Robots and Empire

Robots and Empire takes place several hundred years after the last Robot book. The girl our hero was cheating with is still alive - spacers can live to be 3-400 years old. And of course R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard are back as well. This book basically tries to tie together the "Robot" series with the "Foundation" series.

You see, in the latter, there are few robots at all (at least, as far as I can remember). So how did we get from a society with dozens if not hundreds of robots per human to one with NO robots? You have to read this book.

This one also introduces the Zeroeth law of Robotics. A robot himself comes up with this law.

Personally, I like it when and author ties disparate series together. I know is kind of retro-fitting things together, and it can feel forced at times, but I think it's a neat idea. I think I like this book the second most (with the first being the best).

This book also subverts the first law in an interesting way, by (sort of) re-defining what a human is. But you'll have to read it to find out exactly how. Personally, I wish he had explored that a little more and resolved it, rather than use it for a small section then abandon the idea.

8 out of 10.

The Robots of Dawn

The Robots of Dawn is the third and final book where Partner Elijah Bailey is the main character. Once again, he is sent off to a foreign spacer world, again with his partner R. Daneel Olivaw. This time, we also meet R. Giskard, a less humanoid robot, but one with special gifts.

This time, it is a robot who is 'murdered'. It is a special robot, one of two humanoid robots ever built (the other being R. Daneel Olivaw). The only person who could have done it (he admits he is the only one who could have done it) denies he did. Elijah must prove the man's innocense, or Earth will suffer. You seen the suspect strongly supports Earth's right to colonize, while his opponent (and main accuser) believes in restricting Earth's exansionism.

In the end, Elijah 'proves' the bad guy did it, and his friend and Earth are saved. However, we later find out (again) that the truth is somewhat deeper than is made public.

Having now read all these, I feel Elijah is not a very good guy. He conceals the truths that would make life inconvenient, letting a completly guilty person going free (on more than one occasion), and justifies it with no moral authority other than his own.

Then, he starts cheating on his wife. I just like him less and less the more I think about it.

So, if I just read the book and don't think about it much, I'd give this one an 8. But after putting the threads together, I'm going to have to drop the whole series to a 6.

The Naked Sun

The next Robot book is The Naked Sun. This takes place on one of the spacer worlds. Our human hero is re-united with his robot partner, and off they go to the strange world. There, there are 10,000 robots per human - and one of those humans has been murdered.

I found many of the concepts interesting, but ultimately the mystery falls a little flat. I didn't find the resolution very interesting. The idea of subverting the 3 laws was cool, and indeed used something I had thought of before - the idea that a robot may not knowingly harm a human. But in the end, the who-dunnit and the how he/she/it dunnit just seemed a little too easy.

I think I'm gonna start rating the books on a purely subjective level, so I'll give this one a 7.

The Caves of Steel

I found a book that had three Asimov 'Robot' novels in one at the library. I have actually read them all before, but read them all again anyway.

The first was The Caves of Steel. Way in the future, men on Earth live in huge megalopolises that are completely enclosed. They never go outside, hence the title. About 50 worlds have be colonized by 'spacers', who have no disease and live 350 years. Neither earth men or spacers trust each other. On Earth, robots are used, but not really trusted. On the spacer worlds, robots are a virtually unlimited source of free labor.

There is a spacer colony on Earth, sort of like an embassy, only larger. One day, a spacer is murdered. The spacers refuse to believe one of their own did it, so it must be a human. Elija Bailey, plainclothes detective, is brought in to investigate. He is assigned a partner, who is the only (known) completely human-form robot. He is almost indistinguishable from a human being.

There is much talk between the uneasy partners about how and why both sides act how they do, and what is best for humans. Ultimately, they actually become friends, and solve the mystery. It's a pretty fun read, and a good mystery to book.

Bummer

I read a book and now I can't remember what it was called. that's what i get for not posting as often as i should.

In any case, it was a sci-fi book by (i'm pretty sure) a well known author. it takes place on earth about a hundred years from now. the world is WAY overpopulated. people can voluntarily go into suspended animation, on the hope that in the future there will be room and they will be thawed.

What i foud interested was the mix betwee some very progressive ideas, and some very conservative ideas. Abortions were freely available, and were often recommended by abortion counselors. Birth control was also free. Yet at the same time, there were still large racial predjudices. For the first time in U.S. history, a black man was running on a major party ticket for President of the U.S.A.

Someone somehow finds a door to a parallel Earth. The thoughts are that since the new one is not populated (actually, it's sparsely populated but it takes them a while to find out), all the sleeping people can move over there.

