Monday, July 07, 2008 
Heart of Stone
Title: Heart of Stone
Author: C.E. Murphy
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Luna Books
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 438
Keywords: urban fantasy
Reading period: 5 July, 2008

The Old Races--gargoyles, dragons, vampires, and more--are still around, though few ordinary humans are aware of them, since they can all assume human form.

Margrit Knight, a feisty Legal Aid lawyer in New York City, defends Alban, a gargoyle falsely accused of murdering women in Central Park. She finds herself drawn into murky struggles between different factions and she becomes increasingly attracted to the statuesque Alban, who has long been in self-imposed exile.

Gargoyles are a novel twist in the increasingly popular urban fantasy genre. Entertaining and fast-paced.

posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 7:23:05 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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The New Centurions
Title: The New Centurions
Author: Joseph Wambaugh
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Grand Central
Copyright: 1970
Pages: 528
Keywords: crime
Reading period: 29 June–4 July, 2008

Three very different young men graduate from the Los Angeles Police Academy in 1960. Wambaugh's classic first novel follows them for five years until they meet again under fire in the Watts Riots.

In a series of vignettes, Wambaugh shows how they become hardened and cynical on the streets. Some will absorb the racist attitudes of their fellow officers. All will see horrifying things as they serve as patrol officers, vice cops, or juvenile officers.

Grim but enthralling.

posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 7:21:49 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Our Game
Title: Our Game
Author: John le Carré
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Ballantine
Copyright: 1995
Pages: 338
Keywords: spy, thriller
Reading period: 22–29 June, 2008

Timothy Cranmer is a former spy handler, put out to pasture at the end of the Cold War. Larry Pettifer, left-wing academic and Byronic espouser of lost causes, was not only Cranmer's best double agent but a friend and rival since childhood.

Now Larry has gone missing, as has 37 million pounds and Cranmer's young mistress, Emma. Cranmer is thought to be an accomplice. Cranmer must find Larry. The trail will take him deep in the Caucasus.

The book moves slowly through the first half, until Cranmer finally decides to take action and leads British Intelligence on a merry chase. Cranmer, our narrator, reveals himself to be emotionally paralysed until his middle-aged affair with Emma. Larry, never seen directly, is shown to be just as immature in his own quixotic, impulsive way.

Not le Carré's best work, but insightful about his characters and post-Cold War politics.

posted on Monday, July 07, 2008 7:20:27 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Tuesday, June 24, 2008 
Judge
Title: Judge
Author: Karen Traviss
Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Eos
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 391
Keywords: SF
Reading period: 18-21 June, 2008

Judge is the sixth and final book in the Wess'har Series, and the sequel to Ally.

For the first time, focus shifts to 25th-century Earth, as the ecologically radical Eqbas arrive to clean up the mess. Once again, the central themes are ethics and environmentalism, and the moral quandaries posed by the existence of c'naatat, a parasite that confers immortality upon its host. The series draws to a close, resolving the fates of the central characters: the ruthlessly principled former cop, Shan Frankland; her two husbands, the gentle marine, Ade Bennett, and the alien war criminal, Aras; and Eddie Michallat, the journalist.

It's an impressive series of novels: strong characters, an interesting plot, aliens with fundamentally non-human ethics, moral dilemmas, and conflict galore.

posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 6:30:13 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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In Dublin's Fair City
Title: In Dublin's Fair City
Author: Rhys Bowen
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 282
Keywords: mystery, historical
Reading period: 15-18 June, 2008

Molly Murphy, an early twentieth-century private detective, returns from New York to her native Ireland, in order to track down her client's long-lost sister. Along the way, she encounters a dead body in her cabin, revolutionaries in Dublin, and (briefly) James Joyce.

Molly is engaging and quick-witted, with a contrarian streak that gets her into trouble. Bowen evokes the early 20th century from bustling New York to the social stratifications of a liner, to British-occupied Dublin.

The book is marred by some elementary geographical errors: the River Liffey, not Liffy; Dublin is on the Irish Sea; the North Sea is on Britain's eastern coast.

posted on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 6:29:18 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Sunday, June 15, 2008 
Passage
Title: Passage
Author: Connie Willis
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Bantam
Copyright: 2001
Pages: 780
Keywords: science fiction
Reading period: 8-15 June, 2008

Two scientists are researching Near-Death Experiences, to learn what causes them and what happens during them. This is partly a detective story, partly a story about doing science. The two main characters are likeable and there's a memorable cast of supporting characters: the garrulous WWII veteran; the manipulative but charming nine-year-old girl; the horrible psychic fraud; the hardboiled ER nurse; the former English teacher with Alzheimer's; and his caretaker niece.

Entertaining, but too long.

posted on Monday, June 16, 2008 4:42:45 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008 
Oxen of the Sun

Bloomsday is around the corner. As ever, we at the Wild Geese Players of Seattle are staging a reading from James Joyce's Ulysses, at the Elliott Bay Bookstore, 101 S. Main St, on Sat 14th June 2008 at 4:30pm.

