Planet London.pm

I recently acquired a Dell Mini 9 laptop and turned it into a Hackintosh using these instructions from Gizmodo.

The install was relatively smooth. Not 100% — I had to go through it twice in the end — but not bad. Here is the result: my hackintosh posing with my work laptop, a 15″ Macbook Pro.

I’m currently working on installing all the software I need to feel at home, and getting used to the damn apostrophe key being nowhere near where I expect it to be. The keyboard size, in and of itself, is fine, but the placement of some of the punctuation keys is driving me a little bit mad.

Here are my additional notes:

I used the USB stick install, no DVD drive. Where Gizmodo says Choose “80″ for the primary internal SSD I had to type “81″ instead.

When I upgraded using System Update, it took me to OSX 10.5.7, and then the DellEFI installer didn’t work properly, and I got into an unrecoverable (to me) state of wedgitude: the machine would boot to the grey apple logo, then it would get all these weird video artifacts, and hang. I had to start over on account of this. Second time through, I carefully downloaded the 10.5.6 combo update from Apple and installed that instead. Worked fine.

Wake from sleep wasn’t working. Googling around, stevenf’s hackintosh notes told me I had to disable “Legacy USB support” in the BIOS to make it wake from sleep correctly. I did this and it worked fine. However, I gather that “hibernate” doesn’t really work, so I’m going to have to be careful about not leaving things unsaved when I put the laptop to sleep for a long time.

I’m not very impressed with the battery life, but I hear 10.5.7 improves matters. I’m not going to try it right now — I’m off for a short trip tonight and don’t want to get the laptop wedged again — but I might try next week.

Another thing I’d like to figure out is whether I can manage dual boot with Ubuntu. I might find myself a bit tight on disk space, but I have the 32GB SSD and I’m sure it’ll fit, even if it does cut into my space for music and videos. If I start running out of room, I can always expand with an SD card.

Hackintoshing is, of course, in contravention of Apple’s Software License Agreement. All I have to say to that is: if Apple had a tiny, lightweight netbook available, I would be first in line to buy one. I say this as the owner of a Macbook (my third, counting work laptops), a Mac Mini, an iPhone, and a certain amount of fully licensed Apple software.

Posted by Skud on Tech, dell mini 9, hackintosh at Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:04 -0000 | Permalink

At work we both build our own packages and use puppet to manage our servers. While the developers package up their work in the systems team we've moved more to deploying programs and their dependencies via Puppet.

While it seems easier, and quicker, to do the pushing that way, at least for scripts, you lose the ability to track what's responsible for putting each file on the system. I'm probably already modelling the more complex parts of what would be in a package (such as services and cronjobs) in the module and thanks to Puppet I'm probably doing it in quite a portable way. Is this actually better than using packages? It's certainly easier than building complex packages but it quickly gets awkward when you start needing to deploy compiled binaries or apps with lots of moving parts.

For now my rule seems to be - use puppet for small, non-compiled, apps and package up anything with lots of dependencies or that needs to be compiled. How do you deploy your infrastructure scripts and supporting artifacts?

Posted by Dean Wilson on /sysadmin at Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:12:00 -0000 | Permalink

Organizing a conference is hard, let's go shopping! For the first time I'm officially helping, not just for the Italian Perl Workshop this year, but possibly for YAPC::EU::2010 too. I've been working with the perl.it guys on the proposal to host the European Perl Conference 2010 in Pisa.

We submitted the bid on Monday, and it's just been announced that the teams competing are: Pisa (us) and Kiev in Ukraine. Wow! YEF have actually published both our bids on that link, which is fantastic for transparency.

It also means that we can read their bid... and it's a good one! Looks like we've got some competition. Of course our Pisa bid is excellent too - in any case, the next couple of weeks till we find out who won are going to be a nailbiting time!

Posted by osfameron on perl, .it, .ua, yapceu at Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:56:33 -0000 | Permalink

Over the last week I've been up in Birmingham catching up with some old friends and attending some talks at the little get together of around 450 Pythonistas that was EuroPython 2009.

