Book 17: Lessons in the Fundamentals of Go by Toshiro Kageyam, 7-dan is the third of my old go books I've reread. This one doesn't focus on one part of the game, but on what Kageyama feels are fundamentals -- important points or basics of the game. The level of approachability varies a lot, but is fairly high-level, with him stating as "obvious" some stuff that goes over my head. Also particularly enjoyable in this game are a couple chapters where he talks about life as a professional -- doing go lectures on TV, or a particular triumphant game of his own, talking not just about the game, but how he felt about it and prepared for it. I find this one of the most just "readable" of the go books I have.
Book 18: Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management by Howard Tayler is the dead-trees edition of the online comic Schlock Mercenary. It is one of my favourite comics, a wonderful combination of humour and space opera. The most dangerous thing about it, is the entire archive is online -- 7 years of daily comics. And, he updates absolutely regularly. I bought the dead-tree edition to support an online comic whose strips I like. And, when I've met him, I've liked Howard, too.
So, 18 books read by mid-May. I seem to be actually keeping pretty close to a book a week again, though not particularly trying/aiming for that. Though, right now, I'm way behind on my Economists -- partially because I fired up Master of Magic and got sucked in to a couple games of that.
no subject
That was a FANTASTIC game, it consumed hours and hours of my life many years ago.
:-)
T.
no subject
That and Sid Meier's Civilisation, Master of Orion, MOO Two, and of course going even farther back to a true classic of the genre, Reach for the Stars which I played on the Commodore 64 back in the late 80s.