Best Kept Secrets of Peer Code Review, by Jason Cohen

Code reviews are things that I believe are very important to a software development team. Not just because they can reduce defects before QA or the customer sees them, but because they help promote awareness of the codebase in general and provide critical mentoring opportunities to the team. The main message of this book is that the earlier you can find a bug the cheaper it is it fix, and code reviews are an underrated way of accomplishing this. While I agree this is true, I actually believe the mentoring aspects of reviews are actually more important—teach a man to fish and all that.

While loaded with interesting analysis, one detail rang a bit untrue to me. Cohen considers all items found in a review to be defects, but this is not always true in reality. For instance, asking that a comment be added doesn’t mean the code in question is unintelligible, but sometimes simply an explanation of why something was done (for instance, an API class is not marked final due to customer request). When mentoring, it is common to explain new techniques at review time as well; changing for(int i=0;i<longarray.length;++i) to for(long x: longarray) is not fixing or preventing a bug, but something that often happens as a result of a Java review. I believe this overly-broad interpretation inflates the numbers shown in the charts and tables a bit, but as it errs in favor of code reviews I find it easily excusable.

The author is the founder of Smart Bear Software, a company that not surprisingly has a product (Code Collaborator) that aims to ease the burden of doing code reviews. This certainly explains the focus on reducing the overall cost of bugs at the expense of mentoring—it is aimed at the people that control budgets, not the developers writing code. The self-published nature is also evident with something I expect an editor would have caught: the charts presented in landscape mode are turned on the wrong axis! He does reference Tufte, though, so I’ll assume there is some reason we have to spin the book counter-clockwise instead of clockwise.

All in all, this is a pretty interesting book. A lot of analysis and case studies went into it and a clear, convincing case in favor of code reviews is made. It skimps a bit on the mentoring aspects, but as those are probably much harder to quantify it is understandable. If you want to see a detailed look at why code reviews are good for a company, this should be your first stop.

First Sentence:

It was only supposed to take an hour.

The Protector’s War, by S. M. Stirling

The middle entry of a trilogy is often the weakest. The first book was enjoyable, but the third (which I haven’t yet read) would have to be pretty awful to not make this idiom true. Only two things of any import happen here, which is unfortunate for a novel pushing 600 pages. Much of the book is told in flashback, with the main characters in a bar telling each other what recently happened. The framing device isn’t awful, but as it wasn’t used at all in the first book and only in the middle of this one it sticks painfully out. Even the title, The Protector’s War, was odd, as the war is only foreshadowed and will clearly be the focus of the next novel, A Meeting at Corvallis.

The most jarring thing, though, was that instead of the Oregon setting of the first book, this one opens in a Britain that has survived the Change that destroyed all modern technology fairly well, but it seems the now-King Charles is married to a Icelander with little-to-no explanation as to how or why. I suspected I missed a book somewhere as the events that are hinted at seem fairly well thought out, but some research on the net shows this isn’t so. I did find an appendix from an upcoming series set in this same world that tells not only the back story but ranges into the future as well. At least an abridged version of this tale would have been welcome—especially as it looks to be more interesting than the rambling story that was told here!

First Sentence:

I’ve been here before, John Hordle suddenly realized, his thumb moving over the leather that covered the grip of his bow.

The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency, by Philip H. Melanson, Ph.D. with Peter F. Stevens

The Secret Service has two main areas of responsibility: counterfeiting and protection. Interestingly, the more familiar protection functions didn’t start until 1894 (well after the Lincoln assassination) when President Cleveland was taking a trip to Colorado. The Agency was investigating a gang that had issued anarchist threats and assigned a couple of agents to Cleveland for the duration of his trip, stepping into the realm of presidential protection for the first time. It wasn’t until Truman was in office that congress officially approved of this mission (the prevailing thought of the time was the President was a man of the people, just another citizen, and providing special protection was tantamount to an imperial guard) so from 1894 to 1951 the body guarding that occurred was far outside of the agency’s mandate and technically against the law. When signing the bill authorizing the security, President Truman quipped, “Well it is wonderful to know that the work of protecting me has at last become legal.”

The first few chapters of this book were really interesting. They told the story of how an anti-counterfeiting organization grew to encompass presidential security and the early history of the Agency. When the narrative reaches the JFK assassination, though, the book goes off the rails. Instead of a history, it becomes a diatribe of everything wrong with the Service. Yes, there were many mistakes made during that fateful trip to Dallas, but they have been nauseatingly dissected in many, many other books. Briefly going through them again here is expected, but special care was seemingly taken here to make the agency look foolish. The same is done in a later chapter about the Reagan assassination attempt, but because of the obvious heroism of Agent McCarthy (the man who leaped in front of the President and took a bullet) and the fact that Reagan was wounded only because of a freak ricochet, the complaints come off as petty. In fact, the author seemed to me to be petulant that the public wasn’t more outraged at the errors the Service enacted that day. The most obvious example of negativity towards the Service came during a chapter discussing media coverage and public-relations. A Discovery Channel documentary entitled Inside the Secret Service was described like this: “A flattering puff piece, it portrayed the Agency as patriotic, competent, apolitical, and dedicated while glossing over the Service’s many problems and failures. There were no critics or detached analysts.” The snobbish, implied “unlike the meaningful, important book you currently have in your hands” came through loud and clear, causing me to roll my eyes for the umpteenth time. Discovering that the author uses his own earlier published works as references didn’t help the credibility, either. Typos and poor editing abound as well, giving the subtle feel of a clandestine manifesto created under the cover of darkness as opposed to an objective history.

To be fair, I would have been annoyed by a fawning look at the Secret Service as well, one that ignored that they did in fact lose JFK and allowed Reagan to be injured. What I wanted, though, was a balanced history that devoted as much space to the successful missions (two attempts on Ford and one on Truman were covered in a matter of a paragraph or two) as to the unsuccessful ones. Once we get into the modern era of the Service where presidential security becomes paramount, the other duties of protecting the federal money supply fade into obscurity. While I certainly know a lot more about the Agency than I did before, I was still quite disappointed at the stilted look presented here.

First Sentence:

On July 5, 1865, in Washington, D.C., a tall, wiry man raised his right hand.

It's Superman!, by Tom De Haven

Smallville is the popular TV show about Clark Kent before he becomes Superman. This novel is a similar take, but done in a pulp-noir treatment and set during the time when Superman was first created by Siegel and Shuster in the 1930’s. The language and setting strongly evoke the imagery of the old Fleischer shorts; even the cover is an animation cel from one of the cartoons. While the modern material has a more polished look, this older stuff has a style all its own.

Clark is not the confident master-of-all-trades we all read growing up; here he is a B student—not because he was intentionally dumbing-down while trying to fit in but because that was the best he could do—and the kind of guy that “can’t read his own stupid handwriting.” He wants badly to be smarter; in fact, he starts wearing glasses simply to appear more intelligent. Superman isn’t nigh invulnerable here either; bullets still bounce off (leaving a bruise, though), but he gets cut and bleeds a bit when a powerful bomb goes off in his hands. A far cry from the hero that could do everything up to and including super-ventriloquism in the comics when I was a kid!

