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Originally parceled out as a serial, this pulp novel has many cliffhangers - including the book itself. Many indicate this is really the first book of a trilogy, with eight more sequels after those.

Despite gaping plot holes, the story works. It rushes at times, dispatching whole armies in a few short pages. It was written during Taft administration, more than 100 years ago, and originated many of today's standard tropes.

The introduction has Burroughs finding this story and publishing it, framing as a story within a story and providing a convenient excuse for any poor writing. This framing device was used by Verne as well, to better effect - his narrator wasn't the main character. John Carter comes across as a braggart, and it is painful to read his descriptions of his actions. I wonder if anyone has analyzed this in light of Carter being an unreliable source?

It is a classic work with many flaws, and I liked it. I plan to rate the first three as a trilogy separate from the individual books, but by itself this novel is a solid 3 stars.

Groundbreaking in a number of ways, this was the first published book of fan fiction for Star Trek. Published in March of 1976, the two earlier original novels were some six years previous, and this also showed that there was a market for Star Trek fiction. I first read this not long after it was published, checking it out from the Spokane Valley library.

One of the best aspects of these stories was the introduction to each by a cast member. Some of these tales have stuck with me over the years, such as The Enchanted Pool and Ni-Var. Others were not great in my first reading, and haven't gotten any better.

This was probably my introduction to fanfic. No stores in my area carried the many Star Trek fanzines that these stories originally came from: Tricorder Readings, T-Negative, Spockanalia, and others. What I didn't realize at the time was that all of these stories were written by women authors, and the editors of the collection were also women.

What I also didn't know was the controversy and editing the stories received. Two authors in particular were very unhappy with these edits. Younger me didn't have the internet to search, and fanlore.org has been particularly helpful in pointing me to more information about this and the second volume in the series. It was worth reading these again with the expanded information, but I won't be pulling this particular tattered paperback off my shelf again, except to loan it to someone. Interested?

Post apocalyptic title with young adult main characters, this is one of Wyndham's better novels. Specific topics on religion, eugenics, and whether the end justifies the means would be great talking points for this fairly short novel.

Showing these topics from young adult eyes allows questioning, something the adults of the small community are past being able to do. We can see the point of reducing mutation by not allowing them to breed, but when taken to a religious mania ("in the image of god") we can also see the problems. The main characters have some sort of telepathy, a non-visible mutation that nevertheless scares the heck out of the community, once they find out.

Some aspects of the ending were abrupt. The sexism of the 50s and the sexism of the ultra-religious are in this indistinguishable, and many of the female characters are very strong. I found this better than the Midwich Cuckoos, but not as good as The Day of The Triffids. Other reviewers reverse these. That said, I still look forward to reading more from this author.

Kicking off the year with Steinbeck, a novel set in California and dealing with unfair work practices by corrupt owners. The author described it this way - "I have used a small strike in an orchard valley as the symbol of man's eternal, bitter warfare with himself."

Three orchard owners working together cut the rates they pay their migrant apple pickers. They are backed up by corrupt government and vigilantes, and it is the latter that leads to the best quote from this novel. When describing the vigilantes, the main character says:

"Why, they're the dirtiest guys in any town. They're the same ones that burned the houses of old German people during the war. They're the same ones that lynch Negroes. They like to be cruel. They like to hurt people, and they always give it a nice name, patriotism or protecting the constitution. ... The owners use 'em, tell 'em we have to protect the people against reds. Y'see that lets 'em burn houses and torture and beat people with no danger. And that's all they want to do, anyway. They've got no guts; they'll only shoot from cover, or gang a man when they're ten to one. I guess they're about the worst scum in the world."

Clearly these "proud" vigilantes haven't changed much since 1936.

The story is mostly portrayed through the dialog of the characters, especially Doc Burton, whose more humanist point of view provides an excellent counterpoint to the main characters. Unfortunately the women in the story are all weakly written, mostly cooking and cowering. Steinbeck would improve on that some in future years.

This was a pretty good book, a great way to kick off 2022. It appeared on then-candidate Barack Obama's list of favorite books. James Franco made this into a film, which I haven't seen.

Purchased the first printing of this book in 2004, and 17 years later the revisions keep getting better. It helps that this is my preferred way to play old school dungeons & dragons style games. This version also has a classic cover homage to the original AD&D.

Probably plenty of other sites will list what is updates; my favorite parts are the extended character classes (to level 24), the gorgeous color art and the aforementioned cover. The game system and rules are basically unchanged - and that's a good thing.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 edition was released at about the same time Castles & Crusades was released in a boxed set. While 3.5 improved on 3rd edition (and D20), there was a significant demand at that time for "old school" rules, a return to the 1st edition Advanced D&D. This game (and this book) scratched that itch in the perfect way for me.

First and foremost, the game was very compatible with 1st edition - a system I'd invested in since the early 1980s. This allowed me to reuse adventures and ideas my friends and I had come up with, and many of TSR's classic adventures as well. Dungeon magazine, third party adventures like Judges Guild and Role Aids were all simple to drop into this system.

Where TSR missed out, this game improved. Wizards of the Coast introduced a simpler system for rolling and calculating, all addition. This is head and shoulders over the subtraction and chart lookups required for AD&D. Castles and Crusades used these mechanics from 3rd edition (and D20) to make the game simpler to play and teach.

