Random thoughts

[madbaker]

A friend told me yesterday that I had violated one of the cardinal parenting rules – I talked about the kitten within three sentences of starting a conversation. So, here are some non-kitten ramblings...

From the Random Title Generator:

You shall henceforth be known as:

Founder of Beer For Breakfast, Mad N. Baker

Books I’ve been reading recently:

Ilium, Dan Simmons
This was far better than I expected. I like several of Simmons’ novels, notably the Hyperion books. But I generally check his new ones out of the library rather than buying them. Anyway, this is "epic science fiction melding The Iliad and elements of The Tempest"

It’s better than that makes it sound. Really. I was amazed by how thorough Simmons’ knowledge of The Iliad is – in an author note, he mentions how it was a work he read over and over as a youth. The story flows fairly well, although the disparate elements take a while to meld (three different groups: a 20^th century scholar raised from the dead by the Greek gods - who are apparently conversant with nanotech and quantum teleporting - to report on the siege of Ilium; two self-aware robots; and a group of humans, derisively referred to as the Eloi).
I enjoyed it and will happily check out the sequel (it’s a two-part story).

Lord of Castle Black, Stephen Brust
This one I expected to have fun with, and I wasn’t disappointed. Brust’s Jhereg universe meets Alexandre Dumas. Breezy, fluffy fun. Requires some knowledge of the previous books. It’s loosely based on The Vicomte de Bragelonne. I might have enjoyed it more had I read the entire Three Musketeers cycle, but Brust’s work can stand on its own.