This was my second Python conference. The first was PyCon 2008, which was so well organised (by many of the same team as this years EuroPython) that I was inspired to come back. And I wasn't disappointed. There were a lot of very good talks, some that have planted seeds that I'll have to come back and try to find the time to look at and some that showed me things I plan on using in the very near future (such as py.test).

The atmosphere was topnotch. Everyone seemed friendly, the speakers were approachable and after spending the evening with so many people working on so many things it was a pleasure to get back to the room and make sure I actually did something technical before bed.

It's a wonderful feeling to come away from a conference feeling motivated to try new technologies and all I need to do now is actually schedule some time actually write some Python code...

The organisers did a great job and I'll be back next year.

Posted by Dean Wilson on /events at Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:13:00 -0000 | Permalink

When it comes to Unix diagnostics I was raised the old fashion way, with iostat, vmstat and similar tools. However times change and tools evolve. dstat, while not as comprehensive as using all the tools one by one, provides a wide range of system performance details in an easy to use package.

While it's useful enough in its default state there is even more functionality lurking just below the surface. To see which other modules are available (but are not enabled by default) run dstat -M list. To add an extra module to the output use a command like this one: dstat -a -M topmem -M topcpu

As part of my growing use of the tool I've started to write my own little dstat plugins. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy they were to write and deploy even with my basic python skills. While the memcached plugin was a proof of concept I've not needed much I've found the process count plugin to be very handy.

dstat is becoming one of the overview tools I use when investigating performance issues and it's worthy of a place in your toolbox too.

Posted by Dean Wilson on /tools/commandline at Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:32:00 -0000 | Permalink

A subroutine-threaded core stores each opcode as a separate C-level function. Each op in sequence is called and then the op returns back to the runcore. This is two branch instructions to dispatch each op, compared to only one for a direct-threaded core. However, recent benchmarks I have seen in Parrot show that the subroutine core actually performs faster then the direct-threaded core does. This is because modern microprocessors have lots of hardware dedicated to predicting and optimizing control flow in call/return situations, because that is one of the most common idioms in modern software. This is a nonintuitive situation where more machine code instructions actually execute faster then fewer instructions. Parrot's default "slow" core ("-R slow") and the so-called "fast" core ("-R fast") use this technique (actually, these cores aren't exactly "subroutine-threaded", but it's close). From the numbers I have seen, the fast core is the fastest in Parrot. Here's how it works, basically:

for (pc = program_start; pc < program_end; pc++) {
    functable[*pc](interp, args);
}

http://wknight8111.blogspot.com/2009/06/understanding-opcode-dispatch.html

Reminds me a lot of

while ((PL_op = CALL_FPTR(PL_op->op_ppaddr)(aTHX))) {
    PERL_ASYNC_CHECK();
}

http://perl5.git.perl.org/perl.git/blob/HEAD:/run.c#l40

What goes around, comes around. Although Whiteknight's blog gives a lot of useful detail on why it's come around again, and why it was different in the middle.

Posted by nicholas on journal at Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:19:48 -0000 | Permalink

On Saturday I was at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park. It's a pretty good idea to have a three-day festival in London over the same period as the Glastonbury festival as it's easy for the acts to play both festivals over the weekend and those of us whose camping days are long behind us get to enjoy some of the Glastonbury bands and sleep in a comfortable bed.

My main reason for going was to see Neil Young, but there were a number of other acts (across three stages) to see first.

