Version Control with Git, by Jon Loeliger and Matthew McCullough

I first came across Git at a previous job, but the person that setup and maintained the system had moved on. None of the other developers (including myself) had any experience with the tool and so we sort of made due the best we could but found the experience frustrating. As I'm starting an exciting new job where Git is in wide use I wanted to have a better understanding of the software; I've had good luck with O'Reilly books in the past so I picked up this one. Once again, O'Reilly doesn't disappoint.

Version Control with Git is a well designed reference, walking the reader through download and installation to the basic underlying principals all the way through advanced manipulations. The examples are both useful and obvious and the illustrations complement the text well; Loeliger makes even complicated topics like altering existing commits clear. There were some editing errors such as diagrams being printed in the wrong order and an odd way of sometimes referring to the very next sentence as if it were in another part of the book entirely, but nothing so major that basic understanding of the topic at hand was impacted. At this point I not only understand why git pull does not behave like svn update but also marvel at the possibilities of true collaborative development. I very much look forward to seeing how Git is used at my new job!

First Sentence:

No cautious, creative person starts a project nowadays without a back-up strategy.

Assassins' Dawn, by Stephen Leigh

Three books in one, the blurb on the back described "a guild of assassins, whose single law is that the victim must always retain a tiny but finite chance of escape." This struck my fancy, so I grabbed it and started reading. Assassins' Dawn depicts a fascinating universe with three warring cultures: one hidebound and stagnant, one militaristic and xenophobic, and one capitalist at any cost. What starts as the story of a group of people pulling themselves up out of the mire over the course of the novels becomes the story of the latter two societies warring over the dying third. Unfortunately, the drama drags on and on and never really lives up to the early promise. With a strong start and a depressing finish, this is an okay read but hard to truly recommend.

First Sentence:

Pause.

A Wanted Man, by Lee Child

In Gone Tomorrow Jack Reacher finds himself in a NYC subway car with a suicide bomber. In Die Trying he is accidentally kidnapped. Here in A Wanted Man he hitches a ride in a car with three mysterious strangers during a statewide manhunt for a vicious killer. Reacher has some of the worst luck I've ever seen, but it sure does make for entertaining novels!

This is a good story, with virtually everyone the reader meets keeping a secret of some sort. Starting with a bizarre murder in rural Nebraska Child weaves a pretty good tale filled with twists; we know Reacher is in the car with the killers, but as he doesn't the suspense ratchets up well. Initially the storytelling is split between Reacher's POV and the murder investigation, eventually joining up for the second half. There are some pretty unbelievable twists but in the spirit of an action thriller I can let them go. The strangest scene was when Reacher communicates in a fairly ridiculous code using eye blinks and head nods to spell words. I can't imagine trying to drive a car at highway speeds at night while staring in the rear-view mirror and counting eye blinks; even for Reacher this seemed a bit much.

Also included is a short story "Deep Down" that is set in the late-eighties when Reacher was still in the Army. I like these glimpses into the past, and this one in particular tells how he earned his prestigious Legion of Merit award. While it wouldn't be a Reacher story without a few busted heads, the bulk of this is about an undercover investigation into a possible traitor. Workmanlike but entertaining—I can't imagine this story encouraging me to read other Reacher novels, but having already developed a fondness for the character I quite liked it.

As an aside, I recently saw the Tom Cruise movie Jack Reacher (based on the novel One Shot) and quite enjoyed it—but the 5'7" clean-cut Cruise didn't fit my image of the character. "Reacher was a big man, six feet five inches tall, heavily built, and that night as always he looked a little ragged and unkempt." Great movie, but I'm still waiting to see the Reacher I've read about on the big screen.

First Sentence:

The eyewitness said he didn't actually see it happen.

The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

This is the story of two soldiers, both of whom went to war but neither entirely came back. Powers writes a powerful tale that does a marvelous job of describing both what a soldier's life serving during the war in Iraq is like, and what it is like after returning home. The imagery is powerful and poetic, painting pictures that vividly mirror the bleak outlook of war. "We'd been granted a reprieve from the heat and the dust, both gently smothered by flat sheets of rain fallen from skies the color of unworked iron." Powers also captures the internal melancholy of PTSD, giving a potent glimpse into what some returning soldiers endure. "I was tired of my mind running all night through the things I remembered, then through things I did not remember but for which I blamed myself on account of the sheer vividness of scenes that looped on the red-green linings of my closed eyelids." While beautifully written, the subject matter makes this difficult to finish. A depressing book, but one well worth reading.

First Sentence:

The war tried to kill us in the spring.

