Show me the money!

Now we’ve arrived at another of my very favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, and his latest Discworld novel, ‘Making Money‘.  This novel continues the adventures of Moist von Lipwig, as he works his particular brand of influence and success on the banking systems as he did for the postal system.

For those of you not familiar with Pratchett’s Discworld series, the simplest description I can give it is to say that it is much like The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams) – but in a fantasy, not a sci-fi, setting.

Pratchett brings us an irreverent look at our own current day in world, but couched in the bright and colorful world of (most of the time) Ankh-Morpork, and it varied citizens (humans, magicians, trolls, dwarves, etc).  Not only is this a delightful fantasy setting, Pratchett can show us some very absurd things that exist in our own world.

This particular installment in the series (the latest) delves into, as you can imagine, the financial system.  It shows the teething pains as people grasp at the concept of money not being based on gold, but rather the guarantee of the government, amongst other story lines.

This book can certainly stand on its own (i.e., you needn’t have read the preceding books), and I’d say that anyone who enjoys fantasy fiction (or enjoyed the ‘Hitchiker’ series) owes it to themselves to check out not only this book, but the whole of the Discworld series.

You got your mandelbrot in my T-SQL!

If pets were smart enough to code T-SQL, this would show up on Letterman, no doubt.  In it’s own way, pretty nifty!

Who are the Chandrian?

Come along, good and gentle reader, and sit beside the fire to be regaled with a well spun tale, brought to life by Patrick Rothfuss in the form of ‘The Name of the Wind.’

If you do a quick Google (or Amazon)( search on this book, you’ll see that much praise has been heaped on this book, and rightly so.  Not only is it a great fantasy story (and the first of three in the series), it’s an amazingly well-written story, plain and simple.

It’s been a long time since a book has drawn me in so deeply, getting genuinely concerned about what happens to Kvothe as the story alternates between current day and the story of his past.

As a fantasy story, it has all the necessary elements – a medieval setting (swords and inns), magic (though in a much different way), and evil creatures, just to name a few.  And as a story – I’m not entirely certain how, but this book wrapped into my imagination so well that I had a hard time putting the book down, especially when the story was hitting some critical points.

This is a book I recommend without any hesitation – and can, myself, not wait until the next in the series hits the shelves!

Break on through to the other side

Gateways cover

Now to visit one of my (now) favorite authors, F. Paul Wilson, and his book ‘Gateways‘.  This is one of the Repairman Jack series.

This book in a great continuation of the story, and the characters, that readers of the Repairman Jack books have come to know.  For those unfamiliar with them, Jack is a “fix it” man who takes care of the problems that just can’t be handled in a, well, normal manner.

These stories remind me quite a lot of the old pulp fiction paperbacks of my dad’s (my what a journey that find in the basmement started!) – take one rough and tumble guy who’s not afraid to use a gun and right wrongs, throw in a healthy dose of suspense and the supernatural, and you’ve got yourself a good time.

I heartily enjoyed this book, and seem to finish these in no time at all.  If you’ve ever read a Doc Savage or Nick Carter – Killmaster pulp novel, you should feel right at home in this series.

More jiggahertz!

Ahhh… nothing like the simple (geeky) pleasure of jumping up from 1 GB of RAM to 3 GB.  Now to get some gaming in to, uh, stress-test it.  Yeah, that’s the ticket, stress-testing!

Of note, I’ve read some predictions that say RAM prices are going to be rising in ‘09.  So, if you’re on the fence, go poke around Newegg, discover how cheap memory is at the moment, and fill up those slots before prices jump up.

Tick tock tick tock time is running out!

Watchmen cover

Next up for review, if you couldn’t tell by the graphic to the right, is ‘Watchmen‘, by Alan Moore.  This is yet another one of those greatest-of-all-time geek reads that I never got around to – until now.

I must admit, my interest in reading this stemmed from seeing previews for the upcoming film, and wanting to know what the story would be like (and whether or not I wanted to see the film).

For myself, it was an enjoyable enough read, and one I would recommend – just not to the exclusion of anything else you might have on your personal “to read” list.  The story, while slightly dated (yet futuristic, to a degree), definitely had some points that stike home in today’s world.

I just couldn’t help myself from thinking that this sort of dysfunctional, “real world”, setting seemed so much like Batman that I couldn’t help comparing, and then of course, feeling it fell somewhat short.  For those of you without the Batman predilection that I profess, however, you’ll get a kick out of it.

This blog intentionally left blank

A bit of a misnomer, don’t you think?  Well, if book publishers can get away with it, so can I!

That is to say, while plenty of material to post up has made its way into my head, I’ve not yet made time to get it down and posted up.  Hopefully in the next week or so, I can start getting some more book reviews posted on up.