We arrived just as the first act started on the main stage. They were called The Original Sinners and my friend said he was interested to see them. It turns out that there must be more than one band of that name as these really weren't the band he was expected. They were pretty dreadful all in all. They were followed by Rudy Vaughn who had apparently won a competition in the US to come over and play at the festival. They were even worse. And instantly forgettable (I just had to look up their name). The only thing I can remember about them was that they finished with a cover of Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

By now I was desperate for some decent music. The next band on were The Pretenders and they didn't disappoint. To be honest I was surprised that they were still going. Haven't most of them died? But Chrissy Hynde still has it and their set was head and shoulders above what had gone before. They were followed by Seasick Steve. I've seen him on TV a few times and I've never really understood what the fuss is all about. But live, it's a completely different story. He was brilliant. It's just him and a drummer, but they had the huge festival audience hanging on every note.

The next act on was Ben Harper with his new band. I'd never heard of him and nothing I'd read about him filled me with any enthusiasm so I took the opportunity to explore the other stages. I didn't get very far as on the first stage I walked past I came across Alessi's Ark. I was completely entranced by their modern folky tunes and I sat and listened to all of their short set. After that I wandered back to the main stage where I was unfortunate enough to catch the end of Ben Harper's set. Which really wasn't very good.

The sun had be shining all afternoon, but as Harper left the stage it was becoming obvious that a storm was on the way. And sure enough, within fifteen minutes we were all rather wet. There was even some thunder and lightning.

The next band on were the Fleet Foxes. It was still raining when they came on, but it stopped soon afterwards. I love their music, but I'm afraid the rain rather dampened my enthusiasm. When they were playing and singing it was fabulous. But they take their music all very seriously and that means that inbetween songs there is interminable retuning of instruments which rather destroys the atmosphere. I'd love to see them again in a more appropriate venue. It sounds like I didn't enjoy them, but I should point out that even after two hours of Neil Young, it was still Fleet Foxes tunes that were stuck in my head on the way home.

Some time later Neil Young took the stage. I've been a Neil Young fan for years (we all had copies of "After The Goldrush" when I was a teenager) and I'm appalled that I've never seen him before. It's not like he rarely tours or anything.

Young opened with "Hey Hey, My My" (or perhaps it was "My My, Hey Hey" - I get those two confused) and the next couple of hours is a joyful blur of music and feedback. He played pretty much everything I wanted to hear (the full setlist is online). Oh, ok, there were a couple of things missing, but with a back catalogue the size of Young's you'd need to play all day to fit everything in. In amongst the grunge and feedback he found time for a more folky section where he played things like "Heart of Gold" and "The Needle and the Damage Done". If I have one tiny criticism, it's that if he learned to finish his songs a bit sooner he could fit in twice as many. For example, he finished with "Rockin' in the Free World" which had at least four false endings.

The encore was the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". I understand he's be playing that a lot on this tour. But when he got to "Woke up, fell out of bed..." Paul McCartney joined him on stage. I can't really see Paul McCartney and Neil Young as a double act so it all seemed a bit strange to me. I suppose I can say that I've now seen McCartney live. And I won't have to go to one of his (increasing rare and, I expect, overpriced) gigs.

This has to be one of the best gigs I've ever seen (and I said that after seeing Magazine earlier this year too - been a good year for gigs so far). I think this was the last night of the tour. But he'll be back. And if you get the chance to see him play, I strongly recommend that you take it.

Posted by Dave Cross on music, alessis ark, fleet foxes, hard rock calling, hyde park, neil young, pretenders at Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:35:16 -0000 | Permalink

This week's featured article is Harp, WC2N 4HS, a Good Beer Guide pub near Charing Cross Station and the National Portrait Gallery, in Covent Garden.

Previously owned by Punch Taverns, it recently became a free house when the landlady bought the freehold.

Posted by Kake on trafalgar square, wc2, real ale, covent garden, featured article, good beer guide, pubs at Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:01:12 -0000 | Permalink

Last weekend I went to Finchcocks musical museum with my parents. It was dead good. They have all kinds of weird (and not so weird) keyboard instruments, which visitors are encouraged to play with. I perpetrated photography.

Posted by david | Permalink

Gentlemen and Ladies of Discriminating Taste may care to peruse the Musical Delights available for your delectation here.

