This was a profoundly creepy alt-history of World War Two. The Germans have developed electronically enhanced psychic abilities - fire lighting, distance speaking, precognition, invisibility, insubstantiality. The British fight back with magic - warlocks gathered from their various lairs negotiate with otherworldly beings at extravagant costs in human lives. Deals with two really big questions - 1) how to deal, as an author, with a character who has precognition. 2) how far should a nation go to win a war? How far is too far? There are lots of little questions too. A meaty book in its own right, and there will probably be a sequel. That will be interesting - is it possible to maintain the same level of creepy across two books? Will we, the readers, begin to anticipate the twists? I liked it, and I'll look at the sequel when it arrives, but I don't think this is something that Tegillis will be able to sustain. Precognition is tough to work with - Tregillis admitted as much in his discussion of the book in John Scalzi's Big Idea (which is where I learned about it). Either it gets boring as the protagonists are unable to compete with an antagonist who knows their every move, or the protagonists develop something that either blocks the precognition or begin acting in an unpredictable fashion. Tregillis has left this book with no clear sense of who has won the bigger game (beyond the struggle of nations), and I'm interested to see where it goes from there.
The only thing I didn't really like was the abrupt ending. This may be my historian coming through - I wanted Tregillis to blend his alternative narrative more gently with the standard history. I guess I wanted a Tim Powers or a Neal Stephenson (one of the principle characters was named Stephenson - I think this was a deliberate homage, but it's possibly just coincidence), where in the principal narrative happens below and entwined within the historical narrative, and I got Harry Turtledove, more or less, where the history branches away from what actually happened. I don't think this is a reason not to read the book - Tregillis did an excellent job - I just think it could have been more than it was.
Cory Doctorow - For The Win
Well written story of labor organizing in cyberspace set in the near future. Doctorow anticipates some trends, and expands other current realities in this discussion of gold farming in online gaming. Doctorow is passionate about his subject, and his economics are well researched, and very well presented. As with most of Doctorow's novels, however, I doubt this will convert anyone to his position. Doctorow is preaching to the choir. I suspect that if you like the idea of organized labor, you'll really enjoy this. If you have reservations, you may find this to be somewhat unrealistic.Likewise, you views on computer/information "freedom" (free as in speech, not free as in beer) may affect how you view this book. I enjoyed it a great deal - the passion spoke to me, the politics aligned with my own, and it was an interesting book about playing online games.
Two things I didn't like. One, although the economics were solid, and the writing about economics was clear and easy to read and understand, the shift from the narrative to the discussion of economics was a little rough. So you'd be reading about kids playing games, or fleeing cops, or getting beaten up by goons (virtually or literally), and then there would be this witty little lecture on economics - and then back to the action! There were a couple of places where the lectures were better integrated than others, but for the most part it was a little cludgy. In his last novel, Little Brother, Doctorow included a short essay in the rear of the book which explicated a number of ideas which he had broached. That would have been preferable here, perhaps.
The other thing I didn't like, and this may be unavoidable to some extent - it's difficult to describe online games in a realistic way. Doctorow admits that he doesn't actually play a lot of MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) games, although his wife does. His descriptions were accurate for the most part - he had a very good guide - but they felt slightly off. Because, you know, I do play MMOs, and so it just felt a little, not quite right. I've noticed this before. Charles Stross describes a world in which everyone plays virtual reality games more or less all the time in Halting State, and that didn't feel quite right either - the overlay of virtual reality over actual reality was a little twitchy in places. It's tricky to describe something that takes place on a computer, though. Consider attempts to describe, either in books or in movies, computer hacking. There's not a lot to look at, most of the time. Anyway, I think this is something that would only bother you if you were already a fan of MMOs, and it's certainly not a reason not to read the book.
Tomorrow - I will review my beach reading books! It's not an extensive list; not a lot of reading happened.
. Liss specializes in historic mystery/adventure fiction, and he's exceedingly good at it - well researched books about 18th century Europe. This is the 3rd of the Benjamin Weaver books (unless you include The Coffee Trader, in which case, this is the 4th. For the record, I don't include it - it's tangential at best). I probably won't take this one with me to the beach, though.
- it's hefty, and it's likely to be engaging. The advantage to the paperbacks, though, is that they are easily discarded if they bore me, or if there's something better to do. The Kay is likely to pull me in, preventing me from doing other beach-y things.