This was an enjoyable read. The differences to the standard Superman mythos are large enough that there was still a sense of wonder as to what was coming next, and the plot lines were a lot of fun. I mean really, how can you go wrong with giant robots, death rays, and super heroes!

First Sentence:

Our version of the story opens on the last Saturday of May 1935 with the arrival of Sheriff Bill Dutcher at the police station in Smallville, Kansas.

Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy, edited by Denise Little

Twenty short stories focusing on the female characters from the world of fantasy. Pandora, Medusa, the sirens, you get the idea. While interesting, only one story really stood out. Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth by Christina F. York tells the tale of Cinderella, but from the point of view of the stepmother. It is a very different story where Cinderella is a calculating ingenue, but as the stepmom says, "history is written by the victors." The other stories were a mixed bag, but nothing special.

First Sentence (from the introduction):

Bad girls have more fun.

Oops: 20 Life Lessons from the Fiascoes That Shaped America, by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger

This is a fun book. It describes various disasters in our history and attempts to derive lessons from them. The lessons are a bit trite (the chapter on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge has the admonition, “Ignore the past at your peril.”) but tinged with humor that is dry and fairly tongue-in-cheek. One of my favorite lines is from the chapter on the Kaiser-Hughes flying boat: “If you’re crazy enough to take on an incredibly difficult project in an unrealistically short deadline, don’t ask an even crazier person to help you get it done.” Good stuff! Other entertaining sections talk about the infamous ten-cent beer night at a Cleveland Indians game and Microsoft’s Clippy, called “the Jar Jar Binks of word processing.” Most of these stories I already knew in a general sense, but not in much detail. For instance, I knew that the unlikely duo of Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees toured together but not how it happened or why anyone thought it was a good idea!

The cover is clever; what looks like a printing mistake on a book named Oops. Ironically, the way I obtained the book also is an apparent oops. I entered a contest on InBubbleWrap and was told I’d won a copy of Oops. A month goes by, and nothing arrives. I sent them a note and got a very nice reply saying they’d look into the mix up. Another month and I send another email. Another reply with another apology, but this time a week or so later Oops arrives at my house. Ironic that a book with this title had such a hard time arriving!

First Sentence:

Whether we’re shocked by a “wardrobe malfunction” or hooting as a reality-show contestant is humiliated on national television, Americans are none-too-secretly fascinated with failure—and with good reason.

The City Under Ground, by Suzanne Martel

This is a science-fiction book aimed at children. It tells the story of a society that has survived underground for a couple of centuries after a nuclear holocaust. They live in a closed environment controlled by an apparent artificial intelligence in a sort of benevolent dictatorship. A fear of the outside has developed over time, but interestingly not agoraphobia. Of course, the times are changing and a crack in the seals keeping the people safe from the surface has appeared.

This was lent to me by a co-worker after we were talking about our kid’s reading habits. I tried to get my son interested, but he couldn’t understand why anyone would be scared of being outside. He is also pretty into pirates and fantasy tales right now, so I’ll probably try again later. It reminded me of some of the earlier sci-fi I read, like John Christopher and Madeline L’Engle. Ah, memories!

First Sentence:

“We mustn’t be seen!”

Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami

Battle Royale details a ruthless program where middle-school students are armed and dumped on a small isolated island. They are forced to fight each other until there is only one child left alive, while the totalitarian government monitors the whole thing. To make sure the teenagers obey the rules and try to kill each other, metal collars are fastened around their necks that will explode if they linger in a forbidden area or attempt to remove them. If twenty-four hours pass without a murder, all of the collars will be detonated simultaneously. A few students willingly participate in the slaughter, which gives everyone on the island a palpable fear of their classmates.

Very violent and fairly graphic, the manga roots of this novel are easy to see. This was described to me as a Lord of the Flies for our generation; after reading it I can easily see the comparison. Lord of the Flies detailed the psychological unravelling of a group of marooned kids on a desert island, where Battle Royale focuses more on how commonplace violence has become. While both involve children in untenable situations, Battle Royale is much more horrific because the kids are forced to act against their classmates by an uncaring government.

While a fascinating read, it was somewhat difficult to follow in places. I found the Asian names hard to keep straight, especially because I’m not savvy enough to tell which names are male and female. Yoshio, Kazuhiko, Noriko, and Yukiko are four examples—the first two are male, the last two female—of names I confused throughout. Luckily there was a roster in the front of the book telling who was who, but it was distracting to flip around when I needed help. Even so, this was a compelling read that was hard to put down. Very entertaining.

First Sentence:

As the bus entered the prefectural capital of Takamatsu, garden suburbs transformed into city streets of multicolored neon, headlights of oncoming cars, and checkered lights of office buildings.

Sinatra: The Life, by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan

The last two books I’ve read both had Sinatra as a character. The first depicted Frank as so connected to the mob he could order a hit on a high school student for simply implying Sinatra donated money to Julliard. (Did I mention this was a pretty stupid book?) The second referred to Frank as The Voice; the author’s father was a disc jockey and when he abandoned his family the kid used Sinatra as a surrogate voice on the radio. In any case, after reading about Old Blue Eyes in two books in a row I decided to do a bit more research on him.

I read the Kitty Kelley book back in high school but don’t really remember much about it so I hit the library to see what they had. Not surprisingly there were a bunch of choices, so I picked the latest one. It was really interesting, concentrating on Sinatra’s various relationships with friends and lovers and his mafia connections. With the benefit of more recent memoirs (and legal testimony) and the fact that many of the then-players are deceased, more and more facts are coming to light about what has long been only rumored. The old adage says where there is smoke there is fire, and it appears that it is true here: Sinatra was as mobbed-up as his detractors have always maintained. Sam Giancana and Lucky Luciano are two of the best known mafiosos, but far from the only ones with whom he was friendly. His addiction to Ava Gardner is also well documented, but I’d always heard that Sinatra and George C. Scott had a feud of sorts over Ava (I believe Scott abused her and Sinatra tried to stop him) but there was nothing of that here.

Of course, you can’t talk about Sinatra without discussing music. The Frank revealed here is a man with a passion for crafting beautiful harmonies. I love his work with Riddle but it was hard to just read about it and get any real appreciation for his talent. (I found myself listening to a lot of Frank while reading this—A Swingin’ Affair! is by far my favorite album, every track is a solid winner.) Some of the stories around the songs were interesting, though; for instance New York, New York and My Way are two of his signature songs, but he didn’t actually like either one. Luckily for us, he decided to record them anyway!

First Sentence:

March 18, 1939. In a studio on West 46th Street in New York City, a band was playing Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

The Tender Bar, by J.R. Moehringer

I picked this up on a whim and am very glad I did. This was an intoxicating read (forgive the pun), the story of how a boy grew up with the dysfunctional patrons of a bar as father figures. His father left him at a young age, and as he grew up he increasingly turned to his uncle, a bartender, as a mentor and role-model. Spending time with his uncle meant spending time in the bar, and eventually he found himself drinking at the bar every night. There are no apologies, no excuses, and no sermons about the evils of drink; just a straightforward account of how the author became an alcoholic.