In the Oxen of the Sun, Leopold Bloom visits the Holles Street Maternity Hospital and falls in with Stephen Dedalus and a crowd of drunken medical students, in a chapter that not only recapitulates the forty weeks of pregnancy, it also constitutes a tour through the development of the English language.

I play Stephen Dedalus, the second most important character of the book. In this chapter, it is neither a large nor a small role.

Behind the scenes, I was responsible for turning Joyce's text into a script suitable for a staged reading. A few months ago, I despaired of it. It was a daunting challenge technically, and we didn't have nearly enough readers. I'm happy to say that I found my way through the labyrinth of dramaturgy and a large crop of new goslings joined the Players for this year's reading.

Finally, let me repost a Google Ad that I saw beside one of our internal emails:

Natural Geese Repellent
Enviromentally Safe Unit Rids Geese Maintenance Free, Solar Powered
posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 7:43:33 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Sunday, June 08, 2008 
Iron Kissed
Title: Iron Kissed
Author: Patricia Briggs
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Ace
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 287
Keywords: urban fantasy
Reading period: 6-8 June, 2008

Mercy Thompson, coyote shape shifter, mechanic, and heroine of Blood Bound and Moon Called, is asked to investigate the murder of some fae. The fae (faery) are creatures from the old tales, barely assimilated into modern society, and far more dangerous than Disney tales suggest. One of their own, Mercy's mentor, is falsely accused of the murder. Most of the fae would rather see him go down so that the whole thing will blow over quickly. Mercy is determined to get him off, and that doesn't sit well with the fae. Not to mention, she's juggling two suitors, both alpha werewolves.

An entertaining, fast-paced read.

posted on Monday, June 09, 2008 6:34:03 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Saturday, June 07, 2008 
Blood and Honey
Title: Blood and Honey
Author: Graham Hurley
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Orion
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 512
Keywords: fiction, police procedural
Reading period: 2-5 June, 2008

Two separate police investigations take place in Portsmouth at the same time. DI Joe Faraday is called over to the Isle of Wight to investigate the headless body found washed up at the base of a cliff. Suspicion falls on an ex-soldier who runs a nursing home, a man with a dangerous reputation.

DC Paul Winter becomes involved with a callgirl who has ties to a prominent businessman, who won't take no for an answer. Winter's poor judgement may be due to the crippling headaches he's developed of late.

Hurley has written a police procedural that is both well-plotted and character-driven. Joe Faraday is believably solid and competent with interesting quirks. Paul Winter has sailed too close to the wind for years and is coming apart.

posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 8:09:59 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Sunday, June 01, 2008 
Nine Layers of Sky
Title: Nine Layers of Sky
Author: Liz Williams
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Bantam Spectra
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 427
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 29 May–1 June, 2008

Ilya Muromyets, a figure of Russian legend for 800 years, still lives, albeit mostly in a haze of narcotic self-pity. He is recruited to track down a mysterious artifact found by a former cosmologist, Elena Irinonova, in Kazahkstan. Others also seek the artifact, which can open a gate to a parallel world where humans and other races live.

That world, Byelovodye, quite literally is the sum of human dreams and fears, and the disillusionment in the post-Soviet republics is destabilizing it.

A very unusual, well-written take on the fantasy quest.

posted on Monday, June 02, 2008 4:09:14 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Thursday, May 29, 2008 
ASP.NET - Ajax + JSON = speed

Preloading Ajax data as JSON has helped improve the load time and perceived performance of our family software application. Most of the pages in our web client are dynamically generated in the browser from a complex set of JavaScript and CSS, so we're always looking out for ways to make them appear more quickly.

More at the Cozi Tech Blog.

posted on Friday, May 30, 2008 6:27:17 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008 
Agents of Light and Darkness
Title: Agents of Light and Darkness
Author: Simon R. Green
Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Ace
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 233
Keywords: fantasy, noir
Reading period: 26–28 May, 2008

Next book after Something From the Nightside.

The Unholy Grail has come to the Nightside, and the angels of both Heaven and Hell want it. The Fallen and the Elect are deadly and implacable and wholly careless of casualties.

John Taylor, the man who can find anything, must lay hands on it first and keep it from either side.

A fantasy noir with a heavy dose of black humor. Moderately entertaining.

posted on Thursday, May 29, 2008 6:13:09 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Monday, May 26, 2008 
A Princess of Roumania
Title: A Princess of Roumania
Author: Paul Park
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Tor
Copyright: 2005
Pages: 460
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 21–26 May, 2008

In a parallel world, Roumania is a great European power and America is a barely settled wilderness. Miranda was sent to our world by her aunt, Princess Aegypta, when she was a small child, for her own safety. Now Aegypta and the Baroness each want to retrieve her, for their own reasons.

