Author: Greig

Professional Librarian from Fife who likes books and music.

blue bell?

Posted on by Greig

All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye

Christopher Brookmyre

This is one of Brookmyre’s novels where an ordinary Scot finds themself in the middle of a full out Hollywood movie situation.
It’s a blast from beginning to end and features one of the best characters that Brookmyre’s ever come up with. Jane Fleming is an East Kilbride based grandmother that feels resigned to the scrapheap of life.
Except she’s not yet 50, and there’s still a spark of the girl that was a punk in ’77. When her engineer son goes on the run for his life after he falls foul of the arms industry, that spark is fanned into flame.
Recruited by a team of mercenaries to help in locating and protecting her son, she transforms from a dowdy grandmother/housewife into an asskicking undercover operative.
Sure it’s totally unbelievable, but that’s pretty much the point.
If you’re not looking for realism but rather for a really fun read for the summer holidays then I totally recommend this book.

Rating: A

sabotage?

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JPod

Douglas Coupland

JPodSupposedly an update of the classic Microserfs for the Google generation this is instead a cynical, heartless mess of a novel.
Centred around a group of workers at a faceless games company in Vancouver, the book riffs off on the personal neuroses and bizarre acts of these people and their families.
As always Coupland’s prose is superbly readable and some of it is very funny, but the story is stupid, the characters are deeply unlikeable and he fills about a third of the book with concrete text or lists of prime numbers, digits of pi, and other pointless lists. It worked when used sparingly and within context in microserfs – in this novel it makes a slight tale seem more of a rip-off.
If you read Microserfs and wanted more or you just love Coupland’s work, then read this book, but be prepared to be disappointed. Otherwise, avoid it.

Rating: C+

bad egg?

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The Big Over Easy

Jasper Fforde

This book is a story of the Nursery
Crime Division of Reading police. DC Jack Spratt has to unravel the mysterious murder of Humpty Dumpty.
Yes, this is another one of Jasper Fforder’s comic novels. This is the first not to feature Tuesday Next, and focusses exclusively on the novel’s murder mystery rather than playing some of the meta games of his other novels. As always his jokes depend a hell of a lot on the reader’s knowledge of the books that he’s referencing or parodying.
The book is a slight, enjoyable read, that I’d recommend to anyone looking for a cheap, mildly funny summer read.

Rating: C

butt of the joke?

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Disaster

For the first time I can remember I watched practically every one of the 64 games that the World Cup had to offer. Thanks to web streaming, pvr and delayed screenings.
I didn’t go into the World Cup with all that much hope. I had France in the work sweep and it seemed kind of inevitable that Brazil would run away with the thing. The first game really brought the tournament to life, though, Germany beat Costa Rica 4 -2 and scored a couple of great goals in the process and revealed one of the stars of the tourney in Lahm. The group stages were by and large great fun. Game of the group stage for me was the 6-0 thrashing that Argentina meted out to Serbia-Montenegro. I have never seen a better example of a team performance and it was all capped off with one of the best goals ever in Cambiasso’s effort in the first half.
As things progressed to the knockout stages teams started to become very cagey and it spoiled the play. Some coaches made very stupid decisions (Pekerman of Argentina, Aragones of Spain), in compensation some players upped their ante, in particular Zinedine Zidane of France and Cannavaro of Italy.
Best game of the tournament was the Germany-Italy semi-final match. It was a game played with a superb attitude, great talent and committment.
For a match that went nearly two hours without a goal it was really exciting. Then Grosso scored with that 119th minute goal, and Del Piero followed up a minute later. It was sad that there had to be a winner, but Italy deserved it.
The final itself was rather disappointing. France got a soft penalty, cheekily converted by Zidane, Materazzi scored from a corner with the French defence posted missing. Chances were few and far between and if France had the better of the match it was by a narrow margin. Then, of course, Materazzi said something to Zidane and the Frenchman headbutted him in the chest, thereby tainting his last ever game. It was kind of sad, but it’s something that Zidane’s done before. As they say, you can take the boy out of Marseille!
Italy won on penalties and it seemed a fair enough result, and I would have felt the same if they had gone the other way.
Not a great World Cup after all, but there were enough highlights and great games to make it a memorable one. God, now we’ve got four years for the next one. You never know Scotland might even qualify! (we’ve got no chance with the Euro championships – both WC finalists and a quarter finalist and only 1st and 2nd qualify)

minifigs?

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Microserfs

Douglas Coupland

MicroserfsI last read this book in 2003.
As I said then, it’s one of my favourite books to re-read from time to time. I re-read it this time to prepare for reading his latest novel JPod, which is meant to be a more cynical take on the same world.
It’s a funny and moving tale of a bunch of tech workers who leave behind the tech monoculture of Microsoft to work in a start up in Silicon Valley.
It contains a lot of very interesting and some valid ideas about geek life. It’s a pity that as technology has raced ahead it’s made a lot of the tech observations obsolete.
I still recommend this book and especially to anyone who works in IT or similar geek workplace.