I liked this book for several reasons. First and foremost, the style is that of a guy telling a story at, well, a bar. Every character is a real character, every action a bit over-the-top, every story seeming just a bit embellished. It is a comfortable story, even when the topics being discussed are not. The author doesn’t apologize for his drinking or preach about how he quit. He presents the choices he made and why he made them, leaving the lessons learned as an exercise for the reader. I found this a powerful technique; this book got me thinking about my drinking habits much more than one telling me about the wonders of sobriety ever would.

My favorite quote (out of many great choices): “Every bar has some affinity for boxing, because drinkers and boxers sit on stools and feel woozy and measure time in rounds.” I’m not a huge fan of boxing, but virtually every fight I’ve seen has been in a bar surrounded by other casual fans. I’m reminded particularly of the 1996 Tyson-Seldon fight, the one that lasted about 90 seconds. I was in Lubbock and the Longhorns had just beat the Red Raiders in football. After the game we hit a bar near campus and at first the locals were not to thrilled to see a group of people wearing burnt orange. When the fights started later that night, though, instant camaraderie. Good times.

First Sentence:

If a man can chart with any accuracy his evolution from small boy to barfly, mine began on a hot summer night in 1972.

How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater, by Marc Acito

This is an odd book: I found myself admiring it and hating it at the same time. It is billed as the humorous story of how a kid tricked his father into paying his tuition to Julliard. Sounded amusing, but started really slow. It took the first third of the book to get to the point where tuition is denied; a lot of setup for a weak payoff. It came off as a young adult book: the protagonists are all teenagers and the subject is a coming-of-age story. However, the language and strong sexual content was extremely inappropriate for that age; many scenes are nothing more than fairly explicit porn with a strong homoerotic flavor. Forever by Judy Blume handles this topic in a mature and professional way, but Acito seems to prefer Hustler as a model.

The hero, Ed Zanni, is a self-important, pretentious, eccentric thespian—exactly the image I have in my head of an actor. His incessant whining (while ringing true for an irresponsible high school senior) was thoroughly unenjoyable. I can’t remember the last time I rolled my eyes so much when reading a book. The rest of the cast were all one-dimensional caricatures, The Breakfast Club gone horribly wrong.

That said, the imagery was fantastic: “a voice so warm and pure you want to take a bath in it.” (Oddly the author uses the same phrase later to describe sex.) Another phrase I liked: “Pairs of shoes should be like pairs of people. They should complement one another, not match.” While not very practical, it cemented the offbeat nature of the described character.

Coupled with my love of theater (I respect acting, but don’t have much in common with actors) and the fun phrases I was able to finish this fairly quickly, but I don’t think I’d recommend it.

First Sentence:

The story of how I paid for college begins like life itself—in a pool of water.

The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington

This novel is set at the beginning of the twentieth century, a time when the automobile and electricity were radically transforming the country. As the benefits of the new technologies enhance the lives of most people, the Amberson family refuses to accept change and spirals down to unimportance. The dawn of a new era as viewed through the eyes of the old guard, a fascinating juxtaposition.

I was surprised how compelling of a read this was considering the main character is completely unlikeable. George Amberson is a third generation rich kid, as pompus and spoiled as the day is long. He behaves so badly the townspeople talk openly of wishing he gets what is coming to him, and the author had me wishing the same thing. When George finally gets his comeuppance, we’ve seen him destroy so many other lives it is hard to feel either sympathy or satisfaction. Tarkington doesn’t tie up all the loose ends and the conclusion is bittersweet at best. In a lot of ways, this makes the story much more honest than many I’ve read.

First Sentence:

Major Amberson had “made a fortune” in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.

A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime, edited by Jeffery Deaver

This collection of mysteries was much better than other anthologies I’ve read lately. Only one story was a dud, War Crimes by G. Miki Hayden, about a judge that had a dark past in a POW camp. Twist endings abound, many of which are truly surprising. Ninety-eight Point Six by Jeffery Deaver was the best of a good bunch, a tale about an escaped convict that keeps you guessing about the main character until the very end. The only bad thing about it was that it lead off the collection; I’d have put it at the end so the entire book acted as a crescendo. Regardless, good stuff here.

First Sentence from the Introduction:

What is there about heat and crime?

The Bureau and the Mole, by David A Vise

This is a biography of two people: Robert Hanssen, a man that provided highly-classified secrets to the Russians for over 20 years, and Louis Freeh, the FBI Director that caught him. While a captivating story, I found it to be a fairly pedestrian read. It felt more like a novelization of a movie-of-the-week instead of an examination of what makes someone a traitor. The book was light on details, only scratching the surface of the interesting points of espionage: procedures and trade craft and the effects of the information sold. Instead, we get volumes of quotations from Hanssen’s pornography writings (including an entire appendix) that can only be considered gratuitous. It was pretty interesting, but I prefer more depth in a biography.

First Sentence:

Ever since his childhood days in the Norwood Park neighborhood of Chicago, Bob Hanssen had been something of a loner.

Dolphins at Daybreak, by Mary Pope Osborne

Both my sons are currently reading Magic Tree House stories. I’d never read any entries of this collection and was curious, so picked one of them up. It is a cute, short adventure story that sneaks in a lesson or two as it goes. (A pearl is created by a bit of sand being trapped in an oyster—fascinating!) Oddly, it appears that Morgan Le Fay is a hero here, instead of the more typical Arthurian villain. As this is book nine in the series and not book one I don’t know if there is a reason she has been rehabilitated, but it struck me as odd. Clearly a kid’s book, but anything that keeps my boys reading I support wholeheartedly!

First Sentence:

Jack stared out the kitchen window.

Working Effectively with Legacy Code, by Michael C. Feathers

I bought this book at a conference I attended last year. The place I was working had a serious legacy code base and was in desperate need of refactoring. Unfortunately, I didn’t get too far into the book before I realized the development group there was no where near mature enough to accept this sort of change. The founder continually pestered me to stop spending so much time testing and just get software out. He honestly didn’t (doesn’t) understand the purpose of automated tests, much less any realistic quality process. Needless to say we didn’t get along too well and I left not long afterwards. My current employer also has a large legacy code base, but fortunately the organization is much more willing to embrace change. So, I picked this back up again as it seems now seems useful.

Working Effectively with Legacy Code is mainly a patterns book. It covers both how to get unruly code into an automated test harness and once there, how to refactor it. In general, refactoring is better covered in Martin Fowler’s Refactoring, but as the title suggests, many of the patterns here deal specifically with situations commonly found in legacy code: “Dependencies on Libraries Are Killing Me,” “My Application Has No Structure,” and “I Don’t Understand the Code Well Enough to Change It” are three chapter titles. As with most pattern books, it all seems very straightforward once you read it but before reading it you’d be hard-pressed to succinctly explain the techniques.

Many thoughts expressed here I wholeheartedly agree with. “Safety first. After the tests are in place, you can make the code much cleaner.” The echo of test driven development, this idea is essential to confidently modifying existing code. Without solid tests, refactoring is a guessing game at best. Feathers also recommends avoiding “big bulky unit tests that take forever to run.” In fact, he goes as far as saying that any test that takes 1/10th of a second is considered slow. In his mind, if it talks to a database, communicates across a network, or touches the file system, it isn’t a unit test. While I think that is taking things a bit too far, the sentiment is admirable.

