Must Review More Books

No rest for the book-reviewing weary . . .

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Do you love all things about 80s geek culture? D&D? Atari/TRS-80/Commodore 64 video games? Movies like War Games? Do you want to read hundreds of pages with endless references to all of these things? Well then, I've got the book for you!

Lets run through the setup: Dystopian type near future earth setting. Check. Everyone spends all their time hooked into a VR world that has replaced the internet. Gotcha. Super rich dude who invented the VR world dies and leaves all his money and ownership of the VR world to whoever can follow the clues. Bingo. Oh, and did I mention that he LOVED the 80s? As you're probably assuming, the protagonist is a poor high school aged kid that also loves the 80s. You're also right in guessing that he makes a few friends along the way, and that they get to fight against the evil, rich, powerful corporate bad guys who want to get even more rich and powerful. The book is better than I'm making it out to be here, but seriously, this book is written for males that like video games and were born between 1971 and 1978. If that's not you, this book may not be for you.

Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher
Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher
I reviewed the first book in the series, Furies of Calderon, a while ago, and here is book 2 and 3 (of 6). Book two had a slow start. Book three was excellent. Other than the fact that every library I go to has all the books in the series except the next one I need, this series has been very, very good. This is one step below "excellent" in my make-it-up-as-you-go ranking system. Book four is sitting beside my bed right now. There isn't much to say that would make much sense if you haven't read the first book, but the world that Butcher is creating has expanded nicely, as the main characters become tangled up in larger politics and wars. If you've read any fantasy at all, you'll understand when I say that this is a book with a map on the first page. Anyway, I'm enjoying the series.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher
As I said, the library doesn't always have the book I need when I need it, so I picked up another book by Jim Butcher. The first book in a series is about Harry Dresden - he's a PI in present day Chicago who also happens to be a Wizard. This isn't Harry Potter style magic where you wave a magic wand and make essentially whatever you want happen. (Summon anything from anywhere! Turn anything into anything else! Stun someone! Turn their legs into jelly! Turn them into a ferret! Apparate to anywhere (except Hogwarts)! Turn yourself invisible! Do all the housework! Anyway . . . ) This Harry (Dresden that is) lives in a world with a much grittier type of magic and consults with the police when weird stuff goes down, as well as other jobs for private individuals. In this book he's got a gruesome double murder that the police don't understand, and a missing persons case and (lo and behold) things are all interconnected! The book was ok. There are now 15 books in the series. They pre-date the Fury books of his that I've read, so it's possible that his writing has improved over the years and the Dresden books would improve as the series goes on. (maybe?)

How Not To Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg
Math nerd book alert! Jordan Ellenberg is a math professor at the University of Wisconsin - he's like a real deal mathematician. The book essentially expounds on a couple of core topics which is that 1) math is useful to all sorts of problems, and 2) we would all be better off if we understood math better in order to not be wrong, and 3) that includes you. His goal is to demonstrate simple yet profound insights that good math gives to the world, and he points out plenty of bad math along the way. ("Bad math" being a large degree of what you see in the news, and nearly everything that you see from anyone on TV with an 'R' or 'D' after their name.) Ellenberg writes well, and manages to insert enough humor in the book that I start reading paragraphs aloud to Shannon. Shannon lovingly puts up with me when I do this. Coming in a bit over 400 pages, the book is a little longer than it needed to be, but I liked it. This book is accessible to anyone with a high school education and things like this should be read by more people (especially those people with the 'R's and 'D's after their name on CNN/FoxNews). Sadly, we all know that it's mostly math nerds that are going to read the book.

And since, in all likelihood, you aren't going to read the book please remember these things:

• Not All Lines are Straight. Linear trend lines are often silly things to use.
• 5% or more of scientific studies are wrong, because that's how we've designed our system.
• If you never lose, you probably aren't taking enough risk.
• Percentage increases or decreases are terrible to use if the numbers might be negative
• All public opinion polls can be messed with to make them appear to say whatever you want them to say.

