There's Something About Harry

I have read several Orson Scott Card books over the last year and for the most part I have enjoyed them all.  I wouldn’t classify the first books I read by him as my favorite scifi or fantasy books ever, but they were unique and interesting. 

So now, I’m going to start reading the series that has made Card the most famous.  I’m kicking it off by listening to Ender’s Game: 20th anniversary edition.  For me, I sometimes like to read scifi like some people drink wine.  I like to let it age a bit before I partake.  A good scifi book will be just as good twenty years after it was written (or more for that matter).  So I’m starting with Ender’s Game which is twenty years old.

Now, it might have an unfair advantage as I believe it has been updated a couple of times over the last two decades, but I’m not particular about that really.  This is just a general rule of thumb.

Ender’s Game – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I finished the NaNoWriMo contest about 22 minutes ago, with only 20 minutes to spare. 

To win, you have to write 50,000 words or more between November1, and November 30th.  I wrote 51,101!

Now,the book is not finished, but I have a hell of a start.  I really enjoyed this entire process and the NaNoWriMo event, definitely helped me to get motivated enough to do this.

Now, I’m excited to ‘finish’ the actual book and get the turkey published.  I have no doubts about my ability to do that, because I publish my writing every day.  I’ll get the book out there in one form or another, and knowing myself, I’ll probably get it out there in several forms.

I’ll probably talk more about how I did it, using Dragon Naturally Speaking over at Maven Mapper’s Information later this week.  Instead of writing all day to day, as many of you saw, I drove from 8 am until 10 PM from Peoria Illinois out of a snow storm, down to Gastonia North Carolina in the rain.  I’m super tired, and heading to bed as soon as I put my computer gear away for the night.

If you tried your hand at NaNoWriMo whether you finished or not. Congratulations!

This was my second attempt, but the first year that I made it to 50,000 words.  The first year I tried this I came in some where at 10,000 or 15,000 words. I barely remember right now.

I just heard about a new Neal Stephenson novel called Anathem.  When I read the title I can’t help but think about Anthem by Ayn Rand, but based on the description, it doesn’t sound like it will have much to do with Anthem, but then again . . .

This one seems like a bit of a fantasy novel, and of course its long at 960 pages.

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable—yet strangely inverted—world.

Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, protected from the corrupting influences of the outside "saecular" world by ancient stone, honored traditions, and complex rituals. Over the centuries, cities and governments have risen and fallen beyond the concent’s walls. Three times during history’s darkest epochs violence born of superstition and ignorance has invaded and devastated the cloistered mathic community. Yet the avout have always managed to adapt in the wake of catastrophe, becoming out of necessity even more austere and less dependent on technology and material things. And Erasmas has no fear of the outside—the Extramuros—for the last of the terrible times was long, long ago.

Now, in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a-decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare to venture beyond the concent’s gates—at the same time opening them wide to welcome the curious "extras" in. During his first Apert as a fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting with the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen since he was "collected." But before the week is out, both the existence he abandoned and the one he embraced will stand poised on the brink of cataclysmic change.

Powerful unforeseen forces jeopardize the peaceful stability of mathic life and the established ennui of the Extramuros—a threat that only an unsteady alliance of saecular and avout can oppose—as, one by one, Erasmas and his colleagues, teachers, and friends are summoned forth from the safety of the concent in hopes of warding off global disaster. Suddenly burdened with a staggering responsibility, Erasmas finds himself a major player in a drama that will determine the future of his world—as he sets out on an extraordinary odyssey that will carry him to the most dangerous, inhospitable corners of the planet . . . and beyond.

I caught the promotion for the new TV show, ‘Crusoe’ which I believe is going to be on NBC.  Growing up, I probably read Robinson Crusoe at least a half dozen times and so I have high hopes that the television show will do the book some justice.

As its a TV show, I doubt that it will completely follow the book to the letter, but will more likely be a serialized adaptation that keeps changing. 

When Robinson Crusoe was first written, it was not a novel.  It was a serialized article that was published in the equivalent of French newspapers or magazines.  It was later pulled together as a collection of serialized stories to form an actual novel.  Unlike modern novels, this collection of serialized articles did not have a great deal of form in total, lacking a discernable plot line together, but easily wrapping up short sub plots on a regular basis in the individual article.

This same style was utilized by Alexander Dumas with his works, the Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and other series combined to later form popular novels.