Another interesting quote: “Architecture is too important to be left exclusively to a few people. It’s fine to have an architect, but the key way to keep an architecture intact is to make sure that everyone on the team knows what it is and has a stake in it.” This is exactly right. A good software architect is responsible for the big picture, not for the nitty-gritty details. If you are on a team where the architect does all the design and expects the developers simply to code up his designs, start looking for a new job!

One last message: when developing software, always keep your focus; do only one thing at a time. If you bite off too much at once, you end up thrashing. While especially true for refactoring untested or legacy code, this is very good advice for any development project.

First Sentence:

Changing code is great.

The Godfather Returns, by Mark Winegardner

I'm a huge fan of the epic The Godfather and of course the movies. (The movies currently make up the best movie trilogy of all time, although I suspect Spider-Man will capture this crown next spring. But I digress.) Trying to follow in the footsteps of Puzo is no easy task, but Winegardner does an admirable job. It covers the period of time from the purge where Michael takes control of the families (as seen at the end of the first movie) to a few years after the death of Fredo (Fredo dies at the end of the second movie; the book continues on a bit).

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. The characters are consistent (mostly consistent anyway; Johnny Fontaine was not a whiner here) with previous renditions, and the plot meshes well with the established canon. The style is much like Puzo, complete with graphic violence and extended flashbacks (we see what made Michael a war hero, for instance). Combined with an interesting plot this makes for a really good read. What wasn't so good was the heavy blurring of fictional and real characters. Johnny Fontaine in the originals was clearly a nod to Frank Sinatra, but there Fontaine was a whiner that owed his entire success to the mob where Sinatra clearly was friendly with organized crime but had an undeniable talent. In this book Fontaine becomes much more Sinatra-like, winning an Oscar, becoming the top musical draw in the country, and becoming part owner in a casino. I found this distracting, and it only got worse. A political family named Shea that is a dead ringer for the Kennedy family is introduced, complete with an arrogant ambassador patriarch who got his start running liquor and one son getting elected President and another being the Attorney General. There is even a scene where President Shea visits the West Coast and doesn't stay with Fontaine, causing Johnny to physically destroy a helicopter pad he'd had built. There is a sequel in the works where this analogy appears to be continued; the preview text strongly hints at a Presidential assassination. While this strong parallel to our world didn't ruin this novel, it did kill a great deal of suspense as it was clear what was going to happen.

This is an interesting sequel because it assumes both the book and the movies as source material. While with the vast majority of films adapted from the written word take some liberties and thus have inconsistencies, it isn't so jarring here—the first film was so faithful to the novel it was named Mario Puzo's The Godfather rather than just The Godfather. It has been at least 20 years since I read the book but was able to pick up the characters and events quickly because the movies had kept them fresh. If you haven't read The Godfather or seen the movie saga, this book isn't going to make much sense. If you loved the originals, though, you will enjoy this as well, even if only for the sense of nostalgia you'll get by seeing favorite characters in new situations.

First Sentence:

One a cold spring Monday afternoon in 1955, Michael Corleone summoned Nick Giraci to meet him in Brooklyn.

The Burglar on the Prowl, by Lawrence Block

Bernie Rhodenbarr, the most honest burglar you’ll ever meet, is as amusing here as ever. As with the other Bernie books I wouldn’t call this a well-crafted mystery, but I will call it a lot of fun. The ending comes complete with the hero bringing every single character in the story together in the same room and demonstrating exactly what happened and how each one was involved. Think Clouseau without the slapstick. In the earlier volumes I found the many coincidences hard to swallow, but now I see them for the parodies of the genre they are. These are fun books and I’ll certainly read more.

First Sentence:

“The man,” said my friend Marty Gilmartin, “is an absolute ... a complete ... an utter and total ...”

A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

A classic I’d never read, I’d been looking forward to this one. While a compelling read, I was surprised to find this so depressing. Hemingway has a very bleak outlook on life, as captured in this quote: “But those that will not break [the world] kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” If there is a literary antithesis to Chicken Soup for the Soul, this is it!

I like to believe that life is what you make of it. I believe that hard work will lead to well-deserved rewards. I believe that Superman and Robin Hood are still alive in Hollywood. I believe in true love and karma. This book, however, incessantly espouses the exact opposite ideology, hammering on the inability of positive forces such as love and friendship to counter the grim realities of life. Yes, this is about a soldier during World War I—hardly a situation that simply whistling a happy tune will make pleasant—but the further the hero gets from the front, the more bleak his existence becomes. Even Shakespeare ends Romeo and Juliet, one of the most tragic epics ever written, with the grieving, feuding families realizing the error of their ways. While I don’t need every story to end with the hero and his soul mate riding unicorns into paradise and riches, I do prefer a heavier dose of karma than found here.

First Sentence:

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains.

Dragonsblood, by Todd McCaffrey

Dragonsblood takes place in two time periods, one soon after the dragons were initially genetically engineered, and one five centuries later with a much lower technological base. If you’ve read any Pern stories, you won’t find much new here: a girl who can hear all dragons, a plague, a race against time for a cure, time-travel to find healthy dragons and riders, and recovered technology from the past saving the present. For Pern, though, familiar is comfortable.

There are two main story lines, with the narrative jumping back and forth between them. While this isn’t an uncommon technique, it isn’t handled all that well here. Secondary plots are started but vanish without a thought a chapter later. Characters are introduced only to be killed off before they have become anything more than a shallow caricature. The ending is ludicrous at best; marginally educated characters in a largely agrarian society find a trove of lost information and in a week are suddenly discussing advanced biology, comfortable using microscopes and computers, and genetically engineering a cure for a plague. All this leads me to believe that like his last book, this is a young adult book in trade dress. It isn’t going to hold the attention of an adult not already enamored with Pern, but I can easily see a younger audience eating it up.

First Sentence:

Four men stood in a knot around the Star Stones of Fort Weyr.

Dies the Fire, by S. M. Stirling

This is a story of what happens to our contemporary world when suddenly all electricity and explosives stop working. No guns, no engines, no radio, no freezers, no flashlights, nothing. Cars and elevators crash, airliners fall out of the sky, ships are adrift at sea. Armageddon and chaos rule the day, and without modern transportation the world immediately gets much much larger. The action here is all in the Pacific Northwest, an area with enough farmland and natural resources to support a medieval lifestyle yet a small enough population density to prevent overworking the land. While a fairly ridiculous concept, it works.

Two main groups of protagonists are followed; one led by an ex-special-forces woodsman and the other by a socialist environmentalist. While most of the book is fairly predictable (both heroes manage to surround themselves with people possessing just the right skills and thrive) there were a couple of unique bits. One interesting choice the author made was not to describe at all what happened in the bigger cities and metropolitan areas. Instead of some graphic depiction of Seattle or Los Angeles ripping itself to shreds without a food distribution system, medical care, or an armed police force, vague hints from passing survivors leave the horror entirely to the reader’s imagination. Another fun fact is that the cosmic event that causes the Change is the flip side of yet another trilogy by Stirling (which I read before starting this blog). In that saga the entire island of Nantucket is transported back in time to the Stone Age. In Dies the Fire, we hear news stories about Nantucket vanishing just before everything stops working. Being able to see both sides of the mysterious event was interesting.

