Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood

I recently read Margaret Atwood's 'Oryx and Crake'. Now, if you all remember the buzz at the time of its release, this was literature, not science-fiction, according to the critics.

And that's probably a good thing... The first two hundred pages, I was wondering 'why?' I was reading the book. It didn't give the brief promise that Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell did. Fortunately, around two hundred to two fifty pages in it started to go somewhere, and the story of the world begins to be revealed by the protagonist's – Snowman – flashbacks and memories. It is a tale of how the world died. The ending is an attempt to leave it open in the mind of the reader as to how things will work out. I normally like these, but didn't really get on with the execution here.

It is well written, but it isn't compelling. I wasn't expecting taughtly plotted character driven narrative, but I did expect more than I got. The plot was, to say the least, feeble.

There are some interesting genetic engineering ideas and takes on the world, but off the top of my head, Greg Bear's Blood Music and Richard Morgan's Market Forces have each covered some of the ideas better.

(I originally posted this at the Tavern when it was at zunder dot org dot uk. )

Rapidweaver 3.5

Well, RapidWeaver 3.5 is finally out of beta so I decided to give it a try. I'll change the BITS and BHS websites later, as the themes need some work first! So far, so smooth!

A mixture from my Holidays.

 

Absolute Friends (by John Le Carré) was excellent. This was the first Le Carré novel that I'd read in a while, and I can see why certain establishment figures objected to it, claiming that it was a rant against the conflict in the Middle East. However, it is probably the closest that Le Carré has got to the style of his Cold War novels in a long while; like those books, it is a story of betrayals and relationships, a study of human frailty against a bigger backdrop. I think that it is worrying that the current geopolitical situation lends itself to one of the old masters of dark spy fiction returning to form!

I followed this with The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. This is an interesting book on how ideas become epidemic. It tries to identify the factors that will make something – an idea, a product – wildly popular. It's certainly worth a read, although not necessarily applicable in any easy way. It was an impulse buy at the airport on the way to France.

I followed this with a book which I have meant to read for a long time, but never got around to: Diaries - Alan Clark. This charts the former Tory minister's rise in the party. He always entertained me by his refusal to be politically correct. Well worth a read. I'll be looking up the rest at some point.

I then read a splash of Horror - Chaosium's Lovecraftian compilation The Antarkos Cycle which has lingered on my shelf for the last two years. I bought it shortly after I got 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness' (a huge and detailed RPG adventure for Call of Cthulhu) and it certainly gives a good feel for setting games in the southern-most continent. The last true Antarctic part of the book is the original novel that inspired 'The Thing'. The final two stories are of lost cyclopean cities elsewhere in the world.

Cobweb by Neal Stephenson was one I missed when it came out originally. Indeed, it didn't even appear as one for me to buy until I saw it at the airport. It claims to be a wicked satire on US politics and conspiracies around the time of the first Gulf War. It has conspiracies, murders and shenanigans galore. I'm not certain it is a satire... It is co-written with the same gent who wrote 'Interface' with Stephenson. Good fun!

The final book was Star Hunter / Voodoo Planet by Andre Norton. The book has two short stories set in the SF universe that is very reminiscent of the game, Traveller. The second story is a Solar Queen one (read the others on the Solar Queen to understand Traveller Merchants)! Excellent fun. The problem is that it gets me itching to play the Traveller RPG again!

(I originally posted this at the Tavern when it was on zunder dot org dot uk. )

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"... how best to describe it?

I think that the best analogy would be a pedal-cycle ride. You start off in this pretty, but old fashioned, valley, and then start the hard work pedalling up hill. Steadily, but with some effort you slowly rise, wondering why people recommended the route until you reach this final rise, 300-400 pages up. All of a sudden, you crest the hill, Jonathan Strange has been overseas and you can suddenly see wider vistas. Hurtling over the edge, on the road down you can freewheel as you rapidly plunge into a fantastic, impressive but altogether darker valley below. You hit your top speed at the bottom, and gently begin to slow down...