So as I start to anticipate this serialized group of articles turned into a novel and then broken up into a serialized television show, I can’t help but wonder how many more times this popular story will be recycled to entertain people in the future, whether they are watching it on their cell phones, or via an SD card, or possibly participating in a live adventure in a virtual reality setting like Second Life.

I have yet again run into a book that I just can’t seem to finish.  Maybe I’m getting old, I never used to read books this slowly, especially audio books. 

Yet, I find myself again caught up in a book that shouldn’t take too damn long, yet it has.  What’s crazier is that I picked up the book, The Spin in order to take a quick break from a very long series that I need a break from.

Next time, I’ll jump into a magazine on garden decor maybe and give up on novels…

Well, then again, I am a story addict, so maybe that’s just not possible.

I am about two thirds through the science fiction novel called ‘The Spin’ by Robert Charles Wilson.  It has been a good book with a plot that slowly unravels like a woven piece of material.  The plot literally feels spun together and unfolds as if the reader is spiraling forward and backwards.

The novel brings out a number of theories that have often been mentioned in past stories but rarely developed like they are in this particular novel.  Topics like teraforming have been covered by many classic science fiction writers in short stories and novellas but never put together as well as Wilson does in this effort.  He covers topics of religion, the rapture, time, time travel, interplanetary travel, drug use, sex, politics and power and the impact of all of these items on society at large on earth.

Faced with the potential end of the world, the people of the countries of earth rally together, break apart and try again.  There is confusion mixed with business as normal and society does not entirely break down.  Some people take serious and drastic actions, but many more continue on with their daily lives studying in school, going to work, taking drugs and diet pills and phasing in and out of belief systems as they look for the universal question of "why are we here?" with a time clock counting down to doomsday pending the answer.

I finished Janet Evanovich’s latest Stephanie Plum book in about two nights.  It was predictably funny and definitely worth the read, especially if you are a Plum fan.

The characters of Stephanie and Morelli kind of got flip flopped this time.  Stephanie didn’t really have any major problems or issues (no sick twisted psychopath trying to kill her for example).  Instead, all the problems were Morelli’s.

That made for a funny twist in the book with lots of turn about, but the characters themselves didn’t really go through a relationship role reversal despite the reversal of fortunes.  It was almost as if, Evanovich was experimenting herself and didn’t quite realize what was going on with the characters as much.  She seemed to spend her mental efforts with the experimentation of situation as opposed to the resulting impact that change would have on dialogue, moods, etc.

It seemed somewhat strange that all the characters in the book seemed to be oblivious to the fact that Stephanie Plum was not walking and talking and living like a crazy duck, and instead her boyfriend Morelli, who always has a problem with Plum’s duckiness was the big quacker in this episode.  It just seemed like someone should have mentioned it, either Plum or Grandma or someone.

It was funny to see the characters phase out of character but you’d think they would notice that themselves about as much as they’d notice if Morelli were walking down the street in ecco shoes or dutch wooden clogs or something.

Well, even in audible form, it took me a week or two to finish this very long book by Diana Gabaldon.  The book was about 39 hours long, basically a full work week. 

That is an apt description as that would be a short work week for most people, and this book felt like a long work week when I read it.

The book starts in the present and with almost no preamble, progresses from interesting (in the present) to a flashback to the 17th century that lasts about 35 hours or better, completing a story that was pretty much finished already in Outlander, the first novel.

In this second book, we all know what is going to happen during the flashback and so it is tedious at best to listen to the details of life covering a dozen months or better.  Then finally, the flashback ends and the book gets slightly interesting in the present again, with the first plot twists that the book has experienced in almost 37 hours.

That plot twist was interesting and then in the last couple minutes of the book, a hook is planted that is probably good enough to kick off the third book.  That said, if I were to read this series again, I’d read the first book, then the third book and maybe come back and read this one much later if I was interested enough in filling in all the gaps in the story, but I have a feeling that I would have easily been able to pick up the plot line in the third book without ever missing the 2 weeks spent with the second book.

In the meantime, I picked up the latest Stephanie Plum novel, fourteen something or other, and am hoping to get a few good laughs in before I return to the monotony of the never ending bodice buster time travel Scottish renegade pirate novel, which I may have to buy an air purifier from Blueair to deal with this series if my allergies to the sappy dialogue gets much worse.