C&C was also ahead of the curve. D&D 3rd edition used a simpler save system, which wasn't necessarily better. The SIEGE engine of Castles & Crusades combined the original AD&D saving throws with stat checks - and Wizards of the Coast would use this mechanic in 5th edition D&D.

Enough about the system - back to the book. In the original AD&D, much of the material was missing - either in the Dungeon Master's Guide in the form of look-up charts and references, or published later in Dragon Magazine or supplemental books like Unearthed Arcana. The C&C Players Handbook contains nearly everything needed to play - in fact, this game's version of the DMG came out much later. The rules, the game mechanics, and play tips are all here. The first few printings had some complaints and errata, but these are all corrected by this 8th printing.

Perhaps the best section of the book is "The Castle Keeper and the Game". This tips section could easily have been published in external form (see Sly Flourish and others). It describes working with the players, having fun with the game, and the reasons behind the SIEGE engine. This isn't "secret, DM-only" information - it is valuable to all players, but it is especially valuable to those who step up to adjudicate the game for their friends.

This book, and this book alone, is more than enough to play Castles & Crusades. For the Castle Keeper, the book Monsters and Treasure will provide information on both the players opponents and the rewards every character dreams about. Troll Lord has published several excellent adventures for this game system, and any of the classic AD&D challenges will also fit the bill. Highly recommended!

The authors pair off on 10 topics likely to be relevant in the next 20 years - one writing fiction, one writing commentary. Short version - the commentary was good, the fiction was lacking.

The topics are interesting, and I like the idea of pairing sci-fi with non-fiction. [b:The Fountains of Paradise|149049|The Fountains of Paradise|Arthur C. Clarke|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344265959l/149049.SY75.jpg|734510] this isn't. That said, the snippets were usually enough to demonstrate the topic. Here follows my other quibble.

AI, Artificial Intelligence, is not just Machine Learning. It also isn't quantum computing. Both of these things could eventually lead to what I think of as AI. Title aside, I thought the topics were quite good - autonomous vehicles, natural language processing, computer vision, virtual and augmented reality, and job displacement. Both the story and commentary in the chapter on quantum computing were well done. Overall rating, 3 stars - I liked the book, but it didn't blow me away.

Read this cover to cover on Thanksgiving day, it is an engaging and fun read. The setting is well thought out, from hardware to politics to people. The main character is a bit unbelievable and she has generated many negative reviews from women.

Jasmine (Jazz) is a wise cracking creative thinker, and does sound like Mark Watney in a skirt at times. She smuggles minor items to the moon, and is otherwise the prototypical honest criminal. The core of the plot is an offer to do a large heist which goes spectacularly wrong. In a creative finish, she gathers everybody together (ala Scooby Doo) for one more madcap plan to set things right.

I loved the heist elements and the setting, and while the other characters were well written, Jazz was not the best. Where Watney felt right, Jazz feels over the top. Still, as a sophomore effort, this is a heck of a lot better than [b:Armada|16278318|Armada|Ernest Cline|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1377284428l/16278318.SY75.jpg|22378124]. 3½ stars.

2021 reread (as an audio book) - caught a few nods to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress that I missed earlier, and Rosario Dawson isn't hard on the ears. The failed plans had more science in them than I remembered also - making Jazz a bit too much of an engineer.

A history of codes and ciphers in context, with explanations and visuals. The only minor drawback is that it is 20 years old, and half of the "future speculations" are now commonplace - and less fully explained. Would happily read an update :)

Very accessible, and pushes the deeper math into the extensive appendices. The supporting materials are also excellent. The author published a series of codes in the book with a reward for breaking them, claimed a little more than a year after publication. Nice gimmick, but he also mentions others who have done the same (e.g. Martin Gardner). I would nominate this as THE reference book about codes if it were updated.

I somehow missed this book in the past, but after reading Singh's book on numbers in the Simpsons, I added this to my reading list - where it languished for more than six years. Do yourself a favor and don't wait that long. 4.5 stars.

Written 25 years after the first book, the characters are the extended family of the first book's characters. As in the other books, I liked the characters from Scottish and Celtic history also.

The villain here is development and greed - building a golf course and complex and in stage two tearing down the family castle to replace it with a castle hotel and resort. The personification of this greed is Mr Trout, whose mannerisms and giant "T" logo are clearly meant to remind us of another greedy mogul.

I enjoyed the history and characters, but the plot was a little thin. Reacting against the villain only goes so far. The closing chapter wraps things up a bit too neatly. Still, this was a fairly quick read (just over two hours, much of it on a plane). I'd like to look into something else by the author - her young adult The Dark is Rising series is pretty highly rated.

This recent release has a lot of history, some technical details, and mini-bios of a HUGE cast of characters. Taken from interviews with some of them, this is a prettier version of history.txt - and not exactly fun to read.

The author acknowledges this in the introduction, and other reviewers seem to have given him a pass on that, rating the book 4 of 5 stars. I can't help but rate it as a book, where it falls short. It's not a good history (though it contains a lot of historical information) and it's not a good technical book (too technical for a lot of the audience, probably not specific enough for the rest). Yes, the author recognized that in the intro as well, saying he tried to make it accessible. My feet are firmly planted in the tech industry, which is why I read it - but this is far from accessible to non-coders.

Why not 1 star? It does contain some great history and some wry observations of the team and the work. Could be a good source for another book surveying the industry or the market. Wouldn't recommend reading it cover to cover, though.