Reading JS&MN was pretty much like that. I was nearly getting bored for the first 400 pages, and then it exploded into life. I wholeheartedly recommend this book! All 1000+ pages of it.

(I originally posted this at the Tavern when it was at zunder dot org dot uk.)

Changes...

I guess that I haven't been updating this as fast as usual, but there is a good reason. Life is slowly getting more complicated (and I guess that we can only blame ourselved) as we are expecting our first child. 

We've had three sets of scans now, and everything seems to be going well.
The first one was just to confirm that Jill was pregnant (!) and gave us an interesting estimated due date...

...25 December! So it'll be an interesting Christmas. The first picture doesn't show a lot, but the later scans show a scary amount of detail. We got called in two weeks early by mistake, and ended up with an extra picture.

Twenty weeks showed even more. We didn't ask what sex, because it doesn't really matter to us so long as the child is healthy.

The last scan confirmed the expected due date.

Naturally, I've been developing a long list of things to do, with Jill's help. The nightmare will be merging the 'study' and 'library' (in reality Bedrooms 3 & 4) into a single room. I've started sorting with a fair few books going to charity shops, BookCrossing.com, and some friends. The games which I haven't used in a long time have started to head to eBay (currently on hold from the joys of Royal Mail changing its postal charges).

On top of this, I've started the job that has plagued me for the last three years - painting the outside window and door frames. I've managed to complete the downstairs over the last two weeks, but rain has stopped play this weekend! I'm glad Jill found the tip for the painter's 'George' which makes doing the edges much less difficult.

Music - my iPod's Top 20

I was an early-ish adopter for the iPod, getting my 30Gb unit July 2003 as a present from my wife Jill after my Chartered Engineering interview. I came across some software that allows you to look at the most played artists since the iPod has been collecting data. What was interesting was that the final list had some groups I didn't expect there... (this data was originally collected in March 2006, but took a while because of the ISP fun and games).

The stats list the number of plays for each artist so far.

1. Marillion - 1426
Marillion coming top didn't surprise me, as I already knew that their last album "Marbles" topped my most played song's list. When I got the album at the start of 2004 I found it hard to stop playing it. Even now, I still hear new things when I listen. At some point I should split this into Marillion with Fish as lead singer and with Steve Hogarth. I suspect that the later material will dominate.

2. Simple Minds - 1032
I am surprised that Simple Minds came second here – I'd actually expected them to come further down. They were my favourite group in secondary school before I discovered Marillion, and the mental soundtrack I had of "New Gold Dream 81-82-83-84" helped me through GCSEs and A Levels. However, my listening to them declined over time. I'm guessing that their second place came because of "The Silver Box", a collection of demos and live performances combined with their legendary missing album "Our Secrets are the Same" which I got Christmas 2004 and played heavily. The recent album "Black & White 050505" has also been a favourite!

3. U2 - 722
Similar to Simple Minds, U2 were favourites from school and University. "The Unforgettable Fire", "Achtung Baby" and "War" have always been albums I've loved. I did expect a lower place though.

4. Faithless - 546
I first consciously hear Faithless when I was on the first holiday away with my now-wife. We were on the Greek Island of Zante, and the local bar was playing "We Come 1" repeatedly. I bought the single after that. Last year, for some reason, I realised that tracks like 'Insomnia', 'Reverence' and 'Salve Mea' were also by the same group, and I ended up buying several of the albums off iTunes. They've been played a fair bit since!

5. R.E.M. - 483
R.E.M. have always been a favourite since I heard 'Losing my Religion' when I was away on my pre-University year out working up in Cumbria. I'd expected them to come higher in the chart, as I've played their last two albums quite heavily. "Around the Sun" was awesome!

6. Pink Floyd - 423
I became a fan of Pink Floyd while I was at University – it was one of the things my first wife and I shared as a passion. We had used to joke that here we were in the 1990s, 20 years after here parents had been at University and we (students generally) were still listening to the same stuff! My only regret here was that we didn't get to the Earls Court concerts supporting "The Division Bell", as it looks unlikely that they'll tour again.

