George V. Reilly's Blog

Monday, April 28, 2008

Title: Roma
Author: Steven Saylor
Rating:  3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 0312377622
Pages: 592
Keywords: historical fiction
Reading period: 16-26 April, 2008

Steven Saylor is best known for his Roma Sub Rosa series of detective novels about Gordianus the Finder, set in ancient Rome.

Roma is a Micheneresque saga, spanning 1000BC to 1BC, in a dozen vignettes following the holders of an ancient amulet. Starting with a crossroads frequented by traders, it shows the evolution of Rome from a village to the great power of the Mediterranean, led by Augustus Caesar, the first of the emperors. It's an easy introduction to much of Roman history, but the episodic nature of the story means that we see only fragments of that history. Each of the characters introduced necessarily gets cursory treatment, leading to a disjointed set of short stories.

Book Reviews

posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 5:34:13 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Review: The Reverse of the Medal

Title: The Reverse of the Medal
Author: Patrick O'Brian
Rating:  4.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: W.W. Norton
Copyright: 1986
ISBN: 0393309606
Pages: 286
Keywords: historical fiction
Reading period: 20-25 April, 2008

This novel continues not long after The Far Side of the World left off. The Surprise stops off in Barbados, then chases an American privateer almost to England. Jack Aubrey, astute at sea, but a naïf on land, is hoodwinked into causing a run on the stock market, and brought to trial. Stephen Maturin finds that his wife has left him and that his former superior in Naval Intelligence has been sidelined.

O'Brian moves effortlessly from a naval chase to the rural pleasures of Aubrey's cottage to Regency politics, all written in a convincing eighteenth-century style. Aubrey and Maturin are emotionally true. Jack is the bluff English patriot whose unshakeable faith in English justice will be severely tested. Stephen, the complex scientist, is beleagured by betrayals both personal and professional.

Highly recommended.

Book Reviews | Raves

posted on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 5:33:10 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Review: Orange Crush

Title: Orange Crush
Author: Tim Dorsey
Rating:  3 stars out of 5
Publisher: Harper Collins
Copyright: 2001
ISBN: 0061031542
Pages: 354
Keywords: crime, humor
Reading period: 14-16 April, 2008

A loose sequel to Hammerhead Ranch Motel. The likable serial killer, Serge A. Storms, is suffering from amnesia and has found himself a job as the Press Secretary to the Governor of Florida, Marlon Conrad.

Conrad, formerly an airheaded child of privilege, has undergone an epiphany and has begun caring about the little people. He's running for re-election and he's on a road trip through Florida in an RV. This isn't to everyone's liking and several people are gunning for him.

Dorsey is slightly more in control of his plot than in earlier books, but it still veers clumsily all over the place. Quite funny in places.

Book Reviews

posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 8:55:47 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Review: Boundary

Title: Boundary
Author: Eric Flint, Ryk E. Spoor
Rating:  3.5 stars out of 5
Publisher: Baen
Copyright: 2006
ISBN: 1416555250
Pages: 598
Keywords: science fiction
Reading period: 13-14 April, 2008

A paleontologist finds a 65-million-year-old alien fossil. A few years later, some of her NASA engineer friends send a probe to the Martian moon Phobos and find the mummies of more of those aliens in an ancient station. They all form part of the crew on the first manned mission to Mars, to investigate the alien artifacts.

This is a moderately entertaining hard science fiction novel, with an interesting premise and moderately plausible characters. I was irritated by the vast amounts of exposition. The book has a bad case of as you know, Bob. The authors are bound and determined to explain all the cool stuff they brainstormed.

Book Reviews

posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 8:54:50 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Review: White Night

Title: White Night
Author: Jim Butcher
Rating:  4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Roc
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 045146155X
Pages: 452
Keywords: fantasy
Reading period: 13 April, 2008

White Night is the latest paperback in the Dresden Files, continuing on from Proven Guilty.

Harry Dresden is a wizard and private investigator in Chicago. Minor practitioners of magic are being killed and the evidence points to his half-brother, Thomas. Harry can't accept that, even if Thomas is a vampire. Meanwhile, there's a war going on between the wizards and certain factions of vampires.

Harry is slowly starting to mature, now that he's got responsibilities. He has an apprentice and two junior Wardens were killed on his watch. He's just a little less likely to mouth off and think, but he still has a remarkable talent for pissing people off.

Entertaining, with a relentlessly fast-paced plot. Recommended.