. As you know, I've been enjoying these books a great deal, so I'll have that to look forward to once I get to the bottom of my "to-read" list.
phenomenon which is currently afflicting bookstores and libraries across the country. Ford's premise is that Jane herself is a vampire, now running a small bookstore in upstate New York, specializing in Jane Austen books. She is, incidentally, mildly amused by P&P&Z. I chewed through it in about an hour and a half, I'll review it on Friday. I also picked up 
by Trudi Canavan - this is the second of Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy. That will have to wait.
- interesting question - what if you were offered a way out of a bad situation, but decided to fight to stay in the bad situation? Are situations ... situational? Does it matter where you are standing - from within the situation, is it less bad than from outside? Canavan's principle protagonist is a young girl, raised on and just barely off the streets in a city where the king has the Magicians' Guild annually purge the streets of the city of beggars and other undesirables. Not a good place to have grown up in a marginal situation. In the opening scene of the book, Sonea (the girl) discovers entirely by accident that she is a magician herself. So the first half of the book, the Guild is trying to find her before she destroys a sizable part of the city playing with power she doesn't understand, and Sonea is trying to avoid the organization which has made her life, and the life of people like her, miserable for generations. This is a book about trust, and about magic, and about love, a little. Canavan has an interesting set of core characters who, for the most part, are well rendered and enjoyable. This is also the first of a trilogy. 
Kersten tells the story of Arthur Williams, Jr, the counterfeiter who "broke" the New Bill - the $100 which was released in the late 1990s, and was supposed to be un-counterfeitable. If, in fact, that is a word. Kersten writes for Rolling Stone, and this book started as an article on Williams. Kersten was clearly looking to write about a Frank Abagnale, Jr [1] for our generation, and Williams comes close on a couple of levels to Abagnale. However, Abignale was a conman, and part of what made him tick was a pathological need for people to like him. Consequently, when you write his life story, you are writing the story of a man who people like. Kersten describes Williams as likeable on several occasions, but the overall sense I got from the book was the Williams saw himself as much smarter than everyone around him. He used his fake $100 bill as a business card, offering it to prospective clients and challenging them to find fault with it - in effect, saying "I'm smarter than you because I can do this and you cannot". I think it was this factor which ended up getting Williams into trouble. Kersten suggests that this is actually a common problem for counterfeiters - they get so caught up in the thrill of being able to do something that others cannot that they don't stop to find a safe way to turn that into profit. Kersten frequently says, or quotes others as saying, that Williams could have done anything he set his mind to, and it's probably true. The problem is, Williams got caught in the fact that he could literally make money, and didn't stop to come up with a plan whereby he could safely stop making money. At any rate, the smartest guy in the room, especially if he's particularly interested in showing how smart he is, tends not to be the most likable guy in the room. As a result, Williams is not the most likable protagonist. In the end, Kersten tells the story of a badly damaged man caught in a series of bad situations - abandoned by his father, trapped in the projects in Chicago, forced into a gang, forced into crime - who found a way out which ended up being as bad as the life he was trying to escape. Williams is presented as a womanizer, as a foolish risk-taker, and as a very smart, very talented, man who lacks the ability to plan for the long term. This was a good book, a fascinating discussion of counterfeiting as a phenomenon, and a brilliant character description of Williams. I would have liked to see some sources listed, if only for the historical material - this is the problem when journalists write historical pieces - but the book was readable and generally enjoyable. If I care, I can probably look up Kersten's historical sources.
, Leonardo DiCaprio played him in the movie. The movie was good, the book was better. Abagnale ended up working for (indeed, as far as I know, still works for) a company devoted to preventing the sort of check fraud for which Abagnale was known. In an odd coincidence, while shopping recently I ran across a pen endorsed by Abagnale - it's designed to prevent "check washing", a process whereby a criminal could bleach your original text off of a check, put a different "pay to the order of" and a different amount, and empty your bank account. This pen, apparently, leaves ink residue which prevents check washing.
- a novel about ancient Rome. It's a courtroom drama. And it's in ancient Rome. I have no particular connection to ancient Rome, but nor am I completely unaware of it, so, why not?
- I've decided to do a reading of presidential biographies, post Civil War - to fill in some gaps, to enhance some non-gaps, and to keep my hand in over the summer. This is the obvious place to start.
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