The book revolves around Miranda and her two friends, lost and confused in the primeval forests of New England, and the Baroness in Bucharest, The latter is the more interesting character: an impulsive former actress who climbed into high society and is now falling downwards, struggling as her plans go awry.

posted on Monday, May 26, 2008 11:59:45 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008 
Un Lun Dun
Title: Un Lun Dun
Author: China Miéville
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Del Rey
Copyright: 2007
Pages: 471
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 18-21 May, 2008

Deeba and Zanna, both twelve-year-old London girls, find their way into Un Lun Dun (UnLondon). Magic works in the abcity: there's feral rubbish, the ghosts of Wraithtown, words made flesh. Most of all, there's the Smog, an enormous cloud of pollution that's become sentient and wants to consume everything.

This book is aimed at a younger audience than his Bas-Lag novels, such as Iron Council. Supporting characters do die and Deeba must undergo trials, but this book is not grim. Indeed, in places, it's positively whimsical, and Miéville owes a clear debt to earlier English fantasists, like Mervyn Peake and Lewis Carroll.

Recommended.

posted on Thursday, May 22, 2008 6:14:37 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Monday, May 19, 2008 

http://blogs.cozi.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/16/espritdecozismall.jpg

I formed a Bike to Work team at Cozi. More at the Cozi Connections Blog

posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 2:21:43 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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The Wee Free Men
Title: The Wee Free Men
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: HarperTeen
Copyright: 2003
Pages: 272
Keywords: humor, fantasy
Reading period: 13-18 May, 2008

Tiffany Aching is a nine-year-old dairymaid with the First Sight and the Second Thoughts. She sees more than others do. She sees the tiny Nac Mac Feegle, the little thieving fighting pictsies, who speak with a Scottish brogue and have nae time for laird nor queen.

When the Queen of the Fairies attempts to invade the Discworld by stealing children and their dreams, it is up to Tiffany to stop them.

Ostensibly aimed at children, any adult fan of Pratchett's Discworld novels should enjoy this book too.

posted on Monday, May 19, 2008 7:05:27 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008 
Garnethill
Title: Garnethill
Author: Denise Mina
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Copyright: 1998
Pages: 402
Keywords: mystery, tartan noir
Reading period: 10-13 May, 2008

Maureen O'Donnell wakes up in her Glasgow flat after passing out drunk and finds her lover tied to a chair, his throat cut. Douglas was a therapist, married to another woman. The police think she's guilty but can't prove it: she has a history of mental illness, her mother's an alcoholic, and her twin brother's a drug dealer.

Mauri is feisty but flawed, coping fairly realistically. She manages to find the real murderer and uncover a nasty case of sexual abuse, against a backdrop of domestic violence, alcoholism, and poverty. Her friend Leslie is a treat; her mother is a horror.

The notes at the back of the book say that Denise Mina got sidetracked from writing her PhD thesis on mental illness and female offenders. This novel is far more readable than the thesis would have been.

posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:05:17 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008 
Sharing Dotfiles between Windows and *nix

Tomas Restrepo wrote a post about sharing dotfiles between Windows and Ubuntu, specifically about sharing .vimrc (Linux) and _vimrc (Windows) and the .vim (Linux) and vimfiles (Windows) directories.

I have a different solution. On Windows, my C:\AutoExec.bat includes:

set HOME=C:\gvr
set VIM=C:\Vim
set VIMDIR=%VIM%\vim71
set EDITOR=%VIMDIR%\gvim.exe
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Win32app;C:\GnuWin32\bin;C:\UnxUtils;C:\SysInternals;C:\Python25\Scripts

%HOME% (C:\gvr) contains _vimrc, vimfiles, and other stuff accumulated over many years. This directory is stored in a personal Subversion repository at DevjaVu. All my Vim files are stored with Unix LF endings, not Windows CR-LFs, so that they'll work on my Mac OS X and Linux boxen. I play some games with if has("win32") and if has('gui_macvim') to ensure that my _vimrc works cross-platform.

On my *nix boxes, the gvr folder lives under my home directory at ~/gvr, and ~/.vimrc and ~/.vim are symlinks:

$ ln -s ~/gvr/_vimrc ~/.vimrc
$ ln -s ~/gvr/vimfiles/ ~/.vim

In addition, the dotfiles that I keep in SVN are stored locally in ~/gvr/dotfiles without a leading period in their names, which makes them easy to see:

$ ln -s ~/gvr/dotfiles/bashrc ~/.bashrc

This arrangement works well for me.

posted on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 6:28:36 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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Saturday, May 10, 2008 

What the Dead Know

 Title: What the Dead Know
 Author: Laura Lippman
 Rating: 4 stars out of 5
 Publisher: Harper
 Copyright: 2007
 ISBN: 0061128864
 Pages: 369
 Keywords: mystery
 Reading period: 4-9 May, 2008

Thirty years ago, Heather and Sunny Bethany, 12 and 15, disappeared without trace from a Baltimore mall. A cold case, long forgotten by almost everyone. Now a woman, arrested after fleeing from the scene of an accident, blurts out that she's Heather Bethany.

Is she Heather? Or someone else? She knows so much about the case, yet there's something off about her and the police don't trust her. Where's she been? Where's Sunny? And why did she never come forward before?

We learn the truth by the end of the novel, of course. The game of cat and mouse between Heather and the police draws to a satisfying resolution, which makes psychological sense.

posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 8:02:43 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00) 
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