Three quarters of an hour of music written by:

• Mister George Frederick Handel
• Herr Johann Sebastian Bach
• Herr Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
• Monsieur Charles-Camille Saint-Saens
• Pan Antonin Dvorak
• Sir Edward Elgar
• and Mister Ralph Vaughan Williams

performed by divers Musicians with miscellaneous Silly Hairstyles.

If you use a Mac, then read either of these pages to get it to work properly. Playlists like this are just about the only thing that the Blessèd Steve got wrong.

Posted by david | Permalink

ONLINE RETAILER BEING ANNOYING STOP CANCELLED ORDER STOP WENT TO BRIGHTON STOP BOUGHT DOUBLE BASS IN SHOP STOP DELIVERY ON FRIDAY STOP WILL PERPETRATE FUNK STOP

Posted by david | Permalink

Hurrah! Someone out there is paying attention to my book reviews and bought four Strossisms. And what's more, they followed my links to that nice Mr. Amazon's website to do so, thus earning me a commission. Now, what's stopping the rest of you?

Posted by david | Permalink

I no longer work for BUPA / Outcome Technologies, having been made redundant. But no commiserating please! It's great, it's the kick up the arse I needed to actually go and look for other work, because while the last year or so there had been rather boring with not much work to do, actually looking for work is Hard Work and involves talking to recruiters and other annoying flesh-things, and I put it off and put it off so often. Being told that my job was "at risk" of redundancy, and with plenty of notice that it would happen, prompted me to look around for something more interesting.

I got two offers, and accepted the one I got from the BBC, despite them offering less cash. I start there on the 24th of June, as a software geek working on iPlayer. This is my second stint with Auntie, my first being with Internet Services before they got into borged BBC Technology and then sold to Siemens.

And just like last time, the contract contained a "we own everything copyrightable that you produce, including letters to your granny" clause. And just like last time, I crossed it out before returning it to the HR department. I know that in practice they wouldn't be evil and claim to own my personal letters, or indeed to own any photographs I take or magazine articles I write in my own time while employed by them, but there's a principle at stake. If we're going to do business with a contract instead of a gentlemanly handshake, the contract should be made to reflect good practice and gentlemanly dealings.

Posted by david | Permalink

Awww, poor little Fuhrer, did the bad man throw an egg at you?

There there, stop crying, run to mummy and she'll kiss it better.

Posted by david | Permalink

Some of these reviews can also be found on Amazon.

In May 2009, I read the following books:

1. Lord of Misrule: the autobiography of Christopher Lee

There's not much to say about this, other than that it's a very accessible book, and a delight to read, unlike most autobiographies. Lee tells the tale of his life simply and with a gentle wit. Perhaps my only little complaint is that this is an expanded version of an earlier edition of his autobiography (previously sold as Tall, Dark and Gruesome) and the new material, largely concerning his roles as Count Dooku in Star Wars and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings lack warmth, appearing to be more like a third-party account of what happened, than a first-person view.

2. The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter

This is rightly hailed as a classic, being one of the clearest accounts of day-to-day Roman life for those outside the nobility and political and military elite during the Empire. And of course it is a fine example of political satire, with many subtle and not-so-subtle digs at public figures and writers of the era. All of this makes it a great academic read. And as such, I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, it's a lousy novel. That's not the author's fault, but is simply because large chunks of the text have been lost over the last 1900 years so there are jarring gaps. While we can, to a limited extent, reconstruct parts of it, all that tells us is what the broad arc of the story might have been. It does not restore the text. You could cut chunks out of any good story, and then largely rebuild the tale, but if you were to read it with those chunks missing (which is the case with my copy of the Satyricon, which lacks even the briefest of inline notes about the missing sections) it would still not be a good read. It's almost a pity that the practice of translators/editors filling in the blanks themselves, making them up out of whole cloth, hasn't taken off, at least for mass-market paperbacks. But then, I suppose, there isn't a mass-market because it's not about some ghastly footballer or pig-faced slag from Essex.

