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BOOKS
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A list of books I've read, starting December
2023. The dates in square brackets are the dates I
finished reading them.
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Slow Horses. 2010. Mick Herron
Probably my favourite show on TV right now, though
I'd have to say I found the recent 4th season a
bit weaker than previous outings (probably because
Gary Oldman's Jackson Lamb character took more of
a back seat, this time around). Hadn't been quick
to pick up the novels because, well, I already
knew the stories, characters and dialogue from the
TV adaptations. However, turns out the books are
well worth reading regardless, for the things that
don't make the jump from page to screen:
descriptive passages and interior monologues
mainly, and to a lesser extent the spots where the
adaptations deviate from the original
text. Currently halfway through the second one,
Dead Lions. [2024-09-28]
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The Aquitaine Progression. 1984. Robert Ludlum
Every once in a while I like to read what I call a
"Dad Book" - ie, the sort of book my father liked
to read, back in the day. I'd see them around the
house when I was growing up, but had zero interest
back then in reading what I assumed were trashy
thrillers. Reading some of them now is I think a
way of reconnecting with him, or at least with my
memories of him. And you know what? Some of
these "Dad Books" aren't half bad. Ludlum is a
bit of a mixed bag; his earlier novels in
particular are quite good. This one is more
mid-period; kept me reading but there's a long
section in the middle where the hero runs around
frantically and the plot advances hardly at all.
Readable, but not his best. [2024-10-19]
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House of Suns. 2008. Alastair Reynolds
Looking about for light reading to take with me on
a recent trip, my eyes lit upon this rather wild
space opera that had been sitting on my shelf
since I first read it, idk, 12 years or so ago.
And joy of joys, I realized enough time had passed
that I remembered nothing about it, beyond having
liked it a lot (it was the book that really got me
into Reynolds, which led me to Banks, etc). Did I
still like it? Why, yes! Reynolds' characters may
be a little thin (common complaint) but that tends
not to bother me if the plot, ideas, and
world-building are good. Which here they most
certainly are. [2024-09-21]
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Islands in the Net. 1988. Bruce Sterling.
It was fun reading this now, as 2024 is smack dab
in the middle of the timeframe in which this book
is set, and Sterling's predictions are close
enough to the mark to make it interesting to see
what he got right, and what not so much. The first
chapter is familiar, and I have a vague memory of
giving up on it back when it first came out, after
being disappointed that it wasn't Gibsonian
cyberpunk (the protagonist is pretty straight up
corpo, and hauling around a _baby_ for pity's
sake). But of course it does describe a cyberpunk
future, just seen from the other side of the
corporate divide. Fun ride, good world-building,
crazy action once it picks up steam. [2024-09-12]
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The Zenith Angle. 2004. Bruce Sterling.
And we're back to the geek books. This one got
mixed reviews when it came out, and I can
understand why. It presents as a 'cyberthriller',
but for the most part it's not all that thrilling.
It's more of a character study, of a gifted geek
who loses his soul in a bureaucratic maze of
cybersecurity following 9/11. Does he ever get it
back again? Magic 8-ball says "Reply hazy." 7
out of 10. [2024-08-31]
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The Shadow of the Wind. 2001. Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
A boy living in post WWII Barcelona comes across
what might be the last remaining copy of a novel
written by a little-known author with a tragic
past, and is subsequently threatened by a
mysterious man who wants to consign it to the
flames. Unravelling the mystery will forever
change his life, and the lives of those around
him, in ways both good and bad. Spans multiple
genres: magic realism, gothic horror,
bildungsroman, noir mystery. I liked it quite a
lot. [2024-08-25]
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The Big Knockover. 1966. Dashiell Hammett.
A collection of novellas and short stories, mostly
featuring Hammett's Continental Op detective
character. Also contains a rather depressing
account of Hammett's life and times by his
long-time partner Lilian Hellman, and part of an
uncompleted semi-autobiographical novel he wrote
in his later years. Quality is variable; this is
what you'd read if you wanted more Hammett after
reading all his other stuff. The titular "Big
Knockover" and its continuation "$106,000 Blood
Money" are pretty good though. [2024-08-17]
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Red Harvest. 1929. Dashiell Hammett.