Defying Gravity, by Carol de Giere

This isn't exactly a biography of Stephen Schwartz (the famous musical theater lyricist and composer), but rather one of his artistic output. We get a fair amount of vital stats along the way, but the book really starts with Godspell and ends with Wicked. Godspell is one of my favorite musicals; "All For the Best" is up there with "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right Outa My Hair" from South Pacific and "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" from Kiss Me, Kate. One of the tidbits we learn is that Toronto apparently had a company of players at one point performing Godspell that included Martin Short, Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, Andrea Martin, and Eugene Levy with Paul Shaffer as the music director. I would have loved to have seen that!

Schwartz is hugely talented; not only did he create music for Godspell, Wicked, and Pippin on Broadway, but for Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Prince of Egypt on the big screen. (And of course many others I'd never heard of.) For all this talent he has been the recipient of many awards: three Oscars, three Grammys, one Golden Globe, but amazingly no Tony Awards. Bad timing seems responsible for the lack of Tonys; Godspell lost to Annie for Best Original Score, Pippin to A Little Night Music, and Wicked to Avenue Q.

Defying Gravity is a great look at not only the career of Steven Schwartz, but of the behind-the-scenes of making a Broadway musical as well. The story of Wicked occupies over half the book and tracks development from the initial idea through the various read-throughs and out-of-town tryouts, up to the debut and critical reviews. I found this to be terribly interesting; I had no idea of how many changes a show goes through during development, or more impressively how many songs get written and thrown away. Some people seeing a show multiple times in these early days could conceivably see a different show each time!

While some of the names and shows are presented as if the reader is already fairly familiar with the world of musical theater, overall it is quite accessible. de Giere has done a good job of describing both Schwartz's success and failures as well as his creative process. I found this a compelling—if simply written—book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

First Sentence:

On warm days in the Long Island suburb of Rosyln Heights, seven-year-old Stephen Schwartz could hear piano music coming through his open window.

Frozen Heat, by Richard Castle

The Castle books continue to deliver. The plot here is richer than previous novels, but the humor and pop culture references are the reason for reading. There are several winks to the TV show throughout, from cracks about a bulletproof vest labelled WRITER to an Elvis convention in Atlantic City. This being a book by a fictional mystery writer I appreciated the meta humor of having the characters eat at Grill 23 in Boston, simply because that is where Spenser—a fictional detective from another series—enjoyed dining. My favorite bit of humor, though, was when the main character Jameson Rook says, "I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's something I like about Malcolm and Reynolds." The dizzying nature of a line from a character that is a direct analogue for the fictional author Richard Castle who is played on television by Nathan Fillion that is in turn a reference to another character Fillion played I find enormously amusing.

As I mentioned earlier the story is stronger than other entries in the series, concerning a bizarre murder linked to the death of Nikki Heat's mother years before (another nod to the show) but the conclusion was a bit clichéd. A coda provides a cliffhanger that promises an interesting next novel, though, and gives a hopeful moment to an otherwise downbeat ending. I suspect this series will only be truly appreciated by fans of the show, but I'm certainly enjoying it!

First Sentence:

"Oh, yeah, that's it, Rook," said Nikki Heat.

Princeps, by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

The sequel to Scholar, Princeps picks up a few months later with Quaeryt and Vaelora recently (and happily) married. This book felt like Modesitt had ideas for two other books that he couldn't quite flesh out enough, so he combined them into a single volume. Quaeryt becomes governor of a land decimated by a natural disaster and has to lead it through recovery, and then abruptly is fired and sent to the front lines of a war and expected to create an elite unit of imagers from scratch. The shortness of the two story lines doesn't make them any less interesting though, but I think I would have preferred reading a longer version of Quaeryt's adventures as governor.

Modesitt often dives into political and philosophical issues, and this is no exception. While rebuilding a city partially destroyed by a volcano we examine the balance between rich and poor. Here the rich are largely portrayed as greedy, wanting to use price-gouging to increase their own wealth at the expense of the poor. The poor, though, are also shown as extremely greedy wanting to be given food and shelter without any effort on their part. I found it interesting that both ends of the spectrum are shown as shallow rather than the more typical good versus evil (a la Rand or Moore). The moral here is to walk the middle ground: charity is required at times of hardship, but people shouldn't be given all of everything or they'll come to expect it forever. I find it hard to argue with that, but the threshold of "hardship" is hard define.

I've read a lot of Modesitt novels and enjoyed virtually all of them. Princeps is no exception.

First Sentence:

Quaeryt peered out from underneath the thick—and warm—comforter toward the nearest bedchamber window, its inner shutters fastened tightly.