mikal – Page 62 – Made by Mikal

Nerilka’s Story

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 21, 2009
Post category:Book

This book takes place over almost exactly the same period as Moreta. However, its not a rehash of those events, as it is written from a different person's perspective. There are enough points where the two story lines meet for the books to make sense as a pair, and I'd recommend reading them back to back. This book is an incredibly fast read (I knocked it over in a few hours on a flight), and its a bit more positive than Moreta, which has a pretty sad ending. However, this book isn't the happiest book ever written either. I've seen commentary that says this book is mostly about how unattractive Nerilka is physically. I dispute that though -- the book is about how the human spirit is more important than breeding or good looks, and how Nerilka's efforts to do the right thing in a time of crisis have a lasting impact. I enjoyed this book. [isbn: 0345339495]

Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 21, 2009
Post category:Book

Moreta is a book about a pandemic, and its hard to make those fun... If you've bothered to find out anything about the book in advance (or read the preceding Pern books, where it is referred to), you know that its not going to be a fun ride. On the other hand, the book is an interesting read, and its educational to find out how much knowledge has been lost in the Pern universe between Moreta and Lessa. For example, its clear in Moreta that everyone knows they moved from the Southern continent, whereas that is much less clear in the books set in Lessa's time. Its hard to say that a book about thousands of people dying is enjoyable. However, the story is a gripping one, and I'm glad I read it. [isbn: 034529873X] [award: nominee hugo 1984]

Better Than Life

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 12, 2009
Post category:Book

This is the second novelized book from the guys who wrote Red Dwarf. The first book of course shares its name with the name of the TV series. This book deviates from the plot line used in the TV series, and at some points feels more like a summary of the series than a novelization. Then again there are also times where they explore things that would be way to expensive to do in a TV show for the BBC, so that's fun. [isbn: 0451452313]

Red Dwarf

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 9, 2009
Post category:Book

This book was exciting because its the first book I have read on the spur of the moment after perusing my book shelves -- for the first time in many years I have my entire collection out of boxes on on shelves, which makes it much easier to just grab something to read. This book is a classic, and I love the TV series (which I discovered before the books), and this book. The book is different from the TV series, and feels more like a summary of the series than anything else, but its an engaging read. [isbn: 0451452011]

The King’s Buccaneer

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 8, 2009
Post category:Book

I really liked this book, as I do most of Feist's work, although he does have a talent for writing books which are long. This book continues the story line from the Magician (Apprentice and Master), Silverthorn and A Darkness at Sethanon. I like that, and have felt for a while that Prince of the Blood was a bit of a tangent from the main thrust of the series -- although characters which are used in later stories are introduced through that book. [isbn: 0553563734]

Books read in September 2009

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 4, 2009
Post category:Book

Dragonsinger Dragondrums Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Maverick Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (online short story) Days of Blood and Fire The Stars Must Wait Bolo Brigade

Deadly Exposure

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 4, 2009
Post category:Book

This book isn't very good. I read it because my six year old son really liked the front cover art, and wanted me to read it. He wanted me to read it so much in fact that he bought two copies to give me. The book starts off with something which feels like its lifted straight out of the Andromeda Strain, you know, government agency / possible alien infection / we need a crack team of scientists! The book then moves on to introduce a selection of surprisingly one sided characters -- the fat self obsessed scientist, the thin young lady obsessed with getting it on, et cetera. The story jumps around, with sometimes implausible outcomes... For example, people are mid argument, and just magically stop when something happens nearby. Do you know people who stop arguing because the lights flicker? The book does pick up a little at the end, and I assume all the weird personification we're subjected to is an attempt to convey that the characters are losing their grip on sanity. Overall, I thought this book was quite rough, which is surprising from an author who apparently has had four other books published. I have revenge…

Incorrect channel numbers in MythTV

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 28, 2009
Post category:Mythtv

We've had a HDHomeRun for a while now, and I'm very happy with it. One wart however was that Catherine was complaining that tuning for Go! didn't work (an extra Win TV channel we get in this area). It was odd -- it appeared in the channel guide, but recordings would end up recording ABC1 instead, and we couldn't tune to the channel in the live TV interface either. I fired up the channel editor in mythtv-setup, and the problem was actually pretty easy to solve... The channel scan had assigned channel number 2 to Go!, which is the same channel number as ABC1. It had also gotten the channel number for Win TV wrong, but we hadn't noticed that because that wasn't overlapping with another channel. The channel numbers seem arbitrary, given the database is also storing frequency and demultiplexing information, so the fix was as simple as just giving the various WIN channels the correct numbers (or I suspect any number that was unique) in mythtv-setup.

Bolo Brigade

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 27, 2009
Post category:Book

There seems to be a formula for bolo books -- an obsolete bolo or two, and alien invader, a solitary bolo commander, and preferably a management chain which either doesn't trust bolos, the officer, or preferably both. Its even better if the chain of command is also grossly incompetent. This book has all of those, and I am left feeling that it didn't really add much to the overall bolo universe. Other books have explored some new aspect of the bolo psyche, or expanded on the history of the concordiat universe in some way, whereas this book didn't feel like it did any of that. However, this was an entertaining book, and is reasonably well written. It just wasn't as ambitious as I'd hoped it would be. [isbn: 067187781x]

The Stars Must Wait

Post author:mikal
Post published:September 23, 2009
Post category:Book

This book is a novelization of "Night of the Trolls", which I have already read as part of The Compleat Bolo and Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. I'm pretty fond of the short story, and this book version didn't start out strongly -- there is a prelude to explain some background, and then the book launches into what feels like the exact text of the short story. You can tell it hasn't been edited much, because there are minor continuity errors between this first chapter and the prelude. There are other continuity errors as well -- the blurb on the back says that the main character goes into stasis in 2002, but his wife dies in 1992 which is meant to be after the main character goes into stasis, and the map that he uses once out of stasis is copyright 2011 (even though the main character claims to have bought it just before going into stasis). Note that these dates are different to those used in the short story. These errors are distracting although the underlying story is still a good one. However, the good bits of the story are all contained in the short story. This feels like a poorly…