Book Reviews | Raves

posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 8:54:01 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Review: Alliance Space

Title: Alliance Space
Author: C.J. Cherryh
Rating:  4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Daw
Copyright: 2008
ISBN: 0756404940
Pages: 602
Keywords: science fiction
Reading period: 7-12 April, 2008

This is an omnibus edition containing C.J. Cherryh's Merchanter's Luck (1982) and 40,000 in Gehanna (1983): two very different novels set in the same universe.

In Merchanter's Luck, Sandor Kreja is the last survivor of a family that hauls freight across interstellar distances. He lives on the fringes, under a series of false identities, trying to avoid official notice. After a one-night stand with Allison Reilly of the enormous Dublin Again, she and three of her Reilly cousins sign on as his crew. The military hire them to ship a dangerous cargo.

Cherryh's two protagonists are complex people with motives that are often unclear to themselves, let alone each other. They are prickly and difficult, but appealing characters even so.

And, of course, how could I not like a book with a couple of thousand Reillys, be they on- or off-stage?

40,000 in Gehanna follows the evolution of a lost colony over two centuries. Most of the initial colonists are lab-born clones, biddable, unquestioning, and hard-working, unlike their descendants. Within decades, the society degenerates into near savagery.

The humans are not the only sentient beings on the planet. The calibans are a lizard-like race, who the early colonists cannot understand at all. Later generations develop a rapport that mystifies the observers who rediscover the planet.

An interesting book, but not one that I enjoyed as much as the other. I found the calibans too alien and opaque.

Book Reviews | Raves

posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008 8:52:58 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Review: Lords of the North

Title: Lords of the North
Author: Bernard Cornwell
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Harper
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 0061149047
Pages: 317
Keywords: historical, fiction
Reading period: 5-6 April, 2008

Uhtred, a Saxon warrior raised by Danes and the right-hand man of King Alfred the Great, returns home to Northumbria to settle old scores. Settle those scores he eventually does, but not before he is betrayed by a man he trusts and sold into slavery.

Cornwell is best known for his long-running series about Richard Sharpe, an officer promoted from the ranks in the Napoleonic Wars, and for his battle scenes. Here he proves that he can write about 9th century swordsmen as well as he can write about 19th century riflemen. All of his heroes tend to resemble Sharpe: grim-faced loners with their own sense of honor, who are deadly when crossed.

Book Reviews | Raves

posted on Monday, April 07, 2008 6:36:15 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Review: The Unquiet

Title: The Unquiet
Author: John Connolly
Rating:  4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Pocket Star Books
Copyright: 2007
ISBN: 1416531386
Pages: 515
Keywords: crime, horror
Reading period: 3-5 April, 2008

Maine PI Charlie Parker is asked to warn off Merrick, a father looking for answers, from harassing his client. The case leads him to uncover a decades-old project of sexually abusing children who've fallen through the cracks.

Atmospheric and disturbing, as Connolly's novels tend to be.

Book Reviews | Raves

posted on Sunday, April 06, 2008 5:01:11 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Review: Variable Star

Title: Variable Star
Author: Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson
Rating:  4 stars out of 5
Publisher: Tor
Copyright: 2006
ISBN: 0765351684
Pages: 339
Keywords: science fiction
Reading period: 30 March-3 April, 2008

Joel Johnston is a budding young musician and the son of a Nobel-winning physicist, who gets engaged to Jinna, a fellow orphan, only to learn that she's the granddaughter of the richest man in the Solar System. Her grandfather, The Conrad, wants him to breed more heirs. In a fit of pique at the deception, Joel goes on a bender then hops on a colony ship to a distant star. Even at relativistic speeds, it's going to be a one-way trip.

Fifty years ago, Robert Heinlein wrote a short outline for this book, then put it aside. A few years ago, Heinlein's estate asked Spider Robinson to complete it.

Robinson has done a great job of writing another Heinlein novel, exploring one of his classic themes, a young man finding himself, and sounding very much like Heinlein himself.

Very enjoyable.

Books | Raves

posted on Sunday, April 06, 2008 5:00:15 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Multiple Firefox Profiles: Run Firefox 2 and 3 Side-By-Side, and More

I find it useful to have multiple Firefox profiles for developing and testing. A clean profile for testing allows you to replicate most users' environments, who don't install extensions. Running a development profile in a separate profile lets you restart the browser without messing with your default environment. You can also run Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 side-by-side in separate profiles.

More at the Cozi Tech Blog.

Cozi | Software

posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 5:35:13 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

Comments [0]