Books.

Yes, it's been six months since my last book note. Yes, I read quite a lot in between. No, I'm not going to cover the backlog. I may not even cover everything I read in future.

I set out to write something about every book that I read in 2006. I did so, barring some rereads when I was bored. All of those posts have a subject line including "Books", and they are all unlocked.

End meta.

_The Execution Channel_, Ken MacLeod.

I like Ken's work a lot. So much so that I got him to autograph a copy of _The Cassini Division_ and that's significant because I hate fanboying. What are you going to say in a brief meeting that hasn't been repeated a dozen times before? I vastly prefer the literary tea / literary beer notion that has been increasingly popular at cons: actually sitting down with an author and a few other fans for a decent chunk of time feels worthwhile.

_TEC_ is largely an espionage, spy-vs-spy, propaganda and disinformation war book. It's an alternate history set in the near futre, and the point of departure appears to be relatively recent -- around 1999 or so. The plotlines are all focused on disinformation battles of various kinds, and this makes every detail important. Luckily, the book is short enough to let the astute reader keep everything in their head. I shudder to think what kind of concordance would be necessary if Neal Stephenson decided to write something like this. Imagine _The System of The World_ but with every character blithely telling lies about their histories and intentions...

Good storytelling in an unpleasant world.

Books.

Yes, it's been six months since my last book note. Yes, I read quite a lot in between. No, I'm not going to cover the backlog. I may not even cover everything I read in future.

I set out to write something about every book that I read in 2006. I did so, barring some rereads when I was bored. All of those posts have a subject line including "Books", and they are all unlocked.

End meta.

_The Execution Channel_, Ken MacLeod.

I like Ken's work a lot. So much so that I got him to autograph a copy of _The Cassini Division_ and that's significant because I hate fanboying. What are you going to say in a brief meeting that hasn't been repeated a dozen times before? I vastly prefer the literary tea / literary beer notion that has been increasingly popular at cons: actually sitting down with an author and a few other fans for a decent chunk of time feels worthwhile.

_TEC_ is largely an espionage, spy-vs-spy, propaganda and disinformation war book. It's an alternate history set in the near futre, and the point of departure appears to be relatively recent -- around 1999 or so. The plotlines are all focused on disinformation battles of various kinds, and this makes every detail important. Luckily, the book is short enough to let the astute reader keep everything in their head. I shudder to think what kind of concordance would be necessary if Neal Stephenson decided to write something like this. Imagine _The System of The World_ but with every character blithely telling lies about their histories and intentions...

Good storytelling in an unpleasant world.