Considering one of the main characters is a Wiccan, religion is amazingly not a major faction in this epic. With what many would consider the end-of-the-world occurring in the first chapter, I was (pleasantly) surprised to not encounter a strong religious theme. The witchcraft stuff is heavily stressed, but not really any other belief system. There is a Catholic priest we meet for a while, but his function is mostly to froth at the mouth against pagan beliefs, making the coven seem less ridiculous. As I generally find theology very pretentious and haughty, I didn’t mind at all—if I wanted a doctrine-heavy look at Armageddon, I’d have read more than the first book in the Left Behind series.

First Sentence:

Michael Havel pulled his battered four-by-four into the employees’ parking lot, locked up and swung his just-in-case gear out of the back, the strap of the pack over one shoulder and the gun case on the other.

Bringing Down the House, by Ben Mezrich

We’ve all heard the story about the M.I.T. blackjack team that took Vegas for millions of dollars, but until I read this I didn’t know many details. Turns out there have been students doing this for decades; when the casinos catch on and ban the kids a new batch is recruited and the cycle begins anew. This book tells of a group that worked the late 1990’s; how they worked the system and why they quit.

The system is pretty simple, actually. Card counting isn’t illegal in Vegas, but a casino can (and will) ask you to leave and not return if they think you are doing it. One of the tell-tale signs of counting is raising bets when the deck is favorable and lowering them when it isn’t. To avoid this, the M.I.T. kids work in groups: spotters and big players. A spotter sits at a table and consistently makes the minimum bet while keeping track of the deck. When the situation becomes unfavorable for the house, the spotter signals the big player (folding his arms or scratching his ear) to join the table. The spotter doesn’t change his play at all, but the big player makes huge bets with a deck tilted strongly in his favor. When the count swings back around to the house, the big player simply gets up and moves on. Simple.

The story here, though, is how the casinos caught on and what happened to the blackjack team. While nothing they did was illegal, the casinos are not very friendly to card counters. Goons were sent to roust people out of their hotel rooms, homes and apartments were broken into and ransacked, and the IRS was encouraged to launch audits. And that was just the Vegas casinos; when the group visited other institutions the welcome was even less hospitable. In the Bahamas, for instance, one player was mugged in the men’s room right in the casino. Fascinating stuff.

First Sentence:

It was ten minutes past three in the morning, and Kevin Lewis looked like he was going to pass out.

Joel on Software, by Joel Spolsky

Joel on Software is a technical blog with topics such as software development, management, business, and the Internet; this book is a collection of some of the better essays. While he tends towards hyperbole and narcissism, Spolsky has a tongue-in-cheek style that I wish I had; a recent column, for instance, used a great quote: “Don’t fall for it. [Developers] also want M&Ms for breakfast and a pony.” Good stuff.

Probably due to the fact that the columns were written over about five years, Spolsky does tend to contradict himself. At one point he gives a rant showing a disdain for abstraction with which I don’t agree. (From his examples I think his real problem is with head-in-the-cloud architects and not abstraction itself, but it doesn’t come off with quite that message.) Later, though, he says that software design is extremely important which seems a very different direction. Another discrepancy is with bloatware; at first he makes very good arguments as to why it isn’t that big of a deal (as disk space gets cheaper and bandwidth becomes a commodity larger programs aren’t a problem; your annoying and useless gizmo is my must-have feature) but then later he laments the absence of a linker in .NET causing his software to be larger than it really needs to be. Hmmm.

A topic on which we don’t agree is interviewing. He likes candidates to write code during an interview and tends to use puzzle questions. To me, design ability is much more important than coding; good designers can always be taught to code while the converse isn’t always true. Puzzle questions while fun strike me as trivia questions; “How many gas stations are in LA?” is only useful the very first time a candidate hears it and the chances of catching someone that hasn’t seem slim. If you are going to ask trivia questions, at least make them technology specific to see how deep of an understanding someone has on a given topic.

Despite how it may seem from the preceding paragraphs, I agree with much of what Joel has to say. Daily builds, a commitment to testing, simple and clear documentation, and humor in the workplace are all important factors of a strong team. I’d recommend this book to any software developer or manager; even if you don’t agree with what Spolsky has to say you will at least think about it.

First Sentence:

Why do developers choose one programming language over another for a given task?

Strange Defeat, by Marc Bloch

Marc Bloch was an officer in the French army during both world wars, joined the Resistance after the German Blitzkrieg, and was executed by the Nazis in 1944. This short tome details his opinions about why the French were so unprepared for the war. His reasons are different from the classical ones; it wasn’t that they were overconfident in the Maginot Line but instead that the High Command was simply too stodgy and unimaginative to adapt to the obvious modernizations of warfare.

I’ve been told this is one of the classic historical texts of WWI, but I had a very difficult time finishing this. Bloch is clearly passionate about his beliefs and his patriotism is both obvious and admirable. However, this struck me as a ten page essay crammed into almost 200 pages. He makes his point about the incompetence of the military command quickly and then spends the rest of the book giving fact after fact after fact for illustration. I don’t disagree with his reasoning, but he had me at hello and plodding through the rest of the book was a chore.

One interesting point that he did make towards the end was that while the High Command should shoulder most of the blame for the French collapse, the trade unions are not without fault, either. He states that unions naturally want to do “as little as possible, for the shortest time possible, in return for as much money as possible. ... However legitimate that point of view may be at other times, it is cruelly out of place then the very existence of one’s country is at stake.” As I have a low opinion of unions and believe that with our modern laws they are largely unnecessary in this country, I found this passage both accurate and amusing.

First Sentence:

Will these pages ever be published?—I cannot tell.

The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century, edited by Turtledove with Greenberg

The cover of the edition I have shows Lincoln in front of a Communist flag and Hitler wearing the Confederate battle flag. While this seems fitting give the title of the anthology, no stories found within deal with either image. An odd choice, but I suppose both images are fairly iconic for the genre. It isn’t the strangest thing about this volume, though; one of the stories here isn’t even an alternate history tale. The Death of Captain Future by Allen Steele is traditional science-fiction, with no point of divergence with our known history.

Regardless, there are a couple of good adventures here. Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore is a classic tale about the Civil War and one I’ve been wanting to read for quite a while. Mozart in Mirrorshades by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner was pretty good too; it tells of a world that has discovered how to jump between alternate realities and strips the new worlds of their natural resources. The Lucky Strike by Kim Stanley Robinson (describing the world as it would be if the Enola Gay had failed in its mission) is one of the weaker entries, riddled with clichés and a highly predictable ending.

First Sentence (from the introduction):

What if...

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

I ran out of books to read during a recent trip to China and not-surprisingly found that English-language texts are hard to come by. This one cost me ¥100 and I picked it mainly because of it’s length: over 1000 pages. Unfortunately, I was ready for it to be over after about 700.

This book is hard to describe, sort of a cross between historical fiction and pure fantasy. The premise is somewhat interesting: set in the early 1800’s with England at war with France, magic did once exist but there haven’t been any practicing magicians for generations. The characters of the title begin to rediscover magic and in doing so change the world. It was interesting enough, but seemed in desperate need of editing. It was very well written: snappy dialog and complete characters, but there was simply too much. For instance, there is a liberal use of footnotes which give backstory and “historical” anecdotes. Some of these footnotes, though, last for five or six pages, and that in the smaller footnote font! It was interesting enough to keep me reading through the end, but I don’t think I’ll be looking for the next tome in the series anytime soon.