7. Goldfrapp - 384
A more recent addition to the collection. I first heard Goldfrapp when the TV was on in the background one Sunday, with the very slinky track 'Tiptoe' on in the background. A scan of the preview tracks on amazon.co.uk showed that this was actually a little different, but the rest of them were excellent too. I ordered both the CDs they'd released on the spot! The first album, Felt Mountain, reminds me of some 50s and 60s films on an epic scale and is very very different to the usual run of the mill. 'Black Cherry' is much closer to the widely played 'Supernature' album which recently topped the charts. All are worth a good listen.

8. The Cure - 312
The Cure are a band I've always had a love/hate relationship with. I've the 'best of' album, and one that I loved at secondary school 'Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me'. I tend to play them a lot when I'm in the mood.

9. Keane - 273
The track 'Everybody's Changing' sold me on Keane very quickly. The piano and change from the usual dirge that a lot of British rock was really refreshing. I was a bit concerned that their second album wouldn't match up, but the first few listens that I've had have been excellent!

10. Depeche Mode - 245
A big surprise here. I like Depeche Mode, but can only attribute their tenth position to the recent album sending me on a nostalgia trip! It'll be interesting to see if they are still here next time I look at this.

Just bubbling under....

11. Massive Attack - 222
12. Lloyd Cole - 190
13. Nine Inch Nails - 180
14. The Killers - 175
15. Remy Zero - 170
16. Manic Street Preachers - 168
17. Spartan Fidelity - 162
18. Moby - 148
19. The Modern - 145
20. New Order - 144

The Modern being there is a particular achievement, as they only have about 5 tracks at the moment. I can't wait for their first album!

Stag Do madness!

Photos from Jon's Stag do are now up! The scary photo below is me (right) and him (left!)...

 

Slow updates

I'm pretty fed up with Pipex, my ISP, at the moment as they've changed something with their FTP servers (running on an NT box from the look of the responses in the command line) which has messed up my FTP access. I'm certain it's at their end because:

1. I've not changed anything (okay, this week, four weeks in, I did run the OS X security update).
2. I can access the other ISPs I use for BITS etc with the same packages (Cyberduck and Rapidweaver - I even dragged GoLive and Fetch back out)!
3. They had FTP system problems immediately at the point that the problem manifested, which one of the support emails hinted still existed.

I've done all the usual - toggling Active/Passive etc and switching the FTP module that Rapidweaver uses. The only way I can upload at the moment is by leaving the computer's security wide open while I do so. I'm hoping that the email exchange with support will resolve this soon enough...

I suppose it is worth saying that I do think, aside from this, that Pipex is doing a fine job otherwise!

Brighton Rocks!

 I've just spent the weekend in Brighton, to celebrate my friend (and former best-man) Jon's forthcoming nuptials with the glamourous Becky (who I will always remember for being described as "that lovely girl in the red dress who sang opera and got slightly drunk at your wedding").

Jon was a little nervous (okay, a lot nervous) about the events that his brother Andy (his best man) had planned for him, probably dating back to his 21st birthday and earlier. On that occasion, Andy tied him to a lamp-post at night on the main student thorough-fair in Southampton with only his boxer shorts for company. There were a number of kerb-crawling lasses from the uni giving him a bit of banter. Now, Brighton is famous for a number of things – its pier, the book 'Brighton Rock' and its counter-culture (it vies with Blackpool as a famous LGBT hot-spot – so I think that Jon was probably right to worry that we may try something crazy embarrassing.

Fortunately for him, Andy remembered that he too was taking the plunge into matrimony later in the year, so only mildly humiliated Jon with a mock Scouser get up outfit. I think he was worried that he'd reap the seeds he sewed in 12 months time. The picture below is of Jon, in outfit, and I'll post some photos later!