A Song Of Stone - Iain Banks

A song of stone is one of Ian Bank's best books. It tells the story of a castle through the latter stages of war. The interesting twist is how the story is told through the eyes of the castle owner - a aristocrat who is clearly extremely self involved.

The war in question is barely mentioned, by the time the books story starts it has degenerated into anarchy with bands of soldiers roaming the country and the locals mearly refugees. The aristocrat starts off by abandoning his ancestral castle but is rapid brought back to it by events. As the book develops you can see how war has changed all the people and eventually how it all takes things from them. This is an excellent book - as it makes you identify with a number of the characters (even the unlikeable aristocrat) despite the aristocrat's narration being extremely self involved.

Iain (M) Banks Book Ratings...

Continuing my posts reviewing all the books by an author - I have decided to look at Iain (M) Banks. I did consider doing two posts - one for Iain Banks and one for Iain M Banks (for those not familar with his work - he published Sci-Fi with an M in his name). However I think they compare well - so mixing them together seemed appropiate.

Complicity 9.5/10

Whit - 9.5/10

The Business 9.5/10

Feersum Endjinn (M) - 9/10

A Song of stone - 9/10

Excession (M) - 9/10

The State of the Art (M) 9/10

The Algerbraist (M) - 9/10

Inversions (M) 9/10

Look to windward (M) - 8/10

The Player of Games (M) - 8/10

Espedair Street - 8/10

Consider Phlebas (M) - 8/10

The Crow Road - 8/10

The steep approach to garbadale - 8/10

The Bridge - 8/10

Use of Weapons (M) - 7/10

The Wasp Factory - 7/10

Dead Air - 7/10

Canal Dreams - 7/10

Walking on glass - 7/10

Against a dark background (M) 6/10

So mostly good, none of them are actually bad. I was quite surprise to see I prefer the non Sci-Fi versions. I found these books via the Sci-Fi books - so it is interesting that I now prefer the 'normal' ones.

The Catcher In The Rye - J. D. Salinger

I just finished reading 'The Catcher in the Rye' and found it an interesting read. Oddly the most similar book I have read recently is 'The Speed of Dark' by Elizabeth Moon. This is odd as I was waffling on about it in a post a couple of days ago.

The similarities are striking

• Both have a main character struggling through life
• Both show how the character develops through experiencing life
• Both end with them learning and being ready to move on

The Catcher in the Rye is an engaging read. I had a look on Wikipedia and realised I hadn't been shocked by his behavior (apparantly I should have been!). Clearly in 2008 it takes a lot more to shock than in 1951!

As I am comparing it with the 'Speed of Dark' I feel I should say which was 'best'. I think 'Speed of Dark' is best - why - it makes you feel the angst of the main character more.

Blogger's HTML Editor

Lately I have been doing a lot of blogging with Blogger and have noticed that the HTML editor is really not very good.
It has a number of really annoying features

It inserts <br> tags into your code when you are in HTML mode

On Mac if you paste with Apple-V it puts the text in the preview area and not in the editor

Adding an image adds it at the top of the article not where you were

These issues strike me as basics for what is the leading blogging platform.

Charles Stross - Book Rating

In addition to adding book reviews I thought I would rank the books by the authors I review in order of my preference. This idea came to me after reading 'Speed of Dark' by Elizabeth Moon. Elizabeth Moon mostly writes average (trashy) sci-fi books. They are readable but they are not intellectually engaging. She has written one book however - 'Speed of Dark' that is exceptional. It is the tale of how an Autistic man deals with life and with (in a near future) being offered a 'cure'. I will probably review it separately but it does show how a single author can vary wildly in quality. 

So for the first one of these - I decided to do Charles Stross (mainly as I put most of Elizabeth Moon's books in the loft and I can't remember which ones I have read)...

Accelerando 9.5/10

Iron Sunrise 9.5/10

Singularity Sky 9/10

Glasshouse 8/10

Halting State 8/10

The Atrocity Archive 7/10

The Jennifer Morgue 7/10

The Clan Corporate 7/10

The Family Trade 7/10

The Hidden Family 7/10

So in general - he is very consistent - I was tempted to give Accelarando and Iron Sunrise 10/10 - but its always good to leave room for improvement!

Halting State - Charles Stross

I have been trying to think of new ideas for things to add to this blog - so I thought I would try adding book reviews. I tend to read a lot of books (on the train to/from work) and this will provide a lot of material (also it moves a little bit away from IT stuff). 

So to start I am going to look at Halting State - by Charles Stross. The book is set in the near future and is a sci-fi/espionage book. The main characters find themselves trying to solve a complex plot in a world where everyone is online, and MMORPG's have grown into games that overlay on the real world. It is full of the usual stuff you expect in such a book - government agents, quantum computers, odd programmers etc. 

The writing style is one of the most interesting aspects of this book. The author is not scared of technical terms (it shows he was once a software engineer) and seems to have a strong grasp of what is likely to be possible (no crazy concepts here). He also tends to show the limits of technologies (e.g. cabs being driven by remote control rather than automatically, CCTV being everywhere but face recognition still not working). I found this a refreshing and engaging read - and a notch above your usual sci-fi books that often have very similar views of the future.