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Category Archive for 'books'

From blog to book

Bought my first ever book written by an author (or a duo of them, in this case, apparently).
Pasa and Atpo, the comprehensively pissed-off guys behind Eniten Vituttaa Kaikki have put together 240-ish pages on things that are Just Wrong and righteously anger the decent folks.
At less than ten euros the book […]

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Nanoreview: Dungeons & Desktops

Got Matt Barton’s definitive history on computer role-playing games the other day, and have been quite impressed by it on a couple of momentary glances. Apart from the screenshots that are darker and murkier than expected in a properly published book.
A proper review will follow, once I’ve progressed through the different ages […]

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Music2.0 - yet another free book. No idea whether it’s any good, but I’ll give it a shot this weekend, never mind the oh so trendy name.

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Nanoreviews

Kansainvälisen Seikkailijan Opas, the Madventures-guys’ travel book: Short on destination details, long on quality writing.
Tropicana Red Berries: No mango, interesting taste, deep purple colour.
Halo 3: Too many chapters with Flood, will go back for the vehicle scenes.
Blink, off the third season of Doctor Who: Probably the best televised science fiction in […]

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Educating Lavonardo

Been reading an interesting book, a page a day for the last fifteen weeks or so. Know-it-all Book tackles various fields of study with a cliff’s notes version of a topic for each day. I’m pretty sure that in a year (the book has 365 pages) I can namedrop philosophers and discuss rococo […]

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Pushing beyond the norm

Seems that I’m not the only one who’s miffed at the science fiction not daring to think big enough.
And yeah, being a card-carrying member of Stross’ fanboy squad, Halting State is definitely on the shopping list already. And considering that the NYT article was the second recommendation for Bacigalupi’s Pump Six in […]

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We’ll always have Paris (and Paris)

I seem to have ended up with TWO copies of Mondo’s Paris guidebook. Haven’t paid for either, so it would be only fair to pass on the book.
So the first one to comment this with “Me!” or to send equivalent e-mail gets the book. To be picked up in person or […]

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Significant upgrade

Matt Barton started his history of computer roleplaying games in GameSetWatch, bartered it to Gamasutra to expand the readership, and has now expanded the subject into a 450 page book.
Dungeons & Desktops just went on top of my Amazon stack, and based on what I’ve seen on the web, will be good reading. […]

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R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke

With the death of Arthur C. Clarke today, the trio of Grand Old Men of science fiction is now gone.
ACC was my favorite of the bunch, Asimov’s output was too uneven for my liking, and I never understood why people ranked Heinlein so high.
But then again, to each his own, Clarke […]

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Woo, compared to Matt Webb’s inspired take on fictional solar systems, the presentations in the Ignite:Helsinki session do seem a bit boring.

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1000 fans = enough

Kevin Kelly argues that a thousand fans are enough to support an artist. Where the definition of a fan more or less is determined by his willingness to spend one day’s wages annually on something the artist supplies.
If that’s the criteria, then there aren’t many causes I can consider myself a fan […]

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Saw an odd tagline for a new book recently:

PIHLAJANORSU - Ilmiö, jonka nähtyään on syytä viettää päihteetön loppuelämä.

Didn’t think much of it, apart from being reduced close to hysterics in public places several times while puzzling over the nearly flawless composition of the sentence.
Certainly didn’t think that such a creature (rowan […]

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Strossed up

After the disappointing-ish Glasshouse I was wondering whether Charles Stross had over-extended himself with a very ambitious publication schedule. While the premise is intriguing, the pacing is off. The book feels padded, this reverse take of the Stepford Wives could easily have been told in with a much smaller page count.
The […]

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From blog to book * 2

Two blogs I’ve been a fan since encountering them are about to transform themselves into books.
Strangemaps has published close to 250 weird maps during its one and a half years of existence. Only an initial announcement of the blog to be has been published thus far, with no mention of a date. […]

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And the winners are: American Gods

A week did not change things much in the “which Gaiman novel will be released for free”-vote, as the official results are now available, American Gods was the one selected by vox populi.
And like I said a week ago, and the author actually agrees, American Gods is not a particularly good selection. […]

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Scifibooks-meme

The amount of memetics in this blog has significantly decreased since the untimely end of the weekly fiver.
Here’s a literary meme picked up at random (originally from Eating Muffins in an Agitated Manner).
Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror?
Science Fiction. But I’m not averse to good fantasy or horror either.
Hardback or Trade Paperback […]

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Free in a week

In the continuing series of expositions of free stuff related to speculative fiction, Neil Gaiman has been greenlit to publish one of his novels online, absolutely free. The selection is by popular vote - and surprisingly enough American Gods has a hefty margin right now, my preference would be towards small chunks of prose, […]

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Well, I’m willing to take the 99% odds that Guillermo de Toro will direct the two movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Hobbit. Oddly, the official blog has stayed silent since it was opened in mid-december.

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Rampant fanboyism alert

Woo. On the double.
George R.R. Martin will be Finncon 2009 (Helsinki, 10-12.7.) Guest of Honor!
As will Alastair Reynolds.
Hopefully the former will have published A Dance With Dragons by then. And should the book actually emerge this year, a finnish translation would not be an impossible target for the con. […]

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Elementary, my dear Azathoth

The week seems to be packed with science fictional freebies (information again courtesy of boingboing).
This time the loot is in audio form - as Neil Gaiman reads his genre-hopping short story A Study in Emerald. It is available in mysterious eAudio and fortunately MP3 format as well.

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