One only for those with an academic interest in the era.

3. The Family Trade, by Charles Stross

The cover of my copy says it's a fantasy, despite the crucial points all stemming from technological differences between worlds, demonstrating once again that there's no real difference between sci-fi and fantasy. Those differences, and restricted travel between worlds, lead to what I'm sure will be an excellent story in a well-developed universe with sympathetic fleshed-out characters. But it is let down by two things. First, the plots and schemes within plots and schemes are terribly opaque. Second, they're not made clearer by the book stopping so abruptly without a firm conclusion. This seems to be an editorial decision - apparently The Family Trade and its sequel "The Hidden Family" were originally written as one novel, but were published seperately. I hope that once I've read The Hidden Family things will be made much clearer.

Despite those reservations, I still enjoyed reading this, and recommend it.

Posted by david | Permalink

The British Humanist Association are getting all shirty about evolution not being in the primary schools curriculum. Primary schools are those for sprogs up to about age 11.

The BHA is dead wrong. There are plenty of far more important scientific concepts for primary schools - such as, for example, teaching the scientific method, what theories and hypotheses are, some experimental design, very basic statistics, precision vs accuracy .... And indeed more important non-scientific things they should be teaching, such as Latin, geometry and geography. Evolution is way down the list.

It isn't even "the most important idea underlying the life sciences today" like what they claim. That would be basic arithmetic, without which you can't do any science at all. You also need all the other scientific bits and bobs I mentioned above before you can sensibly talk about evolution.

I forget exactly when I first heard in school about evolution. Probably during GCSE biology when I was 15 or so. I don't think it was specifically taught either, I think it just arose out of a discussion about the mechanisms of meiosis and mitosis and how mutations can be introduced.

Posted by david | Permalink

I'm on my way to Oop North, and decided to take a rather round-about route via the Lake District. This was partly because driving over Wrynose and Hardknott passes is Fun, and partly Just Because.

After coming over those passes, I arrived at the Woolpack Inn, and the western end of Hardknott pass, in the late afternoon, gagging for a pint, and after ascertaining that there was a room available for the night I went to the bar. Now, one of the reasons that I stopped at the Woolpack instead of carrying on into the village of Boot was that the Woolpack has its own brewery - the Hardknott Brewery - advertised in big black letters on the pub and easily visible from the road. Surprisingly, they only had two of their own beers on tap, although there's one more in bottles. Of the two I tried, the Mild was somewhat disappointing, but the "Wooly Fusion" I tried next was really very special indeed. It's a light hoppy bitter with a bit of ginger in it - very nice indeed to drink outside in the sun. Unfortunately it's not available in bottles. If it had been, I'd have got a crate of the stuff to take home with me.

The bar has ten hand pumps, all of which were selling beers I'd not seen elsewhere, from local breweries, and those others that I tried were all very good. In particular the "Stout Ollie" from the Ulverston Brewery is excellent. While there are three lager taps, they're all tolerably decent lagers - none of the usual Fosters/Carling swill here. The soft drinks are also somewhat unusual - Fentimans lemonade, for example, instead of the usual carbonated sugar-water, and there's Dandelion and Burdock.

There's also a fairly extensive whisky menu. None of the bottlings are particularly unusual - although it's good to see a non-Scottish malt on the list (Connemara, from Ireland) and the only recently available Ben Riach - but there are a lot of them. 29 of them.

And finally the food. The menu was short and sweet, concentrating on local produce served in imaginative ways. For example, as a starter I had smoked trout with a herby sorbet. Yes, sorbet. It was very nice, and I shall try to replicate it when I get home. For dessert I had a Thing which had a biscuit base, with a generous helping of a local mild blue cheese on top, all coated in dark chocolate. That's another that I shall try to replicate, and will also see if I can figure out a way of serving it with the cheese hot. I knew I'd find a way of using a soldering iron in the kitchen! You may notice that I don't have much to say about the main course - it was competently done and well-presented, but not as special as the others. That's not to say that it was bad, merely that it was only good compared with the very good starter and dessert.