See, I do occasionally read (or at least, re-read)
books that aren't sf and aren't about computers.
Early Hammett, one of the "Continental Op" stories
he wrote for the pulp mag "Black Mask". Tough guy
private eye visits a thoroughly corrupt mining
town and cleans house using some rather brutal and
unorthodox methods. A classic of sorts, but not
quite as artful as "The Maltese Falcon" or "The
Thin Man". [2024-08-04]
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Artemis. 2017. Andy Weir.
Enjoyable. The world-building is stronger than the
character-building but that's OK with me. Not as
good as "The Martian" or "Hail Mary" but well
plotted and a quick read. [2024-07-20]
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The Atrocity Archives. 2004. Charles Stross.
Surprisingly unlike the X-Files, given how similar
the basic premise is: the protagonist is a field
operative for a government agency ("The Laundry")
charged with covering up supernatural incursions
into the real world. The parts I liked best
clearly drew upon Stross' work-life experience
with bureaucratic shibboleths of the time like ISO
9000 and "Total Quality Management" which become
even more hilarious than usual when paired with an
organization that employs the undead. [2024-07-17]
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Spook Country. 2007. William Gibson.
Classic Gibson, but set in the then-recent past
rather than the future. He writes a good spy
thriller; the MacGuffin (a mysterious shipping
container) kept me guessing right up to the end.
The premise reminded me a lot of Pattern
Recognition, the novel preceding Spook Country in
the "Blue Ant" trilogy, which I now have to
re-read. I recognized many of the Vancouver
locations from when I lived there, many years ago
- a somewhat nostalgic experience not unlike
watching old X-Files episodes. [2024-07-14]
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Singularity Sky. 2003. Charles Stross.
Space opera, very much in the vein of Iain
M. Banks or Alastair Reynolds, but more upbeat. A
backwards planetary civilization is hit with a
singularity that turns their whole world into a
surreal fantasy like something out of Hieronymous
Bosch, and a fleet of military spacecraft is
dispatched to deal with it; ultimately a
meditation on the failure modes of repressive
societies. Somewhat dated by the "information
wants to be free" idealism characteristic of the
early 2000s, but quite enjoyable nonetheless.
[2024-06-22]
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New Hacker's Handbook. 1989. Hugo Cornwall & Steve
Gold.
Not so much a guide on how to hack computer
systems, more along the lines of "here's some
examples of the kinds of things hackers do, and
some of things they need to know about." The
latter being a lot about telecommunications
protocols, apparently. Dates from a time when
breaking into computer systems was, more often
than not driven by curiousity and thrill-seeking
rather than maliciousness. A bit sloppy in the
editing department, and the long printouts from
BBSs come across as filler, but still worth
reading as a time capsule of a bygone era.
[2024-06-01]
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Beating the System: Hackers, Phreakers and
Electronic Spies. 1990.
Owen Bowcott and Sally Hamilton
Inaccurately billed as "the inside story of Edward
Singh and the Electronic Underworld". In fact
Mr. Singh gets comparatively little attention,
while rather more is paid to better-known hacker
celebrities of the era like Steve Draper, Markus
Hess, Robert Morris, Kevin Mitnick, etc. Still
somewhat interesting for its discussion of the
issues around criminalizing hacking in the UK, but
a lot of the background material has been covered
in other, better books on the subject.
[2024-05-20]
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Extra Life: Coming of Age in Cyberspace. 1998.
David S. Bennahum.
What it was like to grow up obsessed with
computers in the first age of personal computing.
And also attend an Ivy-League prep school with a
DEC PDP-11 in the computer classroom. Well
written, interesting if it's your thing (as it is
mine). I've posted a sort-of review in my
phlog. [2024-04-14]
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The Mythical Man Month. 1972. Fred Brooks.
Necessary reading for anyone managing the
development of a major mainframe operating system.
Kidding aside, quite impressive how much of it is
still relevant. While the technology references
are just a bit dated (though historically
interesting), the observations on scaling up
communication are timeless. [2024-03-18]
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The Cosmic Puppets. 1957. Philip K. Dick.
