Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

As a left-of-centre voting European I'm pretty much the Sad/Rabid Puppy definition of a SJW, a definition that owes more to the US Culture Wars than anything else. And yet, looking at the pile of books I brought back from a recent trip to the US, it's clear that my mix of Nutty Nuggets and other cereals (for a balanced diet) make my reading habits a lot closer to the Puppy ideal than they think...

The more I think about it, the more I'm sure that the Puppy position is pushing people away from their view of the Hugos. Most of us readers read widely, and read for different reasons. I read some books to be challenged, some to be entertained, some because friends recommend them, some because I liked a review. My recent reads are easy enough to find, and they cover a wide selection of the genre, from milSF to fantasy to humour to crime to, well, the uncategorisable.

You can see a selection of my recent purchases below. There's a lot that there that I'll enjoy, and a lot that I wouldn't consider to be awards quality. Some will be books for the bath, some will be my Hugo voting reading, some will be because it's the latest instalment in a saga I enjoy, and some because, well, just because. And yes, some because the cover caught my attention as I walked through a bookstore



Because I don't read because some shadowy cabal makes me read. I read because I love reading. And dear Puppies, you're not making reading much fun at the moment.

1. Hardwired - Walter Jon Williams: Written as a homage to Zelazny, this is cyberpunk as country-and-western song, with Cowboy riding panzers across a balkanised USA accompanied by Sarah and her weasel.
2. The Saga of Pliocene Exile - Julian May: All four books, taken as one here. May mixes Jungian archetypes with The Ring Cycle (and a dose of pure 50s SF) to deliver a remarkably fun science fantasy series that takes mitteleuropean myth and drops it into deep time.
3. Don't Look Down - Jennifer Crusie and Bob Meyer: a romance author (albeit snarky) and an ex-Green Beret men-with-guns-save-the-world writer collaborate on a delightfully funny romantic thriller. Contains Wonder Woman bondage scenes.
4. Vacuum Flowers - Michael Swanwick: a picaresque journey around a far future solar system, where changing your mind is as easy as slipping on a new shirt. Underneath it all is the question "What does it mean to be human".
5. Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud: McCloud's look at the semiotics of sequential art is also one of the great textbooks of design. It's better than Tufte if you're working on the web.
6. The New Dinosaurs - Dougal Dixon: Dixon's speculative evolutionary books take a turn into a world where dinosaurs didn't become extinct.
7. Managing Internet Information Systems - John Udell: This is the book that built UK Online. It's also as relevant today as it was nearly 15 years ago.
8. Computer Lib/Dream Machines - Ted Nelson: The book/s that pretty much made me who I am today - and shaped the trajectory of my career through the intertwingled worlds of engineering, computing and writing.
9. Neuromancer - William Gibson: "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Enough said, this is the seminal cyberpunk novel.
10. Between Planets - Robert Heinlein: A favourite juvenile, with Heinlein mixing colonial politics with the story of a violently suppressed revolution. The Venusian dragons are one of his finest creations.
11. The Ophiuchi Hotline - John Varley: Another solar system picaresque. Here it's Varley's Eight Worlds that is centre stage. A fine book for a 13 year old islander to read (if you want to blow his tiny little mind). Clones, invincible alien invaders and the hierarchy of life. Humanity is learning its true place in the universe, and it's a particularly lowly one...
12. The Terror - Dan Simmons: The most recent book on this list, but a powerful and extraordinarily well-written slice of secret history that delves into the lost years of the Franklin expedition. Simmons mixes Victorian rationality with the myths of the Esquimaux to deliver a post-modern, post-colonial take on the monster story wrapped up in a homage to Edgar Alan Poe.
13. The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner: The most optimistic of the futures in the Club Of Rome quartet, this mixes Toffler's Future Shock with the Whole Earth Catalog (and the Point Foundation) to give us a book that defines the modern security industry.
14. The Bridge - Iain Banks: This is the book that should have an "M". A never ending bridge, a Glaswegian barbarian, and the nameless life of a man on the road to disaster converge in three parallel stories. And it's got knife missiles!
15. Moominvalley in November - Tove Jansson: The best of the Moomin books doesn't contain the titular family, off at sea fulfilling Moominpapa's dreams. It's a sad, wistful novel that's really a tale about growing up and finding your own way in life. No wonder it's the most adult of the Moomin novels.