First Sentence:

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians.

Plane Insanity, by Elliott Hester

I’m beginning to think that degreed writers are a dying breed. This is yet another book that is mainly a collection of previously published anecdotes, and another winner. Written by a former flight attendant, the tales of the friendly skies presented here are both outrageous and hilarious. I read this on an airplane and apparently my laughter caught the attention of a flight attendant. She came over and told me that not only had she read it, but it was all true!

Hard to pick my favorite story, but Pass the Defibrillator Please is certainly one of them. Starting with a medical emergency, moving on to a fight between a flight attendant and a passenger, and ending with an lynch mob at an international airport—all during the same flight. The Passenger from Hell is another great one: a drunk traveler gets increasingly more out-of-control, resulting with him being met by an army of cops at DFW; a further twist on this one makes it nearly worthy of O. Henry. Between the longer, first-person anecdotes there are newswire reports about funny flight mishaps, with titles such as “NWA fires pilot who delayed flight when he didn’t like the meal,” “Growling woman tied to seat, ” and the priceless “Malaysia Airlines steward sentenced for biting off colleague’s ear.”

If you are looking for light entertainment to read while flying somewhere, pick this one up. You probably won’t be looking at your flight attendants in the same way by the end!

First Sentence:

Speed and altitude notwithstanding, flying in a commercial jet is not much different than riding in a Greyhound bus.

The Code Book, by Simon Singh

Tjhg ncgdpe ghahkpdmkleqco nslnqcqsqcha ocdmejn (ohancnqeaqpx jedpkocai hae peqqej vcqm kahqmej) qh ghbeja Djeqqx Ihhb Djcukox qh tsqsjcnqco qmehjeqcokp fskaqsg kpihjcqmgn, qmcn lhhy ohuejn cq kpp. K bhosgeaq klhsq ohben kab ocdmejn djhlklpx ljcain qh gcab k bjx qjekqcne phkbeb vcqm mcimej gkqmegkqcon. Ncaim, mhveuej, mkn gkakieb qh kuhcb qmkq vcqm k vepp-vjcqqea nqhjx beqkcpcai ahq hapx qme noceaoe lsq qme mcnqhjx ht ojxdqhijkdmx. C thsab qmcn k tknocakqcai jekb kab bcttcospq qh dsq bhva kq qcgen.

Ncaim bhen ka ewoeppeaq rhl ht gkycai k mcimpx qeomacokp nslreoq uejx kooennclpe. C’ue jekb klhsq qme VVCC Eacigk gkomcae, lsq aeuej lethje mkb ka kddjeockqcha kn qh mhv cq vhjyn. Qme nkge cn qjse thj Bcttce-Meppgka, BEN, kab JNK—kpp qejgn qmkq ghbeja nhtqvkje beuephdejn mkue eaohsaqejeb. Qmcn djhlklpx vha’q gkye ge k leqqej beuephdej, lsq C oejqkcapx mkue k leqqej sabejnqkabcai ht vmkq jekppx ihen caqh mqqdn.

---

RSS Aggregators are notoriously poor when it comes to supporting styles, so my technique of swapping out divs at the push of a button doesn’t work as I’d hoped. If you can read this, it is probably followed by the plaintext version of the ciphertext above. Visit the actual entry for the proper effect.

---

From simple monoalphabetic substitution ciphers (consistently replacing one letter with another) to modern Pretty Good Privacy to futuristic theoretical quantum algorithms, this book covers it all. A document about codes and ciphers probably brings to mind a dry treatise loaded with higher mathematics. Singh, however, has managed to avoid that with a well-written story detailing not only the science but the history of cryptography. I found this a fascinating read and difficult to put down at times.

Singh does an excellent job of making a highly technical subject very accessible. I’ve read about the WWII Enigma machine, but never before had an appreciation as to how it works. The same is true for Diffie-Hellman, DES, and RSA—all terms that modern software developers have encountered. This probably won’t make me a better developer, but I certainly have a better understanding of what really goes into https.

What is this gibberish? For a book about codes, I thought it would be fun to encode my blog entry. I used a simple monoalphabetic cipher, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to decode—especially with the hints given by the embedded links! If you give up, !

First Sentence:

On the morning of Saturday, October 15, 1586, Queen Mary entered the crowded courtroom of Fotheringhay Castle.

Truman, by David McCullough

I really enjoyed this book. I was aware of the history of WWII and the years right afterward from a historical perspective and knew that Truman was President during this era, but hadn’t really thought much about how the two were related. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean conflict, the firing of General MacArthur, opening the military for African Americans, McCarthyism, the Berlin airlift, recognizing Israel, creating the United Nations and NATO: all of these happened on Truman’s watch. This book is not only the story of Truman, but the story of a fascinating era in American history.

With over 1000 pages, there is a lot of trivia along with the narrative. For instance, one of his heroes was Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king involved in the Thirty Years’ War. I’d never heard of Adolphus before reading Flint’s 16xx series, and now he is popping up all over the place! Another example is the fact Truman didn’t like onions—something we have in common!

One of the most interesting aspects of Truman was his foresight in the political arena: he was a huge champion of presidential power. While many of his advisors and the general public wanted him to ask Congress to declare war on North Korea, he refused on the grounds he didn’t want to limit the power of future Presidents. Considering the US hasn’t declared war on anyone since WWII, he was clearly very successful here. Actually, for a man that was often regarded as ordinary and folksy, Truman was a remarkable and admirable politician. When researching public buildings to assist in planning for a new county courthouse, “he set off by automobile—in his own car, at his own expense—on an amazing cross-country tour.” Does that sound like any politician you know? While I certainly don’t agree with all of Truman’s politics (the New Deal, Medicare, powerful unions) I have quite a bit more respect for the man than I did before.

First Sentence:

In the Spring of 1841, when John Tyler was President, a Kentucky farmer named Solomon Young and his red-haired wife, Harriet Louisa Young, packed their belongings and with two small children started for the Far West.

M*A*S*H, by Richard Hooker

I’m a big fan of both the movie and television show, so when I saw this in a bargain bin I nabbed it. Surprisingly, this is not a well-written book. The dialogue is stilted and repetitive, the characters are one-note, and the various adventures are disconnected. I’d expected more from the story that launched Hawkeye, Trapper John, and the rest of the 4077.

As it turns out, the movie was much closer to the book in both plot and character history than I normally see. (Read any of Fleming’s James Bond books and then see the movie with the same name as an excellent converse example.) Painless’ suicide, the football game, and the Boys from Dover episode are covered in both and are pretty much the same. The book also details other adventures that while aren’t in the movie are clearly used as source material for the tv show. The most surprising thing about the book was that Margaret Houlihan and Frank Burns are just bit players instead of the main antagonists with which we are more familiar.

Is it worth your time? If you are a M*A*S*H fan, then yes. If not, I’ll leave you with two words and let you make up your own mind: epileptic whore.

First Sentence:

When Radar O’Reilly, just out of high school, left Ottumwa, Iowa, and enlisted in the United States Army it was with the express purpose of making a career of the Signal Corps.