So Many Books

I've made a terrible mistake. Apparently I haven't reviewed any books that I've read for nearly 3 months. I guess I've been busy with unemployment and stuff. So I'm 11 books and 4,820 pages behind, not counting the two books I'm currently in the middle of. Let's see if I still remember what all these books are about . . . .

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi
The Last Colony by John Scalzi
Hooray, a trilogy! Look at all this progress so far. This is a sci-fi story set in the somewhat distant future of Earth. Earth is still around and doing ok, but there are a number of colonies out there. There are two ways to get to the colonies. People from some developing nations can get one way tickets as colonists, and people from developed nations can volunteer for military service ... but not until the age of 75. What good are a bunch of old people marines? No good at all, but this is the future, where we can fix up your old and busted body - though we're a little vague on how that works. And that is about the extent of the information the main character, John, has when he decides to sign up for the military. You'll be shocked to find out that John is shocked to find out that life in the space marines (my name for it) is not at all what was expected. On the surface, this is "Ender's Game but with Old People" but it manages to create an interesting universe and fill it with interesting characters.

The next two books follow the universe that Scalzi created, not necessarily the characters in the first book. Some of them still play prominent roles, but John certainly isn't the protagonist of the second book. (But has a bigger role in the third book.) I think this is a nice little feature, because its frankly a little ridiculous when so many series have one main character who is miraculously present for every important event ever. Also, in looking this up on wikipedia to check on the spelling of Scalzi's name, I see there are three more books in the series. I'll tentatively add them to my list, though they aren't getting priority status.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
It takes a long time to read these books aloud to your kids. My vocal chords are glad we're finally done, but I miss the nightly reading time. Somewhere in book 5 or 6, I started the tradition of finding a silly way for Harry to die in every single chapter - long before I realized what sort of confusion I was potentially setting them up for by the end of book seven. It didn't really play out like I thought - it looks like our years of telling the girls that everything will turn out alright at the end of the book/movie has finally sunk in. Obviously an excellent book. Go read it to your kids.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery
One day a sixty-something year old grandma from Ohio threw a denim bag over her shoulder (that she had made herself) and decided to go for a walk along the 2,100+ mile Appalachian Trail. She traveled alone, stopped at strangers homes to ask if she could sleep for the night, and foraged for food when she didn't have any better options. She was a month or so into her trip before she even bothered to write to her kids to tell them where she had gone. Emma Gatewood, at the age of 67 was the first woman to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Trail. A few years later, she did it again. And then a third time (in sections) for good measure. Somewhere in there she decided to walk the Oregon Trail, too. (And I can't keep up on a blog of the books I read.) This was an excellent book about a lady who thought "it would be a nice lark" to hike the AT, and didn't see any reason why she couldn't do it.

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson
The title of this book is redundant, because all librarians are evil. They just don't want you to know it. They secretly rule the world, and withhold information, like the fact that dinosaurs aren't extinct (also they aren't as large as you think and they speak with a British accent) and that there are whole continents that don't show up on the maps that the librarians publish. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Alcatraz Smedry is your standard 13 year old foster kid who is always getting into trouble until the day that his grandfather (who he's never met) shows up and tells him that he is Not What He Seems™. You know how these books go: his parents were important people, and he is needed in the resistance against the evil librarians. Also, as a part of the Smedry family, he has special powers. Alcatraz has the ability to break things. His grandfather, Leavenworth, has a talent for showing up late to things. Other impressive Smedry talents include Falling Down, Speaking Gibberish that No One Can Understand, and Spilling Unbelievable Amounts of Water. This is a YA book which is not, in my opinion, as good as Sanderson's usual work, but could be fun for someone in the 10-13 age range that wants a somewhat silly adventure. Apparently there are 5 or 6 books in the series now, though I've only read the first one.