Can you tell that I liked it? I commend this pub to you!

Posted by david | Permalink

Some of these reviews can also be found on Amazon.

In June 2009, I was blessed with unemployment so had lots of time. I read the following books:

1. The Hidden Family, by Charles Stross

Carrying on from where the first book in the series left off, this is really the second half of the story that the previous volume started. As such, it makes some things rather clearer which were just confusing in the first installment, although not all - but then, there are more sequels to come. Overall, this and its predecessor combine to make one satisfying story which I have no hesitation in recommending to you.

But that's a recommendation for the two books together. This one won't work well in isolation.

2. The Clan Corporate, by Charles Stross

Number three in the series, this book really takes its time to get going, but after a hundred pages of meh it picks up and is back to the pace and quality of its pre-decessor. Again, like The Hidden Family this is the first half of a larger story that got split for some reason, but the split is handled better this time, ending on a nice cliff-hanger but without too many loose ends. As the third installment in a large series, there is of course the problem of how to bring a new reader up to speed who hasn't read the earlier volumes, but this is done without the repetition being too irritating for someone who has started at the beginning. My only niggle is that some exposition is handled somewhat maladroitly as "transcripts" of bugged conversations, but these transcripts (and the organisations and people making them) aren't obviously used. Perhaps they'll show up in a later volume. But I can forgive this, as to a large extent these solve the problem I noted in The Family Trade, that the plots and schemes within plots and schemes are too opaque to the reader. These serve to remove the veils somewhat. Again, I recommend it, but with the proviso that it will work a lot better if you've read the previous two books.

3. The Merchants' War, by Charles Stross

Starting at the moment the previous volume left off, there's not much to say about this volume other than that it's full of juicy goodness, and again ends on something of a cliff-hanger. It was great fun to read, suffering from the well-known problem good books have of keeping me awake until sunrise as I compulsively turned the pages. BAD AUTHOR, NO BIKKIT! But I don't think it'll work at all in isolation. Recommended if you've read the previous books, but not otherwise.

4. Eagle Rising, by David Devereux

This second book in what is so far a thoroughly enjoyable series is perhaps even better than the first. The protagonist is an utter bastard, who knows full well that what he does is morally questionable, but does it anyway for the greater good. His character is reinforced by the writing style - the story is told in the first person in a very matter-of-fact voice.

The story moves along well at a good pace, with with lots of action to back up "Jack"'s thorough investigation of his targets, and this should appeal both to lovers of scifi/fantasy and to fans of action heroes such as James Bond. Two thumbs up!

5. The Odyssey, by Homer

Having recently read The Iliad it's only sensible to move on to the Odyssey. The Odyssey is a much more approaching book for a modern reader. Of the flaws I noted in the Iliad, all are either absent or minimised in the Odyssey. There is still some waffle, although nowhere near as much, and characters are prone to speechifying when a simple "thankyou" would suffice.

The only real criticisms I have are that there is a ridiculous amount of gift-giving; that Odysseus is a pathological liar; and that the end is very abrupt.

On the first point: yes, I am aware that the story is set in a radically different society to that which we are now blessed with, and that people often demonstrate their wealth by ostentatious generosity. However, I think this goes too far. For example, while staying with the Phaeacian king, he is not only given gifts by the king, butthe king commands everyone else present to also give him equally generous gifts.

The second, while playing a legitimate part in the story, as it is through guile and deceit that Odysseus gains admittance to his own home as it is being despoiled by yahoos, is taken too far and shows the hero in a poor light. In particular, when he is finally reunited with his father, Odysseus tells outrageous lies, putting his father in some distress. I'm afraid I'm with the Romans on this, Odysseus was a really rather obnoxious and dishonorable fellow.

Even so, you should, obviously, read this.

6. Riotous Assembly, by Tom Sharpe

A very silly satire of apartheid-era South Africa, this is well worth reading.