Ho Yi the Archer and Other Classic Chinese Tales, retold by Shelley Fu

I was wandering through Half Price Books the other day and found this on a sale table. I’ve always been interested in folklore,and I’m taking a trip to China soon, so I picked it up even though it is aimed at children. There are only seven tales here covering normal folklore topics such as creation, morality, and love. As expected from the land of Buddha, there is a heavy dose of karma for all involved. Some interesting tales here.

My favorite was The Story of the White Snake. It told of a snake, Bai Su-Tzin, that takes human form and marries a simple man named Shu Shen. On the surface this is a tale of love and trust, with the message it is sometimes better to simply accept happiness as it comes rather than always pushing for the truth at the heart of the matter. This symbolism illustrates the conflict between Buddhism and Confucian beliefs that was raging in China when this was written. It is a beer-pondering question for sure: would you want to know if your spouse was deceiving you at the cost of your happiness together? Depends on the nature of the deception, of course, but it is a slippery slope from fibbing when asked, “Does this dress make me look fat?”

First Sentence (from the introduction):

The origins of Chinese folktales include history, songs, theater, and the oral tradition of storytelling.

Tom Clancy’s Net Force: The Archimedes Effect, by Perry and Segriff

This book was awful, even worse that the disappointing previous outing. Characters I once liked have become one-dimensional, and calling the plot silly is an insult to silly plots. Cliché-ridden rubbish at its finest! The only good thing was that at the end it is strongly implied that Net Force will be disbanding and therefore no further books of this nature. Even if there are, I won’t be reading them!

First Sentence:

Four-Star Army General Patrick Lee Hadden—should have had five stars, but the continuing War on Terror wasn’t an officially declared conflict.

The Big Book of Baseball Brainteasers, by Dom Forker, Robert Obojski, Wayne Stewart

On the surface baseball looks fairly simple, but read a couple of pages from anywhere in this book and you’ll quickly find a lot more to it than expected. The different chapters focus on various parts of the game: the infield, the outfield, base runners, umps, and so on. There is a mix of anecdotes, trivia, and puzzlers which illustrate different rules and situations. Well organized, even if not well written!

The style of writing made several of the puzzles quite difficult to follow. Instead of a straightforward layout of a siuation (“Runners on first and third with one out”) we plow through prose like, “The Cardinals have one out, Vince Coleman on third base, Willie McGee on first base, and a rookie who is trying to make the St. Louis ball club at the plate.” While that imagery is great when listening to a game on the radio, it sucks when the idea is to figure out the proper call when a base running error occurs.

That said, I learned a lot from this book. For instance, if a thrown glove makes contact with a live ball, the play is ruled a triple. If a fence is closer than 250 feet from home plate, a ball hit over it is a double and not a home run. If a batted ball strikes an umpire in fair territory before touching a fielder, the ball is dead; however, if it strikes an ump after passing a fielder other than the pitcher, it is considered fair. Great stuff!

First Sentence:

Some people claim that umpires give certain players the benefit of the doubt: Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, for example, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn, too.

The Hidden Family, by Charles Stross

This is the second book in a series that has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, this was about as uneven as the first one. The ability to travel to parallel worlds is fascinating, but doesn’t seem to be put to much use here except as a gimmick. There are a lot of storylines in this book, but it isn’t long enough to flesh any of them out. (I think Stross is trying to be Puzo here but can’t quite make it happen.) Follow this up by having several of the minor characters turn out to not only know about world-walking but actually have the ability and you have a disappointing novel. It didn’t suck, more like bubble gum for the mind. I’ll give this series one more try, but if it doesn’t get any better I’ll probably walk away.

First Sentence:

The committee meeting was entering its third hour when the king sneezed, bringing matters to a head.

Marley & Me, by John Grogan

I’ve pretty much always had a dog; Frosty was a puppy when I was born and lived until I was in high school, Holiday was a collie my mother had when I was in college, Marble was my wife and my first dog together, and now Midnight lives with us. I get very attached to my pets, and so when I came across this book I was curious. I’ll admit I don’t normally read books that can be described as “heartwarming” but my attachment to dogs made me pick it up.

Grogan is a newspaper columnist, and it shows in his style. Like most columns, this was very uneven: parts of this were excellent, parts weren’t. Some anecdotes were funny (such as Marley crapping at the dog beach to the horror of the other owners) and some were disturbing (Marley getting crammed into a kennel much too small for him and being put in the belly of an airplane). The best written section was when Grogan described Marley’s death—the raw emotion he felt was both obvious and cathartic—and was strong enough to make you forget the low points. All-in-all, an enjoyable book, especially with some judicious skimming.

First Sentence:

We were young.

Hold ’Em Poker, by David Sklansky

I love the game, Texas hold ’em, Omaha, or even Booray, cards are one of my favorite pastimes. I used to host a couple of regular games, but got out of the habit not long after my dad died. I’ve been wanting to start playing again, so I decided to re-read Hold ’Em Poker again. This is a book targeted at beginners wanting to learn limit poker, not the no-limit games made so popular by the WSOP. It covers the rules, basic strategy, hand analysis, and betting tactics. It is less technical than other texts on the market, but great for the refresher I wanted.

I’m finally coming to terms with the fact I’m never going to be a good poker player. I’ve got a good general card sense but I simply don’t have the aptitude with numbers that is required of a truly good gambler. Rarely am I the big loser in a game, but it is just as rare that I’m the big winner. Generally I can sense when to bet and when to fold (although I do have a pathological resistance to abandoning a bad bluff) but it is just that—a sense. The math involved in calculating pot odds I understand, but can’t seem to internalize. Reading this book again has made me realize that while I enjoy the game, I’m not in any danger of being on ESPN anytime soon!

First Sentence:

Hold ’em poker is fast becoming one of the most popular poker games in America.

With No One As Witness, by Elizabeth George

Elizabeth George has often stated that she wants to avoid creating formulaic books—she certainly succeeded here! At the end of the story, the lead investigator (and title character of the Inspector Lynley novels) has quit New Scotland Yard and his wife has been killed. She had been a central figure in previous novels, and I was really surprised at the way this was handled. Not the death itself (predictably caused by the serial killer being pursued in the A-story but in a fashion unlike his regular MO) but in the seemingly offhand manner it was presented. George had a serious case of Girlfriend in the Refrigerator Syndrome when she wrote this chapter!

The mystery that our band of heroes is trying to solve in this episode frankly isn’t that interesting. A serial killer is stalking young boys and the police don’t notice until the fourth victim is discovered, which also happens to be the first white one. This sets the press off on a hunt for racism within New Scotland Yard. Because we also see some scenes from the killer’s point-of-view we know that race isn’t a factor, but the media and police spin-doctors go wild. This topic could have been better developed, but was still more interesting than the manhunt itself.

If you are a fan of the Lynley novels, this is a good read because of all the major character development. (If you aren’t, start with an earlier novel where the plotlines are more interesting.) I am curious to see how these changes will affect the dynamics between the characters, but as the next book promises to be a prequel it will be a long time before we see what is in store for them.

First Sentence:

Detective Constable Barbara Havers considered herself one lucky bird: The drive was empty.