Rating: A

homunculi?

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Under Old Earth and Other Explorations

Cordwainer Smith

Under Old Earth and Other ExplorationsThis collection, as with the majority of Cordwainer Smith’s work, is set among the worlds of the Instrumentality – his vision of far future humanity. Smith was primarily a short story writer – only writing one novel – and this book contains some of his finest work.
For much of this collection I found it a chore to finish the stories.
Smith had some fantastic ideas, with some very astute insights into the future of humanity, the milieu is superbly realised with every nuance thought through, but his writing can be as dry and unexciting as cold toast.
(As an aside Smith’s real name was Paul Linebarger, and he was a professor of Asiatic Studies and an expert on psychological warfare. I suppose I could blame his writing style on this background, but I’m clueless when it comes to literary theory)
Highlight for me would be the story of the deposed ruler, who instead of coming back to his kingdom with an army, sneaks in and saves his people by subtly altering the mind of the dictator who replaced him.
This is worth a quick read if you have a keen interest in the past giants of science fiction, or if you are particularly keen on short
story collections. It really wasn?t my kind of thing.

Rating: C+

goooooooool?

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Futebol

Alex Bellos

futebolFabulous history of Brazilian football and an examination of Brazil through it’s relationship with football.
Everyone knows about Brazil’s national team and the skillful game they personify, but I’ve never known much about the history of football in Brazil – even though I’ve always wondered how they got to be so good.
This book is a fascinating introduction to the way football became the Brazilian obsession and so tightly bound up with national identity and pride.
By looking not only at their World Cup teams and players (fascinating chapter about Garrincha by the way), but at club football, grassroots football, the Brazilian ‘mystique’ and how politics and religion all tie in together to create potent mix in this giant country.
It was mind blowing to realize that the most supported club in Brazil, Flamengo, has a support somewhere in the region of five times the population of Scotland.
If you’ve ever wanted to know more about Brazil or Brazilian football I would highly recommend this book.

Rating: A

belles?

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Bluebells
Bluebells
More photos by treefell .

It’s not often that you discover a part of your hometown that you didn’t even know existed. On Tuesday, while walking with Mum and Sammy (her dog), we went along a series of paths in the woods in Beveridge Park. I genuinely didn’t have a clue that these were in the park. I’ve always confined myself to the bits around the boating pond, pitches and formal garden.
So many more photo opportunities in the woods – check some of the pictures I took in my flickr account via the link above.
Oh and thanks to Theo for dealing with the dreaded paypal so I could get a pro account. Cheers man!

puzzle box?

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Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Alastair Reynolds

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise DaysThis book is made up of the novellas that comprise the title. Both take place within the Revelation Space universe and shed light on various aspects of Reynolds’ creation that aren’t discussed elsewhere.
Diamond Dogs is about a group of adventurers who attempt to solve the puzzle of an alien artifact known as the Blood Spire. Nothing new here, in fact many of it’s ideas are cribs from other better realized works.
Turquoise Days is the more interesting of the two pieces, but still nothing remarkable. This one is set on an isolationist Pattern Juggler planet and follows a researcher called Naqi as she deals with the legacy of the Jugglers and the implications of the arrival of off planet visitors. It’s too short to deliver on it’s promise.
I’d only recommend this to someone who has become hooked on Reynolds’ universe and wants to know more. Outside of that context these are pretty forgettable little pieces

Rating: C

clown assassin?

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Iron Sunrise

Charles Stross

Iron Sunrise is the sequel to Singularity Sky . This is a significant improvement over that work.
The main plot revolves around young girl known as Wednesday who uncovers proof of a plot by a group called the ReMastered that resulted in the destruction of New Moscow, a relatively low tech planetary system. As the ReMastered set events in motion to cover their tracks, Wednesday goes on the run. Rachel Mansour and Martin Springfield (from Singularity Sky) appear in another plot thread – New Moscow?s revenge against the (wrongly) suspected New Dresden government was to send slower-than-light
weaponry to destroy the planet. These ships can be recalled, or set on an irrevocable course by the remaining Muscovite Ambassadors – except they are being assassinated one by one and their authority keys taken.
Wednesday ends up on a cruise ship and in the company of Frank Johnson, a warblogger with reason to hate the ReMastered. Gradually these plots are drawn together with the realization that the cruise ship has been in port at every location that a Muscovite ambassador has been killed and Mansour & Springfield board the ship to investigate.
This is a well written and well plotted book. I really enjoyed it.
I’d recommend it to anyone would likes their science fiction.

Rating: A