It gets weird with the owner of a brothel on a sattelite in space, who is a siamese twin (his twin had died years ago and nobody knows it because it was replaced with a robot) jumps over to the other side and inspires a revolution. it was pretty odd.

Mostly, i found it strange how forward the author was in some areas, yet still backwards in others. the fact that there is CURRENTLY a black man on a major party ticket for President made it kind of more relevant.

The Chronicles of Prydain

Ok, so far, I've only read the first two, The Book of Three, and The Black Cauldron. They're not bad. I remember when my friend Scott read them in middle school - he loved them. He never forgave Disney for making the second book into a movie before the first one, but since I've never seen it...

The first introduces us to Taran, the assistant pig-keeper. What confused me was why they chose the title they did. The eponymous 'Book of Three' in the book is hardly mentioned. Taran sees his Lord looking at it, tries to touch it, gets shocked, and is gently chastised. That happens (I think) by Chapter 2, and then it's never seen again. But I guess this is a minor complaint. The story is fine, although it seems to wrap itself up rather quickly.

The Black Cauldron was a little better story, IMHO. It was easy to see how it would end up, but seeing as the book it 40+ years old, maybe it was a less known plot device then. I did like it better.

I am looking forward to reading the others, but am in no great hurry.

Tim McCarver's Diamond Gems

Finished this the other night. It had good and bad parts. Basically, it's a collection of anecdotes told to McCarver by various players over the years on (I think) Tim's sports talk show. As you'd expect from any collection of stories, some are good, some are boring, and some make you go 'WTF?". I found all the stories by players i knew to be much more interesting that the ones by people I don't, so if you're a huge baseball fan, you might get more out of it than I did.

Neuromancer

I must just be dumb. I have now read two Gibson books in a row, this one being Neuromancer. I find his works VERY hard to follow. They just don't have a plotline I can grasp.

It's not that I demand a linear exposition... I loved It, by King, and that one jumps back and forth from the characters as adults to kids then back to adults. Didn't even phase me.

But this one, again like The Difference Engine, just seems to make random jumps. I've even read the summary of the story on the wikipedia, and I STILL don't get exactly what happened.

Maybe I need to be younger, or cooler, or something. I just don't get it.

Unfortunately, being the completest that I am, I have to at LEAST finish the trilogy.

The Difference Engine

This one I just found to be a complete and utter waste of time. Disjointed, confusing, convoluted, random plot changes, with no flow. I still don't know what the cards did, or why everyone was after them. I'm not sure who lived or who died. I am pretty sure I don't care.

The Amber Spyglass

All in all, I found The Amber Spyglass, and really the whole series, to be over-rated. Yes, they were nice fantasies with cool characters/races of creatures, but in the end, I found the last one a little muddled. There are BILLIONS of other worlds, and everyone ends up in the right one at the end, just in time for the main two characters to hook up and save/destroy the world.

Whatever.

Overrated, self-important junk. The author has said he wants to "kill god", I believe. First, a book isn't going to do that, and second, how are two kids getting together going to cause that to happen?

I don't get it.

Clockwork

Clockwork is a short story/childrens book by Phillip Pullman, the author of the "His Dark Materials" series, however it pre-dates all but the first. I read it in one night, and I'm not a fast reader.

It's a story with two or three intertwining plots that sort of interconnect in an interesting way. It begins with a story teller presenting a story he hasn't finished. In the middle, one of the characters enters the tavern, and we begin to learn the 'story' is actually 'reality', and he hasn't finished it because it's not played out yet.

We jump back to fill in some of the plot, return to the future, and bounce around. I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I'd read it to my daughter (she's currently 5), but when she's a little older, she might like it.

Moneyball

I loved Moneyball. It completely changes how you look at the game of baseball. In a nutshell, it talks about Billy Beane's revolutionary approach to evaluating players, not on RBIs or batting average, but basically ON BASE PERCENTAGE. He is able then to aquire player everyone else ignores dirt cheap, and put together a rather respectable team.

Sure there's a lot of controversy over his methods. Sure, they must be taken in moderation, because I DO think they overlook the mental part of the game. However, if you're spending $40 million on payroll, and winning as many games as a team with a $140 million payroll, you MUST be doing something right.

The argument about never winning a pennant or World Series I think falls short. Billy is playing the odds, just like the casino. Over the long haul (186 games), his strategy works great. However, over the course of a 5 or 7 game series, the random swings of fortune take over.

If you like baseball, you'll love this book.