If Chins Could Kill, by Bruce Campbell

I remember watching The Evil Dead when I was in high school and thought it was fantastic. Horror movies aren’t my favorite, but this one was special. It was both funny and shocking, the perfect movie for a bunch of underage kids with a case of beer. Evil Dead II was even better; the scene where Ash chases his own hand around the cabin—finally securing it with a pile of books, the topmost being A Farewell to Arms—is one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever. While my best friend at the time raved about the director (the soon-to-be-famous Sam Raimi) Bruce Cambpell was the reason I kept watching. If Chins Could Kill is Campbell’s life story, and I couldn’t put it down.

After a brief background, he jumps into the story of how The Evil Dead was shot. These guys were pretty much making it up as they went and created a cult classic by accident! Not knowing much about film I found this really interesting. Buying every bottle of Karo syrup in a 30-mile radius to create the gallons of fake blood needed and creating a camera dolly with two-by-fours and Vaseline are just two of the many anecdotes presented. Groovy!

First Sentence:

There is an L-shaped scar on the left side of my chin.

Ring of Fire, edited by Eric Flint

This is the most recent entry in the Assiti Shards series. The Assiti are aliens whose favorite art form is to swap sphere-shaped areas from different times and places and watch the resulting chaos unfold. So far the only swapped groups we have seen are centered on a modern West Virginia town sent back to the middle of the Thirty Years War. Apparently there are others planned, but this is the only one we’ve seen to date.

Ring of Fire isn’t a novel, but instead a collection of short stories by various authors. Shared universe yarns are usually reserved for minor characters and back story, and for the most part these are no exceptions. Tom Stone and his family are major characters in 1634: The Galileo Affair, but their introduction comes in the tale To Dye For by Mercedes Lackey in this collection. The navy is a main focus of 1633 and the decision process that resulted in the creation of that branch of the services is detailed in In the Navy by Eric Flint. However, a couple of these tales will have a direct impact on the mainline novels being written. The novella The Wallenstein Gambit is the best example of this: Abrecht Wallenstein (one of the major leaders of the era) moves from enemy to ally of the time-lost Americans. This will have serious repercussions in the fictional future of this universe.

The quality of these stories is much higher than the average anthology, as might be expected with the popularity of the series. The only one I didn’t like was Here Comes Santa Claus by K. D. Wentworth which illustrates the differences in our consumer-driven holiday and how it was celebrated in the 1600’s. When the Chips are Down by Jonathan Cresswell and Scott Washburn (about creating potato chips) was weak as well, but amusing enough.

First Sentence (from the preface):

The stories in Ring of Fire are all based in the alternate history setting I created in my novel 1632, which was further developed in the sequel I wrote with David Weber, 1633.

Mission Road, by Rick Riordan

Mission Road is everything that Tres Navarre’s previous adventure wasn’t. This had a strong plot and good characterization. While I wouldn’t call it unpredictable, the ending did surprise me a bit. Rick Riordan is on my list of must-read authors, and this book confirms why.

First Sentence:

Ana had to get the baby out of the house.

Revolution in the Valley, by Andy Hertzfeld

Andy Hertzfeld was one of the early Apple employees, and part of the team that gave birth to the Macintosh. Here Hertzfeld recounts the story of how that computer was developed in a series of vignettes. Interspersed with the stories are many, many pictures of both the development team (not the most attractive bunch you’ve ever seen) and Macintosh internals. The anecdotes run the gamut from deeply personal to highly technical, but all are fairly interesting.

Like Just a Geek, this is a reworking of text first found online. Unlike Just a Geek, the vignettes here weren’t reworked into a normal narrative but remain pretty much in their original form. This leads to a fair amount of redundancy, with bits of the same story told multiple times in different anecdotes. There are also a lot of see also links that refer to other stories—I found it disconcerting to find what screams for a hyperlink in a normal book. A bit odd, but overall it worked.

First Sentence:

Toward the end of my first week as an Apple employee in August 1979, I noticed that someone had left a black binder on my desk, with a handwritten title that read, Apple II: Principles of Operation.

How Would You Move Mount Fuji? by William Poundstone

A friend lent me this and I found it fascinating! It is both a brief history of the puzzle interview and a collection of brainteasers—and their answers, thank god! A puzzle interview is one where the candidate is asked questions such as, “Why are manhole covers round?” and the titular, “How would you move Mount Fuji?” Some of these don’t necessarily have a correct answer: “Design a spice rack for a blind person;” and some do: “How many gas stations are there in the United States?” All give not only the answer (where one exists) but the techniques to use for solving them. Very enlightening.

This is a really quick read, unless you try and solve all the puzzles! I’m embarrassed to say I only got about half of them right. Pick this up and see how you do!

First Sentence:

In August 1957 William Shockley was recruiting staff for his Palo Alto, California, start-up, Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory.

Hustler Days, by R. A. Dyer

I like to shoot nine ball, but I’m not very good. Reading this almost makes me glad of that fact; these guys would see me coming from miles away! Minnesota Fats, Wimpy Lassiter, and Jersey Red are three of the greatest pool hustlers this country has ever seen. This book is more than simply a biography of these sharks, though; it is the story of the fall and rise of pool through the twentieth century. The narrative jumps around a lot between the three players making it occasionally hard to follow; eventually they start to show up at the same tournaments and it all comes together.

I was surprised to find that the man known as Minnesota Fats didn’t take that name until after the Hustler was released. The movie was a hit, and an aging hustler that bore a strong resemblance to Jackie Gleason’s character hijacked the name. The newly minted Minnesota Fats then parlayed that into fame and popularity. Imagine, the only pool player that most people can name isn’t famous because of his prowess at the table!

First Sentence:

On January 19, 1913, at an hour uncertain, the child who would become Minnesota Fats took his first gasping breath in this world.

Beyond Singularity, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

Wow, this book was awful. The blurb on the back cover states, “Explore what it will be like to be human in a posthuman world.” Considering one of the things about literature I enjoy is experiencing the emotions of the people in the story, when the authors often go out of the way to make the main characters seem as non-human possible I suppose it isn’t a surprise I hated this. The only episode I liked was the final one, The Voluntary State by Christopher Rowe: it told of a future Tennessee and their battle with neighboring Kentucky. The rest range from tolerable to execrable, with the bulk landing on the unfortunate side of the scale.

First Sentence (from the preface):

“Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence.”

Java 5.0 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook, by David Flanagan and Brett McLaughlin

First a book about geeks, then a book by a geek, and now a book for geeks. I gotta get a life!

Tiger was the code-name for the most recent version of Java. This notebook details a bunch of the new features introduced in this release, and does a pretty good job of it. Generics is the feature about which I’m the most excited; for all Java’s hype as a type-safe language this was an aspect sorely missing. I’ve been a fan of generics ever since I worked on JGL back in the late 90’s. Many people are upset about the addition of templates (and most any change in the language), but then some people will bitch about anything. Fools.

The biggest complaint I have is that the chapter on the new threading and synchronization constructs was really rushed. There was as much space dedicated to enumerations as there was to the much more complicated topic of concurrency! Minor quibble aside, the authors do a good job of explaining the new features. It is a quick read and worth your time if you work in Java.

First Sentence:

Even with nearly 200 pages before you, its going to be awfully tough to cover all of Tiger’s new features.