I love Mur Lafferty. Her podcast, I Should Be Writing, was one of the first I ever downloaded and it hasn’t left my mp3 player(s) since. She’s come a long way, from a self-described “wannabe fiction writer” to full-blown published novelist. So is she any good at practicing what she preaches? Let me get the [...]
Archive for the ‘book reviews’ Category
Book Review: Playing For Keeps, by Mur Lafferty
Posted in book reviews, technology, writing on February 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Book Review: Snuff, by Chuck Palahniuk
Posted in book reviews on November 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk takes on the world of porn. It’s not like this is a big departure from his previous material (see my reviews for Invisible Monsters and Haunted), so he’s right at home here. Snuff tells the story of an aging porn star who sets out to break the world gangbang record; 600 [...]
Book Review: Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk
Posted in book reviews, media, tagged chuck palahniuk, haunted, horror on April 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In Chuck Palahniuk’s world, nothing is what it seems. Something sinister lurks behind the scenes of everything ordinary. Homelessness, feng shui, those dolls you practice CPR on, talk shows; they’re not what they seem to be. It’s an interesting place to visit, but you wouldn’t wanna live there. That’s what makes Haunted – a collection [...]
Arthur C. Clarke, RIP
Posted in book reviews, media, philosophy, psychology, real life, technology on March 18, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Arthur C. Clarke died today (*). The man was a genius. I’ve only recently started reading his books, but his impact has been felt throughout my life. Nearly every piece of science fiction created since the 50s owes something to Clarke. More directly, seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey as a kid, even though I didn’t [...]
Book Review: Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert
Posted in book reviews, psychology on January 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
As anyone who has studied any psychology knows, humans have one of the most advanced brains out of all the animals on this planet, but they’re far from perfect. There are a lot of situations in which our brains make minor mistakes, and some situations in which they outright betray us. Stumbling on Happiness is [...]
Book Review: The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil
Posted in book reviews, general science, philosophy, technology on November 19, 2007 | 6 Comments »
The singularity refers to a time, sometime in the future, when machines become more intelligent than biological humans, and technology begins to improve rapidly as a result. The Singularity is Near is Ray Kurzweil’s attempt to justify his belief that the singularity is coming sooner than most people think, and what consequences it will have. [...]
Book Review: I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
Posted in book reviews on September 10, 2007 | 4 Comments »
I Am Legend is a difficult book to categorize. At first glance, it’s a vampire novel; an accurate characterization, because yeah, there are vampires in it. But the deeper meaning and metaphors behind them, the structure of the story, and the situation the main character finds himself in, make it feel more like a zombie [...]
Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling
Posted in book reviews on August 9, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I’ll keep this short, since anyone who’s into Harry Potter will have already read this book, or will read it soon. Deathly Hallows is pretty much what you’d expect from the last Harry Potter book. Almost every character and location from the series shows up in one form or another, even if only for a [...]
Book Review: Cell, by Stephen King (Plus a Rant About Braaaaiiiins)
Posted in book reviews, psychology on July 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Stephen King has done all the typical monsters: vampires, werewolves, aliens, robots, clowns. Until now, though, he hasn’t done zombies. Cell is Stephen King doing zombies. Nothing more, nothing less. He does, of course, add some twists to the genre, which I won’t give away here. The twists are done in context though; it’s obvious [...]
The Impending Robot Revolution
Posted in book reviews, general science, psychology on June 27, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Below is a quote from Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near. To put it in context: The singularity is a time when humanity as we know it will suddenly change drastically, due to advances in technology. For example, our brains will be enhanced by nonbiological computers, and we’ll spend half our time in fully [...]
