February Roundup

Well, I have been remarkably bad at blogging the books I've read this year. So here is a brief recap of what i remember reading in February (March to follow later):

"Zero Day" by Mark Russinovich - First off, the author of this book is best known for his series "Windows Internals", a guide to how the Windows operating system works under the hood. So it was perfectly natural that he should write a computer security themed techno-thriller featuring someone who looks remarkably like him. The bad guys in the story unleash a variety of computer attacks that could cripple the US economy, and it is up to our plucky hero and his improbably hot love interest to save the day. There are actually some pretty accurate technical points in the book, but it is mostly brain candy.

"Hounded" and "Hexed" by Kevin Hearne - These are the first two books in the Iron Druid Chronicles, which follow the adventures of a 2000 year old druid (who still looks 23) who owns an occult bookshop in modern Tempe, AZ. He gets involved in a variety of mishaps and adventures involving the local werewolves, witches, faeries, and minor deities. These books are pure brain candy, but are a lot more entertaining than they should be by any critical analysis. I enjoyed them quite a bit - exciting fantasy adventures in a unique setting, with some great characters.

January Recap

In January, I finished three books:

"A Man Called Intrepid" - this was a fascinating look at the secret war behind World War II, particularly focused on British work in the United States in the period of American neutrality. It centers on the work of Bill Stevenson, code name Intrepid, who ran the British Security Coordination activity in New York. Officially, it was unacknowledged, but in fact it was a British effort to put their secret warfare activities somewhere outside England in case Hitler invaded. They also tried to influence America to enter the war on the side of the Allies. I didn't realize the extent to which the Nazi sympathisers were involved in US politics, even at very high levels. The Brits ran an incredible spy operation right out of New York City, and also helped birth the OSS, which was a precursor to the CIA. Fascinating book, and looooooong, but worth the read.

"The Quantum Thief" - good hard science fiction. The author is a theoretical physicist, specializing in string theory, and you can tell. The narrative is convoluted, the technology is crazy, the story is fantastic. It's kinda nuts, but it's also very good. There are spies, quantum artificial intelligences, interstellar wars, and bizarre references to video game culture. Worth a read if you like the genre.

"The Hobbit" - I can't believe how long it has been since I've read this. It's not as good as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's good in its own right. We saw the movie in December, so I had to reread it to remind myself of the real story. The movie is faithful enough to the book, but actually makes the dwarves out to be more heroic than they are in the book. If you haven't read this, it should be high on your list.

Children of Húrin

I recently finished "The Children of Húrin" by J.R.R. Tolkien. This is a posthumous work completed / edited by Christopher Tolkien, and it is an extended version of one of the stories from The Silmarillion (Tolkien's prehistory of Middle Earth). The story is nce and tragic, but it is written to sound like a high epic so it sometimes reads like the genealogies in 2 Chronicles or something.

That being said, I really enjoyed this book. It took a while to plow through, but it explains some great back story from The Lord of the Rings and has great action scenes. It's probably not for everyone, but I enjoyed it. It probably won't make any sense unless you've read the Silmarillion... just a warning!

"The Magicians" and "The Magician King"

While on vacation, I read "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman. The easiest way to describe these books would be if Stephen King wrote a Chronicles of Narnia / Harry Potter mash-up. The basic premise is that there is a teenage guy graduating from high school who is obsessed with a fantastic world called Fillory (basically, Narnia). He goes to a college interview, and on the way home gets pulled into a magical college where seemingly, everything he ever dreamed about becomes true. But only kind of. In reality, all the magic is true, but it's not what he expects. It's much darker, and grittier, and much, much more dangerous than he expected.

This is basically an anti-Potter novel. It looks at what would happen if you gave a bunch of college age weirdos and outcasts phenomenal cosmic powers. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll give you a hint - it involves a lot more hedonism and ennui than Rowling could even conceive of.

There's a lot of depth to this book, and it deals with some really interesting questions about purpose, power, and responsibility. The magical universe has no "big bad guy" - so what do magicians do when they graduate from these magical universities? If you're immortal, how long can you handle it? Given phenomenal magical abilities, do you solve world hunger, or redecorate your house once a week to look like a different historical place? There's no simple answers in these books, and I think that's an interesting statement in itself.

The first book is better than the second, but they're both well worth reading. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who reads these, so speak up if you do!