March 2012 Media Thread

"Madoka".

Don't the Japanese have a one-Mario limit?

I'm probably going to watch this this weekend. Looks pretty fun.

Cracked is great. Some articles suck, but it fairly frequently comes out with things of actual value. It's like Wikipedia with dick jokes.

Just finished Truman Capote's classic true-crime In Cold Blood, showing both the perspectives of the victims (some family in Kansas) and the killers. It's from '66, but it doesn't feel dated at all (well, the time it describes is, of course). Really enjoyed the book, even though I'm not too much into the genre.

Now reading Edward de Bono's Think!, which seems to be a bit of an overview of his other books. In general, I like his ideas, and they help me at times to come up with creative solutions to problems, to step outside the normal neural pathways. Having said that, in Think! DeBono spends way too much time promoting himself - and a specific chapter about bad journalism, which has, as a prime example of that, a less-than praising review of one of his earlier books... So, I wouldn't recommend this book.

I've just started "Principles of Uncertainty". It seems like a solid introduction to Bayesian statistics, with a focus on underpinnings and implications. Since I've barely started I can't give to much of an opinion, but it looks very well written so far.

I've been reading Nick Lane's "Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution" since I have a large lacking of knowledge in biology and evolution and it was recommended to me. I would recommend the book to people like me, who don't have systematic knowledge in biology and want to learn some cool tidbits, particularly about early life. Non-rigorous. Easy-to-read.

It somewhat of an old book, (as scientific non-fiction goes) published in 2000, but one of my favorite science books of all time was Genome, by Matt Ridley. It was shortly after the human genome project was completed. Ridley took each chromosome in the human body and examined something interesting on each chromosome. Each chromosome got a chapter. Sometimes it was a bit of a stretch (Ridley is a science writer not by any means a scientist. For example, there was a "Free Will" chapter, because the chromosome basically didn't have anything interesting on it) but a lot, if not all of it, of it was very good information, particularly if you don't have a solid background in biology and human genetics.

I've been reading much more fantasy in this last year. Probably because I've already exhausted too much of sci-fi, or perhaps the impending singularity is making good sci-fi harder to write ;)

Anyway, my recent favorites:

The Song of Fire and Ice Series (Thrones): This really may be the best fantasy series of all time. I can't remember enjoying a series this much since first reading Dune when I was young. It really is as good as the hype. Martin's skill is multifaceted: his dozens characters are believable and captivating, the world is vast and deep, and there are few dull moments in any of the multiple arcing plotlines. The world is gritty and random, the characters are real, and sometimes they die. The subtlety in his art is in how he adapts his writing to the narrator's point of view to really submerge you in their stream of thoughts. In this respect his work almost reminds me of Faulkner and "As I Lay Dying". The dialog is second to none. My only minor complaint would be that some of the seemingly important moments, such as some of the battles, are skipped over in the transitions between character chapters. But in the end there are probably reasons for that.

The Dying Earth, Jack Vance: I found and read this specifically and solely because Martin mentioned it as a major influence. The Dying Earth is a stories and one novella set in the same world. The world setting is the unique selling point. It's fantasy, but it takes place in a far future earth where humans have long since developed technology indistinguishable from magic, and then much later completely forgot how any of the technology worked until they are left with literal magic which some of them can use but none really understand. The sun is old and dying, and more or less every mode of existence has already been attempted at least once. The dialog is sometimes obtuse to the point of annoyance but if you can get over that the world and adventures are fascinating.

Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay): Tigana is a long stand alone fantasy set in a world you could summarize as somewhat like medieval italy + magic. The plot is multifaceted but centers around complex multi-generational crimes and revenge in a war-torn realm. Of the recent fantasy I've read, Kay at times most reminds me of R Martin: they both build detailed worlds modeled after medieval fact for substance and then add in a system of magic on top, they both interweave multiple narrations from believable characters, and both use well structured plots which build up to satisfying climaxes. Kay's writing is sometimes a little slower than Martin's but in the end he achieves a simliar high quality. I've just picked a few of his other novels (none of which appear to be series).

Listening to the Sword of Truth series audiobooks. My impression so far: meh. Lots of preaching, fallacies and inconsistencies in between some decent action and fighting sequences. I guess MoR has ruined the fantasy genre for me.

The Mote In God's Eye has gotten a tad dull about a third of the way through. Does it get better? Because I've also got The Restaurant and the End of The Universe to finish.

Just finished Connie Willis' Blackout/All Clear, a story set in WW2 London, around some historians from 2060 that travel back to that era. Overall, I liked the story (though a bit too much melodramatic at times); however, I was not impressed with the time-travelling aspect at all. As if the writer didn't really think it through; in particular, I don't like when the 'the universe doesn't care about you' is broken without some kind of explanation. Anyway, the books have won many awards, so I may hold a minority opinion here...

Loving Season of the Spellsong. Incredibly funny at the points were it actually tries to be funny. Good plot and good characters. The basic types are pretty cliche, ordinary high school, I mean college, student gets sucked into a magical world and gheaf bhg gb unir zntvpny cbjref which is only a spoiler if you have no genre savvy what so ever. But Foster is very creative about the details.

I recently read and intensely enjoyed Laini Taylor's "Daughter of Smoke and Bone".

I have since been directed to a review which complains about the book being about the thing that it's about. So, uh, if you don't like the thing that it is (fantasy with a romance subplot and apparently it's for YA audiences although I do not know how anyone is supposed to determine that about a book) you might not like it.