The Revolving Boy

Stacey read this when she was younger, and found it at the library. When she was done, I read it.

It was a quick Sci-Fi novel about a boy who somehow is aligned with a distant planet that is broadcasting signals to earth (although he doesn't know what is is aligned to). No matter where he is, how he is turned, or what he does, he knows the direction of things, and can find the signal.

It's not quite logically consistent. Why does knowing the direction of a radio signal give you the ability to know how to point to Taiwan through the Earth?

What bugged me most was how the novel was unresolved. At the end, they figure out why he is leaning that way, and what the signal is (it's a signal from a distant planet), but they don't actually make any contact.

I just felt it didn't wrap things up nicely. It felt unfinished, like there should be an entire part III that dealt with making contact.

But it was still kind of fun - definitely an interesting idea even if there are unresolved pieces.

Three Nights in August

I really enjoyed this book. I've always been a Cardinals fan. Over the past 3-4 years, even much more so. I always rooted for them and simply watched games when they came on. now, I'm following the team more, paying attention to who's hurt, who's playing well, and who should be sent down for re-hab.

Three Nights in August gives a lot of insight into Tony's mind not just about these three games, but various other times throughout the season. The chapter on D.K. was just horrible to read - I hadn't realized what a big person he was in the club, and reading it really made me sad.

The new afterward talks a lot about Moneyball, which I think i'll have to read soon. The author of that book says that the A's, by following the new philosophy, have almost made the playoffs several times, so the theory is good. The author of "TNiA" says that's like praising a hitter for getting the ball to the warning track every time. It's close, but it's no home run.

The Wizard of Oz

Yes, I read The Wizard of Oz. I had finished my book, and saw this in Olivia's room. I is a very quick read. Yes, it's a kids book. Yes, it's an allegory, or a metaphor or a social commentary, or whatever. But I didn't like it.

In about two pages, the group is attacked by, and defeats, a large pack of wolves, a swarm of bees, and some other large group of creatures. it basically went "The witch sent the wolves. the tin woodsman killed them. The witch sent the bees. they covered everyone with the straw from the scarecrow, and the bees stung the woodsman and died. The then attacked, and they killed them too." Not much of an epic battle.

Yes, i know it's a kids book, and you can't have pages and pages describing the battle. But it IS fantasy... so I'd expect something. Lot's of deus ex machina.

Homebody

i just finished Homebody, by Orson Scott Card, today. It was an OK read, nothing stellar. i didn't like how he seemed to just completely drop one of the story lines halfway through the book. At first, the protagonist meets the Realtor and strikes up a relationship with her. There is some minor plot points about whether she gave him preferential treatment, he's kind to her... and then you never see or hear from her again.

The ending could be seen from a mile away. As soon as the crazy neighbor lady says "don't let the woman touch the ghost", you know EXACTLY what's going to happen to give the happy ending.

It went quick, it didn't suck, but not the best book i've ever read.

Earthfall/Earthborn

Bummer. Found this at the library. it sounded familiar, and i now realize i've read these before. this is a single volume that has both Earthfall and Earthborn in it. the bummer is these are actually volumes 4 and 5 of a series, and i don't remember most of what happened in vols. 1, 2 or 3. I'll need to re-read those soon too.

The Mocking program

haven't updated for a while, for no good reason. I read The Mocking Program a few weeks ago. It was ok, I guess. nothing really jumped out as fantastic. i found some of the made-up words hard to understand. He uses a combination of english, spanish and pseudo-slang. it wasn't until i was almost done i discovered the glossary in the back.

The Runes of Earth

the new thomas covenant series. I started this a week or so ago, but the reading is going slow. Not because of the book, but due to other issues - Stacey's cancer. So far, it's ok, but it seems a little repetitive. Linden is summoned to the land, she meets a crazy, the people in the village don't want to help her... blah blah blah.

The Subtle Knife

Just started this one. I like how easy they are to read (they are kids books...), but find them deep enough to really enjoy.

The Golden Compass

Been looking forward to this one. At first, I didn't think the whole 'athiest' slant to it was that strong, but it really did pick up there at the end.

Dexter in the Dark

I finished "Dexter in the Dark" a few days ago. It was cute, but I was a little disappointed with the supernatural slant on it. I did enjoy what was the 'great pain' that brought the dark passenger back.

Longitude

Interesting story about a guy who tried to solve the longitude puzzle by building a better clock, when everyone else was convinced it should be done via observing the moons of jupiter.

White Gold Weilder

First read this in high school. Liked it better this time, although a protagonist that's a leper is not very cheery.