I'm not a huge PKD fan, but every once in a while
- perhaps when the world starts seeming all too
real - I enjoy picking up one of his novels. This
one reads like an episode of the original Twilight
Zone, if it had a modern special effects
budget. Strong "A Stop at Willoughby" and "It's a
Good Life" vibes, with the metaphysics cranked up
to 11. Short, worth reading. [2024-02-18]
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Machine Vendetta. 2024. Alastair Reynolds.
Now that Iain M. Banks is no longer with us,
Alastair Reynolds may be my favourite living sf
author. A few of the novels he wrote in the 2000s
- "House of Suns" and "Century Rain" in particular
- rank among the sf novels I've most enjoyed, in
my over half-century of reading the stuff. I've
not been as impressed by his work of the past
decade or so, but lately he seems to be turning
that around. Last year's "Eversion" really hit the
mark, and "Machine Vendetta" comes pretty close.
The third in a series of police procedurals of the
far future starring the increasingly world-weary
Prefect Dreyfus, this one sees the Prefect going
up against an old foe, a rogue AI. Kept me turning
the pages. [2024-02-05]
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Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime
Lords of Cryptocurrency. 2022. Andy Greenberg.
Really enjoyed this one. Fascinating tale of how
the 'anonymized' transactions on the blockchain
turned out to be anything but, and how Bitcoin
proved to be kind of a honeypot for organized
crime. [2024-01-??]
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Mona Lisa Overdrive. 1988. William Gibson.
Last book in the Sprawl trilogy. To my mind the
weakest of the three novels although it does bring
the story to a satisfactory conclusion and is
certainly worth reading. Unlike the previous two
novels I think I'd only ever read this one once
before, back when it first appeared in paperback,
so I had largely forgotten what it was about.
[2024-01-??]
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At Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest
Internet Invasion. 1998. Charles C. Mann, David
H. Freedman.
A late entry in the "Computer hackers of the
pre-web era" non-fiction genre, overshadowed by
predecessors like Sterling's "The Hacker
Crackdown" and Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg". Still
interesting mostly in how it shows how bad
computer security was back then, that a
none-too-bright script kiddie could with a bit of
help install a sniffer on an Internet backbone
router. Also has the distinction of being
probably the least glamorous portrait of a hacker
ever written. [2024-01-??]
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Artifact Space. 2022. Miles Cameron.
I'd never heard of the author or the book before I
came across it in the SF section of a local
bookstore, looking for some light holiday reading.
An endorsement from Alastair Reynolds on the cover
persuaded me to check it out. It's not quite in
Reynolds' league, but it is an enjoyable
action-filled space opera, if you like that kind
of thing. There are some STNG vibes; the
protagonist reminded me of Tasha Yar and there's
another character who is a bit like Data. This
novel is only half the story, but I liked it well
enough that I plan to pick up the sequel whenever
it comes out in paperback. [2023-12-28]
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Count Zero. 1986. William Gibson.
I must have read this quite a few times back in
the 80s, as I remember the story pretty well. It's
much better written than Neuromancer; the
characters are a lot more real and have actual
human relationships that extend beyond the purely
transactional. This is where we get to see the
Sprawl up close for the first time. Possibly my
all-time favourite Gibson novel but we'll see, as
I plan to read more of his back catalogue in
2024. [2023-12-17]
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Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer
Frontier. 1991. Katie Hafner and John Markoff.
Profiles Kevin Mitnick, Robert Tappan Morris, and
a group of hackers in West Berlin. The section on
the Berlin hackers was the most interesting,
covering many of the same events related in
Clifford Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg" but from the other
side. Neuromancer's protagonist, Case, seems to
have been the role model for many but they mostly
come out looking like Bobby Newmark, the titular
character in Count Zero. Which is to say, out of
their depth. [2023-12-14]
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Neuromancer. 1984. William Gibson.
Decided it was time to re-read the Sprawl
Trilogy. I enjoyed Neuromancer, obviously, it's a
classic, but even when I first read it back in my
early 20s I thought the characters were a bit
lacking in depth. His most iconic work, but not
his best. Still loads of fun though, and the way
he puts words together is sheer street
poetry. [2023-12-05]