Smoke on the Water by Brian Daley

Smoke on the Water by Brian Daley this is the 1st novel in the Gammalaw military science fiction series. It was published after the author's death although according to his web site he did have much to do with it. Unfortunately the book is just terrible. Characters speak in info dumps. Descriptions are spotty with concentration on clothing. Dialogue is artificial going for cute one liners over substance. The plot such as I was able to make out is a group of soldiers lose a war as part of their surrender their shipped off to fight somewhere else. Way too many subplots here. According to reviews the second book is much better but I don't think I'll be trying it any time soon.

Not recommended.

The Perseids and Other Stories by Robert Charles Wilson

The Perseids and Other Stories by Robert Charles Wilson an afterward describes the short stories in this collection as being "loosely connected". They are in fact so loosely connected I didn't figure this out for myself until I had read 3/4 of the book. I was starting to get annoyed it seemed like the book kept repeating the same plot devices. Now, knowing that's part of the idea I feel a little more charitable towards it. Characters are occasionally weird for weirdness sake. Descriptions are memorable. Some of the events are a little too close to horror for my taste.

Mildly recommended.

Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship by J. F. C. Fuller

Grant and Lee: A Study in Personality and Generalship by J. F. C. Fuller was part of the great reassessment of U. S.Grant The book is a joint biography of Grant and Lee describing their abilities and faults. There's an outline of the war in general to put things into context. It's hard to review something like this. So much of what's here is now part of the accepted narrative of the conflict. There are a few novel ideas. The discussion on tactics and logistics for instance.

Recommended.

Funny article on offline book piracy

Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

World Enough and Time a Romantic Novel by Robert Penn Warren

World Enough and Time a Romantic Novel by Robert Penn Warren this is the last book I was supposed to read for the Southern reading challenge but I didn't actually finish it. Well not until now anyway. It's historical fiction that describes the lead up to a murder. Why did it take me so long? The narrator a historian wanders his way through discussions of all sorts of things that aren't really germane to the plot. Long historical asides that go on and on. The characters themselves, although interesting are infuriating. Particularly the female lead who is unable or unwilling to just explain what she wants. The male lead interprets her warnings to go away by deciding he needs to revenge her on a former friend of his who did the woman wrong. What I was expecting was a morality tale but that collapses in the last hundred pages where instead of going to the gallows he is rescued.

Not recommended.

Live by the sword, die by the sword

Nancy Grace Must Appear on Camera for Depo

Canon canada's crappy sales team

It is embarrassing that Canon canada's purchase form would not allow me to set my billing address as a Po Box.  Then when I complained they had the gall to whine about security.  Funny the bank didn't mind mailing a new credit card to a Po Box last week.

Thought on late night TV

Kari Byron cleans up good.....

Quotation [occasional]

I don't want to live in a world where Scott Brown's daughters are available but affordable healthcare isn't.
-- Andy Borowitz, on Twitter

Ancient Goddesses The Myths and the Evidence by Lucy Goodison

Ancient Goddesses The Myths and the Evidence by Lucy Goodison this is made up of a collection of essays. As the title suggests, it discusses the archaeological evidence for the "mother Goddess". This was the idea that various societies at one time worshiped a goddess to the exclusion of male deities. Supposedly the societies was peaceloving and ruled by women. The essays showed no culture actually had this in practice. The essays discuss areas including the Fertile Crescent, Egypt and Western Europe. Each of the authors is a self proclaimed feminist. Which nicely takes away an argument against the book. Sections concludes with a further reading list. Lots of illustrations of the different artifacts.

Highly recommended!

Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet by Kevin Cahill

Who Owns the World: The Surprising Truth About Every Piece of Land on the Planet by Kevin Cahill this book through an extensive list attempts to describe who owns what, how much it's worth, what it's used for and what if any legal protections exist for keeping it. Naturally this takes a lot of tables and numbers. The data is framed in a rather odd way. He argues that land ownership is a human right. As his own data demonstrates however, not that many countries throughout history have agreed with him. There's also a tendency to get hung up on technical accuracy as opposed to reality. For instance, the queen does own all of Canada's land but, as a property lawyer explained to me the only time the Crown takes advantage of this is if you don't pay your taxes. I can't speak to the accuracy of the numbers. He does point out where numbers conflict. There is no bibliography or notes as such but he does describe where he gets the data. I think you could look most of it up online if you wanted to.

Recommended for the wealth of information on almost every country in the world.

Note:This book was provided through Librarything's early reviewer Program.

Amazon reviews useless

Now they're getting 1 star if there's no Kindle.

The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

The Android's Dream by John Scalzi an alien ambassador is murdered. Complicating things is that the aliens require a gift from Earth. This is a genetically modified sheep. Which isn't going to be that simple. The book is inventive with a devastating wit. The first chapter, for instance, is a fart joke. Diplomats, lawyers and religion get skewered along the way. Did I mention that a religion worships sheep?. A great read for a long winters evening.

Highly recommended!

With suppliers like this who needs enemies?

U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed with Secret "Jesus" Bible Codes.

The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past by David Macfarlane

The Danger Tree: Memory, War and the Search for a Family's Past by David Macfarlane this is a history of one Newfoundland's family's experiences during and after WWI. Three of the brothers had been killed in the fighting. The book has a lot of literary flourishes. I'm usually not impressed with this sort of thing in a nominally historical work. Just what's been embellished? I'm going to let it slide in this case maybe because it's done so well. It's actually more of a character study of the three brothers as well as the author then of the conflict itself.

Recommended.