7. By Schism Rent Asunder, by David Weber

The second installment in Weber's "Safehold" series is just as enjoyable as the first. As I expected, he has rather condensed real-world history, combining the Henrician reformation and the beginning of the industrial revolution into one movement. The story moves along at a surprisingly swift pace, given that there is little of the action that permeated the first volume.

There are also very obvious parallels with some of the author's "Honorverse" series. But this does not detract from the story - the concepts are re-worked to fit in with the different background, and the very well done world-building means that those parts still feel fresh.

The only real criticisms I had are that it finishes on a very annoying cliff-hanger, unlike the previous book, and so can't be read in isolation. And another barrier to reading it in isolation in that there is precious little background information on "Merlin" and the society's technological proscriptions, until quite a way in.

Definitely worth reading, but you should read the previous volume first.

8. Ruled Britannia, by Harry Turtledove

Predictably for Turtledove, this is an enjoyable "alternate history" of little literary merit. The premise is that the Spanish Armada succeeded, England has been ruled by Spanish puppets for a decade, and now plotters are scheming to put Elizabeth I back on the throne, using Shakespeare's plays to stir up the mob. The book is therefore replete with puns and lines lifted straight from Shakespeare's oeuvre - Turtledove has clearly done his research, and judging by his notes at the end I probably missed quite a bit that he lifted from lesser-known Elizabethan sources. Those borrowings will definitely raise a chuckle from the literate reader, at least to start with. However, that reader will end up irritated by the dialogue, which is almost entirely rendered in faux-Elizabethan stage-English. It doesn't detract much from the story though so if you can grit your teeth and carry on, this is worth a read. Once.

9. David and the Phoenix, by Edward Ormondroyd

I bought this as a present for a friend's sprog, mostly on the recommendation of another author, David Weber, who raved about it in some notes at the end of one of his books. In the end, I didn't give it, as I thought, having read the first few pages, that the book was, at the time, a little advanced for the kiddy in question. But now a coupla years later I've finished reading it myself. As it's a childrens' book, it is of course a very simple tale. But it is charmingly told, in plain simple English, and was a pleasant diversion for a couple of hours even for cynical old me. Worth buying.

10. The Ethical Engineer, by Harry Harrison

Very much a product of its time (it was published in 1964), this is nevertheless a good read. That's despite the heroic spaceman being ever so heroic and resourceful, capable of arguing ethics, wielding a broadsword, fixing a steam engine and familiar with all branches of primitive science. There are continuity errors, and even obviously ridiculous points such as people speaking Esperanto, but at its core there is a story of human ingenuity and relationships being used to surmount technological difficulties. Which is what good sci-fi always boils down to.

11. News From Nowhere, by William Morris

Yes, that William Morris. This is his attempt at writing a Utopia. The world he describes is a rural "idyll" which doesn't look particularly idyllic to me, in which private property has been abolished. As a window into Morris's mind, it's really quite good - his naivety, scorn of science, worship of those who work the land, and his extreme Luddism come through loud and clear. But as a novel it's really not very good. It consists mostly of rather stilted expository dialogue, all the major characters speaking with the same voice and agreeing strongly with each other. Apart from lots of jawing, little happens. It is worth reading as a way of getting to know the man behind the artworks, but I'm really glad that it's so short.

12. Lammas Night, by Katherine Kurtz

If ever you needed proof that you can judge a book by its cover, this is it. Certainly if I'd seen the cover before buying it second-hand I'd not have wasted my money on this rubbish - the cover art is a map of Europe superimposed on a swastika, surrounded by candles, and impaled with a dagger. And it's all about how Hitler's invasion of the UK was thwarted by witches. Oh dear. So, the author starts with a stupid idea for a plot, and then it gets worse. Relationships between characters are not clear, the most ridiculous conspiracies are only found out when convenient, and the reader does not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for the characters no matter how hard they wail.

Posted by david | Permalink